Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Red galaxies fired beneath Efnisien’s eyelids. He was aware of pain all over and thought for a moment he was back on Crielle’s metal table, he took a breath and held it despite the pain in his chest and his ribs, like he’d been beaten. He was no stranger to that either, and a perverse pride flowed through him, because he was alive, because he wasn’t whining like some bitch omega.

After a few minutes he realised it wasn’t metal beneath his body. He shifted, and his arms were cuffed behind his back, which explained the cruel pain in his shoulders. He risked opening his eyes, but everything was blurry, his vision throbbed at the fluorescent light above him.

He’d been staring at Crielle’s laboratory ceiling all his life, and this wasn’t it. He wasn’t in her lab.

What the ever-loving mother of fuck?

Anger lanced, and he shifted again, pulling at his arms. He pushed upright, and then turned and threw up, the taste of chemicals and old tea and bile in his mouth. He spat a few times, and wiggled upright, breathing heavily, feeling woozy.

The floor beneath him was concrete. The walls were more of the same, and cold against his back. There were two vents in the ceiling, which were too high to reach. He looked around wildly. A small box of a room, a heavy metal door with a small opening that was currently closed at standing eye-level. No bed, but a metal toilet, no toilet paper. Efnisien had no shoes. He wore pants that weren’t his normal pants, and the white shirt he wore was thin.

He stared down at it and felt a swoop of vertigo so strong he tilted back to the floor again.

Fear warred with the anger, and he yanked on the cuffs over and over again, feeling no give in the material, only in his own skin. A bitten off roar in the back of his throat, and he pulled his arms apart as hard as he could, then yelped when he felt a bone give in his shoulder. He stopped immediately, but the pain was sickening. He didn’t think it had dislocated. But how the fuck would he know?

He panted, caught his breath, and tentatively rolled his shoulder. Fucking hurt, but it wasn’t dislocated.  

He looked around again.

A sickening foreboding ate at his mind until he remembered, dimly, being attacked at the An Fnwy Estate. No one else had been there. Lludd, Crielle, and the fucking golden child Gwyn – alpha who could do no wrong – were out at some function. Efnisien had to stay home, because all the pills he took weren’t working properly and Crielle wanted to find something that would work better.

So what was this, the holding room where he was being kept while his family were being phoned to pay a ransom? Crielle would pay it, Efnisien was pretty sure.

He closed his eyes and rolled onto his back. The floor was so cold. But he’d be damned if he was going to do anything about it. He’d figure out the cuffs somehow when he woke up again.

*

‘How are you feeling, Efnisien?’

A kind, clinical voice. Efnisien’s first response was a flood of rage so bright that he could have choked on it, but he went still, because it wasn’t a voice he recognised. He breathed slowly, forcing himself to calm, and then through the waves of dizziness and pain, he opened his eyes.

A male nurse standing over him. A nurse because he wore scrubs, no doctor’s coat, and he had all the things that the nurses at home had when Crielle was treating him. Pens in the pocket, a stethoscope, a kindly look that hid an ability to be absolutely monstrous when necessary. Nurses were all the same.

‘A bit dizzy,’ Efnisien said with an evenness that he knew the nurse would fall for.

Fucking idiots.

‘We can do something about that in a minute,’ the nurse said. ‘Do you want to sit up? Do you know where you are?’

‘You can’t t-take these off me first?’ Efnisien said, feigning vulnerability.

‘Ah, I’m afraid we can’t do that yet,’ the nurse said. ‘I can help you up though.’

The nurse walked over to him easily, familiarly, the kind of behaviour someone would display with an omega, but never an alpha. Suspicions began knocking away inside of him, bringing a terror with it he didn’t bother masking. Let them know he was scared. Let them think he was a quavering little omega.

A hand around his back, and all he wanted to do was get his teeth as deeply into muscle and fascia and rip. He smiled blandly, almost sympathetically, like he was sorry the nurse had to even help him in the first place, even though it was this fuckwit – or someone – who had put him in cuffs to begin with.

He’d like to shove the cuffs up the guy’s ass until the bleeding was so bad he wouldn’t make it.

‘Th-thank you,’ Efnisien said. ‘Um. I don’t know where I am. I thought- Am I being ransomed to- to my family?’

‘Ah,’ the nurse said. ‘This is Hillview Rehabilitation.’

Efnisien’s mind scrambled, though he tried to keep his expression meek and confused. Crielle had mentioned Hillview offhandedly once or twice, veiled threats that Efnisien had never taken very seriously at the time.

He couldn’t have ended up here by accident, and it wasn’t cheap.

They’d sent him here. Crielle had sent him here. She’d given up on the treatment program. Did she stop believing in her own science?

Or in you, perhaps, fuckwit?

Who had attacked him? Had Crielle arranged it? Was that why they’d all left without him? Hillview was a four-and-a-half-hour drive away from the An Fnwy Estate back in the upper class suburb of Dalkeith. If he'd been knocked out and sedated, chances were high that he’d been flown here via private plane. That explained why his ears still hurt along with everything else. Efnisien had no memory of how he’d been knocked out in the first place.

‘Um,’ Efnisien said, forcing his voice into a higher, nervous register. ‘C-can I call my…my family please?’

He knew how to make his pupils dilate by flexing the muscles around his eyes, knew how to make himself seem vulnerable. Knew he was radiating the scent of fear. This nurse though, he couldn’t pick what they were. An alpha? A beta? Another omega to make him feel comfortable? No, they seemed too big in build to be an omega.

Surely they had to know his family had made a mistake. Efnisien looked nothing like a classic omega. He had the build of an alpha still growing into his frame. Even his scent was different.

‘I’m sorry,’ the nurse said, with the ability to project bullshit that Efnisien was accustomed to from nurses, ‘we can’t do that just yet. We’ll get your intake process completed. Once you’ve met with your companion, I’m sure you’ll be able to speak to your family. This must be very scary for you.’

The nurse seemed to have bought Efnisien’s ‘I’m so vulnerable’ schtick – fucking idiot – but he still wasn’t doing a single thing to help him.

Not that he expected it.

A lifetime with the nurses Crielle hired, and he knew ‘a little pinch’ meant agony, not to mention everything else they managed to mask with soothing, cooing noises. He’d once bitten into a cheek so hard his teeth had met in the middle, and he’d laughed with blood over his teeth, and was a bit sad he’d never seen the nurse again, because she would’ve at least shut the fuck up when she was around him in the future.

‘O-okay,’ Efnisien said, managing to sound a little choked up.

Having a stuffed-up nose and ears that felt like shit would do that to a person.

The nurse said a few more things to him, about the fact he was an inpatient, what he could expect, how they’d give him a few days to settle in. He watched as the nurse picked up a needle and said, ‘Now let’s get that dizziness sorted.’ Fear was curdling in his guts, in his stomach, the thought of it being a sedative – seeing a needle at all – but he was practiced at staying completely still thanks to everything back home, so all he did was allow a small, fake whimper as the needle went in.

‘Shhh, there’s a good boy,’ the nurse said, his voice gentle.

Efnisien stared at the man’s ear and thought it would take only a few seconds to tear it off with his teeth, but then he’d never get these cuffs off. Goddamn. His shoulder was killing him.

His priorities were to get his wrists free, find a point of egress, then get the fuck out of there. He was a lengthy drive from home on kangaroo-filled roads, not quite in the middle of nowhere given the proximity to Margaret River and Dunsborough, but just about. He didn’t have his licence. He couldn’t hitchhike a drive like this. He didn’t have any of the meds he normally took each day, all twenty-six pills. But he could escape.

And they’d never fucking find him in the jarrah forests.

That had to be true, surely.

He waited for the sedation to hit, and the nurse had straightened and went back to the clip-folder. To Efnisien’s surprise, his mind started to clear, the dizziness dissipated. Even his ears felt less painful, though he was still sore, out of sorts, and his gut was churning. He felt like he was able to breathe better, at least.

‘You’re not like our typical omegas,’ the nurse said, ‘which is why they might be pairing you with Kadek. He’s lovely, and a lot of fun too. I know you two are going to get along just great.’

Rehabilitation centres only existed for omegas, organisations run by alphas to retrain omegas to be the perfect, subservient husbands or the best children to present at Omega Confirmations. Rehabilitation centres were generally only used by affluent families or spouses because they were expensive, because no one bothered investing in retraining omegas from the lower classes unless they were acquired by an affluent alpha in the first place.

The nurse made it sound like Efnisien was going to be paired with a nice, sweet guy, but Efnisien knew Kadek was an alpha, and being ‘paired’ with him meant being fucked and tortured into behaving himself.

Efnisien was going to get his shackles off, find a point of egress, maybe kill this Kadek-fellow, and then get the fuck out of there.

The nurse asked him questions after that. His age. His level of education – surprised to find he was home-schooled and not schooled in an omega creche – whether he had any relationships and friendships, was he still a virgin, followed by the truly sinister ‘Oh don’t worry, they’ll follow that up in the physical’, had he experienced a heat yet, and more.

Efnisien answered with a mixture of lies and the truth, working up his timid persona to the point of melodrama, which only seemed to soften the nurse further and further towards him.

Fucking. Idiot.

‘Okay,’ the nurse said finally, taking a fob out of his pocket, ‘I think we can trust you, right? Don’t try anything funny now, or we’ll have to put you in restraints once more.’

Efnisien would have pretended to sniffle at that moment if he thought it would be remotely believable.

‘I-I’ll be good,’ Efnisien said, hating himself for the fake omega tone.

Gwyn would tell him that the reason it came so easily to him was because he was a shit alpha, some bitch omega to be bred, and then they’d fight again, because that was always how it was. Gwyn always won, and Efnisien would feel like anyone would be a shit alpha compared to Gwyn, but whatever.

He leaned forwards so the nurse could get to his cuffs and pass the fob over them. They unclicked and were carefully removed. Efnisien lowered his shaking arms – he wasn’t even faking that part – into his lap and sat there, passive, like he had no idea what to do next. An omega would wait to be directed. Even a scared and hostile omega would try and run, rather than fight. Efnisien stayed limp, made sure he looked suggestible.

The nurse smiled at him, eyes crinkling.

Efnisien had to fight with himself not to grind his teeth together, the urge to bite into that fucking face was so strong.

‘All right,’ the nurse said, coming over to him. ‘I’m going to help you out.’

The guy didn’t ask him for permission, just slid his hands underneath Efnisien’s arms and lifted him. Efnisien bit down the sound of pain from the shoulder he’d wrenched before while trying to get free from the cuffs. He stumbled upright with the movement, trembling with the urge to shove the man away, attack him, tear him open. He saw his vomit nearby on the floor.

‘It’s okay,’ the nurse said, ‘I know you’re scared. You’ve probably heard a lot about these kinds of facilities, but Hillview isn’t like a lot of the other centres.’

‘Y-yeah,’ Efnisien said softly. ‘I- I just wish I could talk to my family.’

‘I’m sure Kadek will let you,’ the nurse said warmly.

Efnisien couldn’t begin to catalogue the aches and bruises and stinging pains throughout his body.

The nurse opened the door to a bright corridor, and Efnisien winced at the bright, brittle autumn light bouncing into the pale space. It was a wall of glass all along the left-hand side of the corridor. In the distance he could see tall jarrah and karri trees, a big, grassed green with some benches and manicured gardens, even a glimpse of the Indian ocean. It was day. It seemed like it was late morning.

He’d been so sure it was night.

I don’t fucking understand any of this.

Maybe he was being punished? Crielle would come and pick him up and tell him to get his shit together and then what?

What was he being punished for?

‘Shhh,’ the nurse said, ‘calm down. Take some breaths. You’re going to do just fine.’

Efnisien’s fist clenched, but he managed to hide it. His rage was bile coating the back of his throat. He wanted to run. That wasn’t an omega instinct. Anyone would want to run in this fucking situation. He was so far from home. And there were dense forests and caves and shitty unlit roads all the way back.

Crielle was going to show up and tell him what he’d done wrong, and he’d do better.

He’d be a good son, a good alpha.

‘Efnisien, it’s okay,’ the nurse said again. ‘Let’s just stop here.’

‘I-I’m okay,’ he said, alarmed that he wasn’t forcing the trembling into his voice.

All he wanted to do was rip the nurse’s neck open, but he could tell the glass here was reinforced, inches thick. He couldn’t break through it.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

No. He had to be calm. There would always be an opportunity. Alphas waited for the right moment to strike, and that was all he had to do now. His fear was an asset because it softened the nurse towards him. Maybe the nurse had a fob he could steal to unlock all the doors, but he didn’t know which way to go, how to leave, if there were any guard dogs on the property like back at the An Fnwy Estate, the way to get out. He didn’t know how often checks were made in the building, if they’d find a dead, bloodied nurse and then well, fucking send him to jail probably.

So they waited in the corridor together.

‘I-I didn’t get your- your name?’

‘Oh, you mustn’t have heard me,’ the nurse said, sounding surprised. ‘I’m sorry. It must have been confusing not knowing my name. I’m Enris. I’m a beta on staff. The nurses here are all betas or alphas.’

‘R-right.’

‘Don’t worry, there are other omegas here. Once you’re settled in, you’ll get to meet some of them, hopefully make some friends. You’ll get to see it’s not so scary here after all. You’ll be the tallest one there!’

Efnisien was taller than Enris, but he didn’t say a word.

Maybe they thought he was here because he was so abnormal physically for an omega. He wasn’t small and petite. Sure, he was thin, and he struggled to put on any muscle at all, but he wasn’t soft, he wasn’t short.

Because you’re not an omega.

Maybe they were saying he didn’t have to call his family because Crielle was already here, right?

If they’d sent him here on a plane then…they must have come down too. Crielle at the least, maybe Gwyn as well?

Stop feeling so nauseous, you fucking ingrate, if she’s punishing you it’s for a good reason. Suck it up.

Efnisien forced himself to take a deep, shaking breath.

‘There we are,’ Enris said. ‘Don’t worry, Kadek’s not that far away. I’m sure you’ll feel much more settled in the presence of an alpha.’

Efnisien made a sudden, strong choking noise. It was all he could do to cover his bitter laughter. He placed his hands over his face, like he was hiding strong emotion, so Enris didn’t see his mirth.

A hand on his back, and Efnisien closed his eyes.

Find a point of egress. Escape. Find a point of egress. Escape. That was all he had to do.

That was all he had to do.

Chapter Text

Efnisien’s mind raced. He was sure in retrospect that Gwyn had given him a heads up – more than once – about this happening. Looking back, some of the things he’d said during their more recent fights made more sense now.

Their fights happened all the time, maybe once or twice a week, a bit less if Efnisien was too beaten or broken to manage it. But they’d kick back up again even while Efnisien was bandaged, even after surgeries.

Their last altercation, a week-and-a-half ago, it hadn’t even been that bad. Gwyn had walked into Efnisien’s room like he owned it – as always – and stood there staring a hole into Efnisien’s neck. It always made the hairs stand up all over his body when Gwyn did that.

There were few alphas who could suppress him with their pheromones or their voice because he was an alpha too. That shit was for omegas who needed to feel protected or safe or sometimes needed help being calmed. It made Efnisien feel sick.

Gwyn’s scent was brittle and bright, like melting metal. A vague nausea just living in that house with Crielle and Gwyn – Lludd had no effect on him, the weak fucking asshole – but it was worse when Gwyn was in his room, staring at him, being a dickhead on purpose.

This was always how it started.

‘You’re doing homework?’ Gwyn said. ‘Seriously? You know she’s never going to let you get a proper job. You know why.’

Efnisien gritted his teeth at the time.

‘Don’t do this,’ he’d said.

‘Why not?’ Gwyn said, walking in and standing behind Efnisien’s back, looming over him.

‘You shouldn’t treat me like this,’ Efnisien said, like clockwork. It was rude to treat another alpha in this way.

‘Then make me treat you with respect,’ Gwyn said, laughing coldly.

‘Alphas don’t have to fight all the time. It’s only- It’s only a competition thing, when you’re fighting over an omega. You know that. Or like…kids do it. You’re an adult.’

The nausea rose in his gut, and that bright smell in the air became stronger. Efnisien swallowed a mouthful of saliva. He felt dizzy, he knew Gwyn wasn’t even leaning on his pheromones. Crielle proudly said Gwyn’s scent glands were powerfully developed for his age. He’d be able to have anyone he wanted. He could defeat any alpha.

Except probably her. She didn’t need to say that part, they all just…knew.

Gwyn would rise to the top of some powerful company one day, become the president or CEO or whatever, and manage millions or even billions easily. Have some meek little omega by his side who fawned over him, half-drugged out of their mind by that scent.

It was how Efnisien knew he wasn’t an omega. It made him feel too fucking sick. That was how proper alphas reacted.

Gwyn leaned closer, Efnisien could hear his short breaths through his nose, and he turned and threw the first punch. It landed, knuckles hitting Gwyn’s jawbone, pain rocketing through his hand, and Gwyn grinning his perfect white smile and twisting his fist into Efnisien’s shirt, dragging him messily out of the ergonomic chair. Gwyn’s punch was second. Efnisien fell, winded, gasping for air as pain lanced up from his gut to the back of his head.

‘Go on,’ Gwyn said coldly. ‘Try to win. Just once. You’re my cousin, you should be able to do it. Go on.’

Efnisien staggering upwards, blinking stars out of his eyes. More punches landing, but most of them were Gwyn’s, and Efnisien’s hand was fucking killing him. He knew he’d get shit for it, but he turned and savagely bit Gwyn’s forearm, getting his fingernails into it, scratching red marks into his skin, desperate and feral.

A fist in his hair, dragging him up and backwards, Efnisien’s toes the only part of him left on the floor.

‘Don’t bite,’ Gwyn snarled, alpha persuasion in his voice rocking through Efnisien’s mind and making him want to apologise immediately. He gritted his teeth and refused, his scalp stinging. ‘You know that’s what rude little omegas do. Scratching and biting is for those who aren’t strong enough to fight properly, it’s beneath you. Do it properly. You know what she’ll do to you if you don’t.’

Efnisien swung out with his fist and Gwyn blocked it with his other hand, then twisted his forearm with the grip he had on Efnisien’s knuckles. Efnisien cried out sharply as his arm wrenched, then kicked out and managed a solid hit to Gwyn’s shin.

Gwyn dropped him, laughed again, a sound inherited from Lludd. He’d always had Lludd’s laugh, but he made it way more terrifying.

‘That’s better,’ Gwyn breathed.

An explosion of pain at the side of Efnisien’s head, and then a heel in his side, and he was kicked down to the ground. Efnisien pushed up, but Gwyn’s weight came down on top of him, Gwyn’s legs on either side of his hips, hands pinning Efnisien’s wrists to the ground.

A huge rush of nausea that almost turned into drool he couldn’t control, but this was the most fucked up thing between them. Not the fighting – alphas fought; it was normal. This part.

When Gwyn mounted him like an alpha might mount an omega to keep them still, to make his point. But they only did it to their mates. It wasn’t something you did with a strange omega, someone you weren’t courting, or someone who was already mated.

The first time it happened, Efnisien had only been a child and he’d fought back with all his strength and Gwyn had told him if he didn’t want to be treated like an omega, he had to win a fight.

A few years later he’d risked telling Crielle, and she’d said the same thing. If he didn’t want it to happen, he had to do better. It was never Gwyn’s fault, it was always Efnisien’s. He threw up sometimes from it. He’d thrown up with Gwyn straddling him, and Gwyn shoved his face into it, telling him it would motivate him to win.

Efnisien shuddered upon the ground, until finally he went limp, because he knew he couldn’t overpower Gwyn like this.

Gwyn leaned down over him, breathing hard, and Efnisien squeezed his eyes shut. Gwyn pinned him for longer now, and Efnisien could feel the wrongness of all of it. An alpha wouldn’t even do this to their mate as much as Gwyn did it to him, not like this.

‘Fuck you,’ Efnisien bit out.

‘You’re zero for hundreds of our fights,’ Gwyn said, his voice deep and firm. ‘Never won a single one. Can’t get through most of them without trying to scratch or bite. Omega bullshit. After everything Mum’s put into you, all that work, all those meds, all those fucking surgeries, all the money and the staff, and this is all you have to show for it? You know what she’ll do, Efnisien.’

Those words detonated in his chest, and Efnisien struggled, but it was futile. He wasn’t strong enough. He’d probably win against a weaker alpha, but he was almost never let outside to see anyone, home-schooled all his life. The An Fnwy Estate wasn’t a prison, it was the only place he could be safe until Crielle’s experiments were completed, but the dogs that patrolled the gardens made it hard sometimes.

He knew Gwyn was only looking out for him, even if he was a bully. It was his right. If you were a rare peak alpha, you got whatever you wanted, your genes pushed you all the way to the top. Crielle was another. Their family had concentrated their genes and Efnisien’s mother – Crielle’s sister – had fucked it up for all of them.

Crielle was just doing her best, and Efnisien had to keep trying.

‘I’ll get better,’ Efnisien bit out.

A light punch to the back of his head, but still enough that Efnisien’s nose smacked painfully into the carpet. It didn’t break.

‘Heard that before, cousin,’ Gwyn said.

He got up minutes later, shoving Efnisien back down to the ground with a foot between his shoulder blades when he went to get up.

‘Stay there,’ Gwyn said. ‘Some humiliation will do you good. You know you need to learn. If you actually got better, I wouldn’t have to look out for you like this. Stop doing your homework and go down to the gym or something. I’ve seen what you bench. It’s laughable.’

The door closed quietly as Gwyn left. He never slammed doors, even though he had no problems slamming Efnisien into tables or onto the ground. Objects were treated with more respect.

Efnisien caught his breath, pushed up from the floor, tuning out the pain like he’d done countless times before, for countless reasons. The pain of Gwyn’s violence was clean at least. Some of the pain he’d had after surgeries…shit, some of it had never gone away. He’d hurt since childhood, but that was how it had to be.

He stared at his homework, frustrated, because he wanted to continue it. Gwyn told him they’d never let him use his intellect, like he was still an omega, and then fought him like he was an alpha.

Well, Efnisien supposed it was probably confusing for Gwyn too.

He went down to the gym afterwards, and that was that.

Now, as Enris led him down the corridor with a hand at his lower back, Efnisien kept thinking of all the times Gwyn had been telling him – increasingly – ‘You know what she’ll do.’

So Efnisien would have to prove he was strong enough. If he could escape a place like this or demonstrate that he didn’t belong here… Gwyn and Crielle were waiting for him nearby; he was sure of it. Crielle was probably impatient he hadn’t escaped yet.

‘It’s okay, Efnisien,’ Enris said soothingly, voice modulated to be calm and even. Efnisien wanted to bite, which wasn’t a thing that alphas did in a proper fight, but he was so angry he thought he’d be able to tear someone’s jugular out. ‘You’re very anxious. Especially so soon after a sedative. Would you describe yourself as an anxious person?’

Efnisien knew Enris was gathering intel on him, his whole body prickled with a new wave of hostility. But he sniffled deliberately and pretended to pick nervously at his hands, hunching forwards a bit more.

‘I-I don’t know,’ Efnisien said meekly.

Of course he wasn’t an anxious fucking person.

He wished he could remember the times he’d looked up the southwest of the state on the maps tab of his browser. Sometimes he looked around at different places, at roads he’d never been down, using the street-view to see trees he’d never seen before. Gwyn, Lludd and Crielle had gone ‘down south’ on holiday many times, but Efnisien always stayed home. He’d look at where they were staying on his maps tab, or the reviews for the top wineries and restaurants they were visiting and feel like maybe he was travelling with them.

But he couldn’t seem to remember the roads he’d need to get away. Caves Road? Maybe?

‘Everyone here is an expert on helping omegas feel a bit more at home,’ Enris said softly. ‘From the doctors to the companions, to the nurses and the rest of the staff. It’s not easy, I know, but once you’ve met your companion it will be much easier. Kadek really is a lot of fun, and he’s very easy-going and relaxed. He’s not as intimidating as some of the other alphas here.’

‘Y-yeah,’ Efnisien whispered.

Excellent, that made Kadek an even easier mark. He had some tricks up his sleeve, ones that had never worked on Gwyn, but certainly worked on Lludd. He was fairly confident they’d work here. Peak alphas were exceedingly rare, and Efnisien wasn’t getting the same pheromone nausea in this corridor that he got with Crielle and Gwyn. It felt more like what he got around Lludd.

Weak-ass pieces of shit.

They left the corridor with its long glass windows that looked out to all that rolling green, and through security doors into a part of the facility that seemed a bit more like a business. Maybe. Efnisien didn’t know for sure. The carpet was soft beneath his feet, different to the cold laminate of before.

‘The facility is large,’ Enris was saying. ‘Companion alphas only have one omega at a time, so they can bond properly and with a strong level of trust. Omegas get their own rooms, but it’s more common to spend time with their alphas once bonded. We don’t keep all the alphas and omegas together in the same section because some omegas need a more home-like environment, and others need a bit more protection and safety. We don’t like to concentrate all the alpha scents into the same space, because that’s very overwhelming for you, isn’t it? So only two alphas work out of this wing.’

That meant aside from Enris, Kadek, some other alpha, and another omega, there wasn’t likely to be an abundance of staff here. Good.

The walls were a soft cream, and the carpet had little speckles of grey and brown in it. There were even framed paintings on the wall that looked like they were behind glass. Shards could make a good weapon. The lighting was soft. Like they’d tried hard to make a shitty environment as friendly-looking as possible. There were even pot plants.

‘The companion alphas all meet up with the manager once a week or so for supervision and review,’ Enris said, after saying something about food and the chefs. ‘But the meeting room is in a completely separate building, so you don’t have to deal with everyone at once.’

‘O-okay,’ Efnisien said, pitching his voice higher than normal.

He imagined omegas must eat this shit up. Most of them didn’t have a single independent thought in their head, and as soon as they found someone to protect them, that was it. The vast majority of the world’s population consisted of betas, and alphas and omegas were rare, and peak alphas even rarer. Efnisien had always hoped Crielle could get him somewhere to Gwyn’s level, but he was relieved just to be an alpha.

The facility didn’t understand yet, and Efnisien wasn’t sure why, or what Crielle had said to them. Enris seemed to genuinely think he was an omega, but Enris was a beta, and probably couldn’t pick up scents properly. Efnisien had been told more than once that his scent wasn’t like an omega's at all.

They took a right, and Enris knocked gently at the heavy-looking wooden door before opening it.

Efnisien caught the scent first. Indistinct, not as easy to read as Gwyn’s, definitely not a peak alpha.

It was an office. Kadek was there behind a large dark brown wooden desk that looked too heavy to lift and throw into a window to break it. Bookshelves were behind him, but most of them were filled with what looked like expensive collector’s toys, which was fucking weird. Two cosy armchairs were near each other by a window that looked out to the other side of the facility. It was a pretty place. Deceptive. The property must have cost a goddamn mint.

The cosy armchairs were draped with fluffy blankets. The kind of thing omegas liked.

Efnisien took the room in and made sure to not once meet Kadek’s black eyes. An omega wouldn’t be inclined to meet an alpha’s eyes if they were scared, though Efnisien craved staring him down.

Kadek was of smaller stature than Lludd or Gwyn, but he looked muscular. He wasn’t a bigger alpha. For a brief moment, it gave Efnisien a weird hope that he could do something like this one day. He didn’t have to be a peak alpha. He could get a job. There were alphas out there who didn’t have as much power, but they were still respected as alphas.

The alpha wore a black T-shirt, and his black hair was shorter and curly, a more professional cut than Efnisien’s, who had shaggier blond hair. His skin was a darker brown. Efnisien thought maybe he was from Malaysia or something. Efnisien had looked at maps there too, but not as often. Kadek looked maybe thirty, thirty-five. It was hard to tell.  

‘Hi, Efnisien,’ Kadek said, looking down at the open file on his desk.

Oh. That was Efnisien’s file. He wondered what it said. There were some papers there, but none of them seemed to say that Efnisien was an alpha.

What did she tell them?

‘H-hello,’ Efnisien said, looking down at the carpet, his bare feet. He kept his voice pitched higher, he let it shake, and he was so fucking sore he wanted to curl up into a ball. His head didn’t feel right. Nothing felt right.

He wouldn’t be feeling withdrawals from missing his meds this soon, would he?

‘I’m Kadek, and you’ve been matched with me. You’re tall for an omega, aren’t you? You might even be taller than me!’

Kadek’s laugh was friendly and gentle, designed to put him at ease.

‘Thanks, Enris,’ Kadek said, waving the nurse away. ‘I’ll call you back in about an hour.’

Enris smiled at the two of them and left. And Efnisien’s fear bounced upwards in Enris’ absence. He hadn’t thought the asshole had been helping at all, but when he wasn’t there, Efnisien had the urge to go through that same door and flee. Efnisien didn’t think Enris had locked it.

An omega wouldn’t run once they were in the presence of an alpha. Efnisien was sure Kadek was trying to flood the room with calming pheromones, but Efnisien couldn’t feel them. He didn’t even know how to pretend to be calm at this point. And a rage, too, that Kadek could so calmly take control of his life when only Crielle was supposed to do that.

‘C-could I…please speak to my family?’ Efnisien whispered.

‘In an hour or two,’ Kadek said, ‘absolutely. It’s not often we get people coming down to use the runway! Your family’s pretty loaded, huh? Must be nice to have a private plane. But it looks like they should’ve gotten you to a place like Hillview years ago. Anyway, since you’ve been knocked out for a while, they’ll definitely have arrived home, so at least they’ll be there to take a call from you.’

They’ll definitely have arrived home.

Efnisien swallowed.

His shaky hope that they must have been here, somewhere on the property, started to disappear.

‘It says here that you’ve had some problems with your heats,’ Kadek said.

I’ve never had a fucking heat.

‘And I can tell my pheromones aren’t working on you like they should, because you’re still quite scared. Do you want to come closer? I think it could help. How about we both sit in these armchairs over here. They look a lot more comfortable, don’t they? You can pick your favourite blanket? Or maybe we can find you a brand new one.’

The scent in the air picked up and Efnisien looked over to the armchairs. An omega would just go over there. So he turned and walked over, taking the seat covered in the majority of the blankets. Clearly intended for an omega. It was too soft. He shifted until he could get his heels in a good position to spring up and away if he needed to.

Kadek came over and Efnisien’s skin crawled. He didn’t look at Kadek, it was easy to avoid his eyes now.

The alpha sat opposite him, and all Efnisien could think was that this wasn’t Crielle or Gwyn, and he wasn’t supposed to be around anyone until Crielle’s treatments were complete. He wasn’t finished yet. Crielle said he wasn’t finished yet.

‘Do you want to take some deep breaths?’ Kadek said. ‘Come on, it’ll be easy. I’ll go first, and you can match my breathing to mine.’

Kadek leaned forwards, his hands on his knees. Efnisien’s vision was blurring where he stared fixedly at those brown fingers. He heard the sound of Kadek’s slowed breathing and it sounded oppressive. Efnisien couldn’t even pretend to match his breathing to his.

The wrongness of the whole situation kept growing larger in his mind, a balloon that kept inflating, moving all of his other thoughts out of the way. His gaze darted to the green space beyond the window.

Could he get out from here? Enris didn’t even lock the door. He hadn’t seen a single dog patrolling outside.

‘You’re a scared little thing, aren’t you?’ Kadek said, his voice softening. ‘If you take some deeper breaths, it will be easier for you to calm down, I promise.’

Efnisien’s nostrils flared, the scent smelled slightly of tea-tree, Kadek was leaning on it if Efnisien could actually pick it now.

Kadek scooted forwards in his armchair, and Efnisien flinched.

‘Hey, hey now,’ Kadek said, like he was surprised, but also sad. ‘It’s going to be just fine. Calm down, Efnisien.’

Alpha persuasion. Efnisien’s rage kicked off that Kadek would even try it on him, the fucking disrespect. Efnisien felt nothing at all because he wasn’t a fucking omega. He didn’t have to listen to that shit. He met Kadek’s eyes then and glared, fury building through his own body.

He stood, and Kadek’s eyes widened, shocked. He opened his mouth, his thighs tensed to stand.

‘Calm down, Kadek,’ Efnisien said, throwing all of his alpha force into his voice.

Kadek froze, blinking at him, pupils dilating a little. It worked. It worked! And then only a second later Kadek was standing and moving towards Efnisien, and Efnisien panicked.

He grabbed Kadek by the ears and before the alpha could retaliate, he smashed his forehead into Kadek’s so that he crumpled to the ground. Efnisien ran to the desk, looking for some keys, a weapon, something. He found a fountain pen and grabbed it and turned back to see Kadek standing and launching at him.

In the background, an alarm sounded and Efnisien felt a flash of confusion. He’d expected the alarm to be at Kadek’s desk. Did he have something in his pocket? Were the keys there?

Efnisien spun back to Kadek and batted his arms away easily. Efnisien had been fighting a peak alpha all his life, and he might not be able to win against Gwyn, but he was going to win today. He blocked the hand reaching to grab him. The wet sound of Efnisien thrusting the fountain pen into Kadek’s neck under his jaw, under his ear, where the artery was.

Kadek was staring at him in terror now, and Efnisien withdrew the fountain pen because he sure as fuck wanted the alpha to die.

Kadek went down to the ground a second time, and Efnisien smelled a reek of tea-tree, heard that shrill alarm and dropped to his knees, shoving his hands into Kadek’s pockets, looking for the keys. All he found was a wallet, a phone – Efnisien put that aside – and a plastic oval with three buttons on it. One of those must have signalled the alarm. Efnisien frantically pressed the buttons to get it to stop, but nothing happened.

Blood was spreading, Kadek wasn’t even fighting anymore, both of his hands up by his neck to staunch the bleeding. Efnisien wished he’d torn a bigger hole in his neck, made it harder for him.

No keys.

Efnisien stood, Kadek’s phone and wallet in his hand, and ran for the door just as it opened and Enris came back in.

Efnisien pushed past him, but another alpha came in. Panic saturated him. He had to get out of there. He was fucking it up. He had to go.

‘Leave me alone!’ Efnisien shouted, throwing all the persuasion he had into his voice. The alpha fell back. Enris held up his hands automatically, like he didn’t want to hurt Efnisien at all. A fucking joke. The door was clear and Efnisien got out of it and sprinted down the corridor away from that fucking cell he’d awoken in.

He saw no one, he’d been right, there were hardly any staff in here.

A second alarm sounded, this one so shrill it hurt his ears. He sucked down huge breaths and heard the sound of doors being thrown open nearby.

He turned a corner, running at top speed, and saw a tall, thin man approaching him. A scent like torn leaves and fresh water, so strong Efnisien nearly gagged. The man’s straight black hair was tied back in a long ponytail and his green gaze was powerful. He was handsome, like a model, not thick through with muscle like Gwyn. Weirdly, Efnisien was reminded of Crielle. He wore a suit.

‘Stop running,’ the man said.

Efnisien stopped immediately, terror choking him.

A peak alpha? Here?

‘Excellent,’ the man said, his voice a soft, smug croon. ‘Stand still.’

The man had a syringe, Efnisien only noticed it now. And as he raised it, Efnisien stared at the liquid inside of it and felt his heart beating so hard he wasn’t surprised at all when the dizziness turned to blurred vision and spots in front of his eyes.

‘We need an ambulance!’ someone shouted from down the hall.

The man reached him, stared at Efnisien as though disappointed, and stabbed the syringe into his neck. Efnisien couldn’t understand why his eyes were wet. Why his cheeks were wet. His breathing coming in short, fractured bursts.

‘Look at that,’ the alpha said. ‘I told Gary you shouldn’t have been matched with Kadek. Maybe they’ll listen to me now.’

Whatever they gave him was fast-acting. Efnisien went down to his knees, unable to control his body, staring past the peak alpha to the open door behind him. Fuck, he could see the outdoors from here. Grass and tall trees. He’d been so close. The man crouched in front of him, reached out to touch him, and Efnisien reared backwards and lost balance, and then collapsed.

‘I knew there was more going on,’ the alpha said, sighing. ‘Go to sleep.’

Efnisien’s eyes rolled back in his head.

‘Good enough.’

His world turned black.

Chapter Text

Fog. Fog and pain and a cold metal table beneath him. Was he back home? Was it Crielle? Had she taken him back?

‘I’ve tried calling,’ a voice floated through sounding urgent, maybe a secretary or a personal assistant or something. ‘They’re not telling us anything. But they won’t take him back.’

‘What do you mean they won’t take him back?’ A new voice. Strong and deep and annoyed. It sounded like the kind of voice that was usually calm.

‘They…implied they’d find another way to deal with him, Sir. Um, you know.’

A long silence, then the sound of clinking tools on a metal tray. Efnisien knew he had to be still and good in case anything was about to happen to him. A machine beeped a brisk alarm, then kept beeping.

‘He’s awake.’ A third voice. ‘The paralytic’s still effective, but he’s already tachy.’

More silence, the machine kept beeping, and then it suddenly stopped.

‘Thank you, Kent,’ the man with the strong voice said. ‘Still tachycardic though? Give him more of the sedative.’

‘He’s…resistant,’ Kent said. ‘Unusually resistant. I don’t think we can safely give him more.’

‘Faber, charge all of Kadek’s bills to the family until they come to their senses and take him back. We’re not dealing with this. He’s too dangerous to keep here.’

‘Yes, Dr Gary,’ Faber said. That was the personal assistant from before.

‘Where’s Augus?’ Dr Gary asked.

‘With Mosk,’ Faber said. ‘The alarms going off scared all the omegas.’

Efnisien felt cool hands moving over his shoulder – it seemed like he was still wearing a shirt at least – and then up over the back of his neck. He wanted to get away, but Crielle had trained him to be immobile on a metal table. He couldn’t move even if he wanted to.

The hand paused at his neck, Efnisien felt his hair being lifted.

‘Wait a minute,’ Kent said. ‘Look at this.’

‘I’m sure you can deal with-’

‘Dr Gary,’ Kent said, his voice more certain than before. ‘Here.’

Another silence, and then Efnisien felt two different, warmer fingers on the back of his neck. A thumb applying pressure either side of his spine, then pressing deeper, searching for something. Pain was spreading through Efnisien’s neck, up to the back of his head, down his spine, and didn’t stop once the touch lightened.

‘Surgical scars, see?’ Kent said. ‘They seem old.’

‘The Kaeper glands have been removed?’ Dr Gary said, faintly disbelieving. ‘And we can’t give him a full physical without proper sedation. When’s Temsen back again?’

‘He’s not back for another week at least,’ Kent said stiffly.

‘Have the bloods come back yet?’

‘No,’ Kent said. ‘They take a few days. Even the rapid test won’t be done for another couple of hours. But the fact that the Kaeper glands have been removed…’

‘I know,’ Dr Gary said. ‘Faber, what’s Kadek’s condition again?’

‘Critical condition, but stable, Sir,’ Faber said.

‘We can’t just keep him paralysed like this,’ Kent said finally, after no one spoke for a long period of time. ‘You can see that heartrate for yourself. It’s not safe.’

A short sigh, and Efnisien could tell Dr Gary was pissed off. He could also tell the guy was a peak alpha like that other alpha from before. Efnisien was still at the facility, and they had medical tables just like the An Fnwy Estate. A heavy weight of despair made it harder to breathe. His family weren’t coming for him. He didn’t belong here. Even the peak alpha knew it.

‘…You might as well try,’ that was Kent. Efnisien knew he’d missed something but couldn’t piece the rest of the conversation together.

‘Efnisien, calm down.’

Efnisien’s body was already calm, but his mind locked up with terror because he couldn’t fulfil the order properly. He’d never been able to. Crielle could keep him still on an operating table, but she couldn’t keep him calm. One day that order had worn off, even when delivered by Crielle. Instead, the alpha persuasion stopped his body while his mind spiralled outwards, further and further, until Efnisien wanted to scream but couldn’t because his mouth wouldn’t move.

‘That’s…’ Kent sounded horrified.

‘Is he getting worse?’ Faber said, sounding confused. ‘Is that possible? That’s not even an alpha response, right?’

‘He’s not an alpha,’ Kent said.

Fucking liar, Efnisien thought savagely.

‘But Anton said he was affected by this one’s alpha persuasion,’ Faber said. ‘He was convinced. Enris too.’

Efnisien felt a hand on the side of his head, large and warm. The fingers that had pressed deeply into the back of his neck before and hurt him. Efnisien expected another order filled with alpha persuasion, but none came. He picked up a scent of red wine and maybe something like wood shavings, but he wasn’t sure. Everything was weird, his brain wasn’t working.

The warm hand stayed there against his ear, against the side of his head, and Efnisien kept expecting to hear more orders in a peak alpha’s voice, but they still didn’t come. The room had fallen silent. The warmth was nice. He’d spent his life on cold metal tables, warmth was something he associated with fever or infection or the feeling of agony so bright it blistered through him. This was…different.

‘He’s responding to you,’ Kent said in amazement. ‘Look at that, it’s dropping.’

‘We can’t keep him here,’ Dr Gary said, while fingers spread against the side of Efnisien’s face. ‘We have no companions who can handle him.’

‘Well…’ Kent said. ‘That’s not exactly true.’

The warmth left the side of Efnisien’s face abruptly. Efnisien felt colder than before, dizzier, didn’t understand any of it.

‘Give him more of the sedative and put him in one of the containment rooms. One with a bed. I need to consult with Augus and some of the others.’

‘Restraints?’ Kent asked.

‘No. Augus can handle him, which suggests peak alphas have some control at least. Get me as soon as you have those blood-test results. I need to know what’s going on.’

‘Yes, Dr Gary,’ Kent said. The door opened, and the sound of two sets of footsteps leaving were abruptly cut off as the door closed again. Another long silence, and Efnisien wished he could flinch away when he felt a needle slide into his arm. His heart beat faster. ‘I know, I know,’ Kent said with something of a soothing tone. ‘Something tells me we’re still not going to know what’s going on with you once we get those blood-test results.’

Efnisien needed to escape, but the need kept clashing with his reality. He felt like he was running around in circles, snapping at nothing but empty space. When he sank into darkness, he was grateful that it was over, but desperate to get away.

*

When he woke again, he was in another room. His wrists weren’t in restraints, at least, but he fucking hurt.

This place was bigger than the last cell. The floor was carpet this time, and not laminate. There seemed to be some heating coming through a vent. The bed reminded him of Crielle’s recovery room, with its white sheets, pale blue blanket, and flat white pillows that looked freshly starched. The room smelled a bit dusty. The linen was clean, but…the room felt old somehow. Unused.

He looked down at the bruising and marks on his wrists and wondered if what he’d heard when he’d been on the metal table was real.

Crielle didn’t want him back?

That…

Efnisien stared ahead blankly.

Could that be true?

He thought back to conversations they’d had about it. One from long ago poked at him, slithering its way into his mind. He’d been bandaged around the torso, and he didn’t know why. She rarely told him what the surgeries were for, but explained she was making him a better alpha. He’d woken in recovery, shaking uncontrollably from the general anaesthetic as it wore off. One of Crielle’s staff members had thrown a foil blanket over him, and she’d come to visit him a few hours later when he was dozy and calm.

She was so pretty. She had an aura of power about her, and her eyes were deep blue and hypnotising. Efnisien thought she had the nicest hair and was proud he had hair like hers. Blond, curly, a sign he belonged in the family.

‘One day,’ she said, after checking his vitals and looking at the machine by the side of the bed, ‘we’ll pair you up with a nice little omega. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Someone well-behaved.’

Efnisien hated omegas and didn’t want to be with one. But he nodded anyway. If she was talking to him like this, it meant she felt confident with the outcome of her surgery.

‘I used to worry that we’d have to send you to a rehabilitation centre,’ she said, her voice rich but sweet, ‘or worse.’

Sometimes Efnisien felt like a ball batted between two different kinds of conversation. The kind where Crielle talked about rehabilitation centres like they were things that happened to other people, and the kind where Crielle talked about rehabilitation centres like they were in his future if he didn’t get his shit together.

‘I don’t want to go there,’ Efnisien croaked, his throat raw from the tube they’d put down his throat, ‘to a centre.’

‘No, you wouldn’t,’ Crielle said. ‘They’re horrible places. That’s where omegas get abandoned, a good place to forget about someone. They’re expensive, of course, but it’s better than the alternative, don’t you think?’

The alternative was murder.

‘Y-yeah,’ Efnisien said. Crielle’s gaze flicked to the machine and then back to his. ‘But omegas who go there come back don’t they? Gwyn said… he knew of someone at school whose Dad was from a place like that, and his Mum got pregnant and was really happy with him. So…’

‘I know the family you’re thinking of,’ Crielle said, wrinkling her nose to indicate the breadth of her disgust.

‘But these surgeries…’ Efnisien said. ‘The pills. That’s to help, right? I’m an alpha now.’

‘You’ll need to get better at it,’ Crielle said. Efnisien trembled all over again. He didn’t always know how to get better at it. He took the pills. He had the surgeries. He fought with Gwyn. ‘This isn’t a family that takes mistakes back once they’ve gone to a rehab centre.’

‘I’ll do anything to be better at being an alpha,’ Efnisien said. ‘I want to make the family proud.’

And maybe win a fucking fight against Gwyn for once. Peak alphas were something else. There weren’t that many in Perth. Less than fifteen in a population of over two million people. Most of them were magnates of some kind or other.

Once, Gwyn had been lying on Efnisien’s bed and eating chocolate – something Efnisien wasn’t allowed to eat – and said:

‘Most of the peak alphas are ruling the world, you know. We’re not very nice people.’

‘No, really?’ Efnisien snarked. ‘You? Not a very nice person?’

Gwyn looked over at him and grinned. There was chocolate on his teeth.

‘It’s this thing, I’ve looked into it. They call it the ‘secure self-concept’. Basically most of us are so convinced we have a right to power, we don’t question getting it, no matter how unethically. It’s more of a conscious choice to refuse power from unethical places, and it feels unnatural. Peak alphas have to learn how to pretend to give a shit. Most of us struggle to make connections that are meaningful… I mean, I love Mum, but no one else really.’

Efnisien wasn’t surprised he wasn’t included in the list. He was fairly sure it was the same for Crielle. She loved Gwyn, and she loved Penny, and that was it. Lludd, Efnisien and Euro were only tolerated.

‘You’ll love an omega one day?’

‘Mum just wants heirs that are peak alphas,’ Gwyn said. He looked over at Efnisien again, his gaze sharp. It seemed to say: Peak alphas, so not like you. ‘I don’t think I’m going to fall in love with an omega.’

‘What about like…bonding? Or the bite?’

‘Nah,’ Gwyn said. ‘Boring. I mean I’ll do it, but Crielle bonded to Lludd and gave him the bite and like, how lovey dovey do you think they are?’

‘Point taken,’ Efnisien said. ‘Peak alphas sound like an aberration.’

Gwyn stilled and then put down the chocolate bar. Efnisien watched him slowly get up and knew he’d fucked up.

‘You’re such a bitch,’ Gwyn sighed, like he was disappointed. Efnisien pushed back against the desk.

‘We just- I’m still fucking sore from yesterday.’

‘See this? Now?’ Gwyn said, standing over Efnisien and glaring down at him with the same blue eyes as Crielle. ‘This is what we call me being secure in the knowledge that I can take whatever I want from you.’

Gwyn landed the first punch, and Efnisien had a moment to think he really needed to keep most of his words inside his brain before the next punches landed.

Now, he wished Gwyn was punching him back in his bedroom instead of dealing with this. Reality was cruel, nicking him with its claws over and over again, hundreds of tiny scratches reminding him of Crielle’s thoughts on rehabilitation centres, on omegas, on abandonment, and all of it sounded like white noise. All of it felt like fear.

Efnisien gently placed his hand on his face, where that man – Dr Gary? – had touched him. He’d thought, for a moment…

No, he didn’t know what he thought. It had felt warm, maybe.

That guy didn’t want him here either. Maybe Dr Gary could convince Crielle. He was a peak alpha. So Efnisien could just talk to him and avoid the other terrifying peak alpha who had injected him and knocked him out and get them to make Crielle understand. They were professionals. That was their job.

Efnisien remembered the pooling blood on the floor. It was still dried to his hands and his knees, transferred in brown streaks to different parts of his body. He wanted a shower. They’d said the guy was stable. Kadek. Stable. Efnisien had tried to kill him, but he’d never killed a person before, and he was kind of…relieved the guy was stable. He’d live, and…Efnisien wouldn’t have to go to jail.

Kadek had seemed so scared.

Efnisien didn’t know what he expected from an alpha, but it wasn’t that. Maybe just like they thought Efnisien was an omega, they thought Kadek was an alpha.

He slid down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. His stomach gurgled. He wanted to piss. There was no bathroom in here. So even though it was warmer, and it had carpet, it was still a cell where they were proving he had no control over his body.

He could just piss in the corner.

The rage from before wasn’t in the foreground anymore. It had dulled down. He felt weak and flat, like he did when he was recovering from surgery.

He missed Gwyn and Crielle, and at this point he’d even settle for that nurse, Enris.

Don’t give up yet, you have to fight them.

He pushed upright again painfully, breathing heavily from the exertion it took, and forced himself to stay awake. He stared at the door and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

*

When the door opened hours later, Efnisien thought he’d cry in relief – bladder fucking aching – until the nausea swelled as three alphas came in, including the guy with the green eyes and long black ponytail. Efnisien wanted to shove back against the wall, but an alpha wouldn’t do that. He stared at all of them. The room felt a lot smaller once they were in it. Two of them were peak alphas, Efnisien knew.

He wanted to keep control over himself, but the nausea kept rising. Was it pheromones? Or something else? He thought he could smell the scent of red wine – Crielle drank it sometimes – but he wasn’t sure. He wanted to scratch the odour out of the back of his nose.

Turning and retching before he could stop himself, and then the shaking started again, like he’d had major surgery and was recovering. He absently wrapped an arm around his gut, his chest heaved a couple more times, but nothing came up except for a mouthful of bile.

He’d broken out into a cold sweat.

‘It’s you two,’ one of the alphas was saying. ‘Get out. We’ll do the test out there.’

‘Oh?’ the green-eyed one with the long black ponytail said.

‘Seriously, Augus? Look at him.’

‘Whatever you like, Anton, you’re the expert,’ Augus said sarcastically. he looked amused.

Anton was the one with the golden eyes, and blue-black wavy hair that must have had some kind of colour put through it to make it look that way.

That left the last guy, with the scent that was distinct from when Efnisien had been paralysed on the metal table. Dr Gary. It was harder to meet his eyes than the other two, but Efnisien could see his eyes were brown, and his hair was shortish and black with some silver shot through it. He looked older than the other two, but not by much.

‘Tell her I’m an alpha,’ Efnisien said to him, his voice cracking as he spoke, forcing himself to meet Dr Gary’s gaze. ‘Tell her. Please. She’ll listen to you. And then she’ll take me back. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it? I heard you. Just tell her.’

Augus’ black eyebrows arched. Anton looked concerned.

‘We have your bloodwork back,’ Dr Gary said, his voice calm and deep, not annoyed like it had been before, though he looked annoyed. ‘There are many complexities that can’t be accounted for, including the presence of multiple drugs in your system that shouldn’t be there. But unfortunately for all of us, Efnisien, you are unequivocally an omega.’

Chapter Text

The scent of Efnisien’s fear was so strong it was impossible to tell what his normal scent was. Gary would have been curious about it – it was his job to be curious about it – but he had one of his best and most successful alphas in critical condition in a hospital over four hours away, having to be flown there by the Royal Flying Doctors because of the strange and unwanted omega in front of him.

‘Your tests are wrong,’ Efnisien said. ‘I saw-’

Efnisien visibly winced, his throat working, almost like someone was forcing him to stop speaking.

So, this was the one that Augus had said would be complicated. Augus was one of the few alphas qualified to handle intake, so he’d spoken to the family directly, though there were almost no details on the intake form itself.

Efnisien ap Wledig, committed by Crielle ferch Fnwy, his legal guardian, aunt, and a peak alpha in her own right, so she’d been able to resist Augus’ attempts to gather more information. Efnisien, listed as an omega who needed to be rehabilitated, having trouble with his heats. Had he actually had a heat yet? Unclear. The information wasn’t provided. Age? Nineteen.

So Efnisien had been delivered bound and unconscious, with a scent that Augus marked down as ‘unusual.’ Flagged for further testing. Gary had been away until today, so he’d needed to consult with Augus over the phone. Kadek was one of the only alphas free to bond anyway, Efnisien would have always gone to him.

Except Augus hadn’t wanted that to happen. An additional flag on the file said: ‘Raised by peak alpha, consider peak alpha companion.’

‘If you don’t want me here,’ Efnisien gasped, ‘tell her I’m an alpha. She’ll take me back.’

Gary stared at him. He didn’t want to deal with this. He’d gained enough power and enough influence that he had other alphas that managed omegas for him, so he rarely had to interact with them. He didn’t dislike them, but he’d never been particularly attracted to them either.

‘We’re not going to lie to her, Efnisien,’ Augus said smoothly. ‘Right now we’re still deciding whether to press charges for attempted murder. What do you think?’

Efnisien’s eyes unfocused, and then he bent over and threw up strings of bile, wiping at his mouth and shaking.

‘Come on,’ Anton said, glaring at Augus and Gary. ‘Get out. You’re not going to browbeat him into answers. We’ll do the test out there.’

Augus huffed a sigh, as impatient with the whole situation as Gary. He had a bonded omega to get back to, and he’d already said Mosk had been having panic attacks because of the alarms going off.

All because of this misfit on the bed in front of them.

Gary turned and walked out. Augus followed. They left the door open, and Gary could hear Anton trying to calm Efnisien down.

Today there were new notes on Efnisien’s file after Kadek had nearly bled to death in Gary’s own facility: Does not respond predictably to alpha persuasion. Query: Possible alpha?

But Efnisien wasn’t an alpha. The blood-tests were…a mess. But they were still clear on that one factor.

‘Mosk won’t tolerate me bonding to someone else,’ Augus said shortly in the lounge area. He sat down in a large leather chair and crossed his legs, leaning back. ‘You’ve prided yourself all this time on running a facility that doesn’t tolerate multiple omegas bonding to a single alpha – for good reason – we can’t start now. Anton’s not free either.’

‘I didn’t even get back until today,’ Gary said, looking off into the distance. ‘I don’t work as a companion.’

‘You may not have a choice.’

‘There’s always a choice,’ Gary said quietly.

Augus’ lips quirked, and Gary’s irritation smouldered, but he didn’t give into it. Control over his emotional state was one of the things he was known for.

But he was frustrated that Crielle ferch Fnwy wasn’t giving them any more information, was only intermittently contactable, and often they were only communicating with her clueless staff. The family had been vetted, they had money, reputation, contacts. And an omega no one knew about.

He could hear Efnisien in the other room, arguing with Anton that he was an alpha. And then, sharp and clear and no longer just a note in a report:

‘Listen to me!’ Efnisien using alpha persuasion. Anton fell silent.

Gary tensed, and Augus looked over to the room with its half-open door. A few seconds later, the muffled voice of Anton, in a tone that suggested maybe he was saying that he was listening.

‘And then there’s that,’ Augus sighed. ‘I don’t feel anything from it, do you?’

‘No,’ Gary said. It didn’t touch him.

‘The others do. Even Anton. He may not be a peak alpha, but he’s no weak one, either.’

‘I’ve grown out of wanting to deal with novel situations,’ Gary said blandly.

‘Have you? But I thought you loved publishing papers and books on omega psychology. Now you have something completely new. And we have no idea why, except that you only need to look at that family to think there’s perhaps something there. You want to give him to another centre? Name me one that you think can handle him.’

None of them. No centre in the world knew of an omega that could use alpha persuasion. No alpha was trained to handle it. And with Efnisien’s abilities, if they pressed charges, he would likely be sent to an alpha-only prison. The justice system wouldn’t let him loose around other omegas.

An omega – who had problems with his heats – in an alpha-only prison.

Gary placed his thumb and his forefinger on his forehead and pressed in, quelling off the headache. The best people to deal with Efnisien were the ones who had created him.

A few minutes later, by some miracle, Anton managed to get Efnisien out of the room. He looked greyer now, pallid, likely hungry and thirsty, and clearly neglected. He was far too thin and didn’t have the roundedness that even neglected omegas often had. There was nothing soft about him. His blue eyes were sharp and shadowed, his cheekbones angled and blotched with the red of someone who wasn’t faring well.

The boy was constantly terrified. If he stayed in this state for much longer, he’d attempt to kill someone and run again.

‘Here, why don’t you sit down?’ Anton said, gesturing to a chair.

Efnisien looked at Augus, looked at Anton, but was reluctant when it came to meeting Gary’s eyes.

‘Why don’t you go fuck yourself?’ Efnisien snapped.

He was holding himself like he was in pain, and they’d not been able to do a proper physical yet. Gary wished Temsen was back. He liked Kent well enough, but they needed another peak alpha to manage the complete bevy of medical tests, of which – Gary was sure – there would be many.

But only if Efnisien stayed.

‘We’re going to conduct a very simple and brief test,’ Augus said, not moving from the chair. There was nothing non-threatening about him even though he was sitting. He was very attentive to the omega he’d bonded with, but he could be frightening the rest of the time, and that was why Gary hired him – to handle all the other alphas when Gary was too busy to manage it.

Efnisien looked around, perhaps for weapons, perhaps for the kind of medical equipment that might be used for a test.

‘We’re each going to try our alpha persuasion on you,’ Augus said. ‘It won’t hurt.’

‘Fuck you,’ Efnisien snapped.

Truly, Gary had never heard of another omega quite like this. Even Mosk when he’d arrived, he’d been quietly and meekly rebellious, all of his protests coming through passive aggression and silence. He’d been neglected far too long by his family of betas and alphas, and barely knew how to receive comfort or touch from anyone. But a deeply angry and betrayed omega didn’t snap and yell at alphas – not unless they felt truly safe – they didn’t behave like this.

Even betas didn’t often behave like this.

In spite of himself, Gary wanted to know what had caused this Frankenstein’s monster situation.

‘I’ll go first,’ Anton said.

Efnisien’s tension ramped up, and Gary held back a grimace. Even that scent… It was closer to what Kadek’s pheromones had smelled like after he’d been stabbed – they’d lingered in the room, in the drying blood – than it was to a terrified omega.

The blood-tests didn’t lie.

‘Sit down on that chair,’ Anton said.

Efnisien stared at him. He didn’t even twitch like he wanted to move in that direction. It was remarkable, the persuasion really had no effect.

Those blue eyes darted to Gary’s quickly, then away again. There and gone in a moment.

‘All right,’ Augus said, ‘it’s my turn.’

‘No!’ Efnisien shouted. ‘No! I don’t want-’

‘Sit down,’ Augus said.

Gary only felt the sensation of alpha persuasion when it came from another peak alpha. Even then, it was niggling, a minor aggravation, like someone else was swinging around power that belonged to him and him alone. It was something every peak alpha had to deal with at some point, either surrendering to the greed of wanting power no matter how they got it and oppressing anyone who stood in their way, or growing up.

Efnisien’s forehead furrowed – again, not the right response – and he wavered, and then he shakily walked over to the chair and sat with the jerky movements of a puppet. So he’d fought it the entire time.

‘He’s more susceptible when he’s in flight mode,’ Augus said, looking up at Gary. ‘There was none of this before.’

‘He might be more in touch with what he actually is, in flight mode,’ Gary said, staring at Efnisien.

‘I want to talk to my family,’ Efnisien said.

I don’t care what you want, Gary thought. He cared about the reputation of his facility, and he cared that he was introducing a new model of omega rehabilitation and companionship that was highly respected, but he didn’t care about individual omegas much beyond knowing Hillview had a good success rate, and positive reviews from the omegas themselves.

It was Gary’s turn, and he turned over different commands in his head. It had been such a long time since he’d even needed to use alpha persuasion. He could feel the way muscles in his throat shifted and flexed, activating scents and sounds that omegas were vulnerable to.

‘I’m curious,’ Gary said, ‘if she will actually take you back if we plead your case. Will she?’

Most omegas would soften immediately. They’d turn pliant and yield. There was resistance in Efnisien’s stiffened shoulders, in the flash of his eyes. But still, a shuddering breath, and then a strained:

‘I don’t know.’

Well, not entirely helpful. He’d try making another call.

Gary thought about the missing Kaeper glands, the surgical scarring across the back of Efnisien’s neck. Someone had gone in and removed the glands, leaving divots in the soft skin, ugly scar tissue.

Of course parents tried to raise their omegas as alphas sometimes, fighting a biology that ultimately won out. But removing the glands wasn’t something he’d seen before. Those scars had felt barely professional beneath his fingers. They’d obviously been done with a scalpel, but…by a surgeon who didn’t know what they were doing.

What else had they done to him?

Efnisien recovered from the persuasion, and he stood, his hands clenching into fists, eyes roaming the room for – Gary was sure – a weapon. Gary had seen what happened when someone told him to calm down, so that wasn’t an option either. He was resistant to sedatives…

What a pain.

Efnisien had been tachycardic for that entire appointment once the sedative wore off. He was likely tachy right now. A heart labouring under the strain of those unusual hormones and chemicals in his system, and a significant amount of fear.

Efnisien’s eyes flashed towards Gary’s again, hard and malicious.

‘Leave me alone!’ he shouted.

Interesting. He’d not done that in response to Augus. Gary hadn’t moved either. Hadn’t taken a single step towards Efnisien, and his persuasion had been used to elicit an honest response, not a physical action.

‘You should know that while you’re at the Hillview Rehabilitation Centre,’ Gary said, ‘this will only be the first of many tests that you will undergo, and it’s in your best interests to cooperate.’

Anton stared at Gary like he couldn’t believe the tone he’d taken. Well, it wasn’t how Gary often talked to omegas, even if he didn’t spend much time with them.

‘Are you looking for a fountain pen?’ Gary said with mild interest, as Efnisien’s eyes roved the room.

Efnisien tensed, and then he began to look at the windows and doors.

Yes, a very overactive sympathetic nervous system. Gary could think of a lot of medications he’d like to give the boy, but those blood-test results were damning. It probably wasn’t safe. They didn’t even have the full panel back yet, which would take another few days. So they’d removed the glands that allowed Efnisien to be fully mated with someone, and likely had him on a regime of medication. But no medications had been dropped off with him.

He had dark bruising around his wrists, it wasn’t how Hillview omegas normally looked at intake.

‘What do you think your options are?’ Gary said. ‘If you escape, we will find you. Your previous custodian has signed away your custody – if temporarily – and wants us to take care of you. Perhaps you’d feel more at ease if you had something to eat, something to drink, and got some sleep.’

It rankled to say these things so calmly while Kadek was in hospital, being given platelets and whatever else he needed in order to survive. Critical but stable didn’t mean he was out of the woods yet.

‘Anton,’ Gary said, removing his attention from Efnisien and feeling relieved for it. ‘Did his alpha persuasion work on you a second time?’

‘Yeah,’ Anton said. ‘It’s not…super strong, it’s jarring though. I think you’re both right, he needs a peak alpha.’

‘And there it is,’ Augus said, a hint of triumph in his voice.

Shut up, Augus.

‘Efnisien,’ Gary said calmly. ‘Go back to the holding room, please, and close the door.’

Efnisien tensed, was trembling. Gary hadn’t used alpha persuasion because he didn’t think he should have to for an omega unless he needed them to calm down. Which was useless in this case anyway.

‘Why should I?’ Efnisien said, more like a teenage alpha than an omega.

‘Because I’d like to have a discussion with my colleagues, and I’d prefer you weren’t here for it.’

‘But it’ll be about me,’ Efnisien said stubbornly.

It was tempting to yield simply because Efnisien was right, it would be a conversation about him, and it wouldn’t be the end of the world for Efnisien to hear their thoughts. But Efnisien was an omega in a retraining facility, and Gary wasn’t about to let this slide.

He calmly walked over to Efnisien, even as the scent of terror spiked in the air. Gary would have almost smiled. Why someone so scared of alphas constantly disobeyed them…

Efnisien backed up against the wall and then bolted.

Gary was faster. He lunged and grabbed Efnisien first by the back of his shirt, and then by his upper arm. Efnisien’s teeth bared and turned to bite, which Gary thought might be a positive sign. Alphas tended to fight with fists and kicking first, saving their teeth for claiming bites with omegas. Omegas scratched and used their teeth.

Efnisien was surprisingly strong, and had good, swift reflexes, but he was still easy to subdue. Gary got his arm behind his back and pulled upwards, and Efnisien’s breath broke out of him on a sharp, pained inhale as he froze.

‘There,’ Gary said quietly. ‘Come along now.’

He pushed Efnisien towards the holding room and frowned when he caught the scent of bile from the room. They’d not had time to clean it. The space reeked of old fear.

Gary would feel guiltier putting Efnisien back in the unclean room, except Hillview simply wasn’t equipped to take people like this.

You’ve dedicated yourself to helping reintegrate omegas into society.

Efnisien didn’t even have the right pheromones. His whole body was a mess.

Gary pushed him into the room, expecting Efnisien to fight him. But he’d gone still instead. The back of his hair was matted. If it was safe to have him around one of the nursing staff, he’d get it sorted out, but Efnisien could use alpha persuasion on an alpha, which meant he could certainly control the betas and other omegas in the facility. He couldn’t be trusted with anyone.

Efnisien didn’t turn around to face him, and one of his shoulders sagged. When Gary let him go, he noticed Efnisien kept one of his shoulders tense. Was he injured?

‘Stay here, please,’ Gary said. ‘We won’t be long.’

Efnisien needed a complete physical, ideally with an internal, but…he wasn’t obedient, he’d be able to order Kent around. He’d have to be fully sedated.

But the sedatives didn’t last as long as they should. Perhaps if they used the sedative for the internal exam…

Well, that was an issue he could talk to Kent about. If he could get in touch with Crielle ferch Fnwy, maybe it wouldn’t be necessary at all.

He closed the door and turned back to Anton and Augus. Anton had his arms folded and looked unimpressed, but Augus looked the same as ever.

‘Anton, you can go back to Flitmouse now, if you wish.’

‘Sure, sure,’ Anton said, reluctantly unfolding his arms. ‘Just remember that kid’s an omega, will you?’

Gary stared at him, and Anton was the first to look away, and then he shook his head and left, closing the door behind him.

Gary sat opposite Augus and his hand immediately dropped down towards the table beside the chair, looking for a glass of red wine. There wasn’t any. Faber was dismissed for the day, and Gary’s red wine collection was back in his on-site home.

‘I know you want me to take him on,’ Gary said. ‘But I’m not interested in doing that, and he won’t get the care he needs with me.’

‘Or with anyone,’ Augus said. ‘I don’t think he’s ever had it or knows what it’s supposed to look like. Gary, we can’t give him to one of the alphas trained with your methods in this centre, softness and compassion are only going to go so far. He’s tried to kill a member of your staff, he keeps trying to run, I don’t think there’s any good options here. But I do think there’s one option where he’ll at least be safer than back at his home. You said his Kaeper glands were removed? We don’t know if that’s the extent of it, or if that’s where it stops.’

Gary hated the way those words chipped at him.

‘You’re angry enough at the family to charge them for the cost of Kadek’s medical care,’ Augus continued. ‘Do you know what I think based on intake? I think they’ll pay – easily – for whatever you charge them, and they still won’t take him back. If you give them no choice, they’ll kill him.’

‘That might be an easier path for him,’ Gary said.

Augus was silent, and his troubled expression suggested he agreed. But neither of them could truly commit to that path. There was enough spite in Gary’s bloodstream to make him think it would serve the family right if he flew to Perth, dumped Efnisien back on their doorstep and wiped his hands of the whole family. But that was the kind of instinct he’d grown out of indulging.

‘I’m too busy,’ Gary said again. ‘I don’t want to bond with him. He can’t be trusted with the other omegas, which means we can’t put him in one of the main buildings. He can’t have encounters right now with any alpha who isn’t a peak alpha, and he can’t be unsupervised. I’m meant to be flying out again in four days. You can’t do it, because your current omega is high needs for companionship and affection, and Temsen would be too busy and doesn’t like bonding in the first place.’

‘I know,’ Augus said. ‘Don’t you hate when you’re basically forcing yourself into the corner all on your own? I’m not doing it this time.’

‘That family though.’

‘Yes, of course. They started all of it, but they’re not the solution. They’re clearly the problem.’

Gary sighed and looked towards the closed door. He hadn’t even locked it, but Efnisien hadn’t made a sound, and he hadn’t come out. It was terror.

‘It might be different,’ Augus said quietly, ‘once he’s in less pain.’

‘Do you really think so?’

‘No,’ Augus said. His smile was pained. ‘I think he’ll have the energy to be worse. But you never know. The fact is he’s been raised by a peak alpha who’s abandoned him, he may be looking for something whether he wants to or not. If not a bond, then a connection. But you don’t like those, do you?’

Gary sighed. He’d had one long-term relationship in his life that had ended in an unfortunate manner, and then a lot of one and two night stands with other alphas. Bonding by its very nature was intimate, even if it was temporary in the centre, designed to give an omega the skills they needed to find a partnership of their own away from the facility.

‘At the very least,’ Augus said, ‘we have to figure out what to do for the next few days. He can’t stay in a room like that forever.’

Gary thought about the layout of Hillview and realised with dismay there were very few buildings where Efnisien could be trusted, because they were at full capacity. They didn’t have an abundance of space available, and the holding cells were really only for temporary use. Truthfully, they’d barely been used at all.

‘Your home has a good security system,’ Augus said, looking at his nails, his suggestion delicate because he knew how much it would anger Gary.

‘I want to do more testing first,’ Gary said. ‘And…’

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and went to the app that had all the patient’s files on record. He found the phone number for Crielle ferch Fnwy and called it. Augus looked towards the closed door, raising his eyebrows, before settling more comfortably into the armchair he’d chosen.

‘Good evening,’ came the aristocratic accent of a woman who had never wanted for anything in her life. ‘This is Crielle ferch Fnwy. What can I do for you?’

‘This is Dr Gary Konowalous from Hillview Rehabilitation Centre. I’m afraid our intake forms are incomplete, and we have more questions as to the health of Efnisien ap Wledig.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ Crielle said, sounding politely dismissive. ‘We provided all the information you need, and you have Efnisien. I’ve heard your centre is the best in the state, I’d hate to think that wasn’t true? We might have to talk to some of your sponsors.’

Gary stared ahead, wishing he could talk to her face to face. He couldn’t believe she’d threatened him within only a handful of sentences, though at least it confirmed that the family had done this to Efnisien.

A slow inhale on the other side of the line, and then an amused hum, the kind Augus sometimes made. ‘The sad fact is we’re out of options with our dear Efnisien. You understand how it is with the reputation of a long-standing family. We’ve done our best by him, but we’ve reached the end of the road now.’

‘He seemed to be under the impression you’d take him back if we recognised him as an alpha.’

A rich laugh on the other side of the line. ‘Oh, an alpha? He’s got some quaint ideas, doesn’t he? I trust you to have the skills to disabuse him of these delusions.’

‘His Kaeper glands have been removed,’ Gary said flatly.

Someone had done that to him. And not any reputable surgeon in one of the state’s tertiary hospitals.

‘How strange,’ Crielle said, but her confusion was clearly false, and Gary could tell she didn’t care if he knew it.

‘Perhaps I could speak to his birth parents?’

‘I don’t see how that’s relevant,’ Crielle said. ‘They never had anything to do with him. I took the time to raise him, even though I have my own beautiful alpha son that really deserved every second of my undivided attention. Anyway, Dr Konowalous, I didn’t expect these unproductive phone calls. This is the second, I believe, in only one day? Are you truly so ill-equipped to handle a single omega? If that’s the case, you do have another option, my dear.’

The option wasn’t Crielle taking him back. Gary felt a cold chill run through him when he realised what Crielle was saying.

Kill him yourself.

‘Do you know? He doesn’t even have a birth certificate,’ Crielle said softly, and then she laughed again. ‘No one would ever know, either way, no matter what you decide to do with him. You have all that land spare, after all, I’m sure it’s something centres have to do on occasion. We might consider taking him back if you can make him a presentable omega in high society, but if you’re not confident, do whatever it is you must. With the exception of wasting any more of my valuable time with these pointless questions. Have a lovely evening, Dr Konowalous.’

And then silence. She’d hung up.

Chapter Text

Efnisien had ended up pissing in the corner after all. There was no way he’d been going to ask to use the toilet when all the alphas had brought him out for their goddamn test, because that was such an omega thing to do, but he also had no access to a toilet. The embarrassment and shame of it all riddled together with his outrage and the sense that they fucking deserved it. But having to stay in the room with the smell of his own vomit and urine was reaching a low he didn’t even think he’d reached in the An Fnwy Estate.

Crielle at least hired staff to deal with these things.

He’d ended up sitting on the floor with his back to the corner, by the foot of the bed. That way he was as far from the urine and the bile as he could get. He was also behind the door, should it open.

Gwyn would expect him to stand, maybe. To face his fate. But Efnisien was exhausted, and he felt like something might be seriously wrong with his body. Had they given him drugs when he was unconscious? They’d talked about a blood-test. They’d told him he was an omega.

Crielle had brought him here.

Efnisien stared dully at the carpet and shuddered, sagging forwards until his head touched his knees. But he could only manage it for a minute or two before his shoulder hurt too much. It was aching more as time passed. All the quiet made it hard to tune out the pain. At home he had books he could read, or there were at least more ornaments and decorations to study.

He was dozing when the door finally opened, and he startled upright silently, eyes wide. There was a pause, and then Dr Gary’s head poked around the door and the peak alpha studied him.

Efnisien looked away. He just…couldn’t seem to manage to glare at him, as much as he wanted to.

Dr Gary sighed, he sounded unhappy.

‘It’s just me,’ Dr Gary said. ‘Come on out.’

Efnisien didn’t know what to do. If he stood up and obeyed, he’d look like an omega. But surely there were times alphas listened to each other too. Gwyn and Lludd listened to Crielle all the time.

Efnisien didn’t want to stay in this room. It had no windows. It smelled stale and awful.

He shifted and pushed up on one arm, wincing. When Dr Gary had twisted his other arm behind his back and pulled it up, something had happened to his sore shoulder, and it hadn’t been the same since. Efnisien knew it wasn’t dislocated because he could still use the arm, but it wasn’t right.

He followed Dr Gary out and looked around. It was late now, night beyond the windows. Aside from a few lights on the outsides of the other detached buildings, Efnisien couldn’t see a damn thing. There was hardly any artificial light out here. If the moon wasn’t full, it would be so dark in the forests if he had to escape that way.

‘I’ve had a discussion with Crielle,’ Dr Gary said, close enough to Efnisien to make his skin crawl.

Efnisien’s heart skipped a beat and hope burst bright and painful in his chest.

‘She’s made it very clear that she’s not taking you back,’ Dr Gary said. ‘Normally we would equivocate in these circumstances, but I think you need to understand the gravity of your situation. She’s said that…’

But then Dr Gary paused and Efnisien risked looking at the side of his face.

As a peak alpha, he had more of an aura of power around him than anyone Efnisien had ever met, except Crielle. Efnisien could tell Dr Gary was stronger than Gwyn, Augus, and some of the other peak alphas Crielle did business with. He wasn’t broad and muscular like Gwyn, though he was tall. He didn’t need to look smug like Augus did. He just had power.

He wore a charcoal suit without a tie, the top two buttons undone. Only one of them had been unbuttoned before. His shoes were immaculate. He looked like someone in charge.

Efnisien thought back to Gwyn saying peak alphas were basically sociopaths, and this guy ran a facility in charge of fucking omegas into docility and obedience. It tracked.

Efnisien looked away quickly when he saw the flex in Dr Gary’s neck that meant he was going to make eye contact.

‘Actually,’ Dr Gary said, ‘I think it’s more important to get you some food and water. You’ll have to bear with me, it’s been a long time since I’ve had the custody of any omega. Unfortunately for you, you don’t get to be paired with one of the kinder alphas, because you tried to kill him.’

Efnisien took a step backwards and said nothing. He looked to the windows again.

‘You could just let me go,’ Efnisien said.

‘No,’ Dr Gary said, pulling his phone out of his pocket. ‘Hillview’s reputation will not allow for an omega on the run. It’s the principle of the thing. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.’

Efnisien didn’t know what to do. Escape was the only thing he could think of, but if Crielle wouldn’t take him back…

What did he do?

He couldn’t stay here. This place was awful. It was only going to get worse. Besides, he could tell they were going to grill him about Crielle’s science, and Efnisien couldn’t talk about it. Alpha directives were rare, but she’d given him many and laid them into him since before he was verbal. Alpha persuasion couldn’t break it – she’d gotten Gwyn to try more than once, and it had been torture – but he couldn’t even…tell the alphas here not to try.

So they were going to try. It was going to be torture. At some point, someone was going to fuck him. He didn’t have any of his meds. He couldn’t even ask about them. The directive was laid so deep into his bones the only thing that radiated through him when he even thought about bringing it up was horror.

‘Tsk, you’re still tachycardic,’ Dr Gary said, like that was somehow Efnisien’s fault. ‘Do you have any heart conditions we don’t know about?’

Efnisien said nothing. He didn’t know. And Crielle wouldn’t want him to say anyway. He waited for the alpha persuasion, but it didn’t come.

Dr Gary made a phone call to someone called Lachlan, and then asked for a selection of plain omega-appropriate food to be brought over. Efnisien’s eyes widened when he heard Dr Gary apologise for the lateness of the call. Gwyn always said peak alphas didn’t have to apologise for anything. Efnisien assumed it was a physical impossibility, something peak alphas never did because they knew they were perfect, and any mistake made around them would never be their fault.

Dr Gary hung up, and Efnisien waited. Would he be fucked now? Was that how it worked? Efnisien would kill them.

Maybe he wasn’t glad Kadek had lived after all.

‘Is your shoulder injured?’ Dr Gary said to him. ‘I’d like to look at it.’

‘Fuck off,’ Efnisien managed. His voice was weaker than before. Just standing there hurt. All his muscles were heavy. The chairs looked so appealing. ‘You know I’m not an omega. I can do alpha persuasion. Strong enough to control your alphas.’

‘It’s not full control,’ Dr Gary said. ‘That’s why the persuasion never lasts very long. But to be fair, many alphas can’t fully control each other, so it’s a fair argument. I admit I’m very curious about why you can do alpha persuasion in your circumstances. Would you like to tell me how you learned?’

Efnisien pressed his lips together.

No the fuck he would not.

‘Do you know why you’re not very sensitive to medical sedatives?’ Dr Gary asked. ‘Is there an alternative we can use?’

Efnisien didn’t know, but it also wasn’t a question he could answer even if he did.

‘You know,’ Dr Gary said evenly, ‘Crielle said you had delusions of being an alpha that we needed to cure you of, but someone made you this way. Someone had to teach you alpha persuasion, omegas have never spontaneously learned how to do it on their own. Someone removed your Kaeper glands. That’s not a surgery you could do on yourself, as poor a surgery as it was. Do the scars hurt?’

These weren’t the kinds of questions he was expecting, and Efnisien felt caught off guard, confused. A wave of trembling moved through him, and his eyes burned, but he refused to move. His vision was doing that thing where it was greying out at the edges no matter how much he blinked.

His head tilted back, the heaviness too much, and his knees buckled.

A hiss of hostility when arms caught him way too fucking fast. How fast could this guy fucking move? And Efnisien was shoving at him, trying to get him away, but he was too weak, and Dr Gary was completely immoveable.

It all happened quickly, Dr Gary deftly dealing with Efnisien’s struggling while getting him over to a chair. As soon as he was sitting, Dr Gary slowly moved his arms away, like he wasn’t sure Efnisien would stay upright. Efnisien jerked forwards and bit into Dr Gary’s hand hard enough that he tasted blood.

Dr Gary didn’t punch him in the side of the face, which Efnisien knew he deserved. Instead he went still.

‘I don’t want anything to do with you either,’ Dr Gary said, the words calmly delivered, but stinging all the same.

No peak alphas wanted anything to do with him. Maybe – maybe – Gwyn.

Maybe.

‘Here,’ Dr Gary said, ‘how about you keep your teeth where they are, and I do this?’

Dr Gary reached for his face, and Efnisien cringed, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to lean away from the punch while keeping his teeth deep in Dr Gary’s hand.

‘Okay,’ Dr Gary was saying quietly. ‘Okay. You’ve got some strength in that bite, don’t you?’

The punch didn’t come. Efnisien froze when he felt a palm resting against his jaw. Dr Gary’s hand was so warm. The touch was…careful. Efnisien stared blankly ahead, his teeth twitching, Dr Gary’s blood metallic and hot. Not too much of it, but he’d definitely broken through the skin in one or two places. His scent was stronger too, probably because he was so close. The suit looked expensive.

Dr Gary kept his hand in place, like he didn’t even care about the pain. Efnisien kept expecting the same terrifying guy who stalked across the room towards him and manhandled him into that room, and Efnisien knew at some point he was going to be punished for the way he’d behaved. If this guy was like Crielle, then…Efnisien was fucked.

But his hand didn’t move from Efnisien’s face, and he felt his head clearing. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but his jaw unlocked, his teeth loosening enough that Dr Gary could have moved his hand out of Efnisien’s mouth. But he didn’t.

All at once, it was too much. Having Dr Gary so close, the taste of his skin on his tongue, his scent in his nose, that touch on his face. Efnisien reared backwards, kicking out at the same time, pushing Dr Gary’s hand away from his face and crying out as the pain that had settled into his bad shoulder flared.

Dr Gary stepped backwards calmly and inspected the injury on his hand. Efnisien gasped for breath, then stared at the door in horror when he heard a knock. Dr Gary glanced at him, the gaze clinical. Crielle looked at him like that all the time.

‘It’s the food,’ Dr Gary said.

Efnisien frowned as Dr Gary went to the door. The sound of a friendly Scottish accent, and then Dr Gary came back with a covered tray. He placed it down on the coffee table in front of Efnisien and uncovered it.

There was buttered toast, and some jam and extra butter in a bowl. Efnisien frowned at something that looked like a set custard. And then what must have been steamed dumplings, because Efnisien had seen Gwyn eating them. He stared at it all in confusion.

‘I…can’t…eat this,’ he said, baffled, forgetting that he didn’t want to talk to Dr Gary at all.

‘Why not?’

‘It’s… I’m not allowed.’

‘But I don’t understand why,’ Dr Gary said.

There was something in the way he spoke which was open, almost innocent, and it was disarming. It wasn’t the know-it-all smugness of Augus, or the grim and dangerous confidence of Gwyn, or the fake openness from Crielle when she was trying to find out if he was lying to her.

‘It’s all carbs,’ Efnisien said in confusion. ‘I can’t- I can’t have these.’

‘Ah,’ Dr Gary said, like something had clicked into place. ‘What do you normally eat?’

‘Protein,’ Efnisien said.

‘I see. Well, the chawanmushi – the custard that you see – is made with eggs, it has the most protein out of everything on the plate. It’s quite savoury.’

Efnisien reached for it with a shaking hand, then hesitated.

What was he doing?

But he felt so tired. He couldn’t keep trying to escape every second, and his best bet was waiting until Dr Gary left. He had to leave at some point, surely. And Efnisien wasn’t going to be good for anything like running or escaping if he didn’t eat.

He considered putting on the meek omega act for Dr Gary, the same one he’d put on for Enris and Kadek, but he knew it wouldn’t fly here. It wasn’t even worth trying. He just knew.

The bowl was warm. Efnisien set it down carefully on his thigh and used the same hand to reach for the spoon. His other arm was mostly out of commission.

‘I’d like to look at that shoulder before the night is over,’ Dr Gary said.

Efnisien would have glared, but he didn’t want to look at him. He shifted on the chair so that the bowl would be more stable between his legs, and then he took a spoonful of the custard and paused. Normally he had a bunch of meds to take before he ate anything at all, because they were too rough on an empty stomach. He looked around and realised that…wasn’t going to be an option here.

With a deep breath, he tried the custard. It was rich and salty and soft, almost like a savoury pudding. Efnisien had never had anything like it, and devoured it in quick bites, chasing the last little bits in the bowl until it was all gone. He stared down and wished more would magically appear.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but when he looked up, Dr Gary was watching him. His gaze wasn’t as clinical anymore. Efnisien couldn’t read his expression though, it was opaque.

‘Are you still hungry?’ Dr Gary asked.

Efnisien wondered if having too much food in his stomach would make him really sick when Dr Gary tried to fuck him. And he didn’t want to be too full if he tried to run away. He stared at everything else on the tray. He really wanted to try a dumpling. Gwyn said they were often filled with meat or a kind of custard, and that was protein, wasn’t it?

Carefully, regretfully, he placed the bowl with the spoon in it back down on the tray, in the exact position it had been before. He couldn’t have any more food. That was enough. That would keep him going for a while. It was one of the nicest things he’d ever had.

‘You don’t want anything else?’ Dr Gary prompted.

Yeah, like Efnisien was going to explain his reasoning. Efnisien folded his good arm around his torso and looked towards the window again, thinking Dr Gary had to sleep at some point.

So do you, though.

‘Are there any dogs?’ Efnisien asked, the words spilling free. ‘Any…dogs patrolling?’

‘No, we don’t need them,’ Dr Gary said. ‘Were there dogs back home?’

Efnisien said nothing.

Dr Gary sat opposite him and considered him. ‘You’re really not like any omega I’ve ever met before.’

‘I’m not an omega,’ Efnisien said.

‘Who taught you that?’

‘If you try and fuck me, I’ll kill you,’ Efnisien said, steeling himself to scowl at Dr Gary. ‘I’ll kill you. I’ll kill everyone here.’

Dr Gary’s expression was faintly perplexed, but Efnisien was sure Dr Gary was putting it on.

‘Don’t fucking pretend that’s not what you do to omegas,’ Efnisien snarled.

‘Of course it’s necessary to help omegas through heats,’ Dr Gary said as though he couldn’t be less interested in the subject. ‘It assists bonding. But there’s no point in doing it now. I can’t see how it’s going to be functional or useful at this juncture.’

‘I know you think you’re being clever, trying to use this whole bait-and-switch thing to get me dependent on you, before breaking me, but it’s not going to work.’

‘You are dependent on us,’ Dr Gary said. ‘An independent person does not piss in the corner of a room. It was our failing not to provide you with a bathroom, but you are certainly dependent on us to have access to one. You are already dependent on us, Efnisien, in order to live. I don’t need to use any bait-and-switch techniques to make you realise that. You’ll realise it eventually.’

It was insulting, the way Dr Gary spoke to him. Crielle at least gave him some hope, even Gwyn did. But Dr Gary spoke like he saw the whole gameboard at every moment and gave answers whenever he felt like condescending to do it. And the answers always hurt.

Unfortunately for all of us, Efnisien, you are unequivocally an omega.

It was like Dr Gary didn’t like omegas at all, even though he ran a facility that supposedly helped them.

‘As to breaking you,’ Dr Gary said, and then for the first time since they’d met, Efnisien caught a slight smile. There was nothing nice about it. ‘You’re already broken. I’m surprised you haven’t realised it yourself. If you have the capacity to learn anything at all, perhaps you’ll learn that.’

Efnisien’s mouth dropped open.

‘Now,’ Dr Gary said, taking a deep breath, ‘I would like a glass of wine, and the only building that’s safe enough for you to occupy right now is my home, a disappointment to the both of us, I’m sure. Come along.’

Chapter Text

Efnisien knew how confident Dr Gary felt because he let Efnisien outside of the building into the cool night air without any restraints. Even though Efnisien knew it would be foolish to even try, his limbs tensed with the urge to run.

Being out in the open was a shock. The air smelled freshly of salt and the sea. A faint hint of eucalyptus because they were surrounded by jarrah, karri, and marri trees. The grass was cool and wet beneath his bare feet.

Dr Gary walked on, and Efnisien followed. He didn’t know what would become of his life now. Dr Gary had called him broken and dependent so easily, treating Efnisien like he was too stupid to realise.

Efnisien didn’t feel the savage hatred he’d felt before towards Kadek, but something colder and brittle. He hated that he could feel the echo of Dr Gary’s touch on his face, while those words sliced him open.

Dr Gary’s pace wasn’t too fast, and he didn’t bother to look over his shoulder to see if Efnisien was following. Eventually, they stopped walking on grass and hit a cobblestone pathway that wound through some peppermint trees with their weeping branches towards a place that looked like a caretaker’s house, except it was a decent size.

Efnisien looked longingly towards the dense black line of trees in the distance. But he didn’t have a burst of sprinting in him, and he knew Dr Gary would catch him. The certainty was so deep he couldn’t even debate it.

His stomach felt rigid and tight, he was overheated and sweating even in the cold. He wondered if they’d drugged him without telling him.

They walked up some wooden steps onto a small porch of decking. Dr Gary pulled some keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door, then pressed his thumb to a black panel. There was a short beeping noise, and the door clicked open.

Dr Gary shifted then, easily pressing a hand to the small of Efnisien’s back and pushing him inside first.

A loud bark, and then a gold-coloured dog bounded towards Efnisien. He hurriedly stepped backwards to get away, panicking, and landed against Dr Gary’s body. The dog was still there, and Dr Gary’s arm had automatically gone around Efnisien’s waist to keep him upright.

‘You said there weren’t any dogs!’ Efnisien shouted.

‘Polly,’ Dr Gary said to the dog, ‘not now.’

The dog – Polly – didn’t stop wiggling around them at all, her tail and hips wagging furiously.

‘She’s not a guard dog,’ Dr Gary said, letting go as Efnisien jerked away from him, feeling cornered in the small foyer area where a couple of all-weather jackets hung from some hooks, gumboots leaning against the wall beside some other outdoor hiking boots. ‘She’s a pet. If you want you can ignore her. Don’t hurt her.’

Efnisien didn’t know what to say. Was he the kind of person to hurt a pet to get what he wanted? He didn’t think he was. Dogs were terrifying anyway. She looked friendly now, but Efnisien knew from the An Fnwy Estate that even though the dogs got along with Crielle and Gwyn, they hated him.

Dr Gary placed his hand at Efnisien’s back again, nudging him forwards, and Efnisien didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to be in someone else’s home. The scent was stronger here, tannins and fresh wood resin, maybe, it was hard to tell.

He felt sick. He didn’t want to throw up again, that chawanmushi had been so good he could have eaten five bowls.

The foyer opened into a kitchen and a lounge area, with a small kitchen table designed for four people. It was way cosier than Efnisien expected. There were plush red rugs on the wooden floorboards. The kitchen counter had a fruit bowl piled with fruit, some of it fresh, the bananas looking like they’d seen better days. There was a knife block with knives in it, right there, and Efnisien twitched and looked down at the floor, because he didn’t know what to fucking do.

‘Am I going to jail?’ Efnisien said.

‘I suppose that depends on if Kadek dies,’ Dr Gary said easily, unbuttoning his suit jacket and draping it over a wooden kitchen chair.

‘You could press charges anyway,’ Efnisien said. ‘Get rid of me that way. I know that’s what you want.’

Dr Gary paused. He’d bent down and was petting Polly around the head and ears, and she had an expression on her face that was just happy. She looked older maybe, a bit grizzled around the muzzle. Efnisien didn’t know anything about dogs though.

‘There’s one thing I don’t want to do right now,’ Dr Gary said finally, straightening. ‘I don’t want to exit you into a situation where your life is in overt danger. Have you considered the outcomes? You can do alpha persuasion and are larger and taller than most omegas. Even with blood-tests that demonstrate you’re an omega, you’ll be placed in an all-alpha prison because of your abilities. You’re too unsafe to be allowed around omegas and betas. The justice department has less of an idea of what to do with unknown quantities than we do, they’d put you in a place that made other omegas safest – but your safety would not be the priority. You’d die in an all-alpha prison.

‘That’s where the peak alphas go who can’t manage themselves and become overwhelmed by their own ego. It’s where the insecure alphas go, who rape and mutilate and kill omegas, or try to claim several at once, biting simply for the sake of biting. They will learn that you’re biologically an omega, you will not be able to use alpha persuasion on them in any meaningful way, and you will likely be raped beyond sanity despite the best efforts of the guards – if they don’t also join in – or placed in solitary for the rest of your life or killed. In all meaningful ways, that’s not an option right now.’

Efnisien stared at Dr Gary. All the while as he’d been talking so casually about a vivid and awful picture, he’d been dishing out dog food and a raw egg into a bowl for Polly. And then he got a glass of water for himself and poured another for Efnisien.

‘But if Kadek dies,’ Dr Gary said, sipping some water, ‘I’ll consider pressing charges.’

Efnisien looked back towards the front door, his heart racing so hard he felt queasy.

‘Though, I’m not sure even I could exit you into a situation like that,’ Dr Gary said, sighing. He put down the glass of water. ‘So. Here’s how it’s going to work. You don’t hurt me, and you don’t try to kill me. You will not like the outcomes if you do. Efnisien, you need to quickly realise how precarious your position is. I know you’re scared, and I know someone has taught you to believe you’re an alpha, but simply insisting you are one isn’t going to change the reality you find yourself in.’

But I am an alpha. She told me. They told me. I’m bad at it, but I am one. Kadek was bad at it too and you hired him.

‘Drink some water,’ Dr Gary said.

Efnisien almost reached for the water, then stopped himself.

‘At the very least, there’s no point escaping now,’ Dr Gary said. ‘You’re weak and injured. Are you going to drink anything?’

Efnisien shook his head.

‘All right, then I think a shower is in order. You still have Kadek’s blood on you.’

Efnisien looked down and saw the brown stains and couldn’t get away from the sensation that this was a bad dream, and he was going to wake up and Gwyn would be there telling him to stop sleeping in and join him in the gym.

The sound of the tap running, and Dr Gary was holding his hand beneath the water, massaging the bite Efnisien had given him until it started to bleed again. He was cleaning the wound. He left it under the water for another minute or so. When he looked over, Efnisien looked away.

‘You must be exhausted,’ Dr Gary said.

There was nothing to say. Like…of course he fucking was. He looked towards the windows past the couches, but there was only darkness beyond them. Maybe Dr Gary was closer to the edge of the property. There was no light that way.

‘Come along,’ Dr Gary said after turning the taps off, walking over. A hand at the small of Efnisien’s back again, and he wondered if he’d have more energy the next day to deal with all of this shit. He wanted to bite Dr Gary again, he was beginning to realise killing people wasn’t a super sane option.

Maybe tomorrow he could plead his case again. They’d understand he had alpha persuasion because he was an alpha.

He was guided down a short corridor to a nice bathroom. Even though the house itself was tiny compared to the An Fnwy Estate, Efnisien could tell no expense had been spared on the bathroom fixings, the marble counter, the chrome.

Dr Gary pushed Efnisien into the bathroom and stood in the doorway.

‘You can undress and shower now,’ he said. ‘Feel free to use any of the toiletries. There’s spare toothbrushes under the sink.’

He didn’t leave.

Efnisien stood there and then a sinking feeling made him feel weak.

‘Can I have some privacy or something?’ Efnisien said.

‘I’m staying. And you’re not leaving until you have a shower under your own steam, or I shower you. And you will not like the latter. I’d prefer not to use alpha persuasion, because I think it’s crude, but I will use it if I have to.’

Efnisien wanted to keep protesting, but the way Dr Gary talked about things was implacable. It was the same as Crielle. He couldn’t debate with her or negotiate a single thing. If she said something, that was it, and there was no point arguing. And while Efnisien planned on making everyone’s life here a living hell, he needed more energy to fucking do it.

A shower was too tempting to pass up. Efnisien knew he stunk, he didn’t want to be covered in blood, he felt clammy and gross.

‘What do I change into?’ Efnisien said.

Dr Gary looked around with the expression of someone who clearly hadn’t thought things through.

‘Shit,’ he said under his breath. Then: ‘Wait there. Don’t move.’

Efnisien rolled his eyes, then slumped. His shoulder was killing him. He had various other aches and pains clamouring, getting louder, a volume switch in his body had gone from mute and now went up a notch every few minutes. He heard the sound of Dr Gary in another room and wondered if Dr Gary was lying to him when he said there was no point in fucking him right now.

He didn’t really seem like someone who would lie. He didn’t need to; he was still a total fucking asshole.

Dr Gary came back with what was clearly his clothing and stepped past Efnisien – ignoring the way Efnisien cringed away – and placed the clothing on the counter. He stepped back to the doorway and took out his phone, scrolling through it, and then vaguely gestured towards Efnisien.

‘We don’t have all night,’ Dr Gary said.

Fuck you too, Efnisien thought.

He wanted to close the door. But at the same time, he’d been naked around Crielle and nurses all his life because of procedures, and he didn’t think Dr Gary was going to jump him right now. He didn’t seem like the type. It was hard to imagine him being with anyone. Efnisien thought it would probably be terrifying though. He seemed demanding. Probably had stupidly high standards or something.

Efnisien took a deep breath which cut off when his shoulder pain flared, and he pulled down the trousers and underwear, stepping out of them and keeping the side of his body turned to Dr Gary.

He kept trying to tell himself it was like stripping in front of a nurse or Crielle, but it wasn’t.

Getting the shirt off was difficult and he paused halfway through when he didn’t know how to move and avoid hurting his shoulder at the same time.

‘I’ll help you,’ Dr Gary said.

‘Fuck off,’ Efnisien managed through the short breaths he was taking. ‘I’ll eat your eyes out.’

‘Suit yourself,’ the alpha said, leaning back against the door frame.

Efnisien grit his teeth together as he got the shirt off, moving the shoulder the smallest amount, but even that was agony. And then as he stepped towards the shower, he heard Dr Gary shift, inhale sharply, and turned to check he wasn’t about to be ambushed.

Dr Gary’s expression was…different to before.

‘What?’ Efnisien said, worried.

‘You’re…’ Dr Gary was looking at Efnisien’s body, and Efnisien shrank back against the bathroom counter. ‘You’re quite injured.’

Efnisien frowned, then looked down at himself. It wasn’t just his shoulder, but there were large and small blue and violet marks all over his body. He wasn’t surprised. Really, that was business as usual.

‘Did our staff do that to you?’ Dr Gary said sharply.

‘No,’ Efnisien said, pulling open the shower door. ‘Well. My shoulder. But no. It’s fine.’

He thought Dr Gary would say something, but he didn’t reply, and Efnisien pulled the shower door shut only to have it held open by Dr Gary.

‘Are you serious?’ Efnisien said, staring at him. ‘It’s a fucking shower. What am I going to do in here?’

‘Keep it open,’ Dr Gary said.

‘Fucking hell.’ Efnisien shoved the door hard just as Dr Gary started to let it go, and it swung open violently. Gwyn would beat him for something like that, and Crielle would use her words or pheromones to destroy him, but Dr Gary just fucking watched.

He wasn’t even being a perv, but he observed everything. Efnisien stared at the shower and thought he was probably too fucked to manage this, but he’d felt worse after surgeries and still showered so that willpower would probably see him through right now. Never mind that staff had sometimes found him unconscious in the bathroom, that felt like a lifetime ago.

When the water was the right temperature and streaming over him, it was harder to care too much about Dr Gary watching him. He showered quickly but carefully, not knowing how long it would be before he was able to shower again. He used Dr Gary’s shampoo, which was barely scented, and rubbed it into his hair one-handed.

‘It’s not in your file,’ Dr Gary said, ‘but where did you go to school? Which omega academy?’

‘Home-schooled,’ Efnisien murmured.

‘Do you know to what level?’

‘No,’ Efnisien said, staring at the shampoo suds on his hand, before stepping back beneath the spray of the shower. It had good water pressure. Dr Gary had a pretty nice life out here.

He hesitated, then reached for the conditioner and rubbed it in, because his hair became so fucking stupid if he didn’t use it. Even so, it took a while to detangle the hair at the back of his head, and he gave up on a couple of sections, his fingers too tired to manage the fiddly work.

‘How come…you all get to speak to Crielle, and I still can’t?’ Efnisien said, his voice not sounding quite right as he spoke.

‘You can try calling her tomorrow.’

‘Sure,’ Efnisien said, wanting to be back home in bed. He didn’t believe Dr Gary at all. They all seemed to say the same thing – he could definitely call his family, but later. ‘Sure.’

After rinsing his hair, he reached for the soap and his fingers only brushed against the ceramic soap holder. He stared at the soap in confusion. He’d gauged the distance correctly, hadn’t he? He reached again and felt how bad his arm was shaking and stared down at it.

Oh, he thought.

That was the problem with tuning all the pain out. He tuned everything else out as well.

Weakly, he managed to turn off the water, then stepped out and reached for the large charcoal coloured towel hanging on the towel rack.

‘I’ll get you a new one,’ Dr Gary said, like he didn’t want Efnisien to use that one.

Which was useless, because Efnisien already had it around his body.

They stared at each other, and then Efnisien leaned back against the bathroom counter and thought he needed to brush his teeth. His breathing was more laboured than before. He’d missed so many of his meds.

‘I’m gonna brush my teeth,’ he said.

‘All right.’

‘In a minute.’ He leaned heavily against the bathroom counter and then sagged down to the plush bathroom mat on the floor. It was that same charcoal colour. It matched Dr Gary’s suit. That seemed stupid. Who coordinated their fashion with a bathroom mat? ‘In a minute, I’ll do it.’

‘All right,’ Dr Gary said.

‘Don’t touch me,’ Efnisien said, his breathing becoming shallower. His gut felt like it had a hard stone in it. He wanted to claw it out of his pelvis.

‘You can’t stay on the floor,’ Dr Gary said.

‘Don’t you fucking touch me,’ Efnisien said, his voice thready. ‘Don’t fuck me.’

‘I’m not interested in fucking you.’

‘Don’t do it,’ Efnisien said, his eyelids sinking down. ‘Fuck. Fuck all of you.’

Dr Gary crouched in the doorway and looked at him, observing him all the fucking time.

‘Don’t you fucking touch me,’ Efnisien managed, his nostrils flaring as his head tipped back again. God. He was fucked. ‘What’d you put in my food?’

‘Nothing,’ Dr Gary said. ‘We’re not going to drug you further; we need to figure out what’s already in your system.’

‘S’fucked. Fuck you.’

Efnisien’s last glimpse of Dr Gary was of his raised eyebrows, like he found the whole thing fascinating. Efnisien slumped sideways, and Dr Gary reached out as though to stop him from hitting the floor. But Efnisien’s mind was gone, his awareness vanished. He opened his mouth to tell Dr Gary to go away, but the world turned black.

Chapter Text

Gary looked down at the frail boy who was now unconscious and resting against his arm and torso. They’d both ended up on the floor – Gary’s back against the cabinet doors – and Polly walked into the bathroom, using the excuse of Gary being easily accessible to try and lick his face.

‘Polly,’ he said, frustrated. ‘Not now.’

She tried to sneak in more licks, he pushed her backwards gently.

He looked down at Efnisien. There were bruised circles beneath his eyes from lack of sleep and probably malnourishment. Once the clothing was off, Gary had seen how thin and bruised he was and had to stop himself from grinding his teeth together. Worse than all of it were the signs of multiple surgeries with the same lack of professionalism as those scars over the missing Kaeper glands.

‘Efnisien?’ Gary said, gently brushing his fingers across the omega’s face. ‘Come on, now. Wake up.’

Nothing. Gary thought Efnisien might be out for a while. If they were in the capital city, he’d organise to get Efnisien taken to a hospital. But they were hours from the nearest hospital, and they’d already had the Royal Flying Doctors out to airlift Kadek to Perth.

‘Come on,’ Gary said again, coaxing and soft.

Again, nothing.

So Gary took out his phone and scrolled through his contacts while idly brushing Efnisien’s damp hair away from his face. He made the call, put his phone on speaker, resting it on the bathroom counter.

‘Good evening,’ Kent said. ‘How’s the new arrival?’

‘Unconscious. Again. He’s fainted at least one other time. I think it might be medication withdrawals. All I can smell on him is chemicals. Is there anything I should be looking for to stabilise him?’

‘Get his pulse for me,’ Kent said brusquely.

Gary placed his hand against Efnisien’s wrist and was relieved to feel that the pulse was steady, though rapid. He counted it off quietly, then placed the limp forearm back on the bathmat.

‘Much like before,’ Gary said.

‘Not thready? Inconsistent?’

‘No.’

‘Good. That’s something. Has he eaten? Gone to the toilet?’

The memory of the way Efnisien had devoured the chawanmushi was painfully bright, and not something Gary would forget in a hurry. And then behind that memory, the smell of chemical-soaked urine in the holding room, and Efnisien hunched on the floor behind the door, looking both beaten and furious at the same time. He could have come out and asked to go to the toilet at any time, and it hadn’t occurred to Gary that Efnisien would make the choice he had.

Except…it should have occurred to him.

‘Yes to both,’ Gary said. ‘But he’s not eaten enough. He’s malnourished.’

‘Oh yes,’ Kent said dismissively. ‘Badly so, I expect. We’ve seen it before. Alois Flitmouse was one of the worst. It’s harder to see on this one because of his musculature, but I don’t think there’s any fat on him at all.’

Gary didn’t think so either. It was obvious someone had been intentionally feeding him a protein heavy diet. It was an act of cruelty. Most omegas naturally craved more carbohydrates than alphas or betas and tended to be more rounded, especially on the face and belly. The omegas they received at Hillview were usually all thin, either deprived of food before they arrived, or refusing to eat under duress of the abusive relationships they’d experienced before admission.

But Gary had never heard of someone feeding an omega protein to force him to put on more muscle. It was part of that same odd picture – the removal of the glands, the ability to do alpha persuasion – someone had made him a project. And not a small project either. This wasn’t some whim. This was what looked like years of work.

Gary reached down and passed his hand over Efnisien’s belly. From his ribs down, there were little laparoscopic scars. Some were so faint they must have occurred during childhood. Others were recent. And much like the surgical scars at the back of his neck, they had a messiness about them. A retired surgeon, maybe, or a student?

‘Kent,’ Gary said abruptly, ‘can you get in touch with all the hospitals tomorrow and see if there’s any records of him? We need everything we can get. He’s had multiple abdominal surgeries too.’

Polly sneaked in close and shoved her head into Gary’s arm.

‘Not now, Polly,’ he said.

She turned and licked Efnisien’s arm.

‘Polly,’ he hissed, pushing at her again. She only pushed her head back into Gary’s arm, and Gary left her there to enjoy the impromptu adventure of her owner sitting on the floor with her.

He could use alpha persuasion in his pheromones or voice to get her to go away. But he couldn’t bear to do it to an old lady dog like her, who just wanted to be around people and get some love. He patted her again, his other hand still resting flat on Efnisien’s torso. He hoped the touch would have the same influence on Efnisien now as it seemed to have before.

‘What the hell were they doing to him?’ Kent said. ‘I’ve been looking over the initial blood-test results and some of these synthetics are what you might…give to someone if you wanted complete control over their hormone production. We’re not just talking suppressants, but synthetic botewalogen, ardolphogen, there’s at least ten others here. You said you suspect withdrawals? It’s going to be hell. Some of these amounts are so high…’

A long silence. ‘What is it?’ Gary said impatiently.

‘Blast, we might have to supplement and wean him off slowly,’ Kent said, like he’d only just realised. ‘These are massive ardolphogen levels, I’ve never seen anything like it. Way beyond what a peak alpha would have running through their system. How has it been cultured in these amounts? It’s too regulated for anyone to get their hands on this much at once. I should have looked at the numbers more thoroughly before. We were too concerned about whether he was actually an omega.’

‘The botewalogen too, why would he be given something that only betas produce?’

‘I did some research and found a few papers which covered the basics, you know, botewalogen being produced by all foetuses in the womb, and then production stops when an offspring differentiates into alpha or omega. But there was a suggestion in the paper that botewalogen might be a universal neutralising hormone.’

Gary brought his phone down from the counter and opened it up to the blood-test results, scrolling through. ‘And this isn’t everything,’ he said, staring at a very long list of chemicals.

‘I think there’ll be stuff in him that’s new,’ Kent said. ‘I’m hazarding from some of the chemical signatures already, but I can’t say for certain. This is like…looking at a fictional case study, Dr Gary. This is new for me.’

‘It’ll be new for everyone, I suspect,’ Gary said. ‘Don’t worry. Temsen won’t have encountered this either.’

‘I tried to reach him, but he didn’t bring his work phone with him.’

Gary’s smile was dark. He was the one who’d insisted Temsen take a proper, lengthy break from Hillview and its staff while he went on tour to talk about his latest published book on omega biology. Temsen had two phones after all, and he’d reluctantly agreed, leaving the work phone back in his home on the grounds. Gary had been trying to ensure that everyone learned to trust Kent, and Temsen had some rest, which even he agreed he needed.

‘You’re doing fine, Kent,’ Gary said.

‘He shouldn’t be having heats at all with these hormones in these amounts,’ Kent said slowly. ‘I don’t think he’s been having trouble with his heats. Or if he is, it’s his omega biology asserting itself, and the drugs no longer working or holding up. We’re assuming that someone had the goal of turning him into an alpha? I can’t think of any other reason for any of this.’

‘Right,’ Gary said. ‘It’s my assumption too.’

‘The family?’

‘Right,’ Gary said. ‘Or they contracted some hack surgeon or scientist.’

Kent sighed over the speaker. Gary put the phone back on the counter and stood. He got a dark green washcloth out from the cupboard and ran it under the tap until it became warm. He knelt down again and rubbed it carefully over Efnisien’s body, paying special attention to his armpits, his neck, his groin, the undersides of his feet, rinsing and rewetting the cloth. The chemical stench was almost overwhelming and washing some of it away helped. He knew Efnisien had wanted to soap himself anyway, he’d just not been well enough for it.

There were more laparoscope scars at his pelvis, three hidden behind blond pubic hair. Gary looked at them and realised they might have to get him an MRI scan. That would be a three hour round trip, plus the MRI itself. The sedation wouldn’t last long enough to keep Efnisien compliant.

‘What are your thoughts on the sedation issue?’ Gary said.

‘If I’m being honest, the thought came to me tonight over dinner that he’s simply desensitised to them. All those chemicals – which means meds – the multiple surgeries, the fact that he is in many ways more alpha-like than omega-like… If this has been going on all his life…’

‘They stopped working.’

‘Yeah, or it’s chemical interference from something he’s been given. The massive amount of ardolphogen could also suppress a sedative. You know they don’t work as well on alphas as they do betas and omegas anyway, and peak alphas are very hard to sedate.’

‘Right,’ Gary said.

Efnisien’s cock was more well-developed than an omega’s should be. It was tempting to clean between his legs more thoroughly to check what else might be different, but in this instance he didn’t feel he should do it. Kent could tomorrow.  

‘We’ll have to do a medical exam tomorrow,’ Gary said. ‘At the least, he needs to be stabilised, and we need a better idea of what’s going on. I want an internal, too.’

‘But I don’t think we can stabilise him. And we can’t sedate him. I’m not comfortable with it now that I’ve taken a closer look at the results.’

Gary pressed his fingers into Efnisien’s injured shoulder. He felt heat and inflammation, but the joint was in its socket, and aside from the swelling and possible soft tissue injury, nothing seemed broken, and nothing was dislocated. He’d get some meat out of the freezer and ice it, that might help.

‘Do we have any shoulder braces? I seem to recall we had a couple,’ Gary said.

‘Hang on, let me check inventory.’

Gary used the pause in the phone conversation to turn Efnisien onto his side and look at his back. As he ran his fingers down his spine, he paused when he saw more scarring on his flank. The scars weren’t as small, a few centimetres long, and ugly, like they’d infected badly at some point. Gary’s heart beat harder, and though he remained calm, he felt the jangling of alarm in the background.

‘Kent,’ Gary said sharply, ‘I think his adrenals have been…surgically altered.’

‘What?’ Kent said.

They hadn’t been able to give him a proper examination earlier. Efnisien was clothed, he was scared, he was resistant to the sedatives. It had been important to first draw blood, and then they’d begun to give an exam, and Efnisien was already awake when they made their discovery about the Kaeper glands.

‘Sorry, what?’ Kent said again. ‘Where are the scars, exactly?’

Gary described the position, and Kent fell silent for some time.

‘Adrenalectomy?’ Kent said. ‘Or… But why?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine. Better, given your education. You can see all the scars for yourself tomorrow,’ Gary said, sighing. ‘I think you’ll have a better idea of what all the scars are for. We’re talking five or six surgeries at least. Maybe more.’

‘I feel like we’re in some kind of science fiction movie,’ Kent said, laughing like he couldn’t believe what was happening. ‘He might not live, you know. I’ll call one of the tertiary hospitals tomorrow and get some advice.’

‘They won’t know either.’

‘Don’t you think I know that?’

‘You’re a better specialist in omega biology than almost anyone there,’ Gary said, feeling angry all over again.

Yesterday he didn’t have to deal with any of this. He reached for the towel and placed it back over Efnisien’s body, only after jerking it free from underneath Polly, because she’d laid down on it.

‘I still have to consult with someone,’ Kent said. ‘I don’t see how we’re going to cope without at least supplementing the ardolphogen. His hormones will be going haywire. And, Dr Gary, if I may say so – if this has started since childhood – his body may not know how to regulate itself. It may never know.’

‘Will we have to supplement larentin?’

‘Why are you asking me like I’ll know?’ Kent said in frustration. ‘I don’t know. His Kaeper glands are removed, that interferes with larentin production. We’ll need to check all his other glands. You’re right, blast it, we will have to do an internal after all. He won’t like it. I’m not comfortable with this.’

All omegas received an internal exam ideally before their first heat. Testing the health of the lare glands was important, and one of the ways they could be sure an omega had developed well and was biologically ready for heats. But the internal exam was put off until the omega at least had some kind of bond with their alpha. Sometimes it took months before it was performed, and in the case of Alois Flitmouse, it had taken almost half a year and two half-completed traumatic heats before he’d even allow one.

Internal exams were invasive. In almost every other rehabilitation centre, they were performed as early as possible, and omegas were restrained and sedated or paralysed, but Hillview had never operated this way. They avoided restraints wherever possible, and barely had the facilities to isolate omegas. The whole architectural structure of the facility was designed to be homely, which was starkly apparent when they realised they had almost nowhere to safely put Efnisien after he'd attacked Kadek.

And now they’d have to operate more like one of the barbaric facilities where the internal exams were done immediately. They couldn’t sedate him safely to make him unconscious during the actual procedure, but Gary didn’t think they could afford to wait, either.

‘What would make you more comfortable?’ Gary said finally.

‘You need to be there, for a start,’ Kent said. ‘And I’m not checking anything other than the lare glands. I don’t want to do a full internal right now.’

‘All right,’ Gary said. He didn’t like it, but perhaps they could supplement with an MRI in the future.

‘I’ve never had an omega be that tachycardic on my table for that long before,’ Kent said. ‘Ever. Even when we were in the tertiary hospitals doing our placements. Even then. At least the poor bastards get sedated there. And it works.’

‘I understand,’ Gary said. ‘He may have a heart condition.’

‘I don’t think it’s a heart condition, but with all the surgeries and the drugs…actually, you might be right. He might need to be monitored; you know. Is he still unconscious?’

‘I think he’s asleep,’ Gary said, looking down at Efnisien against his legs. He was still stroking his hair; it was soft beneath his palm. ‘He needs it.’

‘That he does.’

Gary couldn’t imagine bonding with this strange creature at all. He felt pity for him, and he wanted to know the scope of the scientific testing and experimentation that had been done, but it was hard to imagine developing anything meaningful at all with someone as feral as this. But his hair was soft, and it was pleasant to touch.

‘I don’t envy you,’ Kent said suddenly, quietly. ‘It’s occurred to me he might not be capable of bonding.’

Gary wasn’t sure he was capable of bonding with an omega either.

He’d tried once. His intention when he’d entered the world of omega psychology was to become a companion and graduate omegas through a rehabilitation centre. But all he’d seen in the centres were continuous ineffective and traumatic procedures, and the first omega he’d been paired with had been so docile and pathetic that Gary had struggled to see him as anything other than a damaged pet. Even Polly had more personality.

Gary knew it as a flaw within himself and realised around that time he was primarily attracted to alphas and betas. It was rare, but it happened, especially among peak alphas. It was a shocking wake-up call. The knowledge that he’d be a useless companion, alongside the fact that he suddenly had to change his entire future path that he’d mapped out for himself.

He went into pure research and found he had skills at alpha supervision, or ‘alpha wrangling’ as Augus liked to call it. He was still able to introduce effective omega management and bonding strategies through observation and discussion, and he was even distantly fond of a few of the omegas they’d had in the facility over the years.

He liked the ones that had more of a personality, that spoke up, spoke out, and didn’t simply become so docile that Gary wasn’t sure what alphas saw in them.

Augus had been sure that Efnisien needed to be paired with Gary. But if they’d had another spare peak alpha companion, Augus would have insisted that Efnisien go to him instead, Gary was sure of it.

One thing was true, Efnisien wasn’t like any other omega he’d ever met. While he had some omega responses, they were all tempered by his alpha-like behaviours. Even the bite hadn’t been a pure omega response. Most omegas bit and immediately let go. Efnisien grinding his teeth in like that, vindictively and vengefully, it had felt almost exhilarating. Gary hadn’t felt something like that in years.

But eventually they’d get the ardolphogen out of his system, and they’d stabilise his hormones, and he’d become like all the rest of their omegas, and Gary sighed, thinking it wasn’t going to be much fun for Efnisien either. He couldn’t see a way through this that ended well for anyone.

‘Have you heard about Kadek?’ Gary asked.

‘Same condition,’ Kent said. ‘We won’t hear more until the morning unless he destabilises overnight or dies. The best news is no news.’

Gary knew that. He wasn’t going to relax about it until they knew for certain that Kadek was recovering. They still had no true idea of the damage that had been done, but Gary had seen the quantity of blood on the floor. It was hard to reconcile that with the fragile body lying against him now, vulnerable to whatever Gary decided to do to him.

He ended the conversation with Kent and hung up. He stood again, pocketing the phone, and then he kept the towel around Efnisien and picked him up. Despite his height, he was far lighter than Gary expected, even knowing he was thinner than he should be.

Gary thought about taking him to his bedroom and decided against it and took him down the hall into the large lounge area that connected to the kitchen. He laid Efnisien down on the sofa, placing a cushion beneath his head, another beneath his knees. Efnisien’s breathing was quiet, and Gary couldn’t help but check his pulse again. Rapid but strong, but his skin was clammy, and it wasn’t from the shower.

A hand on his forehead to check, and Efnisien was still running a temperature. It didn’t seem worse than before.

He went over to the freezer and got out a packet of peas in the end, wrapping them in an unused tea towel with a picture of a kangaroo on it – a joke gift from an alpha that had retired from Hillview years before – and brought it over. He placed it carefully on Efnisien’s bare shoulder, feeling for where the worst of the inflammation was with his fingers first.

Throughout, Efnisien didn’t even stir. Gary stared down at him and frowned. It was exhaustion. It wasn’t normal for someone to be moved this much and keep sleeping.

It was convenient though.

Gary walked over to the chest of drawers near the bookshelves and the armchair, and crouched down, looking through the bottom drawer. Polly came over, nosing through all the ephemera and other bits and pieces, and was happy when he started petting her. She wasn’t bothered at all to have a strange person in the home. Unlike Gary, she liked everyone.

Gary found what he was looking for and turned it over. The battery was still good, the red light was flashing intermittently. He turned the banding in his fingers, checking it. Faber had given him a box of items they didn’t know what to do with, and Gary had promised he’d find a place for them, but the ankle cuff for monitoring someone’s movements had never been necessary for most of their omegas. Even when they tried to run, they were never all too serious about it. Many bonded to their alphas quickly, even if they stayed standoffish or unwelcoming. They knew they were safer at Hillview than in the world beyond the facility.

But Efnisien wasn’t like that at all. Gary could tell his intentions to run were real, and he wasn’t going to stop just yet.

Gary walked back over to the couch. He pulled down one of the blankets he kept folded on the back of the couch for the cold nights and unfolded it over Efnisien’s body, removing the damp towel. And then he attached the ankle cuff. Not so tight it would cut off circulation, but definitely not something Efnisien could get free of, either.

If it still worked, the alarms would trigger if Efnisien so much as walked beyond the perimeter alarm around Gary’s home.

It didn’t guarantee that Efnisien wouldn’t stab him in his sleep though. He considered an alpha directive, but they were rare and traumatic for an omega, and right now he wanted to see what Efnisien’s personality would be like after some sleep, after some more food, after he had some time to sit with his new reality.

For now, Gary couldn’t afford to sleep. He walked back into the kitchen and drew out a fresh bottle of red wine, de-corked it, and poured himself a generous glass. Then he walked over and sat down in the armchair and angled it, so he was facing Efnisien.

‘So,’ he said to himself, swirling the wine and then sipping it.

He didn’t often think about James anymore, but tonight he missed him terribly, to the point where he even considered opening the locked box in the drawer underneath the television and looking through all of his old photos. But there was no point. He’d only feel bitter and unhappy. Best not to indulge.

‘Here’s to new disasters,’ he said, giving in to the bitterness anyway, raising his glass in a toast.

Efnisien lay exhausted and unaware on his couch, and Polly laid down by Gary’s feet, resting her head on the work shoes he had yet to take off.

Chapter Text

Efnisien woke with a gasp, the content of his nightmare fading, pain and exhaustion making itself known in his body. He felt like he was on fire. He felt something at his arm and his eyes flew open, a golden dog was there, licking his hand and forearm where it had dropped off a couch cushion.

He shrieked and yanked his arm back under a blanket, and then the dog barked at him, and he flipped the blanket over his head and rolled over to face the back of the couch, not caring about the pain of his shoulder. He made himself small and hoped the animal wouldn’t bite him.

Nothing happened.

Efnisien heard a heavy sigh through the blanket and realised it was a person, and then memories stitched themselves together. Hillview. Stabbing an alpha called Kadek. Pissing in a room. Dr Gary. His house. The shower. The savoury custard. A dog called Polly. The pain in his fucking shoulder.

He was naked.

‘Did you fuck me?’ Efnisien croaked, thinking he should be presenting a more macho image right now, but waking up to that dog touching him – and feeling a bit like he might be dying – was making it hard to manage much at all.

‘You would know if I’d fucked you,’ Dr Gary said, voice wry.

Efnisien risked turning over, peeking over the top of the blanket. Then he looked at the dog. She had gone to Dr Gary’s side and was sitting by his chair, her tail thumping on the ground as she gazed between them both.

It was morning. Efnisien could see a forest beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows at the other end of Dr Gary’s lounge. He’d not seen it properly the night before.

‘How are you?’ Dr Gary said.

‘I…’ I need my meds. Something’s wrong. I’m sick.

Maybe they were going to let him die from sickness, then it could be a natural death or something.

‘I don’t feel well,’ Efnisien said.

‘No,’ Dr Gary said. ‘I don’t imagine you do. We’re going to give you a medical exam today, hopefully we can find some medications we can give you that will help stabilise your fever. How’s your shoulder?’

Efnisien stared at Dr Gary. He didn’t say anything.

‘Do you know how you were being given ardolphogen?’ Dr Gary said.

It was like Efnisien’s throat closed. He looked down and cleared his throat to rid himself of the sensation. A medical exam probably meant medical questions, it maybe even meant alpha persuasion to force him to answer.

Efnisien realised something was on his leg and pulled the blanket up and saw what looked like thick black plastic around his right ankle, some kind of black device on it. He frowned at it, then reached down and absently tried to pick it off. It barely moved.

‘The tracking device you’re currently wearing will set off the alarm of my house if you leave it without me being with you at the time,’ Dr Gary said calmly. ‘It has a GPS tracker.’

Efnisien stared at it, then looked at the forest beyond Dr Gary’s windows again.

He supposed this wasn’t really all that different to the An Fnwy Estate after all. And this was around his ankle at least and could be removed pretty easily.

‘Does everyone wear one of these?’ Efnisien asked dully.

‘No,’ Dr Gary said. ‘What you’re wearing is an advanced prototype, similar to what a lot of other omegas wear in rehabilitation facilities, but we swiftly recognised we didn’t need them. It’s a miracle we have any at all. You’re special, Efnisien. You’re the only omega here who’s wearing one.’

‘Don’t…you think…’ Efnisien’s stomach started churning unpleasantly and a fresh wave of cold sweat broke out over his body. ‘Don’t you think…that tells you that I’m not…an omega.’

‘You are nothing like an omega,’ Dr Gary said.

It shocked Efnisien enough that he looked up, despite the cramps.

‘But you are one,’ Dr Gary said. ‘It’s clever, that you feel this sick and you’re still trying to make the argument – I assume – that we need this tracking device for you and only you because you’re actually an alpha, perhaps reacting the way an alpha might. But nonetheless, we are being paid by your family to rehabilitate you, and you are biologically an omega.’

‘Is Kadek okay?’ Efnisien asked, the words spilling out of him.

Dr Gary stared at him for a while. ‘He’s stable, but he’s still in ICU. He could still die.’

Maybe I’m going to prison.

Efnisien grunted absently as the pain in his gut got worse, and then abruptly became urgent, demanding attention. He got up, clutching the blanket to his naked body, then froze when Polly also stood, her tail wagging harder.

‘I need…’ he said, and then gestured to the corridor. ‘I need- My stomach. Can I…?’

Don’t ask him. You’re a fucking alpha!

But he’d ask Crielle too. He’d even ask Gwyn, though not necessarily about something like this. Peak alphas were something else.

Efnisien had to move. He lunged down the corridor and heard Dr Gary standing behind him. He rushed into the bathroom and closed the door, twisting the doorknob lock behind him, and then sat on the toilet and groaned as his stomach protested the fact that he’d dared to eat anything at all the night before.

He heard Dr Gary knocking on the door and sobbed weakly. ‘Please. I won’t be long. Please.’

He watched in horror as the lock twisted to unlocked, and the door opened a little. But Dr Gary didn’t come in.

‘Leave me alone,’ Efnisien begged, mortified, ashamed, the full force of pheromones behind his voice.

‘No locked doors,’ Dr Gary said, though he kept the door mostly closed. Efnisien had expected him to come inside and watch Efnisien deal with diarrhea. But having the door open and knowing Dr Gary could hear it wasn’t much better.

Efnisien lifted the blanket and buried his face into it, the shame of it all way worse than the diarrhea itself. He’d had to deal with stomach issues all his life, he should’ve known he’d react this way to the custard. It was probably a small mercy he didn’t have that much in his stomach to lose in the first place.

He didn’t remember how he got into the lounge. Dr Gary might have picked him up, and Efnisien wondered if he’d be able to tell if he’d been fucked. Probably. That seemed like something he’d know about, especially with…everything.

But the fact that he couldn’t be sure disturbed him. He just had to believe the asshole that had put a fucking tracker on his ankle.

When he was finished, he wished he could stay in the bathroom, but he was freezing, and he felt trapped. He washed his hands and rewrapped the blanket around himself but couldn’t really get it tied properly because of his shoulder. The injury seemed a little better, but he didn’t want to use the arm if he didn’t have to.

He tentatively opened the door, and Dr Gary stepped back.

‘At least at home I could go to the toilet on my own,’ Efnisien said sullenly.

Dr Gary looked at Efnisien like he’d said something curious, or confusing. ‘At least? What do you mean by that?’

‘At least…I got privacy in a toilet there,’ Efnisien mumbled.

‘But nowhere else? Just the toilet?’

Efnisien stared at him.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Efnisien said finally.

Dr Gary was staring at him oddly, like he was an alien, and Efnisien didn’t know what he’d said that was so strange.

‘Are you lactose intolerant?’ Dr Gary asked instead.

What…the mother of fuck? Efnisien wanted some fucking manual to explain what was going on.

‘No?’ Efnisien said.

‘Your stomach upset…’

‘Fuck off,’ Efnisien snapped. He wanted, so badly, to push past Dr Gary in the corridor, but he also remembered the way Dr Gary stalked up to him the day before and twisted his arm behind his back. The guy was horribly strong. He wasn’t beefy like Gwyn, but he didn’t need to be, Efnisien knew he’d be cut beneath his clothing. Even Crielle was lean, but so much of it was muscle. If she pinned him down to a medical table or bed, he wasn’t going anywhere.

Gwyn just trained in a gym because he was like that.

‘You should have some breakfast,’ Dr Gary said, stepping back further and gesturing for Efnisien to walk past him down the corridor. But Efnisien stopped as soon as he saw Polly waiting there at the entrance to the kitchen and lounge.

He flinched when a hand rested gently on his lower back.

‘She won’t hurt you,’ Dr Gary said.

‘She’s a dog,’ Efnisien said.

‘She’s a golden retriever. I once watched a bee land on her nose and all she did was stare at it while her tail wagged. I don’t know what dogs you’ve met before now, but Polly thinks the lizards that come inside over summer are friends, and she tries to protect them. Or bring them to me.’

‘I’m not a lizard,’ Efnisien said. He didn’t know why he complied with that touch on his lower back. Dr Gary didn’t push him at all. All his nudges were suggestions. Whenever Efnisien felt a hint of pressure, he went forwards, even if Polly was there waiting for them both.

‘Have dogs been mean to you before?’ Dr Gary asked lightly. Like he didn’t really care what Efnisien said either way.

‘All dogs are mean,’ Efnisien said, looking warily at Polly.

At least she stepped back out of his way. She didn’t look mean.

‘There’s some toast,’ Dr Gary said.

‘I’m not hungry. I feel sick.’

‘When was the last time you ate?’

‘Dunno,’ Efnisien said. ‘Doesn’t matter. Maybe I’m sick because you don’t believe I’m an alpha.’

To his surprise, Dr Gary laughed, and it wasn’t even mean. The sound was a shock, and Efnisien looked at him uncertainly, but Dr Gary was already stepping away into the kitchen, removing his hand from Efnisien’s lower back in the process.

He was wearing a suit today as well. The same colour. The same…

He hadn’t changed? Had he slept at all? Efnisien frowned and looked around the house.

Maybe he hadn’t slept.

He looked down and shuddered when he saw that at some point in their conversation, Polly had crept close to him and was lying down by his feet. He sidestepped to put some distance between them both.

‘Have some water,’ Dr Gary said, pushing a glass towards him after filling it up. Efnisien contemplated smashing it into Dr Gary’s face. But then he thought of Kadek, remembered the sound of the fountain pen’s nib going deep into his neck, and couldn’t understand why he was having these thoughts in the first place. He didn’t want to be raped to death in a prison. Killing people wasn’t going to solve any of his problems. That much was clear.

‘I want clothes,’ Efnisien said.

‘They’re on the coffee table,’ Dr Gary said. ‘Unfortunately they’re mine, but we should be able to get you something that fits better today. Have some water.’

‘I want-’

‘Efnisien,’ Dr Gary said sharply, his eyes flashing. ‘Do not make me force you to drink water. Be clever, if you’re hydrated, you’ll have more energy to try one of your many future escape attempts.’

It was terrifying when Dr Gary spoke like that. His eyes didn’t look warm anymore, and his voice wasn’t alpha persuasion, but it was still horrible, slithering all over Efnisien, twisting his thoughts until it seemed like drinking the water was the best idea.

He reached for the glass and wondered if he’d even keep it down.

One, two, three tiny sips. Hardly enough to make a dent in the water. But Dr Gary said nothing else when Efnisien put the glass back on the counter, and he didn’t reprimand him for going over to the coffee table where the clothing was.

A shirt, some tracksuit pants, some briefs. Efnisien wanted at least some privacy, so he held the blanket up in his gritted teeth, and then pulled the underwear up behind it, mostly one-handed. It was awkward, but Dr Gary didn’t offer to help – thank fuck, really – and seemed more concerned with making himself a coffee. Once Efnisien had the tracksuit pants on – too long in the legs – he dropped the blanket and put on the shirt awkwardly.

He felt a bit more normal with clothes on, though he still didn’t have any shoes. He didn’t have his phone.

He looked at the forest again. The trees were so tall he couldn’t see the canopy properly. Their trunks were really thick and grey and white. Karri trees. Maybe even old growth karri trees. They looked smooth, except at their bases, where brown bark clung from previous seasons.

‘Thinking of escaping?’ Dr Gary asked casually.

‘Are they as smooth as they look?’ Efnisien said absently.

‘Pardon?’

‘The trunks of those trees. Are they as smooth as they look?’

‘Yes,’ Dr Gary said. ‘Sometimes. Haven’t you touched a karri tree before?’

Efnisien shook his head.

‘I see,’ Dr Gary said.

Efnisien thought he was being really fucking confusing this morning.

‘Today we’re going to be conducting a medical exam,’ Dr Gary said then, like he was discussing a business itinerary. Crielle never told him when medical exams were coming, they just happened. ‘It may be uncomfortable in places, but we want to check over your injuries, possible medication withdrawals, and your shoulder. We’re concerned that your nausea, and other symptoms, may be compounded by your current state, and since your family gave us very little details, we have to compile a fresh medical file for you.’

Efnisien didn’t know what to say. There was nothing really to say. He couldn’t disagree with anything medical in the first place, though the idea of going back in that exam room made him feel chilly and sick.

But that was the feeling he always got, just absent the familiarity of Crielle and her staff.

‘Nothing to say?’ Dr Gary said.

Efnisien stared at the floor, meeting Dr Gary’s eyes still wasn’t easy.

‘We have some shoulder braces, so we’ll fit you with one,’ Dr Gary added. ‘It should offer some additional stability and support. If they don’t fit, we’ll give you a sling, instead.’

Retorts were stacking on top of each other in Efnisien’s mind, but he couldn’t open his mouth and say any of them. He felt like he had more energy than the night before. If he was compliant now, Dr Gary might drop his guard later.

They left together soon after Dr Gary finished his coffee – an espresso that he drank in one go, even though it must have been scalding hot – Efnisien wishing he’d had a bit more water to drink. His stomach was gnawing on itself.

Dr Gary had Efnisien pause by the front door, then waved some remote control down at Efnisien’s ankle, and presumably that was what prevented the alarm going off.

Efnisien stopped on the porch despite the hand at his back pushing him lightly. He couldn’t help but look around again. This was a different angle to what he’d seen before, and the sea seemed closer. He took deep breaths. He’d been in the gardens of the An Fnwy Estate but there wasn’t the sea, or trees like this, and there was always a tall wall that no one could see over. Not even Gwyn.

Dr Gary pushed him harder, the fingers touching his back turning into a flat palm. Efnisien stepped forward automatically, and then they walked towards a building with pale creamy bricks, a dark green, Colorbond aluminium roof.

‘Who were the people in your life who told you that you were an alpha?’ Dr Gary asked.

These questions without alpha persuasion, not even in his fucking pheromones, like he was just…innocently asking. Efnisien shivered. He couldn’t speak about it.

‘Can I speak to Crielle today?’ Efnisien asked.

‘We’ve been trying to reach her, and she’s not picking up,’ Dr Gary said. ‘Is there anyone else you could call?’

‘Um.’ Efnisien wished he had his phone with him. ‘My…cousin.’

‘How’s your cousin related to you?’

‘My aunt,’ Efnisien said. ‘Crielle. He’s her son.’

‘I see. And is he an alpha too?’

‘He’s a peak alpha,’ Efnisien said, and then frowned. He turned and looked over his shoulder at Dr Gary. He looked as intimidating as ever, and it was easier to see that he was faintly tanned in the daylight. It wasn’t a fake tan like what he saw sometimes when Crielle’s colleagues came over, but a real one.

‘What about your parents?’ Dr Gary asked as they started walking again.

‘They’re…both alphas,’ Efnisien said. ‘Everyone in the family is an alpha.’

‘Except you.’

Efnisien opened his mouth to sling off a response, then swallowed everything when Dr Gary’s hand moved from his lower back to the back of his neck.

‘Stop it,’ Efnisien said.

It hurt when people touched the back of his neck. Gwyn did it sometimes, digging his fingers in, calling Efnisien disfigured, or a mutant, or a bitch to be bred while grinding down either side of his spine. He did it the first time too soon after the surgery and one of the wounds had split open. Crielle had said Gwyn was a lovely, aggressive peak alpha, but maybe he should stop ruining her work.

In response Gwyn had simply kissed her cheek and smiled at Efnisien.

‘Someone removed these,’ Dr Gary said, moving his thumb over one of the scars. He didn’t dig in, but it still ached. It wasn’t right. ‘Perhaps a member of your family has been – up until now – extremely invested in you appearing to be an alpha like the rest of your family? You said Crielle would advocate for you last night. Was it her?’

‘It hurts,’ Efnisien protested, panicking.

Dr Gary’s hand stopped moving on Efnisien’s neck, and then it dropped away from the scars, resting at his shoulder line instead. It still felt overwhelming.

‘Does it?’ Dr Gary said. ‘Has it always hurt? Since the surgery?’

‘I don’t know,’ Efnisien mumbled. He was confused, and he was outside a lot, and he kept trying to look for dogs, but Dr Gary had said there weren’t any. He couldn’t smell any pheromones, but he felt dazed like he sometimes did when Crielle was using her persuasion. ‘You didn’t sleep last night.’

‘I didn’t want to be awoken with a sudden case of terminal stabbing,’ Dr Gary said.

‘I…,’ Efnisien looked down and focused on putting one foot in front of the other. He couldn’t even promise that he wouldn’t do it. And he suspected if he threatened Dr Gary with the fact that he had to sleep sometime, Efnisien would find himself locked up in a cell again.

A few minutes later Efnisien was walked into a medical examination room filled with the kinds of large expensive machines Crielle had. Efnisien felt a dull calm come over him, pressing his fear down into rocks in his gut. The horror was always there, but it no longer allowed him to fight back. Not properly.

He got a better look at Kent, who was tall and stocky and built like an alpha. He had a white coat on, but his hair was blond and long, down to his shoulders, and looked sun-bleached like Gwyn’s hair did during the summer. He had a strong tan, like maybe he actually went down to the beach every day.

‘Here,’ Kent said brusquely, handing two pieces of thin blue clothing to Efnisien. ‘I’d like you to change, and then we’ll get started.’

He gave Dr Gary an unidentifiable look. Efnisien was already out of his shirt and pants because he was in a medical room, and he…had to get changed. That was the order. He would’ve responded differently back in Dr Gary’s home, but that didn’t matter now.

‘You are babying that shoulder, aren’t you?’ Kent said.

Efnisien looked at him. He nodded when he realised that Crielle’s commands left him free to talk about his shoulder, because he’d acquired the injury here.

‘All right,’ Kent said.

Efnisien felt his thoughts disappear as he was weighed – underweight, Kent said – and then measured for his height – definitely not within the omega range, Kent said – and then a light was shone into his eyes.

They looked in his ears too, in his mouth, they counted his teeth and looked at the condition, and Kent said something quietly about how there were signs of grinding. Sometimes Efnisien looked over at Dr Gary, who watched and occasionally asked Kent questions.

When he was instructed to get onto the metal table – it had a sheet over it today – and open the blue shirt at the tie to expose his abdomen, he stared up at the ceiling and felt sick and dizzy, and stopped listening to anything they were saying. He didn’t respond to their questions, but there weren’t many in the first place.

‘Do you know what these surgeries were for?’ Kent said, gloved fingers pressing lightly to the scars on his abdomen.

Efnisien looked briefly at Dr Gary and waited for the alpha persuasion to come, but it didn’t.

And then Kent’s hand was on his forehead, and he said something, and Dr Gary came close and rested his hand on the back of Efnisien’s head, fingers in his hair. Efnisien watched mutely as they connected him to some machines with the sticky things that attached the wires.

I’m an alpha, he thought.

But Crielle never wanted him to behave like one at moments like this. It was inconvenient.

‘Ah, Jesus, look at his heart,’ Kent said.

‘He’s been complaining of nausea, too. And he’s had a stomach upset after eating only a small amount last night.’

‘Okay,’ Kent said, taking a breath. ‘Okay. Anti-nausea meds will be – I think – far safer than any sedatives. And we can get him some Loperamide in a few days, but not yet. I want the full results before we get him on that. Maybe some Buscopan, it’s gentler.’

Efnisien was distracted from the conversation because Dr Gary’s hand was still on the top of his head, fingers moving idly through his hair. Crielle never did things like that, though the staff sometimes did. For the most part, Crielle never touched him unless she was checking the results of something post-surgery, measuring parts of his body, or injecting shit into him.

Dr Gary’s hand didn’t seem to be medically relevant at all. Efnisien felt threatened by it though, he knew at some point some alpha here would be fucking him. Dr Gary was weirdly touchy. That hand at his lower back before, the back of his neck, now the top of his head, and yesterday his jaw.

Why would anyone touch him that much? Was Dr Gary just some kind of pervert? Asshole.

‘…No, not yet,’ Kent was saying, when Efnisien started paying attention to the conversation. ‘Wait until after.’

‘You’re worried about his heart?’

‘You’re not?’ Kent said, annoyed. ‘I could turn the alarms back on so you could hear what this is meant to sound like right now.’

‘No, that won’t be necessary,’ Dr Gary said, his palm curving around the side of Efnisien’s head, warm and careful.

Kent asked Efnisien to turn over, and he went with it, flinching when the scars on his sides were touched and photographed, the flash bright in the corners of Efnisien’s eyes. Dr Gary’s hand was still on the back of his head.

‘Take your hand off for a second,’ Kent said.

Dr Gary moved his hand away.

No one spoke, and Efnisien screwed his face up into his arms because he didn’t know what was coming next.

‘Test if it’s the same when you do it,’ Dr Gary said suddenly.

Efnisien winced when he felt a different hand resting on his head, in his hair. Kent’s fingers were shorter, but his un-gloved hand was warm. And then more silence. Were they measuring how Efnisien was reacting to the touch? But the machine wasn’t even beeping. None of the machines he was connected to were beeping.

‘It does help,’ Dr Gary said musingly.

‘Not to the same degree as yours though,’ Kent said. ‘Here, let’s swap so I can finish up.’

Kent’s hand moved away, and Dr Gary’s hand came back. Efnisien turned his head to the side and watched Kent removing one glove, then replacing it with a fresh one, and then picking up a tube of what looked like clear lubricant. Efnisien looked up in horror at Kent.

Kent paused in his movements, and then he looked at Dr Gary. His expression seemed to harden at whatever he saw, and he checked one of the machines without looking at Efnisien again.

‘Efnisien,’ Dr Gary said, ‘are you all right?’

‘Yes,’ Efnisien said mechanically, his mouth opening and the word coming out before he had any real awareness it was going to happen.

It was what Crielle wanted. He was always all right. He could only answer direct questions if she asked him if she was causing him pain. A lot of the time though, she didn’t want to know about it. At first he’d been allowed to tell her everything, but towards the end he knew she would cause him pain, and he knew she didn’t care anymore. Truthfully, he’d stopped caring, because he only wanted to be the best alpha he could be, and she was helping.

Everything she did was to help him be better.

But here, where they believed he was an omega, he knew that they weren’t trying to make him be a better alpha. And Kent putting on a second glove and getting out a tube of sterile lubricant meant an internal exam, surely.

He felt like he’d be sick right there, except that he was on a table, and Crielle didn’t like it, and the directive was etched into him, a tattoo across his bones and his muscles and his gut demanding perfect obedience. She’d started before he was old enough to speak, before he understood what was happening to him, and by the time he knew, it no longer mattered.

Here at Hillview, it was different. Her rules forced him to comply, but they weren’t trying to make him better and he didn’t want to endure pain for no reason. If he had control of himself, he’d run, or grab a scalpel and stab them and then run. He broke out into another sweat and turned his head away from the both of them, staring at a section of blank wall, his vision blurring.

When he felt fingers at the hem of his pants he wished the room would crumple and explode inwards and smash them all to pieces. But Crielle’s words kept his breathing relatively even, kept his body still and pliant, kept him vulnerable to anything they were going to do to him.

He closed his eyes and tried to disappear.

Chapter Text

Efnisien lifted his hips when he was asked to, and he thought Kent’s voice didn’t sound mean, at least. If anything, he sounded hesitant. But Efnisien was desperately trying to cut every tie left in his mind keeping him in the room, and it felt like he was having to chainsaw some of the sensory inputs that weren’t leaving him alone. The feeling of the thin pants sliding down his hips to midway down his thighs. The cold metal table through the thin sheet. Dr Gary’s hand in his hair, hardly moving except for his thumb brushing slowly back and forth.

Crielle had sent him here. Gwyn had warned him. Why didn’t he take it all more seriously?

Didn’t you take it seriously though?

Efnisien’s breath caught in his throat when he felt fingers between his legs, and then around his balls, something he hadn’t expected. The handling of them made him want to shrivel up and die.

‘There’s scarring here too?’ Kent said. ‘Goodness, Dr Gary, I think he’s been given implants.’

Efnisien hadn’t liked that surgery much. Silicon implants to make his testicles seem bigger than they were, to make him look more like an alpha. At first he’d felt more like an alpha because of it, but over time he felt strange and increasingly alien to himself. He was an alpha without the implants, surely? She didn’t have to do that, did she? His testicles were already larger than an omega’s, he’d seen photos. So why…that?

Kent stepped away to make a note on the computer, and Efnisien’s ass was exposed to the air.

Did they care about how hard or fast his heart was beating now? It was going to smash out of his chest.

And then Kent was way too close to his hips again, and lubricated fingers inserted themselves coldly between his ass cheeks, and Kent was saying something about how it wouldn’t take long, and Efnisien felt light-headed and empty and scared and horrible, and his eyes were burning, and tears were making his forearm wet after leaking silently down his cheeks as he stared and stared and stared at the wall.

Two fingers carefully pushing inside of him – it still fucking hurt even with the all the lubricant – and then sinking deeper, and pressing down, and Efnisien felt a sharp shove of pain inside of him, like he’d been harpooned. He’d think Kent had done something to him if it wasn’t something he’d experienced before. After the surgery, every time they’d checked inside him since, it was the worst. If he could have screamed, he would have.

Worse, he couldn’t help but think that he’d had diarrhea only about forty minutes earlier, and he didn’t want anyone’s fingers inside of him after something like that. He’d cleaned up, but he wished he could’ve showered. He felt dirty, and gross, and he hurt.

‘What is it?’ Dr Gary said sharply.

Kent’s fingers moved around inside of him carefully. Efnisien both cared too much and somehow didn’t care at all. He was there and hating it and crying quietly, and he was far away and smelling the salt of the sea outside and looking at the trunks of the karri trees and wondering what they’d feel like beneath the palms of his hands. Smooth.

‘His lare glands have been removed.’

‘What?’

Dr Gary seemed angry. He was always angry. That’s just how he was. He-

Efnisien stared at him in shock, because Dr Gary’s face had just come into view, he’d ducked down to see Efnisien expression. And Efnisien moved to hide his tears, but it was too late. Dr Gary had seen.

‘Stop,’ Dr Gary said abruptly. ‘Stop. Stop the exam.’

Kent’s fingers withdrew as carefully as they’d entered, and Efnisien felt wet, slimy, and cold between his legs and hated it.

Dr Gary’s other hand had come to rest on Efnisien’s shoulder.

‘The lare glands-’ Kent began.

‘-He’s under a directive,’ Dr Gary said sharply. ‘It’s why he hasn’t been answering any of the questions.’

Dr Gary moved closer.

‘Look at me,’ Dr Gary said.

Efnisien looked at him.

‘Roll onto your back,’ Dr Gary said.

Efnisien rolled onto his back and tried to blink the tears out of his eyes.

‘Are you all right?’ Dr Gary said.

‘Yes,’ Efnisien said.

‘Tell me about the surgeries.’

Efnisien said nothing.

‘Okay,’ Kent said, his voice rough. ‘Okay.’

A tissue was there, Kent wiping Efnisien’s cheeks and under his eyes. It didn’t matter. Efnisien stared up at the ceiling. They asked him to pull his pants up, and he tried, but his other arm didn’t work properly, so Kent helped him. And then they asked him to sit up, and Efnisien felt woozy. He stared at the floor blankly.

‘Get the brace, at least,’ Dr Gary said. And Kent went to the back of the room, and Dr Gary was still studying Efnisien, even tipping his face up with two fingers at his chin and looking over his face. Efnisien blinked back at him, and then looked away. Dr Gary’s gaze was sharp, and it was powerful. Even without pheromones in the air, he had a presence. He’d walk into a room, and everyone would know he was a peak alpha.

Kent came back with two shoulder braces. The first didn’t fit – it was too small – but the second did, and Efnisien immediately felt some relief with the pressure and support the brace gave his shoulder, the stretchy black material across his chest, Velcroed securely, anchoring it in place. All the machines were disconnected, except for one, and Efnisien watched his heartrate bounce around. It hovered around 130 beats per minute.

‘I haven’t seen a directive like this before,’ Kent said. Efnisien didn’t even care that they were talking about him like he wasn’t there. ‘Not this broad and comprehensive. This is… Considering what happened to Kadek… He can obviously fight.’

‘But he was placid for you yesterday on the metal table. I’d assumed it was just…fatigue, but if it’s a directive as well… I can’t believe it. I think I’ve only ever seen them twice, and both were omegas involved in criminal cases. But he’s answered no questions about his medical history, even when it’s been in his best interests. There’s an easy way to test if it’s a directive.’

Kent sighed. ‘You might as well get it over and done with.’

Dr Gary lifted Efnisien’s face again, and Efnisien blinked at him and then winced at the smell of those tannins, a faint hint of wine and wood, but not sawdust, more like… Efnisien didn’t know it properly, but he felt worse and swallowed the saliva that flooded into his mouth. He wanted to shake his head, tell Dr Gary not to do it, but he was on the metal table, and so he couldn’t resist at all.

‘The medicines that you’ve been taking before now, tell me what they are.’

Efnisien jack-knifed forwards from the pain rocketing through him. Hands caught him and stopped him from falling off the table, as a storm lit up in Efnisien’s mind. He struggled to obey the alpha persuasion from a peak alpha, while Crielle’s directive kept his mouth shut. It splintered and blistered through his thoughts, a kind of tearing agony. Efnisien knew everything he wanted to say, but all the sentences were stomped viciously down into nothingness.

‘All right,’ Dr Gary was saying, more softly than anything else he’d said so far. ‘Okay, okay. I’ve got you. Straighten up again. You can do it.’

Efnisien didn’t know if he could, but he was told to straighten and he was on a metal table, so he sat up.

‘Is there a way to get a list of the peak alpha surgeons in Western Australia?’ Dr Gary said to Kent. ‘Maybe Australia? The surgeries might not have even happened in the country. Damn.’

‘You think it’s a surgeon’s directive?’ Kent said. ‘What surgeon would remove an omega’s lare glands? He’s- That’s… There’s no reason to do that.’

The lare glands. Efnisien knew them as the glands that produced natural lubricant in omegas and allowed sex and therefore reproduction – even birth – to be so much easier. Not that he could give birth, because he was born with a penis and not a uterus, but all omegas had lare glands.

Crielle told him that alphas didn’t produce the hormone larentin, so it was important to make it impossible for Efnisien’s body to do the same.

Dr Gary told him to get off the metal table, and Efnisien slid off it, and didn’t quite catch himself. It was kind of annoying how good Dr Gary was at catching people. He seemed to know exactly how to place his hands every time. Now, it was one at his side, and the other holding his uninjured arm, until Efnisien got his legs under himself.

Efnisien looked around the room quickly and saw some medical tools prepared on a table nearby – though none had been used – and thought they looked sharp enough to injure someone. He couldn’t grab them. He didn’t want to go to jail. He was beginning to think he could take himself out instead but ruining all of Crielle’s hard work wasn’t allowed. He’d find it easier to slice a scalpel across someone else’s throat than his own.

Efnisien checked out of the conversation entirely, and they didn’t even bother having him get changed again when Dr Gary and Efnisien left the room.

But as soon as they were out of the room, as soon as he was away from the medical space and out of sight of the metal table, all of Efnisien’s suppressed terror shot up and he was off and running before Dr Gary could stop him. And though Dr Gary called after him, for some fucking reason – maybe because he didn’t want Efnisien there at all – he didn’t use alpha persuasion.

So Efnisien ran.

*

Efnisien ended up back at Dr Gary’s home without realising, and that was when the alarm went off, even though Efnisien couldn’t even get inside because it was all locked up. Just getting the cuff around his ankle near the front door had been enough, and now shrill sounds wailed through the facility and Efnisien ran back down the wooden stairs and around the house towards the giant karri trees, thinking maybe he could just hide. He could just hide. No one would find him.

You’re wearing a motherfucking tracker.

He crashed into thick understorey, gasping, and sobbing for breath as he pushed past thick bushes, and his bare feet hit cold leaf-litter and moss. He absently pushed on the trunk of a karri tree to propel him forward and thought that it was smooth. A lot smoother than he expected. It didn’t matter.

About five minutes into the thick-trunked trees, he realised that without any paths through it, all of it was too dense for him to navigate. The bushes were too well-grown and too tall, and there were fallen branches everywhere, fallen bark, twigs, he’d already hurt one of his feet stepping on something hard and knobbly.

Eventually he sank down to the ground in a small opening between a few trees, loathing that he could still feel lubricant between his legs. He was shaking. He was dizzy. He didn’t want to pass out again. He felt so fucking sick. He just wanted someone to take him home. Crielle had no problems giving him tons of drugs to make him feel at least tolerable again.

The alarm cut off about five minutes later, and Efnisien expected to hear Dr Gary crash through the undergrowth, but instead he heard birds starting to sing a few minutes later. He looked up, the canopy was so far above him. These weren’t normal trees. He’d only seen them in photos. The tallest tree in Western Australia, one of the tallest trees in the whole world. The canopy was so far up it made Efnisien see spots, craning his neck to stare at them.

Strange sounds in the undergrowth, not like a person creeping towards him, but maybe like animals nearby. Efnisien felt paralysed. There were deadly snakes throughout Australia, he’d looked them up. Maybe it was a tiger snake. Or a dugite. They could kill him. They’d never get him to a hospital fast enough if he was bitten, surely. Maybe they’d just watch him die. He wrapped his hands around his knees and tried to be small and still and heard another one of those noises and whimpered.

He slowly looked sideways when he heard the noise again, louder this time, and saw something brown nearby staring back at him with gleaming brown-black eyes. Efnisien felt a bolt of terror, didn’t move, and slowly the shape resolved into a kangaroo. He’d thought kangaroos were bigger, but this one only seemed to be as tall as his knees.

They stared at each other. Its fur looked dense and soft. Its little forepaws were cute.

A louder noise not as close, and the kangaroo turned and fled, jumping swiftly through the forest, seemingly not bothered by the understorey at all. Efnisien stayed in place, waiting for Dr Gary to come and drag him back to the dumbass fucking facility.

‘Efnisien?’ a voice called.

It wasn’t Dr Gary.

Efnisien looked around in confusion as the footsteps drew nearer. Maybe the smart thing to do was get up and keep running, but he’d lost all the energy he had. He didn’t want to go back into a cell. He didn’t want some stranger putting their hands between his legs again, talking about the fact that he had testicle implants while handling his balls, or sliding their fingers inside him.

He hated it even when Crielle did it. He had nightmares about it sometimes. He didn’t know it could be worse.

‘There you are,’ Anton said, sighing in relief as he came into view. His blue-black hair looked really glossy outside, as the dappled sunlight hit it. ‘Having a rough morning, Ef? Of course you are. Look at you. Absolutely miserable.’

‘Can’t I just go home?’ Efnisien said, his voice quavering. He didn’t sound like an alpha at all. Maybe rehabilitation meant just crushing him into nothingness.

Anton crouched down, and Efnisien thought he wasn’t as threatening as Dr Gary or Augus, even though he was an alpha. Anton had been kind the night before too.

‘Can we talk for a bit?’ Anton said. ‘How about we talk for a bit, alpha to alpha.’

‘You don’t think I’m an alpha.’

‘I don’t know what to think,’ Anton said. ‘And it’s not like anyone else knows exactly what you are either, no matter what Dr Gary says about your biology.’

Anton sat down on the forest floor, even though his clothing looked way too nice for it. He wore a nice button-up blue shirt. His black jeans looked expensive.

‘Where’s your omega?’ Efnisien said.

‘Flitmouse is pretty independent,’ Anton said easily. ‘He doesn’t like the alarms going off, but he’d rather know what happened and so he sent me off to find out. He’s pretty bolshy, you know. But he’s doing okay. Unlike you.’

‘I don’t want anyone else to touch me today,’ Efnisien said.

Anton frowned. ‘Yeah, I see you’re wearing scrubs.’

‘They did an exam.’

Anton was easier to talk to than the others. At this point, Efnisien had stopped caring if it was some kind of long-game, Anton had an omega, and they really seemed to be a ‘one alpha per omega’ kind of facility here, which wasn’t common, but it happened. It made Efnisien feel a little less awful. Anton probably wasn’t going to be the one who fucked him.

‘A medical exam?’ Anton said, and then he sighed. ‘We don’t like to do them so soon, but you’re really sick, Ef. You smell a lot like chemicals and poisons, so you’ve been given something, or a lot of things, but your parents didn’t pack any meds for you or tell us anything. That’s not a good situation to be in. That’s really serious.’

Efnisien stared at Anton for a long time. His golden eyes were pretty. It was an eye colour that only alphas had, but it wasn’t common. Efnisien looked to the side, where he’d seen the kangaroo, he wondered if he’d hallucinated it.

Lubricant made his ass cheeks slide together as he shifted on the forest floor, and he pressed his lips together as his chest heaved in revulsion.

‘Yeah,’ Efnisien said finally. ‘I understand blood-tests. But they didn’t have to- They didn’t-’ Crielle’s alpha directive was so strong that it took a long time for his body to understand the directive didn’t apply to anything that was being done to him now, if Crielle wasn’t doing it. He stayed stuck, staring ahead, and Anton watched him the way Dr Gary had watched him the night before, when Efnisien had passed out in the bathroom.

‘They didn’t have to what?’ Anton said.

‘They didn’t have to put fingers inside me,’ Efnisien said finally.

Anton took a breath, and then his shoulders squared. A scent in the air, so strong Efnisien turned and gagged helplessly, even though he couldn’t tell what it was. Fucking pheromones.

‘Sorry,’ Anton said quickly. ‘Sorry. You even react to pheromone expression like an alpha, don’t you? I’m not doing it to hurt you.’

Efnisien panted to catch his breath, wrapping his arms around his knees even harder. The scent was diminishing, but it was still present.

‘Did they do an internal exam?’ Anton said slowly.

Efnisien nodded.

‘Right,’ Anton said. ‘Okay. Shit, that’s not okay. I’m sure they had their reasons, but that’s way too soon. So you ran away. Did you hurt anyone?’

Efnisien shook his head. He didn’t know why Anton would believe him. Especially after the way he’d lied to Enris and Kadek about being some poor omega in order to get his way.

‘Here’s the thing,’ Anton said. ‘There’s limited options right now. Like it or not, your family won’t take you back at the moment. So we have to rule that one out. I know you’d be more comfortable at home, but that’s not something you can have, and we don’t have any control over it. We can’t turf you out or let you leave, because we’re in the middle of nowhere and because you’re hurt pretty badly, and you’re sick. I wouldn’t let an omega go in those circumstances, but I wouldn’t let a beta or an alpha go in those circumstances either, even if they used persuasion on me.’

Anton was resting back on his hands and didn’t seem to care that the dirt and leaf litter was touching him. The ground was so dark. Even though the trunks of the trees were grey-pale and silvery, the forest floor was dark brown, nearly black, and almost spongy.

‘So you can’t go home, and you can’t leave under your own steam,’ Anton said. ‘Why don’t you at least stay until you’re stabilised? It’ll be easier to negotiate then, and maybe your family will be open to taking you back. I know I make it sound like a question, but the fact is, that is your only option. It’s not what you want, which sucks, and I’m going to talk to Dr Gary about some stuff after all of this, because he’s shit at being a companion, isn’t he? But aside from that, you have to come back with me, we have to go back. At some point. Maybe in another few minutes.’

‘So you’re the fuckhead who manipulates people but in a nice tone of voice,’ Efnisien said dully. ‘You still rape omegas.’

Anton stared up at the canopy for a long time. ‘If you weren’t so dangerous, I’d get you to talk to Flitmouse. But I don’t think he’d like you very much anyway. And, honestly, with how some of the rehab facilities run, what can I say? It happens. Omegas get raped.’

‘Here too. Just because you brainwash them into thinking it’s what they want, or their heats take their ability to know their minds away, doesn’t mean you don’t rape them. You get paid to do that. Paid. I hope one of them kills you in your sleep. But it’s not like an omega to do that, is it? So maybe I have to.’

‘I guess your other option is just murdering people until you go to jail,’ Anton said flippantly. ‘If anyone could do it, you could. You’re off to a great start.’

‘Kadek’s not dead,’ Efnisien snapped.

He leaned his head back against the tree and wished he’d stop shaking. He was so fucking weak. This was ridiculous. All that time in the gym, and for fucking what? Gwyn didn’t even need to go, and he’d have muscle, the genetically blessed asshole.

‘Dr Gary told me I’d be raped to death in prison.’

‘He said that, did he?’ Anton said, and Efnisien thought his tone was friendly enough, but there was something dangerous in it.

‘I guess so I wouldn’t become an alpha serial killer while I’m here or something.’

‘Ef, you really don’t look well. Let’s go back together, yeah? You can hate on me all the way back.’

‘Back where? Am I going back to a cell?’

‘A cell? Oh. Uh, no. I’m taking you back to Dr Gary’s.’

‘The alarm’s going to go off again,’ Efnisien said, lifting his pants leg and showing the ankle monitor.

‘We’ll sort that out.’

‘I don’t want another medical exam,’ Efnisien said.

‘How would an alpha react in this situation?’ Anton said, looking at Efnisien with an unwavering gaze. It was disconcerting.

‘The way I am,’ Efnisien said.

‘Then how would an alpha with good comportment react in this situation?’

Efnisien turned it over and realised that an alpha would probably…do what was best for himself in the moment, and Anton was right, running away wasn’t an option right now. He forced himself upright shakily, wobbling back against the tree, hissing in disgust when Anton reached out.

‘Just making sure you don’t fall over.’

‘I’m not going to fall over,’ Efnisien said.

Anton didn’t look so sure.

‘The trees are really smooth,’ Efnisien said, his fingertips pressing to the bark behind him. He didn’t know why he kept saying stupid shit, but he’d never felt sensations like this either. The trunk was cool, Efnisien could imagine the colour even though he had his back to it, and it was hard to believe that something so cold could be pumping water all the way up to the canopy in a tree that was nearly one hundred metres tall.

‘Were you sick like this all the time back home?’ Anton said. He took one step away from Efnisien and then gestured like he wanted him to follow.

Efnisien felt dizzy and wrong inside, he wanted to shake his head, but he knew that would make everything tilt around, so he took a messy breath and followed Anton, who set a slow pace and seemed to know how to step through the forest to make sure they weren’t getting hit by the branches of bushes all the time.

He couldn’t answer the question. He opened his mouth and realised answering might reveal something about Crielle’s experiments and her science. The directive smacked up into his throat and over his tongue, a disgusting taste. He swallowed a few times.

It was strange remembering how quickly Dr Gary had stopped the medical exam once he’d seen Efnisien’s face, like crying was disturbing. And then Dr Gary had let him run away, and Efnisien knew Dr Gary could have for sure stopped him, easily, just by speaking. Maybe he secretly hoped Efnisien would disappear.

‘Your breathing sounds pretty damn ragged,’ Anton said. ‘Do you have asthma or anything?’

Efnisien couldn’t answer. Did he have asthma? He was just breathing. His chest was tired. That was all.

‘All quiet now, huh?’ Anton said. ‘Sure, sure, I get it.’

‘Fuck you,’ Efnisien said, wanting to lie down somewhere.

Anton looked over his shoulder at Efnisien and frowned at whatever he saw. ‘You sure you can get back under your own steam?’

‘Fucking…watch me,’ Efnisien managed, as they stepped out of the shelter of the forest back onto the mowed grass of Hillview. Dr Gary’s house wasn’t even that far away. Efnisien had barely penetrated the forest at all.

He saw Dr Gary there in front of his house, waiting for them, like he’d been expecting Anton and Efnisien all this time, and something small curled up inside of him. It was just like back home, somehow, but worse. So much worse. He couldn’t fight against a peak alpha, and he was tired of trying.

A spark in his mind snuffed out – he didn’t even miss it – and he focused on putting one foot in front of the other, his body sore and violated, his mind empty.

Chapter Text

‘I just need to have a quick chat with you,’ Anton said to Gary. Efnisien was back on the couch in his home and looked – not unsurprisingly – completely numb. Gary was still mentally cursing that he hadn’t noticed the directive until the worst possible moment. Kent stood in the doorway of his clinic after Efnisien had bolted, pulling his gloves off, staring at Gary with the expression of someone who wasn’t going to forgive him any time soon.

Gary let Efnisien go when he ran, because alpha persuasion would have made him obedient but terrified. There was no point. He was starting to think he was already acclimatised to it, the scent of Efnisien’s constant fear.

Even he wasn’t immune to the expression on Efnisien’s face when Gary had realised a directive was in play, and Efnisien couldn’t react properly to anything that was happening. It was an expression he associated with video footage of omegas in other facilities, but never Hillview. Not until now.

‘I don’t want to leave him unsupervised,’ Gary said to Anton, tilting his head towards Efnisien on the couch.

Efnisien’s shoulders were slumped, he hadn’t said a word, he didn’t even seem to care that Polly was sitting a metre away from him.

‘Yeah, he has the ankle monitor,’ Anton said. ‘He’ll be fine. Let’s just go to your office quickly, okay?’

Gary looked at Anton for a long time, considered Efnisien, then sighed and nodded. He’d decided Anton was the better choice to find Efnisien after he’d bolted, even though it meant putting Anton in danger. He’d spent the last twenty minutes pacing his lounge, wondering if another alpha of his was about to end up in an intensive care unit. It didn’t seem likely, but he’d seen the way Efnisien had raked his gaze over the surgical instruments.

The boy was always looking for a way out, or a weapon. He wished he could put Efnisien away somewhere for a while and think everything over properly.

When he got into his home office, Anton closed the door, and Gary waited. He knew Anton was angry, his scent was up, and he’d stayed close to Efnisien after returning, watching Gary like he was the imminent threat.

‘Where do you keep your published copies of your books?’ Anton said, looking around the room. ‘Ah, there we are.’

He walked over to the shelf where Gary kept his author proofs and other published copies and studied them.

‘You gave him an internal exam,’ Anton said, staring at the titles, running his fingers along the spines. ‘You didn’t even wait 24 hours. What were you hoping to achieve? Did you think you’d assault him into submission?’

‘His lare glands have been removed, he could be dying. We had to know what was happening.’

‘Without sedation?’ Anton said, looking over his shoulder, black eyebrows arching.

‘He’s resistant, and we don’t think it’s safe.’

‘So you’re paying lip service to the idea of keeping his physical body safe, but not his mental or emotional state?’

Gary leaned back against his heavy wooden desk and looked out towards the sea. He had a view in his office. He wished he was on the beach right now. Instead, he was vaguely concerned that Efnisien might snap and try and hurt his dog. They had no news from the hospital, it was infuriating.

Kadek was one of the newer hires, he’d only graduated two omegas, but he was friendly and likeable, and he’d left his old job because the rehabilitation facility had been too brutal to omegas. Now he’d found himself a job where omegas were too brutal to him.

‘Just fuck him now,’ Anton said, ‘if you want to break him.’

He slid a book out of the bookshelf. Gary wasn’t sure which one it was.

‘Where are your pens?’ Anton said.

Gary pointed to a pen holder, and Anton walked over – close enough that Gary had to make eye contact and hold it – and Anton looked away first, as he always did. But he had a pen, he had a book.

‘He’s under a directive,’ Gary said. ‘A directive that stops him from communicating what he’s been through, what meds he used to take, even if he’s in pain. There was no struggle during the exam. I though some of it might be dissociation, but not like that.’

‘Mmhm.’ Anton flicked through the pages of the book, pausing on a few of them, looking over the words. Then he looked up. ‘A directive?’

‘I’ve never seen anything so severe,’ Gary said, looking back towards the beach. ‘I’ve seen directives over the course of my training, but they almost always have started late in an omega’s life, and they wear off fairly quickly. Going by the cryptic nature of Efnisien’s case and how difficult it’s been to get information… I think the directive is so far-reaching it may have been issued repeatedly over a period of years.’

‘Shit,’ Anton said. ‘Oh, shit! That’s why he didn’t answer any of my questions about his health. He was talking right up until that part.’

‘Was he?’ Gary said, unsure why that annoyed him. Perhaps because talking to Efnisien felt like pulling teeth.

‘He just wants to go home, man.’ Anton flicked back to the front of the book and uncapped the pen, then began almost violently circling a whole page. Gary couldn’t see what it said from where he was. ‘Anyway, who’s your supervisor?’

‘Pardon me?’

‘Well, all the companions have supervisors, someone to report to on a regular basis, whether it’s you or Temsen or Augus. So who’s yours?’

‘I don’t think I need-’

‘You medically raped him within 24 hours and you’re telling me you don’t need a supervisor? Do you remember any of the protocols you wrote up for us? For this facility? What about the shit that you’ve toured around the world, to all these different conferences? All these protocols you recommend for ground-breaking omega rehab centres? You remember any of that?’

‘Anton,’ Gary said darkly, and he expected Anton to back down, instead Anton planted his feet and his posture stiffened.

‘You need a supervisor,’ Anton said, his eyes flashing. ‘And if it can’t be Temsen, and it’s not Augus, then it might as well be me. Because you need to report to someone. You’re not a manager, right now, Dr Gary. You’re a companion. Like it or not, that’s what you are! You have a basic but challenging job right now, which is to make a scared omega feel safe and validated. And instead you keep doing the opposite! Over and over again. Like, tell me I’m lying, did you tell him he’d be raped to death in a prison?’

Gary almost winced. That was not one of his finer moments.

‘Kadek could still die,’ Gary said.

‘Yeah, it sucks. You think I don’t know that? Our units are connected by our offices, it’s been him and me for years now in that duplex, and I like him a lot. You think I’m not calling the hospital every few hours, annoying the staff? You hired him, but we share a building. We’re in each other’s scents most days.’

Gary couldn’t think of what to say. He’d been so busy considering the facility as a whole, and the potential loss of Kadek, that he hadn’t stopped to think about how Anton might be feeling about it. Anton and Enris were the ones who found Efnisien, they had both experienced his alpha persuasion, and Anton had seen everything Gary had, except that Anton had been by Kadek’s side longer, trying to stabilise him the entire time.

‘With all due respect,’ Anton said, taking a breath, ‘this is about you not wanting to do this job. I can’t believe I had to have this conversation with Efnisien and now I have to have it with you, but you don’t have any other choices right now, Dr Gary. Just like he’s wishing he could go home, or thinking about escaping, you’re wishing he could go somewhere else, and I don’t even think you’re intending to bond with him. But you took him into your home, and this is a rehabilitation centre, and you’re all we have right now to be his companion. You have to step up.’

Anton walked over to him, and Gary stared – amazed, impressed, frustrated – as Anton shoved the open book into Gary’s chest, leaving him no choice but to catch it before it fell to the floor.

Anton dropped the pen on Gary’s table.

‘How about you read your own writing for once and listen to it? You expect us to live by these standards, and I believe in those values. How about you try?’

‘I don’t appreciate-’

‘You’re treating him worse than some of the alphas in other centres treat their omegas,’ Anton said, stepping back and shaking his head. ‘Medical exams with internals that fast? Zero sedation? Look, I know you’re worried he might die, so am I! He’s obviously really fucking sick. But I don’t think all the trauma and the fear is helping.’

Gary thought this was all rather unfair, actually, given he was running on zero sleep. He looked down at the page Anton had circled in his own book and felt heavy when he realised what it was.

Anton certainly had a way of making a point.

‘I know you’re going to struggle with bonding,’ Anton said slowly, ‘and maybe you can’t do it. I’ve heard some of the rumours.’

Gary glared at him, and Anton didn’t just look away, his whole body turned aside, and then he stepped backwards. Gary was in no mood to hear about rumours from his past, about James, about any of it. He certainly didn’t need it from an alpha he managed.

‘But just because you can’t bond,’ Anton said to the bookshelf, ‘doesn’t mean you can’t be a human being to him. For fuck’s sake. Stop punishing him for being terrified and different. Maybe it’s also on you that this situation happened, accepting an omega with so little history given, because the money looked good.’

Gary didn’t need to say anything then, Anton must have realised, because he held his hands up and shook his head.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. That was too far. But you need to take some real responsibility here. You need a supervisor. It might as well be me, because I’m supervised by Temsen, not you. And I know I’m not trained to be a supervisor, but you need to debrief with someone and at least Efnisien talks to me. You said yourself I’d probably make a good advisor one day.’

Gary sighed and Anton faced him again.

‘Wednesday, 6pm, that’s your appointment with me,’ Anton said. ‘It can be over the phone, but don’t be late.’

‘I need to check my sch-’

‘Wednesday, 6pm,’ Anton said again, obviously galvanised by an alpha’s protective instinct. ‘And yeah, while you’re at it, check your schedule and clear some of the shit you have stacked into it. That kid needs you, even if he hates you. No matter what happens down the track, you both only have a single choice here. So make it. Never ever thought I’d see this behaviour from you. Ever. Kadek’s one of my closest mates, Dr Gary, and even I’m over it. That boy is scared. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an omega of my own to check up on. And you have one to pull back from the brink. Try and be the guy who wrote that book, okay?’

Anton opened the door and closed it behind him. Gary looked down at the page and saw the paragraph Anton had underlined messily, about ten times, even though he’d also circled the whole page of guiding principles for alpha companions.

1. Omegas are human beings with a right to autonomy like anyone else, and it is the core responsibility of alphas in rehabilitation facilities to use their strength from a position of compassion, validation, and fair guidance, leading an omega towards self-directed happiness, growth or satisfaction.

Anton had also underlined the word compassion so much it was hardly visible anymore.

Gary closed the book and put it on the table. He was impressed Anton had managed to stand up to him for that long, because Gary wasn’t in the mood, and he knew his pheromones had kicked up towards the end.

A supervisor.

Well, it wasn’t a bad idea, but it rankled. Gary had no intention of becoming a companion after he realised what it entailed many years ago, and he was forced into it now.

Anton was right though. Much like Efnisien, he kept thinking of his other options when there weren’t any. He didn’t want Efnisien to die. He couldn’t kill him. He couldn’t take him back to his family home – especially not now, knowing about the directive and the medical experimentation. There were no other companions and Gary didn’t have the time to vet a new peak alpha hire, because they were rare, and not often suited to the job of companionship. That was why only one peak alpha of the three that worked at Hillview could handle being a companion.

Two now.

Gary sighed and patted the front of his book a couple of times and left it on the table. He exited his office, not knowing what to expect.

Perhaps he should have expected Efnisien in exactly the same position, not having moved at all. He opened his mouth to say something, and his phone rang in his pocket. He picked it up and answered that instead. Efnisien didn’t even seem to register that anything had changed.

‘Yes?’ he said.

‘I’m working up a bundle of meds that I think are safe for him to take,’ Kent said. ‘I think he needs them ASAP. I’ll send them down with Lachlan, so you can try and get some food into him. I’ve got anti-emetics in there too. All in pill form. I don’t think he’ll have a problem, since I’m sure the directive extends to taking medicine without complaint.’

‘Yes,’ Gary said, nodding. ‘I agree. How far away are the meds?’

‘About an hour. If there’s any issues, I think we might have to admit this is beyond us and get him to a hospital.’

‘All right.’

‘I’m putting in ardolphogen. There’s no way he’ll be able to survive going cold turkey off that without larentin in his system to help. And you saw that ardolphogen level on the blood-test. We’ll wean him down. I can’t get the amount he was taking anyway; this will practically exhaust our supplies. He’s an expensive little thing, isn’t he?’

‘Charge the family,’ Gary said coldly.

‘Will do,’ Kent said. ‘Go easy on him. Don’t try and break the directive.’

‘Yes, Kent, I wasn’t born yesterday, thank you.’

Gary hung up. He was behaving immaturely, but he had no intention of trying to break a directive like that. He’d seen and scented Efnisien’s reaction when they’d tested the strength of it. No wonder he turned so placid and silent around the subject of medicine and health.

He walked over to the kitchen – where Polly joined him, hoping for a treat – and poured two glasses of water. He got a liver treat from the jar and absently gave one to Polly, rubbing her ear while she gazed adoringly up at him.

He put the glass of water down on the coffee table for Efnisien and then contemplated sitting in his armchair. Finally he decided to sit on the couch by Efnisien, not close enough to touch, but not at the opposite end either. Efnisien didn’t seem to be looking at anything. He could have been unconscious while awake, he was so expressionless, except that he blinked on occasion.

‘I didn’t realise you were under an alpha directive,’ Gary said quietly. ‘And you had no way of telling me that you were. They’re quite rare. Hopefully over the next few days we can find some loopholes, some ways of talking around it. But I don’t plan on directly challenging it again. I know that was painful for you, and it’s not productive or useful to do that again. The only reason I used alpha persuasion at all was to be sure it was a directive.’

Efnisien didn’t react. Gary didn’t even know if Efnisien was hearing him.

He reached out and felt Efnisien’s forehead. It was hot and clammy. Even his hair was damp at the roots.

‘We’re putting together some medication for you,’ Gary said. ‘You had extremely high levels of synthetic ardolphogen, so we’ll be supplementing this for you, even though it’s something we’re hoping to wean you off of over time.’

Nothing.

Gary wished Efnisien would swear at him, even look for a weapon. This blankness was disturbing, but Gary wasn’t shocked by it. They’d pushed a traumatised omega into more trauma, and everyone had their breaking point.

Polly nosed Efnisien’s leg, and he moved it out of the way. It was the only sign of movement they’d had so far.

‘She really won’t hurt you,’ Gary said. ‘I understand your experience of dogs has been different until now, but some dogs can’t be mean, and she’s one of them. It doesn’t matter who you are, or what you’ve done. You could kill a hundred people or more and she’d still try to be your friend.’

It was a surprise when Efnisien looked down and seemed to contemplate Polly.

‘Are there kangaroos out there?’ Efnisien said. ‘In the…forest?’

Gary looked sideways at the section of forest Anton and Efnisien had emerged from.

‘Yes,’ Gary said. ‘In fact it’s only a matter of time before you see them on the grounds. They enjoy the grass a lot.’

‘I thought I’d hallucinated it,’ Efnisien said, voice flat.

‘You saw a kangaroo?’

‘It was smaller than I thought. Compared to ones I’ve seen online.’

‘You’ve never seen one in person?’

Gary thought that was odd, but it was just one of many odd things that were starting to come together to form an uncomfortable picture in Gary’s mind. The home-schooling instead of sending him to an omega creche or academy. The way Efnisien believed all dogs were mean and was terrified of Polly and asked about guard dogs. The way he’d asked about the texture of the tree bark.

‘No,’ Efnisien said dully. ‘It was small. Maybe it wasn’t real.’

‘Female grey kangaroos are small,’ Gary said. ‘Especially if they’re younger. The males can be twice their size. But they’re all smaller than red kangaroos. They shelter in the forest during the day, I’m sure it wasn’t a hallucination.’

He wasn’t sure at all, Efnisien was certainly feverish enough. Gary decided water, food and medication, rest and then a shower were important, probably in that order.

‘Drink some water,’ Gary said.

Efnisien didn’t reach for the glass, but he looked at it. He licked at his lips and Gary could see they were tacky and dry. He almost forced the issue and was relieved when Efnisien picked up the glass with a trembling hand. He needed both hands to drink, but he polished off the water. Gary would have to get him more.

‘Thank you,’ Gary said.

‘Didn’t do it for you.’

That dull, mean-spirited voice, but he’d much rather have this. He thought of Anton’s words, and he thought of the principles he’d penned in his own book. Compassion. Validation. Guidance.

Tedious.

‘Efnisien,’ Gary said, ‘I’m not a trained companion. I’m a manager of a facility and an academic, and much of my time is spent travelling or teaching, between running supervisory sessions here. We have no other companions spare right now, but-’

‘-Because I tried to kill the nice one,’ Efnisien said. ‘That’s what you said.'

‘Yes,’ Gary said, then looked at Polly as he thought of the varying cruel things he’d said. ‘Well, the reality is that you couldn’t have safely bonded with Kadek anyway, being capable of alpha persuasion as you are. It leaves only me in this facility. Anton has requested to be my supervisor. You don’t seem to mind him?’

‘Yeah,’ Efnisien said, laughing under his breath. ‘He’s the nice rapist.’

This was familiar ground. It wasn’t uncommon for omegas to feel this way, if they were able to have any concept of rape at all, since many were educated in such a way where they didn’t even know consent existed.

‘He’s worried about you,’ Gary said. ‘We all are. You’re quite sick.’

‘I wasn’t sick at home.’

‘I think you may have been,’ Gary said. ‘Obviously you’re sicker now, but it’s possible there are certain things you’re used to, that aren’t actually normal. I doubt you can talk about much of it. But it’s concerning that you weren’t brought to us with all the medication you need. We’re going to give you some today. Hopefully you’ll feel a bit better after that. But you’ll have to eat some food with the medicine. It can’t be taken on an empty stomach.’

That might not be completely true, but Gary didn’t care. Efnisien needed to eat.

‘Will it be that custard again?’ Efnisien said.

Despite the reaction Efnisien had in the morning, with his gut rebelling, the boy sounded hopeful.

‘You liked it?’ Gary said.

Efnisien didn’t say anything, and Gary took that as confirmation, because he was beginning to suspect that an omega that had been forced to eat protein all his life probably hadn’t been allowed much choice in the matter of food.

He wondered if Efnisien could talk about it. That directive was huge, and now that Gary knew what it was, he suspected he could feel the massive size and breadth of it through Efnisien. He’d need to do some further reading, but most of the research on omegas under directives came from the decades when it was still legal to put omegas under directives for the sake of science. Gary wasn’t sure he’d find anything on directives reinforced to this degree.

He stood and picked up Efnisien’s glass of water and refilled it, then made himself another espresso, staring at the dark liquid dripping into the small red cup. Efnisien didn’t move. The only sign that he was alive and not a statue was the shallow rise and fall of his chest, his breathing still too fast even now.

After everything he’d seen, all the horror stories, every narrative of abuse from the omegas that had come through Hillview, he’d never heard of a single omega with their lare glands surgically removed. Some were sick and had underactive or shrivelled lares that recovered with time, but for them to be completely removed, along with the Kaeper glands?

Efnisien was genetically an omega, but chemically they had no idea what he was. Gary thought it would make for a fascinating case study, if not for the frozen, dissociated boy on the couch in his house, looking like his life had just ended.

Chapter Text

Gary came back to the couch and sat beside Efnisien. He put the refreshed glass of water on the coffee table, gave Polly a quick scratch behind the ear and then looked towards the windows.

He’d told Faber not to come in today, because he’d been worried for his wellbeing. He wasn’t sure what his personal assistant could do in a situation like this anyway. The beta was vulnerable to Efnisien’s alpha persuasion. Gary would have to get in touch with him by the end of the day, but it was one more thing he didn’t want to deal with.

He put his own glass of water down next to Efnisien’s, then reached for him easily, noting the tension as he pulled him closer. But Efnisien didn’t fight him, didn’t even bite like he had the day before.

Gary missed the fire but given he and Kent were the ones to douse it, he only had himself to blame.

He moved so his back was half against the armrest, half against the back of the couch, and shifted Efnisien easily, so his back was against Gary’s chest. He still had no idea what Efnisien’s true scent was. Maybe he didn’t even have one. No Kaeper or lare glands meant probably no larentin, which meant…could he make any kind of scent at all? Gary just picked up nondescript terror, the same reek everyone had when they were afraid.

One arm around Efnisien’s side, and he felt the way Efnisien was limp but resistant at the same time. He never fully sank back, even though he didn’t fight.

‘How’s your shoulder?’ Gary asked. The brace had stayed secure, and Efnisien hadn’t taken it off, not during or after running.

‘It’s…not as bad,’ Efnisien said. ‘The thing around it…’

‘The brace,’ Gary said.

‘It’s helping.’

‘Good. That’s good to hear.’

Gary passed a hand over Efnisien’s forehead and felt how hot it was. He closed his eyes, then found it hard to open them again. He was so tired. He ran on fumes most of the time anyway.

‘Are you going to fuck me now?’ Efnisien said.

The question was jarring.

‘No,’ Gary said. ‘Stop asking.’

‘You’re going to fuck me at some point. Just do it already.’

‘You’re not my type.’

‘Alphas can fuck anything. I bet you’d still be able to fuck someone who wasn’t your type.’

Gary sighed, his breathing slowing. He was exhausted. Having a warm body against his was nice, and Efnisien was sinking back in increments. Perhaps relaxing because of the skin contact against his forehead, over his scalp. Touch did work. Maybe a peak alpha used to soothe him in the past.

‘I’m already lubricated,’ Efnisien said. ‘You could just do it.’

Gary’s eyes opened and he stared ahead.

Guilt was not an emotion he felt often, and he loathed it when it came, burrowing into him, eating him from the inside. It had been hovering around, but it sank deeper like an infection.

‘Go on,’ Efnisien said.

Efnisien wasn’t fighting him physically, but his words were disdainful despite his terror. There was something deeply spiteful about Efnisien, and Gary – even though he shouldn’t – liked it. He sounded like an alpha that knew another alpha had won but couldn’t resist back-talking. The fact that he just kept on doing it… Most omegas would stop after one or two jabs if they dared to do that much. Efnisien kept on going until he was stopped, or until he saw sense.

‘If I fuck you,’ Gary said, tugging on Efnisien’s hair a few times, ‘it will be in the future, either because of a heat, or some other reason. It won’t be for no reason at all, after a medical exam where we’ve just discovered you can’t self-lubricate. I don’t even know if you can have heats at all.’

‘I can’t,’ Efnisien said. ‘Because I’m not an omega.’

His voice was dull and flat. He sounded so tired. Gary wished they could both sleep right now, until the food came.

‘Efnisien-’

‘I’m not an omega.’

‘Despite-’

‘-You said that-’

Gary calmly placed his hand over Efnisien’s mouth, fingers digging in at Efnisien’s cheek.

He would allow even an alpha to talk back to him a little, but enough was enough. He certainly didn’t permit interruptions.

‘It’s time to be quiet,’ Gary said. ‘Perhaps you can let me reflect on all the things I’ve done wrong today. Like that internal exam. We shouldn’t have done it. I apologise.’

Efnisien froze, he shifted like he was going to look at Gary, but Gary tightened his hand over Efnisien’s mouth and kept him in place. No, this was comfortable, they could stay just like this while Gary closed his eyes again and took a deep breath through his nose, sighing it out. He needed sleep. Maybe when he woke up, Kadek would be miraculously okay, and Efnisien would be…

Well, still here and sick and distressed and a mess.

I liked my life before you came along, Gary thought towards Efnisien.

He might have been overworked before Efnisien arrived at Hillview, but at least he had control over it.

‘This directive you’re under,’ Gary said, noting with distaste how Efnisien’s muscles tensed. ‘Be quiet now. I’m not going to use any alpha persuasion. I just want to ask some questions. I don’t expect you to be able to answer all of them, but I’d like you to try answering some so we can find ways to make you more comfortable while you’re here.’

Efnisien squirmed a few more times and then settled, shuddering. Gary carefully moved his hand away from Efnisien’s mouth, feeling shallow breaths against his damp palm.

‘Does it apply to anything we do at the facility? Future medical tests or exams conducted by us?’

‘I don’t…think so.’

‘You can’t tell me who gave you the directive?’

No response.

‘Can you tell me if it was more than one directive?’

No response.

‘Does the directive cover what you used to eat or drink?’

A hesitation, and then: ‘Um, no?’

‘Good, good,’ Gary said. It was true Efnisien had admitted he mostly ate protein, but Gary wanted to check if Efnisien would answer him. He couldn’t stop thinking of the way Anton had said Efnisien talked easily enough with him until the directive came up.

‘Does the directive cover where you slept?’

‘No.’

‘Your schooling?’

‘No.’

‘What about your meds and your medicine schedule?’

Silence.

‘All right,’ Gary said. ‘Can you tell me if you’re in pain due to procedures you’ve had in the past? You said it hurt earlier when I touched your Kaeper glands.’

‘Um, only…in certain circumstances,’ Efnisien said. ‘Like…’ He cleared his throat, and Gary realised Efnisien was fighting with the directive even now and tugged on his hair to hopefully keep him concentrating and above its pressure. ‘Like outside.’

‘It’s location specific?’ Gary said, and something clicked into place. ‘Can you say you’re in pain in a clinic?’

Silence.

‘Can you say you’re in pain outside of a clinic?’

‘I think so,’ Efnisien said. ‘Sometimes. But who cares?’

‘Are you in pain now?’

‘Yeah,’ Efnisien said.

Gary pitched his voice lower and modulated it. ‘Efnisien, are you always in pain?’

Efnisien fell silent, but Gary wasn’t sure it was the directive, and he kept his eyes closed and wondered what they could do about the situation.

‘You mentioned wanting to talk to your cousin earlier, do you know his number?’

‘I think so,’ Efnisien said. ‘I’m pretty sure.’

‘All right. If you make a good show of eating what you can stomach, and take the meds, you can call him.’

Efnisien was quiet again, and Gary stroked his damp hair away from the sides of his face and where it clung to his ears. It was going to be impossible to keep an eye on him all the time. 24-hour surveillance wasn’t realistic. Efnisien had run but also returned. He hadn’t harmed Anton. He didn’t hurt Polly or try to escape again when Anton had lectured Gary in his office.

What were they going to do about sleep? Showers? The bathroom? Gary had felt monstrous opening the bathroom door in the morning while Efnisien had suffered through diarrhea, even though he’d also thought of his nail file and the other sharp objects he had in there that could be used as weapons for harm or self-harm. Efnisien couldn’t shower on his own, simply because the risk of collapse on slippery tiles was too high.

They needed to find clothing that actually fit him. He couldn’t live in scrubs, and none of the other omegas were his size. Maybe one of the smaller alphas? Or could he get Enris to drive to Margaret River or even Busselton and find something there?

Gary continued to think it all over, chasing circles in his mind, sometimes coming up with solutions, mostly generating more worries. In spite of himself, the lack of sleep caught up with him, and he fell into a doze, his arm around Efnisien’s torso, his hand in Efnisien’s hair.

*

Gary woke with a jerk – eyes flying open – to a knock at the door.

A glimmer of alarm, because Efnisien wasn’t against him anymore. But Efnisien was still right there, he’d moved away and was sitting almost exactly where he’d been before on the couch, still within reach. He watched Gary warily, his blue eyes stained red from the crying he’d done earlier.

‘That will be the food and the meds,’ Gary said, his brain catching up to what time it was. He couldn’t believe he’d fallen asleep. His life had been in danger. It wasn’t like him.

He walked to the door and Lachlan was there, holding a container of medicine with instructions from Kent, and large containers of food balanced on top of each other.

‘Made you something too, Dr Gary,’ Lachlan said. ‘I’ve got a cooler out here with some more for later. I’m off roster tonight.’

‘Thank you, Lachlan,’ Gary said, taking the box of medicine, the containers, and putting them down on the kitchen counter. He came back and Lachlan was already patting Polly all over as she stood there and wiggled her whole body happily. Lachlan only stopped stroking her to pass Gary the cooler, and Gary took the bag to the counter and Polly didn’t even follow despite the promise of food.

When Gary returned to the door for the last time, Lachlan straightened and looked past him in a way that made it clear he wanted to see the new omega.

‘Lachlan, can you make a note to the staff that Efnisien needs more protein in his diet than the average omega?’

Lachlan pulled his attention back and nodded, looking curious, but not pushing for more information.

‘Also, what do you recommend for an upset stomach?’ Gary said.

‘There’s miso in the thermos,’ Lachlan said. ‘It might help. I noticed he didn’t eat much last night, so there’s some plainer foods, and more of the chawanmushi. If you want to give him more protein today, you can give him some of yours if you like. But I’ll also leave a note with the staff.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Should I tell the staff you’ll be here more than you’ll be at the office in the future?’

Gary didn’t want to agree to that at all. Sleeping for about an hour had only served to remind him how tired he really was. He couldn’t afford to give up his job for this situation, especially when the whole of Hillview was his job. He was meant to be flying out to a conference in a week and a half. He had online meetings with clinicians from around the world. He had supervisor meetings this afternoon, a broader alpha meeting tomorrow morning, he had parents and spouses to call and reassure, he had to call the hospital.

He needed Faber to look at his schedule. He needed to know he could leave Efnisien somewhere and not worry that another staff would end up in emergency.

‘Leave that for now, Lachlan,’ Gary said finally.

‘Yep, whatever you like, Dr Gary. See you later, then.’ Lachlan tipped an invisible cap to Polly. ‘And good-day to you, Miss.’

Gary closed the door and walked back to the kitchen counter. Efnisien still hadn’t moved. The second glass of water was empty. Gary had no idea if Efnisien would go to the bathroom if he needed to – like he had in the morning when it had been an emergency – or if he’d soil himself again. He didn’t know what to expect, the lack of predictability chafed.

‘I’m going to organise lunch and look over your meds,’ Gary said, finding it interesting the way Efnisien sometimes looked straight at him, and other times completely averted his gaze like he was now. He was still sweaty and clammy, his hands shook. He did too good a job of simply not speaking about how awful he felt. ‘Feel free to go to the bathroom and wash up. No showers though. For now, your showers should be supervised for your own safety.’

‘But…I can use the bathroom otherwise?’ Efnisien said, sounding horribly hopeful.

‘Yes,’ Gary said. ‘Just keep in mind that privileges can be revoked if you decide to break trust.’

Efnisien stood, took a few tentative steps towards the corridor that led to the bathroom and then hesitated.

‘Have you heard about Kadek?’ he said.

‘No,’ Gary said. He almost left it there, then reluctantly added: ‘No news is generally good news in these instances.’

‘Oh,’ Efnisien said. ‘Is that how hospitals work?’

Gary kept carefully pouring miso soup into a bowl for Efnisien and folded that piece of information away like a piece of gold.

Is that how hospitals work?

Efnisien asked the question like he’d never been to one before. Gary assumed a statement like that would break the directive if he had been to a hospital before, but he also didn’t see how any of Efnisien’s procedures were possible without a hospital. He had so many questions, but if he drew attention to it all, Efnisien would shut down and the directive would take over.

‘Yes, generally,’ Gary said. ‘They tend to call when a patient is in decline, or when they’re moving off the ward, or when they’ve woken. Otherwise all the staff are just doing their jobs. They’re too busy to call if nothing has changed.’

‘Oh,’ Efnisien said. And then he took another step towards the corridor like he couldn’t believe Gary was letting him go. After that he disappeared into the bathroom. Gary heard the door close, but he didn’t hear the lock turn.

Gary told himself he wasn’t listening for familiar sounds, so he’d feel reassured, but he felt relieved when he heard the toilet flush, when he heard the sound of a sink tap running, when the door opened only about a minute later. Efnisien came back and then stopped because Polly had walked towards the entrance to the corridor and was waiting for him.

She wasn’t the kind of dog who’d ever been well-trained. Gary couldn’t send her away from Efnisien, and the boy would have to grow used to either ignoring her or learn to nudge her gently out of the way himself. Polly hadn’t even blocked him off.

‘Have you ever been bitten by dogs?’ Gary asked, assembling food on two different plates.

‘Yes,’ Efnisien said, looking down at Polly.

‘What happened?’

‘I got too close to the wall.’

Gary frowned in confusion, and then he looked up. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The An Fnwy Estate has a wall,’ Efnisien said, finally side-stepping around Polly as gingerly as possible, while she stared up at him adoringly and her tail thumped on the floor. ‘They bit me. I didn’t mean to get too close. I wasn’t even trying to escape. I wasn’t even near the gate.’

Careful, Gary thought. Carefully now. He had to gather information without being too direct at times like this. There were obviously things in Efnisien’s life he thought of as normal, that were extremely aberrant. But if Gary drew attention to how odd or strange they were, he knew Efnisien would lock up and stop talking.

‘That doesn’t seem fair,’ Gary said. ‘Were they sent away then when you were allowed beyond the walls?’

‘I didn’t go anywhere,’ Efnisien said. ‘There’s nowhere to go.’

‘How did you get here? The dogs would have to be sent away for that, wouldn’t they?’

‘I don’t know how I got here,’ Efnisien said, and he met Gary’s eyes in a way that wasn’t at all like an omega would. Even injured and constantly near collapse and weak, he stared a challenge, he wasn’t afraid to fight.

‘At any rate,’ Gary said calmly, not looking away, ‘you’re going to have to get used to Polly. Paired with another alpha, well, they wouldn’t even have a pet like I do. I’m here as a manager and administrator, and I live on-site. Other alphas live on-site here, but most don’t have pets. I never raised Polly with a view that one day I’d have to deal with this situation, and you are far more of a danger to her than she could ever be to you.’

Gary pointed to the small dining table where he expected them both to sit and watched in some satisfaction as Efnisien went without argument. It didn’t seem like omega obedience, but at least he was listening.

The number of pills ended up at about fifteen, though five of those tablets were multiple doses of ardolphogen. It seemed like far too many, and Kent had a huge list of adverse effects to look out for, those that needed immediate hospitalisation, those that could be monitored, those which would be expected. Kent was nothing if not comprehensive.

Gary brought over another glass of water for Efnisien for the pills, along with a plate of food.

‘There’s some chicken breast and salad,’ Gary said, ‘for protein. But I’d appreciate if you ate something starchy as well, it will help cushion your stomach from the harshness of this many meds.’

He watched as Efnisien picked up all of the tablets without questioning a single thing, and then downed all fifteen at once with a single small sip of water. Incredible. It had to be the directive. Would he take any pill put in front of him without knowing what it was? Without questioning what it would do to him?

‘There’s more chawanmushi too,’ Gary said.

Efnisien didn’t eat until Gary sat opposite him and ate the first mouthful, and then Efnisien ate the chawanmushi first, even before the chicken breast. After that, his appetite seemed to pick up and he ate a few pieces of chicken, and even managed about two bites of bread crust before he put his hands on his stomach like he was full.

Omegas were usually likely to pick out the soft part of the bread and leave the crusts behind, not appreciating the rougher texture. Gary wondered why Efnisien had eaten the crust first.

‘Are you done?’ he said.

‘It’s a lot of food,’ Efnisien said. ‘I don’t…feel well.’

‘Two of the tablets you were given are anti-emetics – they should stop you from throwing up and help with the nausea – so you might feel a bit hungrier tonight. Try some of the miso.’

Gary pointed to the bowl, and Efnisien looked at it with a scowl.

‘You’re such a peak alpha,’ Efnisien muttered, reaching for the bowl. The tone was almost scathing. But after everything, Gary wanted the anger. Normally he wouldn’t tolerate it for long, but seeing a crushed Efnisien was too disturbing, and he didn’t want to deal with it again any time soon.

They’d have to talk about that medical exam at some point. Gary wished he could pretend it had never happened. He couldn’t even promise it would never happen again.

Efnisien finished the miso, staring at it like he wanted more to appear, and then he looked up with wide eyes when Gary got up and fetched the thermos and brought it back, pouring more into the bowl for him.

‘Why don’t you have staff to do this stuff for you?’ Efnisien said, wrapping his hands around the bowl like he couldn’t quite believe he’d been given more.

‘Because I don’t need staff to do this stuff for me.’

‘That Faber guy,’ Efnisien said, proving he’d been conscious and aware enough to remember a great deal even while paralysed the day before. ‘What about him?’

‘He doesn’t live with me,’ Gary said. ‘He’s a personal assistant, he helps with administration at Hillview, and he helps with my schedule. He’s got a day off today.’

‘Wouldn’t it be easier to have personal staff?’

‘Why? Do you want a job?’

Efnisien fell silent, then his eyes narrowed. Gary could almost hear the swear words, though none came.

If someone could sip miso soup spitefully, Efnisien was managing it.

This ceasefire was temporary. Gary only hoped that Efnisien would realise that whatever violence he chose when he had the energy to inevitably choose it, had to be the kind of violence that wouldn’t send him to prison. In the back of his mind, he couldn’t help but imagine one of his other alphas on the floor of their office, bleeding out, this time already dead.

It really only took one more impulsive act from a person willing to make it.

He didn’t want to reconcile that with the fragile person in front of him, but he had to. Efnisien was capable of extreme violence, and Gary knew Kadek wouldn’t have aggressively provoked him into it. Efnisien had a plan from the beginning, from the way he’d manipulated Enris with tears, anxiety and fear. He seemed to have given the facade up pretty quickly, but Gary didn’t know what to trust, and because Efnisien was able to easily manipulate people emotionally while in that much pain and fear, he could do it again any time he chose in the future.

But Efnisien was starving. He was going through withdrawals. He was under a directive that changed his behaviour and his ability to communicate his distress to people. He was raised to be an alpha by a person – or people – who had abandoned him. He was sick. He was mutilated beyond surgical repair. Gary was becoming increasingly certain he’d been hidden from everyone and kept captive his entire life. Truly, there was nowhere left for him to go.

Perhaps Gary would also consider killing someone to escape terrifying new circumstances…

He needed to talk to Augus. Though realistically, if he even accepted Anton as a supervisor, he should talk to him about it as well. Anton also saw Kadek bleeding out, and he’d experienced Efnisien’s alpha persuasion firsthand.

Efnisien had finished the second cup of miso and was staring at his plate – still over half-full – like he didn’t know what to do with so much food.

‘I noticed you ran into the karri forest,’ Gary said, wondering if Efnisien was always going to tense like he was about to be hit when he heard a peak alpha talking. ‘Did you end up seeing if the bark was smooth?’

‘Yeah,’ Efnisien said. ‘It was.’

 ‘There’s a forest trail on the other side of the property, maybe we can walk through it one day.’

A wary expression. Efnisien glanced up, then looked away again. Absently, he picked up a piece of cucumber and ate it.

‘Can I have a shower?’ Efnisien said.

‘Did you clean up the lubricant earlier when you went to the bathroom?’ Gary said, thinking ahead. Efnisien cringed and just stared at him in disgust. ‘I’m assuming you did. How about we go for a walk first and you can see some more of the grounds, and then you can have a shower. Supervised.’

‘I can… We can look around?’ Efnisien said. His voice shook with a mixture of disbelief and hope. Even the scent of his fear had muted.

Gary felt a sly glimmer of satisfaction. Swapping out sticks for carrots was the way forward. He should have realised that from the beginning, but for now, he was going to ignore self-castigation in favour of something more practical.

‘Let’s find you some shoes, and go outside,’ Gary said.

Chapter Text

Twenty minutes after eating, Efnisien was – by some miracle – feeling less nauseous. One of those meds must have done something. He also thought he was sweating less. Maybe he was imagining things because Dr Gary wasn’t being awful to him.

His shoulder hurt, but because it was secured in place, he wasn’t moving in ways that were making it suddenly worse.

Dr Gary’s feet were bigger than his, which was an issue when it came to finding a pair of shoes. Efnisien put on two pairs of thick socks given to him by Dr Gary and the sneakers still didn’t fit properly. Polly at least was spending more time near Dr Gary now, like she’d realised Efnisien wasn’t going to be doing anything with her.

All the food here was the best he’d ever had. He didn’t know what all of it was, and it didn’t matter.

It had been weird earlier when Dr Gary had fallen asleep. Efnisien thought it had been a joke at first, then he’d slid away from the arm around his stomach, and watched Dr Gary sleeping, realising he could’ve gotten a knife from the knife block and killed him. He vividly imagined dragging it deeply across Dr Gary’s throat.

Instead, Efnisien just…watched him. That peak alpha presence dampened when he was asleep, when his eye contact wasn’t pinning people in place. He looked tired, even at rest, and he looked more like a person. Up close, the charcoal suit was rumpled, but still really nice.

Efnisien hadn’t expected Dr Gary to apologise to him over anything. Ever. And getting an apology that seemed sincere was something he couldn’t wrap his head around.

Now, he looked down at the sneakers and wondered when the rug would be pulled out from under him.

But the idea of being able to explore outside was too good to pass up.

‘Tomorrow,’ Dr Gary said, looking over Efnisien with a critical gaze, ‘I’ll send Faber to one of the towns to find you some clothing.’

Efnisien said nothing. He found that peak alphas tended to make statements and didn’t often expect conversation in turn. Crielle rarely wanted to hear him speak, and conversations with Gwyn could turn into violence quickly.

‘Also,’ Dr Gary said, taking out his phone, ‘before I forget. What’s your cousin’s phone number?’

Efnisien stared in disbelief.

‘Uh.’ It took a moment for his brain to start working, then he rattled out a number and corrected one of the digits.

Dr Gary handed him his phone. It had one of those shock-resistant covers in a nice woodgrain texture. Gwyn’s phone cover had the quote: If you think lifting is dangerous, try being weak, on it.

The phone rang, and Efnisien felt his heartrate shoot up, because he didn’t even know if Gwyn would accept a call from him, or if he-

‘What is it?’ Gwyn said.

‘Are you in the gym?’

‘I’m at cross-fit. What is it?’

Efnisien normally would have hung up. Interrupting Gwyn at cross-fit was a beating offence, and Gwyn’s friends were all assholes. He didn’t like to hear the kinds of things they said over the phone. But he couldn’t hear them now. Efnisien wondered if Gwyn had gone outside. He’d used his maps app to see the cross-fit gym a long time ago, so he knew what the outside of it looked like. There was a bedraggled tree, some dead grass, and a lot of bitumen.

‘Do you think…if you spoke to Crielle, that-’

‘No,’ Gwyn said. ‘No way. I already have your room. You’re dead to her.’

Efnisien thought he’d drop the phone, his hand felt so weak. He stood there and didn’t want to look at Dr Gary, who had been watching him the entire time.

‘Look, it’s shit. I think it was too soon. But…if that’s why you’re calling, it’s not happening. And she loves me, but she’s not going to listen to me when it comes to this. She already knows how I feel.’

Efnisien wanted to ask him about that, but the words stayed pressed down in his chest.

‘You have my room?’ Efnisien said. ‘Could you, um, send down some of my clothes? I didn’t- I don’t have anything.’

‘And? They’re rehabbing you into some perfect pussy bitch omega, right? Just go about naked.’

Efnisien gripped the phone harder.

‘Gwyn.’

‘I’m not sending your clothing down. That’d be a pain to organise. Whatever. Maybe in a month I’ll come visit. It’s nice down there. There’s some great hiking trails.’ A pause, and then Gwyn said: ‘I don’t know what she’s thinking. Who can you be married off to? No one’s going to take a mutant like you. You might be a shit alpha, but you’re not great at anything else either. She could’ve just kept you here.’

Efnisien struggled to take a full breath, if it wasn’t for the fact that he didn’t know when he’d hear Gwyn’s voice again, he would have hung up.

‘Do they even have a gym?’ Gwyn said, and then he laughed cruelly. ‘They’re going to make you fat and disgusting.’

‘No,’ Efnisien said slowly. ‘They won’t.’

‘You already sound different. Have they fucked you into being scared of everything yet? Who got to knot you first?’ Gwyn sounded strange then, almost angry.

‘No one,’ Efnisien said woodenly. ‘If you just talked to her-’

‘Dude,’ Gwyn snapped. A long silence. ‘She’s done. You know her. She’s not going to change her mind. She’s accepted the project as a failure and has moved onto other projects already.’

Efnisien turned away from Dr Gary. ‘The project.’ Gwyn meant him.

‘I know you don’t want to hear it,’ Gwyn added. ‘Like I said, it’s bad how it went down. But you know she didn’t even have to send you to a centre. You know that. Where you are now costs way more than a hole in the ground. You should be grateful. Anyway I’ve got to run, I need to keep up with my plyos.’

‘Okay.’

The phone-call ended, and Efnisien numbly handed the phone back to Dr Gary. He flinched when Dr Gary placed his hand on Efnisien’s shoulder.

‘Do you feel well enough to walk?’ Dr Gary said.

‘I guess,’ Efnisien said. ‘Whatever.’

‘If it’s too much, we can head back. Will you be able to tell me if the meds are causing any issues?’

Efnisien nodded.

They left. The alarm didn’t go off. It was cool outside, and it still smelled like the sea. Polly ran outside with them, and then immediately walked off to a tree nearby and peed beneath it. She then wandered off and started sniffing everything.

Dr Gary walked slowly, hands in his pockets, and he looked around with a kind of measured alertness. Not jumpy, but someone who was aware of what was going on. He stayed close to Efnisien. And when he took one of his hands out of his pockets, it was to place it at Efnisien’s lower back.

‘Will they send down some of your clothes?’ Dr Gary asked.

‘Probably not,’ Efnisien said. The grass was so healthy and lush, it had been nice to walk on barefooted. ‘How did you get this land? Was it a centre before?’

‘No,’ Dr Gary said. ‘All the buildings you see were constructed fresh when I came along. Well, I suppose they’re old now, but they were built when I acquired the land. It used to be a secluded and high-end holiday location with self-contained lodges. I was going to keep them, but the lodges were old, and we needed new bathrooms, new kitchens. It has about seventy staff, though a lot of the staff are caterers, cooks, groundskeepers, maintenance, nurses and caretakers.’

Efnisien said nothing. He felt strange making conversation at all. Kent’s fingers had been inside him not that long ago, and Dr Gary might have apologised for it, but it all highlighted that they wanted to change him. His whole life had one purpose, and now they wanted to reverse it and go in the opposite direction.

He didn’t say anything as they kept walking. As they got closer to the south of the property, the forest thinned out, the air was colder. It was autumn in Perth, but it felt wintry here, so close to the sound of the waves, even with the sunlight. Efnisien knew from looking at his maps app and doing some research, that Antarctica used to be connected to the land here, and if someone took a boat and went directly south from this point, that’s the continent they’d reach.

A couple of silver gulls cried nearby, flew up, then wheeled away. The grass started to show patches of pure white sand, like it had been blown up or tracked over it.

Efnisien looked back over his shoulder, the buildings looked a lot smaller.

‘From here,’ Dr Gary said, ‘there’s a trail that starts over there which goes into the forest.’ He pointed easily with the hand not at Efnisien’s lower back. ‘Or there’s a shorter walk which goes up a slope to a beach lookout. Do you want to try one?’

A peak alpha was giving him a choice? He looked at Dr Gary in confusion.

Eventually he pointed wordlessly to the beach lookout. He wanted to go to the forest trail, but it seemed like it would be more walking, and he’d never seen the beach before. There was something about the sound of the waves…it wasn’t quite like the noise generators he’d heard. It sounded deeper and heavier, no one told him he’d be able to feel the sea in the land and the air if he was close enough.

He wanted to see it.

They walked towards a hill, a sand-dune that had plants on it. There was a gentle slope, some shallow steps, but Efnisien had to stop and catch his breath twice. At least he didn’t feel as sick anymore, he didn’t feel as feverish, even with everything that had happened in the morning.

When the beach came properly into view he stopped on the step. It was a dark blue closer to the horizon, and a turquoise blue closer to the shore. The wave edges were white and foamy. The water moved constantly. The sand was white, almost painfully bright in the sun. No one was there on the beach. But some seagulls, and other birds he didn’t know, ran along the shoreline.

‘The…Indian ocean,’ Efnisien said.

‘That’s right,’ Dr Gary said. ‘There’s a seat only a few steps away. Do you think you can make it? Or do you want to turn back?’

Efnisien wanted to keep looking at the sea. So they walked carefully to a wooden bench and sat down. It was clear people came here often. There were footsteps in the white sand on the dark brown wooden platform, both shoes and bare feet. Polly hadn’t joined them, she was sniffing around in the sand dune, golden tail wagging.

Dr Gary sat close to him. Closer than he did before on the couch. His hand came up and rested beneath the scars on Efnisien’s neck. Ever since Efnisien had told him that they hurt, Dr Gary hadn’t touched them directly again. It was weird.

‘You touch people a lot,’ Efnisien said resentfully.

Dr Gary looked down at him. Efnisien didn’t think there was any reason for his expression to be so implacable, but it was. Crielle often manufactured a smile or a friendly expression, and it helped, but when that disappeared, she looked determined and kind of terrifying.

‘I’m touching you a lot because the habituation is necessary,’ Dr Gary said finally, looking out towards the beach, fingers moving over Efnisien’s skin. ‘Also because it helps with homeostasis. We’ve seen that it calms your heartrate, even when you’re scared.’

‘But you’re not a companion.’

‘No,’ Dr Gary said. ‘I never wanted to be a companion.’

‘I don’t get what’s so hard about being paid to fuck omegas.’

Dr Gary’s hand dropped down to between Efnisien’s shoulder blades.

‘I think it’s the emotional strain at a facility like this one,’ Dr Gary said eventually, with an honesty Efnisien didn’t expect. ‘Companions here are trained to bond openly and with vulnerability and a sense of trust. They aren’t just mating omegas into submission, and we have a few omegas here who have gone into heat several times and still haven’t been mated because it’s not the right time yet. There may have been other things that happened instead to calm them, but… Well. It’s not in the nature of alphas to bond, avoid a claiming bite, and then let the omega go.’

‘So you’re the one that does all the public relations. You make this whole place seem like it’s not a treasure trove of rapists in the middle of nowhere.’

‘I suppose I do,’ Dr Gary said, like he didn’t care what Efnisien thought.

For some reason that hurt. Efnisien had expected Dr Gary to disagree with him again, but his tone had changed abruptly, like he was just…done. Efnisien stared down at his knees.

It was easy to bait Gwyn into being angry with him. It was the most guaranteed way of getting and keeping his attention. Crielle was too dangerous to bait, so Efnisien had no way of getting her attention. He was only useful for her science.

Sometimes he tried to believe differently, but after the conversation he’d just had with Gwyn…

‘What’s your relationship with your cousin like? Do you like him?’ Dr Gary said.

‘He’s fine,’ Efnisien said dully.

‘Is he kind to you?’

‘What do you mean?’

Dr Gary’s hand shifted on Efnisien’s shoulders, and Efnisien looked at the sea again and thought the water must be so cold. The wind nipped at him. He wanted a shower. He wanted to sleep. He hated that he wanted Dr Gary’s hand on his back.

‘Do you feel good when you spend time with him?’

‘I don’t really know what you mean,’ Efnisien said. ‘He’s a peak alpha.’

‘I see.’

‘You’re all the same.’

Dr Gary just nodded. He didn’t even argue.

‘This afternoon,’ Dr Gary said after drawing a breath, ‘I have some unavoidable meetings and work to do, and I can’t do it all from home. I’d like to be able to trust you in my home, instead of putting you in one of the holding rooms. But I don’t know if I can. I could technically lay a directive to make sure you obey, but I’d like to think it’s not necessary. What do you think?’

Efnisien didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t used to peak alphas asking him this many questions. No one had asked him this many questions in his life.

‘Truthfully,’ Dr Gary said, ‘with Kadek’s life still in the balance, and the fact that omega-on-alpha crime is so frowned upon that the entire future of Hillview is in the balance, it’s tempting to put you in a holding room anyway. But we can’t keep going on like that now, can we? You’re going to have to make a decision about how you want to behave.’

Efnisien wrapped his arms around himself. Dr Gary had a way of talking that just made him feel fucking awful. He didn’t raise his voice, he didn’t sound mocking, but the words somehow were just…bad.

‘I could’ve killed you when you were sleeping before, and I didn’t,’ Efnisien said.

‘True. Should I give you a biscuit because you did a good job?’

‘I don’t know, you’re the one that’s running a rehabilitation centre, you should know if you need to do positive reinforcement or not with all this fucking conditioning.’

Dr Gary let out a breath of surprised laughter. When Efnisien glanced up at him, he looked almost pleased, or amused. Like he’d found the words funny, and not even in a mean way.

‘Did you think about killing me?’ Dr Gary said, staring out at the beach.

Efnisien thought he looked really tired. Not old, but tired. Like someone who just never slept properly. Lludd sometimes looked like that during tax season. Efnisien supposed evading taxes that hard could be pretty exhausting.

‘Um, a little,’ Efnisien said. ‘Just… I just knew that I could, mostly.’

‘All right. And Anton? Have you thought about killing him?’

‘No,’ Efnisien said, his voice small.

Dr Gary made it sound like Efnisien was a criminal, but he’d never done anything like what he’d done to Kadek before he came here. It felt weird to be seen as this dangerous being, when most of the time he just wanted to feel well, be a good alpha, and study hard, and maybe go to one of the universities that allowed omegas one day, even though he also knew it was impossible and no one would ever let him go.

But he also didn’t want them to think of him here as this obedient creature, because that made him seem more like an omega and it was just…so fucking confusing.

He was obedient to Crielle, and he fought with Gwyn, but he was still…

Efnisien didn’t even know.

‘How do you feel about the ankle monitor?’

Efnisien had already forgotten it was there.

‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘It’s better than a chip.’

Dr Gary tensed, his expression was sharp when he looked at Efnisien, and Efnisien wasn’t even looking up to see it. He just knew. It felt like pressure.

‘You’re chipped with a GPS tracker?’

Efnisien shrugged.

‘You can talk about that?’ Dr Gary said, sounding even more surprised.

‘Um. I guess. It’s not that weird for omegas to be microchipped.’

‘It’s…quite uncommon actually,’ Dr Gary said, his hand rubbing Efnisien’s back. ‘Do you know where the chip is?’

‘Here,’ Efnisien said, reaching up and pointing to the back of his neck, where the scars were.

‘I’m very surprised you can talk about it, given it’s a medical procedure, and you’re under a directive.’

‘I mean I don’t fucking know,’ Efnisien said, suddenly annoyed, jerking away from Dr Gary.

When Dr Gary went to move closer to him, Efnisien stood and walked over to the small wooden guard-rail, staring down at all of the scrubby, thick plants on the sand-dune. They were such a dark green. Some were flowering, even though it was autumn.

Dr Gary stood and came over, and Efnisien would have bitten him again, but the only places he could get to easily were all covered in suit material.

‘Do you want that chip to be removed?’ Dr Gary said.

‘No!’ Efnisien said, turning and glaring at him. ‘No! It needs to be there! She needs to be able to find me. Don’t you fucking remove it. Don’t you dare fucking remove-’

A hand coming up, and Efnisien flinched heavily away, because he knew Dr Gary would punch like a fucking beast. He knew. And then his eyes flew open when it was just a hand landing gently on his head, in his hair, like during the fucking medical exam. Why did it feel nice? Even now?

‘Okay,’ Dr Gary said. ‘Be quiet now. Be quiet. We’ll head back soon.’

Efnisien almost turned and shoved him, but then Dr Gary’s fingers moved carefully over his scalp, and Efnisien felt like he couldn’t fucking move. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that there was really good food here, and that Dr Gary could touch him, and it didn’t feel awful. Because it could be awful. It was awful only a little while ago.

And they were trying to pretend that it wasn’t.

It took all of his strength to jerk back away from the touch, and then even more to glare at Dr Gary.

‘Whatever this is, whatever you’re doing until the next medical exam, you can just stop,’ Efnisien said. ‘I don’t expect you to try and be…nice or whatever, I didn’t fucking ask. I don’t like you, or your stupid fucking dog, or your stupid centre, and I don’t give a shit about homeostasis or whatever the hell you’re trying to do. You want to work this afternoon? Go do it. You want to forget I’m there? Good! But you want to try and make me into some mewling pussy omega? Good fucking luck with that.’

He turned and walked down the steps, and then felt a sharp scent in the back of his nose, along with the salt of the sea, the brightness in the air.

‘Efnisien,’ Dr Gary said calmly. The word fell like a stone, even though it sounded so soft it was almost muffled by the wind. ‘Don’t walk away from me.’

‘I was raised by peak alphas, dickhead,’ Efnisien said, feeling like he was about to dry retch, his chest heaving on a gag because he hadn’t listened, and Dr Gary’s energy was just too fucking much. The fear was precise, and it was relentless, and Efnisien had the pre-violence feeling he used to get around Gwyn. It was horrible. The fear was whiter than the sand had been on the beach, blazing into the backs of his eyes. ‘You don’t scare me. You’re all the same.’

He wished it was true. He wished it was. But Gwyn had never put his hand in Efnisien’s hair like that, and Crielle didn’t even know how to say the words ‘I apologise’ or ‘I’m sorry.’ But Efnisien clung to it anyway. He needed to get away. Being near Dr Gary fucked him up, and he didn’t understand why.

Chapter Text

A certain amount of fighting, a certain amount of back talk was permissible. But Gary had a line, and Efnisien had crossed it, and he wouldn’t let anyone treat him the way that Efnisien had just treated him.

‘Efnisien,’ Gary said, releasing more of his pheromones, watching the way Efnisien staggered on the steps. ‘Come here.’

The effect wasn’t immediate, though it should have been. And when Efnisien turned back, his eyes were hateful. Gary didn’t care. There were ways people behaved in society, and Gary wasn’t interested in tolerating tantrums from adults. Even distressed adults. Even distressed adults who just used the same vituperative insults similar to the ones their cousin had used against Efnisien on the phone.

Gary had heard that entire phone call. He wasn’t about to tell Efnisien that a phone conversation didn’t need to be on speaker for him to hear it, because he was too hungry for new information, and he didn’t trust Efnisien’s family at all.

He was right not to.

Efnisien stopped about two feet in front of him, looking worse for the wear, though he was less pale than before. He had to get Efnisien some clothes. Proper clothes.

But right now he had a point to make.

‘I will let you say things to me that most others wouldn’t tolerate,’ Gary said, reaching out and taking Efnisien’s chin when he went to avert his gaze. Efnisien’s eyes slid away instead, and Gary stepped closer, staring down at him. ‘I understand that you’re angry, and I know you will be angry for a good long time. But this is not going to be a connection where I’m an adult and you’re the child, even if that’s all you’ve known. This is not going to be something where I tolerate you throwing tantrums and walking away from me over and over again. I know you don’t behave this way around other peak alphas.’

Efnisien’s eyes – so desperate to avoid his – made contact then, they’d widened. Good. Efnisien was paying attention.

‘Call me a rapist if you want,’ Gary said, ‘that’s all you understand of this world, and I don’t care. I’ve never mated an omega and I don’t want to. You can rail at me, and to a degree, I simply do not care. I am not going to be exactly like the other peak alphas that you’ve known, but the one thing we all have in common is a low tolerance for disrespect. My rope may be longer than what you’ve known in the past, but do not hurry to hang yourself on it.’

‘What about the disrespect you’ve shown me?’ Efnisien hissed.

God. Nothing like an omega at all. It was uncanny. Even a beta wouldn’t talk back like this. And Efnisien wasn’t putting it on, he wasn’t faking it, that anger was real, and the venom in his voice was vicious.

‘Efnisien,’ Gary said, quietening his voice, gentling it, knowing the words would be crueller because of it: ‘The person who called you a mewling pussy omega was not me. I wasn’t the person who put those words or that hatred in your head. Yes, I know I’ve still been disrespectful and mean, and we can talk about that, but continue to throw tantrums and we will end up like this. With me reminding you that discussions are better than whatever you’re doing right now.’

‘Lectures, you mean,’ Efnisien said, because even now he didn’t stop. ‘I bet you fuck like mashed potato. Bland and soft.’

He’d expected more anger, but the humour caught him by surprise. It was an insult he’d never heard before, that almost no one would dare say to him. Truthfully even most alphas were too afraid to talk to him like this.

Gary laughed, even as he’d felt Efnisien’s flinch through his hand, could see that cowering body language all over again. When he stopped laughing he leaned down until his mouth was near Efnisien’s ear.

‘Who hit you regularly enough that you now expect it?’ he said.

Efnisien jerked backwards and Gary let him go.

‘You say you were raised by peak alphas,’ Gary said, noting with some satisfaction that Efnisien wasn’t attempting to run anymore. ‘But peak alphas that hit people aren’t really of any note or worth at all. I know you can’t help the fear, but no one here is going to hit you. Anyway, we should head back, it’s obvious you’ve had enough.’

He stepped forwards, and before Efnisien could get out of reach, Gary curved his fingers around Efnisien’s waist.

And Efnisien didn’t insult him, or try to run, or bite him, or anything. He’d fallen silent. Gary was tempted to try and re-engage him, but instead he turned over Efnisien’s words around disrespect. Gary had been quite disrespectful, but he couldn’t hold a candle to the way Efnisien’s cousin had behaved over the phone.

Gary wanted to know more, but everything he’d learned already painted an ugly picture. He wasn’t even sure Efnisien had really talked to anyone except his cousin, his aunt, maybe a few other people in the house. Perhaps staff? He expected Gary to have personal staff, and Efnisien’s family was extremely affluent.

Anton’s insult about the money being good still annoyed him to think about. Hillview wasn’t a cheap facility to run. They did need to attract clients who could afford it. He was getting vindictive though, wanting Anton to try running the finances of the facility for a few months to see what it was like.

Tiredness wasn’t doing him any favours.

Something Efnisien said wasn’t leaving him alone.

As they walked back across the grass, Gary frowned and asked: ‘Disrespect aside, you said you didn’t ask me to be nice. Do you think I’ve been trying to be nice?’

Efnisien was quiet, and then he said: ‘I mean…aren’t you? There’s nice food here. And you took me outside. I get that it’s bribery, but you’re still doing it. You know it’s possible to force people to do things without bribery.’

Gary did not think of himself as a nice or kind person. He never had. Even as a child, teachers and adults around him described him as calculating and academic, they said he could be patient, but one teacher added, ‘But spiders are patient too’ in the same sentence. It had not been a goal of Gary’s to become nice, and it wasn’t particularly useful in his job either.

Compassion was useful, but it wasn’t the same thing.

‘I dunno,’ Efnisien continued, sounding frustrated. ‘Just…the touching.’

‘You don’t like it?’

‘It’s just weird. You do it way more than anyone else does.’

The whole conversation had scuppered the idea that Efnisien was familiar with being soothed by a peak alpha, or potentially anyone at all.

Giving someone access to food that was tasty and letting them go outside with a GPS tracker and supervision, was not Gary’s definition of kindness or niceness. On the one hand, he was aware he could use the fact that Efnisien saw it as niceness to control him, on the other hand…

He didn’t want Efnisien to think that was some special privilege.

‘You may not always think it’s nice,’ Gary said finally.

‘I just-’ A long silence. ‘I’m just- I’m just tired.’

‘I know,’ Gary said, rubbing Efnisien’s back. The boy didn’t even move away. Sometimes it seemed like he wanted to lean back into it. ‘A shower, I think, if you can manage it. And then some sleep. Did the tablets we give you help?’

Efnisien tensed, and Gary wasn’t even sure if the directive would let him answer.

‘I think… I think so,’ Efnisien said. ‘I don’t feel as hot. Well, but the sun now… But it’s- I don’t fucking know.’

He did sound exhausted. Gary sighed and nodded and didn’t say much else, because Efnisien calling him nice after the internal exam they’d put him through today, left him with a bitter taste in the back of his mouth.

*

Gary leaned against the bathroom door and looked through his schedule while Efnisien showered. He looked up every now and then, but mostly left him to it. Efnisien seemed stronger than the day before, but it wasn’t like Gary’s bathroom had been built with handrails. Even with bathmats, the tiles could be slippery.

He was going to have to call Faber.

After helping Efnisien with the shoulder brace, but not his clothing, Gary spent five minutes in his own house realising he wasn’t going to leave Polly alone with Efnisien for hours, so she’d have to come with him into his work office. And then he spent another five minutes deeply uncomfortable leaving anyone alone in his house while he wasn’t there. He didn’t have regular partners, he didn’t invite anyone back to Hillview when he was in the mood for sex, he went to the city, and he spent time in places that weren’t his personal sanctuary that he’d made very much for himself and only for himself.

While Efnisien seemed quiet enough now as he sat on the couch and looked through a book of beach photos, Gary wasn’t sure he could trust him at all. There were meds he could overdose on. Foods he shouldn’t be preparing for himself. He could kill himself and bleed out in ten minutes. He could destroy property.

Gary kept weighing that reality against how unproductive it would be to keep putting Efnisien in holding cells.

Finally he was getting close to missing a meeting, and he had to decide.

‘I’ll be back in a few hours,’ Gary said finally.

Efnisien couldn’t even call him if he needed to, if there was some emergency.

‘Get some sleep if you need it. The remote for the television is by the armchair. Polly’s coming with me. If you escape, the alarm will go off.’

Efnisien just looked at him, his expression opaque.

Anger built in Gary’s body as he left his own apartment. It made him extremely uncomfortable to have a stranger capable of murder inside his living space, and even though Polly was happy to go outside again, Gary chafed that he couldn’t leave her back where she had easy access to water and her dog beds.

He couldn’t even tell Polly it was temporary. He didn’t know how long this would last. The spike of resentment flooding through him was strong enough that he almost decided then and there to turf Efnisien to another centre that couldn’t handle him and let them put him in isolation for the rest of his life. Crielle ferch Fnwy could deal with it, and Gary could put it out of his mind.

Instead, he called Faber on the walk over to the office building.

‘Sir?’ Faber said, picking up immediately.

‘Sorry for calling you on your day off,’ Gary said, rubbing at his forehead.

‘Not at all. I’d been hoping to hear from you. How is…everything? I contacted the hospital for you but the situation there is still the same.’

‘Thanks for making the call anyway. Everything’s…fine. I was thinking tomorrow – if you could possibly make your way up to Busselton and pick up some clothes for Efnisien. A complete wardrobe if possible.’

‘I can do it right now,’ Faber said. ‘I’ve been running chores today, I’m already in Margaret River. It won’t be a problem to head up to Busselton. Do you have his size?’

Gary stared up at the sky, frustrated. ‘No. He’s… Shit. Larger than all the other omegas we have. Taller than Kadek. Maybe more like Caleb?’

‘Sir, I’ll get a couple of different sizes and then once we know, we can expand from there. I assume we’re charging the family.’

‘We certainly are.’

‘Shirts, briefs, socks, trousers. Jeans might be difficult. I’ll do what I can and process the receipts when I’m next in.’

‘Jackets too. Good ones. Maybe some jumpers. He’s too thin.’

‘Yes, yes, I’m writing it down, Sir,’ Faber said briskly.

Gary had tried to get him to stop saying Sir, but Faber couldn’t break the habit. It was a relief to hear his voice. Though Faber effortlessly trying to help him in this situation somehow made his exhaustion worse. All he wanted to do was hand the entire situation over and focus on his appointments. He was already mentally picking which wine he’d drink that evening.

And then Faber said: ‘You only have five minutes before that Zoom meeting, don’t you?’

‘I’m walking over now.’

‘Ah. I see. I can look your schedule over for you. Are they still thinking you should be his companion, Sir?’

Gary said nothing, and Faber said nothing for even longer. Finally he just sighed.

‘If I may, Sir, I do not think you’re in a place to…take on something like this.’

‘You and I are in perfect accordance, Faber.’

‘Right, yes. I apologise. I’ve been trying to think of alternatives, but I doubt you’ll think any are truly feasible.’

‘Mm. Actually, can you do me a favour and discreetly look into Crielle ferch Fnwy’s background? I want to know her education, connections – as many as possible, and the source of her income.’

‘Of course, Sir.’

‘Be careful,’ Gary added. ‘Outsource it if you need to. She’s made it clear that she has no problems killing Efnisien, and she’s already threatened Hillview when I enquired after more information regarding Efnisien’s care.’

‘She threatened Hillview?’ Faber said lightly, dangerously. ‘All right then. Whatever you need, Sir.’

‘I’ll pay you for today.’

‘I’m a salaried employee, Sir.’

‘More holidays then.’

‘That would be appreciated,’ Faber said, sounding like he was smiling. Gary wished he could do the same. ‘One last question, Sir. How do you want to handle James’ family?’

Gary stopped. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘It is only that… I am so sorry, Sir, but you know how they felt about your relationship. I believe you know how they’ll react once they find out you’ve taken on an omega, even temporarily in this context. I don’t think we can trust them to not find out, given the way the rumour mill works.’

‘I hadn’t- That’s…none of their fucking business.’

‘Of course, Sir. But- All the same, should I prepare some sort of response?’

Gary was speechless. He suspected if Faber were there beside him, he already would have left or changed the subject, because in that moment Gary couldn’t keep control of his pheromones at all. He forced himself to take several deep breaths and then felt a chill sink into his bones.

‘No, let me deal with them,’ Gary said finally. ‘They still want to believe I had something to do with his death, let them.’

‘Sir, I don’t think-’

‘It hadn’t even occurred to me, Faber,’ Gary said angrily.

‘I wondered, Sir, and I do apologise for bringing it up.’

‘No, no, though I am glad you’re not here. For your sake.’

‘It’s harder to shoot the messenger over the phone, Sir,’ Faber said gently. ‘I thought of it last night. They will find out. Given how poisonous they were then… I’m concerned. Sir, you are not… I don’t even know how you’ll find the time to be a companion.’

‘At the moment I just think the boy needs some stability, and then we’ll decide what to do,’ Gary said. He looked at the time on his phone and ground his teeth together. He was never late to appointments. ‘I have to go.’

‘Of course, Sir.’

Faber hung up, and Gary let himself into his office. He entered the code into the keypad, the lights came on, and Gary took his jacket off and threw it over the back of his chair as he quickly set up his desktop.

The meeting – a panel with other alpha and beta psychologists who specialised in omega mental health all over the world, querying his latest paper – ran overtime, and after that he made a double espresso, calling parents and spouses of the omegas in Hillview, and talking to them as he looked over spreadsheets and tried to stop the numbers from blurring by squinting at them. But narrowing his eyes just made him even more aware of how tired he was.

Then, supervision. He wanted to go back to his home and check on Efnisien, but the alarm hadn’t sounded yet, and Polly was asleep on the thinner dog bed on his office floor. Besides, he just didn’t have the time.

He forced himself to try and get into the right headspace to supervise three alphas. He needed his notebook, his pen, and he needed to be able to hold space for them. Faber bringing up James like that, after Anton had already mentioned rumours earlier, left Gary feeling sick. It was hard to push it all aside, and when the first knock came at his office door, he realised he hadn’t successfully found the right headspace at all.

Not now, he told himself firmly. Focus.

It was Caleb, who smiled at him with the kind of sympathy that meant he was already aware that Gary was likely struggling with Efnisien. Knowledge travelled fast in Hillview, and gossip could spill beyond the property easily.

God, James’ family was going to find out.

‘Hi, Caleb,’ Gary said crisply, gently. ‘Take a seat.’

Gary took a seat in the opposite armchair, pulling his supervisor role around him like a protective cloak. He could lose himself in the knowledge of Caleb and Lucien’s relationship, and remember what they’d been focusing on last time, and where he was supposed to be guiding things, and slowly…calm came. Even though his heart raced from too much coffee – he could make the switch to wine in a few hours – and he had to stop himself from yawning.

‘So, Caleb. Tell me how you’re doing with Lucien this week? Were you able to make some progress regarding what we discussed last time?’

Caleb talked, and Gary listened, and couldn’t help but be angry that he couldn’t give Caleb his undivided attention.

This is your job.

Gary did his best, and as Caleb left, Gary wrote down notes, underlined certain things, wrote down more for his full computer notes that he’d compile later, and then made another espresso before Augus arrived.

Augus thankfully wasn’t mocking or strange and gave him no sly or intrigued looks. He gave Gary one grim once-over, frowned, and then started talking about how things were going with Mosk, and the struggle he was having with the idea of graduating Mosk out of Hillview.

‘He’s getting close,’ Augus said. ‘It might even be within the next six months. Even with his anxieties, I think a sympathetic alpha would handle him well, and I think Mosk would be able to make that work. I know Mosk isn’t meant to be my lifelong mate, I’m not sure I’d want to be with him if I met him on the street, but we have a connection now, and every night I have to convince myself that when the time comes, I’ll be strong enough to go through with it.’

Gary nodded, and so the session went. It was only at the very end – as Augus was walking out – that he turned back and studied Gary for a long time.

‘Flitmouse told Mosk that Anton has decided to be your supervisor.’

‘Something like that.’

‘Flitmouse took great pleasure explaining to Mosk that Anton had basically given you a firm and thorough talking-to about Efnisien’s treatment.’

‘That too.’

‘But Anton didn’t display any care or compassion towards you?’ Augus said, raising an eyebrow.

‘Well… I didn’t go through an internal exam today.’

‘He’s going to be a terrible supervisor,’ Augus said, rolling his eyes and looking faintly disgusted. ‘Still, you can get some revenge when you get to watch him realise what being a supervisor actually entails.’

‘I don’t want revenge,’ Gary said tiredly. ‘I’m not surprised by his anger. It’s what any well-trained companion should feel in those circumstances. Ironically, it means I’ve been very good at my job.’

‘Right?’ Augus said, smiling. ‘You train them and then they turn on you.’

‘Faber’s getting the boy some clothes at least. We have some meds.’

‘Is he in a holding cell?’ Augus looked down to Polly and then his eyes widened just a little. ‘Or…in your home?’

‘What else do I do?’

‘You’re braver than I am. I would have put the creature in a holding cell. Anyway, back to Mosk I go.’

‘Augus,’ Gary said soberly.

Augus’ hand twitched on the doorframe.

‘You’re doing an exemplary job with him, but you may…wish to consider how much longer you can do this vocation for.’

‘Yes,’ Augus said, looking troubled.

‘If you wanted to stay on at Hillview in some other capacity, we could always do with a full-time supervisor, and you are more than capable. If you wanted to leave, you’d have generous severance pay and an option to always return. But in all seriousness, I know you do like it here, there’d be other fulfilling jobs available to you.’

Augus’ expression was sad, though he smiled. ‘That’s the thing, isn’t it? I can’t even think that far ahead without realising it means I have to graduate another omega, and then I can no longer think at all. It was so much easier in the beginning. Anyway, I’ll…probably not think about it, Gary. But you can push those buttons again next time if you wish.’

‘Let’s push the next appointment out to two or three weeks from now,’ Gary said, ‘unless you feel you need the weekly support?’

‘No,’ Augus said. ‘I know what all my issues are right now. Two weeks sounds good. I’ll contact Faber about setting it up.’

And then another ten minutes went by, Gary drank water this time and stared at the espresso machine longingly. He assembled his notes and got together a new file and rubbed at his face vigorously to wake himself up and got ready for another supervision session.

By the time he’d written his notes up on the computer it was nine in the evening, Polly had already annoyed Gary twice about going outside to the toilet. Gary had missed organising dinner for Efnisien and Polly at a reasonable time. Gary had 27 missed calls and texts on his phone. He went through everything while walking back to his home, noting that at least Faber had acquired plenty of clothing. One problem, at least, was solved.

Even now, he felt a niggling paranoia that James’ family already knew, that one of the calls or texts would be from them.

This, he was sure, would be his reality until they found out, and then he’d enter a newer and more bitter-tasting reality, because if life could do anything, it could always get worse.

Chapter Text

Gary let himself into his home, not knowing what to expect. He paused in the corridor, nostrils flaring, realising that Efnisien’s fear – while still present – was more muted than before. Polly raced towards the kitchen, desperate for dinner, and Gary looked around for any damage done to his home and stopped when he saw Efnisien on the couch, asleep, possibly unconscious.

He walked over and looked down at the steady rise and fall of his chest, the pale face. The sheen of sweat that had been ever present was finally gone. Gary bent down and pressed his fingers gently to Efnisien’s neck.

‘Keep sleeping,’ Gary said softly. It didn’t have to be alpha persuasion. His presence alone made people want to listen to him, whether they were awake or asleep. It was a dangerous – and thrilling – power to have.

Efnisien’s hair was dry and fluffy. He had dark circles under his eyes, his lips were chapped, his pulse was fast and strong. His forehead seemed less feverish now, and Gary thought of the ardolphogen they’d given him, and wondered if Efnisien needed the stuff to survive. An alpha pheromone that omegas couldn’t even produce.

‘Keep sleeping,’ Gary said, his voice low, wishing he could do the same. But Efnisien needed it too.

Gary walked into his kitchen and opened the wine cabinet and picked out the red he’d started thinking of three hours before. He pulled out one of the large, deep glasses, and screwed off the cap, pouring himself an overly generous glass, a third of the bottle gone.

He made dinner for Polly, putting a few liver treats in there because he should have fed her earlier. She was too old for his schedule now, and he kept thinking he’d make changes – or at least go back to his home and feed her and keep working afterwards – but too often it was like this. She was far too forgiving.

He needed to wake Efnisien so he could eat. He also needed to eat.

He went to his bedroom, wine glass in his hand, and opened the second drawer in his wooden tallboy, reaching around until he found the old cigarette packet crumpled at the back. He tucked it into his trouser pocket and grabbed the bottle of wine on his way back out of the apartment. Polly would have normally joined him, but she was licking her bowl, and Gary felt in too dark of a mood to care about any of it.

The night air was cold. A promise of a crisp winter. He locked the door behind him and walked towards the beach. He felt like a ghost on the property, which was ironic.

‘What do you think, James?’ Gary said, drinking half of the glass at once. Around him, the shadows of black sloped lumps barely lit up by anything other than the stars, all the kangaroos that came out to eat the grass while the world slept or rested or kept to themselves in their homes, at least seventy or more. They paid him no mind, and Gary thought Efnisien would either find them fascinating or terrifying, or perhaps both. 

His shoes crunched through the sand dune trail, rabbits and foxes quietly fleeing in the night. They didn’t belong here anymore than he did.

The waves were crashing. The tide had crept in upon the shore, and Gary stepped around lumps of seaweed on silvered sand until he could stand close to the waterline. He stared out towards the black emptiness that was the horizon. Eventually his eyes could make out the lights of freight ships.

There was almost no light pollution out here. The roads had no streetlights, only reflectors. It was forest and grass and the beach and the quiet kangaroos, and Efnisien sleeping in Gary’s home, and Faber telling him that James’ family weren’t afraid to anger ghosts or anyone else in their vendetta against Gary.

He stood there, tiredly finishing off the glass, then pouring himself another, even though he knew he could just drink from the bottle like he used to when he was younger. But no, it was more dignified – he supposed – to drink it like this.

When the bottle was nearly gone, he bent down and twisted it into the sand to keep it still and did the same with the glass. He took the packet of cigarettes out of his pocket. Muscle memory took over, even though it had been years. The tobacco would be stale, but it didn’t matter. The wind stole the flame from the lighter, and Gary had to turn and let it blast his back so he could get the cigarette lit.

A familiar taste in his mouth, the back of his throat, warming and pleasant and something that made him think of funerals and hospitals and a family making a scene over a lover’s coffin.

Gary chain-smoked five cigarettes and felt light-headed. It had been too long. He wasn’t used to it. He lit up the sixth anyway.

The beach was an empty hollow hungry black thing at night, during the new moon. The first time Gary realised that, standing on the property years before – alone and wondering at his life choices – he’d fallen in love with the place. It wasn’t the picturesque forests. It wasn’t the high-class grounds that had been maintained for the rich by gardeners and handymen for years. It wasn’t even the pristine beach with its pale tourist-perfect sands, so typical of Western Australia it wasn’t even interesting anymore.

It was this. Now. Standing here while it looked like a great Nothing was out there, eating the world alive, and all that survived was those freight ships and the sailors upon them, while the rest of the world waited to be devoured.

Gary waited for it too.

It was easy to conquer life as a peak alpha. There was a time when he believed everything would fall perfectly into place for him, because that was what happened. He willed something, and there it was. He could make almost anyone do what he wanted, and when he restrained himself from it, he still felt powerful. He was never not aware of his power.

Until James. Until after James.

Until now, tonight. Faber was very lucky he didn’t bring that up in person. Likely, Faber had realised straight away and had been waiting to bring it up over the phone all along. To avoid Gary’s wrath. Even when it was only pheromones and some harsh words, Gary knew how shattering it could be. He’d seen the effects when he’d misused it.

Sometimes he looked into that nothingness, and he imagined James was out there somewhere, beyond the machines, beyond the interminable beeping and the nasogastric tube and the PICC line and the catheter, beyond the squabbling and the drama and the accusations. Beyond the newspaper articles, the social media, the fact that even now some specialists who knew his history considered him with a critical gaze before realising Gary demanded professionalism above all else.

If Gary were a different person, a more sentimental person, he’d have a conversation with James now. He could feel the words in his chest, the things he would say. But really, it was just a way of saying a journal entry out loud, to empty space, because ghosts weren’t real, and the world was a merciless, relentless rock.

Gary looked down at the cigarette and considered it.

His mouth tasted the way it used to when he kissed James.

This was stupid.

He finished the cigarette, stubbed it out in the sand before putting the butt in the packet with the rest of the butts and the remaining few cigarettes. He picked up the wine glass – there was already sand blown onto it, sticking grittily to the inside and outside – and the bottle. He held the bottle by its neck, finished the rest, and thought it would probably be a bad idea to start a second when he got home.

But he was tempted.

He walked back across the dark grounds, looking at the kangaroos and sighing.

When he returned home, Efnisien was still asleep, and Polly was curled up in the dog bed by the armchair. She looked up when he got in, her tail wagging.

Gary stood there, bottle and glass in one hand, vision faintly blurry. He wasn’t drunk. He wasn’t even tipsy. ‘A glass and a half of wine a night’ he told his doctor. Truthfully he could put away two bottles before he started to feel it.

He was just tired.

He knew he should make himself something to eat. He knew Efnisien had to eat. There was food already prepared, he only had to heat it.

He put the bottle and glass on the counter and walked over to Efnisien, crouching by his side. He reached out and stroked Efnisien’s forehead gently, and as though the boy knew Gary wanted to speak to him, he stirred and then woke. First bleary, innocent, and then alert and scared and suspicious.

‘What is it?’ Efnisien said. His voice was sleep-soft. Gary had the strangest thought that if he kissed Efnisien now, forced his mouth open with his own, Efnisien’s mouth would taste like James’ used to, the cigarette scent was so strong.

‘I didn’t come back in time to make dinner; did you eat anything?’

‘What time is it?’ Efnisien looked confused, and Gary looked over to the clock in the kitchen.

‘It’s ten,’ he said. ‘I have a proposition. A choice. I can make you something to eat, or you can keep sleeping, and eat tomorrow.’

‘I didn’t eat anything,’ Efnisien said, answering the question from before. ‘Why do you keep giving me so many choices?’

‘You don’t want to be given a choice?’ Gary said. ‘Okay.’

He stood up, bent over, and slid one arm beneath Efnisien’s shoulders and the other underneath his legs, then picked him up.

‘What the hell?’ Efnisien shrieked.

‘Shh.’

Gary walked down the corridor in the dark, kicked open his bedroom door and put Efnisien on the bed. The sound of scrambling over the quilt and then:

‘You’re not fucking me,’ Efnisien snarled. ‘You said you wouldn’t!’

‘Shut up,’ Gary said, kicking his shoes off. Normally everything would be in its proper place, but not tonight. He’d had enough. ‘Go back to the couch if you want.’

‘What?’

He stripped off easily, realised he should get a sleep shirt and decided against it. The suit would need to be drycleaned. He needed to brush his teeth. He needed to shower. He pulled back the quilt and the sheet and laid down, realising that he’d managed to get sand in the bed.

He didn’t care.

‘I’ll make dinner tomorrow morning,’ Gary said vaguely. ‘For breakfast.’

‘Are… Are you okay?’

‘The bed is more comfortable than the couch,’ Gary said, turning over, thinking that Efnisien could kill him and realising it should matter more to him. ‘Don’t hurt Polly.’

‘Did something happen?’

‘Goodnight.’

‘Wait, what-?’

Gary reached out in the dark and blindly found Efnisien’s body, dragged his arm tiredly up over his chest, and then found his mouth and placed his hand over it.

‘Sleep now,’ Gary said, tiredly pushing Efnisien down to the bed. Efnisien tensed, his voice muffled against Gary’s palm, and then he went still and didn’t move. ‘Good boy. Good boy.’

Hands gripping his forearm, fingernails digging into his wrist. Gary sighed and felt himself sinking deeper. The little pinpricks of pain. If he had more energy, he’d pin the boy down and make a point, but right now it felt good to have a body in the bed beside him, to feel warm breath against his palm. He could pretend it was different. Everything was different.

‘If you’re hungry,’ Gary murmured, ‘there’s…a fridge.’

The hands around his forearm softened, then let go entirely. Gary’s hand slackened against Efnisien’s mouth, and he had enough awareness to know he was going about this all wrong, but he had the taste of James in his mouth, and he wanted to fall asleep pretending it was all different.

‘I miss you,’ Gary said.

He fell asleep.

Chapter Text

When Dr Gary had left to do some work, Efnisien hadn’t known what to do, left alone in his home like that. He sat there in the cottage, feeling strange. Polly wasn’t even there. Efnisien knew it had less to do with his own welfare, and more with Polly’s. Efnisien had never hurt an animal in his life, but he’d also never stabbed someone in the neck either.

After a few minutes he stood, wincing at the soreness in his joints. He still felt wretched, his stomach churned. But this was closer to how he used to feel back home. Dr Gary’s comment that Efnisien may have been sick all his life annoyed him because it resonated. But becoming an alpha wasn’t easy. If it was easy, everyone would do it, because no one wanted to be an omega.

Efnisien rubbed his arms and looked around the lounge. He walked over to the glass windows but stopped about a foot away in case he accidentally triggered the alarm. He turned and looked at a thin but tall glass cabinet with some sculptures in it. Some looked expensive. Others didn’t.

He walked into the kitchen, opening the fridge, but he wasn’t hungry or thirsty, and he closed it again. He opened some of the cabinets. Plates and glasses and coffee mugs, and one blue finely made teacup with one saucer, the prettiest thing in the cupboard and out of place for it. There was a cabinet that was purely for wine storage.

Efnisien wandered to Dr Gary’s bedroom, nostrils flaring at the scent. It was stronger here, but it wasn’t sharp or off-putting like Dr Gary’s pheromones could be in person. The bed was large, the room felt cosy. Crielle’s bedroom had always been sparse and pristine, Gwyn’s room was kind of a dump, no matter what the servants tried to do with it. Dr Gary’s bedroom didn’t feel like the room of someone who talked and acted the way he did, it felt like the space of someone who just wanted to feel comfortable.

He made his way back to the couch and sat. Spending long periods of time on his own was nothing new to him. He wished he had his phone, he wished he had his computer, but it could be worse. The couch was comfortable. The tracker didn’t bother him, even though Dr Gary acted like it should.

Efnisien reached up, his fingers hovering around the scars on the back of his neck without making contact. He knew the chip was in there. They waved a plastic beeping wand over it to check it was still viable sometimes.

Dr Gary suggested removing it like it would be a kind thing. Efnisien couldn’t even consider it. That chip was one of the main ways he knew he was still wanted in this world. They could have removed it before they sent him to Hillview, but they’d kept it in.

It had to stay. It was one of the only ways anyone would ever know he belonged to someone. If they gave up on him here, or killed him, or he died somehow, the chip would…

Maybe it wouldn’t mean a thing once he was underground, and no one knew it was there in the first place.

He laid down carefully, but his shoulder didn’t twinge as badly as it had the night before. It wasn’t better, but the brace was helping. Sometimes, even when he didn’t want to think about it, he could still feel Kent’s fingers inside of him. He kept telling himself to forget, to stop thinking about it. That was normal medical crap. He was used to it.

He wasn’t used to it here.

Gwyn was a great distraction after procedures like that. Nothing like physical violence or an argument to make Efnisien stop thinking about the specifics.

Efnisien rubbed at his face and curled up on the couch. He was so tired. And Dr Gary really didn’t seem to be coming back any time soon. Efnisien kept thinking he was going to be fucked by him, but that hadn’t happened yet. They’d given him meds, which actually seemed to be helping. The food was nice. This place was a clusterfuck. Why would Crielle send him here?

He didn’t get it. Surely if he were being truly abandoned, they’d send him to a different facility? Maybe this really was a holding space.

Maybe they were coming back for him.

Efnisien made a sound in the back of his throat as he remembered the things Gwyn had said. God. No, he couldn’t think about it.

Eventually his mind drifted off, and his body followed.

When he’d woken hours later, it was dark, it was late, Polly was there, and Dr Gary was crouched beside him, his scent was wild and different. But Efnisien didn’t throw up, and his nausea didn’t go haywire, and he realised it wasn’t Dr Gary’s pheromones, but that he had been drinking. And…and smoking? He thought he recognised the smell from one of Crielle’s science friends that came over sometimes.

Dr Gary had just picked him up after a conversation where Efnisien was pretty sure Dr Gary was drunk, and then everything that followed was confusing, scary, and now he was on Dr Gary’s bed, a heavy arm on his chest, as Dr Gary snored lightly beside him.

Efnisien pushed up slowly, then eased out from under the pressure of that arm. Dr Gary had picked him up so easily. He’d pushed Efnisien down easily. And where Kadek hadn’t known how to deal with Efnisien’s violence, Dr Gary had no problems with it.

Efnisien’s mind was muddy, he watched Dr Gary for a long time, expecting him to wake and do something drastic or strange. Everything had been strange. And why had he said ‘I miss you’ like that? His voice strained and rough, like he’d been near tears. Efnisien didn’t even know peak alphas could experience strong emotion like that. He didn’t think they were capable of any strong emotion that wasn’t rage.

I miss you.

It obviously wasn’t Efnisien. Maybe that was why Dr Gary kept saying he wasn’t interested in Efnisien and didn’t want to fuck him and bizarrely seemed to actually mean it.

Efnisien had barely gotten a glimpse of Dr Gary’s body because he’d undressed in the dark. Because he’d gotten under the covers. There’d been the experience of some chest hair, and strength, and then Dr Gary was asleep. The world around them was quiet except for a very dull thumping where Polly stood in the room, her tail wagging and hitting the wall.

Dr Gary said Efnisien could even go back to the couch. Efnisien didn’t get it.

A rise and fall of brief, pointless anger, and Efnisien slumped against the headboard and the pillows and stared at the shape of a man half-covered in blankets and didn’t understand. Almost everyone in his life was in control all the time. He’d seen people like this on the internet, in films and shows sometimes, or documentaries, but this wasn’t the way peak alphas were supposed to behave.

Polly walked around in a couple of circles and then found her way to the space where Efnisien had seen a cosy, cushioned dog bed from earlier. Efnisien leaned closer to the man next to him, and tentatively touched Dr Gary’s forearm. Dr Gary hadn’t even reacted when Efnisien dug his nails in.

Adrenaline passed, leaving tiredness in its wake. Efnisien reluctantly eased back down after weighing the merits of returning to the couch. Dr Gary’s bed was comfortable. He moved Dr Gary’s arm out of the way and nothing happened.

Those three words rolling around in his mind, over and over again, ‘I miss you.’ Dr Gary smelling of red wine and cigarettes. Telling Efnisien he could get food, go back to the couch, calling him a good boy in that tone of voice.

Good boy. Good boy.

Efnisien had seen something raw, and he had the strangest feeling that few other people had seen it.

*

He roused groggily to Dr Gary standing over him in a different business suit – black, today – with his hair styled and finishing up the button of his jacket. He didn’t look hungover. He looked nothing like the man Efnisien had seen the night before.

‘We have some good news,’ Dr Gary said, ‘Faber has arrived with clothing. He’ll be bringing it over, and you can finally wear something that’s yours. It might not feel like yours at first, but it belongs to you and no one else. If there’s any issue with sizing, Faber can get you something else. It’s time for breakfast, since you skipped dinner last night, you should eat something.’

Dr Gary walked out of the room and Polly followed him, and Efnisien hung back in the bed for a minute, blinking around the space. It was bright and green beyond Dr Gary’s bedroom window; the curtains had been opened.

Efnisien saw kangaroos on the grass and pushed up immediately, stumbling over to the glass. He stared in amazement. There were at least twenty. One was only a few metres away from the house. Some were about as small as the one he’d seen in the forest, most were larger, and then there was one really big one. That must have been a male.

They were a mix of dun and grey, darker at the head and paws, and lighter underneath. They looked fluffy and soft, even though their fur was short. He’d seen pictures of rabbit fur online, it kind of looked like that.

He heard noises of cutlery and crockery in the kitchen and reluctantly moved away from the window.

He was sweating again, his shoulder hurt, but not as badly, leaving him space to feel the other bruises he had, the wrongness in his guts. It was like there were stones in there, grinding around, not just in his intestines but everywhere. Some of it was familiar, some of it wasn’t. Sweating this much was new.

Dr Gary looked professional all over again, and he moved effortlessly through his kitchen, which was kind of different to how he’d behaved the night before. When Dr Gary saw Efnisien, he pointed at a glass of water on the counter.

‘I know you’ll want to shower,’ Dr Gary said, ‘but you can wait until Faber gets here with the clothing. I have a full day today, so I can only come back to check how things are going at lunch. I assume you’ll appreciate the break anyway.’

Efnisien refused to wring his hands together. He was used to being alone, but he hadn’t really enjoyed it the night before. Maybe because he didn’t have a phone, or a computer. Even at home, there had been staff.

He wanted to ask if he could read some books, but most alphas frowned on omegas being too educated. If they were going to treat him like an omega here, they wouldn’t want him to learn too much. Omegas had their own education academies – that Efnisien had never attended, because he wasn’t one – and Efnisien knew they were mostly taught how to be good husbands and wives and how to make their partners happy in the bedroom, in the kitchen, throughout a whole damn house. That was about it. Oh and babies. The omegas with uteruses had to learn about babies.

Polly ran up to him, tail wagging harder than normal, like she was excited all over again that he was there. He stared down at her, less alarmed than the day before. She’d been around him more than any other dog and she hadn’t bitten him at all, she hadn’t even fake-lunged at him. But her teeth were big and white and sharp, and he knew if he put a hand near her face, she’d snap.

He edged around her carefully, and Polly ran past Efnisien into the kitchen instead, making weird growly-snuffly noises by Dr Gary’s feet.

‘You’ve had breakfast, Pol,’ Dr Gary said, assembling things on plates.

Efnisien reached for the glass of water and had some, trying to ignore the way Dr Gary’s eyes watched him when he drank. That eye contact was something else. Efnisien didn’t get that feeling from anyone who wasn’t a peak alpha, but even then, Crielle didn’t often look at him anyway unless it was for her science, and Gwyn’s eyes were so often filled with violence, or they were bored, so they didn’t make Efnisien feel as pinned.

This was different.

Efnisien put the glass down and rubbed at his itchy forehead.

Dr Gary seemed to notice that as well, because he said: ‘There’s more tablets for you this morning. How’s the nausea?’

Efnisien shrugged. He knew Dr Gary expected him to be obedient and answer, but now that Efnisien had some proper sleep, he was trying to think of ways he could be himself, instead of whatever they expected him to be. He’d pretty much given up on escaping – at least for now – but no way was he going to meekly submit to whatever they had planned for him.

He wanted the pills though. He was sure they weren’t actively harming him. They weren’t even giving him as many as Crielle used to.

‘I don’t feel right,’ Efnisien said finally. ‘Like…’

He wanted to say: Worse than at home, but that violated the directive, so he had to find another way to talk about it.

‘I won’t know how bad the nausea will be until I eat.’

‘So it’s not too bad right now? That’s good,’ Dr Gary said.

‘I want some books,’ Efnisien said, summoning his courage. ‘If you’re leaving. I want something to read. It’s boring here. I don’t have a phone or a computer.’

Dr Gary’s eyebrows lifted, then he went back to whatever he was doing. After a minute he picked up two plates, and it looked like toast, crackers, smoked salmon, cream cheese, some salad, some fruit, a quiche-frittata thing. Dr Gary walked over to the table with the plates, and Efnisien didn’t understand why he didn’t have staff. Someone else should do that for peak alphas.

It was tempting to goad him, to say: Are you even a real peak alpha?

But Efnisien knew he was. He couldn’t even bring himself to choke out the words. Dr Gary just had an energy about him. Everyone listened to him. Faber called him Sir, Efnisien remembered. Kent deferred to everything from his words to his expressions and body language, Efnisien remembered that too. Even Anton who wasn’t happy with him, still left Efnisien with him.

Dr Gary went to the counter again and came back with more tablets, and Efnisien took them and swallowed them easily, barely needing the water to help. Dr Gary watched him like something was weird about it, then sat opposite Efnisien at the table.

Efnisien looked down at the food. He wasn’t used to eating like this. He had protein and meal replacement shakes most of the time. He had proper meals sometimes, but it wasn’t expected, and there was never toast or crackers.

Eating like this seemed way more inconvenient, and it took longer to finish than a shake, but…it all tasted so fucking good.

‘What sort of books?’ Dr Gary said.

‘Non-fiction,’ Efnisien said quickly. ‘About anything.’

Dr Gary didn’t say no straight away, and Efnisien shoved a piece of toast and smoked salmon into his mouth and as he tasted the flavours he felt a rush of emotion that was overwhelming. He had to put the toast down and focus on chewing, trying not to become stupidly upset over how good something could taste in the morning if it wasn’t just chalky powder blended with water. Even the toast was good. Dr Gary had buttered it too.

Efnisien had finished a whole piece of toast – discovering that cream cheese was bad on its own, but okay with the salmon and the bread – and sat staring at the rest of the plate. There was so much food. He reached for the egg-slice thing. Dr Gary had eaten his with his hands.

‘You said you were home-schooled before,’ Dr Gary said. ‘But you don’t know what grade or level you are?’

‘No,’ Efnisien said. ‘I can read, though.’

‘Did you want to go to university?’ Dr Gary said. There was a lightness in his tone like he wasn’t super invested in the answer, which made it easier to reply.

‘Um, yeah.’ He didn’t mention Gwyn and Crielle constantly told him he couldn’t go. Not until he was better at being an alpha. ‘Eventually. I guess.’

‘To study what?’

‘I don’t know,’ Efnisien said. ‘I…was still researching things.’

‘But…did you want to be an accountant? A scientist? A doctor? An artist? Did you have any idea?’

‘A scientist, maybe,’ Efnisien said. ‘Not medicine.’

‘No?’

‘No,’ Efnisien said, feeling queasy at the thought. Every time he thought he’d successfully pushed away the memory of that medical exam, something reminded him of it, and he put the slice down and stared at his plate with the knowledge that eating more would be pushing it.

‘Full already?’ Dr Gary said.

‘This is a lot of food,’ Efnisien said. ‘If it’s easier, I can just have protein shakes.’

‘Do you have a preferred flavour?’

‘Um. Not banana.’

‘I see,’ Dr Gary said. ‘Books on science then. I’ll bring some out of my office. You can choose.’

Efnisien felt a strange mix of gratitude and annoyance. Dr Gary was going to leave him again. For the whole day this time. If he was a companion wasn’t he supposed to stay? Wasn’t that the point?

Efnisien wanted to go outside, but he knew he wouldn’t be allowed. That was just for yesterday, he was sure.

A knock at the door, and Efnisien was only just able to hold back his flinch, or maybe he wasn’t from the look Dr Gary gave him.

‘It’s Faber,’ Dr Gary said, and he didn’t even stop eating. ‘If you use alpha persuasion on him at any point during your stay here, there will be consequences.’

Efnisien heard keys in the lock, a door swinging open, the sound of something thudding against the doorframe, and then a prim little: ‘Damn it.’

‘Do you need some help?’ Dr Gary called, in the middle of eating a salad, looking like he wasn’t even going to get up.

‘No, no, Sir. I’ve got it. There’s just a lot of… A lot to bring in.’

Efnisien had previously only heard Faber’s voice. The man came in – ignoring Polly who was crowding around his ankles – and was way prettier than Efnisien expected. For some reason based on the voice alone, he’d expected someone stuffy, maybe even older than Dr Gary. But Faber couldn’t have been older than his mid-twenties, with clear pale skin, large blue eyes, and a strawberry blond hair that was wavy and styled, set with some kind of gel or pomade. He wore glasses with fancy frames, that somehow made him look stern and sweet at the same time.

Those blue eyes raked over Efnisien with a mixture of curiosity and wariness. Faber had about five bags hanging from his hands and forearms on each side. He set them down by the kitchen counter, then waved Polly away when she stuck her head inside of one.

‘Shoo, Miss,’ Faber said, and Polly rubbed her head all over the hand that Faber was trying to shoo her with. ‘Polly, please.’

Faber looked at Efnisien again, then gave Dr Gary a look. Whatever he’d seen, he didn’t approve of it.

‘I realised shoes were…important, Sir,’ Faber said, ‘but I didn’t know the boy’s size, so there’s a selection, and I’ll exchange the rest for more in his size. There’s plenty of everything, I don’t think I forgot anything. If there’s any problems, please let me know. You have a meeting in twenty minutes, Sir.’

‘Yes, Faber. I know,’ Dr Gary said.

‘Yes. Then…I’ll just wait here until you’re ready,’ Faber said, looking at Efnisien again, eyes narrowing slightly.

Efnisien glared back. What the fuck was the dude’s problem? He was way more disrespectful than any beta had a right to be, even if he was pretty.

Dr Gary started talking about the meeting, which sounded like it was with sponsors, or maybe scientists who were funding Hillview, because it apparently wasn’t only a rehabilitation centre, but also an ongoing research project. There were a lot of names, a lot of jargon, and Efnisien felt dismissed even though he was right there. He was both used to it and annoyed.

Crielle and Gwyn talked like Efnisien wasn’t there all the time, but Lludd would never dare. So while Efnisien kind of expected it from Dr Gary, having Faber doing it too pissed him off. He wanted to use alpha persuasion to see what would happen, but he had to bide his time.

He wondered if any of the clothes in those bags would fit him.

When Dr Gary stood, Efnisien stayed seated, because he didn’t know what to do with Faber in the house as well. Dr Gary went off to his home office, and Faber followed, keeping up a steady stream of schedule-based chatter. Efnisien tried to glean information, but mostly it seemed that Dr Gary talked to a lot of scientists and professional people and needed to do it on a regular basis. Crielle’s life was like that too, especially with the company she ran.

When Dr Gary returned, it was with a stack of six books. He placed them on the table next to Efnisien’s plate. He then picked up a black briefcase that Efnisien hadn’t noticed, it was resting against the wall opposite the kitchen counter.

‘Feel free to look through the clothing,’ Dr Gary said. Efnisien took a few seconds to realise he was the one being addressed. ‘I’ll be back in a few hours for lunch.’

‘You have that meeting at 12, Sir. But I can reschedule if you-’

‘I’ll be back after that meeting,’ Dr Gary said, without giving Efnisien another look. ‘Polly, come along.’

‘Oh? She’s joining us today?’ And then Faber looked back at Efnisien, and his expression cleared. ‘I see.’

‘It’s just a precaution,’ Dr Gary said.

‘Right, of course, Sir,’ Faber said.

And then they were both gone, Polly jogging happily behind them, and the door closed. Efnisien heard Faber’s voice continue until it disappeared. One sentence the clearest out of all of them:

‘You’re not keeping him in a holding room? Sir, with all due respect, what are you thinking?’

Efnisien didn’t catch Dr Gary’s response. His voice was too low.

Efnisien sat there staring at the books, the plate with the food on it. He looked at the bags of clothing. He sat in the empty cottage realising he was going to be alone again, that Dr Gary hadn’t even cleared the table, like Efnisien was expected to do it.

A burst of rage blew up inside of him, and he gripped both plates hard enough to hurt his fingers, then flung them across the room. The sound of the shattering ceramic was satisfying.

Chapter Text

Efnisien felt weak as a bolt of terror moved through him. He stared at the broken plates, imagined what might be done to him, and his shallow breathing turned into panting. He quickly walked into the kitchen, looking for all the things he might need. He found a dustpan and brush under the kitchen sink. He found a sponge and cleaning supplies.

Being torn between the urge to tear it all down, to escape, and to be calm so no one hurt him was ruining him. He couldn’t believe he’d thrown the plates. He hardly ever acted out at home, and if he did, it was usually by baiting Gwyn. That was the safest option.

Gwyn always took the bait, there was always a catharsis, Efnisien was often tired and frustrated and sore afterwards, but the peak of his fury vanished.

But while Dr Gary lectured him, and was stern with him, he didn’t fight him like Gwyn did. Efnisien didn’t know what to do with all of his anger, and he was getting stupid.

His hands shook as he picked up the biggest pieces of the plates and walked over to the bin, dumping them in and wincing when he realised Dr Gary would know what he’d done. Maybe Dr Gary wouldn’t hurt him if he saw Efnisien had cleaned up.

Efnisien had seen the beach for the first time the day before. He’d had a decent breakfast. They gave him pills which did make him feel a bit better than before. Dr Gary really didn’t seem to be interested in fucking him. Did that mean they’d outsource it to someone else? But it didn’t seem to be the way this centre worked.

The same question from before rattled around his mind. Why here? Why did Crielle send him here?

Efnisien’s breath trembled on every exhale as he swept up the smaller pieces of food and ceramic. It took him ages to get it all done, because he didn’t really know how to clean, and he didn’t know what exactly to use out of all of Dr Gary’s supplies, and he was paranoid Dr Gary was going to punish him.

When everything was done, Efnisien felt clammy and gross. He stared at the bags of clothing Faber had brought over, then knelt by them and started pulling clothing out. He wanted a shower. He wanted to wear proper clothing that fit him. He was worried that Dr Gary might take the clothing away, so if he was at least wearing some when the rest of it vanished, he’d have…something.

He was shocked at how nice everything was. What had become rapidly pulling shirts out of a bag became staring at the fabric, the colours. Faber had chosen mostly earthy neutral tones for him, soft beiges, creams, a couple of brown shirts, a few with beige and cream stripes. Efnisien supposed that was safe, and it wasn’t like he’d ever gotten to choose his own clothing before anyway.

Faber seemed to have a good instinct as to his size, there were even sneakers that fit. Efnisien put everything he knew wouldn’t fit back into the bags, then looked at the pile of clothing left behind in amazement. He carefully folded it all – except for the outfit he chose for himself – and looked for a place to put it. He wouldn’t dare put it in Dr Gary’s room, so he carefully put it behind the couch, where it didn’t seem like it would be in anyone’s way.

After that he went into the bathroom. Dr Gary wasn’t here to supervise him, and he had a moment of realising that actually, it didn’t seem like any of them knew what to do with him. It was obvious they weren’t used to clothing omegas like this, they expected them to come with at least some clothes. Their holding cells smelled unused and dusty. No one was supervising him even though he was apparently supposed to be supervised.

Efnisien was careful because he didn’t want to fall in the bathroom, and even though he didn’t feel super dizzy, he knew it could come over him suddenly with temperature changes. He’d passed out at home before too.

Getting the shoulder brace off was awkward, but he managed to reach around and get the Velcro.

Still, he spent longer in the shower than he normally would, taking time to sniff the products Dr Gary had. He spent time conditioning his hair, and scrubbed all the old sweat off his body, hating the smell. When he got to his groin, his soapy fingers touched his balls, and he couldn’t help but think of Kent mentioning the implants.

Efnisien felt queasy again, he finished up soon after that, brushing his teeth and then wrapping himself in one of the big towels kept in the bathroom cabinet. He stared at himself in the mirror and despite the fact that his life had changed, he looked…the same. He was just in a different place now.

A place with kangaroos. And the beach. It had such white sand. The water was so blue. And no one was even walking along the shore when Efnisien saw it. Efnisien knew deserted, perfect beaches existed in Western Australia, but it was still amazing to him that something so pretty could have no one suntanning or surfing or making use of it.

Maybe he could let himself like it a little. Not the centre, not any of the staff, not Faber and the way he looked at Efnisien like he was trash, or Augus, or…any of them.

If Crielle sent him here, maybe she was coming back for him.

Efnisien dressed in the lounge, because he didn’t feel comfortable doing it in Dr Gary’s room, and there wasn’t a ton of rooms left over. The dark blue jeans fit and weren’t too short at the legs. The cream long-sleeved shirt was soft and warm. There was a thin jacket that Efnisien pulled over it, with a mottled pattern of brown, green and beige. It didn’t really suit him, but when had that ever mattered to anyone?

He put on the socks, though the one on his right foot bunched beneath the ankle monitor. He put the sneakers on afterwards and felt human again.

He sighed and slumped back against the couch.

Restlessness overtook him within minutes, and he made his way to the little dining table and sat and looked through some of the books Dr Gary had left him. Three were about psychology, one on peak alphas, one on peak alphas in positions of authority, and one on omega psychology. The other three were more eclectic. A philosophy self-help type book called: Tales from Distant Shores: How the Sea Taught Me to Let Go, a book on beach erosion management, and a Birds of the South-West of Western Australia identification book.

Efnisien pursed his lips and picked the book on beach erosion management. He didn’t know a single thing about it, so hopefully that meant he’d find it interesting. But all the other books – except for the omega one – were also interesting, so maybe he’d read those too.

He went back to the couch and laid down, so he was facing the front door, and then started to read.

*

Dr Gary didn’t come back in the early afternoon, and Efnisien wasn’t surprised. He’d learned the night before that Dr Gary worked, and he worked late. From the way Faber and Dr Gary talked, he could tell the guy was busy. It was increasingly obvious he wasn’t an alpha companion and wasn’t set up to be one. They really didn’t know what else to do with Efnisien.

Reluctantly – based on the fact that Dr Gary had said he could the night before – Efnisien went through some of the food in the containers in the fridge, and found more of that quiche-frittata thing, finishing off a piece of that. He also found some more of the smoked salmon and ate a couple of pieces before getting some water. He couldn’t believe the food was just there, and he could eat it.

But maybe he couldn’t, and Dr Gary would punish him later.

Surely eating a couple of pieces of salmon and some egg slice with cured meat and spring onions in it wasn’t as bad as throwing and breaking the plates. Maybe they’d been special. Efnisien didn’t know.

He read some more. He turned on the television and watched an hour of nothing important. He wanted to look up his location on a maps app. He wanted to street view the roads around him so he could understand it all. Instead, he turned the television off and looked out of the large lounge window.

The kangaroos were gone now. Efnisien couldn’t even see them hiding in the forest. It was hard to believe he’d been in there the day before.

He chewed on his bottom lip, then kept reading about beach erosion, and wondered if all the sand-dunes had plants on them because Dr Gary had deliberately tried to stabilise them to stop erosion, or if they were like that because they were so healthy and untouched.

At three in the afternoon, he found himself touching the top of his head the way Dr Gary had and felt strange. He felt weird. All of this was so fucking…

Like- He’d been touched more in the last 24 hours than probably his whole life. And now it was just gone again. That was great, wasn’t it?

That was great.

Efnisien touched his fingers to his jaw and swallowed and thought about the way Dr Gary had pushed him down on the bed the night before, immediately falling asleep afterwards.

I miss you, he’d said. I miss you.

Who? Who though? Did he used to touch that person all the time? Dr Gary said he was touching Efnisien to settle him, but… not all of his touches were settling.

And now he’d had hardly anything. Not since the day before, at the beach.

Efnisien crossed his legs on the couch and tried not to think about it.

*

And then, at five in the afternoon, the door opened and Efnisien heard more than one voice outside. He pushed up from his half-doze and saw Kent with a medical bag, and Dr Gary with him, and he went from feeling drowsy and calm to panicked so fast that the thud was loud as his leg slammed into the coffee table in his rush to get away.

Dr Gary’s eyes widened, Kent looked alarmed, and before either of them could speak, Efnisien was holding a book on beach erosion like a weapon, unable to control his breathing at all.

‘No,’ Efnisien cried. ‘No way. Not again! Go away!’

Kent flinched, then backed up a few steps.

‘Go away!’ Efnisien shouted again, and Kent turned, walking out of the door before he stopped like he didn’t understand what was happening to him.

Dr Gary was unaffected, the fucking asshole, and he came forwards with a quick agility that had Efnisien stumbling back over the coffee table.

‘No!’ Efnisien shouted, clawing at him as Dr Gary got an arm around him. ‘No! I’m fine! Everything is fine! You’ve already tested everything!’

A hand over the back of his head, another around his torso, and he was being pulled so close to Dr Gary’s body it was impossible. Efnisien turned and bit as hard as he could, catching only a suit jacket and maybe some of the shirt. He opened his mouth and bit again, finally managing to latch onto some of Dr Gary’s collarbone beneath his shirt. As soon as he had skin and bone beneath his teeth, he locked down, and Dr Gary grunted softly.

‘Efnisien,’ Dr Gary said, his voice too fucking calm for a peak alpha being bitten by someone else. Even an alpha. Gwyn would have punched him, backhanded him, gotten him down to the ground in seconds. Dr Gary didn’t do any of it. ‘Easy. There’s not going to be an internal exam. Kent just wants to check your temperature, your blood pressure, to make sure the meds aren’t hurting you.’

Efnisien breathed wildly through flared nostrils, teeth gripping the skin and bone so harshly he didn’t know if he could be made to let go with anything other than alpha persuasion or violence.

Dr Gary didn’t seem to care. That hand was gentle on the back of his head, the arm around his waist was like a steel band. Efnisien wasn’t going anywhere.

‘Easy now,’ Dr Gary said. ‘No one’s going to hurt you. I promise.’

A hesitation, and then footsteps as Kent walked back into the house, and Efnisien screwed his eyes shut.

‘Ah, well,’ Kent said, sounding sad. ‘So that’s what it looks like when the directive isn’t operating.’

‘Yes,’ Dr Gary said, his voice low and heavy.

‘I can look into novel sedatives,’ Kent said slowly. ‘But I don’t like that we need them for something like this.’

‘I don’t know that we do,’ Dr Gary said quietly. ‘Just give him a minute.’

Efnisien ground his teeth in even harder, anger spiking at the way Dr Gary talked like he knew Efnisien was going to calm down. Efnisien didn’t have to calm down for anyone. He wasn’t going to fucking do it now.

‘All right,’ Dr Gary said, gently moving his fingers through Efnisien’s hair. ‘The exam isn’t going to take more than a few minutes. You’ll be asked to sit on a chair, you don’t need to get undressed, and we’ll be able to figure out if we’re on the right track with the meds.’

Efnisien hated how calm he sounded. He knew the bite was hurting him. Knew because the metallic taste of blood had seeped through the shirt into his mouth.

‘I’m not going to use alpha persuasion,’ Dr Gary said, ‘unless you try and hurt Kent. You can swear at him as much as you want if you need to. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you that this was happening earlier.’

Another apology. Efnisien made a weak sound at how confusing it all was. Being this close to Dr Gary was doing his fucking head in. People were supposed to be hurting him.

‘I can smell blood,’ Kent said abruptly.

‘It’s me,’ Dr Gary said, then he laughed quietly. ‘He has a grip.’

‘He’s biting you?’

‘He doesn’t let go once he starts. Not until he wants to, anyway. And he doesn’t yet.’

‘And he’s drawn blood?’

‘Mm,’ Dr Gary said, gently stroking the back of Efnisien’s head. ‘Efnisien, we can’t skip this exam. You will not enjoy being in a tertiary hospital, with your current state. And we’d like to keep you out of one. I know it’s not fair.’

It wasn’t the words, but the touch that had Efnisien’s jaw unlocking incrementally. And Dr Gary didn’t shove Efnisien away, but kept petting him, and Efnisien knew he was supposed to hate it, but between Gwyn’s violence and Crielle’s dispassion and this…

What the fuck was he supposed to do?

‘That’s good,’ Dr Gary said. ‘That’s good. Kent doesn’t want to hurt you. He’s still angry at me for yesterday, aren’t you, Kent?’

‘Don’t even get me started,’ Kent muttered.

‘Exactly.’

Efnisien’s breathing was coming under his control again, the panic receding into a mixture of frustration and fear and shock at the way the afternoon had changed. Dr Gary was so close to him that even as he sagged, Efnisien hardly moved because of the arm around his back.

‘You have a very impressive fight-flight response,’ Dr Gary added, sounding a little amused. ‘For what it’s worth, we’ve decided to not do medical exams of any kind – unless absolutely necessary – in the exam rooms anymore, so you can react as you need to. I’d much rather know this is how you feel about it, than see you paralysed in your own mind.’

‘Sure,’ Efnisien said under his breath. That couldn’t be true.

‘Do you think you can come sit down?’

‘I feel fine.’

‘I believe you, but Kent’s giving you a lot of pills right now, and he won’t forgive himself if you suddenly die because of it. That’s not what we want.’

Sure, Efnisien thought.

He knew he had to go sit down. There was an implacability about Dr Gary’s response to him. He knew he was just being soothed to the point where he could deal with the exam.

When Dr Gary turned slowly so Efnisien had a clearer line to the dining table, Efnisien felt resigned.

He shifted in that direction, and the arm around him became a hand at his lower back, and Efnisien felt shaky to lose all the rest of the contact. But he sat on the chair, and he glared at Kent, and then he jerked hard when Polly brushed his leg.

After that, she wandered over to Kent instead, nosing at him until he bent down and petted her.

Kent brought the medical bag over and opened it on the table. He drew out a stethoscope, a thermometer, and Efnisien stopped looking after that. Dr Gary stayed close, behind him, one hand on his shoulder and another on the top of his head again.

Kent looked up at Dr Gary, and his eyes widened.

‘Shit, you are…bleeding a bit, Dr Gary.’

‘We can deal with it afterwards.’

Kent looked at Efnisien warily. Efnisien glared at him, then looked away. He was pretty sure if he tried to kill Kent, he’d be in deep shit, and he knew he wouldn’t survive prison.

The thermometer ended up being one of the kinds that scanned his forehead. It didn’t even touch him. And then Kent looked inside his ears and placed the stethoscope over Efnisien’s chest and back. He explained what he was doing before he did it, and Efnisien sat there and remembered the pain that happened inside of him when Kent discovered his lare glands were missing the day before. He even remembered how horrible it was when the fingers moved out of him. It should have been a relief, but it wasn’t.

‘I might get you to learn how to measure his blood pressure when he’s calmer,’ Kent said quietly. ‘Because… I don’t think we’re getting accurate readings right now. That being said, it’s still the most stable it’s been.’

‘Anywhere near normal?’

‘No,’ Kent said. ‘The heartrate’s not great either. Better, but not great. His temperature’s come down, but it’s not within normal range. I’d tentatively say right now that the medicine is helping, but we might not have the levels right, and I can’t speak to how he was before all of this, Dr Gary. And nor can he.’

‘We’ll establish a new baseline for him then,’ Dr Gary said quietly, scritching the back of Efnisien’s scalp. Efnisien was finding it hard to concentrate as a result. ‘It’s good that some of the results have already improved.’

‘Have you thrown up at all?’ Kent asked him, and Efnisien was surprised to be involved in the conversation at all.

‘No,’ Efnisien said.

‘That’s very good to hear. Any diarrhea?’

Efnisien cringed, then he looked away and shook his head. That didn’t mean he didn’t expect it later. But at least for now…

Still, even that reminded him of the fact the internal exam had happened only a short while after he’d dealt with cramps and other humiliations. Suddenly the beach and the kangaroos didn’t seem that great.

‘How’s your shoulder feeling?’ Kent said.

‘Um. Okay,’ Efnisien said. ‘It’s…better than it was.’

‘Be careful,’ Dr Gary said then. ‘I don’t know if the directive makes it impossible for him to avoid your questions, even away from an exam room.’

‘Rightio,’ Kent said. ‘Well, that’s me done for now, anyway. On the ardolphogen front, it’s proving almost impossible to secure the amounts we want. There’s only one company in the state that has a solid supply.’

Efnisien felt a small triumphant gleam inside of him then, and he looked up. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘Fenwy Laboratories.’

Kent seemed confused. ‘…Yes. How did you know?’

‘Crielle ferch Fnwy,’ Dr Gary said, figuring it out faster than Efnisien could reply. ‘Are you saying she’s involved in one of the largest companies responsible for global hormone distribution?’

Efnisien said nothing. There were a lot of aspects of her work he couldn’t talk about, because of the directive, but he could definitely say the name of the company.

‘They’re still one of the only companies in the world that have the market cornered on ardolphogen production,' Kent said. ‘I’m going to have to put in an order.’

Dr Gary seemed uncomfortable. Efnisien didn’t know how he could tell, because it wasn’t like his pheromones got stronger, and his touch didn’t change. Maybe it was the silence, but Dr Gary was often quiet and considered before he said something.

‘I see,’ Dr Gary said finally. And then, almost intentionally, Dr Gary’s thumb dropped down to the scars at the back of Efnisien’s neck for a few seconds before moving back up again. ‘I see,’ he said again.

A sense of smug satisfaction at the fact they were going to have to get in touch with Crielle’s company – the family company – even though many people didn’t realise Crielle was in charge of most of it. It was like his family was still here somehow, still involved.

Strangely, it didn’t make him feel less lonely.

Chapter Text

Kent left after cleaning the wound on Dr Gary’s collarbone. There was a bloodstain that had spread across his shirt, and Dr Gary had already gone to change it. There was a point where Dr Gary calmly watched Efnisien while Kent tended his wound, placing gauze on it. Efnisien had to look away.

And then Dr Gary had come close to Efnisien again, standing behind him like before, one hand on his shoulder, the other at the back of Efnisien’s head, just above the scars on his neck. Efnisien hated it because it helped to have someone be close to him like this. Hated it because he knew one of the reasons he didn’t like being left alone for so long at Hillview was because he kept remembering Dr Gary’s touch. He resented it.

‘That’s what medical exams are going to look like going into the future,’ Dr Gary said. ‘I know ideally you wouldn’t have to have them at all, but it’s extremely unusual for anyone to be supplemented with ardolphogen, let alone an omega, let alone at the levels you’re being supplied.’

Efnisien thought about the plates he’d thrown. At some point Dr Gary was probably going to realise. At first, he’d thought the reason Dr Gary had returned with Kent was because he’d seen through the cameras that Efnisien had broken the plates.

Efnisien hadn’t noticed any cameras, but he knew from the An Fnwy Estate they had to be around.

‘Fenwy Laboratories,’ Dr Gary said quietly. ‘When we vetted your family on their income stream, it didn’t even come up. Yet it’s clearly named after the place where you lived, your aunt’s surname. Is the connection a secret?’

Efnisien shook his head.

‘No?’ Dr Gary said, and Efnisien could feel the pressure to respond. He couldn’t even smell Dr Gary’s pheromones and he still felt that push.

‘She…isn’t one of the fronting members of the company,’ Efnisien said.

‘I get the sense that if I ask you too many more questions about this, we’re going to run up against that directive.’

‘Probably,’ Efnisien choked out.

Fingers moved in his hair, Efnisien bit hard into his top lip. Dr Gary touched him like he gave a shit. The rest of the time he acted like he didn’t. Mostly. Except that he’d taken Efnisien outside, and given him food, and actively brought him things. But still, he just didn’t seem to…care.

Efnisien had the strangest thought that they could just hire another peak alpha for him to bond with, and Dr Gary could go and do his own thing. But it was horrible to even contemplate because it meant Efnisien was starting to accept he’d stay.

He didn’t want to do that.

‘We’re not going to do another internal exam except under very specific circumstances,’ Dr Gary said. Efnisien tensed at the word ‘except.’ ‘Those circumstances are specifically to check if you’re ready for heats, which you may never be, or if something goes wrong with the surgical site, as Kent said the surgeries were not professionally done, and that’s quite… We’re concerned for the possibility that there’s ongoing pain and damage, especially if it could be reversed.’

‘If I’m never ready for heats, then what’s the point of this?’ Efnisien said. ‘You can’t bond with me; you can’t give me to someone else. You’re not even a companion. I know that all you alphas rely on heats to like…force bonding.’

‘At Hillview, a significant portion of bonding happens before the first shared heat,’ Dr Gary said quietly. ‘We’re not like the centres that force heats chemically, so omegas are in such a hormone-saturated state they’ll mate with anyone and bond automatically. Here we rely on other methods.’

Like all this fucking touching.

Efnisien sucked in a breath and wished the tablets didn’t help so much. But after the meal and the pills, he already felt less gross than he had when he’d woken up.

‘You didn’t answer my questions though,’ Efnisien said. ‘What’s the point of this?’

‘I don’t know,’ Dr Gary said. ‘But you can’t go home.’

‘Why can’t I-?’

‘-I have to get back to work,’ Dr Gary said. ‘But there is something you should know. When I talked with Crielle on the phone, she made it clear that if we cannot deliver you as a fully rehabilitated omega fit for high society, you will be killed. If we do not think we can achieve that, she gave Hillview permission to kill you ourselves. She made it clear that you have no birth certificate.’

Efnisien’s kneejerk response was to tell Dr Gary he was lying, but he couldn’t bring himself to say a single word.

‘We’re not going to kill you,’ Dr Gary said. ‘I’ll be honest with you, after all the surgical mutilation you’ve experienced, we’re still figuring out how to move forward with rehabilitation. Until then, we’ll keep figuring things out.’

Dr Gary removed his touch and stepped away. Efnisien looked up at him as he moved into the kitchen, and he felt a combination of fear that Dr Gary would realise he’d shattered the plates and get mad, and some other huge, nameless thing at everything Dr Gary had just said.

‘She could’ve sent me to any centre though,’ Efnisien said. ‘So why…? This- I don’t…get it.’

‘It would help if she was more forthcoming on the phone, but she does seem awfully used to getting her own way,’ Dr Gary said, washing his hands at the sink and looking down at the place where Efnisien had bitten him. It was hidden beneath the shirt he was wearing, but it was like he could still see it. ‘Anyway, I’ll be back later this evening. Feel free to get yourself something to eat. Nothing’s off limits except for the wine.’

Dr Gary gave Efnisien a passing look and then he left his home, and Efnisien was alone once more.

That anger built again, even as Efnisien thought he should feel relieved, even happy that Dr Gary was finally fucking gone. Instead this perplexing outrage, because sure, he was being abandoned by these people, but it wasn’t like he wanted anything to do with them! Wasn’t it better to be left alone so he could figure out shit in his own time? At his own pace?

He stared at the table blankly, then ground his teeth together and made a short, sharp noise of frustration.

If there had been plates, he would have thrown them.

*

Hours later, it was eight in the evening according to the clock on the microwave, and Dr Gary still wasn’t back. Did the guy work like this all the time? Or was he just avoiding Efnisien? Would he come back drunk like the night before? Efnisien’s breathing was shallow and panicky because he didn’t know what to do.

He tried reading, but his mind wouldn’t focus on the words for longer than a paragraph or two. What was he supposed to do?

Anger was seething and wretched like a sprawling thing in his chest. He didn’t understand why he was so upset about Dr Gary being gone, and worse, what if he was bonding already, and that was the cause? He couldn’t bear it. He didn’t even like the guy. He was such an arrogant- Well, he was a peak alpha.

At nine, Efnisien paced around the cottage, like a trapped animal. He wanted Dr Gary’s skin and bone in his mouth again, wishing he was fucking hurting him. He got at least some satisfaction from knowing he’d broken the skin twice, and a weirder feeling at the fact that Dr Gary just let him without hitting him.

Dr Gary had to have a breaking point, some line where he’d fight back. Efnisien had come close a couple of times, he knew it.

Efnisien walked to the glass sliding door and windows in the lounge and looked down at his ankle monitor. The thing was sensitive. He had a feeling that even if he didn’t leave the cottage…

He touched the monitor to the glass window, nothing happened. Then he looked around for an alarm sensor and found one – a black innocuous strip – at one side of the sliding door. That must be the point where if Efnisien crossed it to go outside, the alarm would trip.

Efnisien bit his lip, then pushed the ankle monitor to the strip, trying to make contact.

The alarm went off.

Efnisien had a few seconds of satisfaction at knowing he was ruining everyone’s fucking evening before the piercing wail of the alarm overloaded his senses. He wasn’t running away anymore, he was right where the alarm sounded off, and unlike when he’d been in the forest, it felt like it was piercing his fucking brain. He made a strangled noise, then clutched his head as he dropped down into a crouch.

It occurred to him that he could run again, but no, let Dr Gary think the alarm was faulty. Let him think the ankle monitor wasn’t working properly.

Because fuck him.

Fuck him and his stupid fucking work schedule.

He made a long low noise to try and counterbalance the shrill piercing force of the alarm, it barely worked. It felt like he was waiting for fucking ages before he heard footsteps pound up the stairs onto the decking, and he hurriedly stood by the couch, telling himself to act like nothing was wrong.

The door slammed open, Dr Gary had his phone up to his ear, looking concerned, staring around the house wildly, and then his eyes locked with Efnisien’s.

Efnisien had to look away.

Dr Gary was saying something to whoever was on the phone – fuck knew if they could hear it, over the alarm – and then Dr Gary put his phone in his pocket and disarmed the alarm at the same time.

They stood there. Efnisien across the space in the lounge, on the other side of the couch, ears ringing, and Dr Gary in the foyer, just looking at him.

Dr Gary walked in a few steps and looked around the space, like he was assessing for damage.

Maybe I’ll do that next time, Efnisien thought.

Dr Gary’s phone rang again, and he picked it up, and even that pissed Efnisien off.

‘No, no it’s fine, I think,’ Dr Gary said. ‘Yes, Faber… No, he’s right here. I think it was just a malfunction.’

But Dr Gary stared at Efnisien like he knew it was deliberate. And Efnisien tried to maintain the eye contact though it was a struggle, scowling at him. Efnisien could set that alarm off whenever he wanted. Because fuck all the omegas in the facility, fuck their stupid alphas, and fuck this whole place. If he had the ankle monitor, he could do it whenever he wanted.

‘Yes, I’m sure,’ Dr Gary said. Efnisien wondered if Faber was snidely suggesting that Efnisien should be shoved in a fucking cell again. ‘No, it’s- It was nearly the end of the night anyway. I’ll see you tomorrow. Also, he’s wearing some of the clothing, I’ll get you his size so you can arrange some exchanges. Good, yes. Tell Brackham that I’ll call him back tomorrow. Yes, goodnight.’

Dr Gary hung up and put the phone in his pocket, they continued to look at each other.

Efnisien wanted knives, and he wanted giant metal poles to swing into Dr Gary’s body, but instead of that he said coldly, flippantly:

‘Last night you said, ‘I miss you’ and like, it obviously wasn’t to me. So, who did you miss? Like an ex or something? Because I think it’s just really fucking sad that-’

Efnisien’s voice died as his throat closed in panic, because Dr Gary stalked towards him so fucking fast, and his expression had already changed, darkened, become so goddamn threatening that Efnisien was trying to get around the couch and away.

‘No!’ Efnisien shrieked, as Dr Gary grabbed him by the arm in an iron grip. ‘Get the fuck off me!’

Dr Gary wrapped his other hand around Efnisien’s throat. His fingers rested over the scars on the back of Efnisien’s neck, which made his skin crawl. It was on purpose. Efnisien knew it was on purpose. Dr Gary didn’t touch it all the time because he knew it hurt. And now he was doing it on fucking purpose.

Efnisien’s breathing was shallow and uneven, and Dr Gary stared down at him, the grip around Efnisien’s arm so tight it hurt.

Dr Gary didn’t say anything, but Efnisien could smell the fucking pheromones, he could feel them. He knew if he hadn’t taken meds in the morning, he’d be throwing up right now, his stomach felt like it was flipping. He’d broken out into a sweat. The level of intimidation was unreal. He’d only experienced this from Crielle a few times, and it was horrible. Like a wall bearing down on him. Even Gwyn couldn’t do this.

‘Keep talking, Efnisien,’ Dr Gary said dangerously.

Efnisien pressed his lips together. Fucking nope. That wasn’t- He hadn’t… He didn’t want this.

‘No?’ Dr Gary said, leaning down until his face was horribly close. The scent was even stronger now, and Efnisien gulped. ‘Nothing to say? What did I tell you about my tolerance of tantrums?’

Efnisien sure hoped Dr Gary didn’t expect an actual answer, because Efnisien was paralysed.

Pressure was building, he felt so stupidly powerless, because Dr Gary wasn’t even using alpha persuasion and Efnisien knew he wasn’t even being that strong with his pheromones. It was so unfair that he could just do whatever he wanted, boss people around like that. Unfair that he got to leave and work like normal. That he had that fucking strawberry blond sycophant who would do whatever he said. That he had someone deliver him food every day. That he could go outside whenever he wanted.

A ball inside him expanded until it shoved outside of Efnisien’s skin, and then he was acting, shoving at Dr Gary’s chest with both hands – even though he was immoveable – and screaming: ‘I don’t know what’s fucking happening!’

He hadn’t meant to use alpha persuasion; he didn’t even know he was doing it until he did it. Felt the force of his own pheromones in his voice and throat, like everything in his neck was thicker somehow. Dr Gary was still too close, the pressure was still there, and that ball was still expanding.

Efnisien turned and screamed into Dr Gary’s ear, as loudly as he could.

Dr Gary didn’t let go straight away, not even then, but he loosened his grip on Efnisien’s arm, and then a minute later he let go entirely. He stepped back once, then twice, and seemed weirdly shaken. Maybe because he wasn’t saying anything or wasn’t making eye contact. Efnisien didn’t know. Something wasn’t right.

Nothing about this was right.

‘I don’t know what’s happening either,’ Dr Gary said, sounding tired.

It felt like they were at a stalemate. Efnisien felt shaky, and then he saw Polly run inside and he was too tired to even be terrified of her and her stupid wagging tail. She came over to Dr Gary, which put her way too close to comfort.

Efnisien backed away, and Dr Gary let him.

Polly tried to nose at Efnisien’s leg, but he walked backwards a few steps, so she went back to Dr Gary. She wiggled around him like a puppy, and he reached down and petted her absently.

For some reason all of it just made Efnisien upset.

Maybe he should have said he didn’t want to be left alone, but he couldn’t bring himself to say the words because it felt like a defeat, like humiliation, and it was wrong somehow.

Maybe he should have said he needed a phone, or just…something. But he had the TV which he hadn’t turned on yet. And he hadn’t even eaten, and he had a feeling Dr Gary would point out that he could, but Efnisien didn’t know how to pick or choose foods for himself or what he should even eat, and nothing was familiar here. He wasn’t supposed to make decisions like that.

Maybe he should’ve said sorry for bringing up Dr Gary’s past, because it was clear the subject was so off-limits Efnisien was going to get hurt every time he brought it up. But he wasn’t sorry. If Dr Gary left him alone for the whole day again, he didn’t know what he was going to do.

In the end he said nothing, and they stood there in silence for another ten minutes, and then Dr Gary straightened from patting Polly and went down to his room presumably to get changed, without saying another word.

Efnisien felt like he’d lost a battle he hadn’t even been aware he was fighting, until the defeat sank in, poisonous and exhausting.

Chapter Text

Gary’s ear was still ringing after Efnisien screamed directly into it. Even while he got changed out of his suit, he could feel it, like it was reverberating. The rage and frustration and fear were real. Gary wasn’t sure what to do. He couldn’t give his job to someone else. He’d been thinking of what he could postpone and delegate all day. He was meant to be flying out to a conference the following week, he couldn’t see any way to avoid it without risking funding to the facility.

Not to mention how unprofessional it would look if he explained why he couldn’t attend. A manager taking on an omega for himself, after years of insisting a lengthy companion training process was the least an omega deserved? Gary could already imagine the accusations building up against the centre, against him. He’d been exhausted even before Efnisien had shocked him with the revelation that he’d been so mindlessly tired the night before he’d treated Efnisien like James for a second.

Gary stood in his bedroom, rubbed at his forehead, which did nothing to ease the tension or the pain. He went to the small chest of drawers by his bed and pulled out some painkillers, and dry-swallowed two.

But it only reminded him that Efnisien had more tablets to take, and Gary was two hours late in getting them to him.

He walked back down the corridor, fed Polly, then pulled out two plates from the shorter stack, frowning when he realised the other two plates weren’t in the sink, or on the kitchen table. He looked around the house in confusion because stealing plates seemed like a foolish thing to do.

Finally, on a hunch, he looked in the bin at the shattered pieces of ceramic, what was left of breakfast still clinging.

Gary looked up to see Efnisien – who was sitting on the couch again, in what was becoming his customary spot – watching Gary warily.

Expecting to be hit or punished, judging by the body language.

Gary looked down at the broken plates again. The boy talked in tantrums. Gary wasn’t going to tolerate all of it, but he also didn’t have the heart to enact any consequences either. He couldn’t stop hearing the way Efnisien had shouted, ‘I don’t know what’s happening!’

What could he do to rehabilitate Efnisien in the first place? Who would want an omega who was mutilated? He couldn’t be mated. He likely couldn’t go into heat, produce slick, or even a scent. Hillview could try to adjust some of that, but it would take years. It might even be better to delay Efnisien’s bonding until Temsen returned, because out of the two of them, Temsen was probably better suited to Efnisien’s specific needs and might have a decent idea of what to do with him.

Gary couldn’t even in all good conscience hire another peak alpha to handle him. Fast-tracking someone through companion training was bad enough, let alone a peak alpha, let alone a peak alpha expected to handle someone like Efnisien for their first bond.

It left Gary in a genuine bind, and he didn’t know how to deal with it and – laughably – almost did want to talk to Anton about it, or someone, because the situation was absurd. Even Efnisien knew it was absurd.

‘Why did you throw the plates?’ Gary said finally.

Efnisien just stared at him, and Gary was so, so tempted to use alpha persuasion. He could feel the tension in his body, his pheromones crying out for it. An instinct in him that ran deep, that demanded he bring Efnisien to heel no matter whether he was alpha, beta, or omega.

‘You expected me to clean them,’ Efnisien said stubbornly.

Gary frowned. He’d left the plates on the table in the morning. Ah. It wasn’t the first time he’d done that even in an empty house, though he tended to leave them in the sink so Polly couldn’t get to them. Scrubbing plates at midnight that had bits of food dried onto them was part of his life.

‘I didn’t,’ Gary said, ‘but I didn’t say so, I apologise.’

Efnisien’s expression shifted to outright suspicion. Gary knew he should keep Efnisien talking, keep gathering information, but the idea of continuing to work right now…

He still hadn’t heard anything about Kadek, which wasn’t good news in the grand scheme of things. They should have known, at least by now, if they would be able to move him into a recovery ward or not.

Gary looked through all the food Lachlan had left for them both and fried up two steaks and some mushrooms. As that was cooking, he organised Efnisien’s pills. In the next few days he’d talk to Lachlan about what food Efnisien seemed to be able to handle, but it was hard to get an accurate picture. He had no idea what Efnisien had done during the day, except thrown the plates, fastidiously cleaned up the mess, and then deliberately set off the alarm.

He wondered if it was additional stress over knowing his aunt wouldn’t take him back.

When Gary sat at the table, Efnisien silently joined him, staring down at the food. He always had the same perplexed expression on his face, like he was cataloguing it all, like he hadn’t seen it before.

Gary started eating, and only then did Efnisien eat. Gary noted with a small amount of satisfaction that Efnisien picked up the small soft bread roll first, though he put it down after only one bite and went to the meat. Still, Gary hoped that was at least some omega instincts coming through.

How can he have those instincts if he makes no larentin?

Maybe Efnisien just liked the taste of bread.

Gary had questions he wanted to ask, but he didn’t want to turn Efnisien off his food and he wasn’t sure how to navigate this strange new world he found himself in. Normally when he got home late, he’d eat on his own, take Polly out, perhaps do some extra work in his office before the next day. He deliberately didn’t keep company, because he didn’t want to give someone else his time, his emotional labour, his compassion.

But he’d slept like the dead, having someone next to him in a bed again.

His collarbone ached throughout the day, pleasantly and then unpleasantly and then pleasantly again. A pain that reminded him of the way Efnisien’s teeth had hooked in and ground down, while he’d held him close to calm him and control him. In the moment he’d felt powerful. There was no denying physically controlling someone else would always be satisfying, it was why Gary sometimes drove to the big smoke to do it there, but having Efnisien in his home…

‘How are you doing after today’s medical exam?’ Gary said, as Efnisien slowed down and looked like he was full already. Half the food was left on the plate, but the fact that Efnisien was eating instead of starving himself like Alois Flitmouse used to was – in Gary’s opinion – a small win.

‘Fine,’ Efnisien said.

‘If you prefer, I can get Kent to leave some tools with me so I can be the one who monitors your temperature, even your pulse, so that he doesn’t have to do it?’

‘Whatever,’ Efnisien said.

Gary stared at him.

Are you going to set the alarm off again tomorrow? That’s what he wanted to ask. Will you throw more plates? Are you going to keep picking fights?

Gary wasn’t trained in de-escalation like companions were, and he wanted a good fight with his partners. Where others would work only to soothe and calm, Gary still wanted to grab Efnisien up in his hands again and snarl at him just to watch him squirm. But Efnisien was no alpha, and he had a history of being hit. Gary didn’t even know who by.

At some point he’d have to start…putting the picture together.

‘It might be better,’ Efnisien said hesitantly, ‘if you did some of it.’

Gary stared at him because he hadn’t expected any concession at all.

‘That’s good to know,’ Gary said, his voice modulated and even, not at all the dangerous tone of before, when he felt like he could’ve killed Efnisien for deliberately provoking him.

Efnisien had a knack for finding the sore spots. In only a short amount of time, he’d attacked Kadek, then realising that attacking people wasn’t going to get him anywhere, he triggered the alarm instead, which scared all the omegas on the property. And then he’d goaded Gary openly about a presumed ex-partner.

The only thing he’d hidden was those plates. Gary wanted to get to the bottom of why, but now probably wasn’t the time.

‘You have the choice tonight between sleeping in my bed with me, or on the couch,’ Gary said. ‘If you deliberately set off the alarm again overnight, I will put you in restraints, and you will be in the bed with me.’

Efnisien kept his eyes down, looking far too innocent for someone who had broken through Gary’s skin twice now with only teeth. Gary wanted to prod at him until he got a reaction, which was very much not what a companion was supposed to do.

Not that Gary was one of those, but he knew he shouldn’t be adding more fuel to the fire, at the very least.

‘If you sleep in the bed with me,’ Gary said quietly, ‘I will not fuck you, or do any of the things you seem to think I will. I don’t blame you for thinking of rehabilitation centres in this manner.’

Especially after the things your cousin said to you and has obviously been saying to you for years.

‘You snore,’ Efnisien said, eyes down, faintly accusatory.

‘I am a forty-four-year-old man who sometimes drinks,’ Gary said. ‘So I’m not surprised to hear that.’

Speaking of, he should get himself a glass, he looked to the kitchen and decided it could wait.

‘It’s not that loud,’ Efnisien said, still looking down.

‘That’s good to hear,’ Gary said blandly.

‘You have kangaroos outside your house in the morning.’

‘There are kangaroos all over the property. There will be at least a hundred out there right now, but it’s hard to see them at night.’

‘If you let me outside again, can it be in the morning so I can see them?’

Gary couldn’t look away from Efnisien, even though complicated things were happening in his body, a mixture of guilt, the active awareness that he had learned something new, something powerful. The difference between having a sense that Efnisien wasn’t allowed outside in the past, to realising how it impacted Efnisien’s thoughts all the time.

‘You will be allowed to go outside again,’ Gary said finally. ‘If my schedule wasn’t so taxing…’

Efnisien’s eyes darted up to his.

‘It wasn’t just once?’ Efnisien said, looking away again. ‘It’s smart, you know, to take someone outside just once and then use that to make them do stuff for you.’

‘I don’t need to make you ‘do stuff for me,’’ Gary said. ‘I think you know very well that if you set the alarm off repeatedly to – for example – try and manipulate me into taking you outside, that’s not likely to happen. I never intended for you to go outside only once. Your outside visits have to be supervised because many omegas are allowed to use the grounds as they wish, and you are too dangerous to be around them without someone like me nearby.’

Efnisien moved some steak around on the plate with his fork, then ate it.

‘Were you bribed with going outside?’ Gary said finally.

‘I could go outside whenever,’ Efnisien said.

‘Beyond the An Fnwy Estate?’

Efnisien said nothing, and Gary considered him, then decided that unless he wanted to spend the next few hours picking away at someone who didn’t want to talk to him, he should probably clean up and pour himself some wine.

He stood, and Efnisien looked up at him, and Gary felt that gaze on his back in tandem with the pain in his collarbone.

*

Gary went into his home office after putting on a home decorating show that Efnisien seemed fascinated by – he was watching it, at any rate – and turned the lamp on after closing the door behind him. The room was dim because he preferred it that way, and he sat in his ergonomic chair and realised his home no longer felt like his home.

He’d already finished one glass of red wine and was nearly to the end of his second. Efnisien had watched him drinking with the uncertainty of someone who had dealt with him the night before. But Gary hadn’t been drunk, he’d been over-tired. Almost no one saw him when he was existing in that space of ‘forcing himself to function.’ James had seen it, and Faber, and Augus had seen it twice. Otherwise it was just Polly in the small hours of the morning.

He scrolled down his phone screen to a number and pressed call, then turned on the speaker so he wouldn’t have to hold the phone. The only thing he wanted in his hand was the stem of a wine glass.

‘Hey, Dr Gary, everything okay?’ Anton said.

‘Yes, everything’s okay,’ Gary said, then thought of the alarm shrilling through the property earlier. ‘Faber should have updated you on everything.’

‘Yeah, yeah, he did. That’s not what I meant.’

‘It’s not too late to speak, is it?’ Gary said, looking at the clock. ‘We’re late sleepers here.’

‘Flitmouse doesn’t sleep until late either,’ Anton said.

‘Tomorrow’s appointment,’ Gary said, ‘could we do it now?’

There was a pause at the end of the line, and Gary thought this was already so incredibly unprofessional. Anton hadn’t been trained, a pay rise needed to be discussed, and Gary knew Anton wasn’t suited to be his supervisor. A general supervisor – certainly – but…Anton was still so young, and he wasn’t trained to handle-

‘Ah, actually…’ Anton said, sounding uncertain. Gary braced himself for the reminder that the appointment was tomorrow, and Anton wanted to keep it there. ‘I’ve been looking through the supervisor manual. Well, skimming it because it’s- It’s not short, is it? And I don’t know if I’m really cut out to kind of supervise you.’

Gary rubbed at his forehead and leaned back in the chair.

‘I understand,’ Gary said.

‘Something tells me you understood all along,’ Anton said, laughing, ‘and just indulged me. But how about this? I can’t be your supervisor, but I can be a friend, especially a friend who can maybe offer some advice about what you’re going through…if you’d take it from me.’

‘I did call,’ Gary said.

‘Yeah,’ Anton said, sounding more confident. ‘Yeah, you did. So what’s up?’

Gary finished off the glass of wine and pushed it away so he wouldn’t immediately pour himself another and finish the bottle. If Efnisien was worried already, Gary should probably hold back.

‘Just like you’re not exactly a supervisor,’ Gary said, ‘I’m not a companion. I’m not going to become one for this situation, either. I know that. It’s not something I’m wavering on. I am fundamentally unsuited to it, and I learned that back when I was fresh-eyed and bushy-tailed and convinced I was going to be one of the best. I find the whole process physically challenging.’

‘I hear that,’ Anton said, sounding like he was sitting down somewhere. Maybe even in his own office. ‘I mean a lot of alphas can’t do it, but peak alphas especially… I know you’ve looked for more peak alpha companions outside of Augus, and you’ve never found any, have you?’

‘Never,’ Gary said. ‘Though many aren’t very eager to learn in the first place.’

‘What else is going on?’ Anton said.

Gary frowned speculatively, looking at his phone. Anton said he wasn’t cut out to be a supervisor, but the fact that he was asking exploratory questions instead of pushing Gary to become a companion was a good sign.

But Gary didn’t know where to start. He didn’t want to drown Anton with his difficulties. He didn’t want to air grievances that didn’t have solutions.

‘I was thinking,’ Anton said, after a minute went by, ‘of like…giving you some tips I picked up with Flitmouse. Because Flitmouse isn’t really super conventional, but also…you’re in a really complex situation with Efnisien, so it might help to have some organisational tips.’

‘Sure,’ Gary said.

‘The first thing is…I realised when I was talking to Efnisien in the forest that like, he does that thing where you only learn bits and pieces about him and have to guess the rest, right? Flitmouse was like this, he’s still like this. In the end I wrote down a list of the things I was absolutely certain of because he’d confirmed it or I had evidence of it, things I was uncertain of, and things I was really speculating on. It gave me a better insight into Flitmouse, and it let me make connections that I felt were there but couldn’t properly see until I wrote them down. Does that make sense?’

Gary had already swung the chair around to his monitor and was pulling up a table so he could write some things down. He knew Efnisien wasn’t allowed outside the walls of the An Fnwy Estate, and he’d seen for himself what that translated to; the boy was craving exploration, but firmly believed he would only get it in exchange for something else. Now that Gary wasn’t actively bribing him, Efnisien believed he wouldn’t be allowed outside anymore.

‘That's helpful,’ Gary said, realising how many things he could write down.

‘The other thing… This actually wasn’t such an issue with Flitmouse, but it comes up over and over again in the alpha meets, and I think it’s going to be super relevant with Efnisien. Watch out for decision fatigue. Overall the philosophy of Hillview is getting omegas to become better at autonomy and their own decision making, but like…depending on Efnisien’s circumstances-’

‘He has decision fatigue,’ Gary confirmed. He should have realised that from the beginning. It was so obvious in retrospect.

‘Exactly,’ Anton said. ‘And it comes out in different ways for everyone. Flitmouse wouldn’t make himself food, ever, but if I gave it to him, he’d eat. Sometimes it was the only way I knew he was hungry because he didn’t even have signs or cues about it. And like, Efnisien probably won’t be the same, because Flitmouse has all his food issues, but it’s something to watch out for.’

Gary poured the last of the wine into the glass because what Anton said went some way to explaining why Efnisien wasn’t eating much in his absence or was only eating after Gary started eating.

‘Touch helps him,’ Gary said.

‘Sure. Is he mad about it yet?’

‘Ah,’ Gary said. ‘Yes, I believe so. Intermittently.’

‘Intermittently is good,’ Anton said.

‘I can’t stop working,’ Gary said. ‘I have hardly any time for him. I’m seeing him for a few minutes in the morning, and then at the end of the day, at the moment.’

A long pause, Gary could practically feel the disapproval on the other end. He was impressed Anton hadn’t simply started lecturing him yet. Maybe Anton had actually considered what it meant for the manager of Hillview to take on a high needs case like this.

‘You’re going to have to prioritise,’ Anton said slowly, tentatively. ‘Income flow into Hillview first, maybe Efnisien second, but the academic stuff has to wait.'

‘We get funding from academic institutions that have government backing,’ Gary said. ‘That funding is contingent on updates in the science. We have no other pure researchers on site, except for Temsen, who currently isn’t here.’

‘Can you give more of your workload to Temsen when he comes back? Temsen can hand off some of his physician role to Kent, who’s basically crying out for it anyway. Kent’s ready.’

Gary pressed his lips together. ‘That’s not such a bad idea, but he doesn’t come back for a week, and I’ll be away then.’

‘You’re still going away?’ Anton said, a sharp jump in the level of his outrage.

Gary smirked at the phone, then sipped at his wine. That was more along the lines of what he’d been expecting.

‘With all due respect,’ Anton said slowly, ‘the alarm being set off today… It’s not pretty when omegas act out. I think it will be extra ugly if it’s Efnisien.’

‘I’m not sure he wants me here,’ Gary said. ‘In my own damn home.’

‘Right- Oh,’ Anton said, like he’d only just realised Gary was giving up his home for this. ‘Yeah. Shit.’

‘I can’t even have him establish baseline relationships with anyone else,’ Gary said, ‘because I have to be there to supervise every single one. I know he didn’t use alpha persuasion on you in the forest, but he could, and it’s not a risk I’m willing to take on a regular basis. And it can’t be alphas like yourself anyway, because of Flitmouse.’

Anton sighed. ‘Flitmouse already hates him, you know, because of all the disruption and because I’ve spent time with Efnisien. It doesn’t matter what the reason is, Flitmouse is really insecure in the bond even after all this time, the jealousy is…a lot.’

‘Exactly,’ Gary said.

‘You can’t just leave him alone in your house, day after day.’

‘What do you suggest?’ Gary had an almost malicious sense of self-satisfaction that Anton was as stuck as he was. He almost wanted to crow over the fact that he knew this would be a disaster and that Augus was wrong, wrong, to suggest that he bond with Efnisien.

Except that Augus didn’t suggest that, exactly. He simply said there was no one else, which was true.

‘Keep him home for the supervisor sessions and then have him with you the rest of the time,’ Anton said.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Just have him with you. Or do more of your work at home, during the day. You use your home office all the time, it’s set up for it.’

A level of resentment that Efnisien could take over his life like this went from simmering away into the background, to getting its clawed grip in his mind. He finished off the glass of wine in one gulp and evened out his breathing, because the anger was visceral, highlighting every place where his freedom had been shredded in a mere forty-eight hours.

It’s not too late to give him to another centre.

He was getting tired of this. Tired of his mind suggesting it, tired of its appeal, tired of knowing he couldn’t do it.

‘The main thing,’ Anton said, his voice different to before, like he’d sensed the mood change, ‘is to remember its reciprocal. He responds to you, but you also respond to him. You can use that. You can lean on it if you need to.’

Gary knew he’d penned those near exact words into the Hillview companion manual, he’d talked at length about the mirroring that could happen between an alpha and an omega, but what he had in that room wasn’t an alpha or an omega. He was some scientific experiment gone horribly wrong, with sharp teeth and a mean little scowl.

‘Yes, thank you, Anton. You’ve been helpful.’

‘We can keep talking if you want?’

‘No, no,’ Gary said, forcing his voice to politeness. ‘That’s quite all right. I appreciate your time and your wisdom.’

Another long silence and then Anton said: ‘I know this is hard. It might be one of the hardest things you do this year. Just be careful of the situations you create with him because it is reciprocal, and he will respond to you, even if he doesn’t want to bond. You’re all he has, Dr Gary.’

‘Thank you,’ Gary said. ‘Goodnight.’

He hung up the phone and stared through the wall that led to where Efnisien was sitting on his couch, watching his television, in his home.

He wasn’t safe around Efnisien when he was this angry. The safest thing for the both of them was to keep working away from his home and give them both space.

Chapter Text

Dr Gary hardly talked to Efnisien the next day, and Efnisien thought that was a good thing, but as he watched Dr Gary and Polly leave, and heard the door close, he felt lost all over again. He was getting sick of the feeling, and he didn’t understand it. Even Crielle and Gwyn and Lludd leaving didn’t make him feel this way.

Worse, Dr Gary actually put the breakfast plates in the sink this time, like he was learning. Like a peak alpha was being considerate to him. In a rehabilitation facility, no less.

But Efnisien had the strangest feeling Dr Gary was pissed at him, and he didn’t know why, because Dr Gary brought him extra blankets and pillows where he slept on the couch. He constantly provided food, and pills that made Efnisien less sweaty, though he still frequently had diarrhea and cramps, but that was normal for him.

Dr Gary left, and he sometimes came back at lunch, and sometimes didn’t, and then he came back late, and he went to his home office and closed the door and then he went to bed.

Another day passed like that.

Another one.

On Friday, Efnisien learned that after some complications, Kadek was finally being moved into the recovery ward, and they expected him to make a full recovery. He was going to have a hell of a scar because they had to do more open surgery, but Gary wouldn’t explain much beyond that. He seemed pissed then too, even though Kadek was doing better.

Efnisien felt awful, his brief fling with killing people seemed to be over, because he couldn’t imagine hurting anyone else that way again. Even in the depths of his anger, if he imagined killing someone, he kept seeing Kadek’s face, his fear, hearing the sound of the fountain pen, and he…had to stop thinking about it.

On Friday night, Efnisien took off the shoulder brace and carefully rolled the joint and realised he didn’t need the brace anymore. He’d been using both arms for a while. The aching had stopped. He left the brace folded up in the lounge.

On Saturday, Efnisien stared when Dr Gary brought out a large dark brown suitcase. For a wild moment, Efnisien thought he was the one who was being sent away. Then he realised it was Dr Gary who was leaving.

Efnisien stared at the suitcase, then forced himself to look away. He felt breathless. Dr Gary hadn’t even been overtly mean exactly. The morning before, he’d let Efnisien go outside to see the kangaroos, and stood there while Efnisien stared at them and couldn’t believe how many there were, how close they were, how much they didn’t seem to mind people. They didn’t even care about Polly, but Polly didn’t bother them either. She sniffed around the plants in front of Dr Gary’s cottage and then peed on one, then nosed around Dr Gary’s trousers.

He was even getting used to Polly. She seemed…nice. Different somehow, to other dogs.

Dr Gary only touched him now when he was measuring Efnisien’s blood pressure, or heartrate. He didn’t even need to touch him when he took his temperature.

Efnisien was supposed to like it better that way. He was furious, and he didn’t know why.

But that suitcase…

What was Efnisien supposed to do? Was this his life now? Why wasn’t he happier about it?

That night, another dinner in front of each other, and Dr Gary asked Efnisien how the meds were going, and Efnisien said they were fine, and had to eat the questions that kept rising rudely into his mouth.

Where are you going? When are you leaving? How long are you going for? Who’s going to feed me? Will it be Augus? What’s happening?

That night, Efnisien lay awake for a long time after Dr Gary had gone to bed, and his heart raced, his pulse throbbed in his neck, and he felt all the fractures in him and knew something was going to break soon. He was scared of himself. Scared of the future.

*

Dr Gary left for work the next day and didn’t take the suitcase with him. Efnisien felt crampy and out of sorts, like the tablets weren’t helping as much as they used to. He rubbed at his belly absently and paced through the house, thinking it would be so easy, so damn easy, to set the alarm off.

As the day went by, he tried to distract himself with reading, he tried to watch TV, he even looked in the fridge and thought about getting himself food. Dr Gary had reminded him a couple of times he could get whatever he wanted, but Efnisien never knew what he wanted, and he never knew what he was supposed to have. Protein and meal replacement shakes were so much easier.

So he paced, and felt like a wretched animal in a cage, even though the cottage was nice, and he could kind of do whatever he wanted.

Kind of.

If he’d been sent to one of the more standard rehabilitation centres, he might even be in a literal concrete cell. He’d seen photos of omegas behind bars, with a cot and a few threadbare blankets for nesting, waiting for their heats to come along. He’d seen photos from a couple of nicer establishments where omegas were put into a room with a bunch of other omegas, and one alpha to control them all. But they always looked in poor health, all the omegas were forcing smiles. The only one who ever looked happy to be there was the alpha.

Hillview was nothing like those places, as much as Efnisien didn’t want to believe it and kept waiting for things to change. But he was in a house, he had bedding, and could even sleep away from Dr Gary, and he could look in the fridge, and watch television and…

And…

Efnisien’s breathing sped up and he walked into Dr Gary’s home office.

He’d not spent much time in here. The place smelled as strongly of pheromones as Dr Gary’s bedroom, and though they weren’t sharp and controlling, it was like being immersed in a fog.

He looked around at the room. It was large and really nice, even bigger than Lludd’s office back home, like this was the most important room in Dr Gary’s cottage. Knowing what he did, it probably was. All he ever seemed to do was work. Efnisien didn’t even think he was happy. A peak alpha who couldn’t even be happy. How sad was that?

Efnisien walked around the desk and stared at the large computer monitor.

He felt like he was in a trance as he picked it up. It was heavy in his hands and connected by a cord. He pulled that out carelessly. Then as hard as he could, he slammed it down on the polished wooden table. The sound was like a thunderclap in his mind, and he saw the scratch in the wood, heard something crunch in the screen, and did it again. And again.

His arms sore, the screen ruined, he dropped it and looked under the desk, and found the small computer tower. He picked that up and turned to throw it out of the window and was too angry to set the alarm off. Not now. He wasn’t going to set it off now.

Instead, he smashed the tower repeatedly against the heavy table, then reached his hands inside – cutting and scratching his wrists on bits of metal and glass – and pulled bits out of it. He thought he might get electrocuted. He didn’t care.

He paced the office, breathing hard, and found a row of books by Dr Gary Konowalous on one of the many bookshelves. One after another. On omega behaviour, on alpha behaviour, on peak alpha behaviour, an edited collection of academic articles on companion training, a manual on companion training, book after book, like he’d been publishing one or more a year for well over a decade.

Efnisien picked one up and opened it. The first page had a message on it in green calligraphy, some guy signed it at some point.

Gary,

Keep changing the future,

Yours in faith,
James Visser, PhD Omega Theory

The writing was swoopy and pretty and perfect. Efnisien tore the page out, then another, and another, and finally he dropped handfuls of pages until the book was gutted.

It was harder than he’d thought it would be, tearing out all the pages. He could only do about ten at a time, because twenty was too much. But still, he methodically went through every book on the shelf. About half of them had messages like that on the first page, but not all from the same people. Some were Professors. One was just a woman called Marie. And Efnisien made sure to rip all of those pages in half.

Because fuck him. Fuck him. Fuck his stupid books and his stupid writing and the fact that he was leaving, because he was too gutless to stick around, too cowardly to kill Efnisien and get it over and done with.

Efnisien hauled an ottoman over, climbed onto it and pulled all the books out of all the shelves. All the ornaments he let fall to the floor. It was getting hard to walk around the room. He broke the bulb in the lamp. He tied knots in all the electrical cords, as tight as he could. He pulled out every drawer and dumped all the stationary on the ground. He pulled every individual post-it note off the pad and stuck them all over the window, keeping the ankle monitor away from the glass.

Even when his rage burnt out and he was sweaty and exhausted, even once he realised how stupid he was being, how badly he could be punished, he couldn’t make himself stop.

He just knew he wasn’t done yet. He upturned the ergonomic chair and took all the screws out, blistering his fingers in the process. He pulled the armrests off; he took the heavy base off and slammed it into the empty bookshelves and realised then that he could take the shelves off the bookshelves and did that too.

He found two inkpots and opened each one, pouring the ink on the floor. It was archival and waterfast, Efnisien thought that was funny.

Efnisien was dripping sweat by the time he was done. He could smell his own pheromones, chemical-strong and indistinct. He couldn’t smell anything of Dr Gary in the room anymore. Efnisien had destroyed the space, and it was terrifying, amazing, satisfying. He looked around at the carnage and pushed back his fear, because he probably couldn’t come back from this.

Even more than the bedroom, this was Dr Gary’s sanctum sanctorum in his home.

But fuck him. Fuck whatever he held sacred and whatever he believed in. If Dr Gary thought he could just ignore Efnisien for days on end…

Efnisien grabbed his hair and pulled on it.

Wasn’t that what he wanted?

A strangled noise, and he looked around for something else to destroy, but he’d have to walk over sheets of paper and books and bookshelves and dumped stationary at this point to get anywhere at all. His whole body hurt. He staggered out of the room and went to the sink, and drank water in handfuls from the faucet, because he was too tired to get a glass.

About three hours had passed. Efnisien walked over to the couch and sank down, then laughed when he realised it’d probably be hours until Dr Gary got back.

He curled up. He stared at the blank television, then he looked over at the suitcase, and against his will he fell asleep.

*

He woke with a start to the door opening. Dr Gary walked in. Polly followed behind him. She ran around the house like she always did, and briefly ran up to Efnisien before running away again. She had well and truly learned Efnisien wasn’t going to pet her or touch her or attack her, and she mostly ignored him.

Dr Gary looked at Efnisien and his eyes narrowed, but he didn’t seem to magically know that his home office had been destroyed – Efnisien had closed the door behind him – and instead he filled two glasses with water and put one on the countertop for Efnisien like he always did.

Efnisien felt a crunch of emotions inside of him.

Dr Gary walked down to his bedroom, and Efnisien stood and looked out of the glass windows towards the forest. It was late, but still light outside. Dr Gary was home earlier than usual. Maybe he was going back to work again after they ate.

Efnisien watched Dr Gary pass – changed into charcoal trousers and a grey long-sleeved shirt – in the lounge and walk towards his home office.

Dr Gary stopped, and his eyes narrowed as he looked at Efnisien and – as always – Efnisien had to look away.

‘Are you all right?’

Efnisien shrugged. ‘The medicine’s been weird today. I don’t know.’

‘I see,’ Dr Gary said. ‘We’ll measure your heartrate and temperature in a minute. Maybe I can talk to Kent.’

Efnisien nodded.

His heart was pounding as Dr Gary seemed to dismiss him and opened his office door. He must have seen the carnage, but he still walked inside, until Efnisien couldn’t see him anymore. And Efnisien thought his fear couldn’t get worse, but it climbed up and up. He didn’t feel satisfied anymore. He couldn’t even connect to that weird trance-like fury. He just stood there, paralysed.

‘Efnisien?’ Dr Gary called, his voice dangerously polite.

Efnisien almost ran. He nearly bolted out of the front door. He knew he didn’t have the energy to get far, maybe he could make it to the road. He broke out into a cold sweat all over again.

‘Efnisien,’ Dr Gary called, his voice harder, and Efnisien’s throat felt thick. ‘Come here.’

The alpha persuasion even from this distance was still stupidly powerful. It threaded its way into Efnisien’s mind and body, making his limbs move, the fear making it hard to do anything other than listen. A small primitive part of his mind was convinced if he just obeyed, everything would be okay somehow. It was laughable. Nothing was okay.

He went into the study, the mess and destruction somehow worse now Efnisien hadn’t seen it for a few hours. He could smell something sharp in the air, which he suspected was either from the computer screen or tower, or from the ink pots.

Dr Gary was looking at him, his gaze a fucking laser.

And then Dr Gary reached for him, and Efnisien’s numbed fear snapped into something far brighter. He shouted in terror and turned to run, Dr Gary’s hand was on his arm, fingers curling around far too hard to be the touches Efnisien had gotten used to.

Efnisien screamed at him, screamed at him again, and when Dr Gary reached for him with his other hand, Efnisien’s aim was true, and he snapped down on two fingers hard enough that for a second he was afraid he’d bitten them clean off Dr Gary’s hand.

‘Fuck!’ Dr Gary shouted, as Efnisien’s mouth jerked open, and two bloodied fingers pulled free.

And then Efnisien was being shoved down to the ground, a foot at his knees taking him out, and he was being pushed down onto his chest, Dr Gary behind him, his body way too close. Way too close.

Efnisien knew after years and years of losing fights with Gwyn what was about to happen. Fear whited out his thoughts, his mind, but it didn’t matter. None of his struggling mattered. Gwyn was a shadow of a peak alpha compared to this guy, maybe Gwyn would’ve grown into it, but Dr Gary’s pheromones were going off, and Efnisien’s gut churned.

His chest hit the ground and he screamed again, desperately trying to get free, because no way was Dr Gary going to mount him. No way. Efnisien didn’t even think he’d survive it.

‘For the love of god,’ Dr Gary muttered, sounding furious, ‘stop fighting me.’

The terror stayed, the outrage, the trembling in his limbs as they didn’t know what to do anymore, locked between the need to fight for his life, and the alpha persuasion. He dropped heavily to the floor, the side of his face hitting the carpet hard. And Dr Gary’s knees were on either side of his hips, and one of Dr Gary’s hands was digging into his forearm and pinning it down, and the other was on the back of Efnisien’s head, pushing his forehead into the carpet.

Efnisien lay there paralysed, mounted like some omega bitch, and this wasn’t like Gwyn trying to make him a better alpha, this was…

This was something else.

Efnisien’s eyes burned, his throat burned, and then helplessly, his chest heaved, and he threw up. He wasn’t even able to move away from it. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe properly.

Dr Gary moved quickly. He didn’t rub Efnisien’s face in the vomit like Gwyn had in the past. He got off him completely, then jerked Efnisien back from the sick with a hand at the back of his shirt. Efnisien couldn’t move of his own volition, the alpha persuasion fresh in his mind.

He thought about apologising and burst into broken laughter instead.

It was funny, wasn’t it? That Dr Gary had apologised to him way more times than Efnisien had ever apologised in return.

Dr Gary had one fist in Efnisien’s shirt, and Efnisien was chest down on the ground. Dr Gary was kneeling beside him, breathing hard.

‘It doesn’t calm you down at all, does it?’ Dr Gary said, sounding like he’d run a marathon. It wasn’t like him at all. ‘Okay,’ he said to himself. ‘Okay. Stay there.’

Dr Gary let go of him, and Efnisien squeezed his eyes shut. Efnisien expected to be kicked, but what he should have expected was Dr Gary leaving him alone in the room. That was the only thing he seemed to know how to do.

Efnisien was dully surprised when Dr Gary came back. He jerked when he felt a wet cloth at his mouth, then realised Dr Gary was cleaning up the spit and bile left over, doing it gently, and Efnisien didn’t understand what was happening, and felt too weak to do much more than cry quietly.

Dr Gary folded the cloth over and wiped at Efnisien’s eyes as well, and Efnisien saw a glimpse of his face. He looked concerned and unhappy like he had on the day of the medical exam.

I’m sorry, Efnisien thought, but he couldn’t say it. He couldn’t say it. He’d been trying to make a point.

Dr Gary reached out with his other hand and Efnisien flinched.

‘Shhh.’ And then Dr Gary’s hand in his hair, stroking carefully. ‘I was trying to- Mounting is an effective last resort behaviour for driving a state of calm. I was hoping we could talk. And I’m obviously not happy about…’

Dr Gary looked at his office and something exhausted and pained passed over his face. Efnisien had wanted that all day, wanted to affect him somehow, and now that he had it, he just felt…worse.

‘I wonder if the person who hit you is the same person who mounted you?’ Dr Gary said, but it wasn’t a direct question. Dr Gary was thinking out loud.

‘I’m fine,’ Efnisien said.

Dr Gary looked faintly incredulous, and then he shook his head, bemused. Instead of wiping at Efnisien’s tears with the cloth, he did it with his thumb instead, and Efnisien rolled back a little, changing the position enough that he no longer felt like anyone was going to mount him again.

‘Why are you so angry with me?’ Dr Gary said.

He wasn’t even using alpha persuasion anymore. Efnisien heard a dull sound, like a drop of water hitting the carpet, and then saw Dr Gary look at his own wounded fingers. The index finger and the middle finger, and Efnisien had bitten them badly. It was blood falling onto the floor.

I’m sorry, he thought.

‘You keep leaving,’ Efnisien said.

Dr Gary stilled. His eyes dropped to Efnisien’s, and Efnisien was too shocked to look away. He hadn’t expected to say it. He’d been trying to convince himself he didn’t even think it.

They both didn’t move in that destroyed home office, Efnisien wishing he could take the words back, but relieved too. Relieved that Dr Gary was finally seeing him, even if the knowledge that he was going to disappear again was cutting him apart inside, slice after slice, leaving so little of him behind.

Chapter Text

Gary had wanted to punish him. He could tell himself he was only mounting Efnisien for his benefit, but something monstrous had come over him when he’d seen the destruction to his office, to all of his books, to his computer – everything was backed up automatically, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a pain to set up a new one – and deep, deep peak alpha instincts had roared to life and demanded retribution. Where alphas would have seen the destruction as a lack of respect, Gary had experienced it as something that required immediate, swift revenge.

Even now, Efnisien cried silently on the floor, no longer fighting him, or ruining anything… Gary was dully horrified to learn he found it satisfying. Among the pity, the understanding, the horror, the confusion, even the glimmer of compassion, he felt…satisfied.

But there was nothing satisfying about looking at his ruined office, and Efnisien was a wreck.

The boy’s words echoed over and over again in Gary’s mind: You keep leaving.

Gary reflected on Efnisien’s behaviour over the last week. The worst of the tantrums, the rage, happened after Gary left. They never happened while Gary was there. In fact, when Gary was present in his home, Efnisien tended to be quiet and wary. Instead, Gary came home to broken plates, he came home to the alarm being triggered deliberately and Efnisien taunting him about James, he came home to this.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and called Faber. His two bleeding fingers were throbbing, but he knew they weren’t broken. He’d have to clean them later.

‘Yes, Sir?’ Faber said, sounding – as usual – hopeful at the idea of being given work to do. Faber could be angry as hell and overloaded and burnt out and he’d still sound like that.

‘Cancel the flight,’ Gary said heavily.

‘Yes, of course- I beg your pardon, Sir? Tomorrow’s flight?’

‘Yes.’

‘To…the day after?’

‘No, cancel it entirely. I won’t be going to the conference.’

‘Er, Sir…’ A decorously cleared throat. ‘May I remind you that you’re the keynote speaker?’

Gary stared down at Efnisien, who was looking ahead, trying not to make eye contact at all, but obviously hanging on every word. For the sake of their sanity, Gary couldn’t leave. It annoyed him to have to do this, but You keep leaving was a painfully clear cry for help, and one that must have come at a cost if Efnisien hadn’t brought it up before now.

‘Tell them I have the flu or…pneumonia or something,’ Gary said.

It was even tempting to say, ‘Tell them Kadek’s in hospital,’ but omega-on-alpha crime was treated far more seriously than any other crime, and Hillview risked being shut down because of it. Any facility that allowed omegas to harm alphas was a facility that risked losing all of its funding. It would have been miserably easy to get Efnisien jailed for his first offence. Gary still needed to talk to Kadek to find out what he wanted to do. He didn’t think – based on Kadek’s general disposition – he would want to press charges against a scared omega, but…it was possible he would.

‘Sir,’ Faber said, then he sighed. ‘Of course, Sir. I suppose this was perhaps inevitable.’

‘Yes,’ Gary said.

‘I will do my best. Anything else? Do I need to contact Kent, Sir? Look at the schedule?’

‘I’m going to need a new computer,’ Gary said.

Another, longer silence, and then to Gary’s surprise, Faber laughed softly. But it was a relief all the same. Faber didn’t panic. He took everything in stride, even when he was concerned. It was what made him such a great personal assistant at a facility like this.

‘Yes, of course, Sir,’ Faber said. ‘Do you want me to arrange for more of your work to be done at the home office?’

What home office?

‘That might be for the best.’

‘Let me see what I can do, Sir. No need to worry about the conference, I’ll get everything arranged for you and be in touch.’

Gary hung up the phone after they said their goodbyes, then stroked Efnisien’s hair, his scalp. It was sweaty. But destroying an entire study to the degree it had been destroyed would have taken time. It was methodical, calculated rage. Efnisien was still sick, still recovering, and he’d managed all of this.

It was almost impressive, but the violation of it was fresh.

‘I’m not happy with you,’ Gary said, staring down at him.

Efnisien blinked up at him, quiet, like he’d never hurt a soul.

‘We’re going to have to do some talking,’ Gary said. ‘Real talking. Not the kind where you simply avoid answering my questions or stop speaking. You might not like it.’

‘I don’t like anything here,’ Efnisien said sulkily.

Gary smoothed Efnisien’s tears away with his fingertips, and Efnisien didn’t even flinch. Well. Efnisien might not like a lot of what was happening, but he didn’t mind some of it.

The study smelled of vomit. Efnisien didn’t eat enough as it was. Gary frowned. He’d never seen a terror response so profound to being mounted, not even from an alpha. Yes, Gary had wanted some revenge, but he’d also expected the mounting to work. It did on all omegas. It should have shorted Efnisien’s wild thoughts, made him complacent, muted his fear. Instead it did the exact opposite. It was as horrible as realising Efnisien was under an alpha directive during the medical exam.

For someone to be afraid enough to vomit like that… No wonder Efnisien had fought him so viciously once he’d realised what was happening. Gary supposed he was lucky the damage to his fingers wasn’t worse.

What were they going to do with an omega that couldn’t even be mounted?

But he’s not really an omega at all, is he?

Gary grimaced down at Efnisien, then carefully inserted a hand underneath his chest and lifted him until Efnisien was sitting. He pulled Efnisien against him, noting the way Efnisien didn’t fight him, sagging into Gary once he had more support.

It was smarter to wait until Efnisien felt like volunteering the information, but instead, Gary asked:

‘Was it a family member that mounted you? Another alpha?’

Efnisien had said he was raised by alphas. Gary suspected the father, or worse, the cousin. If it was another peak alpha… If it was that peak alpha…

‘Yes,’ Efnisien choked out.

‘Your cousin?’

Efnisien shuddered. Gary nodded to himself. The way that cousin had sounded on the phone, possessive, disgusted, hateful…

‘Did it happen often?’ Gary said quietly.

‘No,’ Efnisien said shakily. ‘Once. Twice a week maybe.’

Gary’s eyes widened. Efnisien thought that wasn’t often. The arm he had around Efnisien’s chest tightened automatically.

‘If…your family was raising you to be an alpha, why were you being mounted so often?’ Gary said, wondering if that would activate the directive.

‘To make me a better alpha,’ Efnisien said dully. ‘Alphas fight.’

Gary had to focus on his breathing. Alphas fight. Yes, he supposed they did, but only rarely, and only in very specific circumstances. Alphas mounting alphas was truly rare, and only under specific circumstances. What Gwyn was doing was far more disturbing. What alpha fought someone as though they were an alpha, and then mounted them – over and over again – like an omega? It would mess anyone up – omega or alpha – and it wasn’t healthy. It was borderline incestuous, and Gary would have to delve deeper at some point to find out if Efnisien had been raped. It would explain a lot.

‘We’re going to have a talk later, about what you think alphas and omegas and betas are,’ Gary said, modulating his voice as he stared at all the torn pages in his office. ‘I’d like to know.’

‘I don’t even want you here,’ Efnisien said, stubbornly, like he was trying to convince himself. Gary sighed. His chest twinged. Efnisien couldn’t pretend he hadn’t rung the bell that he had, but Gary thought he understood why he wanted to. 

‘Leaving all the time doesn’t seem to be helping,’ he said. ‘Let’s try something else for a few days and see if it’s worse.’

Efnisien said nothing, and Gary closed his eyes to his home office, because he wasn’t used to this. He hadn’t been made to feel this way since James told him he wanted to go down the path of voluntary assisted dying, and Gary promised he’d do everything he could to help, and James’ family made his life even more of a living hell than they had before.

It was absurd. No one was dying now. Efnisien was a traumatised omega, he was suffering considerably more than Gary was. And yet Gary felt the acute way his life had been torn apart in a week, and it flew against the control he gathered to himself.

But now, holding Efnisien close, it was like he’d found something. If not control, then something.

‘You must be tired,’ Gary said. ‘I think you should get some sleep. I need to assess the damage anyway.’

Gary wished he knew what the boy was thinking. That anger didn’t come from nowhere and had likely been building for days. It was catastrophic. It wasn’t the impulsive act of stabbing someone in the neck. And it was possibly years and years of anger, repressed and only now finding an outlet.

‘All right,’ Gary said, standing and pulling Efnisien up with him. Still far too thin. Still not eating enough. Gary would have to talk to him about decision fatigue around food. Well, he’d have time now. He’d bought himself at least a week, with that conference now cancelled. This was a rather brutal reminder that putting his issues out of mind and out of sight wasn’t very effective when that issue was a person.

Gary guided Efnisien to the couch, and Efnisien sat there, pale and obviously shaken.

‘Let me get you some water,’ Gary said.

‘I can help you clean,’ Efnisien said impulsively, the words spilling quickly.

Gary considered him. Would it help? It would be hard on his body, but would it help Efnisien feel better to participate? Was that something a companion would offer?

What companion had ever dealt with an omega like this? And increasingly, it was impossible to reconcile Efnisien with what omegas were in the first place. Every time he associated the word with Efnisien, he felt like he’d stumbled in his own mind.

‘Maybe,’ Gary said.

He fetched them the water he’d poured when he’d come in through the front door. It hit him that he wouldn’t be flying out to the conference anymore. He didn’t have to worry about the keynote speech. With the time he was sure Faber would find for him, he could go outside more often, Efnisien could come with him.

Temsen would return next week, and likely have something astute to say, as he always did.

Gary walked over to the couch and passed Efnisien the glass of water and didn’t like the red blotches on his face. He didn’t look well. Mounting any time in the future, under any circumstances, was out of the question. But other forms of touch had been fine so far, even helpful.

But Gary still had the echo of James in his arms still, the feeling of holding him against his body. The shape of James, the feeling of his hair, the smell of his cigarettes. Gary had, in many ways, kept himself for James even when he’d fucked others since. It was a deliberate choice not to consider intimate relationships with anyone else. James was it, and Gary didn’t even want the pretence of an intimate connection once he’d died.

It felt like betrayal to consider lying alongside Efnisien, to consider holding him. Efnisien wasn’t even a real prospective partner.

He thought of Anton speculating that Gary might not even be able to bond. Gary was certain he couldn’t.

But the alternative was this. Coming home to increased destruction. Gary didn’t want to see how far it could go. He wouldn’t put arson past Efnisien at all, it was likely Efnisien just hadn’t thought of it yet. There had to be a middle ground, where he could keep working, where he could touch Efnisien, where he didn’t give himself away to someone who seemed more like an animal than a person.

Efnisien looked up at him twice, uneasily, and Gary wondered how much of his thoughts Efnisien could sense. He was wired to be afraid and wired to expect to be hurt. Gary couldn’t blame him. Not after the small shreds he’d learned of his upbringing. Not after what he’d done to the boy today.

He sat next to Efnisien and undid the second button on his shirt, sighing.

He wanted to smoke the rest of the cigarettes, but the packet of cigarettes in that drawer belonged to James. When the last one was gone, that was it. He was still shocked at himself for smoking as many as he had the other night, he’d been saving them for years.

‘What did you think would happen?’ Gary said. ‘You must have expected consequences. Did you want them?’

‘I don’t know,’ Efnisien said, looking down at his knees.

Polly came over to Gary’s side, and he reached out and scratched her beneath the ear. He had no idea what kind of impact this was having on her, but she didn’t seem out of sorts. She was probably just happy they were both home.

‘You said before that alphas fight,’ Gary said. ‘Is that what you want? A fight?’

Efnisien’s neck moved as he swallowed.

‘I’m going crazy here,’ he said.

Gary had a whole destroyed office to prove it.

‘Come here,’ Gary said, reaching for him. He grabbed Efnisien’s upper arm and half-pulled him as Efnisien scooted over, not seeming to understand what Gary wanted until he was manoeuvred into position. Once Efnisien was leaning against Gary’s side, he seemed to relax. Gary felt it in Efnisien’s spine, his arm, even his shoulder. ‘You didn’t answer me. What were you looking for? A fight?’

‘I don’t know,’ Efnisien said. ‘It was…different at home.’

‘Did you do things like this there?’

‘No,’ Efnisien said, breathless at the thought. ‘Never.’

‘How did you end up fighting with your cousin?’

‘Sometimes he just started it,’ Efnisien said, then after a pause, ‘sometimes I did.’

‘I see. Did you ever win?’

‘Sometimes,’ Efnisien said. But Gary heard the lie, and it seemed Efnisien heard it too, because he tensed. ‘Not…really. I was getting better.’

Gary thought of Kadek and nodded. If Efnisien had been fighting against a peak alpha all his life, it would explain his swift reflexes and his penchant for violence. It would also explain how he’d overpowered Kadek so easily. For all that Gary found Efnisien easy to handle, he knew most alphas wouldn’t. Efnisien didn’t fight like an omega or a beta, he fought like an alpha who was used to fighting, and plenty of alphas weren’t used to violence these days. Alphas fighting over an omega or fighting for status was rare and getting rarer, more common in the movies and on television than anywhere else.

‘They said I wouldn’t have to come somewhere like this if I won,’ Efnisien said.

Gary’s eyebrows lifted. That was some ultimatum and made Efnisien’s entire future dependent on violence.

If Efnisien was looking for violence here… goodness, there were many reasons he might be acting out this severely now, including some Efnisien might not even be aware of.

‘I know I can’t win against you,’ Efnisien admitted.

‘But you want the fight,’ Gary said.

‘Without the end part.’

‘The end part?’ Gary said, confused, and then he closed his eyes. ‘The mounting.’

It was tempting to point out that he could understand just how humiliating that must have been for Efnisien, but he didn’t fully understand it, because he’d never had to endure anything like that in his life. And for it to no longer be something settling to Efnisien, but to make him sick with terror… It was like using alpha persuasion to ask Efnisien to calm down. It was something fundamental, instinctive, and it had been broken.

‘I know I can’t win against you,’ Efnisien said. ‘But I’m going crazy. It’s so…stupid.’

Gary could recognise when someone didn’t have the skills to articulate how they felt. He saw it in alphas who weren’t used to being supervised, and he’d experienced it himself. Efnisien likely didn’t know how to identify most of the things he was feeling, or even his needs. But Gary could tell the boy needed him to stay, and that he needed to be touched more, because look at that, Efnisien was finally talking to him.

Perhaps it was sheer exhaustion.

‘I don’t think it’s stupid,’ Gary said. ‘Perhaps my staying here won’t be helpful, but let’s find out.’

‘Yeah, because I’m sure that’s what you want to do,’ Efnisien scoffed.

Gary didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t going to lie and tell Efnisien he wanted to be in this position, that he enjoyed feeling coerced into changing his entire life. He wasn’t going to pretend he was fine with what had happened to his office.

But Gary supposed there were some things he could be truthful about. He tilted his head and contemplated the wall behind the television.

‘We could go outside more,’ Gary said. ‘You are not unpleasant to touch.’

He almost laughed at himself when he realised how badly he’d phrased it. James would have burst into raucous laughter, poking him relentlessly, and Gary almost smiled, remembering the times he’d been called out for the evasive ways he could speak.

‘Outside,’ Efnisien said, ‘really?’

‘Yes, really.’

‘You shouldn’t be giving me nice things after what I did,’ Efnisien said.

‘Oh, I know,’ Gary said. ‘I’m not sure I want to, either. But I don’t think a punishment, or a fight for that matter, will truly help. If you’ll recall, you did try to fight me, and I did mount you, and look how well that turned out.’

Gary frowned.

Actually…it had…turned out well. Efnisien was compliant and quiet. He was cooperative and he was speaking instead of turning taciturn. Gary looked down at the top of Efnisien’s head.

It had come with a high cost. Efnisien’s terror, his high distress, the throwing up, but…

Was this the only way Efnisien knew how to regulate himself?

Gary shifted so he could wrap his arm better around Efnisien’s shoulders, moving so he was more supported by the armrest. And Efnisien turned so his back was facing the couch, the side of his head tentatively resting against Gary’s chest.

‘After your cousin mounted you,’ Gary said, ‘did he comfort you?’

‘What?’ Efnisien said, a thread of disbelieving laughter in his voice. ‘Are you serious? No.’

‘Never?’

‘Gwyn? Never. He wouldn’t know how. I didn’t even know…peak alphas knew how to do stuff like this. Like you. I thought it was impossible.’

So Efnisien hadn’t even been seeking this part when he’d instigated the fight, when he’d created a perfect opportunity for physical catastrophe. He’d really just been looking for the catharsis violence could provide. Perhaps he even sought the forced dissociation that mounting caused. That was going to be a problem. A big problem.

Efnisien’s breathing was slowing, deepening, and Gary flared his nostrils and still – even now – couldn’t pick a scent other than the sour high pitch of fear, which was fading, and the chemicals, which weren’t as strong as before. He still needed to check Efnisien’s temperature, his heartrate, his pulse, it was why he’d come back when he had. But for now…Efnisien needed the rest, and Gary needed to assess the damage to his office.

‘Nothing’s like it should be,’ Efnisien murmured.

‘Good,’ Gary said. ‘Because the way things used to be, well, it doesn’t sound like they had your best interests at heart.’

‘M’an alpha,’ Efnisien slurred.

The boy was drifting off whether he wanted to or not. Gary wondered how long he’d been this tired for.

‘Here’s a wild suggestion,’ Gary said, knowing Efnisien probably wouldn’t hear him, ‘but the way they treated you wasn’t in the best interests of an alpha either.’

‘You…don’t know,’ Efnisien said, and in another few breaths fell asleep. Gary felt the full weight of Efnisien’s head rest against his chest, and his hand curled protectively around his scalp and ear, keeping him close.

‘I think I do know,’ Gary said.

He closed his eyes. Even now, he tried to persuade himself that he’d take a week to stabilise Efnisien, and then he’d be able to get right back to working like he used to. But the feeling of knowing his future, having some control over it, was slipping out of his grip like sand. The past week had been an erosion, and the worst part was knowing it wasn’t over yet and wouldn’t be for some time.

Chapter Text

Efnisien woke groggily, then reached out and realised Dr Gary wasn’t on the couch with him anymore. He laid there, refusing to open his eyes. It had all been a lie. Dr Gary wasn’t planning on staying with him at all.

And then Efnisien heard the sound of something moving in another room followed by a muttered curse and he pushed up, staring around wildly.

Polly was asleep in the dog bed by Dr Gary’s armchair in the lounge. Polly was never here when Dr Gary wasn’t.

Efnisien heard more sounds and stilled. Dr Gary was in his ruined study.

Efnisien had said he’d help, but…maybe Dr Gary didn’t want him in there. He felt awful now for having done it, even though it had felt so right at the time. He swung his legs so his feet could rest on the floor, and he felt light-headed and nauseous. All his muscles hurt, and his wrists and hands felt weak and dry. When he looked at his palms, they were badly blistered from everything he’d done.

More noises, Dr Gary cleaning up that mess, and Efnisien stood and forced down some deep breaths. How was this any different to being sent back to his room once he’d been cleared for recovery after a surgery, or any other kind of test? He rubbed at his face with the back of his hand. His cheeks felt crusty from all that crying before.

He'd thrown up too. He was so disgusting. How could anyone stand to spend time with him? And Dr Gary had been so fucking angry. That mounting wasn’t like what he’d experienced with Gwyn. Similar enough, but he’d gone so mindless, he felt like he would’ve clawed his face off to make it stop.

Efnisien crept towards the study then leaned his head in, and Dr Gary was already looking at him, like he’d heard him or scented him. The guy’s reflexes were insane.

‘How are you feeling?’ Dr Gary said.

He was kneeling on the floor, putting the shells of books into a black plastic garbage bag. Efnisien looked at everything he’d done. It didn’t look like Dr Gary had made much headway through the carnage at all.

‘M’fine,’ Efnisien said, coming into the room, even though there wasn’t much room left. There was a wet patch where his vomit had been, the smell lingering. There was a roll of garbage bags, and Efnisien pulled one until he saw the perforations. Even tearing the bag free from the others hurt his sore hands, but Dr Gary’s fingers weren’t bandaged and Efnisien could see from here they were scabbed and covered in a lot of dried blood.

Maybe Crielle had sent Efnisien here because she didn’t want to see this side of him, but knew it was coming.

Dr Gary watched him, and Efnisien walked to another area of the room – in reality, only about two metres from Dr Gary – and bent down and picked up some of the paper and put it into the bag.

They worked in silence for some time. Efnisien turned to watch Dr Gary intermittently. He didn’t work as quickly or efficiently as Efnisien expected. He was pausing over some of the books.

Efnisien saw him pick up one of the torn sheets of paper with fountain pen writing on it, the one from that James Visser dude, and then Dr Gary just stopped. He stared down at the paper for a long, long time, and Efnisien swore he wasn’t breathing for most of it. When he looked at Efnisien, there was no other words for the expression on his face except pained rage.

Efnisien took a step back from that expression because Dr Gary was opaque so often, he was the steady mostly calm guy who let Efnisien bite him, but this was palpable.

Efnisien turned his face away, and he knew Dr Gary was still watching him. He wanted to hold up some kind of shield to break his line of sight.

Eventually, Dr Gary sighed and seemed to get back to work. When Efnisien secretly looked at him, Dr Gary was folding the torn piece of paper and putting it into the pocket of his trousers, before he kept going.

The garbage bags began to fill up. When Dr Gary reached the section of carpet that had ink all over it, he brushed it with his finger a couple of times, then laughed under his breath.

‘We’re going to have to recarpet,’ he said. ‘I don’t think we can hide this with pot plants.’

Efnisien didn’t even look at him. He couldn’t handle the rage he’d seen before, like Dr Gary could’ve killed him.

Dr Gary wasn’t supposed to have feelings like that, where he looked miserable, and upset. The same kind of feelings he’d given off that night he’d come back and said ‘I miss you’ like he wanted to cry. Even Gwyn was just…raw anger. It was never pained. It was open and straightforward.

Some of the blisters on Efnisien’s hands opened, and he didn’t say anything. It wasn’t until he picked up one of the pieces of wood from a broken drawer that he hissed, then flinched backwards, a rough edge ripping already ruined skin. He dropped it reflexively, then reached for it again, but Dr Gary was already walking over.

Efnisien backed up automatically, letting go of the garbage bag, and he froze when Dr Gary grasped him by the upper arm.

‘Not again,’ Efnisien said, telling himself he wasn’t begging.

Dr Gary had stopped stalking up to him, but he’d also stopped…in general. Efnisien risked looking at him.

‘I’m not going to mount you,’ Dr Gary said. ‘Is that what you’re afraid of?’

‘No- I just thought… I mean you’re- It’s- You can.’

‘I know I can. I’m not going to.’

Efnisien looked away again.

‘I told you I wasn’t going to,’ Dr Gary said slowly. ‘I suppose I haven’t given you much reason to believe me. I am, however, still going to be very tactile. And that’s not going to stop.’

‘Okay,’ Efnisien said. ‘Whatever.’

‘Are you hurt?’

‘No,’ Efnisien said.

But Dr Gary was already running his hand down Efnisien’s arm and then saw the state of his palm. He held out his other hand wordlessly, a silent command, and Efnisien couldn’t help it, showing the blisters on his other palm.

Dr Gary looked between the torn skin, swelling and bleeding, then stared at Efnisien again. It felt like he was disappointed, which made no sense.

‘Come on,’ Dr Gary said, pulling Efnisien out of the room.

‘No, but I can help,’ Efnisien insisted. ‘Your fingers aren’t good either!’

‘They’re not like this,’ Dr Gary said, squeezing Efnisien’s wrist and shaking it a couple of times for good measure.

‘And I ruined your study, so I should!’

Dr Gary turned on him, then grasped Efnisien’s jaw, keeping him still, like he didn’t understand that he just had to look at Efnisien a certain way and he didn’t know if he’d be able to move again.

But then Dr Gary let his jaw go and seemed to be taking a moment to compose his thoughts. That wasn’t much better. Dr Gary spoke like words were knives sometimes, whatever he did, Efnisien ended up getting cut.

‘I think you are trying to punish yourself because you either don’t believe I’ve punished you enough, or because you haven’t had the emotional reaction you were looking for in the first place,’ Dr Gary said. ‘What do you think about that?’

Efnisien blinked at him.

No one ever asked him what he fucking thought about anything.

‘No wrong answers,’ Dr Gary said. ‘What do you think about what I’ve just said? Can you remember it, or do you need me to say it again?’

Efnisien’s mind blanked, it took a while to remember what Dr Gary had even said. And then he didn’t know what to think about that either. But Dr Gary was standing there expecting an answer, and so…

‘I don’t know,’ Efnisien said. ‘I don’t get what’s so bad about helping you with the study. Especially when I ruined it.’

‘But you wanted to ruin it.’

‘I… yeah,’ Efnisien said. He frowned and looked away. ‘I never said I was smart.’

Dr Gary laughed then, and it wasn’t mean or mocking. It was…nice. Maybe Dr Gary was proud of him for realising he was stupid.

‘Oh, I think you are quite intelligent,’ Dr Gary said. ‘Dangerously so, sometimes. You said you wanted the fight, before. But you didn’t get one in the way you expected. Are you trying to hurt yourself instead?’

‘I don’t know,’ Efnisien said, feeling a weird lance of desperation move through him. He felt cornered. ‘I don’t know!’

‘All right,’ Dr Gary said. ‘Maybe you can keep thinking about that one while I look after your hands.’

‘No, they’re fine,’ Efnisien said.

‘I am not fighting this battle with you when I can see for myself that they’re not. But if you need proof I can provide it.’

Dr Gary turned the hand he had on Efnisien’s wrist, then pressed his thumb into one of the open blisters and didn’t stop when Efnisien cried out and bent down, trying to pull his hand free.

‘Stop it!’ Efnisien shouted.

The pressure let up, but Efnisien’s palm was still burned worse than normal. And Dr Gary stared at him with a kind of grim satisfaction as he pulled Efnisien into the kitchen and ran the tap. He altered the temperature of the water, then carefully eased Efnisien’s hand beneath it. And Efnisien’s wrist and fingers shook as he tried not to jerk away from the painful contact.

‘I know,’ Dr Gary said soothingly, gently touching Efnisien’s lower back. ‘It’s not for long. I have an ointment that should help.’

‘You’re mean,’ Efnisien risked saying. Something he’d never, ever say to Crielle.

‘Yes, I am,’ Dr Gary said.

But he wasn’t as mean as Efnisien kept expecting him to be. And no one had ever touched the small of his back like that while cleaning his wounds or watching over him.

Dr Gary pulled Efnisien’s hand clear of the water, only to put Efnisien’s other palm beneath the stream. And Efnisien ground his teeth together and wanted to tune it out, but Dr Gary was standing behind him and it was hard to think about anything else.

‘Are you really going to stay?’ Efnisien said, feeling sick as Dr Gary turned the tap off and opened the cabinet to get the first aid kit underneath the sink

‘Yes,’ Dr Gary said. ‘Now…you can have your hands bandaged and therefore they will be more protected, or we can put some ointment on them and leave the skin to breathe. It’s up to you how much mobility you want to lose.’

‘I don’t even need ointment.’

Dr Gary stared at him with the expression of someone who would not hesitate to grab his hand and dig his knuckles into all of the open blisters to prove a point.

‘I mean- not the bandages,’ Efnisien said quickly.

‘Good,’ Dr Gary said quietly. ‘That’s good.’

Efnisien stood there feeling weak because nothing he did was good. He never won fights with Gwyn. Crielle was increasingly unhappy with Efnisien’s blood test results. He wasn’t supposed to study to go to university even though he was meant to be an alpha. He wasn’t supposed to talk back to them or even talk to them like an equal, even though he was meant to be an alpha.

Efnisien let Dr Gary smear ointment carefully onto his hands. Dr Gary even washed his hands first before doing it, and the ointment was cool, faintly numbing, like maybe it had some local anaesthetic in it.

‘What about your fingers?’ Efnisien said.

‘I’ll clean them now,’ Dr Gary said. And then once he was finished, he did, rubbing his fingers over the bite marks again as the water ran over them to open them up, presumably washing out any potential infection. ‘I’ve never met anyone who bites like you. Alpha or omega.’

‘You haven’t met everyone though.’

Dr Gary smiled, like he found that amusing.

Efnisien’s hands felt sticky and wet, but they did feel better than before. Efnisien thought about the piece of paper in Dr Gary’s pocket and found it baffling to imagine Dr Gary having friends and people he really liked. But he seemed to get along well with Faber, and…well, he’d let Anton lecture him.

‘Why aren’t you like other peak alphas?’ Efnisien said.

Dr Gary looked at him, and then put away the first aid kit, keeping out the ointment he’d used on Efnisien’s hands. After that, he looked in the fridge and the cupboard and brought out some bread rolls, some slices of meat, some cheese, and a container of cut pieces of fruit. He got out one plate. He walked not to the kitchen table, but to the lounge, indicating that Efnisien should follow.

Side by side on the couch, and Dr Gary gave Polly a piece of apple when she came up and pushed her face against his leg. And then he handed Efnisien a piece of apple too.

‘I trust you don’t need me to hand feed you,’ Dr Gary said.

‘Yuck,’ Efnisien said, taking the fruit.

As Dr Gary absently ate some cheese, Efnisien bit into the apple, surprised at how sharp and sweet and crunchy it was. Efnisien always thought apples tasted bad for some reason because they were so common, maybe.

‘You asked me why I’m not like other peak alphas, but I think I’m like a lot of other peak alphas, so I want to ask you, what do you think the characteristics of a peak alpha are? Say whatever you like, I won’t get angry. I’ve heard it all, I promise.’

‘Um,’ Efnisien said. ‘Arrogant.’

‘Yes,’ Dr Gary said. ‘That’s true.’

‘Angry all the time.’

‘No,’ Dr Gary said. ‘But our emotions tend to be stronger than most.’

‘A-Aberrant,’ Efnisien said, feeling sick with apprehension, even though he felt a weird thrill of exhilaration to be saying this to the owner of Hillview.

‘Yes,’ Dr Gary said. ‘That’s a good way of putting it. The peak alpha gene is recessive, It’s more likely to be carried by alphas, which is why peak alphas are more likely to turn up in all-alpha families. But absolutely, peak alphas are not useful by and large to the functioning of the world, no matter how well we do when it comes to exploiting capitalism. We hold far too much power, we seek far too much power, and we react with unusual distress and rage when we are unable to control our surroundings. Alphas have enough issues as it is. Peak alphas aren’t especially predisposed to being compassionate or empathetic and can be detached and aloof and struggle to make meaningful bonds. Not only that, but they are rarely attracted to omegas in the first place, which…flies in the face of the ‘omegas should bond with alphas and vice versa’ wisdom that’s out there.’

‘Wow.’

‘Didn’t expect me to agree?’

‘I used to think peak alphas couldn’t apologise. Like it was biologically impossible.’

‘Really?’ Dr Gary said. ‘No. I do think we’re less likely to apologise though, on the whole. There are mature and immature peak alphas. Those who are immature will tend towards reckless or calculated violence or malice, or all of the above. They never evolve past that, because it feels so satisfying to get control that getting it with these methods is enough to create a satisfying existence. Most people wouldn’t feel…truly satisfied living that way.’

Efnisien was onto his fourth piece of apple, staring at Dr Gary in fascination.

‘We are, however, unsuited to being companions,’ Dr Gary said, with a wry expression. He then handed Efnisien a bread roll with some sliced meat and cheese in it. Efnisien took it carefully.

‘Tell me what you think an omega is,’ Dr Gary said.

‘A bitch,’ Efnisien said, then laughed, staring down at the bread roll balanced at the very tips of his fingers so it didn’t disturb the ointment or the blisters.

‘Is that all?’

‘A bitch to be bred,’ Efnisien said. ‘Or to be some mewling little trophy partner for someone. Or someone’s sleeve. Whatever. I think what all alphas think about omegas.’

‘I see,’ Dr Gary said. ‘All right. That isn’t what all alphas think.’

‘It’s what they all think deep down.’

‘Have you ever spoken with an omega before? In person?’

‘No,’ Efnisien said, face creasing at the thought. ‘Why would I want to? I mean maybe I was meant to marry one, one day, but like, we wouldn’t…have had anything to do with each other.’

‘I see,’ Dr Gary said, then he bit into his own bread roll and looked towards the other side of the lounge, where the glass windows and the sliding door were.

Efnisien bit into a corner of the roll and chewed it slowly. God, everything here was so tasty. He hated it. Even if Crielle took him back now, he’d always remember this food.

‘There are certainly some people who feel that way about omegas,’ Dr Gary said finally, when Efnisien was up to his third bite and trying to decide if he liked this cheese or not. It tasted different to the other one. It was so powerful; it was like his whole mouth couldn’t stop tasting it. ‘There are also people who don’t.’

‘At the end of the day, omegas are all second-class citizens and they’re treated that way because they’re weak little idiots who need help from everyone around them. They’re fucking useless. If they didn’t have alphas they’d all die out.’

‘I think if alphas didn’t have omegas, it would be much the same,’ Dr Gary said, but then he shifted in his chair, crossing one leg over the other, looking stupidly relaxed for the conversation they were having. ‘We have an omega here who is self-employed. In fact he’s funding his own stay at Hillview, and he was able to choose or reject his companion, and he’s allowed to leave the property on his own, in his car, that he has a licence for.’

Efnisien’s mouth dropped open, and Dr Gary smiled at his expression.

‘Now, I’ll admit, that is not common. But still, he’s not what you would call a ‘weak little idiot’ and he’s not useless by any means. But even an omega that wanted support and help wouldn’t be useless. That’s not what uselessness is.’

‘You literally run a facility to fuck omegas into being nice sycophants for their alphas.’

‘That is certainly what almost all rehabilitation centres do,’ Dr Gary said.

‘And what, yours is special?’

‘It’s different,’ Dr Gary said. ‘I like to think it’s better, but I’m biased. I think there’s a lot of room for growth and improvement, but we have to market it in a way that will allow our sponsors to keep funding it. I’m not going to lie, it is a facility that is designed to rehabilitate omegas so they won’t be traumatised by their own heats anymore, and so they can enjoy a relationship with an alpha, after often being treated badly in the past. No one comes here who is healthy and happy, Efnisien.’

‘Except me.’

‘Please,’ Dr Gary said, staring at him. ‘You can’t be serious.’

‘I was- No, you… Why would you even say that?’

‘You cannot function without taking fifteen pills in the morning, and fifteen more at night. What do you call that?’

Efnisien went mutinously silent, and Dr Gary sighed.

‘Perhaps that was unfair of me,’ he said. ‘I’ll reframe. You weren’t allowed outside. I think that’s terribly wrong, even if you think the reasons had merit.’

Efnisien was slowing down on the eating, and then he handed the half-roll back to Dr Gary, because he couldn’t finish. He was surprised when Dr Gary just…ate it. Efnisien folded his hands in his lap and stared down at the glossy ointment covering his ruined palms.

‘Whatever I had there…’ Efnisien said. ‘Nothing changes the fact that I had something I wanted. There’s nothing I want here. Every goal you all have for me, is not something I’d pick for myself.’

‘But…being an alpha, is that something you chose for yourself?’

‘Who wouldn’t?’ Efnisien said, scoffing. ‘Tell me, fucking seriously, who wouldn’t? Find me an omega that’s so fucking happy and healthy that they’d rather be an omega than an alpha or even a beta. Show me the omega who has all that power, and personal choice, and control over their bodies, and financial independence, and government support. Go on. You can pull it up on your phone if you want, if you don’t have a rare little example of them here.’

Dr Gary had gone completely silent. He’d even stopped eating. Efnisien turned and glared at him, even with the increasing headache and the soreness in his body, even though he didn’t want to ruin this the way he kept ruining everything.

Dr Gary cleared his throat and then said: ‘Most omegas don’t want-’

‘Bullshit,’ Efnisien snarled. ‘Bullshit! Like any of you even give them a chance to show they want it! Like they ever had a choice! So you know what? Being an alpha is something I chose for myself over and over and over again. I don’t fucking care how many tablets I have to take each day. I don’t care what’s been done to…’ He choked off as the directive activated, but he didn’t avert his gaze when Dr Gary turned to look at him like he was actually listening.

‘All right,’ Dr Gary said.

‘What?’

‘I said…all right. I’m conceding that you’ve raised some good points.’

‘I have?’

Dr Gary’s eyebrows lifted; his expression softened. ‘Yes. You have.’

Really? Efnisien felt like he’d fallen into a pothole and didn’t know how to get out. His anger evaporated. It had to be a trick. But all the steam he’d had behind him was gone.

‘I have a book on omega politics you might want to read,’ Dr Gary said. ‘But you can’t read it right now because you destroyed my copy.’

Efnisien flushed, and Dr Gary leaned forward and curled his hand around the side of Efnisien’s neck, fingers spreading so they didn’t touch the scars at the back, thumb resting on his throat.

‘I’m sorry nothing here is very predictable,’ Dr Gary said, ‘and that it’s still quite traumatising. Perhaps, if we get to know each other, it might get better.’

‘It might not,’ Efnisien said, eyes sliding away to the blank television, still catching the slight smirk Dr Gary gave in response.

‘Well, you cannot go out into the world and live as an alpha as you are now, so this is what we’re left with.’

‘But…I can go outside,’ Efnisien said.

‘Yes.’

‘I feel like you’re rewarding me for behaving badly.’

‘I feel like I’m doing that too,’ Dr Gary said, his hand tightening on Efnisien’s neck. It felt a little suffocating, but it felt… Efnisien didn’t understand what happened to him when Dr Gary touched him. Something in his brain calmed down. ‘But the fact is, going outside should not be a reward nor a punishment.’

‘And you’re not…going away anymore.’

‘Not this time,’ Dr Gary said.

‘Don’t you hate me?’

‘I resent the control you have over my life,’ Dr Gary said. ‘I’m a peak alpha, and that is inevitable. I have some tools to deal with it, but ultimately it’s not something I respond to well, and some of those tools have failed me. I don’t hate you. I’m not a fan of the circumstances, but neither are you. And secretly, now that I’ve had some time to dwell on it, I’m not that angry that I don’t have to go to the conference. I’m simply angry I didn’t make the choice myself.’

‘So…you have the tiniest taste of how omegas live, and you flip out, basically.’

‘Yes,’ Dr Gary said. ‘That’s a savage way of putting it, but yes. You’re looking tired, Efnisien. Really tired. And quite pale. You’ve exerted yourself a lot today. I think you need to catch up on some sleep.’

It was hypnotic, especially with Dr Gary’s thumb occasionally stroking his throat. And it felt nice, weirdly, someone pointing out that he’d done a lot, noticing that he didn’t feel good. And he did feel sleepy. After eating all that food, and Dr Gary being close to him, and touching him, Efnisien kind of wanted to curl up on the couch again. He knew he should keep helping Dr Gary clean, but his hands were all sticky.

‘Peak alpha biology is stupid,’ Efnisien said.

‘I know,’ Dr Gary said.

‘My cousin used to…lose it when I told him that.’

‘In a way, he was kind of proving your point,’ Dr Gary said softly. ‘Do you want to close your eyes?’

‘Stop it,’ Efnisien said, his breathing slowing. ‘You’re doing something.’

‘I am,’ Dr Gary said. ‘But it’s not alpha persuasion, so you can ignore me completely if you want.’

‘What…are you doing?’ Efnisien was sagging back against the couch, and Dr Gary was pulling him forward, the pressure on the back of his neck making him fall into Dr Gary’s side like before. Efnisien thought he should be really fucking mad right about now, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the way Dr Gary said that Efnisien had made some good points.

No one had ever told him that in his life. About anything.

‘Would what you’re doing work on alphas too?’ Efnisien said.

‘Yes,’ Dr Gary said. ‘Peak alphas really shouldn’t have this much power, but we do.’

The hand at the side of his neck was now an arm around his shoulders, and Efnisien could have cried, it just felt nice.

‘You’re just teaching me to wreck your shit again in the future.’

‘Someone taught you that violence and compliance were the only two mandates of life a long time ago. I’m teaching you it’s possible to get things you want without violence, or compliance. You just haven’t made the connection yet.’

‘Sounded like an insult,’ Efnisien said.

‘Get some sleep, Efnisien,’ Dr Gary said, and Efnisien made a small sound, because it was like having a blanket placed over him. It was nothing like an alpha persuasion, but it wasn’t like talking normally with someone at all.

‘I’m getting what I want after wrecking your study,’ Efnisien breathed. ‘So how is that not…the mandate of violence doing…something?’

‘Shhh,’ Dr Gary said. ‘Stop being clever. Give your body a chance to rest.’

‘So…stupid,’ Efnisien murmured. ‘You…’

‘I know,’ Dr Gary said, like he knew just how unfair he was being. ‘I know.’

Efnisien had a moment to think it felt…good. It was warm. It was…not how anyone was supposed to treat him. His breathing turned heavy. Dr Gary didn’t even have his pheromones up anymore, and Efnisien’s head dropped into his suit as he lost all the threads connecting his thoughts together.

‘There we go,’ Dr Gary said. ‘That’s good, Efnisien.’

Efnisien wanted someone to tell him he was good forever.

Chapter Text

Efnisien had sunk into a proper, deep sleep. Gary knew he needed it, and once he’d seen the state of Efnisien’s blistered hands – not to mention the scratches and cuts on his wrists – he knew the boy couldn’t help clean the office anymore. The fact that he would have, after everything, was disturbing and discomfiting.

Gary was still furious, but what he could he do?

He carefully eased Efnisien down onto the couch once more, tucking a couple of blankets around him, because he didn’t want him to catch a chill. He made his way back into the office and brought out the torn piece of paper from his pocket.

He stared down at it and didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know what to think.

I’m losing you all over again.

He didn’t talk about James, not to anyone. He didn’t have any photos displayed in his home, though he had plenty of photos. But James was everywhere in this cottage. James lived in his closet, in his cabinets, in his bedroom, in his lounge, but now…had been destroyed in Gary’s study.

He smoothed his thumb over the calligraphy a few times and thought about what he’d said to Efnisien. That peak alphas struggled to form meaningful bonds, they were aloof and distanced, arrogant and egoistic. It was all true.

But what Gary hadn’t realised – especially when he was younger – was how love could overtake a peak alpha’s life, and what happened when that love was lost. It almost mirrored the sharp pining that omegas experienced. Betas and alphas handled it better. Not well, no one handled loss well, but they still handled it better.

Gary remembered sitting in his cardiologist’s office once it was all over, only three weeks after the funeral. He remembered sitting there and hearing for the first time that his famed peak alpha health was failing him because of grief.

‘You’re at significant risk for cardiac arrest,’ the doctor – an alpha – said grimly.

‘I don’t recall seeing anything about this in the books,’ Gary said at the time.

‘I can send you some journal articles on PACS,’ the doctor said. ‘Going forward, your health will be shaky for a few years. Some peak alphas don’t survive it. You’re all a bit the same that way. You can’t bond properly because biologically you sense it might kill you if it doesn’t work out.’

‘That sounds extremely sentimental.’

‘And you have a resting heartrate of 120 after years of it sitting nicely at 70, and you’re showing signs of global inflammation. In someone else we’d diagnose a chronic illness. In peak alphas who have been widowed, it’s almost always the same cause.’

‘So…Takotsubo’s cardiomyopathy.’

‘No, that’s what others get, it’s different for peak alphas. Though if that helps you understand it, that’s what you can use as your frame of reference. You presented at the hospital with acute coronary syndrome. Your peak alpha function could see you through it, but you have to survive the grief first.’

‘Do you have statistics on…the outcomes?’

‘It’s about fifty-fifty,’ the doctor said. ‘If you make it through the year, the chances of your body stabilising rise significantly. But you have to make it through the year. I’d recommend grief counselling but almost none of you take it.’

Gary closed his eyes and didn’t particularly care if he lived or died. But Hillview needed to survive, it was still so new. James was supposed to help him. James was the one with the big heart, not the heart consuming itself because Gary couldn’t handle grief, apparently.

‘It’s hard,’ the doctor said finally, sighing. ‘I’ll see maybe one case like this every five to ten years.’

‘It’s almost sentimental, that peak alphas can die from a broken heart.’

‘Anyone can die from Takotsubo’s,’ the cardiologist said. ‘But…yes, it is rather.’

‘Well. I suppose I’ll wait out the year and see what happens.’

And then Gary made it through that year – barely – and the cardiologist was right. After that, Gary stabilised, his health came good again, and he hid James all around the cottage that was supposed to be theirs because his chest hurt when he saw reminders that were too obvious. He buried himself in work, a far less peaceful coffin than the one he’d picked for James, and eventually realised he wasn’t going to die, and plenty of living people needed him.

James had always been good at calligraphy. Gary had bought him special inks, special pens, though he’d never much cared for it himself. Seeing the torn page, James’ beautiful writing destroyed, Efnisien having ripped it in half carelessly, it left him dazed with anger.

It wasn’t that Gary hated Efnisien, he hated everything Efnisien represented, hated the way his chest sometimes ached dully when he thought about going back to his cottage at the end of the day, hated the reminders of what he’d lost, hated that he was gaining almost nothing in exchange.

Efnisien’s arguments, his poisonous words, drifted through Gary’s head as he folded the paper and put it back in his pocket. Some of them had held threads of the things James used to say. James had been working on becoming an Associate Professor, and Gary was getting towards the end of his doctorate, and they’d met for the first time at a guest lecture on omega physiology. James had been the one asking increasingly obnoxious questions until Gary had enough and turned to glare at him.

James nodded an acknowledgement, winked, and then Gary found him outside of the lecture hall, smoking a cigarette and looking pleased with himself even though he’d infuriated nearly every alpha in the room, and the guest lecturer to boot.

‘Are you always like that?’ Gary said. ‘Some of us had questions we wanted to ask.’

‘Oooo, the big peak alpha feeling angry that he couldn’t ask his questions? What a terrible tragedy for the entire world.’

‘Smoking’s bad for you.’

‘Is it?’ James had said back then, pulling the cigarette out of his mouth and staring at it. ‘Gosh, I’d simply never have known if it wasn’t for your brilliant intervention. Thanks for the help and all. I’ll never ever smoke again.’

And then he deliberately took a drag of the cigarette while his eyes smiled comfortably, cheekily at Gary.

And Gary had stalked off, then paused and walked back, and James stared at him and somehow they were flirting without saying a word. And then James silently handed Gary a business card which wasn’t for James’ work in academia but was for the little band he was a member of and walked away without another word.

Gary forced it all down, ignored the myriad pains in his body, and went to work cleaning the study. Faber would need to organise some professionals to come in for some of the damage. It was…incredible. There was so much power behind what Efnisien had done. For all that Efnisien may have felt like he’d never won a fight with his cousin, Gary felt like Efnisien had won this one handily.

He startled when his phone buzzed in his pocket, putting down the bookshelf insert he’d been trying to slide back in place.

To his surprise, it was Temsen.

‘Hello?’ Gary said. ‘You’re not due to come back until Wednesday, are you?’

‘Yes, well, you know how it is. I flew back in last night, and then it turned out when I charged my work phone I had all these messages and voice messages from Kent, and Anton, and Augus, and Enris, but…none from you? I hear you’ve been having quite the time, Gary.’

Gary stared at his demolished office; it took all his energy not to sink to the ground.

‘Gary,’ Temsen said quietly. ‘You can’t be doing well.’

‘No,’ Gary said.

Temsen was one of the few people in the world – perhaps one of the only people in the world outside of Faber – he truly trusted. Hearing his voice on the other end of the line made the gravity of the situation he was in seem heavier, but it also made him feel less adrift than before.

‘Have you had any chest pains?’ Temsen said.

‘Yes,’ Gary said. ‘Nothing terrible.’

‘Well, I’ll look at that when I come back in.’

‘Everything stabilised years ago.’

‘And it may very well be stable now. But your life isn’t stable anymore, so I think we should check to be safe. And the newcomer? Efnisien? Everything I’ve seen from what Kent has sent me has been…intense. Very intense. I’d like to have a meeting with you both. I’m going to come back in on Tuesday, I think. I need tomorrow to chase up some things around the place.’

‘Of course. You can wait until Wednesday. How was your holiday?’

‘Fantastic. You were right to send me off without my work phone. But it sounds like the timing could have been better.’

Gary laughed and sank down to the ground anyway, resting against the doorframe. He could hear Efnisien sleeping heavily, his breathing slow and loud.

‘You can’t be doing well at all,’ Temsen said. ‘I’m worried about you.’

‘Efnisien needs your worry more.’

‘Listen, it sounds like Hillview is the safest place for him, so right now he doesn’t need it more. At least, not from me.’

‘Anton…suggested I delegate some of the responsibility of managing Hillview and its stakeholders to you, and that you delegate some more of your responsibility to Kent.’

‘Yes,’ Temsen said. ‘I talked to Kent on the phone. He’s been trying to reach me for days, apparently. He said something similar. That’s messy, and I don’t like the idea of it, but it is the best idea. If I don’t like the idea of it, you don’t either.’

‘Too much change.’

‘Too much change,’ Temsen echoed, sounding as heavy as Gary did. ‘But you know I can handle quite a few different aspects of Hillview’s care, and you know Kent can handle a lot of the patients and medical needs here. I personally think Faber’s ready to take on some more responsibility too.’

‘He’s been quite busy this week,’ Gary said.

‘Yes, of course, I suppose he would be. I’ve got to lie down, hang on a minute. Jetlag hasn’t been kind.’

‘We don’t have to talk about this now.’

‘No, I know,’ Temsen said. ‘But I wanted to. I know you, Gary. I don’t know everything; I wouldn’t pretend to. But I’m capable of enough projection to know how I’d react if I was forced into the same situation that you’re in, and I don’t even have the same history you do. I’ve never bonded to someone in my life, and I’d still find it…impossible.’

‘Here, I’ll send you a photo of what I came home to today,’ Gary said.

He took a moment to take a few photos of the damage, and then he sent them over to Temsen, then put the phone back to his ear.

Temsen was quiet for some time, and then he laughed. ‘Isn’t that something else? What did you do?’

‘Mounted him, which was a disaster. And then gave him some lunch and we had a talk about what was going on. He did it because he’s angry at me for leaving for the office every day.’

‘Gary,’ Temsen said, ‘what do you need? What’s something I can actually do?’

Gary was grateful Temsen didn’t specifically use the word ‘help’ – which would have been jarring for almost any peak alpha. But Temsen understood that too. He was trying to think of the things he would need to hear under the same circumstances. But it was still difficult to even consider it. What did Gary need? His life to go back to normal. That was a crapshoot.

So then what?

‘I’m not going to the conference next week,’ Gary said. ‘If you could take on some of the communication with the people involved… You understand a lot of the theory.’

‘I’ll do what I can,’ Temsen said. ‘Let me talk to Faber, and I’ll liaise with him too. I’m sure he’s scrambling to find ways to clear out your schedule. So I’ll call him after. And then sleep. On Tuesday, I’m going to have you and Efnisien in the same room, and we’re going to have a talk about his full panel blood test results. Also, I’m informing you now since I think you might have issues with it, but I think we should be treating him like an alpha.’

‘No, it’s- I would have disagreed with you in the first two or three days, but not anymore.’

‘That’s good to hear. I’m going to give Kadek a call as well. Do you want me to check if he wants to press charges?’

‘Please. I’ll call him tomorrow. I’m not sure if he can speak yet.’

‘Shouldn’t be a major problem. As far as I know, his vocal cords weren’t effected, and the weapon didn’t penetrate his throat. But I’ll let you know.’

I think we should be treating him as an alpha. At some point, Gary had stopped thinking of Efnisien as an omega. A feral creature, certainly. A broken boy, absolutely. Someone who wasn’t entirely an alpha, of course. But an omega? After this level of methodical, aggressive, hostile destruction? After the biting? The savagery? The way he spoke back, swore, and fought?

There were moments when Efnisien seemed to behave like an omega, but Gary thought they felt more like any traumatised person – beta, alpha, omega – who simply didn’t know what to make of new circumstances.

But what did that mean for Efnisien’s future? And what did it mean for Efnisien’s place and role at Hillview?

‘You sound out of sorts,’ Temsen said. ‘Not nearly as arrogant as I remember.’

Gary laughed.

‘You don’t have to do this alone,’ Temsen said firmly. ‘I know it feels that way. I know in some ways it is that way, but in other ways it isn’t. This also isn’t like the past. It’s not you versus the world, Gary.’

Gary heard the way he barely avoided saying: It’s not like the situation with James.

‘What gives you the most peace right now?’ Temsen asked.

He was behaving a lot like a supervisor would.

‘Sleeping,’ Gary said, and it was only partially a joke. ‘Drinking. And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but being near him, even though it makes me so angry I could kill him.’

‘It’s not his fault you’re touch deprived,’ Temsen said. ‘Peak alpha to peak alpha, if you know those things bring you peace, then go and take control of yourself and do them. Some moderation on the drinking, but otherwise, step into the things that will calm you and restore some of your power. Stop looking at your study.’

‘I have to clean it.’

‘With all due respect, just close the door on it. Faber and I can handle it. Stop looking at the parts of your life that are being…restructured and look at the places that offer stability. It will be useful. Trust me.’

‘Speaking from experience?’

‘You don’t know how much I can’t wait to be back in my exam room on Tuesday,’ Temsen said fervently.

Gary smiled and stood. He stepped out of the study and closed the door and immediately felt…better. Maybe he was hiding his head in the sand, but some things didn’t have to be addressed right now. The best he’d felt all day was when he’d been handing Efnisien pieces of apple, and listening to his thoughts, and exchanging his own in response.

Even if it did make him furious. Even if he did miss James.

Even if his chest ached.

‘I want to meet him,’ Temsen said. ‘I’ll probably have more suggestions after that, of course. Also, Anton told me he’d mentioned reciprocity to you, which is a nice concept, and a great theory, but it works better with alphas and omegas than it does with peak alphas and the person you’re living with now.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, the companion-omega rulebook is only going to be so useful here, Gary. Anton said you didn’t want to be a companion, well, you can’t be. Efnisien’s not an omega as he is right now, ergo, he does not need a companion anyway. You were right to stand up for yourself in that, even if your reasons came from a different place. Think more along the lines of how you’d treat a traumatised alpha… Look at articles on prisoners of war, for example, and rehabilitation, along with effective interventions.’

‘That’s…astute.’

‘Thank you, that’s why you hired me,’ Temsen said, and Gary could hear that he was smiling on the other end. ‘You would have thought of it sooner, I’m sure, but you are going through something I couldn’t imagine going through. The others won’t ever understand, except Augus, and he is going through his own hell.’

‘He is. Did he say anything about it?’

‘No,’ Temsen said. ‘He doesn’t have to. I know he’s quitting rehab after Mosk. I’m… I haven’t told him yet, but I suspect he might be a candidate for PACS.’

Peak alpha cardiac syndrome. What Gary had, years ago. Universally fatal in fifty percent of cases.

‘Really?’ Gary said. ‘But…’

Gary had been about to say, ‘But he’s had so much practice with bonding,’ but that was the issue. Augus was the only peak alpha Gary had ever met in his life who had sustained and then let go of so many bonds. He felt ignorant for not realising sooner that Augus was sailing towards a complex grief he might never recover from, and then felt a twinge of guilt that he’d pushed Mosk onto Augus at all, because the signs were there last time too.

‘Damn,’ Gary said.

‘He might not be,’ Temsen said. ‘But I think it’s foolish not to monitor him for it. Since you’re his supervisor, I think you should be on the lookout for some of the classic signs outside of the cardiac constellation of symptoms.’

‘No, he has them. I’m angry I didn’t see it sooner.’

‘I think you having a blind spot when it comes to PACS is forgivable in this case. But you’re aware now, and you can float it in sessions with him when or if you ever feel it’s appropriate.’

‘Be careful, Temsen. I’ll never let you go on holiday again.’

‘Says the man who hasn’t been on a holiday since he started Hillview.’

They both laughed, and Gary felt a quieter warmth spread through him, a reassurance he hadn’t been able to feel since Efnisien had arrived.

‘I’m looking forward to your return,’ Gary said.

‘I’m looking forward to returning. Do you have a problem if I let Kent know about your history with PACS, the fact that you could relapse with this new person in your life?’

Gary didn’t love the idea, but Kent was competent, and so Gary nodded slowly and then walked through the loungeroom to watch Efnisien sleeping heavily – face untroubled – on the couch.

‘Tell him. No details of what caused it.’

Temsen was silent for a second. The silence of: Rumours tell the story even if you don’t.

‘Of course,’ Temsen said. ‘I’ll be in touch. Remember, find your loci of control, Gary. Stop wallowing in the things that remind you of how you’re losing it. Find the places you can win.’

‘Unconventional supervisor advice.’

‘It’s a good thing I’m not your supervisor then,’ Temsen said, ‘and an even better thing that you’re not a companion. Let’s not pretend Efnisien’s a proper omega, that you’re a proper companion, and I’m your proper supervisor. We’ll make up some new rules, and we’ll all be…just fine.’

Temsen yawned hugely, and then hung up soon after, and Gary looked down at Efnisien sleeping and felt far more empowered about the road ahead than he had since Efnisien had arrived and turned his life upside down. Though his chest still ached, and he wondered if his heart now raced as fast as Efnisien’s did.

Chapter Text

Efnisien woke and it was still light, but he knew he’d slept for a long time, and he knew it was the next day. It was morning, and he wasn’t on the couch, but on Dr Gary’s bed. He pushed up, alarmed, but Dr Gary was sleeping beside him – not snoring this time – and Efnisien didn’t feel like anything had been done to his body while he slept. He was still wearing all his clothing. He felt like the ointment had been reapplied to his palms.

It was the best sleep he’d had for years. There’d been almost no nightmares, and certainly none bad enough to wake him up. He kept waiting to feel outraged, but with everything that happened the day before, he felt relieved instead.

He lay back on the comfortable pillows and then wiggled. The mattress was really comfortable. He turned and looked at the back of Dr Gary’s head. His hair was blacker at the back, most of the silver was around his ears and the front of his head. The bed felt warm. Efnisien wanted to fall asleep again, but then his gut wrenched, and he winced.

Carefully, he got out of bed, resolutely ignoring Polly when she lifted her head and wagged her tail enthusiastically at him. The pain in his gut was quickly getting worse, and he…hadn’t had his meds the night before. Shit. He was already taking less than he was supposed to have.

He closed the bathroom door, his gut evacuated everything left in his system, and the cramps were horrendous enough that he cold sweated and bent over himself, screwing up his eyes. A lot of what Kent gave him was helping, but Efnisien had forgotten about his meds completely, and he couldn’t even be angry that it had slipped Dr Gary’s mind either, after everything. The shock of the study wouldn’t have put him in the best headspace.

But Efnisien felt shaken and unsteady, and as he washed his hands and closed the bathroom door behind him, he considered going into the lounge, and finally crept back into Dr Gary’s bed.

It was scary not knowing what was happening to him. It had been a fear he’d grown mostly used to ignoring most of his life. But here… He didn’t think they understood just how much he used to take, and he had no way of telling them. Dr Gary acted like taking thirty pills a day was an extraordinary amount, how was he supposed to explain that fifty to sixty was the norm?

Part of the problem was ardolphogen alone didn’t come in massive doses, so Efnisien had to take a lot of pills that were all just smaller doses of the hormone. But even with that out of the picture, he needed so much.

He placed his hands tentatively on his stomach. Dr Gary hadn’t changed him out of his shirt. Efnisien wondered at how deeply he’d slept that he’d not woken up from being picked up and carried down the hallway.

A couple of minutes later Dr Gary’s breathing changed, and then he turned and looked at Efnisien. He considered him for some time, then reached out and touched Efnisien’s forehead.

‘You’re feverish again,’ Dr Gary said. Then he winced. ‘Damn. I forgot your meds last night.’

Efnisien just looked at him. Finally, he said: ‘Why am I here? Not…on the couch.’

Gary’s eyebrows lifted as his hand dropped away from Efnisien’s forehead. ‘I’m experimenting with the theory that proximity is actually good for you. You’ll be sleeping here from now on.’

Efnisien opened his mouth to protest, but slowly closed it again. The couch wasn’t uncomfortable, and he didn’t exactly trust Dr Gary, but he didn’t think the guy was going to jump him. At least, maybe not without warning? And the bed was nice.

‘I don’t think we can give you last night’s dose,’ Gary said speculatively, ‘but we can make sure you take this morning’s pills at any rate. Do you feel well enough to shower?’

Efnisien nodded.

‘What about your hands?’ Dr Gary said.

‘They’re fine.’

‘Would you tell me if they weren’t?’

‘I…’ Efnisien’s fingers curled, even that hurt. ‘It’s really not that bad.’

Dr Gary nodded, he still seemed sleepy. ‘Perhaps it’s not, compared to some of the things you’ve endured. Any dizziness? Nausea?’

‘Yeah,’ Efnisien said. ‘Not as much dizziness, but some nausea. And um, some cramps.’

‘Food will help. I know your schedule’s been all over the place, it sadly reflects mine. It will be better this week.’

Because Dr Gary was staying. Because he wasn’t going to the conference.

‘You’ll be working all the time still,’ Efnisien said, realising the only thing that would change was that he wasn’t actually leaving.

‘My schedule was cleared for the conference,’ Dr Gary said, and then he smiled a little. ‘It means I don’t have to supervise anyone this week, I have no formal meetings scheduled at all. I may still do some work, but it’s not as though I can do much in my home office, is it?’

Efnisien bit the inside of his lip. He was never going to hear the end of it.

‘After breakfast, we’ll go out,’ Dr Gary said.

Efnisien stared at him, then felt a strange jangling sensation inside of him. Dr Gary said it so easily. After everything yesterday…why wasn’t he angry? Because Efnisien had seen his face, he had been furious.

It turned out Efnisien could still have no idea what was happening, even when things seemed to be getting better.

*

Breakfast helped. And after showering and cleaning up and eating and taking his meds, he put his socks and shoes on, and couldn’t believe they were really going out. Not just standing on the decking to look at kangaroos, but actually going for a walk, like the first time.

Dr Gary wasn’t lying.

‘You’ll need one of your coats,’ Dr Gary said. ‘It’s chilly this time of year.’

So Efnisien pulled one of the coats out – a reddish brown one – and put it on, feeling like he was wearing far too many layers, because he’d never had to dress like this in his life. Dr Gary watched him as Efnisien straightened from behind the couch, and then he rubbed at his forehead like he was mad or annoyed.

‘I’ll find somewhere better for you to store your clothing.’

‘Here’s fine,’ Efnisien said.

‘It’s not.’

Dr Gary beckoned him over, and Efnisien followed him out of the house, watching as Dr Gary did his thing with disarming the alarm and making sure Efnisien’s ankle monitor wouldn’t shriek the whole facility down.

Just like that, they were outside again. It wasn’t early morning, so there weren’t as many kangaroos. It was sunny, but the breeze nipped at Efnisien’s exposed skin, forcefully blowing at his damp hair. Efnisien sucked down a sharp breath. He’d never felt anything like it. He’d been outside briefly at the An Fnwy estate during winter, but he didn’t remember it being like this.

Dr Gary turned back and looked at him, then came closer and placed a hand on Efnisien’s lower back like always.

‘You’ll warm up once we get moving,’ Dr Gary said.

Efnisien nodded. He looked around warily, feeling like it was new all over again. The lawn, the landscaped parts of the garden, the tree line on the horizon, the smell of salt in the air which was sharp today.

‘The wind’s coming from the south,’ Efnisien said, thinking it over as he visualised the maps app he once used.

‘That’s right.’

‘So the winds must come up from Antarctica.’

Dr Gary’s hand pressed a little more firmly at Efnisien’s back, but it didn’t seem pushy, more like an acknowledgement.

‘We never did talk much about your education,’ Dr Gary said. ‘You said you were home-schooled. You must have had good teachers.’

Efnisien looked up at Dr Gary and pressed his lips together as he stared ahead again. ‘No, I never…had any teachers. Some of the servants taught me to read, and my alphabet, I suppose they were my teachers. But they weren’t like…tutors. I was figuring out what to learn when I was like…eight, maybe. I was allowed to buy books.’

‘I see,’ Dr Gary said. ‘That’s why you don’t know what level you are. Did you learn from an alpha curriculum? I imagine that was encouraged.’

Efnisien wrapped one arm, and then the other around his torso. He didn’t reply, because it seemed important that Dr Gary believe they wanted him to be an alpha in every way. Like maybe he should pretend that they let him…do his alpha levels.

Dr Gary thankfully didn’t push, or maybe he just got bored.

They were heading towards the forest today, and Efnisien stared at the sand dunes, feeling like it must be so, so cold once those hills of sand and shrubs weren’t there to act as a windbreak.

At the lookout where Dr Gary and Efnisien had sat the first time, and Efnisien had seen the sea in person, he could see a couple of people sitting on the bench. A larger guy and a small omega with really long, curly black hair sat side by side.

‘That’s Caleb and Lucien,’ Dr Gary said, noticing where Efnisien was looking.

Efnisien nodded.

‘Lucien will be graduating soon. In a month or two, I expect.’

‘Graduating,’ Efnisien scoffed. ‘When alphas and betas graduate, they get degrees at university, or are like, the Dux of their school. When omegas graduate, they just get fucked.’

Dr Gary was quiet, and Efnisien thought maybe he was mad. But Efnisien hated the term ‘graduation’ for a facility like this. As though it was some huge achievement that an omega could tolerate being fucked.

‘He looks like a girl,’ Efnisien said. ‘Like one of those…dolled up omegas that get whored out. Is he a slut?’

‘We do not use terms like that to talk about our omegas, Efnisien,’ Dr Gary said, his voice stern enough that Efnisien tensed. ‘Be respectful, or don’t speak about the omegas on site at all.’

Efnisien side-stepped away from the touch at his lower back, and Dr Gary let him, and Efnisien felt strange when there was no more contact between them. He glared at Dr Gary, who calmly watched him in return.

‘You don’t even like omegas,’ Efnisien said. ‘You’ve said it.’

‘I’m not attracted to them,’ Dr Gary said. ‘There’s a difference. And I’m not calling them names or being verbally abusive towards them.’

‘You- I’m not-’ Efnisien opened his mouth again and then closed it, annoyed. ‘It’s not verbally abusive to just use the right words instead of the like… ‘polite words.’’

‘It is,’ Dr Gary said calmly. ‘Your words are designed to be hurtful. You know most people – including omegas – wouldn’t like being called ‘a bitch to be bred’ or a ‘slut’ or any of the words you use. You dehumanise them.’

‘Well, they’re barely human!’ Efnisien shouted.

Dr Gary stopped walking and just stared at him, and Efnisien wanted to pull his own hair, because he wanted to be outside damn it, not constantly fucking ruining it. Dr Gary looked like he wanted to say a lot of different things, but finally he just nodded at a forest trail they were close to and walked towards it.

Efnisien followed, stressed and unable to get a handle on his shallow breathing. He didn’t know why Dr Gary didn’t take the bait.

‘Your office is still ruined,’ Efnisien said. ‘Right now. I know you didn’t clean it all. You said it had to be recarpeted.’

‘That’s right,’ Dr Gary said placidly.

The shade of the trees covered them, and the temperature plunged at once. Efnisien shivered, but anger kept him galvanised. He didn’t know what was happening inside of him, but Dr Gary wasn’t doing anything the right way.

‘I could do that to any part of your house,’ Efnisien said. ‘Easily. You have to leave some time.’

‘That’s true,’ Dr Gary said.

‘I could…’

Dr Gary’s steps slowed, and then he stopped. Efnisien felt fear pounding up from his chest into his throat, spreading through his gut, and then he wanted to cry out when he saw Dr Gary turn towards him.

‘All right,’ Dr Gary said.

He lunged forwards, and Efnisien’s breath strangled in his throat as he backed up to get away. But Dr Gary was so fucking fast, it was ridiculous. A hand around Efnisien’s upper arm, and Dr Gary tugged him forwards. Wild and panicking, Efnisien thought Dr Gary would mount him right here, in the open, and he tried to get his mouth open to scream but found himself yanked against Dr Gary’s body.

Dr Gary’s other arm came around his back, holding him close, and the hand at his arm went to the back of his head instead. Like the time Kent had come over, and Efnisien hadn’t known they were coming, and Dr Gary had just forcibly held him close.

Efnisien gasped, and then he struggled, and Dr Gary didn’t let him go.

‘Efnisien,’ Dr Gary said, ‘I’m not going to fight you.’

‘I wasn’t- That’s not- Let me go!’

‘No,’ Dr Gary said. ‘Tire yourself out, but I’m not letting you go.’

‘I wasn’t trying to fight you!’

‘Easy,’ Dr Gary said, and Efnisien made a furious, thin sound and tried to scratch at Dr Gary’s sides, and only succeeded in hurting his hands. At the pained sound he made, Dr Gary’s arm around his back became tighter. ‘Efnisien, I’m not going to fight you.’

‘I wasn’t- I wasn’t doing that!’

Efnisien knew he was.

He didn’t know how long he struggled for. It felt like ages. He couldn’t even get a proper grip when he bit down, because Dr Gary was also dressed for the colder weather. In response to Efnisien’s wild movements, the arm around his back became stronger, and the hand at the back of his head held him closer. That was all. Dr Gary’s pheromones didn’t go up, he didn’t seem to get angry, he didn’t scold him, he just stood there.

But Efnisien couldn’t get away either.

After one last furious struggle, he sagged, panting for breath. And the hand at the back of his head gentled, and then rubbed at his skin, and Efnisien made a wounded noise because it wasn’t fucking fair.

All these nice things were happening. He didn’t understand. This was even worse than when Dr Gary was leaving him alone all the time. Wasn’t it?

Efnisien didn’t know.

‘There we go,’ Dr Gary said, his voice even and calm. ‘See? I’m not going to fight you, Efnisien. I’m sure there will come times where I get frustrated, even angry, but-’

‘I know I pissed you off! I know I did! Do you still have that piece of paper in your pocket? Who was that guy, anyway?’

Dr Gary tensed, and Efnisien froze, his fear spilling everywhere.

‘God,’ Dr Gary breathed. ‘You really have an uncanny instinct for aiming where it hurts, don’t you?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Efnisien said.

Dr Gary made a noise, and then he pulled back and looked at him, a rueful expression on his face.

‘That’s a dangerous skill, Efnisien.’

‘It worked, didn’t it?’ Efnisien said, before looking away.

‘Why do you want a fight from me so badly?’ Dr Gary said. ‘What does it do for you? What are you supposed to be feeling right now that you can’t access without me beating you like your cousin did?’

Efnisien wanted to say he wasn’t…doing that, but he couldn’t make himself. And worse, he didn’t want Dr Gary to let him go again. He liked the warmth. He liked…the feeling of being surrounded like this. He knew he shouldn’t, but he did.

‘Hm?’ Dr Gary said, clearly waiting for an answer.

Efnisien shook his head.

‘Tell me how you’re meant to be feeling,’ Dr Gary said.

‘Bad.’

He already felt bad.

Dr Gary pulled him close again, and Efnisien didn’t bother fighting him. He turned his face to the side so his cheek was against Dr Gary’s chest, and he could see the trees.

‘I know that right now you don’t feel good,’ Dr Gary said. ‘So what does bad mean?’

Bad, Efnisien thought, unhelpfully.

‘After your cousin does what he does to you, what happens that makes it satisfying?’

Efnisien wondered if he should feel like some omega, the way Dr Gary was holding him close. But they were standing chest to chest, and while Dr Gary’s grip was strong, it wasn’t like anything Efnisien had experienced with Crielle, or Gwyn, or anyone. Dr Gary talked to him like a person.

It wasn’t right.

Efnisien’s eyes burned when he realised what he was looking for. He didn’t think he could say it. In fact, he knew he couldn’t.

You’re meant to make me feel like I’m worthless, so that I work harder, so that I can be a good alpha.

‘You keep giving me all these nice things,’ Efnisien said instead, his voice rough, no matter how he swallowed to try and hide what he was feeling. ‘What am I supposed to do?’

‘Accept them. Or at least, try to.’

‘But…’

Dr Gary’s hand rubbed Efnisien’s back a few times. ‘Or you can keep trying to pick fights with me. I’m starting to get the hang of it now. Though I’m sure you’re going to keep throwing curveballs. Do you want to see some of the forest now?’

Efnisien was quiet, and then nodded his head slightly. When Dr Gary stepped away – though not far enough to break contact completely this time – Efnisien looked at the trees. He felt embarrassed.

After everything, Efnisien didn’t think he’d enjoy the forest at all.

‘Here,’ Dr Gary said. ‘You asked me if the trunks were smooth. The first time you got to touch them you were fleeing, do you want to try again now that the circumstances are different?’

Dr Gary walked over to one of the thicker trees, and placed his fingers against it, and then looked down.

‘There’s an inch ant,’ he said, pointing. ‘So named for its size.’

Efnisien walked over and bent down. The ant was huge. Thin and red and black. Its pincers were long and elegant. It was scrambling up the trunk like it had something to do, but it paused near Dr Gary’s finger and tilted its head, like it was considering attacking it. Dr Gary moved his finger away.

‘They jump sometimes,’ he said. ‘Their venom is nasty.’

‘Have you been bitten?’

‘No, thankfully,’ Dr Gary said. ‘It’s safe for you to touch the bark up here. These particular ants don’t have big nests, so you don’t need to worry. They’re predators, they walk around like that because they’re hunting.’

Efnisien watched the ant for a little longer and had the strangest feeling it was watching him back. And then he placed his hand flat against the tree. It was cool, but not as cold as he was expecting. The silvery grey bark was smooth, but not like glass, there was a hint of a texture there, almost like a cotton shirt.

He pressed both his hands flat to it, and then looked up. The canopy was so high.

‘Nothing’s really flowering right now,’ Dr Gary said. ‘But there’s some fungi around, we can look for some if you like.’

‘Like…mushrooms?’

‘Yes,’ Dr Gary said.

‘Edible ones?’

‘Not especially.’

Efnisien’s nose wrinkled, but he followed Dr Gary anyway.

‘What sort of things did you look up on your phone?’ Dr Gary said as they walked.

‘Um, like… videos of things,’ Efnisien said. ‘Like nature things. Or…things I was interested in. I don’t know. And I used the maps app a lot. You know street view? So if my family went out, I could go out with them that way.’

Dr Gary’s steps slowed, and then stopped. Efnisien couldn’t read the expression on his face at all.

‘What?’ Efnisien said.

‘We might be able to conditionally give you access to the internet,’ he said. ‘You’ll either have to be supervised or have access heavily limited. I don’t put it past you to find a way to hack past all of our restrictions.’

‘It would be- I’d just want to see Hillview on…street view,’ Efnisien said, and then felt stupid.

'Well, we could drive along the street so you could see it in person,' Dr Gary said. ‘Probably not today, but in the next few days.’

Efnisien felt rooted to the spot. At first because he felt excited, and then quickly because a strange fear was descending over him.

‘What?’ Efnisien said, feeling weird.

‘There’s a scenic forest about thirty minutes away, it’s quite famous. It would be nicer to see it in person.’

Efnisien felt like he couldn’t breathe. The world was already too big here, and the idea of moving beyond that wasn’t a good feeling like he thought it would be. He wanted to see it. But he couldn’t think about it. He’d been so confident about escaping when he first arrived at Hillview, and now the idea of being in a car, and seeing…seeing the world like that, without the barrier of a screen between him and the rest of it, made him feel like he couldn’t think.

Dr Gary frowned and then stepped closer, tilting his head.

‘Efnisien?’

‘That…sounds…good,’ Efnisien forced himself to say. He couldn’t pass up an opportunity like that. Not when he’d never had it before.

Dr Gary’s mouth thinned, and he came close enough to wrap an arm around Efnisien’s shoulders.

‘It’s all right to want it and not be able to do it right this instant,’ Dr Gary said. ‘It wouldn’t be surprising if you had some level of agoraphobia, after what you’ve been through.’

‘I’m not agoraphobic, I’m outside right now.’

‘I know,’ Dr Gary said.

‘We can go right now.’

‘All right. But how about we walk along this trail a bit more first.’

Efnisien took a huge breath, confused and annoyed at himself.

‘I’m not agoraphobic,’ Efnisien said, feeling shaken. ‘You’re always touching me.’

‘I know.’

‘Maybe I don’t need it all the time.’

‘I do,’ Dr Gary said.

Efnisien was distracted from his fear, he blinked a few times, and then looked up at Dr Gary in amazement.

‘I do,’ Dr Gary said, smiling. ‘I think you do as well, but haven’t you noticed that my mood is more stable when we’re in close contact?’

It had never occurred to Efnisien that he could have a positive impact on anyone. Not like that. At first he thought Dr Gary must be lying to him, but Dr Gary seemed to reach out and touch him all the time, not like it was a chore, but like it felt natural to him. Efnisien couldn’t manage the idea at all.

Had his existence ever helped anyone?

At all?

‘Efnisien?’ Dr Gary said, frowning.

‘No, no, it’s nothing,’ Efnisien said.

As Dr Gary’s arm tightened around him, Efnisien found himself moving closer. He knew he shouldn’t want to help anyone here, but the idea that he could was tantalising, and he was captured by the thought alone. Beneath the distant canopy of karri trees, Efnisien felt something foreign and tectonic shift inside of him.

Chapter Text

Dr Gary was true to his word, and Efnisien was allowed to go outside more. But on Tuesday morning after a breakfast of really creamy oatmeal with berries – none of which Efnisien knew the names of even though he liked them all – and some toast, they didn’t go outside straight away.

‘Our head physician is back on site today,’ Dr Gary said. ‘His name is Temsen, and he wants to have a meeting with you. It won’t be a medical exam, and it won’t be happening in an exam room. Does that sound all right?’

Efnisien stared at him. Dr Gary was asking him? He felt nervous. What was he agreeing to if he said yes?

‘I think you’ll like Temsen,’ Dr Gary added. ‘He won’t be what you expect.’

Efnisien frowned.

‘No medical exam,’ Efnisien said, confirming. ‘Really?’

‘Really. He doesn’t even need to measure your heart rate. I’ve been doing that.’

Efnisien ended up nodding shortly, and about twenty minutes after that they headed off. Dr Gary must have sent a text, because as they walked towards the big building, a man came out and approached them. He was tall and radiated the kind of power all peak alphas did. He had light brown skin, and as he got closer, Efnisien saw he had friendly brown eyes, though his left eye had a patch of alpha gold in it, as bright as Anton’s. His dark brown hair was cropped close to his head, and curly. His smile was…warm. He didn’t wear a white doctor’s coat at all. He wasn’t even wearing a suit, but a nice, knitted jumper, and dark red jeans.

‘Hi, Efnisien. I’m Temsen, I’m usually the lead physician at Hillview but I’ve been on holiday for the last two weeks. I’d like to discuss a few things with you and Gary, is that all right with you?’

‘Um,’ Efnisien said, looking at Dr Gary in order to check if it was all right. But Dr Gary didn’t react, and Efnisien looked at Temsen, and then down at his hand which was still extended. After a moment Efnisien reached out and Temsen’s fingers were loose around his, careful, as he shook his hand. ‘Okay.’

‘Good,’ Temsen said briskly. ‘Let’s go into Gary’s office, because I’ve heard that exam rooms are a bad idea all round. I’ve got the projector set up already.’

Dr Gary’s hand at his lower back, and Efnisien walked forward feeling warier than normal. Temsen wasn’t like any medical doctor he’d ever met.

‘How are you feeling today, Efnisien?’ Temsen asked.

‘Fine,’ Efnisien said.

‘That’s good to hear.’

It was weird not getting a sceptical look. Efnisien didn’t feel totally fine, he never did, but it was kind of nice having someone just…listen to him.

When they got inside Dr Gary’s office, Efnisien looked around slowly and was surprised that it was mostly just a bigger version of the office he had in his cottage. But in one corner there was an area set up with comfortable armchairs, with a little table that had a box of tissues on it, and pot plants that were thriving. All the décor was expensive, and there was a big window that looked out towards the sand dunes.

Efnisien was led over to one of two comfortable looking chairs that had been set up by Dr Gary’s work desk. To Efnisien’s surprise, Dr Gary sat next to him, and not at the other side of the table, where a big ergonomic black leather chair was. It was obviously his chair.

Temsen powered up a laptop resting on the desk, and then moved and adjusted a projector screen a few times.

‘Now,’ he said, checking the projector screen, before looking between Dr Gary and Efnisien. ‘I don’t think there’s much point right now talking about this without you here, Efnisien. It’s your body, and I think you should be looped in on some of these results so you can better understand what’s happening to you. There will be times I’ll need to talk to Dr Gary privately, but now isn’t one of those times.’

Temsen pressed a few things on the laptop, and then the projector displayed five complicated graphs with a lot of acronyms along the bottom indicating what the bars were. The only thing Efnisien really understood were the headers marking out each graph – Efnisien, Omega, Beta, Alpha, Peak Alpha.

‘So, we finally got back the full panel,’ Temsen said, ‘and we can already see some fairly abnormal and extreme results. I’m going to explain what’s going on hormonally, and we’re going to have a talk. If there’s anything you both don’t understand, you can ask me to explain further.’

Temsen pulled a pointer off the desk where he’d left it, and then indicated an extremely high black bar – higher than on any of the other graphs – and Dr Gary straightened beside Efnisien like he’d suddenly realised what it was.

‘This is your ardolphogen,’ Temsen said. ‘You don’t make it naturally, it’s synthetic ardolphogen hormone. As you can see it’s four times higher than the levels found in alphas, and twice as much as found in peak alphas.’

‘Jesus,’ Dr Gary said.

‘It will be lower now,’ Temsen said, ‘because this is based off your initial intake blood test. We’ll be monitoring this level going forward. Dosing someone with synthetic ardolphogen like this is illegal and may have damaged the structure of your heart. This level…’ Temsen tapped the result a few times, ‘causes cardiac issues, and cardiac arrest is not uncommon.’

‘His tachycardia,’ Dr Gary said.

‘Right, yes,’ Temsen said, smiling. ‘I suspect this may be the reason why your alpha persuasion works on alphas too. But as you can see, the synthetic levels you’ve been taking far exceed anything healthy, Efnisien. I can give you paperwork on what too much ardolphogen does to people. It’s one of the most highly regulated hormones for that reason. Alphas and betas used to dope with it – and still do, in some countries – and many end up dying as a result.’

Efnisien stared at the graph. Crielle never showed him any of this stuff. He was starting to realise what the acronyms meant. ADG was ardolphogen, which meant BTW was botewalogen, and LRT was larentin. Efnisien was satisfied to see he didn’t make any larentin at all, the same as in the alpha and peak alpha graphs. But when he looked at the acronyms next to LRT at the bottom of his graph – LRT-1, LRT-2, and LRT-3 – he was making more of those than shown on any of the other graphs.

‘Next,’ Temsen said, pointing to the BTW acronym. ‘Your botewalogen levels – synthetic botewalogen, again – are also very high. Above beta levels, see?’

Temsen pointed to the beta graph so Efnisien could see for himself.

‘I have a few theories about what’s going on here, but they’re only theories. They may be mitigating some of your ardolphogen side effects, or they might be there to suppress your other hormones. I’m honestly not sure. Now it’s my understanding that you’re under a fairly nasty series of directives about your health history. So you can’t talk about any of it, can you?’

Efnisien stared at him blankly, and it was Dr Gary who said: ‘He can’t.’

‘That should ease up over time,’ Temsen said sympathetically. ‘Distance from the person – or people – who issued the directives, along with time, will weaken them. But if there’s been many overlaid, or if they’ve been issued over a period of years, that weakness can take a long time to appear. It’s okay, these test results tell us a lot.’

‘I don’t make any larentin,’ Efnisien said.

‘That’s true,’ Temsen said, looking pleased, as though he was happy Efnisien had figured out some of the graph acronyms. Efnisien felt unusually warm because of it. ‘Actually, I meant to ask before. You prefer to be considered an alpha, yes?’

Efnisien nodded slowly, expecting a trap.

‘I want to ask something that might be difficult to answer. But you are aware that your Kaeper and lare glands have been removed, so…you do understand that you were biologically born an omega, yes?’

Efnisien gulped and then looked over at Dr Gary. But Dr Gary didn’t look mad or like he was waiting to disagree. He was looking at Temsen like he wanted to know where this was going.

Finally, Efnisien looked back at Temsen. Despite the fact that Efnisien could tell he was a stupidly powerful peak alpha, there was something different about him. His aura was different Dr Gary’s, Augus’, and anyone else’s that he’d ever met.

‘Yes,’ Efnisien said finally.

‘Good,’ Temsen said, seeming relieved. ‘I think we’d have a different problem altogether if you didn’t understand that. Moving forward, I see no problems with calling you an alpha if that’s what you’re most comfortable with. While chemically, you don’t really match any of the graphs here, I don’t think we’re ever going to get you back to baseline omega levels with the interventional surgeries you’ve experienced.’

Efnisien gaped at him.

‘It’s also just really not all that helpful right now,’ Temsen said, looking at Dr Gary. ‘Things might change in the future. But while you may have been an omega at birth, you don’t identify as one, and a lot of changes have been made to your body in the interim that…impact any omega expression you may have naturally had. If you feel like you’re an omega in the future, and we’re around for it, we’ll address it then. You’re not really like anyone else that’s ever existed, Efnisien, and it puts us on entirely new ground. So while we’re there, let’s just use the term you’re most comfortable with, okay?’

‘I… Y-yes?’ Efnisien said, confused.

‘So now, let’s look at your sub-larentins.’

‘How is he making any at all?’ Dr Gary said. ‘And those levels are high.’

‘I suspect…this may be why you ended up here, Efnisien,’ Temsen said softly. ‘Most omegas only make minor amounts of the larentin subtypes, see?’

It was true, on the Omega graph, all the subtypes were in tiny percentages, though they didn’t exist in any amount at all on any of the other graphs except for Efnisien’s, where they were even higher than the botewalogen.

‘I’m going to quickly change this image…’ Temsen said, going back to his laptop. He then brought up an anatomical diagram which was a cross-section of an omega’s abdomen. ‘So here are the lare glands. Most people tend to mistakenly imagine them as these well encapsulated glands, but the reality is they have many branches and connections to other sections of the body, from the bladder to the adrenals, the spine, the penis, and other significant nervous system involvement.’

Temsen was pointing as he talked. Efnisien saw the yellow ovals they’d used to depict the lare glands, and then over fifteen lines and squiggles in that same colour, branching through the body like some invasive weed.

‘My theory – again just a theory – is that when your lare glands were removed, it was considered too dangerous to remove the complete lare body. It does, after all, involve excavating through some of your major organs. What many non-omega specialists don’t know is that these aren’t blood vessels, though they superficially resemble them. While they can’t produce larentin, they are responsible for the larentin subtypes. My theory is because this is the only part of your lare body remaining, over the years it has – despite your massive ardolphogen levels – begun to try and re-establish some kind of hormonal equilibrium in your body.'

'Do the subtypes…mimic larentin?’ Dr Gary asked.

‘I don’t know. There’s not a great deal of research out there on the subtypes. Most focus on LTR-3, but not in these quantities. We do know that LTR-3 is useful for bonding, but beyond that we don’t really know how they consistently impact physiology because they’ve frankly never been studied in the complete absence of larentin. And that’s the situation we’re looking at here.’

Efnisien felt a strange despair staring at those high levels of larentin subtypes. His body had been betraying him all this time. This must have been why Crielle was getting increasingly disappointed in him over the last few years. He’d been letting her down and he’d not even realised.

‘Can you stop it?’ Efnisien said.

Temsen grimaced, then shook his head. ‘No. Nor should we. This,’ he said, circling the larentin subtypes with the pointer, ‘may be all that stands between you and the devastating effects of this much ardolphogen. It’s entirely possible that these subtype levels have shot up in direct response to the complete absence of larentin, and the absolute flood of ardolphogen. Bodies – for the most part – seek equilibrium. They’re not always very good at it, but ultimately, that’s…what we do. This is how your body is trying to do it. We don’t know what it means for your health, and we don’t know what it means for your quality of life. But what I do know is this much ardolphogen will put you in an early grave.’

‘Are you going to stop it?’ Efnisien asked nervously.

‘The ardolphogen supplementation? No,’ Temsen said. ‘Absolutely not. But we can’t supplement to this degree. It’s not legal for us to hold this much ardolphogen in our stores for a start. Only certain large and certified registered laboratories can do it, and we are not a registered laboratory. Medical facilities can only hold so much because ardolphogen is only used to supplement aging alphas and peak alphas who are experiencing bone wasting. And they usually only need small amounts.’

Temsen looked at the graph some more and then pointed to another subset of acronyms that Efnisien didn’t understand at all. They were random numbers – at least twenty different ones – with the letters NL in front of them. Efnisien didn’t know what that meant.

‘All of these,’ Temsen said, sounding heavy, ‘are unknown synthetics that mimic hormones. They are unregistered chemical compounds, and you aren’t being supplemented with any of them anymore, and we don’t know what they do, what they were for, or how they were meant to be helping you become an alpha. I’ve pushed for further testing to narrow down their raw components, and it’s possible some of these were doing nothing at all, but we can’t rule out the possibility that in the absence of this supplementation…you may become sicker, feel worse, or even have your life placed in danger.’

Dr Gary stood then, and Temsen watched him walk over to his work desk. To Efnisien’s surprise, Dr Gary perched on the edge of his desk and stared at the results with something almost like concern on his face.

Temsen looked at Efnisien. ‘I don’t know how to put this delicately, but this is a very reckless and harmful level of experimentation you were subjected to. Contraindications between medicines and hormones are common, and in this case, I can’t help but feel you were expected to deal with side effects that could have been – may still be – killing you. These are not the actions of a caring physician. I personally think it’s possible to achieve some degree of alpha-like behaviour with hormone levels very different – much lower – than this.’

Dr Gary ended up sitting back in the chair again next to Efnisien, looking over at him. Efnisien could feel the eye contact and didn’t know what to do about it.

‘I don’t really care if I die,’ Efnisien said eventually. Crielle had cared about it for a while, which was why he wasn’t allowed to intentionally hurt himself, but Efnisien – usually late at night – struggled with a lot of different aspects of his life before he reminded himself that life was meant to be hard.

‘I do,’ Temsen said softly. ‘I care a lot about that. Dr Gary cares. Kent cares. The supplementation we're offering you right now is designed to be protective more than anything. So from here we have a few options. We can try and wean you off ardolphogen completely, which is technically what we should do, as an omega rehabilitation centre. But you’re not going to magically start making larentin just because we do, and I’m not sure what your larentin-subtypes will make up for it either. Right now, I don’t think it’s safe to completely wean you off ardolphogen. But I do think we should try getting you to a lower dose.’

Efnisien pushed back in the chair. He didn’t like the sound of that at all.

‘Now,’ Temsen said, switching the image on the projector back to the graphs. ‘I have a question for you, Efnisien. Your legal guardian has said they will take you back if you can be presented to high class society as a fully-fledged omega. But that is the only way they will take you back. So do you want to go back to them under that condition?’

Efnisien froze. All this time he’d been thinking Crielle would change her mind, but Temsen’s question was firm, and something about the way he’d said it – maybe because he was a peak alpha, Efnisien didn’t know – made reality feel like a cage.

He wanted to go home, but he didn’t want to be some kind of ‘fully-fledged omega.’ He didn’t even want to try. He couldn’t even imagine Crielle asking for it, but she must have, because she’d been threatening sending him to a place like this for years, and she’d followed through on it, and Gwyn had said Efnisien was basically dead to her. And Gwyn was a lot of things, but he didn’t really lie.

‘Maybe if she changes her mind…’ Efnisien said.

‘Let us pretend in this version of events that she won’t. Do you want to go back to your family, if that is the single condition under which they’ll receive you?’

‘No,’ Efnisien whispered, hating himself. He flinched when Dr Gary’s hand came and rested on his shoulder, but it was warm and broad, and Efnisien didn’t jerk away.

‘There’s really only two other options,’ Temsen said. ‘You cannot live independently in the world as an alpha as you are, and I do not believe in biologically trying to pursue the path of continuing to surgically modify you, since we can already see your body is throwing up some significant roadblocks. As you can see from these blood test results, you are already at the extremes of human tolerance, and your body is reacting because of it. The option of letting you simply go out into the world to live an independent life is dangerous to you. I also suspect from what we know of your family, they might not tolerate this option.’

Efnisien realised with a sinking feeling that Crielle really fucking wouldn’t. If she was okay with Efnisien going out to live some kind of ‘independent life’ he probably would’ve been…let outside beyond the An Fnwy walls.

‘So you can stay here,’ Temsen said, ‘or we can pair you off with someone who doesn’t mind a partner who is biologically born an omega but has a different general nature and preference. There are people out there who enjoy atypical partners, so that’s not impossible. There are rare alphas who pair up with alphas, and peak alphas almost exclusively pair off with alphas. And we can even open up to those who aren’t looking for a sexual partner, but just want someone to spend time with. But if you stay here, Efnisien, you’re going to have to learn how to work respectfully within Hillview’s ethos. And that includes learning how to respect and care for omegas.’

Efnisien made a face, and Temsen stared at him levelly.

‘I mean it, young man,’ Temsen said. ‘None of us here are perfect, by any means, but as an alpha on Hillview’s grounds, you have a responsibility to be more than some denigrating monster towards fellow human beings, no matter what you’ve been raised to think about them.’

Efnisien didn’t realise he was shrinking back from Temsen’s words until he felt Dr Gary’s fingers curling into his shoulder, as though reassuring him.

‘That’s all for now,’ Temsen said. ‘Unless you have any questions?’

‘I have one,’ Dr Gary said. ‘You don’t see much point in supplementing larentin?’

‘No,’ Temsen said, turning off the projector. ‘Efnisien doesn’t want it, for a start, which is the most important factor. Secondly, it’s not like he has Kaeper or lare glands to pick up the slack. If his body hasn’t learned how to manufacture larentin by now, and is only making the subtypes, that’s likely all he can do. Sorry for talking about you like you’re not here, Efnisien.’

Efnisien didn’t know what to say. He didn’t mind, that’s what everyone did.

‘Besides,’ Temsen said, ‘larentin will trigger patent heats, and without lare glands, I suspect heats will be quite painful. It’s possible you’ll experience some kind of heat or heat-like process with the subtypes, and we’ll have to monitor that going forward. We all really have no idea what to expect here.’

‘Could I become a beta?’ Efnisien said.

‘Do you want to be?’ Temsen said, looking surprised.

‘Not…really,’ Efnisien said slowly. ‘But maybe that’s more realistic.’

‘Well, I don’t know what’s realistic,’ Temsen said bluntly. ‘As far as I’m concerned, you’re an alpha dealing with some significant hormone imbalances. In the next few days we’ll get a new blood test and send out for a full panel, and I’ll hopefully start getting some comprehensive results on the other chemicals in those new synthetics. For now, you’re capable of alpha persuasion, you prefer to be thought of as an alpha, and while that won’t make the rest of the world magically view you as an alpha, we can certainly do it here. It doesn’t hurt me, and I’m certain it doesn’t hurt Gary either.’

Dr Gary was nodding like he hadn’t spent all that time telling Efnisien he was an omega.

Efnisien frowned when he realised Dr Gary hadn’t said it in a while though.

‘Wait,’ Efnisien said, turning to Dr Gary. ‘Did you think… Do you think I’m not an omega?’

‘I don’t know what you are,’ Dr Gary said, ‘but I certainly see merit to what Temsen’s saying, since I’ve spent some time with you, and it’s hard to reconcile a lot of your behaviours with those of an omega’s. Even with you on lower ardolphogen… I’m not even sure it’s possible to make you a ‘typical omega.’ Not that omegas are carbon copies of each other, but they all tend to share some basic characteristics…’

‘I want to add,’ Temsen said abruptly, ‘that if you feel drawn to certain behaviours going forward, like for example – nesting – it won’t necessarily mean you’re an omega if you indulge in them. I want you to do the things you feel comfortable doing, without getting angry because it feels like an ‘omega’ response, or inappropriate. But we can talk about that going forward. This won’t be the last meeting we have, since we’ll be looping you in on your own health results from here on in. And I think – if there’s not any more questions – that’s us done for the day! I’ll come round tomorrow for the blood test, but I have plenty of other omegas to touch base with, and if I’m to be taking on some of Gary’s workload, I’ll need to do some hand-offs to Kent.’

Dr Gary and Temsen looked at each other, some shared understanding moving between them. Efnisien got the sense that Dr Gary would’ve listened to anything Temsen said, and it was so strange to see.

Within only a few minutes, they were outside of the big building again, Temsen still in Dr Gary’s office, and Efnisien was reeling from all the results he’d seen. He didn’t know how to wrap his head around any of it, but he hated that he was making any kind of larentin at all, even if it was only subtypes.

‘Maybe there’s a way to poison the rest of the lare gland,’ Efnisien said. ‘Instead of removing it.’

Dr Gary stopped walking, and then he grasped Efnisien’s shoulder and turned him until they were facing each other. Efnisien had to look away. It was weirdly easier to meet Temsen’s gaze than it was to meet Dr Gary’s.

‘Why would you want to do that?’ Dr Gary said.

‘Then I wouldn’t make any larentin at all. Of any kind.’

‘What’s wrong with making the larentin subtypes?’

It was hard to describe it. He just knew that everything he’d once been was wrong, and if he could be closer to being a biological alpha, it would be better that way.

What if that was a directive though?

No, but he wanted to be an alpha.

‘What changes?’ Efnisien said hesitantly. ‘What changes if you all treat me like an alpha? I still have to live with you, don’t I?’

‘Do you want to live on your own?’

Efnisien looked down at his shoes. ‘I don’t know,’ he said roughly.

‘All right. As for what else changes, I don’t know either. You may not have realised this, but you haven’t exactly been treated like a typical omega for a while now. What would you want to change? Let’s ignore the things you don’t know or haven’t figured out yet. And let’s keep in mind I have to consider the safety of all of the omegas at Hillview. You can do alpha persuasion, and I’m not willing to consider that you’re completely safe to be alone and unsupervised around them, given your attitudes.'

‘I’m not going to fuck them, they’re repulsive,’ Efnisien said, risking looking at him.

Dr Gary’s expression seemed to say that was the point.

‘Fine,’ Efnisien said under his breath. ‘Fine. I don’t know. Maybe…I could learn more. You keep asking me what my levels are. I want to…know that myself.’

His heart pounded, because surely they weren’t going to give him this. Crielle had made it very clear that Efnisien’s job wasn’t to know things about the world, and she always found it annoying or exasperating if he asked for more books. He was allowed some, but if he asked for too many, she looked at him like he was failing her.

‘All right,’ Dr Gary said.

‘I…want a phone,’ Efnisien whispered, his heart beating harder. ‘I won’t call anyone.’

‘We’ll figure that out, but I don’t think it’s impossible.’

‘You’re lying,’ Efnisien said.

‘Anything else?’

‘I don’t know,’ Efnisien said weakly. ‘Do you think I could be dying?’

Dr Gary seemed shocked at the question, and Efnisien didn’t get why, because they’d just had a whole meeting with Temsen where a lot of the conversation seemed to be: You could be dying, we just don’t know!

‘I could die,’ Efnisien said. ‘Maybe she sent me here, so she didn’t have to deal with it.’

‘You’re moving, you’re talking, you’re eating, you’re…mostly digesting your food, your heart rate isn’t as high as it was – though it’s still high – your blood pressure isn’t the worst I’ve seen, and your fevers aren’t as bad as they once were. You might be sick, you might get sicker as we figure out the right balance for your new medication schedule, but for now, you’re not dying.’

‘But you don’t know,’ Efnisien whispered.

‘If Temsen thought you were at risk of imminent death, we would not be walking around outside right now. That meeting would have ended very differently.’

‘So not…imminent death, but I could still die.’

‘Well, so could I,’ Dr Gary said.

Efnisien understood the response was meant to be glib, even reassuring in a dark sort of way, but Efnisien felt like everything was suddenly far too fragile.

Dr Gary’s phone rang, and he took a couple of steps away to answer it. ‘What is it, Faber?’

Efnisien heard nothing on the other end, but he could see the way Dr Gary was looking at him, which meant…the phone call must be about him. Efnisien could just tell. And he was right because seconds later Dr Gary handed him the phone.

‘It’s Kadek on the other line,’ Dr Gary said. ‘He said he needs to talk to you first, and then he’ll decide whether or not he’s going to press charges.’

Efnisien stared at the phone, then reached out with a shaking hand, squeezing his eyes shut when he realised it might not matter if he was dying after all, if he could still go to jail.

Chapter Text

Efnisien nervously pressed the phone to his ear. He remembered what Dr Gary had said about jail word for word. Efnisien would be raped there. Or killed there. He’d definitely die there. Because even if he could use alpha persuasion, even if he was an alpha, they’d put him in an alpha-only prison and all the guards would know he was genetically an omega, which meant it was only a matter of time before the prisoners knew it too.

Efnisien startled when he felt a hand resting against his lower back, and looked up to see Dr Gary standing close to him, looking serious, but not…mad.

‘H-hello?’ Efnisien said, when he realised Kadek wouldn’t know if he’d picked up the phone.

‘There he is,’ Kadek said. His voice sounded rough. Efnisien wondered if it was from having the tube down his throat during surgery. Efnisien knew that feeling. Or maybe it was from being stabbed in the neck. Efnisien’s shoulders hunched. ‘I hear you haven’t hurt anyone else since you stabbed me.’

‘I…’ Efnisien thought about lying, but he couldn’t make it happen when Dr Gary was near him. It was like being around Crielle or Gwyn. Efnisien could lie to Lludd just fine, but peak alphas made it so much harder. The most he could do was keep his mouth shut. Sometimes he could lie, but not now. ‘I bit Dr Gary a bunch.’

‘You bit him?’ Kadek said, and then the raspy sound of his laughter.

‘I drew blood,’ Efnisien said.

‘Wow. I think we’ve all felt like biting him once or twice. You know, my memory’s a bit fuzzy about what happened. I know you stabbed me. I know you used alpha persuasion, though I felt crazy about it until I could message some of the staff about it. You were terrified though. That wasn’t a lie, was it?’

Efnisien looked down at the ground and remembered how he felt that day. Crielle had pushed him out of his home, put him in a centre, and Efnisien…had been here ever since.

‘Efnisien?’ Kadek said.

‘It…wasn’t,’ Efnisien said finally. He wouldn’t have answered at all if he knew for sure that he wasn’t going to jail.

‘Yeah,’ Kadek said, sighing. ‘So what happens when I come back to work? Are you going to try and kill me again?’

‘No,’ Efnisien said.

‘Really? And what about the omegas and betas on staff there?’

They all kept saying he wasn’t safe to be around, like a monster, and suddenly it all felt like too much. Maybe he was too dangerous to be around. He didn’t know. It wasn’t like he’d ever been around anyone growing up. Maybe he should go to jail.

‘You can press charges if you want,’ Efnisien said, feeling strange.

Dr Gary moved. ‘Efnisien,’ he said.

‘I would,’ Efnisien said.

‘Hey, no-’ Kadek was saying on the phone.

‘I’m probably just going to keep hurting people.’

Dr Gary snatched the phone out of Efnisien’s hand, and now they were facing each other properly. Efnisien had a moment to think he should probably look up before an arm went around his shoulders and drew him close. The warmth of Dr Gary’s body felt nice, but everything in Efnisien’s mind and body was wrong.

‘It’s me,’ Dr Gary was saying. ‘Yes… Yes, I think so. No, I’ll tell him. Once you hang up, I can-’ – A short sound of frustration – ‘-I’ll tell him now, then. Efnisien?’

Efnisien realised he was being addressed while Dr Gary was still on the phone. He nodded to indicate he was listening.

‘Kadek’s not going to press charges,’ Dr Gary said.

‘He should though,’ Efnisien said.

‘It’s not going to make any difference,’ Dr Gary said, his voice changing, and Efnisien realised he was talking to Kadek again. His arm was tight around Efnisien’s shoulders.

‘If you’re treating me like an alpha then I should go to an all-alpha prison, like you said.’

‘Shush,’ Dr Gary said. ‘No, not you. Yes, all right, I’ll be in touch. Make sure you call Anton again. Yes. Yes. I can already tell you’re going to be incorrigible while you’re recovering, but it’s good to hear you’re doing well. Are you charming the nurses?’

Efnisien caught a tiny voice on the other line proclaiming: ‘They love me.’

And within a minute, Dr Gary was off the phone, putting it back in his pocket, and then wrapping his other arm around Efnisien’s shoulders.

‘I didn’t even say sorry,’ Efnisien said, laughing.

‘I should have known that would be too much,’ Dr Gary said.

‘It wasn’t,’ Efnisien said, feeling flat. ‘But…Kadek asked if I was going to hurt people again, and I probably will. I’m too dangerous to have here.’

‘Was that it?’ Dr Gary said, sounding softer, stepping back while keeping his hands on Efnisien’s shoulders. ‘You think you’re going to hurt other people while you’re here?’

Efnisien didn’t make eye contact. He nodded.

‘Why do you think that?’ Dr Gary said.

‘I’ve never been around people. So, I don’t know.’

Something about that statement felt like hooks inside of him, pulling him slowly apart from the inside out. When Dr Gary came closer, Efnisien didn’t know what to say. He’d felt kind of good – maybe even tentatively excited – at the idea of being treated like an alpha by these people, and now he just thought that…as an alpha, no one could be around him. He wasn’t even safe for other alphas to be around.

‘Efnisien, you haven’t tried to hurt anyone the way you hurt Kadek,’ Dr Gary said. ‘And you were terrified. We didn’t know you could use alpha persuasion. We didn’t understand your circumstances. Hillview is at fault for putting you in a situation like that in the first place, and your family is at fault for not letting us know more details about your case, about you. I’ve gotten to know you a little. You tend to have very solid, fear-based reasons for lashing out.’

‘I just get angry.’

‘Is that what it feels like to you?’ Dr Gary said. ‘Do you not feel the fear beneath it?’

Efnisien said nothing. He wasn’t supposed to get afraid as often as he did. He was a strong alpha, and he could…face anything.

Even alpha jail.

‘You could still send me there,’ Efnisien said. ‘You wanted to in the beginning. I know you did. Like I get you didn’t want it on your conscience, but I bet if I said I thought it was a good idea, you wouldn’t worry about it as much, or like, at all. You don’t want me in your home, and what do you care, what happens to me in an alpha prison? You could just-’

A hand over his mouth, and Efnisien opened his mouth to bite reflexively, and Dr Gary’s hand tightened over his lips and cheeks to the point where Efnisien couldn’t bite into his palm.

‘Yes,’ Dr Gary said slowly. ‘I remember what I said too. So, destroying my office didn’t work for you. And now that you’re shutting down again, you’re thinking of going there instead. All right. All right.’

Dr Gary sounded like he was working out some kind of maths puzzle in his head.

‘Also,’ Dr Gary said abruptly, moving his hand away from Efnisien’s mouth, ‘can you say my name to me, please?’

Efnisien frowned. Weirdest fucking request ever. But after the phone call it was good to have a distraction.

‘Dr Gary Konowalous,’ Efnisien said.

‘And if you were talking about me to someone else, you’d call me…’

‘Dr Gary,’ Efnisien said.

‘And if you needed to get my attention while we were in the house, you’d call me…?’

‘Dr Gary.’

‘Oh dear,’ Dr Gary said, and then laughed softly. ‘We can’t have that, Efnisien.’

‘What?’ Efnisien said, confused.

‘It’s just Gary. Just call me Gary.’

Efnisien looked up at him again. ‘I can’t call you that.’

‘I’d really prefer if you did. Also, you don’t call Kent, Dr Kent, and you don’t call Temsen, Dr Temsen.’

Efnisien frowned. Putting it that way made him realise he liked something about the distance the name put between them. Calling him Gary was different to calling him Dr Gary. Efnisien needed time to think about it.

‘Maybe,’ Efnisien said finally. ‘Is Kadek really not going to press charges?’

‘No,’ Dr Gary said. ‘I think it’s time to get you home for a rest.’

Efnisien didn’t say anything, and he was quiet as they walked back to Dr Gary’s home. He didn’t like the feeling that things were breaking down inside of him, he kept thinking he’d trip on the rubble of whatever was left behind.

*

Within thirty minutes of getting back, there was a knock on the door. Efnisien sat upright on the couch, alarmed. Dr Gary got up, Polly racing ahead to the door, tail wagging.

Efnisien watched warily and relaxed a little when he saw that it was Anton.

‘I just got off the phone with Kadek,’ Anton said, peering past Dr Gary until he saw Efnisien. He beamed. ‘Can I talk to him for a second?’

Dr Gary stood barring entry as Anton bent down and rubbed Polly around the face. Finally, Dr Gary sighed and stepped back.

‘He’s already told you about how well the phone call went?’ Dr Gary said. ‘Less than an hour’s gone by.’

‘I mean he texted me,’ Anton said.

‘How’s Flitmouse handling all of this?’

‘He’s out today anyway, looking at textiles and stuff, I’d only be a bother to him if I was around.’

‘All right,’ Dr Gary said. ‘I’ll be in my-’

He paused and looked towards the office, which was still in no state at all to spend time in. Dr Gary looked at Efnisien, looked at Anton, then seemed to deflate in a way that made Efnisien feel awful.

‘I’ll be going for a walk. If you upset him further, we’ll be having words,’ Dr Gary said to Anton sternly.

Anton looked at him in shock, and then a few seconds later, Dr Gary and Polly were outside, and Efnisien was alone in Dr Gary’s home with Anton. All Efnisien could think was that Dr Gary didn’t deserve to be pushed out of his home like that. There weren’t exactly many rooms, and Efnisien was now sleeping in his bed, and had his clothes behind the couch, and was using his bathroom.

‘He doesn’t like it,’ Efnisien said, frowning.

‘Doesn’t like what?’ Anton said, coming over and sitting not on the couch cushions, but on the armrest.

‘It’s his home. You pushed him out of it.’

Anton paused and looked towards the front door like he could see Dr Gary through it, and when he looked back, Anton smiled ruefully.

‘Peak alphas don’t often do anything they don’t want to do,’ Anton said.

‘But you all made him take me on and he didn’t want to do that.’

Anton’s eyes narrowed, he looked at Efnisien for a long time, and Efnisien refused to look away, because they were treating him like an alpha now. Weren’t they? Either way, it was easier to stare down Anton than it was Dr Gary.

‘That’s true,’ Anton said eventually. ‘I think my point is that if Gary really didn’t want me here, or didn’t want me talking to you, he would have made it clear that he was going to stick around and supervise or told me to sod off. Maybe it’s more like…he had a few different options, and he chose this one because he thought it might be helpful?’

Efnisien was on edge after the meeting with Temsen. On edge after talking with Kadek. And now he thought about the night Dr Gary had come home drunk and treated him like a boyfriend or something. And he thought about that torn piece of paper, and the way Dr Gary kept tensing and getting really upset whenever Efnisien brought things like that up.

Dr Gary had offered to take him outside. Even beyond the walls of Hillview. Dr Gary could be a complete asshole, but he could also be…one of the most generous people Efnisien had ever met. Efnisien didn’t like the way he’d looked leaving his home.

‘Kadek said he upset you earlier,’ Anton said, ‘he didn’t mean to upset you like that.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Efnisien said.

‘No?’ Anton said.

‘No.’

Maybe he didn’t deserve to be here after all. A place as nice as Hillview. 

‘Kadek didn’t realise-’

‘I lied to him that first day,’ Efnisien said dully. ‘I wanted to kill him. I tried to kill him. I used alpha persuasion on him. So I don’t need to hear why he didn’t expect me to be different now. I don’t even know if I am different. I could just be nicer now because people are being nice to me.’

‘Yeah,’ Anton said. ‘That’s…how that works.’

Efnisien frowned in confusion.

‘You thought Kadek was going to rape you, right?’ Anton said. ‘You defended yourself. You were scared for your life. That’s how that works. People defend themselves. Sometimes it’s extreme. Now you’re not as worried – probably – that people are going to suddenly rape you, so you’re not trying to kill anyone anymore.’

‘No, but… I’ve been really bad to Dr Gary.’

‘He probably deserved it,’ Anton said.

Efnisien scowled at him. ‘Why would you say that about your boss?’

Anton seemed to do a double take; his eyebrows lifted like he’d heard something he couldn’t believe.

‘You’re bonding to him,’ Anton said slowly.

‘I’m not!’ Efnisien said.

‘No?’

‘I just think…anyone would think it’s unfair to constantly give someone a hard time, right?’

Efnisien looked down at his hands. He couldn’t be bonding with Dr Gary. For a start, Efnisien didn’t think he could bond with anyone. He’d never felt particularly close to any of the members of his family, even though he knew family were supposed to be the people you loved most. He didn’t even feel protective over them, like alphas were supposed to, or possessive of them, like many omegas.

‘He’s trying,’ Efnisien said. ‘Isn’t that what you wanted? But instead he left, and you don’t even know what he’s doing or not doing. And you don’t know how I’m treating or not treating him.’

It was vivid in his mind, the way Dr Gary had snatched the phone out of his hand, when Efnisien said he deserved to go to jail. But Dr Gary had said Efnisien should probably go there in the beginning. And he’d described it in a way that felt visceral to think about. Ever since, Efnisien kind of imagined jail like being in a place with hundreds of versions of Gwyn. Maybe even meaner versions of Gwyn. Efnisien really wouldn’t survive that.

‘I hadn’t thought about it that way,’ Anton said. ‘I tend to see an omega in distress and want to help with that.’

‘I’m not an omega,’ Efnisien said.

Anton looked annoyed, and Efnisien felt a moment of fear, like maybe he’d pissed Anton off. But then Anton smacked his own forehead and looked chagrined.

‘Shit, of course, I’m sorry. I mean I see anyone in distress and want to help with that.’

‘Does your…omega like that?’

‘Sometimes. Sometimes he hates it. He’s pretty independent. And you’re not an omega anyway. So maybe it hits you different, huh? I didn’t mean to step on your toes.’

Efnisien felt mollified, but also unsteady. Dr Gary was elsewhere, and Efnisien felt anxious about the fact that he wanted him close.

Was he bonding to Dr Gary?

That was bad, wasn’t it? Dr Gary didn’t want to bond with anyone. Efnisien didn’t want to be fucked by anyone. Wouldn’t it be best if they could kind of be roommates or…something like that?

‘What do you like about what Gary’s doing so far?’ Anton asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Efnisien said quickly. ‘Nothing.’

‘Woof, you really don’t want to talk today, do you?’

‘I’m not- It’s not…that bad,’ Efnisien said. ‘Is it?’

Anton grimaced at him sympathetically, and Efnisien drew his knees up towards his chest. He wrapped his arm around his shins.

‘Temsen said I could die from… He said I could die. Kadek wants me to go to jail.’

‘No, he doesn’t,’ Anton said quietly. ‘He’s just worried.’

‘And he should be! Would you trust me around your…your omega?’

‘I think Flitmouse is more dangerous to you,’ Anton said, lips quirking a little, like he really believed that. Efnisien stared at him, then looked away. It was bad that he wanted Dr Gary. He’d imprinted on him like some kind of duckling. It was gross.

Dr Gary had said he needed the regular touch with Efnisien, but he could’ve had that with anyone.

But he wasn’t having that with anyone, at least, not until you. Not for a while. Right?

‘Do you really think I could be an alpha?’ Efnisien said. It was the last question he expected to hear out of his mouth.

‘Yes?’ Anton said. ‘Despite my fuck up earlier, I do think you are one. I don’t find this as confusing as some of the others do. It’s how you feel. But it’s more than that, Efnisien. You don’t really…behave like a lot of the omegas I’ve met. You remind me in some ways of Flitmouse, and he is an omega, true, but he’s…hm, he’s older for a start. He’s taught himself to be more alpha-like to survive in the business world. But you give off a different vibe, you know? A different mood. It’s definitely not beta-like, and you don’t smell like any omega I’ve met before, and you don’t react to alpha pheromones like an omega.’

‘They make me sick,’ Efnisien admitted.

‘Yeah, that’s an alpha thing. At least, until you bond with someone. Alphas who bond to other alphas have that reaction lessen with their partner. I don’t know, I’ve never been into alphas.’

‘Is it weird, then? Being with someone who’s like…something the whole world hates?’

Anton’s expression creased, he looked unhappy. Efnisien stared at him, feeling angry all over again. He felt angry here all the time. He’d never felt like this as often back home.

‘It is weird,’ Anton said, like he was surprised and uncomfortable to admit it. ‘It’s weird because I see how amazing Flitmouse is, and how clever and bright he is, and I know how a lot of the rest of the world treats him and has treated him, because he’s an omega. And it’s… Like, I can’t fix that. I can’t personally go out there and fight all his battles for him, even though I would. Sometimes it’s very emasculating. But it is for him too.’

‘So you never thought omegas were like…lesser,’ Efnisien said sceptically.

Anton’s smile was sad.

‘I was going to say that my mum’s an omega, and that my immediate family are all omegas and betas, to explain why I’ve never felt that way. But I know alphas where that doesn’t make a difference in them being assholes to omegas. But for me, I think it made the difference. I’m sure there’s ways I think omegas are lesser, but I wish I didn’t. I wish I didn’t have that in me. When I find those spaces inside myself, I think it’s something I want to get rid of, and not accept or tolerate.’

‘Even though they are lesser?’

Anton pursed his lips and considered Efnisien, and then grinned. ‘But wouldn’t they be happier if we just didn’t indulge that? If you want to go deep on philosophy, I’d love that. Let’s do philosophy together some day. Talk about whether it’s more important to be cruel in the name of some imagined, constructed truth or be kind in the name of equality.’

Anton stretched his legs out and stood, stretching his arms too.

‘Maybe Flitmouse would like you,’ he said. ‘One day. In the meantime, I’m going to leave so Gary can enjoy his cottage again. I was worried about you. Are you mad that I came to visit?’

‘No,’ Efnisien said.

‘So I can visit again?’

‘That’s… I guess so. You’re not…terrible.’

Anton nodded like he thought that was high praise. ‘Cool, cool. Hey, I can tell you’re stressed about me mentioning the bonding thing. I’m not saying you’re going to be partners or anything. It’s not bad to make a connection, Efnisien. Unless the person you’re making a connection to is being really bad to you?’

Anton lifted his eyebrows again like he was waiting for a response. Efnisien eventually shook his head. Anton grinned in response and waved as he headed towards the front door, and Efnisien hesitantly waved back.

When the door closed behind him, Efnisien felt all the thoughts clear in his mind until he remembered how Dr Gary had looked, leaving his cottage. Once – even only a few days ago – Efnisien would have liked getting that reaction from him.

Maybe he should pretend he wanted to sleep in a place of his own, so Dr Gary could get some of his life back.

Efnisien felt queasy and strange at the idea, then stared blankly at the coffee table. It was so hard to think. It had been hard the day before, and the day before that, and it was harder right now. Everything was changing so fast.

He had to slam into a change he’d hate soon, to make up for all the nice stuff that was happening.

Dread hooked into him, alongside a nameless shame, and he waited for Dr Gary to come home, and all the while tried to convince himself that an alpha would want to leave, would need to leave another alpha’s home, and that he wanted to leave too.

Chapter Text

Gary looked at the notes on his phone, since he no longer had a personal office or personal computer – at some point contractors would be dealing with the destroyed office, Faber was on it – and then bent down and petted Polly on the head.

He looked up when Anton walked out of the cottage and knew he wouldn’t be able to sideline his anger for much longer. It was his cottage, damn it, and leaving for the comfort of Efnisien chafed more than he realised it would, until he was outside staring at his phone trying to distract himself from the feeling that he was being subservient.

Temsen’s advice floated around his head. Find the places where he felt control and seize them.

Anton looked rueful when he came over, smiling apologetically.

‘Did it help?’ Gary asked.

‘He’s tetchy,’ Anton said. ‘I’d say it was like Flitmouse, but I don’t think it is. You’ve got your hands full with him.’

Gary felt relieved that Efnisien hadn’t softened and spilled all his secrets to Anton. Even though it would have made sense because Anton had presented himself as Efnisien’s ally since the beginning.

‘He’s kind of worried about dying, I think,’ Anton said. ‘Is that… How realistic is that?’

‘It’s not off the table,’ Gary said.

‘Shit, really?’ Anton looked back towards the cottage. Gary had no intention of allowing him back in there. ‘He seems fine, but his scent is off. He doesn’t smell healthy. We have no idea what his scent is, do we?’

‘Given the medical experimentation he’s experienced, I’m not sure he can make a scent at all,’ Gary said.

Anton nodded slowly, then looked off towards the horizon as though considering something. Those golden eyes slid back to his.

‘He’s bonded to you.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Gary said, staring at him.

‘Maybe not fully, it’s probably tenuous, right? But he’s protective of you. This time…he went out of his way more than once to defend you and your actions. He might not be doing it to your face, but it’s definitely happening.’

Gary didn’t have words for the complex emotions that rose inside him in response to that. Anton seemed to sense it was time to stay quiet, because he crouched down and rubbed Polly’s ears, and she gazed up at him like he was the best person ever, because she loved everyone at Hillview, especially if they gave her attention.

Bonding wasn’t an option Gary had seriously considered. He wasn’t interested in a bond with Efnisien, so he hadn’t been going out of his way to cultivate a bond in return. But perhaps… after everything Efnisien had been through, simply being touched and given food regularly was enough. A bitter amusement floated around at the thought of that. But alongside it, the dull anger at everything he was losing.

He'd fully intended to be alone for the rest of his life. It was what he wanted.

Though it hadn’t been what James wanted for him. But James was self-sacrificing that way. After all, what alpha came up with the idea of an omega rehabilitation centre like Hillview otherwise?

‘I told him,’ Anton said, from where he was crouched on the grass.

‘How did he react?’

‘About as unhappily as you’re reacting right now,’ Anton said cheerfully. ‘He told me anyone would defend someone in your position. Which I think we both know isn’t true at all. Especially, like, taking into consideration the fact that he’s going to have a lot of trauma to work out just from things that have happened as a result of meeting you and coming here.’

‘Right,’ Gary said, sighing. That was true.

‘But I did think he vibed as protective and less possessive. Have you done the scale yet to work out… well, you know. I don’t even know what you’d do. Alpha scale? Omega scale? Both?’

Gary nodded. Certain characteristics of alphas and omegas were measured on two different scales to assess compatibility. Alphas had their protective and possessive spectrum, and omegas had the possessive and jealousy-insecurity spectrum.  It hadn’t occurred to him to assess Efnisien at all, and he still didn’t think it was entirely appropriate. It was most useful when matching an omega to an alpha, but a lot of the time they didn’t have a clear enough read on an omega to get accurate results anyway. If they had, Flitmouse would never have gone to Anton, Nate would never have been paired with Janusz. And the scales weren’t an indicator of failed relationships, since they were all doing fine.

‘He’s stubborn,’ Anton said, straightening. 

Gary smiled in acknowledgement.

‘I’d offer to take him off your hands sometimes to give you a break,’ Anton said, ‘but Flitmouse…’

‘Speaking of an omega high on the jealousy scale,’ Gary said quietly. ‘He hid it well in the beginning.’

‘I don’t think he’d ever had a chance to know it about himself,’ Anton said. ‘And after his history, it’s not surprising anyway. I think he wishes I was more possessive sometimes.’

Anton tested low on the possessive scale, which made him particularly suitable for secure and stable omegas who had a good sense of self, or who needed to rebuild their sense of self in a steady environment. Flitmouse had seemed steady enough in the beginning – for an omega coming from a traumatic background anyway – but it had fallen apart quickly.

‘Have you ever talked to Flitmouse about the fact that you’re so secure in your connection with him, you don’t need to be possessive?’

‘Yeah, actually. You supervisors all vibrate on the same wavelength, you know? Anyway, I’m heading back, feel free to call me if you need to.’

‘I will,’ Gary said.

Anton looked at him for a second too long, double checking, and then his expression cleared and he grinned, then walked towards his own home unit on the property.

Polly started to follow him, but as soon as Gary headed back to the cottage, she bounded back, tail wagging happily. Gary considered her. This break from the conference was good for more than just Efnisien, it turned out.

*

Temsen had told Gary to focus on the things that made him feel more in control of his life, and Gary experienced only the briefest and most token of internal conflict before sitting on the couch and grasping Efnisien bodily by the arm and side, privately thrilled at the little shocked, frightened sound Efnisien made.

‘Why are you always like this?’ Efnisien exclaimed, as Gary settled back into the couch and dragged the boy into his body.

‘Be quiet,’ Gary said.

‘You can’t just-’

Efnisien’s voice strangled in his throat as Gary hooked an arm around him and placed a hand in his hair. It was startlingly easy to settle Efnisien with touch.

A second later Gary grunted when he felt teeth bite down into the muscle between his neck and shoulder. Not hard enough to break skin, but hard enough to hurt. In response, Gary’s hand softened in Efnisien’s hair and stroked gently. What he wanted to do was grab it, twist it up into his fingers, but he knew Efnisien responded better to de-escalation.

Gary wanted this to be a magical cure for all of the inner conflict he was dealing with, but it wasn’t. Efnisien’s hair was softer than James’, his body felt bonier and lighter at the same time. Efnisien wore different clothing, his scent was chemicals and non-existent behind that, his voice wasn’t the same.

None of it was James.

Beneath the softness and the care, a visceral urge in Gary’s blood and bones to rip this alien apart and dig into the meat until he could find the remnants of his old life. He breathed through it.

Efnisien could sense it, Gary was sure, because he wasn’t relaxing fully. There was a faint background aroma of fear.

Gary stared blankly into his kitchen, his breathing shallow.

‘I’m going out tonight,’ he said finally. ‘For a few hours. Can I trust you to stay here?’

Efnisien’s teeth biting down harder, a punishment, because even Gary knew he’d been leaving Efnisien alone for days on end.

‘Sorry,’ Gary said.

A faint sound, Gary felt it through the arm he had around Efnisien’s back. The apologies and the softness did far more to cut into Efnisien than anything else he did.

‘I’m going to be back late,’ Gary said.

He planned on drinking. Maybe he’d go for a drive first. He needed to get away. He kept thinking about the confident, almost blasé way Temsen had said Efnisien’s life was still in danger. Temsen hadn’t meant to be callous, but he was a peak alpha who cared more in the moment about getting the correct information across than he did about being soft. Gary had felt the repeated blows in that conversation and was shocked that Efnisien seemed so calm about so much of it.

The ardolphogen levels were so high that Gary privately thought it was miracle Efnisien was still alive. He could feel Efnisien’s heart right now, racing through the layers of fabric between them.

He’s bonded to you, Anton had said.

Gary had wanted to immediately return to the cottage and sever the bond, somehow. Stop it in its tracks. It was too late.

‘Where are you going?’ Efnisien said finally, his voice muffled against Gary’s shirt.

‘To clear my head.’

‘I should move out. You…said I could.’

Gary blinked and looked down, not that he could see much except for curly blond hair that could probably use a trim.

‘Somewhere on the property,’ Efnisien said. ‘Right?’

It would solve a lot of issues.

A hell of a time to realise that Gary didn’t want that option either. Fuck. He needed a drink. He needed to listen to loud music. He needed the beach at night and he needed to fuck someone until they cried, but Perth was hours away and he couldn’t even jerk off in his own home like normal.

‘Is that what you want?’ Gary asked.

‘I mean…maybe you don’t trust me yet,’ Efnisien said hesitantly. ‘So… But maybe after that. Maybe when things are less busy here. Crielle’s still paying for me, right?’

‘Efnisien,’ Gary said carefully, feeling the way Efnisien tensed in response, ‘is that what you want?’

‘What do you want?’

‘I’d rather not use alpha persuasion to get an answer to a simple question.’

Efnisien tensed further, Gary thought he was going to push away. But then a flash of real pain, those teeth back in his skin, hard enough that Gary’s first instinct was to shove Efnisien away, his second was to bite back hard enough to make him regret ever having bitten Gary in the first place, and his third was to stay there and not move.

When he was a child, his mother worked in animal rehabilitation. She specialised in Australian magpies, crows, ravens, kookaburras, frogmouths, and currawongs. As a young peak alpha, he’d watched in amazement when she calmly took a violent kookaburra beak straight through the hand without reacting, even flinching. She’d kept up a calm and steady low discussion with the bird, and splinted its wing, and smiled gently at Gary, while she had a vicious stab wound from a beak used to killing snakes.

‘She’s scared,’ his mother had said. ‘It’s my fault for not positioning my hand properly.’

There was hardly any blood at first, because the beak had stoppered it up. And then he’d watched as she carefully eased the beak free, showing the first hint of pain across her face, a sheen of sweat on her forehead. And then she gently placed the kookaburra with its wicked beak – she’d already wiped it clean – in a cage while blood dripped down her hand and arm.

‘And now I need you to get your father,’ she said, smiling. ‘I need to go to the hospital for this.’

She’d had a scar like a bullet wound in her hand for the rest of her life. And the kookaburra was released a few months later when she was strong enough, never losing her wildness.

Gary thought of the way his mother was calm even in the face of immense pain. And Gary wasn’t in immense pain, but Efnisien had a very physical way of making his anger and terror known. Threatening him with alpha persuasion scared him, but not as much as it made him angry.

It tended to calm omegas, even if they didn’t like it. Alpha persuasion left an almost numbing effect afterwards, it diffused anger. The last time Gary had used alpha persuasion on Efnisien, they’d ended up fighting until the boy had vomited in the ruined study.

‘Why can’t you just answer the question, Efnisien?’ Gary said, exasperated.

But even as he spoke, he remembered the way Efnisien was unable to tell him that he needed Gary to stay for days. Remembered the tantrum he got instead. Remembered that the words Efnisien spoke were the opposite of his actions, until he’d snapped and made it clear that Gary constantly leaving was the problem.

Were they here again? Efnisien saying he should leave, live in another house, because…why?

Why would he do that?

He’s bonded to you.

Anton’s words were cruel, but everything slotted together neatly.

Efnisien wanted to stay if Anton was reading the room properly. He wanted to stay, and he was what…? Concerned for Gary’s welfare as a result? Wanting to leave to accommodate him?

It felt like omega behaviour, and it could have been, but it was more likely that Efnisien had been tortured all his life and made to be subservient to everyone around him, so he couched things in confused requests.

‘All right,’ Gary said slowly, stroking Efnisien’s back as he gained one more wound from those vicious little teeth. ‘I respect that you might want more space to yourself, but at this time, I’m not comfortable with you moving out, Efnisien. We can revisit this in a couple of weeks, but for now it’s done. Are you going to stop biting me?’

Efnisien shook his head.

Gary bent his head down. ‘Do you like biting me?’

No response.

Gary felt dangerous and reckless when he shifted the hand from Efnisien’s hair to his cheek and slid a finger into the stretched corner of Efnisien’s mouth, between his lips, hooking under his teeth.

Efnisien made a sound which could have been protest, but Gary wasn’t sure.

‘Come on,’ Gary said gently, getting spit on his fingers, prizing those teeth free. ‘There we go. Don’t bite my fingers, Efnisien.’

Another wretched sound which could have been mistaken as wanton under any other circumstances, and Gary ground his teeth together.

What was he doing? What possessed him to do it like this?

He slid his wet fingers free from Efnisien’s mouth, as Efnisien looked up at him, glaring. But it was a different kind of anger to before, and the fear in the room was already less piquant.

The eye contact lasted quite a few seconds before Efnisien looked away. When he pushed away from Gary, he let the boy go and watched him sit only a foot away on the couch.

Gary stood and walked into the kitchen. He’d have to prepare food, or tell Efnisien what to eat, but first he was going to pick out a bottle of wine for himself. His fingers were still wet from Efnisien’s spit, becoming tacky as they dried.

He needed to go out. He took a slow breath and picked out a 2017 shiraz by the Brave New Wine vineyard which wasn’t really that far away, he liked it for its name: Schadenfreude.

It seemed apropos.

Gary set it on the counter and looked over at Efnisien. Both of them had been spun away from their centres in less than a day.

Efnisien looked over at him, blue eyes bright and unreadable. People accused Gary of being opaque, but Efnisien could be markedly the same when he didn’t want people to know what he was thinking.

Gary felt like they were separated by kilometres of space between them, even though Efnisien was only a few steps away. But in that moment, he wanted Efnisien somewhere else, and he wanted to be somewhere else.

He closed his eyes briefly, and then set about organising some food.

Chapter Text

Gary

*

Gary spent the night drinking, seated on the beach, listening to music from his twenties, staring at the stars as the cold wriggled its way through his coat, his jumper, his shirt, and then press chilly against his skin. The sand was crunchy and frigid under his hands, reminding him of the snow they’d experienced on the trip he and James had taken to Sweden, with the excuse that they were attending an omega politics conference, but instead making the most of the cold, the weather, and adventure.

Eventually his body adjusted to the cold, and he stared at the blank emptiness of the sea, and finished the entire bottle of wine, thinking of the worried look on Efnisien’s face when he’d left.

But the alarm hadn’t sounded since. If Efnisien was angry, he was biding his time.

Gary would have to remove that ankle monitor soon. But when? Probably not when he went back to work.

He needed to talk to Temsen about that. Faber too. His assistant seemed subtly discomfited with the fact he was spending so much time away from Gary, and he hadn’t missed him much at all. After all, Faber was still there, doing whatever Gary wished, they just weren’t seeing each other as often.

Gary didn’t often think about beta dynamics, but it was possible Faber resented the presence of Efnisien. Another thing to contend with. He didn’t want to lose Faber, the man was a pillar of Hillview, and would take two or three staff to replace. It used to worry him – how much Faber worked even with his innate efficiency – but a long time ago he’d learned Faber had his own ghosts, his own issues, and if overwork was the way he chose to deal with it, Gary wasn’t about to stop him.

After all, he could relate.

With the wine gone, and his fingers going numb in the white sand, he made himself stand, groaning at the stiffness that settled into his lower back and legs. He brushed his trousers off and took a few deep breaths of fresh sea air. Polly came loping back from the sand dunes, where she’d probably been trying to make friends with rabbits or bandicoots or foxes, only one of those belonging on this wild land.

Efnisien was awake when he returned. Polly shoved her nose into her empty food bowl and stared at Gary mournfully, so he tossed her a treat from the container on the counter. He rinsed out the bottle of wine in the sink and placed it by the recycling bin.

‘It won’t be like last time,’ Gary said to Efnisien’s frightened gaze. ‘I’m fully lucid. It takes more than a bottle of wine to sink me.’

Efnisien squinted at him.

‘I was extremely sleep deprived last time,’ Gary said. ‘I’ve been…sleeping better lately.’

Gary knew he wasn’t imagining the pink shade crossing Efnisien’s cheeks, like he’d realised he might be the reason Gary was sleeping better. And he was. Gary opened the fridge to look for something to snack on and saw Efnisien hadn’t eaten. He held the fridge door open and looked back to Efnisien.

‘Is this something we’re going to have to talk about?’

‘I lost track of time,’ Efnisien said. ‘It’s not like- You weren’t eating either. Is that something we’re going to have to talk about?’

Gary stared at him for so long that Efnisien looked away. ‘I hope you realise I don’t tolerate disrespect from anyone, not just omegas. In fact I tolerate it from alphas even less.’

‘What, so you can dish it out, but you can’t take it?’

‘Yes, if that’s the way you want to think about it, do that,’ Gary said mildly. ‘I don’t care if you think I’m a hypocrite. But if you’re going to be like this as soon as I come home, I’m going to assume you want to be held closely for thirty minutes until you calm down.’

Efnisien’s face twisted into a level of outrage that was almost amusing.

‘Besides,’ Gary said, finding some sharp aged cheddar to snack on, and some crackers, ‘I am not dangerously underweight like you are, and I have not been raised on protein shakes, and I know how to feed myself.’

‘I- You- That’s- I’m an alpha! I’m not dangerously anything!’

‘You are,’ Gary said. ‘Here, I’ll bring up the standardised numbers.’

He got his phone out of his pocket, distracted, then stepped aside when Efnisien threw a couch cushion at him as hard as he could. Unlike Efnisien’s teeth, that was easy to avoid.

‘Stop it!’ Efnisien shouted.

Gary looked at the standardised numbers he had on his phone, and it was only then he realised he was baiting Efnisien because for once, he wanted the fight. He looked at Efnisien’s angry, unhappy face and felt like the bottle of wine hadn’t taken the edge off at all.

He’d spent his life enjoying debating alphas and peak alphas in an academic setting. He’d met James through a disagreement, and enjoyed the fast, verbal sparring that followed between them. They hadn’t seen eye to eye on many matters, except for the ones that seemed to matter most. James could hold his own when it came to talking about omega science, and sometimes it seemed like he researched deeper than anyone else because he was determined to prove Gary wrong at every turn, and Gary enjoyed that.

But Efnisien wasn’t like James. James wouldn’t take it personally.

Gary sighed and put his phone back in his pocket. ‘If you think you can intelligently debate me about how you weren’t starved or given a crippling eating disorder in your living environment, think again. You have no science to back yourself up, you only have your feelings, which in this instance aren’t facts. Your personal truth has no bearing on the reality that you’re underweight, Efnisien. Even alphas need to eat better than you do. For an environment that tried to turn you into an alpha, they certainly-’

Efnisien was up, one foot on the armrest as he seemed to forget how to get off the couch a normal way. His teeth bared, his hand reaching for a large, empty ceramic vase on the raised section of the kitchen counter, lifting it and freezing when Gary got one hand firmly around Efnisien’s wrist.

Efnisien could be fast, but Gary would always see him coming.

Gary grasped the vase and twisted it out of Efnisien’s hand, placing it back on the counter.

‘What were you going to do, Efnisien?’ Gary said, holding Efnisien’s wrist, both of them connected over opposite sides of the kitchen counter. ‘Try to smash my face in with the vase? You know how to talk.’

‘You just told me talking was useless! Because I’m too stupid!’

His wrist still imprisoned in Gary’s hand, Efnisien jumped quickly and snatched the vase with his other hand, hurling it down to the ground where it shattered into too many pieces to count. Gary stared down at the tiled floor, grip tightening on Efnisien’s wrist, not letting go even when Efnisien clawed at his fingers.

Gary had no patience with any of it today.

He listened to Efnisien’s heavy breathing, and he walked around the kitchen counter – forcing Efnisien to move with him, or hurt his wrist – and he liked it when Efnisien’s fear pheromones spiked.

God, today he wanted it.

'I'm not going to mount you,' Gary said blandly.

'I hate you,' Efnisien snarled.

‘Do you want me to tell you what this is?’

‘No!’

‘This is you throwing a tantrum because I left to have a tiny amount of time to myself, and it’s obviously hit on every one of your fears of being abandoned, because that’s what your family did to you. That’s how healthy that environment was.’

Efnisien stared as Gary backed him into the wall.

‘And then,’ Gary said, getting his other hand around Efnisien’s neck and thinking what a pain it was going to be to clean the kitchen floor and keep Polly away at the same time. It was a good thing she was in the lounge and didn’t look interested in joining them right now. She was too old for this. Efnisien’s neck was warm beneath his beach-cold palm. ‘Then, because you couldn’t be adult enough to eat some food, you’ve decided to further tantrum over the fact that you were starved by your family. You know, a nicer alpha would wait for you to realise this yourself, but I’m not nice.’

Gary stared Efnisien down, even though the boy was trying his hardest to look literally anywhere else.

‘Remember when you said I was nice?’ Gary said, staring coldly at him.

Efnisien’s gaze darted back to his, and he reached out and grasped Gary’s jumper in his fist and tugged at it weakly, expression falling to something so pained Gary almost had to look away.

‘You’re still nice,’ Efnisien said, his voice breaking. ‘You still are.’

‘No,’ Gary said, feeling sick. ‘I’m not.’

‘You are! Who else would take me in? Who else would keep making food for me? Who else wouldn’t fuck me even though they could, literally whenever they wanted?’

The fingers in his shirt became a fist thudding into Gary’s chest over and over again, not hysterical, just slow, steady, heavy hits. One after the other. Pressing an ache deep into Gary’s heart. Old and familiar.

‘Who else would do this? You say you’re not nice, that any of the other alphas here would be nicer, but even when you’re drunk and angry, you’re still… I hate you. I don’t want to force you out of your home! I want you to have time to yourself! But you keep- You keep-’

Efnisien’s hand clawing up towards Gary’s face, and Gary watched, curious and absorbed and sore all at once. And Efnisien didn’t seem to have the energy to do whatever it was he was going to, his fingers clinging onto Gary’s coat collar.

Efnisien breathed heavily, eyes wet, but no tears shed in his anger and desperation. Gary realised he must have brought the scent of the sea in with him, because he could smell it again now.

Gary didn’t move his hand away from Efnisien’s neck. He wasn’t even squeezing. He could feel the rapid pulse, knew Efnisien’s heart was speeding along, helped by years – maybe even a lifetime – of ardolphogen supplements.

‘I’ll clean it up,’ Efnisien said roughly, his voice flatter than before. ‘My hands are better than they were.’

‘I’ll help you,’ Gary said.

It was then that Efnisien cried, and Gary stood there, uncertain for about ten seconds, and then he dragged the boy close to him and wrapped the hand that had been on his throat across the back of his neck instead.

He still couldn’t tell – even after they’d both cleaned up the kitchen floor – which one of them had wanted the fight more.

*

Gary woke early the next morning, Efnisien dead asleep beside him, breathing heavily, frowning. Gary knew Efnisien had diarrhea almost every morning, like clockwork, and it was those cramps that woke him. But he’d eaten the night before, and he’d had his medications, and Gary didn’t think there was anything they could do until Temsen said he was comfortable adding more medications to the rotation.

He needed to talk to Temsen. The end of the conference he’d no-showed at was approaching, and Gary had a schedule for the week ahead that still looked brutal even if it was on Hillview grounds. Gary realised during this week away from work that Efnisien couldn’t handle an alpha with a full-time schedule. Until Gary’s home office was finished, he’d either have to take Efnisien with him into the office – not useful when he had supervision sessions, which was often – or work from home.

He texted Lachlan to organise someone to bring a hot breakfast over, and rose first, looking Efnisien over and frowning. They’d barely talked after cleaning the smashed vase, Efnisien exhausted and unhappy. Gary didn’t have the energy to fix it, and he didn’t really want to.

A ripping force inside him, between treating Efnisien like a traumatised omega, or treating Efnisien like the alpha he was. But it was both, wasn’t it? Besides, the literature suggested that alphas who had been tortured or traumatised enough picked up omega-like appeasement behaviours. Gary wanted it all to fit together neatly, none of it was neat.

He knew Lachlan would be a while assembling breakfast for the both of them, so he brushed his teeth, let Polly outside, made her breakfast while she was doing her business, and then opened the curtains in the lounge and gave Temsen a call.

‘Good morning,’ Temsen said brightly. Gary could hear the gusts of wind over the phone. ‘Winter really is the best time of year, isn’t it? At least when it's not raining. And the sun's out. It's a great morning!’

‘I don’t know how you do it,’ Gary said drily. ‘Are you out for your morning run?’

‘I’ve just finished, I’m stretching. And you? Are you onto your fifth espresso?’

Gary laughed, and Temsen’s laugh was louder.

‘All right,’ Temsen said. ‘I’ve had my fun. I assume you’re not calling for pleasure.’

‘If only,’ Gary said, letting Polly back in and putting the bowl of food down for her. ‘I’m becoming aware that I can’t go back to full-time hours away from the cottage.’

‘I’m not surprised, given everything. Are you trying to find a way out of it? Or trying to make sure we can handle it?’

‘The latter.’

‘We’re fine,’ Temsen said. ‘Kent is doing even better than I expected, he’s the kind of fellow that rises to the responsibility he’s given. And I don’t find your clientele all that intimidating, and they seem to trust talking to a qualified medical doctor, which is nice to know for the future, I think.’

‘And Faber? He seems…’

‘…Ah, yes, you’ve noticed? I think it’s difficult for him. He hero worships you. If you’d asked me a couple of years ago, I would have said he’s in love with you, but that’s not it. It’s mitigated easily enough, if you have him over to visit for a coffee or spend some time with him talking about scheduling. Get him to act faster on your home office, it will give him something to focus on.’

Gary nodded and looked down the corridor. Efnisien hadn’t stirred at all.

‘What else is on your mind?’ Temsen asked.

‘I’m… It’s challenging to see Efnisien as wholly alpha.’

‘He’s not,’ Temsen said, sounding confused.

‘But you said-’

‘I said we’re going to treat him like an alpha, because he wants to be treated like that. But it’s philosophical, isn’t it, Gary? How do you treat alphas? You don’t treat them all exactly the same way, especially if you know they have a background of trauma. Where is this ‘wholly alpha’ specimen you’re thinking of? Is it Anton or Janusz or Augus or Kadek? You’ve said yourself that Kadek reminds you more of a beta sometimes. Is he wholly alpha? Of course he is. Because he knows he's one no matter how he behaves. It’s… Goodness, quite meta, if you take the time to consider it. The main thing is Hillview isn’t focused on retraining him or graduating him, that concept is easy to grasp, but everything else is new. Exciting, yes? But not for you. You have to live with him.’

‘It’s too early for your chipper truths, Temsen.’

‘I think the real problem here is you can’t find an easy way to settle your thoughts around him, and that destabilises your need for control. Understanding gives you back a sense of control, and while you have a higher tolerance for destabilisation than most peak alphas, everyone has a limit. Those are the real problems, Gary. And we don’t have easy solutions for them. It’s not going to get better when you have tradespeople in your cottage fixing your office. I know he won’t like it. I know you won’t like it. We can’t move you anywhere else on the property that doesn’t smell like another alpha.’

‘And the ankle monitor, when do I remove that?’

‘When he’s safe to be around omegas,’ Temsen said, his bright energy turning grim. ‘I really believe he’s a danger to them. He might not see it that way, but he loathes them. Has he even met-? Hm. And the people who raised him with those attitudes hated Efnisien enough to change his physiology to the point of near death. Though…thinking on it, the ankle monitor isn’t great, Gary, I can’t believe you still have that old tech. We don’t put ankle monitors on some of the monster alphas who drop their charges off. They’d never agree to it. So then we have supervision.’

‘I cannot be here every hour.’

‘I know. I’m thinking. I’m not a magical solution dispensing machine.’

‘Aren’t you?’

‘Oh, maybe I am now that I think about it. It’s a very manipulative solution, and it’s not a very fair one.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Use his needing to be an alpha to get the results you want. Efnisien is in many ways alpha-like, and he believes he is an alpha, but it’s also evident that he doubts it too. He’s – from what I’ve gathered – never been allowed to live like an alpha, but he’s been told he is one. If he listens to the words, he is one, if he looks at how he was treated, he was never one.’

‘Get to the point, Temsen.’

‘I always forget how rude you are first thing in the morning but yes, see, all you have to do is use language like: ‘Efnisien, I really need you to start showing me how mature you are as an alpha, so when I leave to do this boring thing I’m about to do, you’ll not go out of your way to harm anyone on the grounds.’’

Gary laughed, and Temsen made a questioning sound down the line.

‘Just… He shattered a vase last night; he was so angry.’

‘Honestly, I do not care what he’s doing in that cottage with you. I know you’re finding it difficult to share your space with him, but have you ever considered he’s finding it difficult to share space with you? That’s none of my business. I know you can handle it.’

Gary took a breath. I know you can handle it. It wasn’t entirely true, but the words were a blessing. That alone made him feel more reassured than anything else he’d heard so far. He could have laughed again at how predictable peak alphas were.

‘As I was saying, just…use the language. ‘Efnisien, now that you’re being recognised as the alpha you are, when you go for a walk away from the cottage today, I need you to be aware that you have power over everyone – especially those more vulnerable than you – and to use it with care.’ That sort of thing. Just…teach him. If he rewards your trust, then you have progress. Don’t expect it to work every single time.’

‘And the one time it doesn’t work? Kadek’s still in hospital, Temsen.’

‘I know. I’ll put a bulletin out to the other alphas and omegas to continue generally steering clear of your cottage when using the outdoor spaces. But you also can’t have Efnisien sheltered from everyone except you and me. That’s hard for anyone.’

‘He…doesn’t seem to mind Anton.’

‘No one minds Anton,’ Temsen said. ‘Some people outright like him. I don’t mean other alphas. Test him with betas before omegas. Enris wants to check in on him. I think you could allow initial supervised visitation with Enris and move to unsupervised. Think of it this way, Efnisien never did anything more than use his alpha persuasion on Enris, and Enris rebounded fast and has spoken to me of a desire to check that the boy is doing all right. And…I think down the track, have Efnisien spend some time with Faber.’

‘Faber?’ Gary said, shocked. ‘He has no training in this area.’

‘No, but he’s your substitute for a close friend, Gary, and you should loop him in. What if Efnisien stays here for years? What are you going to do? Faber is your right-hand man, and dare I say it, something like family by now. I can’t solve all of your problems.’

‘I really believe that you can, Temsen,’ Gary said, smiling.

‘I don’t want to solve all of your problems,’ Temsen said.

Gary picked up Polly’s empty bowl and put it in the sink, then looked down the corridor again. Efnisien must have tired himself out the night before, while Gary hadn’t been home, because he was normally awake by now. Gary could tell by his breathing – even from here – that he hadn’t woken yet.

‘One more thing,’ Gary said. ‘I used to drive up to the city to deal with my needs. What do I do about that now? In my extremely not-private cottage? With Efnisien in my now not-private bed?’

‘I don’t know,’ Temsen said airily, ‘what would you do with any alpha sharing your bed with you?’

‘Temsen.’

‘Can you wait long enough for him to be ready for you to schedule a night away?’

‘Could you?’

‘No,’ Temsen said bluntly. ‘I like the release of sex, and I’m not interested in chemically suppressing my drive, even though it would be convenient if the side effects weren’t so awful. I know you aren’t either. You shouldn’t anyway, with your heart. Ah, I still need to check that.’

‘I thought Kent would.’

‘I don’t know if you’ve met a peak alpha before, Gary, but we’re control freaks. At the very least, in exchange for Kent suddenly inheriting my almost entire patient load, I get to keep you and Efnisien as patients. Efnisien’s too fascinating to pass up. I’ll come up in the next two days and draw blood from Efnisien and give you a check-up. I also want to have a private talk with Efnisien.’

‘May I ask why?’ Gary said, bristling at the idea of yet another alpha wanting to monopolise Efnisien’s time.

‘Do you know if he’s attracted to men or women? Alphas? Omegas? Do you know what he likes at all? Has he had sex? Masturbated? Whatever happens, Gary, I should really get some kind of sexual history.’

‘You might want to…explore the trauma side of things.’

Gary was almost completely certain that Efnisien was asleep, but just in case he wasn’t, he kept his language vague.

‘Rape? Well. After what Kent told me of the medical exam… Shit.’

‘What is it?’ Gary said sharply, thinking Temsen might have injured himself.

‘The directives kept him still during that internal exam, right?’

‘Yes,’ Gary said slowly.

‘So… it stands to reason that he’s been through – at the very least – non-consensual internal medical exams in the past. Medical rape. More than once. We can start there. Assume he’s got sexual trauma in his history from that alone, that’s plenty. If the directives keep him so complacent he can’t fight through that level of fight-flight, they’re…very strong. I’ve been researching, but there’s no way to circumvent them faster.’

‘I appreciate the time you’ve spent anyway.’

‘I’ll get Faber to look over your schedule and reduce your hours for now. And on supervision?’

‘I can keep doing supervision,’ Gary said.

‘And you don’t need to keep vetting because we’re not taking anyone on, as we’re at capacity. Good.’ Temsen took a breath and then sighed it out. ‘I’m having waffles for breakfast this morning. They’re going to taste delicious.’

‘Priorities, I take it,’ Gary deadpanned.

‘Try it some time,’ Temsen said. ‘There’s many different roads to wellness, and not all of them have to be painful, you know. Call me if there’s anything else. Oh, one last thing, stop twisting yourself up about the categories. He’s a new kind of alpha. He’s as ‘wholly alpha’ as any of the rest of them. He doesn’t have to be exactly like the alphas you’ve met, and when he’s not like them, that doesn’t mean he’s suddenly an omega again. That just means you’ve found a new facet of who he is. And that person is an alpha, Gary. Because he wants to be one, and the other options will kill his spirit. I know it seems tricky, but it’s really not when you wrap your head around it.’

‘We’re not all like you, Temsen.’

‘I know, and that’s probably why Hillview and omega rehabilitation on the whole has a long way to go. But try harder, won’t you? You’re the director.’

With that, Temsen hung up, and Gary walked into the kitchen to make himself an espresso. It seemed like that kind of morning.

Chapter Text

Efnisien

*

To Efnisien’s surprise, the morning after their fight the night before was quiet. Gary wasn’t talkative, and Efnisien thought maybe he’d be seeing Temsen, or going for a walk outside or something, but Gary didn’t seem to be interested in doing anything.

Breakfast was amazing. Lachlan came over with bacon, eggs, grilled tomatoes, grilled sausages with diagonal char lines on them, mushrooms, a potato hash, and soft, warm fluffy bread rolls to put everything on, along with condiments. Efnisien couldn’t hope to eat all of his portion, though it was easier to justify eating the carbohydrates when they were giving him so much protein.

But Efnisien also just…really liked bread.

He was beginning to see why people didn’t have protein shakes all the time. Efnisien was getting used to the feeling of having something in his stomach, and that feeling lasting for more than twenty minutes. But he still felt nauseated every morning until he took his meds, and he was still beset by cramps and diarrhea on a regular basis. Sometimes he felt feverish and foggy, and he worried about Temsen’s words, that they didn’t know what Efnisien was being given with Crielle, that they couldn’t substitute all of that ardolphogen anyway.

When Efnisien got dressed after his shower, he lightly touched his abdomen and thought he was losing some of his muscle definition, or maybe putting on weight, and it scared him. But none of the alphas here seemed obsessed with going to the gym. There weren’t many alphas as obsessed with getting even stronger like Gwyn was.

Efnisien kept expecting to miss him, but he never did. Maybe there was something wrong with him, that he wasn’t emotional enough about his family.

Gary looked up from his new laptop that Faber had given him a couple of days ago. Efnisien always noticed what Gary was doing, even when he was sitting on the couch and getting through the book on beach erosion and Gary was at the table.

‘I thought it would be good if we had a quieter day today,’ Gary said.

‘Yeah,’ Efnisien said. ‘You probably want an actual holiday before going back to work.’

I’m amazed you’re not leaving to get the hell away from me. I would do that if I could.

‘I’ve been talking to Temsen and Faber about that,’ Gary said. ‘I won’t be going back to full-time responsibilities for a while. I don’t think it’s good for you, and…’

Gary trailed off, Efnisien had the strangest feeling he didn’t want to say whatever came at the end of that sentence.

‘It’s possible I’ve been working too hard,’ Gary said finally.

‘Can peak alphas even do that?’ Efnisien said.

He felt dull after the explosion between them the night before. They’d slept in the same bed together, and Efnisien craved Gary’s warmth, and couldn’t stop thinking about that hand around his throat, or the way Gary had talked to him, or the way he’d insisted over and over again that he wasn’t nice.

But Efnisien couldn’t handle Gary leaving, even though he knew the guy had to have time to himself.

Efnisien needed time to himself back home, a lot of it, and while he wished sometimes he could have…people who liked him – back then he knew he’d have to wait to be fully realised as an alpha for that – he still needed to be away from others. His instincts drove him up to his room, where he could read or go online and watch videos about rainforests or walk around the street by using the street-view on his maps software.

‘Peak alphas can do that,’ Gary said, smiling tiredly.

‘I’m surprised you’re admitting it.’

‘So am I,’ Gary said. ‘I don’t know that I want to work less, but…no one at the facility seems opposed to the idea. Temsen can take on a fair few of my responsibilities as director, and Kent has taken over a lot of his responsibilities. Temsen has insisted on remaining your physician however.’

‘He’s okay. For a peak alpha.’

‘I agree,’ Gary said, finishing his espresso. He drank from little cups, but the stuff smelled super strong, like what Crielle drank sometimes when she was in the home lab a lot. It was his third that morning. Efnisien had seen two other little cups in the sink. ‘But it means while I’ll still be leaving to do supervision, I’m trying to keep most of my other duties to the kind of busywork I can do here. We’re also going to have the problem of tradespeople fixing my home office for a few days. I don’t think we can move out while that’s happening. I’m not comfortable with the both of us staying in accommodation outside of Hillview, and we have nothing left here that doesn’t currently smell like Kadek, which would not be amenable to me – or him, for that matter.’

Efnisien looked down and wished he could pretend he didn’t care.

‘At any rate, I’ll have more time to make sure we’re eating regularly, to go outside with you, maybe organise some outings.’

‘So then how are you going to get time to yourself?’ Efnisien said, staring at the book on preventing erosion.

‘When my office is repaired, that should help,’ Gary said. Efnisien thought he must be so desperate to get away, that he was willing to talk about it. ‘Supervision doesn’t really count. I don’t know. I’ll think of something.’

‘You could put me in Kadek’s…place.’

‘That’s not on the table for now,’ Gary said. ‘We talked about this.’

‘You talked.’

‘That counts,’ Gary said, laughing.

Efnisien was in awe of how Gary just bowled through the world. He didn’t make excuses for his peak alpha arrogance, and he didn’t make up reasons for it to exist. He just…made decisions, and when people told him it was bullshit, he just shrugged. Even Gwyn had to make up reasons and excuses for why he did what he did sometimes.

Gary didn’t care if people called him a hypocrite, where Gwyn would have thrown a tantrum. Gary didn’t care if someone said peak alphas were aberrant. But Gwyn hit him and mounted him for it.

‘Today,’ Gary said, because he’d decided the conversation was over, ‘you’re welcome to do what you like. But I was thinking…if you were willing, we might go through your education levels and decide what parts of the alpha curriculum you’re up to date on, and what you can afford to brush up on.’

Efnisien almost dropped the book, quickly grabbing it as it slid down his legs. ‘You’re letting me access the curriculum?’

Gary blinked at him, and Efnisien realised he’d betrayed the fact he’d never actually done any sort of alpha levels. But he couldn’t believe how casually Gary had brought it up.

‘What I’m thinking,’ Gary said, ‘is you can move through the exam levels from the very first, at your own pace, and we’ll see where you’re at. Since your education was largely self-guided – from what I can gather – I expect you’ll have biases in some directions and not others. But from there, we can build on your knowledge with the official materials. There’s learning-from-home curricula available, and you can choose which one works best for your learning style.’

But what if he was too stupid? What if Efnisien did those exams or whatever, and it proved he was too dumb to learn? Gary seemed to think Efnisien didn’t know anything about the way the world worked in general. Hell, their fucked up fight the night before had started because Gary basically said Efnisien didn’t know anything about himself or his own body.

And if Efnisien said something like, ‘What if I don’t know anything?’ maybe Gary would assume he couldn’t handle an alpha curriculum at all.

‘You’re obviously quite intelligent,’ Gary said, cutting across Efnisien’s thoughts like a knife. ‘You read well, you have good memory retention, and for someone who has lived a…sheltered life, you have a good grasp of several different concepts I wouldn’t necessarily expect from someone in your situation. We can start with the primary school tests. You can take your time. There’s no reason to time them or anything. What do you think?’

‘It’s just going to prove you right,’ Efnisien said. ‘That you think I’m too dumb to understand things.’

Gary stared flatly at him, which Efnisien knew meant he was annoyed.

‘You literally basically said that last night,’ Efnisien said.

‘I did not ‘literally’ say that at all,’ Gary said. ‘But I’ll be clear on the subject this morning. You were raised in an environment that subjected you to cruelty, and as a result of that cruelty, you are now underweight. You cannot magically know the results of studies about alpha weight from nothing, Efnisien. And you cannot be magically right, just because you believe in the cruelty you were subjected to. That is not the same as…lacking general comprehension skills. But right now, you also can’t believe me, because it threatens your whole worldview to do so.’

Efnisien glared. ‘You really just say shit like that, don’t you? Do you talk to your like… the people you supervise, that way?’

‘No,’ Gary said. ‘They get ‘Dr Gary the supervisor.’ You just get…me.’

‘The dickhead.’

‘Yes,’ Gary said.

‘Okay,’ Efnisien said, pushing back into the couch and folding his arms. ‘Sure. You’re not nice this morning. I completely agree with you.’

Gary’s laugh was like a glittering thing Efnisien wanted to grab in his hands. It felt good.

Curiosity lingered about this peak alpha, who he was, why he laughed at things like that, and Efnisien scratched at the couch idly with his fingers – new skin had grown pretty fast beneath his blisters – and blew out a huge breath.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll try the exams.’

‘Good,’ Gary said. ‘Today or tomorrow? Some other time? There’s no rush. You can just rest today.’

‘Today,’ Efnisien said stubbornly. ‘I want to know.’

‘All right. I’ll get everything set up, and we’ll go from there.’

Efnisien wished he could swallow his nerves, but they sat in his mouth and throat. He hoped he wasn’t walking around with the mentality of a seven-year-old, but he just didn’t know.

*

To Efnisien’s surprise, he sailed through the first six exams. He did them all in about five or ten minutes, and briefly suspected that Gary might be giving him simpler exams. They might be for children, but surely more was expected from them, even at these ages?

Gary graded each one as Efnisien went.

At the first high school exam, Efnisien realised he didn’t know much about history, or a subject called ‘social landscapes.’ There were a lot of questions about landmark decisions on omega rights, which surprised him, because he didn’t know omegas even had rights. Even in the multiple-choice parts, there were never answers that were like: Omegas deserve sweet fuck-all, but in…formal school exam writing. Efnisien never knew what to pick.

‘Social landscapes is a new subject,’ Gary said, looking over Efnisien’s results. ‘It’s come out in the last seven years. Hillview was part of the group that lobbied hard for it, though Temsen did most of the work, because getting more information about omega rights into schools is his big raison d’etre.’

‘I don’t know what that means,’ Efnisien said.

‘The purpose of his existence,’ Gary said absently, making notes on Efnisien’s answers on his tablet. ‘Temsen cares a great deal about how omegas are treated.’

‘But he isn’t one.’

‘I don’t know all the details, but when he was training to become a medical doctor, he travelled the world to do different years at different universities. In that time, he did pracs – internships – at different facilities. Because his focus was omega biology and physiology, that meant rehabs, prisons, and I believe one experimentation facility in a country where it’s still legal. He was already very supportive of the humane treatment of omegas, but he became quite radicalised after that experience. He believes omegas deserve complete and profound equal rights with alphas, along with additional protection rights around their heats.’

Efnisien couldn’t imagine that level of radicalisation. But he also couldn’t begin to imagine what Temsen had seen. Experimentation on omegas wasn’t legal in many countries anymore, it hadn’t been for decades.

‘Anyway,’ Gary said. ‘The next exam is coming up. I’m going to omit the sections on history and social landscapes, you can start at entry levels on those. It’s a lot of reading, so you’ll do fine. Your reading level is significantly above the averages anyway.’

It felt good, the way Gary offhandedly praised him like that.

Gary handed the tablet over, and Efnisien went through it. The maths and science were still easy, along with comprehension and reading. Now there was more analysis, and Efnisien was less good at understanding where he was supposed to be seeing symbolism in things. But after a while – based on the leading questions in the exam – he thought he might be picking it up.

When Gary marked that exam, he asked: ‘Did you teach yourself maths?’

‘Is it that bad?’ Efnisien said.

‘No,’ Gary said, ‘on the contrary. But your working out methods are unconventional. I think it might be based in Japanese teachings? Don’t quote me on that.’

‘I…learned from the internet,’ Efnisien said, flushing. ‘I was just looking for stuff that explained- I mean, I don’t know where it comes from.’

‘It’s fine,’ Gary said. ‘As long as it works.’

After the next exam, Gary called a halt. Efnisien had expected to go further, but Gary was looking everything over with a little vertical crease on his forehead. Efnisien knew he wasn’t even in the final two years of exams yet.

‘You’re stopping?’ Efnisien said.

‘There’s some big gaps now. Your knowledge when you have it is still advanced, but when you take your official alpha levels, there’s a few more subjects where you could stand to do more research. I think here’s a good place to stop, because you’ll mostly sail through the maths and science sections, but we can work more on analysis, history, and so on. I can order some books in for you, or Faber might be able to pick them up from Busselton.’

It still sounded like such a dream, the way Gary just said ‘when you take your official alpha levels,’ not ‘if’ and not ‘you’re not at a stage yet in your development where you’d be able to handle it.’

Efnisien felt nervous, a little like how he’d felt when Gary suggested leaving Hillview. These were things he’d always wanted, but also things he wasn’t sure he’d ever be allowed to have. Gary made it seem…easy. They’d spent a day going over everything. Crielle or one of her servants could have done that with him any time to find out if he could do his alpha levels.

The coffee table wasn’t as absorbing as Efnisien was trying to make it, but he didn’t have words for all the churning inside of him.

‘Um,’ Efnisien said, staring at the table.

Gary looked up. Efnisien didn’t even have to be looking at him directly to sense the movement.

‘Can I…go lie down?’ Efnisien said.

In your bed, stealing more of your freedom.

It seemed like Efnisien couldn’t get anything he wanted without taking it from someone else.

‘Are you feeling all right?’ Gary said, shifting like he was about to stand.

Efnisien stood quickly. ‘Yeah! Yeah. Just- Um. A lot of exams.’ He laughed, told himself it didn’t sound nervous or weird. ‘Just want to lie down for…a little while.’

It was awkward, walking past Gary, going into the guy’s bedroom, and then getting onto his bed. Efnisien stared towards the window. The curtains were open, but there were no kangaroos.

As he lay there, he reached up and touched his fingers to his neck, remembering the way Gary had wrapped his hand around it during their argument. It was strange, the things he remembered. He should hate it. Maybe he did hate it. But now as he looked outside, wishing he could see the marsupials grazing on the lush green grass, he thought it might help if Gary touched him like that again.

Efnisien’s gut continued to churn as he fell asleep, telling himself he had a lot of things to be grateful for, but feeling strange and lonely instead.

Chapter Text

The following morning, Efnisien’s stomach was worse than usual, and he felt feverish all over again. He felt queasy during breakfast, and when Gary measured his pulse, his heartrate, he paused over the results, and then redid them.

I’m dying, Efnisien thought.

‘We might…get you to see Temsen today if he’s free,’ Gary said. ‘He’ll be drawing blood, and he said he wanted to talk to you privately. We can do it here, instead of in his exam room.’

‘Okay,’ Efnisien said.

Am I dying?

Gary lifted his hand and placed it gently against his forehead, checking Efnisien’s temperature, and he hadn’t done that in days.

The grimace wasn’t reassuring.

‘I could be dying,’ Efnisien said.

Gary met Efnisien’s eyes, unimpressed, and Efnisien shrugged and looked away.

‘I could be.’

‘It’s true,’ Gary said, ‘but before you panic, your fever doesn’t seem as bad as it was when you arrived, and your heartrate and blood pressure aren’t as bad as they were before. Worse than the last few days, yes, but…Well. Those directives you’re under make all of this hard.’

Efnisien looked away. He couldn’t even acknowledge he was under directives at all, most of the time.

He startled when he felt Gary pat his head a few times, then held carefully still for it.

‘Temsen will come by.’

Efnisien nodded and went to pick up his plate to bring it up to the sink, but Gary’s hand stayed on his head a moment longer, enough pressure to indicate he wanted Efnisien to stay put. He picked up the plate, he took it over to the sink, and Efnisien thought Gary was still the weirdest peak alpha he’d ever met.

*

Temsen arrived late morning, and Efnisien woke groggily to the sound of Gary and Temsen talking out in the kitchen, because Efnisien had gone back to bed. He felt…weird. His heart pounded; he kept thinking he might have a heart attack. His whole body was warm.

And then the sound of a single pair of footsteps coming down the hall, and Efnisien knew it was Temsen because Gary sounded different. Temsen was more…brisk, somehow. Gary’s steps sounded more intentional.

‘Hi, Efnisien,’ Temsen said, looking into the room. ‘Goodness, you do have a bit of pallor today, don’t you? I was wondering if I could take some blood and ask you some questions. Do you want Gary here for some of it?’

Efnisien hesitated. He waited for the directives to come up inside of him. He knew Temsen was a doctor, but while he felt like he should be obedient somehow to Crielle, nothing was hurting him in his mind.

‘You can… I don’t need- No, it’s fine,’ Efnisien said finally.

‘Okay,’ Temsen said, smiling warmly. ‘Well, he’ll be heading outside briefly, but he’ll be nearby, all right?’

The front door opened and closed, Gary walking out with Polly, as though…he could hear Temsen’s conversation with Efnisien that clearly. Was his hearing that good? Efnisien felt on edge once he knew Gary wasn’t in the house anymore. 

‘Hm.’ Temsen opened his doctor’s bag and brought out a stethoscope, a few other things, but nothing that looked too invasive. Efnisien stared at the syringe for a long time. ‘Your fear levels have spiked.’

‘You can tell?’ Efnisien said.

‘Oh yes,’ Temsen said. ‘Are you sure you don’t want Gary in here for at least some of this?’

‘I’m- He doesn’t- I don’t need him.’

‘No, you don’t,’ Temsen said, looking up and smiling. ‘You’ve been surviving on your own for a long time, haven’t you? Still, it can be nice sometimes. I’ll trust you’ll let me know. Or your fear will.’

Efnisien stared as Temsen began organising materials efficiently. Gloves. A little kidney-shaped bowl that he put the syringe in. And then a bunch of colour-coded glass tubes and a longer flexible plastic tube with a tiny little needle at the end of it.

‘Is that the…needle you’re going to use?’ Efnisien said, in confusion. ‘Why isn’t it attached to the syringe? Or…bigger?’

‘It’s a butterfly,’ Temsen said. ‘It’s a thinner gauge, and shorter, so I can be more precise with the placement. It shouldn’t hurt as much as the needles you may be used to.’

‘Needles don’t hurt.’ Efnisien was lying, but really, needles were nothing. He just hated them.

‘Not compared to some things, and sometimes, not at all. But butterflies are likely to hurt the least, and since I don’t personally know what your veins are like, I’d prefer to go with this. Besides, I’m not as talented at this part as nurses like Enris, so let’s just make it as easy for me as possible, hm?’

Efnisien nodded, and Temsen nodded slowly to himself, then bent over Efnisien and attached a colourful red and blue tourniquet around his upper arm and tightened it. He reached out and straightened Efnisien’s arm and looked at his inner elbow, poking the skin gently.

‘Can you open and close your hand for me?’ Temsen said. ‘Let’s pump these veins up just a bit.’

Efnisien nodded and did it. His hand and wrist were shaking.

‘Do you feel the directives now?’ Temsen asked, something bright and curious in his brown and gold-flecked gaze.

‘Um. I… I don’t know.’

‘You’re talking,’ Temsen said. ‘So that’s much better than what Kent described before. Ah, here we go, this fellow looks reliable. All right. It shouldn’t hurt too much, let me know if it does.’

Efnisien was fairly sure he couldn’t do that. And he had to look away when Temsen grabbed the butterfly thing with its little needle, and he screwed his face up when he knew it was coming. It was stupid to be scared of needles, but somewhere along the way he went from being used to them, to hating them, to no longer wanting to deal with them. Even if they weren’t that bad.

Temsen had a light touch, and the needle somehow didn’t hurt at all. Faint pressure, and then the little sound as Temsen attached one of the glass tubes. Efnisien didn’t look. He didn’t want to see his own blood.

‘You can relax your hand now,’ Temsen said, because Efnisien was still opening and closing it.

Efnisien stopped and his hand shook. He knew Temsen saw it because he seemed like the kind of guy who saw everything.

‘Ah, there we go,’ Temsen said, who was attaching a third test tube after removing the second one. ‘Not much longer now. You’re doing great.’

‘Gary constantly being asked to leave his house can’t be a solution,’ Efnisien said, changing the subject, not wanting to think about what was happening to him.

‘It’s not a permanent solution,’ Temsen said frankly. ‘Eventually you will be allowed to leave this house. You’ll be allowed to come visit me. Or go for walks. Or see Anton. Or do whatever it is that suits.’

The words slammed into him one after another, in a way that made his skin pimple with gooseflesh.

‘What?’ he said, mouth dry.

‘Well, of course,’ Temsen said. ‘It will take time, because we have an uncommon number of omegas here, and you are uncommonly dangerous to them. But that’s the goal.’

‘It…is?’

‘Isn’t it?’ Temsen said, removing the needle and placing a cotton ball over it. ‘Can you put some pressure on that for me?’

Efnisien did it automatically.

Temsen busied himself with putting things away and placing some of the tubes into different plastic zip-lock bags and writing things down. Efnisien tried to imagine just leaving Gary’s house. Just…going somewhere.

He couldn’t do it.

He got as far as imagining opening the door, and then…nothing.

He wanted to say, ‘I’ve never gone anywhere on my own before’ but that wasn’t true either. He came to Hillview on his own. He was in the locked rooms on his own. He didn’t want to feel like that again.

‘So,’ Temsen said, taking his phone out and checking something, before putting it facedown on the bed, ‘I wanted to ask you some questions. They’re a bit personal, so I didn’t want Gary here in case you weren’t ready for him to know any of the answers. Anything you tell me I won’t share with anyone else unless I believe it’s necessary to protect or safeguard your health. What do you think?’

‘Um. I…don’t know. Because I don’t know what the questions are yet.’

‘Savvy,’ Temsen said, taking out the stethoscope. He didn’t even lift Efnisien’s shirt, resting the instrument on his back. ‘Before we start, how about you take some deep breaths in and out for me?’

So Efnisien did that, following Temsen’s directions.

And then it was a thermometer in his ear, and Temsen humming softly when he saw the results.

‘Can you do me a favour?’ Temsen said. ‘Can you tilt your head sideways, and then look towards the wall away from me?’

Efnisien felt the stretch in his neck as soon as he did it, and then held his breath when Temsen bent down and literally inhaled the space where an omega might give off their scent.

‘Hey!’ Efnisien said, shrinking away. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m checking if you’re coming into heat,’ Temsen said.

Efnisien stared in horror. His heart did something awful in his chest. ‘What?’

Temsen didn’t look pleased, but he also didn’t seem as bothered as Efnisien thought he should be.

‘Well,’ Temsen said, and then sighed. He sat down on the bed again. ‘We don’t know. I think your sub-larentin results… It’s possible.’

‘But… But I’m- But that can’t happen. It can’t happen.’

‘It could,’ Temsen said softly, but firmly. ‘It doesn’t mean you’re an omega if it happens.’

‘No, it can’t happen,’ Efnisien said. ‘I’m not- There’s no way.’

‘All right,’ Temsen said. ‘At any rate, even if you are, a sub-larentin heat isn’t going to look like what you imagine classic heats to be, Efnisien.’

Efnisien deliberately moved two feet away from Temsen and folded his arms. ‘This is bullshit. You said you were going to help me. How do I know you’re not giving me meds to make this happen?’

‘Because forcing someone into a strange and unpredictable heat when they can’t make the lubricant to endure it, and then having to be responsible for all the anal tearing that results is not actually the way I want to waste my time,’ Temsen said. When Efnisien glared at him, Temsen smiled sadly. ‘In truth, you could be going through one or many different biological processes. You could be rejecting one or many of the meds we’re giving you. It could be delayed ardolphogen withdrawals. It could be your body poorly adjusting to not having some of the meds you used to get. We simply don’t have enough information.’

‘Could you smell anything? Like… Like a- You know?’

‘Like a heat? No,’ Temsen said. ‘But there is something there.’

‘I can’t go into heat. It’s not possible. It’s never happened before.’

‘It wouldn’t on your previous ardolphogen levels,’ Temsen said. ‘Actually, this is along the lines of what I wanted to talk to you about. But perhaps now isn’t the time.’

‘I want all of this over and done with,’ Efnisien said abruptly.

A moment of wonder, that he was talking to a doctor this way, a peak alpha doctor, like this. Crielle would have killed him, and every time Efnisien tested these people at Hillview, they just…let him move away, or talk back to them, or be rude all the time. It was incredible.

‘All right,’ Temsen said. ‘I appreciate the fortitude, but we can stop any time.’

Temsen lay back on the bed, moving his phone out of the way, looking up at the ceiling. It meant Efnisien was taller than him, and it was one of the strangest things he’d ever seen. Gwyn would never change their relative heights like this. It had to be deliberate.

‘I was curious… you’re of an age where it’s possible that you’ve maybe had sex before, and I wanted to know if that was something you’d maybe done? Or had some experience with?’

‘No,’ Efnisien said. He hadn’t meant to answer so quickly, but Temsen just kept talking and it was easier to make him stop with an answer.

‘What about crushes? Surely you’ve had some crushes on people?’ Temsen said. He kept looking up at the ceiling.

He was being non-threatening on purpose. Efnisien knew exactly what he was doing. And Efnisien wondered what would happen if he stood and made their height difference greater. Would Temsen even react? Was he that secure in his power? Gwyn would never have been able to handle it.

So Efnisien stood and stared at Temsen closely, and Temsen lifted his head a little as though making sure Efnisien wasn’t leaving the room, and then went back to relaxing and looking up at the ceiling.

A moment later he even raised his arms and put his hands beneath his head, sighing out hugely.

‘What are you doing?’ Efnisien said sharply.

‘This is a sensitive subject and I think interrogations are a fool’s game, if you ask me,’ Temsen said. ‘I like that you can tell what I’m doing though. Because you can, can’t you?’

‘You’re trying to put me at ease. Or make me feel like I have more power.’

‘Do you?’

The worst part was it did help. Efnisien ground his teeth together. ‘I’ve never had any crushes on anyone.’

‘Not ever? Even in say, wet dreams?’

‘I’ve never had those,’ Efnisien said.

‘Oh, I see. That’s a mess you’ve never had to deal with then,’ Temsen said, smiling wryly. ‘And what about…thinking about other people? Do you have a sense of if you’re straight? Gay? Anything like that?’

‘Uh. I- I don’t… I don’t think I’m straight,’ Efnisien said finally. ‘I don’t exactly know why. It’s not like- I’ve never exactly… You know this is weird, right?’

‘It’s really very weird,’ Temsen said, laughing now.

‘God. Fine. I don’t know. I’ve never really been into like… women. I’m more comfortable around guys, maybe?’

He really only had Crielle and Gwyn and Lludd and all their servants and medical staff to go by. But Efnisien supposed when he went on the internet, there were a few people he liked on YouTube because of their voices, and they were always guys. But he didn’t…like them. Not like that.

‘It’s kind of felt like…’ -Efnisien said hesitantly, not sure how much he should share- ‘…like that side of me has always been dead. That’s all. Just…dead. Like maybe that part of me had to die, so…I could be an alpha.’

Temsen propped himself up on his elbows so he could look at Efnisien. ‘Are you sad about that?’

‘I didn’t want to be with an omega anyway,’ Efnisien said. ‘I don’t think I’d like that. Because-’

Because omegas are disgusting fucking parasites.

Yeah, no, he couldn’t say that to the guy who had already lectured him about the way he talked about omegas. And not the day after those alpha level exams, and Gary talking about how Temsen had gotten some stupid ‘social landscapes’ course into schools.

‘Because you loathe omegas,’ Temsen said, not looking away from Efnisien. ‘Because everything about them fills you with disgust, so how could you ever be expected to share the rest of your life with one, or heaven forbid, fuck one?’

‘I don’t know how the rest of the alphas do it,’ Efnisien said.

‘Some do a fairly poor job of it, because if you hate the person you’re supposed to desire, you don’t treat them well.’

Efnisien had to look away. Temsen might be the one lying down on the bed, but Efnisien felt pretty fucking vulnerable, even standing close to the door and knowing Gary wasn’t that far away.

‘But,’ Temsen said slowly, ‘alphas don’t have to be with omegas. Betas and alphas are also an option.’

Efnisien stayed silent. Crielle had never ever considered it as an option for him, so Efnisien had hardly considered it for himself. An uncomfortable minute passed where Efnisien wanted to scratch his face off, and Temsen seemed to be genuinely relaxing, the asshole. Efnisien had liked him right up until he demonstrated he could be just as annoying as Gary.

‘Have you ever talked to an omega?’ Temsen said. ‘Had a long conversation with one?’

‘No,’ Efnisien said.

‘Have you met one?’

‘Yes!’ Efnisien said. ‘Of course I have. My aunt would have other alphas and peak alphas over sometimes, and they had…some of them had omega partners.’

‘Ah. And how were those partners treated?’

‘I don’t know, it was a mix. Some were treated…I guess pretty well? Some weren’t. I wasn’t really kept around for- I didn’t. I didn’t like hang out.’

‘And if you met them, how were you introduced? As an alpha?’

Efnisien felt something slam down inside of him, a big solid hunk of metal clanging shut, echoing throughout his body. And behind it, the memories of being introduced as a distant alpha nephew, a visitor, someone who wasn’t staying very long, when he was allowed to meet people at all. And more memories of the servants shunting him away down a corridor, saying that people were coming over and he was to go back to his room.

Temsen picked up his phone and looked at it, then put it down again.

‘I’d like you to meet and talk to some omegas at some point,’ Temsen said, resting one hand on his abdomen, the other by his head. ‘I think…depending on how you feel at the time, and how things have progressed, you might learn something you haven’t been given an opportunity to learn before. But I can certainly understand-’

‘I’ve seen them in the media too,’ Efnisien said quickly. ‘Online and stuff.’

‘That’s good,’ Temsen said.

He didn’t even lecture Efnisien for interrupting him.

‘It’s possible you might even be asexual,’ Temsen said softly. ‘But I don’t think we can rule anything else out until we have a better sense of, well, you.’

Temsen sat up properly, and Efnisien realised how much space his energy filled, because that alone made his presence so much louder. He twisted his body from side to side, and then backed up, because he couldn’t help it. He knew Temsen noticed, but he thankfully didn’t draw any attention to it.

‘I’m not going into heat,’ Efnisien said. ‘I can’t. You said, even with the- I don’t have the glands.’

Temsen grimaced. ‘Sometimes bodies don’t do what they’re supposed to do. It’s possible you can have heats, or half-heats, or pseudo-heats, and I’m concerned that right now… Have you been having stomach upsets?’

‘I’ve always had them,’ Efnisien said. ‘Always.’

‘Has it been worse the last few days?’

Efnisien shrugged, and Temsen nodded. ‘I’m going to take that as a yes. And have you been off your food?’

‘I was when I came here as well. I don’t like eating.’

‘But it’s been worse the last few days?’

Efnisien felt a desperate, horrible thing curling around and around inside of him, constant churning in the background.

‘Yeah,’ he said weakly.

This was the guy who had told him he’d still be an alpha no matter what, right? He didn’t seem like a liar, but maybe he could make everyone think he was telling the truth.

‘Have you been feeling any arousal?’ Temsen said. ‘Anything like that? Erections for no reason, for example?’

‘Fuck no,’ Efnisien said.

‘Okay. What about… Have you been responding well to touch? Or possibly even wanting more of it? Maybe just from one person?’

‘Like Dr Gary, you mean.’

Efnisien thought about all the times he’d kind of wished Gary would touch him more, those neck touches, or patting his head, or putting a hand over his mouth. It wasn’t sexual. It wasn’t…

‘Possibly,’ Temsen said. ‘Like Gary.’

‘I can’t be going into heat,’ Efnisien said.

‘I wish we could make this smoother for you,’ Temsen said, ‘but unfortunately we don’t know what sort of timeline you’re on, physiologically. I doubt you’re going into rut, because alphas hardly experience that anyway, it’s a fairly rare experience and if your ardolphogen levels didn’t trigger it before, I doubt they’re capable of triggering it now. I’m more inclined to believe your body is trying to sort out its hormones, than anything else.’

‘So…not…dying maybe.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Temsen said, his eyes softening. ‘You know, it’s normal to hate the idea of not being in control of your body. As an alpha, control is really important to you, and you don’t have that much of it. So when your body does things like this, it can feel like a betrayal, even a violation. When alphas get sick, they’re notorious for ignoring the symptoms, or trying to mask them, or pretending they’re not there. And society kind of expects that from us, which reinforces this idea that…when we’re in control, we’re strong, and that’s the only way to be a good alpha. But it’s not that simple. And there are other ways you can exercise control, even when your body is behaving in ways you can’t predict.’

Efnisien hung onto every word. Firstly, Temsen was a doctor, and Efnisien tended to listen to them more anyway, but Temsen was just…saying things in a way that didn’t feel as horrible to hear.

‘Like how?’ Efnisien said finally.

Temsen opened his mouth, then looked sharply towards the hall. Efnisien tensed. He hadn’t heard anything, but a few seconds later the door opened, and Efnisien heard Gary’s steps coming urgently towards them. Efnisien tensed further, and Temsen was doing the same, standing up and placing his hand on his doctor’s bag.

‘What’s wrong?’ Temsen said.

Gary stepped into his room, eyes finding Efnisien immediately.

‘Efnisien’s cousin is here at the front gates,’ Gary said.

Efnisien’s insides turned slippery and cold so fast his vision blurred. He sensed Temsen looking at him, knew his fear had done…whatever it did at times like this.

‘Gwyn’s here?’ Efnisien said. ‘Why?’

‘That’s what I’d like to find out myself,’ Gary said.

‘I want to talk to him,’ Temsen said sharply.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Efnisien’s under directives, and I need information I can’t get from him. But I might be able to get it from this cousin.’

‘Do you want to see him?’ Gary said to Efnisien instead.

‘I…want to know why he’s here,’ Efnisien said, voice faded and soft.

‘Then we’ll go and see what your cousin wants,’ Gary said. ‘Together.’

‘I’m coming,’ Temsen said.

Efnisien stared between them, his fear skyrocketing until he thought he’d throw up right there in front of them. He couldn’t think of anything worse than having to spend time with three peak alphas at once, especially when one of them was his cousin.

Chapter Text

The plan was simple enough. Temsen was going to meet Gwyn ap Nudd at the gates, and escort him in. He’d need to be driven, since the estate was large and there was no way Gary was going to allow a dangerous peak alpha to bring his own vehicle into the Hillview estate. Meanwhile, Gary and Efnisien would quickly move to Gary’s main office, because there was also no way Gary would have a peak alpha like that cruel and insufferable brat in his home.

Efnisien’s fear was already spiked and staying there. It was a reminder, if anything, of how far Efnisien had come since arriving, even though it sometimes seemed like he hadn’t made any progress at all. This emotional state, where Efnisien was blank, barely responsive, and constantly scanning the horizon as though he expected to see his cousin from every direction, was how he must have lived his whole life before coming to Hillview.

Mounted by his cousin over and over again. Beaten. Expected to compete with him. Both of them sharing the same house. Gary kept a hand at the small of Efnisien’s back. He wanted nothing more than to send Gwyn away, his own aggressive instincts rising to the surface.

But talking to Gwyn was too valuable an opportunity to pass up.

‘He won’t be allowed to take you with him,’ Gary said firmly, quickly, as soon as they entered his office. ‘You won’t be permitted to spend time alone with him. He won’t be allowed to harm you. I will honour his visit, because this is a highly unusual circumstance, and your aunt is the opposite of forthcoming.’

Efnisien said nothing. Gary didn’t know when he’d next hear Efnisien’s voice. He worried it would be when he saw his cousin. The bonds between omegas and their families were profound, especially in situations of familial abuse. The bonds between alphas and their families were profound too. Efnisien likely had a well of instincts that drove him to both submit to, and respond to, the presence of his cousin.

All Gary wanted to do was take Efnisien away from this situation, and it warred with the clinical part of his mind that knew they could get information from Gwyn if he yielded it.

Let’s see what drove a peak alpha to come all this way.

*

The first impression Gary had of Gwyn ap Nudd, was that he could easily have been Efnisien’s brother. He was obviously a peak alpha who worked out, and there was a fierceness about his scent, a power about him that was so clumsy in the room it was obvious he either couldn’t control it or didn’t want to.

Temsen stepped in behind Gwyn and closed the door. The four of them in Gary’s main office, and Gary thought the large room might be too small for three peak alphas, though he didn’t feel the same way when it was himself, Temsen and Augus.

‘Welcome to Hillview,’ Gary said, ‘may I ask what the nature of your unannounced visit is?’

Gwyn dropped a packed duffel bag on the ground, he’d not looked away from Efnisien once.

They both hadn’t looked away from each other. Temsen observed everything avidly, Gary wondered what was being communicated between them.

‘You said you needed clothes,’ Gwyn said derisively. ‘But I can see you’ve obviously been fucking your way into getting favours and new shit already.’

Gwyn walked over to Efnisien where he sat, in the armchair, and Gary stood but then the clinician in him paused to see what would happen as Gwyn got a hand around Efnisien’s shirt collar and bent down, scenting him.

After all this time, Gary expected Efnisien to go limp.

It’s what any omega would do.

‘Get the fuck off me,’ Efnisien snarled, shoving roughly at Gwyn’s chest. And he was pushing up as Gwyn tried to keep him down, and Gary rounded the desk and halted only when Temsen held up a hand to stop him, walking swiftly over.

‘Now, now,’ Temsen said. ‘I’m afraid we don’t allow any harm to come to those who are in our custody.’

Gary thought that perhaps Temsen made a point of not calling Efnisien an omega.

Temsen dragged Gwyn away, though two adult peak alphas in the same room had to mean something, because he obeyed Temsen. Gwyn straightened and stepped away from him, folding his arms and glaring between them.

‘What, are you both fucking him?’ Gwyn said.

Temsen lifted his eyebrows, unimpressed. Efnisien was settling his shirt collar, cheeks flushed, eyes heated, like he was ready to battle several rounds with Gwyn right now, even though – as he’d said to Gary – he’d never won a single fight with him.

‘Thank you for bringing some of Efnisien’s clothes,’ Gary said. ‘Unfortunately we had need of more than a single outfit sooner than this, so we provided for him. It’s the least we could do. Especially since you said you wouldn’t bring them.’

Gwyn looked between all three of them. His eyes were piercing, and his pheromones were up. It was repellent. Peak alpha pheromones were some of the few that Gary genuinely reacted to with revulsion. He, Augus and Temsen were good at keeping themselves under control in general, let alone around each other, but Gwyn was a bully with his scent. Gary wondered if Efnisien’s aunt was the same.

The scent was like ozone, burnt carbon behind it, abrasive and caustic. But where Gary had expected someone stupid, Gwyn was clearly observing the situation, taking space for his thoughts, his evidently tumultuous emotions.

He’d responded to Temsen’s restraint, and he was reassessing.

Interesting, Gary thought.

It would have been easier to help Efnisien if his family were all idiots, hiring surgeons to do their idiotic surgeries.

‘Why are you here?’ Efnisien snapped. ‘You said you weren’t interested. What, couldn’t keep away?’

‘Shut the fuck up, bitch,’ Gwyn said, still looking around the room.

‘What, sad that you don’t have your favourite punching bag anymore?’

‘I still have my favourite punching bag,’ Gwyn said. ‘At the gym. You know, the one that can actually take a hit?’

Gary’s eyebrows lifted, he and Temsen shared a brief look.

‘What, you come down for a fight?’ Efnisien said. ‘You can’t find someone to hurt in the whole of Perth, so you have to drive down here? You’re that fucking pathetic?’

Gwyn took a step towards him, face darkening, and Gary thought it was amazing, the whole family dynamic playing out transparently and superficially right in front of him. No wonder Efnisien baited him constantly.

Temsen cleared his throat, and both Gwyn and Efnisien stopped like they’d realised they weren’t alone.

‘This is fascinating,’ Temsen said.

Gwyn turned and glared at him, and Efnisien folded his arms.

‘There’s no reason for him to be here,’ Efnisien said, ‘is there? You said he couldn’t take me back.’

‘You want to stay here?’ Gwyn said, incredulously. ‘You like it that much? Getting railed? God, no wonder Mum gave up on you.’

Efnisien paled, but he didn’t sit down again. He squared his feet and his shoulders.

‘They treat me like an alpha here.’

Gary winced internally. Ah, yes, he’d been meaning to tell Efnisien not to bring that up, he knew there was something he’d forgotten to do in the rush.

Well.

Too late now.

‘No they don’t,’ Gwyn said, laughing.

‘Yeah, they do. No one’s fucked me. No one. They give me ardolphogen here. They asked me what I wanted to do.’

‘They’re lying to you,’ Gwyn said. ‘Because your scent has definitely changed. There’s no way you’re getting as much ardolphogen.’

‘I can’t, because-’

Watching the directive in action was painful. Efnisien’s throat clenched, a reflex he couldn’t control, and his voice was trapped and then disappeared as he coughed violently. Efnisien was careful to avoid the involuntary reflexes if he could avoid it. Gary knew it had to hurt him.

‘Because Mum has access,’ Gwyn finished for him.

Temsen’s eyes lit up in triumph. He even turned to look to Gary. This was what they wanted. Information, history, more than Efnisien could give them, more than Crielle ferch Fnwy would give them.

‘Actually,’ Temsen said, in his most charming voice, ‘you could be an immense help to us. You’ve obviously gone to a lot of effort to come down here, the drive isn’t short, and you could provide information that would be invaluable to both Dr Gary and me.’

Gwyn looked between them both suspiciously, and then over at Efnisien again.

‘You serious? No one’s fucked you?’

‘No,’ Efnisien ground out, with a level of resistance Gary was almost proud to see, now that he wasn’t the one giving out the alpha persuasion. It also meant that even with a consistent dose of lowered ardolphogen, Efnisien had kept his ability to partially resist peak alpha persuasion. He still had to comply to a point, but it was clear he’d kept a hold of his mind, his thoughts.

‘Your scent is way off,’ Gwyn said. ‘They’re giving you less ardolphogen to make you go into heat. They’re lying to you. I looked this place up. They’re just being nicer to you with drugs and shit so that you’ll still be an omega eventually.’

The certainty on Efnisien’s face flickered, then vanished. Gary was frustrated, because he knew it wouldn’t take much, and Efnisien was shutting down.

‘It’s a long game,’ Gwyn said. ‘Think about it.’

Efnisien’s eyes shifted, like he wanted to look at Gary, or Temsen, but then he kept glaring at Gwyn.

Gary considered the duffel bag of clothes on the floor. What had inspired it? Had Gwyn kept thinking about it and then decided to do something kind? Or more likely, had he come down, unable to let go of having a convenient and attractive family member to mount on a regular basis?

‘Does she know you’re here?’ Efnisien said shakily.

‘No,’ Gwyn said, and then he laughed. ‘Are you kidding me? No. She doesn’t know. She thinks I’m on a day trip to Lancelin.’

‘She thinks you’re sandboarding,’ Efnisien said.

‘Yep.’ He turned to Gary, smirking. ‘She doesn’t want him back. You know that, right? You can do whatever you want with him.’

‘Oh, yes, I am aware,’ Gary said smoothly. ‘Crielle ferch Fnwy even went to the trouble of telling me Efnisien doesn’t even have a birth certificate. She wasn’t what I would call subtle.’

Gwyn didn’t seem to know what to say then, as though something about the whole situation took him aback all over again. He looked around the room one more time, and then looked over Gary, and Temsen, sizing them both up in a different way to before.

‘How many peak alphas are here, anyway?’ he said, abruptly.

‘Three,’ Gary said.

‘Fucked up,’ Gwyn said, desultory, and then his lips quirked. He tipped his head towards Efnisien. ‘Must remind you of home.’

Efnisien just stared at him.

‘And you’re not mounting him?’ Gwyn said, not looking away from Efnisien, obviously goading him as he addressed Gary and Temsen. ‘You’re missing out. What’s the point in working at a place like this if you’re not going to make the most of it?’

‘Mm.’ Temsen cleared his throat. ‘I believe you’re trying to imply that violence and rape are making the most of something?’

‘Interesting,’ Gary said.

‘To be fair,’ Temsen said lightly, tilting his head towards Gary, ‘we do know that immature peak alphas are satisfied with these things.’

‘Mm.’

‘I suppose you would believe raping him and being violent towards him is making the most of a situation,’ Temsen said.

‘I never raped him,’ Gwyn said. ‘That’s disgusting.’

‘Why?’ Gary said. ‘He’s an alpha. I should think that’s far less repellent than an omega.’

Gwyn laughed, the sound rough, his pheromones spiking. Gary looked towards Gwyn, but he focused his attention on Efnisien. Because this was the family that tried to raise him to be one thing, and then treated him like he could never be that thing. No wonder Efnisien hated omegas.

‘He’s my cousin,’ Gwyn said.

It didn’t stop you from mounting him.

But now wasn’t the time or the place.

Gary had to work hard to keep a lid on his own pheromones, his own rage, his own need to shove this peak alpha down to the place where he belonged. Immature peak alphas were especially loathsome. They cut a swathe through culture and people and could rarely be brought to heel.

Gwyn looked over to Efnisien again, annoyance crossing his face.

‘Why is he sick?’ Gwyn said. ‘He’s way sicker than normal. What are you doing to him?’

‘This is what we were hoping to get some help with,’ Temsen said smoothly. ‘If you’d just take a seat, we can all talk about it. Your information could be incredibly helpful to us.’

Gary was glad that the one having to slog through being charming to Gwyn was Temsen. Gary wasn’t sure he could have managed it.

But he did take the silent cue from Temsen to sit, and it was only then that Gwyn seemed to realise there were other chairs in the room. He took the one closest to Efnisien, though it didn’t put the boy within his reach, which was something.

The fallout from Efnisien after this meeting was going to be intense, Gary was sure. A tantrum? Destruction of property? Or Gary needing to stock his first aid kit with more gauze for the bites that Efnisien could deliver? Efnisien had to be experiencing a maelstrom of emotions.

Gwyn wasn’t quite as violent as Gary expected. Perhaps growing up around a peak alpha with status had given him a sense of self control. But he was used to doing whatever he liked to Efnisien. Gary suspected Gwyn had a complex bond with his cousin. If it was true he hadn’t outright raped him, and it was only the aggression and the mounting, and this strange concern he was showing now…

Gary didn’t think he could be reductive in this moment and assume Gwyn wanted his cousin sexually. Likely a melange of emotions and experiences had blended together there. After all, Gwyn had brought down Efnisien’s clothing without telling his mother. A part of him cared. A part of him was concerned.

They saw it sometimes in families, but Gary didn’t think he’d ever seen it in a peak alpha before.

‘What do you want?’ Gwyn said suspiciously.

‘Efnisien is under many directives,’ Temsen said quietly, as he sat in the other chair, closest to the door. ‘He cannot tell us about his own medical history, the types of medications he was taking, whether he has any allergies, or even the name of the surgeons who did his surgery.’

Gwyn’s hand came up to his mouth, his eyes flashed as he laughed. ‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘That’s hilarious.’

‘Is it?’ Temsen said.

‘She’s so fucking stupid,’ Gwyn said, to Gary’s shock. And then Gwyn looked over at Efnisien. ‘If she’d been smart about it, she would’ve just killed you.’

Efnisien stared at Gwyn and then nodded. ‘I don’t get any of it.’

‘You know her, she’s always had problems trashing her pet project while she’s still invested in the outcomes. She knows the project won’t work, but she also didn’t want a body in the grounds of An Fnwy estate.’

The acceptance on Efnisien’s face did something visceral to Gary’s skin and gut, electricity lancing over and through him.

‘God,’ Gwyn said, sighing. ‘I don’t want to deal with any of this. I just came to drop off the clothes.’

‘Could you at least tell us who the surgeons were, so we might talk to them?’ Temsen said.

‘The surgeons,’ Gwyn said, slowly, a look of amused incredulity on his face. Before he even got the next words out, Gary already had the horrific realisation, puzzle pieces slotting together to make an even more macabre picture than the one he’d had before. ‘She was the surgeon. My mum. She did all the surgeries. Efnisien’s never been to a hospital. Everything was done at home.’

The office was silent for some time, and then Gwyn laughed low, under his breath, and leaned back in the chair like the office belonged to him.

‘All the directives are hers,’ Gwyn said. ‘How have you not realised-? I would’ve thought you could’ve broken through the directives by now. Man…’ Gwyn looked at Efnisien, grinning. ‘Can’t even be an alpha, and now this. You must be having the greatest time.’

‘Do you know anything about the medications he was on?’ Temsen said, like he wasn’t affected at all by the information he’d received.

‘Nah,’ Gwyn said. ‘That shit’s boring. I knew about the ardolphogen because Mum developed the patented technique to like…mass produce it. And she owns that patent. But you can also smell it in him.’

Gwyn stuck a thumb out towards Efnisien without looking at him.

‘Do you know how early the surgeries started?’ Gary said. ‘The medications?’

‘Yeah,’ Gwyn said. ‘Well, not like the exact date. He was a baby. He was basically- Efnisien’s parents don’t care about him, except like a toy. They’re way worse than Mum.’

Efnisien’s expression was completely blank now, but he looked briefly resigned at what Gwyn had said, like it was true. Gary wondered if Efnisien would have done better with parents who didn’t care for him at all, than the one who wanted a science project and had no real skill at surgery.

‘Mum’s convinced if she can intervene early enough, with the right drugs, she can reverse someone’s birth designation. She was pretty convinced Efnisien would be like, the way forward, but it fell apart.’

‘Why?’ Temsen said.

Efnisien shifted in his chair, and Gary thought that perhaps looping Efnisien in on his own care at this specific moment in time, was not wise.

‘Because he’s an omega bitch,’ Gwyn said, cackling. And then when no one else laughed, he rolled his eyes. ‘Fuck knows. She said something about his hormones once, she was so mad.’

‘The sub-larentins,’ Temsen murmured to himself.

‘She just… I mean, knowing her, she probably wishes she had another baby to experiment on.’

Gary needed to look at the laws. Was it even legal? Acquiring someone else’s child wasn’t, but doing whatever you wanted to an omega within your own family? Had medical rights of the kind he needed ever been codified into Australian law? Medical experimentation was forbidden, but that was in the context of laboratories. If it had all happened at home... And he had to be careful what battles he picked here, because if he took on Crielle legally, Efnisien would be in the crossfire.

Out of everyone Efnisien had ever known, it was possible that Gwyn was the only one who had ever cared for him. And this was the kind of care he showed.

Already, Gary was mentally picking out the wine he was going to drink later.

‘Is she a qualified surgeon?’ Temsen asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Gwyn said. ‘I don’t really care. She’s a qualified medical doctor. But I don’t think she specialised in surgery. She’s all biochem and biochemical engineering. A dual medical doctor and engineering degree. That’s her wheelhouse.’

‘That explains a lot,’ Temsen said. ‘There were many novel chemicals and medicines in Efnisien’s system. We cannot give these to him. This is one of the reasons I believe he’s been unwell. And may I ask, did she hire staff to do his medical exams?’

Gary tensed, because while he’d put some things together quickly, it was only now he dreaded the answer to what Temsen had figured out earlier than him: Efnisien’s aunt had been performing those internal exams all along. The medical rape… it was incestuous in nature.

‘I mean some things,’ Gwyn said. ‘Mostly no. I wasn’t there for all of it, but she likes to be in control.’

She’s a peak alpha, Gary thought grimly.

And all this time, Efnisien couldn’t tell a soul about it, not even while he was going through it.

‘Are you really like…’ Gwyn said, and then shook his head slowly. ‘You can’t be serious, treating him like an alpha. He was never- He never made it; you know?’

‘He wants to be treated as an alpha,’ Temsen said, ‘and he doesn’t behave within the classic constellation of omega behaviours.’

‘So you’re like…indulging a mental illness then?’ Gwyn drawled. ‘Cool.’ And then, like he couldn’t help himself, he looked at Efnisien. ‘You just get fucked up wherever you go, huh? Maybe she should’ve just gotten you killed.’

‘Yeah, maybe,’ Efnisien said.

Gwyn didn’t seem to have expected the response. He didn’t laugh. He didn’t smirk. He stared at Efnisien for a while longer and then looked at his own hands. When he looked up again, the sense of power he had was still there, but it was more settled than before.

‘What’s the endgame here, guys?’ Gwyn said. Gary thought this, maybe, was what Gwyn might be like once he really matured into his power. Even Temsen was sitting straighter than before. ‘You know he’ll never be recognised as an alpha. He doesn’t smell right, for a start. Like, okay, he doesn’t smell full omega either, but you know if he lived out there, on his own… he has no identity, he has no birth certificate, he’s not a person, according to our government. Maybe you could get him those things, but those things are going to say he’s an omega. Because you know as well as I do that if you get a basic blood test done, what is he? A fucking omega.’

Gwyn looked over to Efnisien in a way that wasn’t condescending, wasn’t cruel, but pitying.

‘You could maybe get him matched to someone if you market him as a broken omega. You must know Mum’s not going to pay for this place forever. You could kill him, but if you haven’t done it yet, you probably have some kind of ethical backbone that I couldn’t give less of a shit about. That’s not my business. And like…what do you think she’s going to do if she finds out about all of this? She sent him here for omega rehabilitation, right? Not like, ‘pandering to someone’s delusions.’ What happens to him when she’s not paying anymore? She won’t take him back.’

To Gary’s surprise, Gwyn laughed at the silence that followed. He stood, stretched, and then – to Gary’s utter disbelief – flexed his arm, looked at his own muscles, and then looked at everyone else in the room.

‘He’s shit at being an alpha, he’s shit at being an omega, and he’ll never be a beta. If you want my advice, just give up on him.’

Efnisien was looking calmly up at Gwyn, but Gary knew it wasn’t true calm.

‘Give up on him,’ Temsen echoed, and then also stood. ‘That seems to be something even you find difficult, or I don’t think you would have driven many hours down here to bring your cousin his clothes without your mother knowing. That’s not the action of someone who’s given up on a family member.’

Gwyn opened his mouth, and Temsen smoothly cut across whatever he’d been about to say.

‘Still, you’ve given us some helpful information, and I am truly grateful, because we couldn’t have gotten it from Efnisien until his directives wore off. And I’m beginning to think that will take some time. Will you want to visit him again?’

‘Are you kidding me?’ Gwyn said. ‘No, man. Like…’

Gwyn turned and looked at Efnisien for a long time, both of them seeming to communicate something, and Gary wished he could put them both in a room and observe how they naturally interacted, except he knew he wouldn’t be able to stand by and watch Efnisien being mounted simply for speaking his mind.

‘You know,’ Gwyn said, turning back and looking at Gary this time, ‘it’s not easy, when you’re told to treat someone like an alpha, but you know they’re not that. The house has gotten a lot calmer since he’s been gone. Mum should’ve taken the L a long time ago, but she’s stubborn.’

‘Does she care about him at all?’ Gary couldn’t stop himself from asking.

‘In her own way,’ Gwyn said. ‘Like when you raise a plant that you know has had it, and you keep it lingering in your garden for a while, and then you dump it because you know it was just a bad fucking plant. Hillview’s just the garden that Efnisien’s allowed to linger in. But eventually, she’s going to want to get the situation sorted. Whatever you want to do with that information is up to you. If it was me, I’d get it over and done with. You think she was bad to him, right? I can tell. You do not want to see what she’s like to businesses she’s had enough of. Because they’re not family, and she can do whatever the fuck she wants.’

With those chilling words, Gwyn walked out, closing the door behind him.

Chapter Text

Gary

*

Efnisien didn’t move or talk when Temsen left to escort Gwyn off the property. Gary thought about saying something, but he wasn’t sure Efnisien would hear him. And Gary was sitting in his own shock, staring at the duffel bag Gwyn had left behind. Finally he stood and walked over and unzipped it, making sure there were no nasty surprises inside.

It was all just…clothing. The chemical reek inside was so strong that Gary realised Efnisien had sweated into all of it over time, a stark reminder that even now, with as many pills as he was taking, he didn’t smell like this anymore.

Gary zipped the duffel bag back up and looked at Efnisien, who dully watched him.

He’d found time to research post-traumatic stress in alphas, even found time to research Efnisien’s exam results properly. Efnisien was far ahead on raw literacy and maths but began to fall down in areas relating to nuanced analysis. He was still better than Gary expected, but he thought it was a crime that his family hadn’t let him access any kind of formal education. It was no doubt deliberate, to keep him unaware of the horrors of what they were regularly putting him through.

Gary had been deliberately not thinking about Efnisien’s aunt putting her fingers inside of him, or her hand, or a scalpel, or whatever else she’d done. Every time he came close to imagining it, his chest tightened, a rage so strong he was going to end up hurting someone.

‘We’ll have to find a place for these,’ he said. ‘And the rest of your clothing. I could probably stand to donate some of my own to make space.’

Efnisien just blinked at him, and then shivered. He looked unwell.

He’d looked unwell even before Gwyn had visited. Gary needed to get him home.

Temsen returned about twenty minutes later, looked at Efnisien, and then instead of examining him, beckoned Gary outside of his office and closed the door so Efnisien wouldn’t hear the conversation.

‘What is it?’ Gary said.

‘I think he might visit again,’ Temsen said. ‘The cousin. I think he’s coped with the situation all his life by dehumanising Efnisien – it’s what he was encouraged to do – but if he’s here with the clothing, a part of him is at least curious about what’s happening to him.’

‘He’s largely repellent.’

‘Horrid,’ Temsen agreed. ‘And unsafe to be around Efnisien without supervision.’

‘I’m going to offer a rebuttal and say he’s just wholly unsafe to be around Efnisien.’

Temsen pressed his lips together and then nodded and looked towards the closed door.

‘Efnisien may be going into heat,’ Temsen said.

It took a few seconds for Gary to process the words, then he leaned back against the wall and sighed.

‘I see,’ he said.

‘Gary, we have no idea what to expect. I don’t think you should be treating this like a classic omega heat. And he could get very sick. Heats are rather extreme hormonal events even for healthy omegas. We have no idea how it’s going to impact someone with his physiology. I’d like you to keep monitoring him. He’s- He may need a lot of touch.’

‘Sexual?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Temsen said slowly, ‘but I’m not sure. Could you even provide it?’

Gary didn’t want to be talking about this so soon after Gwyn leaving.

‘We did to him what his aunt did to him,’ Gary said. ‘Here I thought it was at least a hired surgeon, perhaps coming to the house. But it wasn’t like that at all.’

‘Yes,’ Temsen said. And then, calmly and politely, but with a hard look in his eyes that would be terrifying to nearly anyone else, he said: ‘I think I’d like to kill her.’

‘I can’t let myself think about it.’

‘Mmhm. I can’t indulge it either. I’ve seen things like this, Gary, during my training, but not… Nothing quite like this. Not in a family home, not to family.’

‘What did you think of Gwyn talking about the endgame of all of this? This has to be something you’ve considered as well.’

‘Yes,’ Temsen said. ‘But it’s a question we can’t answer right now. We must wait and see where Efnisien leads us. This is his journey too, not one we solely map out for him. We might need to place signposts for him now, but he’ll make his own, and one day, he’ll place most of them himself.’

‘It’s that easy for you, is it?’

Temsen’s smile was brittle. ‘Easy? Medical experimentation on omegas is against the law – though whether it is in this context is something I will investigate. There are a lot of things we see that are still completely legal, from the treatment of omegas in most other rehabilitation centres, to spousal rape and abuse. Medical experimentation turns my stomach at the best of times. That boy is, understandably, very wary and suspicious around me. I regularly handle some of the items used to torture him. Though I was surprised at how freely he talked, given the directives he’s been under. I recorded our conversation; I’ll listen to it again later.’

‘May I listen?’

‘No,’ Temsen said. ‘I don’t think you need to hear anything beyond my conclusion that he might be experiencing some kind of heat. Talk to him, instead.’

‘He’s nonverbal right now.’

‘He trusts you; I think more than anyone else he’s ever trusted. It’s not complete trust, and he may never feel completely safe, but it’s still significant. Use it. And as to everything else… Damn, I forgot to check your heart. I don’t have the time to do it now. I have meetings.’

‘My meetings?’ Gary said curiously.

‘My meetings now,’ Temsen said, a hint of his need for power slipping through. ‘Go home, Gary. Take him with you. I’ll text you with a list of symptoms to look out for, but if you’re concerned, get me. At the very least, I may be able to provide some pain relief.’

‘Pain relief?’ Gary said, perplexed.

‘I think… I can’t say for certain, but if he has the cramps with no lare glands to produce slick… We just don’t know. Perhaps it will be fine. What a mess. Go home, Gary. Hillview still needs you, but he needs you more. And get some rest. If you can make Efnisien sleep, do it. Rest his body at the very least because his mind isn’t prone to relaxation.’

Gary laughed under his breath. ‘That seems to be a chronic condition at Hillview.’

Temsen just smiled at him, a warm, friendly gesture, before he pointed at Gary’s office. ‘Go on, get him out, that’s where I’m working at the moment.’

‘Of course,’ Gary said, resisting the anger at every one of his spaces eroding away, even though it hammered at him anyway.

‘It’s not forever,’ Temsen said. ‘Remember that. And going home is what you need too. Control, remember?’

‘Stop talking, Temsen, you’re making it worse.’

‘Yes, I suspect I am. I’m distracted, I keep thinking of how I’d kill a peak alpha.’

‘Yes, well,’ Gary said, and then he laughed. Temsen joined him. They both knew their anger was prickling not because they were truly annoyed at the other, but because the existence of Crielle ferch Fnwy was something they could no longer ignore.

*

Efnisien stayed nonverbal, and worse, he was completely off his food. Gary stopped short of using alpha persuasion on him, because after the day they’d both had, he didn’t think it would be welcome.

Efnisien was drinking water at least. Going to the toilet. He didn’t seem to be simmering with pent up rage, but Gary wasn’t sure he’d be able to tell even if he was. Efnisien could play his emotions close to the chest if he wanted to. Though right now, he didn’t seem to be trying. He looked lost, he looked like he’d retreated to some distant, nameless place, and had set up camp in some room in his mind.

Gary managed to get him to sleep for a few more hours, but the sleep was restless. Gary heard him tossing and turning, murmuring under his breath, even where he sat working at his laptop down the hall, looking over his supervisor notes. It did seem like a nascent heat, but it could just as easily be something around the medications.

When dinner arrived, Gary woke Efnisien up, and he was mussy-haired and bleary-eyed and his fever seemed the same. He sat down at the table and Gary could already tell he had no intention of eating, even when he set bread rolls in front of Efnisien.

For all that Efnisien had been raised on protein, he’d started gravitating towards a greater variety of foods, but he seemed especially fond of warm bread rolls. Gary had realised he could get Efnisien to eat nearly anything if there were warm bread rolls.

Perhaps he’d like pancakes more often…

‘You have to eat, you need food for those meds,’ Gary said.

Efnisien nodded and ate nothing.

Gary’s teeth clenched.

For all that Temsen said it was easy enough to think of Efnisien as an alpha, Gary still stumbled over it, because he was liable to be harsher with alphas who’d spent personal time with him – like this – than he was with Efnisien. He was more tactile, he grabbed them and touched them and didn’t let them forget his presence. He wasn’t by nature particularly gentle, and he sensed that Efnisien needed something…less invasive.

But that was with alphas he was attracted to, and Efnisien was something else.

What would Temsen tell him to do? Probably mention some key words like control and then vanish.

Gary wondered how often Efnisien was awake for those medical exams with his aunt. How often he heard her voice, or worse, her directives and alpha persuasion, while her fingers were inside of him. How often he reeked of fear, how little she cared about it.

Abruptly, he stood and walked away from the table, aware of Efnisien’s eyes on his back. A few short breaths, and he looked back at Efnisien, who had already looked away and was doing an excellent job of staring numbly at nothing.

This was insufferable.

Without another word, Gary picked up the plates from the table and brought them over to the counter. Polly milled around hopefully, as though Gary would hand her an entire plate of roast beef, vegetables, and Yorkshire pudding. He covered the food and put it in the fridge. Maybe it could be reheated later.

‘Put your shoes on,’ Gary said. ‘We’re going out.’

It was frustrating when Efnisien just walked over to where his shoes were, picked them up, and then brought them over to the couch. He sat down and put them on and didn’t express surprise that his dinner was being interrupted, that he’d be missing his meds.

Efnisien was responding like an omega. The docility was not what Gary wanted. It had informed his swift exit from training to become an omega companion. He couldn’t take it. All these omegas living in their heads because the world had crushed them into nothingness. But even a spirited omega – like Flitmouse – never fired up in the same way Efnisien did.

Gwyn had goaded Efnisien repeatedly before. Efnisien had started out fiery, and it was obvious their altercations became physical quickly by the way Efnisien fought back. No wonder they were fighting so often, no wonder there was so much violence. That was someone who had never learned to back down even when he knew he couldn’t win, probably because if Efnisien truly backed down, he would have given up on life a long time ago. Every odd was stacked against him, and all he had left was that spiteful, angry willpower.

Gary missed it, and he didn’t like this flavour of despair and emptiness he was seeing instead. Perhaps it was just a healthy level of dissociation, but it rankled.

‘Get one of the winter coats,’ Gary said.

Efnisien followed the order once his shoes were on. He said nothing. There wasn’t even a flash of mean-spirited dislike or hatred in his eyes.

How dare you let Gwyn get to you like this, Gary thought, which was immature and not helpful, because it wasn’t Efnisien’s fault. It wasn’t his fault that Gwyn had visited, it wasn’t his fault Gary and Temsen had let him into the facility because they were far more interested in getting Efnisien’s medical history than they were in his immediate wellbeing. It wasn’t Efnisien’s fault Gwyn had taunted him, told him that Crielle might still kill him, called him an omega bitch, questioned his future in a way that even played on Gary’s mind.

But he didn’t have Gwyn or Crielle with him, he had Efnisien, and Gary was itching inside of himself, because the only person Efnisien should be giving up control to was Gary, and not his useless damned family.

He shepherded Efnisien outside, and Polly followed. She barked at a particularly strong gust of wind. It was cold, too cold for this.

They walked down to the beach, Gary keeping a hand at the small of Efnisien’s back. He didn’t even look up to see the kangaroos. He kept his head down and barely paid attention to what they were doing.

Polly ran everywhere, probably to keep her aging legs warm. He’d have to put down some extra blankets for her that evening.

Efnisien stumbled a little when they reached the soft sand. It either packed beneath their footsteps, or sank suddenly, making walking uneven. Gary heard the crashing of the sea. The tide might be coming in.

A shoreline this beautiful would have a road alongside it up in Perth or any other major city. It would have cafes and restaurants, and streetlights always keeping the beach a little brighter. It would have signs saying whether or not it allowed dogs, perhaps some red and yellow flags that lifeguard and lifesavers had put up, indicating where it was safe to swim. At night, there might be revellers getting drunk on the sand, laughing and living their best lives, because even in winter, Perth didn’t experience snow, and folks made the most of the abundant beaches.

But here the night and water were only faintly lit by the stars. The sand was disturbed more by the footsteps of seagulls and foxes and rabbits and kangaroos than other people, though they’d meet the occasional line of divots in the sand from Temsen, or some of the other Hillview occupants.

Efnisien numbly walked through all of it. His first time on the beach, and he wasn’t even seeing it.

Gary was furious. Efnisien was so dazed he didn’t even seem to notice. Normally he reacted strongly to Gary’s anger. Today…nothing.

When they were close enough, Gary knelt down and undid the shoelaces of Efnisien’s shoes. He took his socks off, one by one, and Efnisien made a faint sound that was swallowed up by the wind when his foot hit the cold, cold sand.

It wasn’t enough.

So Gary walked them both to the very edge of the waterline, while the ocean was retreating. He waited there, taking huge breaths of the fresh oxygen-rich air, because the sea produced more oxygen than most forests could dream to.

Not the next wave, or the next, or the one after that. Enough that Gary started to wonder if the tide was going out.

But then one bigger wave, more aggressive than the rest, and Gary’s shoes and the hems of his trousers were covered in salt water and knew – through Efnisien’s coat-covered back – when Efnisien actually felt something.

Efnisien shrieked, tried to jerk backwards, and Gary kept his hand at Efnisien’s back, staying close.

Efnisien rounded on him, the movement sharp, not dulled like before.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’

‘Oh?’ Gary said, looking down at Efnisien, heart pounding fast enough that a distant thought reminded him to talk to Temsen about it. ‘Back with us, are you?’

‘Are you fucking mental? What the fuck is wrong with you?!’

Efnisien bared his teeth and lunged, both fists coming up and pounding into Gary’s chest, and all Gary felt was relief.

This.

This was better. Efnisien was alive again, and that was all that mattered.  

Chapter Text

Efnisien

*

Efnisien had vanished into his own mind, it was almost comforting, except now he was standing on the beach and his feet were fucking freezing, and Gary was standing there like he wasn’t the most insane person on the planet for dragging him down here.

‘What the fuck!?’ Efnisien screamed at him, then struck Gary hard enough that the peak alpha grunted. So Efnisien doubled down and aimed for his gut next, then roared when Gary caught his wrists effortlessly.

But Gary did not stumble gracefully back when Efnisien kicked him viciously in the shin. Efnisien was dragged along with him because Gary wouldn’t let go. They both found new footing as another wave smashed over Efnisien’s cold ankles.

He still felt feverish, he was chilled and warm at the same time. He felt gross. He’d had to sit in that office while Gwyn talked like that to all of them and wonder if he was going to go through his first heat. Even the word pissed him off. Heat. Like what animals did. It was visceral and horrible.

Efnisien didn’t want it to be possible.

Now, convinced he’d be better off dead than dealing with any of this, he was furious at Gary’s audacity, because who did this? Who did any of this?

They both fell at the same time, Gary somehow getting his hand behind Efnisien’s head and turning them, so Efnisien didn’t take the brunt of the fall.

Efnisien opened his mouth and before he could sink his teeth into Gary’s throat, a hand was over it, clutching meanly enough at his jaw that it fucking hurt.

‘You are not going to try and kill me,’ Gary said blandly.

Efnisien blinked at him, cheeks and jaw sore. He’d been about to try and tear Gary’s neck open.

‘Take a breath for me,’ Gary said. ‘Go on, ocean air is refreshing.’

Efnisien made an outraged sound behind closed teeth. He couldn’t believe it, but Gary’s eyes gleamed with something like amusement.

Efnisien struggled again, hard enough that he got Gary’s fingers free of his face. His teeth snapped, but Gary jerked his hand out of the way and brought it down on Efnisien’s throat. His palm slid quickly behind Efnisien’s neck, fingernails digging into scar tissue. Pain blazed, shooting up into the back of his head, down into the back of his neck.

‘Fuck you!’ Efnisien shouted. ‘Fuck you! You know it hurts!’

‘You’re not the only one capable of playing dirty,’ Gary said, his voice snatched up in pieces by a rough gale that hit both of them.

Efnisien tried to twist away from the pressure. He threw his head upwards, trying to headbutt the owner of Hillview, because he was a cunt.

Gary was too fast for him, and Efnisien screamed again, getting a hand in Gary’s hair and yanking hard enough that the man swore. And then – far faster than Efnisien could comprehend – the hand at the back of his neck slid up to his hair in retaliation and pulled hard, pinning Efnisien on his side, smashing his face into the sand.

‘Take a breath for me,’ Gary said calmly.

‘I’ll kill you,’ Efnisien cried. ‘I’ll kill you!’

Efnisien’s legs lashing out, making contact, and Gary’s teeth baring in response. Gary kept one hand in his hair, the other on his ribs, pinning him, and then straddled his thighs.

Efnisien felt it like electricity. It wasn’t quite mounting. Efnisien was on his side, and Gary was on his thighs and not his lower back or ass, but it was confusing and confronting. Efnisien stared at another wave coming towards them, not quite reaching them, and he opened his mouth and keened, slamming his one free hand into Gary’s chest.

Gary bent down, and Efnisien shuddered when heard that voice by his ear: ‘I will use alpha persuasion on you.’

Efnisien managed to scrape his fingers across Gary’s jaw, the movement awkward, but it made him jerk out of range at least.

‘That’s because you’re a fucking psychopath,’ Efnisien snarled, feeling miserable.

The whole day had been so miserable.

‘Really?’ Gary said. ‘Not your cousin?’

‘No!’ Efnisien shouted.

‘Not your family?’

‘No!’

‘Not your aunt, who mutilated you from birth?’

Efnisien managed to get something almost like language out of his mouth, he was so angry he had no idea what swear words he said, putting in effort he didn’t know he had left into snapping and whipping his head back and forth until some hair came free.

‘Fuck you,’ Efnisien hissed, as Gary swore under his breath. ‘Fuck you, fuck you.’

A hand in front of his mouth, like a gift, and Efnisien lunged for it, snapping his teeth down into the side of Gary’s hand, and he was so out of it he didn’t hear the peak alpha until he was already folded close to his chest.

‘There,’ Gary said. ‘There we go. That’s better, isn’t it? That’s better. Are you going to calm down now?’

Efnisien tried to get a knee into Gary’s gut, but he was on the soft sand, it was cold, they were both rugged up, he was exhausted.

‘Calm down,’ Gary said. ‘Come on.’

Efnisien tasted blood in his mouth, his breathing hiccupped, and he swallowed automatically. His head ached, there were sharp stinging sensations where some of his hair had pulled out. He felt bad. But as angry as he was at Gary, he didn’t want to leave, either.

I’m not going into heat, he wanted to cry. It couldn’t be true. Crielle wasn’t going to kill him. Gwyn wasn’t right about Efnisien having no real options now. None of it could be true.

Polly ran over to them, Efnisien hearing her breathing. He felt a warm wet lick on his fingers, and he gasped, teeth coming free from Gary’s hand.

‘She’s tasting me!’ Efnisien said, cringing away.

Gary had two arms around him now, he sounded a little out of breath. Well. Good.

Polly was still close, and Efnisien risked looking down at her, while Gary sighed.

‘She’s not tasting you, that’s- She’s showing affection. Wolves will lick each other’s muzzles in appeasement. It’s a bonding activity.’

The absurdity of the whole situation struck him, and he sagged heavily, Gary’s arms strengthening in response. Gary was warm in a different way to Efnisien’s feverish heat. The fabric of his coat was rough but nice. Efnisien gasped for air, like all the activity was only just now catching up with him.

‘There we go,’ Gary said softly, in a voice that was unfair, ‘that’s it. We’ll go back soon.’

Efnisien licked blood off his teeth and hated himself for feeling sorry for Gary. Hated himself for existing. He wanted to go back to the place where he didn’t have to think about anything at all.

But like this, in Gary’s arms, both of them kneeling on the cold sand – Efnisien’s knees weak and sore – he didn’t want to move.

Efnisien yelped when Polly stuck her head between their bellies, and then she just stood there, like she belonged with them. Efnisien kept imagining a flash of teeth, something ripping apart his gut, but the only one there who kept doing damage by biting was him.

Gary’s hand was probably bleeding on Efnisien’s clothing.

Damn it. Damn it. Fucking goddamn this whole place. All of it. Every second of it.

Even the part where Polly’s head was warm too, and furry, and even though Efnisien wasn’t touching her, he knew she’d be soft.

‘Polly, you certainly do pick your moments,’ Gary said.

Efnisien would rather be talked to the way Gary talked to Polly – like a dog – than the way Gwyn talked to him.

‘She won’t…bite me?’ Efnisien risked asking.

‘No,’ Gary said.

‘You let me bite you,’ Efnisien said shakily.

‘Yes,’ Gary said.

‘It’s not a solution.’

‘Efnisien, I have no easy solutions for what you’re living through,’ Gary said, his voice a thoughtful counterpart to the cold, angry wind around them. ‘But I still have some tricks up my sleeve.’

Efnisien opened his eyes and stared out at the blurry night, and closed them again. He felt sick. He didn’t want to eat. He knew he had to take his meds. He wished he could have a protein shake. He might be able to stomach one of those.

Maybe I’m dying.

It was a few minutes later that Gary carefully stood, lifting Efnisien with him. And Efnisien realised how weak he’d become when he struggled to get his feet under him. But Gary was patient, and Efnisien figured it out, and then they slowly walked back across the sand.

Efnisien stopped.

‘What is it?’ Gary said.

Efnisien turned slightly and looked past Gary’s body to the Indian Ocean. He looked around, blinking, at all the white sand, and the surf, and the sea that was black under the night sky, and the silvery grasses that shivered delicately with the wind.

The beach. The sea. The ocean. All of it. Efnisien didn’t have words for how it felt to see it and experience it. He’d not even realised, really, what was happening to him. It felt as distant as the street-view on his maps app did sometimes.

The sand was real beneath his bare feet. Gary had one arm firmly around Efnisien and was carrying Efnisien’s shoes and socks in his other hand. The cold was real. The ocean was real. Had felt way too fucking real. Everything smelled fresh.

‘There’s no shells,’ Efnisien said. ‘I thought beaches had more shells.’

‘It depends on the time of year,’ Gary said, like the change in subject was completely normal. ‘But if we head that way…’ Gary pointed down the shoreline with Efnisien’s shoes, ‘there’s more shells and more seaweed. This stretch of beach doesn’t get much of either unless it’s after a storm. On the upside, it means this beach doesn’t reek of dead seaweed during summer.’

‘Don’t make me eat,’ Efnisien said.

Gary was silent, then he jostled Efnisien gently and they started walking again.

‘At least try for me,’ he said, once they reached the grass, which was somehow warmer beneath Efnisien’s feet. ‘Temsen might kill me, once he finds out what I’ve done.’

They made it back to Gary’s home, and as he opened the door, Polly ran in first, then shook her body all over before running straight into the kitchen.

Gary encouraged Efnisien down the corridor into the bathroom. Once there, he turned the shower on, testing the water.

‘You should at least warm up your feet,’ Gary said, ‘and get the sand off. I’ll do the same after you.’

Efnisien nodded. He stared at the wound on Gary’s hand. And Gary seemed to realise, because he turned it this way and that, getting a better look at in the light. It was dark with blood.

‘You’ve certainly got the teeth of an alpha,’ Gary said finally, lips quirking.

Efnisien stared at him, and Gary stared back.

‘Don’t go nonverbal on me again,’ Gary said. ‘I’ll take you right back out to that beach.’

Efnisien believed him. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say.’

He winced as a cramp overtook his gut, spreading from his pelvis across his body, radiating up to his chest, so that the next few breaths were tight and painful. Gary watched him, and Efnisien didn’t know what to say about this either.

In the end, he took his jeans off while Gary was there, because he wanted to get his feet warm more than he cared about privacy. He stuck his bare foot beneath the cold spray, clinging onto the shower door, hissing as his skin felt like it was being scalded. But in a minute the burning sensation turned to tingling, then finally to a welcome warmth.

‘Shouldn’t you clean your hand?’ Efnisien said, staring at the white sand on the tiles where it had fallen.

‘I haven’t caught an infection from you yet,’ Gary said.

They stood there in silence after that, something strangely domestic about the whole situation. Gary leaning against the bathroom counter, and Efnisien warming up his feet and then standing on the fluffy bathmat, feeling weird and unwell, but somehow better because Gary was there.

You’re going into heat, a mean little voice reminded him.

Just like that, Efnisien felt sick all over again, and wished he could vanish from his mind not for a few hours, but for good.

Chapter Text

Efnisien

*

Efnisien slept poorly, tossing and turning, his fever getting worse. When he woke past midnight, Gary was sitting up in the bed and already watching him, looking troubled.

‘‘M dying,’ Efnisien breathed.

Gary got out of bed without a word, navigating his room easily in the dark. He opened the curtains and then the window, and the cool breeze was a balm, though Efnisien could imagine just how intense it would feel if he was outside.

‘Stay there,’ Gary said.

He walked down the hall, and Efnisien shivered, the sheets were damp beneath him.

When Gary came back, he placed a cool cloth against Efnisien’s forehead, then used the ear thermometer to check his temperature. Efnisien tried to tell himself he didn’t want Gary next to him, but he did. Just having him close helped, though the cramps were still vicious and mean.

He’d managed to eat one bread roll, and Gary had tried coaxing him into eating more, and then sighed and gave in, letting Efnisien have all his pills on the back of that alone. Efnisien tried to cling to the thought that maybe he felt so awful because he had all of those tablets on a mostly empty stomach. But he used to have more tablets with only a protein shake in his gut most of the time, and while he was often ill back home, he didn’t remember feeling like this.

‘You did this,’ Efnisien breathed, ‘because you…dumb fucking- Took me to the- Got me wet at the ocean.’

Efnisien was talking between breaths, couldn’t keep track of his thoughts. When Gary placed a hand on Efnisien’s chest, he shuddered. He resisted slumping into the touch.

‘If you fuck me, I’ll kill everyone.’

‘Do you want to be fucked?’ Gary asked.

‘No.’

It was true. That, at least, was true. And he didn’t know if Gary believed him, he didn’t even think Gary would listen to him. But the hand didn’t move away from his chest, and Efnisien closed his eyes because the breeze and the damp flannel on his forehead were helping.

‘Do you want some water?’ Gary asked.

‘Maybe in a bit,’ Efnisien managed. ‘I’m- It’s not… Temsen’s wrong.’

‘All right,’ Gary said. ‘Well, if you were in a proper heat, you’d probably want the sex, even if you didn’t cognitively want it. I believe you, that you don’t want it.’

‘You find omegas gross anyway,’ Efnisien said, hoping to sell the point to him that he didn’t want to have anything to do with Efnisien’s body.

‘It’s a good thing you’re an alpha, then.’

Efnisien forced his eyes open, and had the strangest sense of being in quicksand, falling and falling while Gary kept that hand on his chest and sat next to him on the bed, while the breeze fanned the curtains back and forth in waves.

‘I can tell it helps when I touch you,’ Gary said.

Efnisien really did hate him sometimes. Hated the way he just knew shit like this. Hated him because he found the truth and then spoke it, which felt so audacious to Efnisien, and dangerous too. Gary was the most dangerous person he’d ever met. Even if he wasn’t moving.

Efnisien had to look away. He’d managed the eye contact for so long only because he was so fucking out of it.

‘So?’ Efnisien said.

Great retort, real witty.

‘So,’ Gary said quietly, ‘I can touch you without fucking you.’

‘I could be dying,’ Efnisien said again. ‘No one seems to care. You all think it’s a heat.’

‘What do you want to do, Efnisien? I can wake Temsen. We can even get you into a hospital. I’m concerned how they’ll treat you once they find out your lare and Kaeper glands are missing. You’re off your food, running a constant low-grade fever, and you respond well to touch. And…your cousin was right; your scent is different.’

‘Different.’

‘All of those things combined…along with your age, the adjustment in the ardolphogen, and the sub-larentin levels…’

‘Don’t say it,’ Efnisien breathed.

He thought Gary would wield it like a sledgehammer. No wonder he never needed to hit anyone. He just spoke and levelled people at the knees.

‘I won’t say it,’ Gary said. His thumb stroked back and forth over Efnisien’s sternum, and Efnisien hated the way he sighed bodily in response. He was so tired. His eyes closed again. He thought they’d keep talking, but Efnisien fell asleep again to that thumb moving back and forth, and the ocean breeze, the scent of wood shavings and tannins, the sound of the trees outside, and coolness on his burning forehead.

He was almost, almost, comfortable.

*

He woke in the morning to the cramps worsening, and ran to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. It wasn’t normal. The cramps weren’t his normal cramps. They started in his pelvis like a heavy, tugging weight, something inside of him wanted to pull apart or clench up tight like a stone, back and forth the sensations went, griping through him.

He was exhausted at the end, slumping back against the toilet, sucking down breaths of air. It took a while before he was able to finish up and wash his hands and then his face. His cheeks were flushed red, his neck too, and he kept wondering where Gary was.

Did he want to be fucked? No.

That was the fear though, wasn’t it? That he’d not want it, and then for some reason beyond his understanding he’d start begging for it. He knew it happened.

How could he be an alpha if this was happening?

A metal bowl on the bathroom counter with some rolled up handtowels in it. One was missing, probably the one Efnisien had on his forehead the night before.

Efnisien emptied out the metal bowl and lifted it, intending to smash the mirror. But at the last moment, weakly, he held himself back and shook from the need to destroy something.

That was how Gary found him when he opened the bathroom door minutes later. Efnisien leaning heavily over the bathroom counter, metal bowl in one hand, all the neat handtowels on the floor. 

‘I was going to break your mirror,’ Efnisien said.

Gary walked over calmly and took the bowl out of his hand. ‘I’m grateful you didn’t. Talk to me about what’s happening.’

‘I hate you,’ Efnisien said.

‘Could you tell me something new?’

Efnisien stared at him balefully in the mirror.

‘Well, you need to eat something,’ Gary said.

Efnisien grimaced, he couldn’t think of anything worse. He knew he wouldn’t be able to keep anything down. Fuck, probably not even the meds.

‘I’ll throw up,’ Efnisien said finally. ‘I just know it.’

Gary grimaced. Maybe out of distaste. Efnisien thought of the way Gwyn had said Efnisien wasn’t even a person, and today it seemed like they were just keeping Efnisien alive because he was some fascinating medical anomaly. He was so fucking sick of it. So fucking sick of being a novelty to them.

Gary stepped closer to him, and Efnisien tried to angle his body away when a possessive hand came down on his waist.

Efnisien turned and bared his teeth.

‘I know,’ Gary said, before Efnisien could even open his mouth and deliver the threat. The words were calm and sure. ‘I know.’

‘You don’t.’

‘I know that too,’ Gary said.

He exerted some pressure through his fingers, and Efnisien resisted, even though all he wanted was to be brought closer to Gary’s body.

‘I’m not turned on,’ Efnisien said. That was true. His dick wasn’t hard or anything.

‘I believe you.’

Efnisien clung to those words as hard as he could. I believe you. There was nothing to stop Gary from stripping him and fucking him right here and then saying it was the heat, the hormones, and he couldn’t help it. Hell, he could even say he did it because he wanted to, because he could, and no one would say a thing against him.

Except maybe Anton.

‘Is my scent really that different?’ Efnisien said desperately.

‘It had already changed,’ Gary said. ‘Before this. Before now. The lack of ardolphogen and the other chemicals has already altered your scent. You’re remembering what Gwyn said?’

That hand exerting more pressure, and Efnisien shuddered and inched closer to Gary’s body, then forced himself to stop. He felt dizzy now, and his head dropped forwards as he breathed through the room spinning.

‘Efnisien,’ Gary said.

‘This can’t be happening,’ Efnisien muttered as a new wave of sweat broke out over his body, making him feel disgusting all over again. It was like the medication withdrawals in those first two or three days at Hillview, but worse. Lancing sensations moving up and down his legs, more of that heaviness in his pelvis.

It was getting harder and harder to believe it was the meds killing him. He just hoped they were.

‘Do you want to lie down? I could have…extra blankets brought over.’

That brought some clarity. Efnisien stood, made a short sound in his throat at the vertigo, and shoved Gary at the same time. He stepped backwards.

‘No, I’m not nest-’

The room swung sideways, and Efnisien flailed, and then Gary was close, two arms around him, always catching him.

‘I’ve never…wanted to do that,’ Efnisien said. ‘Because I’m not a fucking omega.’

‘All right,’ Gary said, placing a hand in Efnisien’s hair. His fingers paused, then moved closer to his scalp, and Efnisien knew he was checking how sweaty he was. ‘Come with me. We’re going into the lounge.’

‘No,’ Efnisien said, as Gary shepherded him down the hall. ‘I’m not going.’

‘All right,’ Gary said, acknowledging him, ignoring him. Efnisien wanted to close his eyes. Gary seemed like he knew what he was doing. Like he had the answers. And in lieu of stopping this whole nightmare outright, Efnisien wanted to feel like someone understood what was happening.

Gary drew Efnisien over to the couch, then laid down first, on his back, shoulders against the armrest and one hand around Efnisien’s wrist. He moved the cushions behind him and then swiftly yanked Efnisien towards him.

The dizziness was bad enough that Efnisien fell on top of him, making a sound of surprise, even as he struggled to push back up again. This was way different to what they’d done in the past, when Efnisien had just leaned against him on the couch.

‘Straddle me,’ Gary said firmly.

‘No,’ Efnisien hissed.

His knees buckled as he was halfway through getting up from the couch, as another wave of those heavy, mean cramps slammed into him. It felt like his organs were trying to evert themselves. He gasped, only partly aware – partly struggling – as Gary reached up and manhandled him into position.

‘I know,’ Gary said, his voice more soothing than before.

Efnisien could’ve screamed, but his head was foggy and wrong, dully panicking, because maybe he was dying.

Efnisien’s knees were either side of Gary’s waist, and Gary had one hand at Efnisien’s shirt, pulling him down until their chests touched. Everything was too warm, too hot, and Efnisien trembled through another wave of those sensations. Except this time, they didn’t hurt like before. It was all intensity, it ruined his ability to think, but it wasn’t as miserable as before.

Though it wasn’t great, either.

‘I don’t want to fuck you,’ Efnisien managed, in a moment of clarity.

‘So we’re not fucking,’ Gary said. ‘No, no, don’t push up. Stay down like this. Trust me.’

‘Trust you.’

A strangling coiling thing inside his lower gut, a cyclone ruining him from the inside out, and he ducked his head down and his throat stoppered up the keen he’d been about to make.

‘Jesus,’ Gary muttered. ‘Jesus, hang on. I’m calling Temsen.’

Efnisien didn’t care what he did. The position helped. Somehow, he knew it helped. He didn’t understand why. But it didn’t help enough. He felt sore inside. The place where he’d had the surgery inside of him, where Kent had touched him, where Crielle and some of the staff had touched him, it fucking hurt. It felt like something was wrong there, like knives were growing into all of his sensitive places.

‘…I have him straddling me,’ Gary was saying into the phone. ‘But he’s in pain. I can smell it.’

Efnisien didn’t know pain had a scent.

Could Crielle smell it?

‘I don’t know if he’ll like that,’ Gary said.

Efnisien would have laughed, because Temsen was probably saying something like, ‘Fuck him, already.’

Efnisien knew if anything touched that area inside him, he’d scream and never be able to stop. The lare glands that Crielle took away, Efnisien didn’t understand how an area where something had been removed could hurt, because weren’t the things gone that would cause the pain in the first place? It was like when she took the Kaeper glands out of the back of his neck, and suddenly he had pain in a place that was fine before.

‘Okay,’ Gary was saying, Efnisien had no idea how much conversation had happened in the spaces where he was focusing on his gut and hearing only the clamour in his head. ‘No, that’s probably the safest option. But I still think we need pain intervention… Yes. Yes, you could be right.’

‘Right about what?’ Efnisien mumbled.

Gary put the phone down somewhere nearby, then shifted on the couch, drawing his legs up behind Efnisien’s back and ass, making him feel surrounded.

A strong hand on the back of Efnisien’s neck and scalp, not digging into the scars, but keeping his head down. Efnisien made a questioning noise, then groaned roughly when the pain started again.

‘It’s bad,’ Efnisien managed through gritted teeth, feeling like he shouldn’t be allowed to say this at all.

He shouldn’t be allowed to speak when he was in this much pain, there were usually directives stopping him.

‘It’s bad,’ Efnisien said again. ‘It’s bad.’

‘I know,’ Gary said, moving quickly. His other hand slid beneath Efnisien’s shirt, palm on his bare skin, and Efnisien cried out in fright and tried jerking backwards, but the hand on the back of his neck kept him in place.

‘Be easy,’ Gary said, the alpha persuasion rolling through him like thunder, and Efnisien thought this was it, Gary was going to fuck him, even as his muscles unlocked and let Gary move the hand from the back of his neck down and underneath his shirt too. Two hands, palms moving over him, then settling at his lower back, just above his underwear, because he hadn’t gotten properly dressed.

‘Stop,’ Efnisien whimpered.

‘It’s not what you think,’ Gary said, managing to sound so fucking mild.

Fingertips mapped Efnisien’s spine, finding his tailbone, spreading out in a fan shape just above it, and then digging in hard.

The tension that had been repeatedly coiling inside of him seemed to pause, and Efnisien sucked down a deep breath, another one, before slumping forwards. The pressure from Gary’s fingers was bruising, but that pain was nothing compared to what had been happening inside. It had quietened, like Gary was forcibly shoving back a storm.

They stayed like that, Efnisien catching his breath, and Gary keeping up that pressure. It felt obscene, even though they were both clothed, and Efnisien’s shirt was only halfway up his torso. Neither of them could see the skin that was exposed, the skin Gary was digging his fingers into.

Efnisien felt it through his hips, his body, in the empty space where his lare glands used to be. He swallowed and his head went fully limp, resting on the armrest beside Gary’s head. Gary’s scent was so much stronger now and felt comforting and nauseating at the same time. He turned his head the other way, so he was facing the lounge. He became aware of how badly he was shaking.

A few minutes later, Gary shifted, then cleared his throat.

‘I don’t want to let up the pressure,’ he said. ‘Will you get my phone and hold it next to my ear so I can keep talking to Temsen?’

Efnisien fumbled blindly for the phone, too exhausted to lift his head up, and then found it on the other side of Gary’s head. Amazingly, it hadn’t fallen off the armrest. He brought it close to Gary’s ear.

His thigh muscles went limp, he relaxed fully onto Gary’s body. And Gary kept up that pressure, and it was fucking hypnotising. This…? This he could do, apparently. And not even die from it.

‘You there, Temsen?’ Gary said.

‘Still here,’ Temsen said. ‘How’d you go?’

Efnisien realised he could hear it all now because the phone speaker was so close.  

‘It’s working. But I can’t do this forever.’

‘Ease off the pressure in a few minutes and see how he reacts and how long it takes for those cramps to start up again. I’m getting some painkillers together right now. I’ll be there soon. I can tell it’s bad. I think my theory is right. The lare body is still active even if the lare glands aren’t there.’

‘So that’s what I’m stimulating right now?’ Gary said. ‘Would massage help?’

‘Try it. I heard you use alpha persuasion on him. He seemed surprisingly amenable. Maybe he knew you were helping.’

‘No,’ Gary said, turning his head a little towards Efnisien, like he was checking on him, even though he was too close to see anything. ‘I don’t think so. It would be nice if that were the case, but I genuinely think it was the pain.’

‘I’m coming,’ Temsen said. ‘Keep Efnisien as comfortable as you can.’

And then nothing for long enough that Efnisien knew he’d hung up. For some reason, he expected Temsen to say more horrible things out of earshot, but…he hadn’t.

‘I’m going to shift my hands,’ Gary said.

Efnisien nodded and didn’t even attempt to move. The position was fucking humiliating, humiliating, but the pain that had come on so suddenly before was terrifying, and he didn’t want to do anything that would stir it up. And he could speak. He could speak. He could talk about it.

Tears came to his eyes, and he squeezed them in the hopes they’d go away, but it didn’t help. He shuddered, and then his lower lip quivered.

He could talk here. He could say anything.

Gary shifted one hand first, slowly lightening the pressure, and the pain didn’t immediately start again. Efnisien felt too weak to stop the sob of relief, confusion, when it came, and Gary tensed immediately, hand returning.

‘Is it the pain?’ he said.

Efnisien shook his head, trying to sniff back more tears.

‘Are you sure?’ Gary said.

Efnisien shook his head again, making a sound he couldn’t stop. ‘I can speak here,’ he said, his voice broken.

Gary was silent, and then: ‘What do you mean?’

‘I can speak,’ Efnisien said. ‘You’re letting me speak. I can speak about it. I can say that it’s bad. I can say that it’s bad.’

There was a long silence, and then the hand that had returned to pushing in that pressure at the base of his spine, shifted and became an arm around his shoulders, holding him close. Gary kept his other hand in place, just under the hem of Efnisien’s underwear, pushing in so hard that it shouldn’t have felt as good as it did.

Gary didn’t say I know or any of the other things he’d been saying, and Efnisien tried to keep control of himself, but he felt weakened by the events of the last few days and whatever stupid shit was happening in his body, and couldn’t stop himself from getting emotional all over again. He sobbed weakly, relieved, terrified.

I can say that it’s bad, he thought over and over again, and the fact that he could say it at all meant that the situation he was in, was automatically better than anything he’d been expected to endure back home.  

Chapter Text

Gary

*

It wasn’t quite arousal, but the sensation swirling in him was adjacent to it. Gary tried to tell himself any alpha would feel this way, having someone smaller and weaker sprawled over them, dependent on their touch. It was a hell of a drug.

His hand hurt from the bite Efnisien delivered the day before, his knuckles ached from keeping up the pressure at his lower back, as the boy cried weakly, overcome no doubt by the events of the last few days and the fact that his body was so unpredictable. The aftermath of pain was exhausting. Gary remembered that well from back when James’ health declined.

He didn’t need to fight to keep Efnisien close to him anymore. At some point, he’d realised the contact and closeness helped him.

Efnisien’s skin felt soft beneath his hands. He felt vulnerable.

Gary’s tongue worked in his mouth. A part of him was tempted to bite Efnisien back one day and see what noises he’d make.

These thoughts were unnecessary.

When Efnisien became overwrought because he could say what he was experiencing was bad, Gary realised freshly that the directives his aunt had placed in him were callous and cruel. Why would she make a patient be unable to tell her he was in pain? That it was bad? But Gary knew why. Because he wasn’t a patient, he’d been an object all his life.

Gary shifted his hands and used his thumbs to massage either side of Efnisien’s lower spine. Efnisien shuddered bodily, taking a huge breath and sighing it out.

‘Are you still in pain?’ Gary said.

Efnisien nodded. Gary felt the movement of his curls against the side of his face.

‘Temsen’s coming with painkillers.’

‘I don’t want…anyone to see me like this,’ Efnisien said.

‘The only thing he’s going to care about is whether or not it’s helping you, and to get you some more pain relief.’

He’s seen a lot worse, Gary nearly said. But it probably wasn’t a good idea to remind Efnisien they were in a facility where omegas went into problematic heats all the time. Temsen had seen a lot worse before Hillview, but handling an omega in a messy heat, or a traumatic one, was why he got paid as well as he did.

Gary frowned at Efnisien’s wording, and then thought back to the first night Efnisien had spent in his cottage. Efnisien had said he didn’t want to drink water, even though he clearly wanted it. He’d started a lot of his sentences with ‘I don’t want-’ and at the time Gary hadn’t thought much of it, beyond being annoyed with his incessant complaints.

But now it seemed like Efnisien might have been testing out the novelty of being able to tell someone he didn’t want something. It might have been the first time he’d ever been able to say that to someone in a position of authority.

‘I…wouldn’t want anyone to see me in a vulnerable position either,’ Gary said, unsure if Efnisien was even hearing him. His breathing was laboured.

Efnisien didn’t say anything, but he didn’t protest or say something mean.

It was a bad day to miss James. A bad day to think of him. A bad day to remember the times he’d managed to coax or command James into straddling him and riding his cock, and a bad day to remember James slumping across him after it was all over, exhausted and breathing heavily.

James had been taller than Efnisien, his head would come to a different point on the couch. His limbs felt different arranged around Gary’s body. Even the sound of his voice in his heavy exhales wasn’t the same. His hair wasn’t as soft, his stubble had scraped pleasantly.

Gary’s chest ached, he stared up at the ceiling and didn’t know how much of this he could handle with Efnisien.

So far he’d let himself reflexively react because it was better than thinking about what he was losing, what was eroding. But now that he had to lay there, and he wasn’t working, he thought Efnisien’s skin felt different to James’ skin, and Efnisien’s scent was different to James’ scent. Still laden with chemicals – especially now that he was sweating through his clothes – but salty too, with a hint of minerals, almost like a mouthful of seawater. Gary couldn’t say yet whether he liked it or not.

Efnisien tensed and then his arms pulled in helplessly, like he wanted to curl up. Gary shifted and dug his fingers back into Efnisien’s lower back. Temsen suggested that stimulating the lare body from the outside might still be effective, even if the lare glands were missing. As a last-ditch effort, they could press into the scar tissue from the inside of Efnisien’s body, but Gary remembered Efnisien’s directive suppressed reaction to Kent touching that scar tissue and he didn’t think reawakening that pain would be useful in dampening the pain of a heat.

But maybe it would get that bad. Gary hoped not.

A thin sound on Efnisien’s next exhale, and his breathing sped up. The pain was returning.

‘It’s all right,’ Gary said, having no idea if that were true. They had no idea what to expect, and Efnisien’s body had been harmed to the point where it could easily continue harming itself. What did equilibrium mean for someone like Efnisien?

Efnisien’s thighs clamped around his hips, and Gary smelled the moment the pain spiked. It was a sour acid in the air, and Gary was impressed with Efnisien’s pain threshold, because he’d seen many others – including alphas – scream when they were going through agony that smelled like that. But Efnisien braced himself against Gary’s body and held his breath and shook, as Gary hoped Temsen wouldn’t be too much longer.

It was another few minutes, and Efnisien had sweated through his shirt and Gary’s, he felt dampness against his own chest. Temsen opened the door swiftly, closed it, and came over holding his medical bag, looking concerned.

‘It is bad,’ Temsen said, as though confirming for himself. ‘Is he conscious?’

Gary nodded. Temsen crouched swiftly in front of Efnisien, which put him out of eyeshot because of the awkward position. He couldn’t exactly sit up and face Temsen. He stayed down with his head on the armrest, and Efnisien’s head next to his, blocking Temsen’s face.

‘Can you hear me, Efnisien?’

Efnisien nodded, but the tension hadn’t vanished at all, or that scent. The pain had been going at this intensity for interminable minutes, and every now and then Efnisien loosened a long, strained groan, like that was all he could allow himself.

‘All right, Efnisien, we’re going to give you some fast-acting analgesia. It works as a muscle relaxant, which is going to quickly take the edge off these cramps. Hopefully then you’ll be able to talk, and we can figure out what else you need, all right?’ And then as he opened his doctor’s bag, his tone changed as he said: ‘Stimulating the lare body isn’t helping anymore?’

‘No.’ Gary was angry Temsen was even asking, because couldn’t he see for himself?

Temsen was drawing back some liquid from a small vial into a needle, and then he moved closer. Gary couldn’t see where it was being injected – somewhere into Efnisien’s right arm – but he heard the moment Temsen must have slid the needle in, because Efnisien whimpered.

‘Needles are no fun,’ Temsen said softly. ‘I know. But this is the fastest way to get it working, and I can deliver a stronger dose. If we need to, we’ll set you up with a cannula later, but I’m hoping to avoid that. I don’t think you like those much either.’

Temsen turned around to dispose of the needle, and Gary wished the pain medication would work instantly, but of course it didn’t. Efnisien alternatively tensed and shook over him, and Temsen sat on the coffee table and petted Polly dutifully.

‘I think it’s getting harder to rule out some kind of CT or MRI,’ Temsen said.

‘He can barely handle the idea of leaving the facility for something enjoyable.’

‘Mm. Not to mention how a radiologist might react if they see the results. Yes, well, I could make some phone calls and sound it out, at least. Unfortunately, I do think this is his version of a heat. It’s likely that he’s been in it for a few days, and the signs weren’t obvious enough, because he can’t manufacture most of the obvious responses.’

Like producing lubricant. Or feeling aroused and seeking sexual contact. Or nesting, though Efnisien had been retreating back to Gary’s bed often, and he couldn’t help but think that might be Efnisien’s version of it.

‘How are you doing, Efnisien?’ Temsen asked.

Efnisien didn’t say anything, and Gary hoped the meds worked soon, because his pain had been up for a good fifteen minutes now, and Gary didn’t think his body could take much more of it.

A couple of minutes later, when Gary and Temsen were sitting in a full, worried silence, he sucked down a huge, long breath, like it didn’t hurt to breathe anymore.

‘Fuck…you,’ Efnisien rasped.

‘There we are,’ Temsen said, smiling. ‘I’d much prefer you talking than not.’

‘Fuck this,’ Efnisien said, and then coughed and groaned at the same time.

‘Where’s the worst of the pain, Efnisien?’

‘Gut,’ Efnisien said.

‘Good, good. Upper or lower? Near your chest? Or pelvis?’

‘There,’ Efnisien said, sounding exhausted. ‘Lower. …Pelvis.’

‘Mm, all right, that does sound like a heat I’m afraid. The good news is we can manage the pain, and that this is temporary.’

Gary didn’t think Temsen could declare that safely at all. He didn’t think the pain was properly managed either. Just because Efnisien could talk, didn’t mean he was pain-free. He hadn’t fully relaxed yet. The scent was still up in the air.

He also had no idea what the next few days were going to look like. He had supervisor sessions, and he didn’t think it would be wise to leave Efnisien alone. Companions lived in near complete isolation with no one but their omegas during heats. All food was dropped off, and if something went wrong, Temsen or Kent went to monitor, but that was it.

That would be fine if Efnisien was a straightforward omega and Gary was a straightforward alpha companion, but it wasn’t like that at all. Gary had the mental health of other alphas riding on whether they got the support they needed during supervisory sessions. Perhaps he could temporarily do the sessions by phone?

He was tired as well. He’d spent the night sleeping restlessly, waking to check on Efnisien, concerned he’d pushed the boy into illness because of everything that had happened at the beach. The last time he’d felt guilt like that, he’d been by James’ bed in the hospital, trying not to look at the messages that James’ family were sending him.

Temsen stood and leaned over them both, studying Efnisien’s back, frowning at something. He pointed.

‘That bite is nasty,’ Temsen said. Gary’s hand shifted as he realised where he was pointing.

‘I know. But we did force him to be in close proximity with his cousin for some time with basically no support, so I don’t know what you expected, Temsen.’

Gary stared without blinking at Temsen, and he seemed taken aback, and then frowned, like he’d seen something new. Gary wondered if Temsen had even considered the impact such a visit might have on Efnisien, after the boy had just found out he was likely going into heat and had been feeling poorly for a couple of days beforehand. Gary had considered it, and while he’d understood why Temsen needed more medical history, he’d not craved access to that information in the same way, and in an ideal world, he’d never have put Efnisien in the same room as his cousin.

‘May I look at your hand for any signs of infection?’ Temsen said.

Gary nodded, lifting his arm up, and Efnisien moved restlessly on him and relaxed a bit more. The painkillers had to be working, and that was a relief.

Temsen turned Gary’s hand this way and that, eyebrows lifting. ‘I don’t think it needs dressing, and it seems to be healing well. No unusual redness. The clotting seems fine. This might be a good time to check your heart as well.’

‘Now?’

‘I can use the oximeter for your resting heart rate, and that’s mostly what I want to know right now.’

Gary half-shrugged and Temsen went back to his bag. He attached the small oximeter to the tip of Gary’s index finger and wasn’t as talkative as before. Perhaps he’d realised Efnisien’s heat was serious and that he was partly responsible for the boy’s latest breakdown. Gary wasn’t even sure the information they’d gotten from Gwyn ap Nudd had been worth it. There was no specific surgeon to contact, and therefore no surgeon’s notes to look at. They couldn’t ever see reports of what had been done, or how the recovery went. They had no idea exactly what medications Efnisien had been given, or in what doses, or for how long.

‘Well,’ Temsen said, ‘your oxygenation is good.’

Gary laughed softly, because that was Temsen’s diplomatic way of pointing out that the resting heartrate was terrible.

Efnisien made a faint sound in response to Gary’s laugh and moved closer to him.

It was strangely tender, and Gary swallowed, because he didn’t know what to do with the entire situation.

‘Your PACS could be making a bit of a comeback,’ Temsen mused. ‘Even factoring into account that you’re stressed. I’m going to leave the oximeter with you and I’d like you to start inputting your heartrate into a diary.’

‘How bad is it?’

‘It’s not hospitalisation bad,’ Temsen said. ‘It’s probably medication bad.’

Efnisien tensed. Gary rubbed his back automatically. He didn’t even have to force himself to do it.

‘It’s a tad worse than I expected, but still not my worst-case scenario,’ Temsen said.

‘I have alphas to supervise,’ Gary said. ‘And he can’t live in pain like this for a week. Firstly, he needs food, and he needs meds.’

‘I agree,’ Temsen said, sitting down on the coffee table after removing the oximeter. ‘You can always go online for the supervisor sessions and keep proximity to Efnisien that way. You’ve certainly done sessions like that for other alphas when they’ve needed an emergency consult during someone’s heat.’

‘True.’

‘I’m going to give you both about an hour of privacy. That’s enough time for the painkillers to kick in properly, and I think my presence is upsetting for the both of you. I’ll look over some meds for you in the meantime.’

Temsen had become businesslike, and it was a relief. But the privacy was even more welcome. Temsen was right. Gary didn’t want him there, and his growing hostility was difficult to wrangle. He knew he’d have to look at it later.

Gary was existing on the Later, I’ll think about it later principle.

‘Call me if it gets as bad as it was before,’ Temsen said. ‘I’m going to take a look at our stores and see what we have. The muscle relaxant is helping, and it’s just occurred to me that sedatives might be useful now that he’s on less ardolphogen. There may be less resistance. I might look at something temporary for the anxiety…’

Temsen stood, doctor bag in his hand. He was thinking out loud, now.

‘If we can get him under anaesthetic, I could do my own internal exam,’ Temsen said.

Efnisien had tensed. ‘Fuck you,’ he managed.

‘I know,’ Temsen said. ‘And I’ve been talking about you like you’re not here as well, haven’t I? I apologise. But I’m concerned from Kent’s report that…the surgery you underwent was so unprofessional that it’s- What if the wrong stitches were used? Or…’

Gary hadn’t seen Temsen look so uncertain before, and he frowned. ‘Do you really think that’s possible?’

‘Anything is,’ Temsen said. ‘It’s possible the pain is simply nerve damage, but goodness, since talking to Gwyn, it could be so many different things, Gary, including foreign objects left behind. Constant low-grade internal infection would also account for his tachycardia. Efnisien, whatever I decide to do with you, it will be with a view to reducing your pain, not increasing it. I promise you.’

Efnisien just shook his head.

‘All right, all right, I’m leaving,’ Temsen said. ‘Now’s not the time. I can see that.’

Temsen headed out, closing the door behind him, and as soon as he was gone, Efnisien relaxed further. He was still more tense than before, but the painkillers were working.

‘He’s gone,’ Efnisien said, sounding relieved.

‘He’s gone,’ Gary said.

‘Yeah.’

And then, after another couple of minutes, Efnisien exhaled in a way that could have been a silent laugh, except Gary couldn’t think of a single reason for it.

‘Hey,’ Efnisien said, his voice a little slurred. ‘Don’t you think this whole…situation is super weird?’

Gary blinked up at the ceiling and smiled tiredly.

‘Yes, it is really all…rather different.’

Efnisien nodded to himself, and Gary wished he could get the full no-holds-barred version of what he was thinking. And just like before Temsen had arrived, something adjacent to arousal was looming, and he told himself he’d deal with it all later.

Chapter Text

Efnisien

*

The painkillers were serious – he could tell by how they’d taken over his body – but Efnisien was glad he could still think, glad he could talk. The pain itself was duller, grinding away in the background, and he lay atop Gary and told himself he should move now that things weren’t as bad, but some deep-seated instinct kept him in place.

He tried to tell himself they weren’t an omega’s instincts, but it was hard to believe it, because he wasn’t getting hard like an alpha, and he wasn’t seeking to knot someone like an alpha, but he was sure having cramps like an omega, and he was definitely straddling someone needily like an omega.

‘You still believe I’m an alpha, huh?’ Efnisien said, because why not fuck everything up right now? ‘This is so alpha-like, huh?’

He made a soft, dumb, helpless sound when Gary’s fingers massaged gently into his lower back. And Polly was sitting in front of him, watching him curiously. Efnisien reached out dazedly, and she licked his fingers, and he kept expecting her to bite him, but she never did.

‘‘S’good,’ he said to her. ‘Don’t bite me.’

‘She won’t bite you,’ Gary said. ‘She doesn’t even bite when she’s accepting treats. She’s a sweet old lady.’

‘Mm. Don’t have an answer, do you? You’ve just been thinking I’m an omega all along, like Gwyn said.’

‘I would shoot your cousin,’ Gary said.

Efnisien stilled, then drew his arm back into his body. Polly laid down in the space between the coffee table and the couch with a grumbling noise, like she’d just wanted to keep licking Efnisien’s fingers and was annoyed he’d taken them away.

‘You can’t shoot him,’ Efnisien said. ‘Crielle would kill you.’

‘As to your questions, Efnisien, no, I don’t believe you’re an omega. Yes, you do some things that are more classically associated with omega behaviours, but they’re rare, and right now they’re clearly driven by hormonal shifts. But…I have lived with you for long enough to know you’re not really anything like an omega. Why, do you think of yourself that way?’

‘I think it’s obvious Crielle’s experiments failed.’

‘I don’t think that at all,’ Gary said. ‘It’s obvious that she didn’t get what she wanted, but many of her experiments were successful. I think you should remember that while you’re in heat, we’re not doing anything like fucking.’

Efnisien cringed, then shook his head, because what if it got worse?

‘So if we were doing that, you’d think I was an omega?’

Gary made a sound of exasperation, and Efnisien would have been terrified to hear that from Crielle, but from Gary it was just familiar.

‘Alphas can bottom too,’ Gary said. ‘I’ve never thought of any of my partners as omegas, just because they bottomed for me.’

‘I think Temsen treated me more like an omega today.’

‘You’ve never seen him with an omega. Temsen treated you more like an object today. I think he’s concerned and flustered, and I think he dropped the ball on your care when he wanted to see you and Gwyn in the same room together. You do understand that he levered Gwyn’s need to see you, against getting more medical information about you from your cousin? He put you in a dangerous situation because he wanted to know the name of the surgeon who hurt you.’

Efnisien sighed heavily. He wanted to rock his hips from side to side, because Gary’s hands pressing those slow, firm movements into him were helping, and Efnisien knew the movements would help more. But he was also sure he’d combust in embarrassment and shame if he did something so lewd while on Gary’s body. He didn’t want to make it seem like he was inviting anything, because he sure as shit wasn’t.

‘I allowed it to happen,’ Gary said, ‘so it’s my fault as well.’

‘That’s why…you let Temsen take the lead when Gwyn was there,’ Efnisien said. ‘I wondered.’

‘Yes,’ Gary said. ‘Can you talk about Temsen’s speculation regarding the surgeries? Or is that governed by the directives too?’

Of course he couldn’t say anything. Just talking about it made Efnisien feel sick, the directives swimming around like sharks that had scented blood in the water. He could listen to Gary, but he couldn’t participate.

‘Ah well, that was probably too hopeful of me,’ Gary said.

Probably.

Efnisien could feel Gary’s heartbeat through his chest. He hadn’t noticed for ages, but now that his body wasn’t a thunderstorm, and was just a distant grinding, he could feel it.

‘Your heart,’ Efnisien said. ‘What’s…PACS?’

‘Ah.’

‘It’s an acronym?’

‘Peak Alpha Cardiac Syndrome,’ Gary said. ‘It’s rare.’

‘But…you have it? Or you’ve had it before?’

Gary was silent for long enough that Efnisien thought he probably wasn’t going to answer. And then finally he said: ‘I’ve had it before.’

‘What does it do? Why- Why do you have it?’

It was hard to imagine any peak alpha getting any kind of syndrome or disorder. They healed faster than most, their immune systems were amazing, and even Efnisien had seen a taste of it with the ardolphogen levels Crielle had given him – sedatives never worked properly, anaesthetic never worked properly. Not only that, but Crielle and Gwyn never got sick, even if a virus affected other people in the estate.

‘It’s nothing,’ Gary said.

‘It’s so not.’

‘Well, it’s- It’s not something you need to worry about. Temsen will have me monitor my heartrate, and if I need some meds, I’ll take them.’

‘You’re not telling me everything,’ Efnisien said, anger adding itself to that eternal grinding inside of him.

‘I’m telling you the most important parts. How’s the pain?’

‘It’s fine.’

‘Really?’ Gary said.

‘Fuck you. What do you want to hear? This sucks.’

‘Hm, if you had to grade your pain based on activity, what do you think you could do right now, and what do you think is off the table?’

Efnisien had never been asked about his pain at the An Fnwy estate, and he wasn’t used to talking about it. Even acknowledging it seemed dangerous, because Crielle had asked him trick questions in the past. He could tell Gary really wanted to know and thinking about what he could and couldn’t do seemed easier than saying it was bad.

‘I might be able to sit up,’ Efnisien said. ‘My stomach hurts.’

‘Like sharp cramps? Or like…a night with food poisoning.’

‘The last one,’ Efnisien said quickly. ‘But lower down.’

‘That might be muscle fatigue,’ Gary said. ‘We’ll take it easy. Anything else?’

‘Um. I could maybe eat. I don’t feel as sick as before.’

‘Really?’ Gary said, sounding surprised.

‘Maybe. I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to go for a big walk outside, but it feels really stuffy in here.’

‘I’ll open the side door when you’re ready.’

‘Um…yeah. Okay.’

He wanted to say That will help, but it felt like he was imposing so much on Gary, who had this bad heart syndrome that had an acronym and everything. Was he going to have a heart attack because living with Efnisien was so stressful? Efnisien knew it was his fault. He could just tell.

‘It’s hard to concentrate,’ Efnisien said. ‘It’s like- I think I’m tired.’

‘Then get some sleep. Is the massage helping?’

Efnisien kept his head down and angled away from Gary. He didn’t want to answer that. He didn’t want to say he liked it. Didn’t want to say that the rhythmic movements at his lower back felt fucking amazing, and he didn’t know if it was because he was in some stupid bullshit version of a heat, or because it was just…

Maybe he’d like that any time.

In the past, growing up, he never wanted anyone to touch him. At most, he yearned for Crielle to pat him on the head sometimes. But he didn’t imagine people holding his hand, he didn’t imagine kissing, when he said that side of him was dead to Temsen, he knew it was true. He didn’t know what things like this could feel like, or that he could like them.

Gary’s hands were large and broad. His palms weren’t callused, but they weren’t super smooth either. His fingertips were blunt and seeking as they pushed and pulled at his muscles. He could feel the way Gary adjusted his touch, the way his hands seemed to think for themselves, finding the best places. How did he even know they were the best places? Efnisien didn’t think he was giving that much away.

His thighs were stretched over Gary’s waist. He never did anything like this, and his body wasn’t used to the position, an ache in his hips and groin as a result. Even when Gwyn had mounted him, Efnisien had always been face down, and Gwyn had always been the one straddling his back or ass.

So Efnisien nodded a little, because he didn’t want to say it was helping out loud, he didn’t want to give Gary that kind of power over him.

‘I could try massaging your front as well. Temsen brought it up on the phone, but I thought it might be too much for you at this stage.’

Efnisien heartily agreed in his mind but said nothing. Imagining Gary’s hands doing this around his belly felt like imagining something illegal.

‘Do you hate it?’ Efnisien asked.

‘Hm? This? Not at all.’

‘Is it hurting your hands? I bit you.’

‘It’s not a problem, Efnisien,’ Gary said, his voice lower than before.

‘I mean you deserved to be bitten.’

A breath of laughter against the back of Efnisien’s head, and he felt weak and tired and a little triumphant, because it was nice when Gary laughed.

God, am I that easy? Is it that easy for me to like someone who’s nice to me?

He thought about Anton saying, ‘that’s how it works,’ and even though he hadn’t been talking about this, Efnisien wondered if that was how it worked. Maybe most people liked people who were nice to them. But probably not, because everyone was nice to Gary and he didn’t seem to have that many people in his life, and Efnisien got the same vibe from Temsen as well.

‘I did deserve the bite,’ Gary said. ‘I was giving your mouth something to do, because it seems to work as a good distraction. Maybe I just need to get you a chew toy.’

‘I hate you so much.’

‘Did you bite your cousin?’

‘Yeah,’ Efnisien said. ‘He always got so mad about it, because like- I mean omegas bite, so he used it as proof that I’m…a failure.’

Gary’s hands slowed, and in his next movement, he stroked up along the back of Efnisien’s spine, from his tailbone to the top of his neck, and Efnisien couldn’t repress the shudder because he didn’t know it was coming, he couldn’t warn himself to prepare for how nice that would feel.

‘Omegas bite quickly, in a flash, like a warning,’ Gary said. ‘They don’t hang on.’

‘Maybe some omegas do.’

‘Maybe,’ Gary said.

Efnisien yawned, his thoughts drifting. God, he was so tired.

‘There we are,’ Gary said, ‘wouldn’t it be nice to get some sleep? You’ll feel better after.’

Gary was doing that thing he’d done before, where his words were like a blanket being pulled up over his shoulders. Efnisien made a faint sound of dislike, and Gary’s palms pressed flat against his skin.

‘Shhh, just get some sleep. I promise you’ll feel better.’

Efnisien didn’t see the point in fighting it. Besides, he wanted to feel better.

*

When he woke next, he felt worse.

Efnisien was pushing himself backwards off Gary’s body, fingers lacing protectively over his gut, and then he balled up into the back of the couch and could feel how he’d sweated through all of his clothing. It was drenched. He hummed through gritted teeth, the pain clenching its fist around his body.

He felt groggy, he wasn’t sure what time it was, and when he opened his eyes, he saw it was dark outside and the lounge door was open, letting a breeze in.

Temsen was there, already doing something with syringes and needles, and Efnisien made a sound of fear at that, and then kicked at the couch cushions at a particularly savage cramp. God. God. He wasn’t going to scream. He wasn’t going to scream. He wasn’t. He wasn’t.

He screamed behind clenched teeth, and realised Gary was talking urgently to Temsen, and couldn’t concentrate on it, because between trying to breathe through the agony, and the thing clawing its way through him, he felt like he was being ripped apart from the inside out.

Temsen in front of him now, and Efnisien flew at him, getting his teeth into his wrist just as Gary reached out to keep them apart. Efnisien screamed against Temsen’s skin, which tasted different – worse – than Gary’s, and he caught a glimpse of his widened eyes, even as it got harder to breathe.

‘Efnisien,’ Temsen said firmly. ‘Don’t-’

‘Don’t use persuasion on him,’ Gary said, his voice harsh.

‘Efnisien, I have painkillers and a sedative. I may need to conduct another internal exam, do you under- Damn.’

Efnisien tasted blood in his mouth and ground his teeth down harder.

‘…no, I’m sorry, Gary. He’s going to take a chunk of my flesh at this rate. Efnisien, stop biting me.’

Efnisien’s mouth felt like it was prised open by the order, and his throat opened in response, rage building, his pheromones peaking, and he roared, his own alpha persuasion coming out in nothing but noise. In the background, Polly started barking.

He lifted his arms to hit Temsen, and Gary grabbed him by the wrists as Efnisien twisted away from the pain and the both of them and couldn’t get the momentum he needed. His body was so weak.

‘Fuck you! Fuck you!’ Efnisien managed, sobbing as Temsen injected him in his thigh, through his jeans. The pain nothing against what was happening inside of him. ‘I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you! You’re not helping! You’re not helping! You never help! You’re a worthless sack of shit, Temsen! Worthless! You can’t help anyone! You can’t-’

Gary had placed his hand in front of Efnisien’s mouth, inviting him to bite, and he just stared at it.

Gary had a heart condition, and it was Efnisien’s fault. It was his fault.

He looked up at Gary, stricken, even as Gary stared at him with a similar expression on his face.

Efnisien wrenched violently when another spasm of pain rocketed through him, ending in a dizzying pulse, a throbbing in his head that made him retch and then dry heave violently.

Another needle, and then another, and Efnisien felt like he’d been slammed down against the ground, his body became so weak.

‘No,’ he murmured. ‘No.’

It was Gary who stroked his sweaty hair, even as Temsen was still moving quickly nearby, and then a pinch in the back of his hand and a hushing sound.

‘A cannula?’ Gary said.

‘Get Kent,’ Temsen said. ‘If I only get to do this once, I’m doing it properly. And get the Flying Doctors on standby. If I can’t stabilise him, it will be hospitalisation after all.’

‘I hate you,’ Efnisien managed, the words slurring.

‘My young friend,’ Temsen said, ‘you may hate me as much as you wish. I would do exactly the same in your situation.’

Efnisien was aware of screaming, but the knowledge filtered in from a distance, as though the world around him was narrowing to only a pinprick. It cut out all at once, the cacophony of sound turning to a pain-drenched silence, and then…nothing at all.

Chapter Text

Gary

*

Watching Temsen lie through his teeth effortlessly to his colleagues was impressive. He brought in a consultant anaesthetist and simply said Efnisien had experienced systemic infections throughout his life which had destroyed his lare and Kaeper glands, and that the surgeries were conducted by a surgeon who had been privately hired and therefore unprofessional. The anaesthetist believed him, perhaps he just thought things like that happened at omega rehabilitation facilities.

Temsen left the anaesthetist, Kent and Enris to Efnisien’s care, walking out. Gary followed him as far as the corridor, only to hear Temsen on the phone:

‘I have an omega born with no lare glands who still possesses a lare body. He’s going through his first heat, it’s corrupted badly and we now have him under full sedation, have you ever seen anything like this?’

Gary watched him go, then returned to the exam room. The place where directives meant Efnisien couldn’t be honest. Well, he was too unconscious to respond to anything. That was the one benefit of being on a lower dose of ardolphogen, anaesthetic and sedatives now worked like they were supposed to.

Gary ended up going outside of the building and sat on a bench in the cool night air.

Temsen had taken charge of the whole situation, knocking Efnisien out, picking him up and then asking Gary to carry the doctor’s bag.

‘Tell me you’re not taking him to the exam room?’ Gary had said, annoyed that Temsen was the one carrying Efnisien, even though he obviously had a secure hold of him.

Temsen nodded. ‘Gary, we are far past needing to examine Efnisien in a place that doesn’t trigger his directives. I’ve said it before, this is new territory. I would 100% be signing him off to a hospital right now, except I’m genuinely concerned for how they’d treat him, and the spotlight that Hillview would come under. But if I can’t get him stabilised after an internal exam, it will be hospitalisation and a spotlight, and we’ll simply have to deal with it.’

‘What does stabilised look like?’

‘Good question. Get him through his heat, fully sedated if need be, and get that pain under control. I’ve seen infection mimic similar pain in omegas in experimentation facilities, so I’m…suspicious of something in particular.’

‘Loop me in?’

‘If the aunt left any foreign objects inside of him, it’s possible that-’

‘We know he has a microchip where his Kaeper glands used to be.’

‘We know that? Or do you know that?’ Temsen said sharply, and then made a frustrated noise. ‘Don’t talk to me right now, Gary, I’m angry and I need to stay calm.’

Gary rolled his eyes and said nothing, even as a spike of Temsen’s pheromones entered the air and turned his stomach. A grassy, astringent scent that was already dissipating quickly.

Now, Gary waited for Temsen to return, knowing he was intending on doing an internal exam on Efnisien.

He told himself that seeing Efnisien with a cannula, an IV stand, already stripped and changed into a medical gown, didn’t remind him of James in the last stages of his treatment, when he basically lived at the hospital.

Told himself he didn’t remember sleeping in the uncomfortable chair – it was never comfortable no matter how many blankets the lovely nurses gave him – and the way James just stared ahead, all of the fire in his eyes and body gone already.

His mother used to say that if they had animals that just gave up, a pet or a wild creature, sometimes it was kinder to euthanise.

‘Gary,’ James had said, his voice faint and scratchy. The chemotherapy had given him terrible mouth ulcers, and the back of his throat bled.

‘Yes?’

It was a private hospital, and Gary kept getting distracted by small, frustrating details. Here, there was a window with a curtain that moved in the breeze, and he knew public patients in public hospitals didn’t get that kind of access. But he also knew public hospitals had better funded medical equipment. He kept wondering if the chemotherapy would be better there. But the comfort was better here.

‘I’m done.’

‘I know,’ Gary said, standing up and looking at his phone. Three in the morning. James slept a lot during the day and then never seemed to sleep properly at night. He’d not kept any food down despite all the antiemetics they threw at him. A nasogastric feeding tube was likely. They’d talked about PEG feeding, a tube to go directly into the stomach wall, but James’ PICC line was badly infected, and they weren’t confident his body could handle it.

‘You don’t know,’ James said, staring ahead, and Gary had the horrible thought that this was what James would look like when he was dead. His face that empty. His eyes that lifeless. Except worse. Worse.

James refused to see his family, and his family said it was Gary’s fault. Gary tried to convince James to see his family, and they fought over it until the chemotherapy made all the fights disappear, except for the ones James’ family kept trying to pick with him, over and over again. Every day.

The latest message came not from a family member, but from a university friend with a screencap and: This is what they’re saying about you on Facebook.

And Gary hadn’t looked, because he had an idea what they were saying about him on Facebook, and he stayed out of it, which just made him seem aloof and superior. There was no right way through any of this.

‘Gary,’ James said, turning and looking at him. ‘I’m going to die.’

Gary’s face creased, but James shook his head.

‘I mean, it’s time. I’m ready. I want… You know what I want. Can you use your…top notch admin skills and…’

He coughed and coughed and then made a thin sound as blood sprayed over the blanket. One of the nurses came in and fussed over him and told him to stop talking, as Gary sat there and stared at his lover, and James stared back at him, holding him to it, determined, stubborn, asking Gary to organise Voluntary Assisted Dying.

Euthanasia.

So Gary turned to the nurse and said: ‘He’s asked for VAD.’

The nurse hesitated for only a second, and she didn’t say James was stupid, and she didn’t say James should fight harder, and she didn’t do all the things Gary needed her to do, to erase this reality from his mind and make the other one come back. The other one where James might recover somehow. The one where he wasn’t constantly buying increasingly miserable increments of time.

‘You want VAD?’ she said to James. ‘Voluntary Assisted Dying? Give me a one-word answer, let your throat rest.’

‘Yes,’ James said, the word stronger than any of the others he’d said that night.

‘I’ll get the ball rolling on that in the morning,’ the nurse said. ‘He’ll need to be assessed by two doctors, but it should only take a few days to organise.’

A few days.

Gary’s chest did something like a spasm, and he clutched his shirt and reminded himself that he had to stay focused on James. He had to stay focused on what James wanted but it felt like he was taking a pickaxe to something inside of him that said to just use alpha persuasion on him, make him want to live. This was stupid, James had to want to live.

The nurse left after a sympathetic look at Gary, and James was settled and quiet and staring ahead again.

Tears came to Gary’s eyes. James weakly turned and looked at him, and Gary’s eyes flicked up to the machines monitoring him.

‘My family…won’t-’

‘For god’s sake, stop talking,’ Gary said, his voice breaking.

James held out his frail, bone-thin hand, and Gary took it, and hated how cold it felt. How papery his skin already was.

‘They’re…going to blame…you,’ James said.

All Gary wanted was to be a child again, to go to his mother and cry at the unfairness of the world. When he was little, he’d had strong, explosive emotions. He’d gotten into trouble at school for using nascent alpha persuasion on other children when things didn’t go his way, and when his mother found out, she didn’t excuse it, she didn’t say peak alphas couldn’t help it, she became disappointed in him.

‘My sweet, you are a peak alpha, if you have this much power, you must learn a proportionate amount of power over yourself. I know you can do it.’

But sometimes he’d cried in frustration that he couldn’t just control the world like he wanted to, and she’d comforted him, and reminded him that he was only one person, and not a god.

And his mother would – if she were still alive – tell him to focus on his power to hurt others, and in this moment Gary knew he couldn’t cry while James was right there and wanting to die, no doubt scared that Gary would stop him. Because Gary was one of the few people in the state who had the power to do that. They called it alpha persuasion, but really, it was just brainwashing.

‘I can deal with your family, don’t worry about them,’ Gary said gently, after clearing his throat. ‘You won’t see them? Not even now?’

James shook his head. The motion was weak, more like a twitch.

Gary thought James should see them, but his family would never say goodbye, they would only yell at Gary and blame him for convincing their son and brother to die. Even Gary knew how it would go. They would be certain their omega and beta love would cure James, and they refused to listen to science.

Even now, they believed James would never have developed terminal cancer if he’d married an omega, instead of settling down with a peak alpha.

An alpha and a peak alpha? It’s unnatural.

Gary had heard it enough to know he’d have to hear it again and again, forever, because James was going to die, and they were going to be certain that Gary had somehow done it simply for loving him. Simply for being too stubborn to leave when they insisted that all alphas needed omegas, and that was a foundational truth in the world that he was breaking.

Gary had heard that he’d caused James’ cancer enough times that sometimes he wondered if it was true.

‘I love you,’ Gary said.

James didn’t say anything, he didn’t smile, he was too tired. But his eyes rolled over to Gary’s and the smile was there instead.

‘You can wait longer than a few days, if you want,’ Gary said selfishly.

James’ expression turned sad, he shook his head again.

Gary closed his eyes and forced himself to nod. A few days. For some reason he thought it would be a few months, maybe a few weeks.

No, deep down, he’d thought they’d have forever.

Quietly, he fussed with the blankets, while his chest hurt constantly. James fell into something almost like sleep, even as pain wracked his body and Gary knew he was suffering. When the nurse came back with a cup of coffee just for Gary, tears spilled over and he cried, and she smiled at him and patted him on the arm like he wasn’t a peak alpha, but any partner about to lose their lover, and then left him to his misery.

*

When Temsen returned half an hour later, he looked grim.

‘I take it you want to observe?’ Temsen said. ‘You’re already protective over him, I don’t think it’s a good idea.’

Gary thought it over and Temsen was right, it was getting harder not to intervene. He had time later to contemplate how to reverse the protectiveness, right now he knew he was too tired to keep good control of himself.

‘I’ll wait outside.’

‘We could be a while,’ Temsen said.

‘What are you doing to him?’

‘Ideally, I want to do an internal exam to see if I can feel any foreign bodies, and I want to remove them if it’s possible, and then I want to remove that microchip. I’m going to also run his blood for signs of infection. I don’t think he’s septic, but I do think it’s negligent not to double check.'

'Is his risk of dying... Is that something that could really happen?’

‘Yes,’ Temsen said. ‘But I think the chance is low. And I think we will have time to get him to a hospital if that’s the case. But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. The one good thing is the lower ardolphogen means the sedation, painkillers and general anaesthetic are all doing their job.’

‘It doesn’t seem exactly worth it,’ Gary said.

‘It really doesn’t. But let me go do my job, I’ll come get you after. You don’t have to wait here; you can go home.’

Gary only stared at him in answer, and Temsen smiled and nodded, and walked back into the medical suite. Gary walked outside and sat down on the wooden bench, looking ahead at a small garden bed of native Lechenaultia, and a lilly pilly tree sculpted into the shape of a ball. Even though he wasn’t in a hospital, even though the scents were different outside, he still had the anxiety that came with knowing someone he cared about was in surgery. He’d planned to never feel this way again, and yet here he was, feeling it for someone who he would never have chosen to feel it for.

He looked down at his hands. His fingers were still healing, the sides of his hands still healing, they were covered with little scratches and wounds not just from Efnisien’s bites, but also from the knocks and scratches that came from struggling with him.

Bonding wasn’t always a choice. Gary knew he should stop the process cold, but there was no easy way to do it. He couldn’t kick Efnisien out of his home, and Gary knew Efnisien needed to trust someone, needed to feel safe with at least one person.

Gary was the worst possible person for that, he knew he’d hurt Efnisien over and over again, because he cared so much more for preventing his own pain than he did for protecting Efnisien.

Is that really true, though?

Gary looked back towards the building and wondered.

He wanted to talk to someone, a strange urge, but he didn’t know who to talk to. Temsen was busy. Anton had a habit of starting out supportive and then joining Team Efnisien within five minutes. Augus was…suffering, and none of them were doing enough for him. Likely his bond with Mosk was masking the worst of it, and they’d all see the fallout of what being a repeated alpha companion could do to a peak alpha afterwards.

Faber was busy, and Gary wasn’t in the habit of venting to him anyway. Not because he didn’t trust the man, but because it seemed unprofessional, and it happened by accident enough that Gary didn’t want to start doing it on purpose.

Gary took out his phone. He scrolled through his contacts and paused at one name that jumped out at him. They hadn’t spoken since James had passed away.

Eventually he pressed call, holding the phone to his ear.

‘You’ve reached Mike Henton. I’m currently busy or taking a break, so please leave your name and a number and I’ll get back to you when I can.’

Gary didn’t leave a message. Mike would either see who had called or he wouldn’t, and he could decide what to do based on that. Gary should have known he’d be busy. Not everyone got to work strange hours at an estate like Hillview, most people were doing the nine-to-five grind and sleeping through the night. Last Gary knew, Mike was still working as a psychologist for troubled alphas.

He sighed. It was silly to think he could talk about this with anyone. What would he say?

A fierce ache in his chest.

He missed James. He missed him. It never stopped. It was a hungry thing, taking bites out of his insides, and meanwhile Efnisien kept doing the same to the rest of him.

You may not survive this, a little voice said.

Gary leaned back into the bench and smiled. Life never promised ease, and it offered a lot of heartache, so he supposed everything was going about as well as it ever did.

*

Temsen came out three hours later, at a point where Gary was truly anxious and had been wavering on whether to just go home or not for about an hour. But the longer he wavered, the more he was concerned things had truly gone wrong.

When Temsen came out he was holding three sealed glass vials, each with something inside of them.

‘What’s that?’ Gary said, standing.

‘This,’ Temsen said, offering one of them, ‘is the tracking chip we found in the back of Efnisien’s neck. A lot of scar tissue had grown around it, but the fact is something this large…they could have used one of the injectables that we use on pets, it would have been kinder.’

The microchip was shockingly large. Almost a centimetre and a half long, and a centimetre wide. Gary thought of the few times he’d dug his fingers into the back of Efnisien’s neck and wondered if scar tissue had stopped him from feeling it, wondered if it injured Efnisien freshly all over again to have the skin there compressed.

‘It’s not just a tracking chip,’ Temsen said. ‘It also measures biometrics. I can’t work out exactly what kind, but it’s possible this was sophisticated enough to offer feedback on hormone levels. I don’t know. I’ll have someone look at it.’

‘Is he all right?’

‘He’s recovering. He’ll be on antibiotics for at least two weeks. I found these,’ –Temsen held up the two other vials, as Gary peered at them in confusion– ‘embedded in the scar tissue and flesh of his absent lare glands.’

Gary took the vials and looked closely. One was filled with two crooked, black, twisted stitches. The other was filled with…he couldn’t even recognise it as a medical item. It definitely wasn’t a microchip, but it also didn’t appear to be organic, it wasn’t stitches. He shook it, and it made a quiet metallic tink! noise against the side of the glass.

‘I don’t know what happened to the other non-dissolvable stitches that she used,’ Temsen said. ‘It’s possible she removed them and missed two, because these were quite embedded, and I’ve had to do some minor surgery to get to them. The other item, I think, may be a pellet designed to further control hormone suppression. But I’m just guessing. It could be literally anything. Given the lack of professionalism across the board, nothing would surprise me about his case anymore.’

Gary kept his rage down. He stared at the vials and thought about the pain Efnisien had been going through.

‘How much of his cramps were related to this?’

‘There was definitely inflammation,’ Temsen said. ‘It’s possible that in all the tablets he was getting at home, he was constantly on antibiotics too. If Crielle ferch Fnwy’s ego was large enough that she felt herself competent enough to conduct these surgeries, it was large enough for her to fail to recognise that the infection might be caused by her actions.’

‘This looks like a piece of scalpel,’ Gary said suddenly, staring at the little blackened piece of metal.

Temsen took the vial off him and studied it again, shook it a few times, and then looked up at the sky. ‘The worst part is we don’t know if these procedures will help him at all.’

‘And the next few days?’

‘I’m going to prescribe some stool softeners, sadly I think it’s nothing he’s not used to, given the surgeries he’s had in the past. And you’re to keep him mostly resting. Some gentle walking if he feels up for it, but nothing that pushes him. I’ll have some muscle relaxants and some mild sedatives because he’ll be stressed, and obviously analgesia. This is all extremely retraumatising for him, I’m not going to pretend it isn’t. Normally I’d do another internal exam to follow up, but…in this case I’m going to wait and see if he absolutely needs it. I’ve used dissolvable stitches, he should excrete the pieces out naturally as they dissolve.’

‘And if he wakes up experiencing the same cramps as before?’

‘I don’t know,’ Temsen said, eyes narrowing in frustration. ‘I don’t want to keep him unconscious, it’s not good for him. Hospitalisation is still not ruled out, Gary. I’ve already woken him up from the general anaesthetic, but he wasn’t able to answer any of my questions, so I put him under a lighter sedation, so he’ll sleep.’

‘You forgot about the directives?’

‘I keep getting stuck at the point where I realise she didn’t want to know how he felt about anything. She didn’t want him to volunteer if he was in pain, if something had gone wrong, if something felt wrong. I’m sure she could have used alpha persuasion to force him to answer her questions, but it’s so baffling to me to use directives to silence him completely. Even in experimentation facilities, they wanted the omegas there to talk about the outcomes of the procedures they were experiencing. It leads me to believe he’s been treated worse than many of those omegas I saw in facilities that are now illegal in most countries.’

Gary nodded slowly, unsurprised.

‘So we’ll take him back to your place,’ Temsen said, ‘and I’ll wait for him to wake there. And you? How are you handling all of this?’

Gary just smiled. What else could he do? He couldn’t erase how protective he felt, or how angry he was at Efnisien’s aunt, or how frustrated he was at the whole situation. He couldn’t stop his chest from hurting. He had no idea how to find his locus of control, and he was so, so tired.

‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Let’s get him resting up at my place.’

Chapter Text

Efnisien

*

Efnisien woke and knew instantly he wasn't in Crielle’s laboratory but on Gary's bed. He also knew he'd had some kind of surgery done because he felt groggy and out of it, the kind of feeling he used to have so often growing up, except back then he'd wake on cold metal tables and Crielle would be there, or some of her staff, and he'd be paralysed. 

He was in pain, the cramps from before were still present, but none of it was at the same intensity as before. Efnisien felt surrounded by cotton wool, he blinked his fuzzy eyes open and stared blurrily at the ceiling, then reached up and rubbed at his face, only to stare at the cannula attached to the back of his hand, a bandage wrapped around it. He catalogued the pain in his body and swallowed down a sore sound at whatever had happened between his legs. 

A shaky breath, and he stilled when he heard footsteps coming down the hall, though he felt relieved when he realised it was Gary. Those steps. He'd know those steps. He was still at Hillview, he wasn't back home, and Temsen had been there and knocked him out and now...he was in Gary's bed? 

'You're awake,' Gary said. 'Can you talk?'

'What...happened?' 

Gary came over and placed his palm gently on Efnisien's forehead, then smoothed some of his hair back, and Efnisien's concentration cleared. The back of his neck hurt too, he could tell they'd done something to it. 

'You were in a lot of pain,' Gary said. 'Temsen sedated you, then decided it was imperative to make sure the surgeries forced on you while you were growing up hadn't caused any low-grade infection. Unfortunately, we did find infection and you're on antibiotics now and will be for at least another two weeks. Temsen also found some foreign objects left inside of you after the removal of your lare glands. I know you were upset about the idea, but we've also removed the microchip. There was too much scarring in the back of your neck, and that microchip wasn't small, Efnisien. It wasn't only tracking your location.'

Efnisien expected to feel upset. He remembered how distraught he'd felt in the beginning, when Gary suggested they could remove the microchip. It had ruined his entire day. Now he lay there and felt kind of numb about it. His neck ached, but it didn't hurt as fiercely as it had after the surgery that had put the microchip inside him in the first place.

He didn't like that Temsen had looked between his legs, gone inside of him. 

He wanted to ask if Temsen had removed the prosthetics from his testicles, but since Gary hadn't said anything about it, Efnisien assumed it hadn't happened. Out of everything that had been done to him, he wanted those removed the most. But maybe Temsen couldn't do it. 

'I don't know if you can talk about those surgeries,' Gary said, sitting on the bed beside him and placing an all-too-familiar hand on Efnisien's chest. 'I'm aware you're influenced by directives around the lare glands. But can you tell me if you're in any pain from the surgeries you’ve had today?'

Efnisien nodded. 

'And what about the cramps? Are they as bad as before?'

'No,' Efnisien said. 'Is the heat gone?' 

'I don't think so. But managing the infection, removing the foreign bodies, could have caused your lare body to calm to a more...appropriate state.' 

He wanted to ask what they found, but that would mean referring to surgeries Crielle had done, and the directives kept him silent. So he could talk about the pain Temsen had inflicted on him, he could talk about the discomfort of a heat, but he couldn't ask the questions he most wanted to ask, and he closed his eyes in despair. They said the directives would become less strong over time, but they felt as strong as ever. 

'I'm sorry for not being able to obtain your consent for the surgeries before they happened,' Gary said. 

'I don't care,' Efnisien said numbly. 

Gary sighed. Efnisien realised music was playing in the house. Gary's house had always been silent until now. But in the background - maybe coming from the lounge - streaming down the short hall, came the sound of something like blues, or maybe jazz? Efnisien didn't know enough about music to be able to tell the difference. Some guy was singing, some string instruments were being played, and one sounded like a cello. The guy's voice was nice, but Efnisien couldn't tell what he was singing about. 

'How long has it been?' Efnisien asked. 

'Not long. It's been about two hours since the surgeries were completed. You'll be able to get up and walk around today, though you might feel uncomfortable because you do have some internal stitches. Temsen used stitches that will dissolve, and ideally he shouldn't need to do another internal check-up if everything heals well. You seem to be in a lot less pain since the surgeries. But it could be that the cramps are scared and biding their time.'

'Like fucking monsters. I can't believe heats are like that.'

'Heats normally aren't like that,' Gary said. 'And even with...corrupted heats, or traumatic heats, they're almost never so bad that the person having them needs complete sedation.'

Efnisien reached up and gingerly touched the back of his neck. He couldn't feel a huge line of stitches, instead his fingers bumped into a thick dressing. The microchip was gone. Crielle knew where he was because she’d put him in Hillview, but she couldn't find his exact location anymore. He didn't know how to feel about it. 

'If you're tired, get some more sleep,' Gary said gently, a little push in his voice, not alpha persuasion, but that feeling of being wrapped up sweetly. Efnisien stared at him, would have glared if he wasn't so tired. He wanted to turn onto his side, but he was scared of moving. He was used to explosions of agony after Crielle's surgeries. Waking and shifting, the staff forcing him up before he was ready to move, choking on the lancing excruciating sensations that wouldn't let him be. Sleep was more appealing. 

Gary's hand on his chest was warm and heavy. Efnisien listened to the music coming from the hall. That guy could really sing. The bass line was nice. He wondered what other kind of music Gary listened to.

*

When he woke again, it was to the smell of food from the kitchen, and Gary by his side waiting expectantly. He wondered if Gary could use that same push in his voice to wake him, or if he woke naturally. 

'Do you want to try eating something?' Gary said. ‘Everything I have will be very gentle to your body. There's a meal replacement shake, too. We have to keep you on soft foods for the next few days, for obvious reasons.'

Efnisien made a face. God. It was all so humiliating. And he was still scared to move. He wanted to say he just needed to keep sleeping, but he kind of needed to piss. Probably something to do with the IV line connected to the back of his hand. Gary was waiting there, no doubt expecting him to get up, walk around. Crielle would have lost patience by now. 

Tentatively, he shifted his body, and the pain increased in his neck and between his legs. It didn't explode, but it was noticeable, and he froze again. 

It's going to hurt. It’s going to hurt so much.

'Efnisien? Are you all right?' Gary said. 

'I don't...' 

What a novelty, that he could speak to a peak alpha at a time like this. He looked at Gary, anxious and missing the music from before. It had stopped. Maybe the album had finished. 

'It's going to hurt a lot,' Efnisien said. 

'It might,' Gary said. 'The discomfort shouldn't last as you continue to heal over the next few days, and I can smell when your pain peaks, and we have more options for pain management if we need them.' 

He wished Gary would just tell him that he didn't need to move ever again. God. Once Efnisien used to be way stronger, he'd force himself to get up and even if the pain was terrible, he wouldn't be able to tell Crielle about it anyway. 

Carefully, he pushed up and slid his legs towards the edge of the bed. And while the pain got worse, enough that his breathing became laboured, at no point did it skyrocket through him, making him feel like he was being torn up. He could tell Temsen had been inside of him because the entrance to his ass stung, and his insides felt badly bruised. But it felt…tolerable. When he stood, Gary stood with him, one hand resting on his side as though ready to catch him immediately if he fell. 

'I don't like this,' Efnisien said, looking down at the cannula. 'Do I have to keep it?'

He couldn’t imagine what Crielle would have done to him if he’d ever said something like that to her.

'No,' Gary said. 'If you can move around the house, take your meds, eat and drink, then the cannula will be removed. Temsen might leave it in overnight, just in case, but I suspect he'll follow your lead here.' 

Efnisien stood there, processing the fact that even though he was sore, even though he felt like he'd been beaten up, he still wasn't in pain that was anything like before when he'd been straddled across Gary's hips. He walked slowly to the bathroom as Gary helped move the IV stand, so he didn't have to think about it. Gary waited with the door pulled ajar like those first few nights as Efnisien pissed into the toilet. When he washed his hands, he saw how pale he looked, the dark circles beneath his eyes like bruises. His hair was a mess. He needed a shower. Surgery always made him want to shower. He felt filthy. 

The violation of it all was bad, it made him nauseated even though the pain wasn't as awful. When he came out of the bathroom, he didn't know whether he wanted to get away from Gary's touch or lean into it. He stayed compliant when Gary led him down towards the lounge.

Gary had a donut cushion on one of the chairs at the kitchen table for him, so he wouldn't be putting any direct pressure where it would aggravate the stitches. 

Crielle had never done shit like this. 

Efnisien stared blankly at the table as he sat down. Why wasn't the pain as bad as before? He'd had surgery! A whole surgery! Two surgeries! It should be hurting more. He should be fighting with himself to stay conscious and obedient, so Crielle wouldn't get angry at him. So why didn't he hurt as much? Were the painkillers that good? But no, Efnisien felt surprisingly lucid, and he could tell when heavy-duty painkillers were messing with his head. 

'Um, am I on like...morphine or something?'

'No,' Gary said. 'Temsen was using heavier painkillers before, but he's been a bit more circumspect since. We want to know when the pain gets bad, because we want to understand what's happening with your body, and Temsen was worried morphine might mask anything that needed a follow up, or further surgery. You're not out of the woods yet. Why? Do you want morphine?'

Efnisien wasn't even on morphine. 

'What about oxycodone or something?' Efnisien asked. 

'No,' Gary said. 'Nothing like that.'

'But I just had...two? Two surgeries?' 

'How bad is the pain?' Gary said, staring at him with a kind of growing horror. 

Efnisien looked down and tried not to laugh. 'That's just it... I'm- It's not... It's not even as bad as before. Like, this morning.' 

'It's not?' Gary put down whatever he'd been holding in the kitchen.

'I thought it was maybe the painkillers.'

'Well, you are on some.'

The noise of the blender, and Gary came over with what must have been the meal replacement shake, a little plastic cup of all of his medications, and bread rolls. Fancy bread rolls. He'd seen Crielle eating one before. A croissant? He couldn't remember what it was called. 

'There's some extra fruit in here,' Gary said of the meal replacement shake, 'and some oat milk. It should be more palatable than what you've been expected to drink in the past but let me know if you don't like it.' 

Efnisien sipped through the straw - another novelty - and was surprised at how creamy the shake tasted. Like chocolate and banana, like something he shouldn't be allowed to have. And he stopped halfway through when tears came to his eyes, because he was bewildered and confused and lost. And Gary noticed - of course he fucking did - and looked like he wanted to hear what was going on, but Efnisien didn't know how to tell him. He took his meds instead, then held the meal replacement shake in his hands, feeling unsteady. 

'It's meant to hurt,' he whispered. 'I don't understand. Why isn't it...?'

His voice strangled out, and he managed to swallow down the urge to cough as the directives flared up beastly and hot inside of him. He couldn't refer to the pain that he used to experience with Crielle. He forced himself to breathe, and Gary reached out from where he was seated and placed a hand on Efnisien's knee, and that was shocking and helpful at the same time, and Efnisien wished he understood it.

'Am I even still in heat?'

'Surgery can be traumatic to heats,' Gary said. 'But it's possible. You might experience another wave later. Or it might be quietening down. You aren't going to be capable - at least at the moment - of recognisable, classic heats, so whatever is happening with your body, we're just going to have to figure that out over time. The main thing is you don't seem to be in as much pain as you were before. If I'm reading the situation correctly, I think you were trying to say you don't hurt as much today after Temsen's intervention, compared to how you used to feel back when you were with your aunt? I don't- I don't expect an answer or an acknowledgement to that. I can tell when the directives have activated. No wonder you avoid them.'

Efnisien sipped at the shake and wished it would all make sense.

'Temsen is a trained surgeon,' Gary added. ‘He has ongoing experience in small and minor surgeries. While today was invasive and unpleasant for you, it might be the first time in your life that you've ever had surgeries done by someone competent and trained enough to do them. As far as I know, he's used a combination of glue and butterfly stitches on the back of your neck, so you won't have to deal with the pull of traditional stitches in the same way. He's kept your comfort in mind. That’s his job.' 

Efnisien didn't say anything. He felt...lonely. 

Lonely. 

As soon as he realised, he knew the heat wasn't done with him yet, because he yearned for it to be like before when he was close to Gary, when his body was pressed against his, and he knew the loneliness was going to get worse because he could never ever ask for that. He couldn't betray himself like that. And he didn't ever want to make it seem like he wanted Gary to fuck him, especially now.

Not that he...really thought Gary would do it now. 

Efnisien shivered, then forced himself to drink the rest of the shake. He wanted to have one of the croissants, but he was scared of eating. Sometimes he could get sick after surgeries. He remembered throwing up a lot, and Crielle giving him extra pills for it sometimes, but not always. 

'Efnisien?' 

'I'm fine,' Efnisien said. 'You were...playing music before. What was it?' 

'A local band,' Gary said, his voice quieter. 'The Blind Bilbies.'

'Bilbies. Like the animal? The bilby?' 

'Yes. Do you know anything about them?'

'They're...um, they look a little like rabbits. But they’re Australian. They have cool tails. I've never seen one. That's an interesting name for a band.'

'I thought so too, when I heard of them,' Gary said.

'The singer was really good.'

'He was a brilliant singer,' Gary said. 

Efnisien looked up at the strange tone in Gary's voice. But Gary was looking off into the distance, seeing something else, maybe remembering some kind of live performance. 

'Will you put it on again?' Efnisien asked. 'I didn't know music was...an option. Unless you don't like it. I haven't listened to much music. Crielle liked classical, which was okay, and Gwyn listens to like...I don't know, gym stuff. Like, stuff you can run or lift weights to. Stuff with a really specific BPM.'

Gary's little breath of laughter created an echo of sweet warmth in Efnisien's chest. And Gary stood up and walked over to an old-fashioned record player and pulled out a sleeve from a cabinet filled with records, and drew out the vinyl, placing the large, circular disk on the player before moving the needle and turning it on. 

'This was one of their earlier albums,' Gary said. 'It's moodier. Maybe you'll like it more. But if you don't, I can always put on something else. I like music.'

'But you haven't- I haven't heard any. Is it because of me?'

'I guess I stopped thinking about it,' Gary said. 'I can put it on more if you like? Here...'

Gary brought over the sleeve that had been protecting the vinyl record inside of it. On the front was the band's name, and what must have been the album name: Mountains Elsewhere. The guy's voice started up, earthy and evocative, singing about a love at the end of the world, and Efnisien touched the drawing of Eucalyptus leaves on the front of the album cover. He turned it over and it had a track listing, and all the technical stuff, and then the names of the people in the band. The lead vocalist was also the cellist, and his name was familiar.

James Visser.

Efnisien stared in confusion, then thought of the day he'd destroyed Gary's office, and the green calligraphy on that note in one of Gary’s books, and how pretty it had been. Those words specifically for Gary. Keep changing the future. It'd been written by James Visser, the one who had a PhD in Omega Theory. And Efnisien also remembered the look on Gary's face when he'd seen that torn note, the fact that he'd kept it in his pocket like a treasured object, and probably even had it with him now. 

Efnisien’s heart thundered in his chest.

A clamour of feelings stirred and left him feeling so dizzy he had to grab the underside of the table.

The guy - James - in the background, was singing about the marvel of finding love in a lost land that had been all but given up on by the survivors that still inhabited it. And Gary had talked about his singing like…he knew the guy. Like he knew him.

'Who's James?' Efnisien asked. 

Chapter Text

Gary

*

'Who's James?'

Gary stared, because he'd never expected that question to ever come out of Efnisien's mouth, or to mean anything, because the expression seemed knowing. Like he already knew. And that was impossible. Gary hadn't given anything away, had he?

He'd been missing James so badly he'd put on one of his records while Efnisien slept. He'd missed the music, he wanted to hear his lover's voice, and he'd sat by Efnisien's side torn between polar opposites. The unwelcoming land of the dead, and the unwelcoming land of the living. James in one, Efnisien in the other. But listening to The Blind Bilbies had reminded him viscerally that there had been so much to love about James. He had been such a clever, darling, infuriating boy.

For all that Gary sometimes got tired of listening to James practicing the same hooks and sections on his cello during the day, he admired the music it led to. He never fully appreciated how much work went into being a serious musician and had never understood why James even pursued it when he had a solid professional career ahead of him in Omega Theory - a growing field that was paying better and better as the years went on - until he went to a live concert of James', and everything clicked. James needed the music to do the job, and Gary needed all of him.

'He's the singer in the band,' Gary said.

'Um,' Efnisien said, looking so wary now. 'It's just...'

A long pause.

Let it go, Gary thought.

'When I destroyed your office,' Efnisien said, and Gary felt it in his chest, like a hard, angry thump. 'You had- There was a book that was like... Was that the same James Visser? He had a PhD in Omega Theory, I remember. So you knew him? You knew the lead singer of a band? It's the same guy, right?'

In some ways, it would have been far better if Efnisien were stupid. He could be naive, and he was undereducated because of the neglect his family had put him through, but there was nothing stupid about him. He made these connections in a way that made it tricky, because Gary couldn't keep lying, but nor did he want to reveal the truth. It was too dangerous. He didn't want Efnisien to have that name in his mouth, he didn't want Efnisien to get his hands on those memories. It was bad enough Efnisien had destroyed the book James had given to him.

'Yes,' Gary said. 'It's the same guy.'

'So you...know each other? He gave you a book.'

Gary didn't say anything. He was thinking of how best to phrase it. He could just say they’d met at university, perhaps they were university friends, and then he'd-

'Were you together?' Efnisien said.

Gary stared at Efnisien, and there must have been something on his face, because Efnisien blanched, and he stood like he wanted to get away. But he knocked the IV stand, which tipped, and Gary quickly took hold of it and Efnisien's arm.

'Now isn't the time,' Gary said, hoping he sounded calm.

'I'm sorry,' Efnisien said. 'But...'

'Not now, Efnisien, you're meant to be resting.'

'But-'

'Efnisien.'

Gary hadn't meant to put alpha persuasion in the word, and he certainly hadn't meant to be so heavy-handed with it. Efnisien's reaction was sudden and sharp, he turned and placed a hand over his mouth, like he was going to throw up, but he managed to keep the pills and the shake down, and then he stayed facing the other direction, too scared to look back. Gary could smell the acid fear in the air and knew it was because of his reaction, his pheromones. He felt satisfied, even, because he needed Efnisien to not know about any of it. This was not something Efnisien could get closer to. He was too close already.

'You need to rest,' Gary said. 'We'll get you on the couch so you can watch some TV.'

Efnisien said nothing at all, and Gary felt that lurking worm of guilt wriggling inside. The boy was recovering from surgeries, he'd been violated, but he had the worst possible timing. So Gary got him settled on the couch and cleared up the table and kept looking over at him. He ate a croissant and put the rest away, then came back after washing his hands. He sat next to Efnisien, and - because Efnisien wasn't out of the woods yet with his heat - moved closer to him until their bodies were touching. Efnisien didn't even acknowledge him.

He tried to think about what he'd wanted when he'd used the alpha persuasion with Efnisien's name. To make him be quiet? To silence him. Damn it. The effects of the persuasion could still be affecting him.

'You can talk, if you want,' Gary said.

Efnisien said nothing. But Gary thought it might be mutinous now, instead of helpless. Efnisien was angry.

'Maybe one day,' Gary said, feeling faintly desperate, wondering what kind of meds Temsen would put him on, because even he could tell that his PACS had returned. Not as bad as it used to be, but not great, either. Today his chest had felt like it used to all those years ago, unstable and weak. 'Not today. Please.'

'Okay,' Efnisien said, stubborn and angry. It wasn't something he was going to let go of soon.

Gary closed his eyes and thought about what he needed. A locus of control. If everything was spinning out away from him, what would help?

James' singing, even in this awkward situation, was helping. Hearing these old songs that James had recorded before Gary had ever met him, it helped. And otherwise...

'Carefully now,' Gary said, 'I want you to come here and rest your head on my thigh.'

Efnisien resisted him at first, but Gary moved his hands and showed him how to lay down, easing him through it, watching sharply for any increases in pain that were dangerous. But Efnisien really didn't seem to be in as much pain as before. The scent he let out when those cramps were savage didn't exist now. Gary knew it was a combination of Efnisien's general pain tolerance being shockingly high, and the fact that if an infection and the foreign objects had been aggravating the lare body, it might already be settling back down again.

He couldn't believe they hadn't investigated this sooner, but once more, they'd never had anyone like Efnisien at their facility before. They might have to expect homegrown surgeries like this in the future. He suspected Temsen was already composing a case study about Efnisien's experiences, but Gary wasn't going to let it go out into the world without the boy's consent.

Efnisien shifted, then huffed out a sigh when his head rested fully on Gary's thigh. And Gary automatically touched his hair, threading his fingers carefully through it, untangling knots that had formed after sweating heavily before, and having gone through surgery since. And Efnisien's eyes were open and looking up at the ceiling, and then they fluttered shut and his breathing evened out. Because touch helped him. It was such an obvious comfort to him that Gary suspected Efnisien needed a lot of it even independently of his heats.

It helped Gary too. He could sit here and detach from the pain in his chest and focus on the fact that even with only very light touches of his hands, he was able to control another person's body. It was like a drug, and once he started, he didn't want to stop. He touched Efnisien's hair, rubbed his scalp, listened to that breathing hitch and then settle, depending on whether Gary found his sensitive places, or was simply calming him.

He suspected Efnisien would be incredibly responsive if they were ever to do anything more together.

Gary closed his eyes. No. But they never would because he loved James. He'd dedicated his life to James.

And there was Efnisien wanting to know who James Visser was. But how could Gary ever answer that question?

He was everything.

All Gary had were impotent cliches and nothing that came close to capturing the fact that his heart had failed once it really hit him that James was gone, and he was alone.

Those months of James' family trying to destroy his character. They'd found a sympathetic journalist - more than one – for the more conservative newspapers that believed that alphas – even peak alphas – should only ever be with omegas. Articles had come out about how the owner of a cutting-edge omega rehabilitation facility hated omegas, refused to be with them, and instead used his power and wiles to brainwash an alpha, and then deny him the loving, healing care of an omega when he became sick with cancer.

For a while, Gary had journalists calling Hillview and asking to speak with him. Asking him if he hated omegas. Asking him why he refused to break up with James - as though James never had any say in it at all, the possessive little demon - and why he'd let the man die with cancer because of it.

There'd been a few counterpoints in the media, a few articles talking about how it was a myth that omegas could stop the progression of cancer in alphas. The most they could do was slow it down in healthy bonds because healthy relationships between anyone could keep a person's stress levels down, and in turn that could have a very slight positive effect on cancer outcomes. But James' family had been stressful to James, to Gary, for years, and perhaps for a while Gary had hated omegas after James died, because it was the omegas in James' family that made the whole process of his lover dying so much more hellish than it needed to be.

It didn't matter that Gary loved him. It didn't matter that James loved Gary. It didn't matter that they were 'a sure thing' as James used to say. His family never came around. And now Gary was persona non grata, and the Vissers would never forget. At Christmas, he got messages and emails from them. On James' birthday, every year like clockwork, he'd get messages from the sister:

We'd be celebrating James' birthday with him today, except that you killed him. You say you loved him, but you never would've stayed with him like that if you truly loved him. We know what you are.

Gary wanted to rub the back of Efnisien's neck, but he couldn't while the stitches were in.

Like clockwork, every year, there were messages from James' family. Even on Gary's birthday. They never let him forget. And he knew he should block their numbers, but after all this time he couldn't bring himself to. He was the only one who'd been by James' side at the end, and maybe one day they'd want to make peace or talk to him about it. Maybe one day there'd be room for growth. He felt like he'd be bullying them otherwise, a peak alpha cutting off a family of omegas who believed in fringe conspiracy theories about the healing power of omegas, but loved James so much they struggled to let him go just as much as Gary did. They had common ground, but they would never admit it.

He closed his eyes. He couldn't tell Efnisien about any of it. But maybe he'd have to. Even saying James' name aloud did something awful to him after all this time.

Thankfully, Efnisien's breathing slowed. He did need the rest, after all. Gary felt cruel, lulling him this way, knowing the physical contact calmed him. But he needed to buy himself time, and he couldn't run away. Not now, not while Efnisien was recovering from surgeries that Gary himself would find invasive and violating.

'That's it,' Gary said softly.

Efnisien didn't reply, and Gary knew he was angry, and only hoped Efnisien's ability for destruction would be muted by his pain.

*

About thirty minutes later, Gary's phone rang unexpectedly, buzzing in his pocket. Efnisien was sleeping soundly, though he'd made some noises of discomfort in his last attempt to get comfortable. The fact that he wasn't in the same amount of pain as before was incredible to him. The fact that surgery didn't hurt as much as what he was going through before... Efnisien had a pain threshold they'd need to keep a close eye on. Gary was aware that after the sedation properly wore off, Efnisien might wake to more of those cramps and they wouldn't know what to do beyond hospitalisation. Gary desperately wanted to avoid it.

Mike Henton was returning his call. Gary picked up, surprised.

'Mike? How are you doing?'

'Good, good, Gary. It's been a while! Everything all right?'

'Of course,' Gary said, the words coming automatically even though they weren't true.

'Calling for business or something else?' Mike said, sounding like he was relaxing as he sipped at some kind of drink.

'Something else,' Gary said. 'I do apologise, Mike. In a moment of weakness I couldn't think of who to call, and then remembered how we'd talked back in the day. But it's been a long time, and I don't want to take up your time.'

'Not at all,' Mike said. 'You listened to enough of my moaning too, back then. It went both ways.'

Gary didn't think that was true, but he appreciated Mike’s words. Efnisien continued to sleep, not even rousing at the sound of him talking.

'So what's been happening? You still doing Hillview? I hear it's going well down there.'

'It is,' Gary said. 'Though we have an... interesting case. And since we've been at capacity, I now find myself working as something of a bastardised companion.'

'You?' Mike said, surprised. He laughed shortly. 'Damn. I'm assuming you haven't come around to companionship. I mean- I remember how things were after James.'

'Yes,' Gary said, his voice unexpectedly rough.

'Bastardised companion, you say? I'm surprised to hear it. I would never have imagined things would go well between yourself and an omega. Right?'

'Right,' Gary said. 'It's complicated. It's also confidential, the case is unusual enough that we're concerned about rumours.'

'Yeah, I have a couple of those myself,' Mike said. 'I'm still working the therapy circuit, and I'm finding myself drawn more and more to the fringe cases, especially as I get more experience under my belt. You don't have to tell me a thing, old chap, I know what it's like to want to talk to someone, while needing to protect your practice. But it's great to hear from you.'

'How is the therapy circuit, after all this time?'

There was a pause, and Mike sighed. 'Well, you know, it's tiring sometimes. Feels a bit 'same old, same old.' And I feel a bit like I'm swimming against the current, trying to teach these alphas that they'll enjoy their lives more if they learn how to value themselves and the people around them - including the omegas. But I have a good supervisor, I'm doing my best. Might be time for me to settle down with a partner of my own, give myself something to focus on, but I don't really have the time, and in all honesty, Gary, omegas aren't really my thing. Not the classic ones, anyway. I know it should be that way, but my brain doesn't lean in that direction.'

'No, no, I understand that completely.'

'I thought you might, being a peak alpha and all. But it's less common among alphas, you know? It's less acceptable to talk in a bar about how you might be more curious about alphas or betas. But look at me, dumping my own mess on you. I do apologise!'

'It's helpful,' Gary said.

'How generous,' Mike said, his deadpan voice bringing a smile to Gary's face. 'And you? Given you don't feel much for omegas either, you must be miserable.'

'That's just it...' Gary said. 'I mean- Yes, there are aspects of what's happening that aren't easy, but...the person I'm with isn't wholly omega. It's a very difficult situation. We can't pair him with our alphas, because he's capable of alpha persuasion himself, which makes him dangerous to be around.'

A long pause, and then Mike said: 'The world is never as black and white as it pretends to be, is it?'

'No, it never is.'

'Listen, I know it's been an awfully long time there, but I remember how it used to go.'

'I'm now remembering that we only ever talked like this when my life was falling apart,' Gary said, laughing ruefully. 'I'm a trained psychologist and look at me, setting up one-sided friendships.'

Mike burst into cheerful laughter. 'If I recall, you helped me too, more than once. But, Gary, it's not a bad thing to have people you can lean on. I'm aware that you're likely to be reluctant to disclose anything. So what can I do? What do you need from me?' 

‘Well… Doing this while- This is my first serious connection since James. And I didn’t expect anything to come of it, but… a connection is there.' Gary said.

He stared at Efnisien, willing him not to wake, but Efnisien desperately needed the sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he sank rapidly into deeper rest.

'Ah, so,' Mike said, like he understood everything. 

Gary stared up at the ceiling. No. He didn't want to talk about this, but he knew he needed to talk to someone. He didn't feel like he could talk to Temsen - not when he'd taken such an active role in Efnisien's care - and he wouldn't burden Augus or Faber. He had a paucity of people in his life that he could lean on for these sorts of reasons, and until now, his life had been working out just fine. It had been working. 

Gary's hand clenched in a fist. In that moment, he wanted to throw Efnisien out of his lap and leave. Leave. Quit the business and go into research, do something different, do what he'd wanted to do all along before he'd met James and the course of his entire life had changed. 

His chest hurt.

Chapter Text

Gary

*

'The thing is,' Gary said to Henton, 'I'm not... I don't really want to bond with someone else. I never planned to. But I also seem unable to stop the process. I don't know whether it's simply the forced proximity, or the situation we've been placed into. But we can't transfer him to another omega rehabilitation facility - we're way past that - and his family may try and kill him. Another family member has already threatened it as a possibility. I can't afford to put myself first.'

'And that's what all your instincts want to do?'

Not all of them, Gary thought, looking down at Efnisien's sleeping face. No. A part of him felt deeply satisfied that Efnisien trusted him enough to sleep on his lap. A part of him responded to Efnisien straddling his hips. A part of him felt visceral exultation when he'd smashed Efnisien's head into the sand at the beach and wrestled him into submission. 

'Ah...so it's like that, is it?' Mike said. 

'I know you're probably busy.'

'Honestly, no,' Mike said. 'I made sure I could return your call when I had a free moment. You're helping me avoid my paperwork, old chap! What better time could there be?'

Gary laughed softly, Mike laughed with him, and ah...this could maybe work out. Maybe he could still confide in Mike.

'Listen,' Mike said, 'I'm not in the business of giving you the answers you want, because I think you don't know what you want. But you do have other options, aside from pursuing bonding, or transferring him. You could place him with someone who understands his circumstances in a pairing. There's more alphas out there than you realise who don't want conventional... Well, who don't want what's expected of them. Hell, even I'm someone who no longer looks for omegas. People's tastes change over time, Gary.'

'We do have a waitlist,' Gary said. 'I don't think anyone's suitable, not while they're susceptible to his alpha persuasion.' 

‘There may come a time when they’re not as susceptible,' Mike said. 'Anyway, it's something to think about. Maybe I should add myself to that waitlist of yours one day. Sometimes I think I'm never going to find the right person to settle down with.'

A thread of bitterness in Mike's voice, and Gary nodded. But he didn't know what to say. It wasn't an option right now to place Efnisien with anyone else, and he wasn't going to entertain the thought. It would be such an unprofessional thing to do, not only for Efnisien's sake, but for the sake of anyone who ended up with him. 

'As a last resort, I'll definitely keep the option of partnering him with someone else in mind.' 

'If it's not too forward, don't rule me out,' Mike said. 'I'll do a formal application if you want, but I don't want an omega that's too...placid. Well, you know how they can get. Someone who has an opinion of their own, someone with some fight... Is this how peak alphas feel?'

Gary laughed. 'It might be. Someone you can still have some power over, but who holds plenty of their own power.' 

'Something like that,' Mike said. 

Gary thought of Alois Flitmouse – who held a great deal of power in his relationship with Anton – but if he started talking about omega theory on the phone, he was going to think about James, and that wasn’t a good path to go down.

'Don't put in a formal request just yet. But maybe send me an email, so I can keep your details close by. If it comes to that, I'll get in touch about a potential screening. I should go. He's on my lap right now. Asleep.'

'Of course, of course. Remember, you can call me any time. It's a welcome distraction from the agonies of the juvenile alphas who are all dealing with newly discovering their cock and balls.'

Gary rolled his eyes as Mike laughed, they said their goodbyes, and Gary hung up. 

He looked down at Efnisien and stroked his hair a few times, and Efnisien took a few shallow breaths and sighed them all out at once, nuzzling his head against Gary's thigh. 

Well. He'd said he was starting to bond with Efnisien aloud, and it wasn't the end of the world. But Efnisien was going to wake at some point and start needling him about James again, and Gary wasn't sure he'd be able to stop himself from using alpha persuasion to shut him up. If Efnisien couldn't respect that it was a forbidden subject, Gary spitefully didn't see the point in respecting the negative impact alpha persuasion had on the boy.

*

Temsen called an hour later when Gary was dozing against the couch armrest. Efnisien was still fast asleep.

'I've dug up some research that might be helpful,' Temsen said, 'but you're not going to like it.'

'Such a common refrain.'

'How's the boy?'

'Asleep,' Gary said curtly. 'The cramps don't seem to be anything like before.'

'Mmm, it's too soon to know if they're going to return at the same intensity. Controlling those cramps is what I wanted to talk to you about. I'm certain his body is going to push him into a corrupted heat again, and even once the surgeries heal, I think his heats may always be painful. It's possible going forward that direct stimulation to the scar tissue where the lare glands were might be helpful, it is a more direct line to the branching tendrils of the lare body after all, but I'm also sensitive to the fact that you can't just- Well. If he's only ever in a corrupted heat...'

'He won't ever want it.'

'Right,' Temsen said. 'And while we can't always guarantee consent, I'd prefer to avoid outright rape.'

'You know,' Gary said with some false cheer, 'so would I!'

'Stop it,' Temsen said curtly, his normal upbeat spirit disappearing. 'I'm in no mood, Gary. Not now.'

Gary was silent, and Temsen made a small sound of frustration. 

'I'm furious with Crielle ferch Fnwy,' Temsen said. 'The whole situation. I'm angry you didn't tell me about the microchip, angry at Kent that he didn't note the foreign bodies even though he palpated the absent lare body himself. He should have felt the remnants of those stitches immediately. I've pulled him up on it, and of course he's never been in a position to know what it feels like, especially through gloves. But this should have been remedied the day Kent did the internal exam. I'm conducting all new initial internals until I can trust him to know what to look for.'

'Of course. So what have you been researching?'

'Alternate methods to help Efnisien get through future heats. I've inadvertently stumbled across a very interesting paper out of India, a case study on a family of omegas who have deformed lare glands. Corrupted heats were painful and common in the family, however, the active consumption of alpha pheromones assisted them and ameliorated the cramps. One omega discovered it once partnered off into an arranged marriage with a very compassionate alpha, who discovered that ingestion of semen but also saliva, was stabilising. She passed that information back to the family, who then organised to ingest saliva from cooperating parties, which stabilised all of them. It seems obvious in retrospect. It's possible it hasn't been documented as formally because we know painful heats will ease with lare body stimulation anyway.'

'Saliva...' Gary said. 'Kissing?' 

'That's the most obvious form,' Temsen said, 'but in lieu of that, I think even putting some into his food or drink might help. Though…pheromones break down quickly, a fast route is preferable. I don't think it's worth doing until he goes into heat again, because it's...well, it might be hard to talk him into it.'

'You're telling me,' Gary said. 'Not to mention the fact that he still has alpha revulsion responses to alpha pheromones.'

'Goodness. I'd forgotten about that. You're right. You might have to test it first to see how he reacts. Moral objections aside, if his physiology can't take it... I thought I'd come onto a winner there.'

'It still might be. Also, his pain is severe enough I think he'll go for it when the worst of the cramps set in. He certainly wasn't against you being there for some of it, and he wasn't against straddling me either once he realised it helped.' 

Temsen sighed explosively. 'Nothing like physiology to make an omega want to bond. Biology is cruel sometimes.'

'Isn't it, though?' 

'Still, if that saliva tip can help... The paper is well-written, there's some theories posed as to why it works, but it was more broadly published with a view to educating anyone else who encountered an omega with corrupted or painful heats. It's something I'm tempted to try going forward at the facility. Do you know how much it would alter things? Suppressants and medication are all well and good, but with the omegas who trust their alphas enough to live with them, but not enough to share their heats...'

'You're right,' Gary said, realising.

'And it would facilitate further bonding. Anyway, my next task is researching Crielle ferch Fnwy further.'

'Be careful. She's dangerous.'

'I'm using onion encryption,' Temsen said casually. 'There's nothing I love more than making peak alphas who have had the run of things, realise they're not the only peak alpha in existence. It's the loveliest feeling.'

'You are rather dangerous yourself, Temsen.'

'Yes, well, when it comes to her, I'll do my best to be as dangerous as possible. Faber’s very enthusiastic about the whole thing too. Call me if you have any issues! And let me know if the cramps come back. I expect Efnisien’s heat isn't gone, not yet. It is good news that he isn't worsening though. Very good news.' 

Temsen hung up soon after, and Gary put his phone down and yawned, letting himself settle more comfortably on the couch. He decided not to resist sleep any longer, especially since he didn't know when he'd get a solid night's sleep again until Efnisien's biology settled down.

*

When Gary woke, Efnisien was sitting up, resting on one hip, staring ahead at nothing. 

'How are you feeling?'

'Shitty,' Efnisien said, his voice scratchy. 'But not as bad as before.'

'The cramps?'

'It all feels shaky,' Efnisien said, weakly lifting a hand and gesturing to his belly area. 'Like it could go again. It's like living with a bomb in there.'

'The stitches can't be helping,' Gary said. 'The pain medication has probably worn off. I'm relieved the cramps haven't come back.'

'Me too,' Efnisien said. He looked haunted. Gary wanted to ask him what the pain was like compared to some of the things he'd experienced in the past, but he knew Efnisien wouldn't be able to answer. Those damned directives. 

'I haven't seen you in pain that bad before,' Gary said. 

'Pain has a scent,' Efnisien said. 

He seemed, for now, to have dropped the subject of James, but Gary knew it was only a matter of time before he brought it up again. Efnisien was like a scent hound, once he got the thread of something, he was liable to bring it up at the worst possible moment. It didn't matter if Gary used alpha persuasion, he knew Efnisien would come back to it. He had his own spiteful streak. 

'You said that you could smell the pain before. It has a scent?'

'It does,' Gary said, confused. 'You didn't know?' 

'No. I had no idea.'

Gary frowned. 'It's like...acid. Similar to the scent of fear. We haven't really talked about whether you can pick up scents or not.' 

'I can pick up some things,' Efnisien said. 'When like...alphas spike their pheromones on purpose, I can smell that. And your room smells stronger than the rest of the house. And it was like that back home too, with Gwyn's room, and Crielle's room. Well, she shared it with Lludd, but you could never tell his scent in there. I don't think I'm as good at picking up scents as others though.'

'It's not uncommon in traumatised alphas and omegas in particular,' Gary said. 'Anyway, the scent of pain is...more complex, and louder I suppose, than the scent of fear. It's more repellent, even to peak alphas.'

'Really?' Efnisien said, sounding bitter, staring ahead.

Gary thought he had to be thinking about Crielle. He had to be. 

'They really find it repellent?' Efnisien said. 

The sentence came to Gary's mind before he could stop it appearing, some combination of his own pheromones, his protective hunger, his anger that Hillview couldn't do more. He stared at Efnisien for a long time, wondering if he should even say it, then decided he might as well. 

'I know for a long time all you wanted was to go back home,' Gary said. 'But if you never want to return there, you never have to. Hillview will do everything in its power to make sure it doesn't happen.'

'You don't know her,' Efnisien said. 

'She doesn't know us,' Gary said. 

'You don't get it. I know you're a peak alpha. I know Temsen is, that other guy is. But she's... I mean you could kill as many omegas here as you wanted, right? All the hard ones you could kill pretty much without consequence. But you don't. I'm kind of...learning that. You don't just kill them. There's no reason for Temsen to give me as many painkillers as he does, or to care about stuff with me. So you don't kill omegas even when it would be easier to do that. Crielle makes the choices you aren't willing to make.'

'She didn't kill you, Efnisien. She sent you here.'

'I'm not lying,' Efnisien said, 'and I'm not just being afraid, she will have no problems killing everyone here. The only reason she wouldn't do it is because of her reputation. You know how peak alphas care about reputation.'

'I do indeed,' Gary said, thinking about how it had shattered him when James' family had worked so hard to destroy it. Gary still couldn't use social media. It was hilarious how fragile peak alphas were, and how much of their power was built around hiding that fragility. 

So much for a locus of control. 

'Has she killed anyone you know of?' Gary said. For some reason it hadn't occurred to him that she might have already killed other people.

'She doesn't like to get her hands dirty. She wants other people to do it. I know Lludd's done it.'

'How do you know that?' Gary said. 

Efnisien's hands knotted together, he took a stifled breath, then pressed a hand to his gut. Gary grimaced and stood.

'Stay there,' Gary said. 'I'm getting you some more painkillers. You're due. Anyway, you were saying? Is it something you can talk about?'

'I can,' Efnisien said. 'Look, I never saw bodies or anything. I've just seen articles. I've heard Crielle talking to Lludd, and then I've seen articles about dead alphas, or worse... she'll go after an alpha's spouse, if the alpha was like... really in love with them. You don't know what she's like. Just... It's big words to say I don't have to go back there, but if she wants me dead, or if she wants me back, then you can't do anything to stop her.'

'I'm hoping she underestimates us like you do,' Gary said, popping two pills out of the blister pack, one more pill from the small bottle Temsen had given him, and getting some water. He added some food, Efnisien hadn't been eating nearly enough for days. For his entire life, really. 

Gary came back and handed Efnisien the pills, and like always - without question - Efnisien downed them and drank the whole glass of water. After that he stared at the plate of bread rolls in the table and then as soon as he started to reach for one, Gary picked it up and handed it to him. Efnisien accepted it hesitantly. 

'Won't...going to the toilet hurt more than normal?' Efnisien said. 

'You're taking stool softeners,' Gary said. 

'Gross,' Efnisien muttered. 'But...okay. Whatever.'

He tore little pieces of bread off and nibbled them more like a shy animal than a person. He stared at the bread fixedly. Gary thought now was not the time to bring up the fact that he might be finding a way to get his saliva into Efnisien's body to help him through corrupted heats in the future. 

‘You do things so weirdly here,’ Efnisien said, looking at the bread roll. ‘I don’t need this many painkillers. I don’t need…’

He shook his head, and Gary hated every glimpse he got into Efnisien’s old life.

Control. Gary needed some control. He needed some structure. Hell, he had supervision sessions coming up and he needed to get his home office sorted out. 

He needed to stop thinking about how satisfying it might feel to bring Efnisien under his control with his pheromones. The idea of getting his saliva into Efnisien’s body…should not be nearly as appealing as it was. Temsen's suggestion had awoken something primal inside him, and he wanted to stomp it down viciously, but he knew he wouldn't. 

Chapter Text

Efnisien

*

A couple of days passed where Efnisien was angry at Gary for not talking to him about the fact that he obviously used to have some kind of boyfriend, or partner, or even husband, who sang amazingly and was some PhD of Omega Theory and had a professional band and everything. But Efnisien was scared of whatever Gary's heart condition was, he didn't want to make it worse, so he seethed and dealt with the merciless humiliation of basically having to live with soft diarrhea day after day because he had stitches inside of himself. At least the cannula was out of his wrist, Gary had removed it himself after Temsen’s go ahead.

The heat wasn't gone, exactly, but it wasn't like before either. He wasn't mindless with pain or need, it was dull cramps, a desire to be close to Gary all the time, which he ruthlessly ignored even when it made him curl up into a ball on the couch. 

And Gary had to work again, which he did in his ruined office, taking a chair and a small table in there that was delivered by Faber. That day had been hard too. Faber had come in, and Efnisien sat on the couch and watched him, and hated that they all probably knew he'd needed surgery at the back of his neck, surgery in his ass. Faber was stupidly pretty. Efnisien would've sworn he wore makeup, but his skin really seemed to be that clear. 

'How are you, Sir?' Faber said, sitting at the kitchen table and smiling briefly and professionally at Efnisien. 

'Good, good. How are you finding the shift in management?'

'Temsen's very no-nonsense, but I'm used to that. If it weren't for Augus, I'd think all peak alphas were the same, Sir.' 

Gary had smiled at him, and they'd talked so easily. Efnisien thought he might be looped into the conversation, but Faber didn't talk to him, and Gary - once he found his rhythm - talked shop with Faber for about an hour and a half. Efnisien pretended he was mesmerised with the book in his lap, but he stared at the words and felt a pull in his throat and gut, a weird horrible jealous thing gnawing at him because Gary was sitting next to Faber at the kitchen table, and he wasn't close to Efnisien. 

After that meeting, Efnisien retreated to Gary's bed and curled up on it, suffering through minor cramps. He told himself he was fine, and he thought Gary might come down and touch him, be close to him, but Gary conducted sessions supervising alphas in his home office, so he was literally at the other end of his cottage. Once, it hadn't been far enough, now Efnisien had never felt this far away from someone. And Gary didn't seem to want to talk to him much anymore, since Efnisien had brought up James. It was like those early days when Efnisien was still getting to know him, and he didn't have the energy to destroy something in protest, he felt too heavy to do it. 

Temsen came to check on him the day after. He handed Efnisien the vials with the objects inside of them, and Efnisien stared at them numbly. 

'I want to show you something,' Temsen said, taking out his phone. 'This is what an animal safe microchip looks like. It's so small it can fit into a needle and be injected in.' 

He expanded the image of a microchip next to a grain of rice. 

Efnisien didn't say anything. How did they expect him to react? He looked at the microchip removed from the back of his neck, and he looked at the vials with their stitches, the little metal object that didn't look like anything at all. Efnisien thought about how he'd always felt like there'd been stuff inside him, and he remembered even saying it to Crielle once, and she'd used her directives to make him shut up. 

'You seem unhappy today,' Temsen said. 'Are you in pain?'

'No,' Efnisien said. 

'All right. Can I change the dressing at your neck? I can take a photo of the surgical site, if you like, and show you how it's healing?'

'I don't care,' Efnisien said. 

Temsen paused, and Efnisien looked away from him when he sensed Temsen trying to catch his gaze. And then Temsen said nothing - thank fuck - and carefully unstuck the edges of the dressing and peeled it back. Having him at his back made Efnisien want to run away.

'This is looking great,' Temsen said softly, warmly. Efnisien closed his eyes. He liked it when people talked to him like that. He was weak for it, at the moment. As soon as someone was nice to him, he felt something bending. Was that his heat? 'Here, I'll get a photo.'

Temsen held his phone out to Efnisien, and Efnisien saw all the scar tissue first before he registered the precise little red line and the butterfly stitches, and he had to admit it did look neat. The skin looked good around it, and though there was scabbing, it didn't look...bad. 

'Okay,' Efnisien said, handing the phone back.

He stared at the phone and his mind leaped ahead. If he could get his hands on a phone... He could research things on a phone. Wasn't Gary meant to get him one? But he didn't want to talk to Gary at the moment. It was like they were fighting. Efnisien didn't get it. 

'I'm sorry we made the call to do the internal surgery,' Temsen said, sitting next to Efnisien. 'It was an emergency. I was genuinely concerned you might be septic. Perhaps that was paranoid of me, but as soon as I realised your surgeries weren't professionally done, balanced alongside your ongoing symptoms, and the knowledge that you were taking many pills each day, I suddenly realised you might have been on antibiotics for a very long time, only to have been off them during the entire time you've been here. That and a heat together...'

'Was I septic?'

'No,' Temsen said. 'But I think you could have gone in that direction based on our blood-test results from the blood we took prior to your surgery. I feel like my decision was justified, that it was an emergency. But I wish we could have talked about it properly beforehand.'

'The pain... I couldn't have survived that. G-Gary said heats aren't normally like that.'

'The cramps can be painful,' Temsen said, 'but not when you're already with an alpha in those circumstances. The fact that nothing was giving you any kind of relief was a sign something else was wrong. Are you angry with me?'

'No,' Efnisien said. 'It felt...like an emergency. And I haven't felt- It's been...different, since. I had a...' 

Efnisien's voice tripped and fell over old directives and his hands clenched into fists. What he wanted to say was that he'd had a constant pain before then, always, between his legs. When he went to the toilet, when he slept, when he walked, always. It was a baseline of pain that Crielle said he'd have to get used to if he wanted to be an alpha. It was still there, but nothing like before. It was an empty echo of what it used to be, and Efnisien supposed the remaining pain was from the new stitches, or maybe he'd always have some pain there after what she'd done to him. 

'You can't tell me if it's better than it used to be, can you?' Temsen said sadly. 'Don't worry about answering, I understand. Directives like that are...unkind. There's a reason they're considered illegal in many places.'

Efnisien nodded, but he was only absently paying attention, thinking he needed to get his hands on a phone, and he needed to... Wait, Anton had a phone, and Anton said he was happy to talk to Efnisien, and he must know something. 

'What's PACS?' Efnisien asked. 

Temsen said nothing, like he hadn't expected the question. 

'It's bad, isn't it?' Efnisien said. 'Gary's going on medication, isn't he? Is he already on it?'

'Has Gary talked to you about this?' Temsen said. 

'What's the medical definition of it? Shouldn't you be able to tell me if you're a doctor?' 

'I am a doctor,' Temsen said, then looked towards the door like Gary could see him, which was absurd. Because Gary was, right now, working in his office. Because even Efnisien destroying it hadn't kept him out of it for that long. 'PACS stands for peak alpha cardiac syndrome. It's a very rare condition, and one that Gary acquired some time ago. It's relapsing right now.'

'Because of me, right?'

'It's not that simple,' Temsen said. 

'But it's because of me, isn't it?'

'No,' Temsen said. 

'You're lying to me,' Efnisien said, staring at him. Temsen met his eyes, and damn it, damn it, but Efnisien had to look away. Sometimes it was like Efnisien almost forgot Temsen was a peak alpha until moments like this, when Temsen had all this presence, and Efnisien felt crushed into shape because of it. 

'Am I killing him?' Efnisien said, staring at the pillows. 

'No,' Temsen said, and that kind of sounded like the truth. Sort of. 

Efnisien knew he couldn't ask Temsen who James was, because even if he knew, he wasn't going to say. He was too loyal to Gary, that much was clear. 

'Well, can I help, at least?' Efnisien said.

'The medication will help him a lot,' Temsen said quietly. 'PACS can flare up like this, but often it only needs time to settle back down again. It's not your fault, Efnisien.'

'I can tell when you're lying to me.'

'That's fascinating,' Temsen said. 'Maybe one day you'll be able to tell when I'm telling you part of the truth, but not all of the truth.'

Efnisien glared at him, and Temsen's gaze was almost, almost easy. But not quite. 

'Would you talk to another alpha this way?' Efnisien said, anger spiking. He looked down and Temsen's bare forearm still had a dressing on it where Efnisien had bitten him. Temsen looked down at the dressing as well. 

'Yes,' Temsen said. 'I certainly would in circumstances like this. Gary has been and is my patient, and I'm not going to betray his confidentiality to you or anyone else. If you want to look up PACS, you can. If you need to talk to Gary about it...you must respect the boundaries he has around talking about it.'

'You betrayed my confidentiality though. Didn’t you? You showed Gary these vials, before you ever showed me, didn't you?'

'Goodness,' Temsen said. He looked stuck in place, and Efnisien had the rare satisfaction of being right about something, even as he hated it. 'He's the director of Hillview, I'd be obligated to-'

'Just say I'm right,' Efnisien said, standing and walking away from him, folding his arms. 

'I haven't finished re-applying the dressing,' Temsen said. 'Do you want to come back?'

Efnisien ground his teeth together. He hated this. He hated everything about this. He walked back and sat down, and Temsen worked quickly and professionally on the dressing after sanitising his hands, while Efnisien's skin crawled because he didn't want to be close anymore and he didn't feel like they were friends. He felt like he was separate from everyone at this fucking facility. From everyone in the whole damned world. 

'You are right,' Temsen said quietly. 'I might have been legally permitted, but I did betray your confidence when I showed Gary what we removed during the surgery. I’ve hurt you a lot, Efnisien. I apologise.'

It didn't help. If anything, it made him feel worse. Temsen might have saved his life. He placed a shaky hand over his face and didn't say anything at all, as Temsen put the waterproof layer over the dressing so it wouldn't get wet in the shower. 

'Efnisien?' 

'Fine,' Efnisien said. He realised Temsen hadn't actually asked how he was feeling, but it didn't matter, the answer still applied. Temsen packed away all of his things and put the old dressing in a plastic biohazard bag and sealed it. 'You can tell him stuff. It's your job. I get it.'

'I know I've upset you, but you don't seem to be happy today in general. Is Gary taking care of you?'

'Yeah.'

'That's good. Specifically though, is he touching you enough?'

Efnisien said nothing at all. Gross. He wasn't going to answer that. 

'Even as an alpha, you still have some biology that demands that you experience closeness,' Temsen said softly. 'It's not a flaw in you, and it will help you a great deal. Physical closeness in particular will appease those high sub-larentin levels and help them normalise. It might even help the ardolphogen work better when it's not having to compete against the sub-larentins as much. You have a right to demand that he be close to you, even as he has a right to ignore it. But you both seem...quite disconnected today. Do you want me to talk to him?'

'Please don't,' Efnisien said. 

He didn't bring up James, or the relationship, or Gary using alpha persuasion on him. None of it. All of it felt...messy and wrong. 

'Hmm. Well, I'm going to check back in soon. It's not healthy for you to isolate yourself.' 

Temsen left soon after, and Efnisien curled up on the bed and stared out of the open window. And in thirty minutes - after his session with whichever alpha he was speaking to - Gary walked down the hall and stood in the doorway. He didn't come and join Efnisien on the bed, and it hurt. It hurt. Efnisien pressed a hand to his stomach and was glad he was facing the other way, glad Gary couldn't see his face. It was pretty clear Gary didn't want to be close to him. 

'Temsen left a message saying you're healing well, but that he's going to be more careful with what he shares with me now about you and your case, because you'd raised some concerns over him betraying your confidence?'

'I guess.'

'Is there anything you want to tell me?'

'Don't you have another supervision appointment?' 

A pause, and Gary said: 'I do, actually. In fifteen minutes. I have time now.' 

'I'm just tired,' Efnisien said. He hadn't felt like he could talk to Gary properly about anything since Gary had used alpha persuasion on him. They weren't on any kind of equal level. It wasn't like Efnisien could do the same to him in return. Even when Efnisien had screamed with the full force of his pheromones and all the alpha persuasion he could muster into raw rage, it didn't touch Gary at all. 

Efnisien's gut hurt. It was painful enough that he wanted to complain about it, but he didn't want to force Gary to come over and be nice to him, and he didn't want to make his heart worse, and he was angry. He was angry. He wanted to know more about Gary, but apparently it was a one-way street. Gary got to know about him, his health, even what was inside him, and Efnisien didn't even get to know what PACS was from a doctor. 

He forced himself to sit up, even though it hurt, even as his breathing went shallow. 

'I want to speak to Anton,' Efnisien said. 'Can you organise that? Since you haven't gotten me a phone yet? Even though you said you would?'

'Efnisien, I haven't exactly had the time to-'

'You've got fifteen minutes, you said.' Efnisien folded his arms and looked only briefly at Gary before looking away. 'So you can organise it now, right? If not the phone, then Anton, right?' 

He could feel the heaviness of Gary's gaze, knew he was pissing him off. Could smell a very faint increase in pheromones that meant Gary wasn't in the mood. Efnisien wanted the fight, he wanted it so much, but he was sore and alone, and he was tired of no one giving him the answers he wanted.

Anton seemed like someone who wanted to help him, and Efnisien wasn't above taking advantage of that. 

Chapter Text

Efnisien

*

When Anton came to visit, they'd both walked a short way from the cottage, and Efnisien pretended he was fine, like any increased distance from Gary wasn't painful. Because fuck that, and fuck biology, and fuck his heat. Fuck it all. He was getting tired of everything. 

'Oh yeah, it's not like...a heat scent,’ Anton said, tilting his head back like he was trying to pick up more of the odour. ‘But you have a proper scent now.'

'What's it like?' Efnisien asked. He hadn't wanted to ask any of the others, Anton felt safer to talk to about stuff like this. He felt no threat from Anton, who had an omega of his own he clearly cared about, and Efnisien didn't really get the vibe that Anton would ever be into him. But he didn't think Gary would ever be into him these days either. Gary didn't even seem to like touching him anymore. Even at night, Gary came to bed after Efnisien fell asleep, and he was often gone before Efnisien woke. 

'Like the sea,' Anton said quietly. 'Like the sea when it's fresh, on a crisp winter day, kind of. You can smell the salt, and like...maybe ozone?' 

Efnisien wondered if it was genetic, because Gwyn's scent was like a storm, and there was ozone in that too. Crielle's scent was overwhelming, and from a young age Efnisien had never been exactly sure how to categorise it. A little floral, like gardenias, but that could've just been whatever product she used in her laundry. But no one else smelled that way. And there was something in it that Efnisien would have sworn was blood, but perhaps it was iron. He didn't know. By the time he'd register her scent, it would mean her pheromones were up, and that usually made him vomit. He hated the feeling of that scent in his nose. 

'Anyway, you said you wanted to talk to me, huh? I've gathered you've been having a rough few days.'

'Everyone knows about the heat, do they?' Efnisien said.

'They know Dr Gary is kind of in seclusion and can't conduct his supervision sessions properly.'

'He wasn't doing that before either!'

'And we know you needed some emergency medical attention. Those two things together...'

'I could've been in rut, you know. I am an alpha.'

'I mean rut hardly ever happens, even here. It's never happened to me. It's the appendix of the secondary genders. Vestigial and like...almost no one can do it anymore.' 

Anton was wearing a button-up pale blue shirt today with a print of birds in flight on it, and it looked stylish. His trousers were a dark navy material, and they matched the colour of the birds. His clothing in general tended to be fashionable, but today it was like he was going somewhere. 

'Why're you wearing that?' Efnisien said. 

'Flitmouse wants me to look presentable. But he's also trying out some new styles. He's in a bit of a print phase.'

'I like it.'

Anton beamed, like Efnisien had said something extra good, and Efnisien wondered what it was like to really care for an omega, to actually...not hate them or think they were disgusting. Efnisien couldn't wrap his head around it. It felt like Anton had maybe been brainwashed or something. 

'I need information,' Efnisien said, changing the subject. Maybe there was a way of being charming and getting what he wanted, but he wasn't going to pretend to be a simpering omega anymore, not for fucking anyone. 'Firstly, do you know anything about a guy named James Visser? Were he and Gary like...dating or something? Or together?'

Anton was shocked. He sat there quietly for long enough that Efnisien expected to not get an answer. Long enough that Efnisien knew he had answers to give.

'Why is it a secret?' he said angrily. 'I'm living with the guy, and he won't tell me anything! I'm living with him! I can't leave! Temsen's like – “Just ask Gary,” but you've met him, right? He doesn't talk about anything he doesn't want to talk about. And his alpha persuasions work.' 

'Did he use them on you?' Anton said, sounding way more surprised than Efnisien thought he had any right to be.

'He shut me down using them,' Efnisien said, shifting where they sat on a wooden bench, facing the karri forest. It didn't hurt to sit anymore, but certain angles didn't feel right, and he'd kind of gotten used to the donut cushion Gary had gotten for him. 

'Okay, yeah, it's a really sensitive subject,' Anton said. 'Really sensitive, Efnisien.' 

Efnisien wanted to scream. But he forced himself to breathe slowly. He had to seem like he was mature enough to handle it, but the bitterness he felt over the fact that people cared about Gary's sensitive subjects, and no one seemed to care about his, rankled.

Gary and Temsen both apologised for the surgery, for the internal exams. It’s more than Crielle ever would have done.

Efnisien closed his eyes. 

'Dr Gary had a lover named James, who was an alpha,' Anton said. 'I honestly don't know much about it because it's a really difficult subject. But what I do know is the reason this centre exists in the first place is because James wanted it to exist, and Dr Gary would have done anything for him. James got cancer, and he died. Dr Gary's never been the same since. He's never had another relationship, and as far as I know, he's never wanted one. Like, he does sleep with people, he goes up to the city for that, and we all know he does that. But otherwise he just...lives here, and I think he'll live here forever, carrying out James' wishes. And that's it, pretty much.'

It made sense, a horrible kind of sense. The way Gary had looked at him when he'd found that torn piece of paper with the writing on it. Like Efnisien had ruined his entire life, somehow, for doing that specific thing - even more than destroying the rest of his office. It made sense that Gary talked about how he wasn't into omegas, and only liked alphas. It made sense that Gary was so distant, and didn't want Efnisien living with him, and sometimes seemed really lost. It made sense, and Efnisien hated that it did, because now he wanted more information, even as he knew he was never going to really matter to someone like Gary. He never could. 

He felt ill. 

He knew he shouldn't want to matter to him, but it wasn't like he had a ton of choices here. They'd asked him, hadn't they? They'd asked if he wanted to live on his own, and he'd said no, he preferred to live with someone. He needed...someone. He'd go mad on his own. At least right now. 

'So James wanted to start Hillview?' Efnisien said, forcing himself to keep the conversation going even though all he wanted to do was withdraw and go back to Gary's bed. 

'Yeah, I'm pretty sure Dr Gary was the one who financially backed it. He comes from an all-alpha family, and you know how alpha families can consolidate wealth? But the ideas of this place - treating omegas with respect, making sure alphas don't bond with multiple people at the same time, having regular supervision sessions with alphas, giving omegas more choice over what happens to their bodies - they all come from James.'

'Okay. And what do you know about PACS? Um, peak alpha cardiac syndrome?'

'Not much,' Anton said frankly. 'It's really rare.'

'Can I look it up on your phone?' 

Anton hesitated for a really long time.

'They said they were going to get me a phone, but it hasn't happened yet,' Efnisien said. 'I just want to look it up. Temsen won't help me. He explained what the acronym meant, and that's it.' 

The sound of Anton reluctantly sliding his phone out of the pocket of his trousers, unlocking it, and bringing up some search engine. He handed his phone over. 

'I have to watch,' Anton said firmly. 

'I don't care,' Efnisien said. 'I'm really just looking this up. I have no one to call or anything.'

Anton exhaled heavily. 'I have to tell Dr Gary about this. I'm not keeping secrets from him about you when it comes to this.'

Efnisien's teeth ground together, and he looked for Wikipedia, then typed in 'Peak Alpha Cardiac' and it autocompleted. He went to the article and there wasn't as much information as he expected. But the first paragraph alone made him feel cold. 

Peak Alpha Cardiac Syndrome or Peak Alpha Cardiomyopathy Syndrome (PACS), also known as broken heart cardiomyopathy, is a type of non-ischemic cardiomyopathy in which there is a sudden temporary weakening of the muscular portion of the heart in peak alphas after a significant emotional stressor. The only known cause is the loss of a bonded or claimed partner, primarily through death. Reviews suggest that of patients diagnosed, there is a 50-56% mortality rate within three months of symptom onset, and a survival rate of approximately 90% after nine months have passed and peak alpha healing capacity reasserts itself. Post recovery, PACS may relapse due to intense stressors, in these patients there is a 30-40% mortality rate if poorly managed. 

Efnisien didn't know why Temsen couldn't have just told him this, but he supposed it was because of the primary cause, which was personal. It wasn't a random disease, it happened because Gary had been with James Visser, and then he’d died. But Efnisien knew he was the 'intense stressor' that had caused the relapse and he made a show of scrolling through the article like he was re-reading it, because he felt sick. Would Gary get better if he disappeared? Would his condition count as managed well if he took the meds? He was already taking something at night, maybe that was the medication Temsen wanted him to take for the PACS. 

A weakening of the muscular portion of the heart, so...heart attacks, probably, or heart failure. Efnisien didn't know much about it, but his hand absently went to his chest. Did it hurt? Was Gary in pain all the time? Efnisien used to have trouble with his heart when he was younger, and he'd never thought much of it because Crielle said it was a consequence of having him on all that ardolphogen and he'd get used to it. But he remembered the sharp feeling when he breathed in, and wondered how much pain Gary was going through. 

Efnisien had no idea the mortality rate was so high. Even now, Gary didn't have a solid chance of surviving it. 

Absently, he went to Google and looked up James Visser, and then saw a surprising number of news results, and just as he read the headline: James Visser Dies of Cancer, Family Certain Relationship with Peak Alpha is Cause, Anton snatched the phone out of his hand. 

'Nope,' Anton said. 'We didn't agree on that.'

'They're going to get me a phone anyway!' 

'Then you can look it up on your phone,' Anton said. 'Look, hey, I'm sorry, but this is something- It is not good to learn about something like this from news articles like that.'

'He's never going to tell me anything,' Efnisien said roughly. 'He'll never tell me a fucking thing, and you know he won't.' 

Anton rubbed at his forehead, he looked frustrated. 

'That man gave him PACS,' Efnisien said. 

'Whoa. Hang on. No one gives a peak alpha that syndrome, it happens because of loss.'

Efnisien fell mutinously silent. He knew there wasn't something quite right in what he'd said, but he couldn't help but feel like Gary was betrayed because he'd fallen in love with someone. But when he looked back over what he'd said... it wasn't like the guy - James - had chosen to get cancer. 

'How could a relationship be a cancer trigger?' Efnisien said. 

'I'm not talking about this. Look, I don't know all of it myself, and I fell into the trap of looking at articles because I thought they'd tell me more about my boss. They told me more about the people who wanted to get paid for talking to those newspapers, and that's it. Dr Gary's going to be mad enough as it is, that I let you look up PACS.' 

'I could've looked it up on my own!' Efnisien said, voice getting loud. 'Temsen was the one who mentioned it in the first place! It's not like I secretly found out about it, he literally said the acronym right in front of me. And I'm living with Gary, aren't I? Making his heart bad.'

'Efnisien, it's not that simple,' Anton said.

'Seems pretty simple to me.' Efnisien stood and looked back towards the cottage and felt ill. These days, he didn't know if it was the heat, or the meds, or just...life. Part of his mind was telling him to get away from Gary, to give him a chance to recover. Part of him knew that if he spent a night away from Gary's house, it was going to hurt. His whole body would rebel against it. He planted his feet through a wave of dizziness. Gary didn't want anything to do with him anymore, maybe being reminded of James or listening to his voice made Gary realise he didn't want to be anywhere near some Frankenstein's alpha. 

'Hey,' Anton said, standing. 'Efnisien, you've got to talk to him about it instead of winding yourself up like this.' 

Efnisien glared, a spark of rage flared, his pheromones rising as Anton looked at him. And Anton must have scented the difference because his eyes widened, and he took a step backwards. Maybe he thought Efnisien was going to use alpha persuasion on him, but there was no point. Efnisien couldn't go anywhere, he couldn't hurt Anton - the guy had helped him in a limited, annoying way - and he didn't want to be the person who did that anymore. 

'You can't keep telling me to talk to him like it's easy,’ Efnisien said. ‘He'll just use alpha persuasion on me again. He doesn't want anything to do with me, ever since I asked.'

'What?' 

'He hates me,' Efnisien said.

'I'm sure that's not true.'

Efnisien laughed. 'Isn't it? How would you feel then? If Flitmouse died of cancer and then you were forced - against your will - to take someone like me in, because I'd be killed otherwise. You don't want my death on your conscience, but you're still dealing with the death of Flitmouse, right? And you love him, right? How would you feel, Anton, if you were in that situation? And then throw some chronic fucking heart disease in there, and more health issues, and...'

God. Efnisien's heat, and then the surgery, what if it was somehow like what James had gone through? He placed a hand on the back of his head and stared at the ground, because it wasn't like he could pretend to be healthy. Or could he? Maybe he could do that. 

'I'm not denying the situation wouldn't be challenging,' Anton said, 'but-'

'Challenging,' Efnisien scoffed. 

He wanted to storm inside and tell Gary he knew James had died of cancer, he knew there were articles about it blaming the relationship, because surely Gary had been with him at the end. He wanted to throw it in his face and force Gary to talk, and he knew making him talk might make his PACS worse, fuck, it might even kill him. And Efnisien knew he couldn't do anything that would increase the chances of that happening. Sometimes he hated Gary for being so knowing, for the way he took control of the situations around him, for being the kind of alpha Efnisien knew he would never be. But he knew he needed Gary, something in his body was ready to sound a really fucking loud siren if anything ever happened to him. 

It was like being snarled up in thorns. He couldn't see a way through. All he wanted was to curl up on the couch, some secret part of him wanting Gary to...make him be close. But the last time they'd been properly close had been when Efnisien had asked about James. He'd ruined it. He was always ruining it. What if Gary was spending so much time away from him because it was the only way to stop the pain? What if it stopped his heart from killing him? 

'Efnisien, I think-'

'Thanks for helping,' Efnisien said. 

'I don't think I really helped at all.' Anton sounded rueful, and Efnisien looked at the apologetic expression on his face. Hell, maybe Efnisien would still be feeling this awful even if he'd looked at all the articles. He understood why Anton wouldn't let Efnisien look up information on James, but it wasn't going to stop Efnisien as soon as he had access to his own internet connection. 

'It's not you,' Efnisien said, 'it's the situation. I'm going back.'

'You don't want to keep talking?'

'You and me? We're not friends.' Efnisien folded his arms. 'Don't get me wrong, I know you've been nice, and you're one of the only people here that seems to actually care about me, but deep down you still think I'm like an omega. You want me to talk to Gary about this like he's my companion, instead of the person I'm stuck with, because the world won't let me live out there with them. He's not my companion. And you know as soon as I get an internet connection, I'm looking it up. Anyone fucking would. Even you did.'

'Efnisien, I work for him,' Anton said, his voice quietening, not rising to the bait even a little. What was it with all the alphas here? They were so much harder to bait than anyone had been back home. 'He's my boss, okay? He's the reason I get paid, he's the reason I can keep Flitmouse safe. Hillview is a sanctuary not just for the omegas here, but also for the alphas. So out of respect to him, and my connection to him, I'm not going to let you look up tabloid articles on my phone which only exist to hurt him and tear him down. Okay? If he wasn't my boss, if my lover wasn't here, if circumstances were radically different, I'd still be telling you that tabloid clickbait news is the worst place to learn about someone. Of course you can go look it up on your own, but you've kind of used me today for access to the internet. I get that you don't trust me, maybe you don't even like me, but I do expect some basic respect.'

Efnisien's cheeks flushed, his hands clenched into fists not out of anger, but shame. Nothing Anton had said was a lie. Efnisien only wanted him for information. Was that what it was to use someone? It hadn't occurred to him before. What were they supposed to do instead? Just talk about things? Be nice to each other? He tried to compare it to what he'd known back home, but none of it was familiar. He was left knowing Anton was right, without really knowing what to do about it. 

He'd been mean. 

His gut cramped, a little spasm that made him jerk before he sucked down a breath and got himself under control. 

'Are you okay?' Anton said.

'You're right,' Efnisien forced himself to say. 'I did use you for information. I have no other way of getting it. But I should've... I don't know.'

It wasn't as easy to apologise as he thought it would be, he was still so angry, and even though a lot of that anger was at himself, he couldn't bring himself to say the words. Another cramp and he winced and could tell that Anton had noticed. God, Efnisien hoped he couldn't smell it. The fact that pain had a scent... 

Gwyn had known too, Efnisien was sure of it. They'd all known. 

'I have to go,' Efnisien said. 

'Sure, are you okay?' 

Another cramp smashing into him, he sucked down a breath. Fuck. No. Not again. The surgery was supposed to fix this! It had been fine! He broke out into a sweat, nodded frantically, and turned towards the cottage.

'Efnisien, hey, if you need me again the way you needed me today, get in touch, okay? I'd rather you see me than...no one at all.'

'Yeah,' Efnisien said, feeling commanded by his body to get inside. 'Yeah. I'm sorry, Anton.'

He went inside, closed the front door. He thought he'd go to the bathroom, but instead he went to Gary's bedroom, to his unmade bed, and he kicked off his shoes and curled up around the knotted pain in his stomach and wanted to cry. He didn't want another surgery. He didn't want an internal exam. He didn't want the heat anymore. It was meant to be better. 

He covered his face with his arms and breathed in deeply, hating that he was consoled by the scent of Gary in the bed, in the room. When the next cramp wasn't as vicious, he exhaled a sob. He knew, he just knew that if Gary had bothered to be close to him over the last couple of days, he wouldn't be feeling like this. But Efnisien couldn't go to him either. He was the reason Gary was sick again. He was an intense stressor. 

Still, he secretly hoped Gary would come.

But Gary was working, and he didn't come. 

Chapter Text

Gary

*

‘Lucien is sounding much more stable and secure,' Gary mused, on the phone to Caleb during their supervisor session. 'I have no problems with you taking a longer break this time between omegas, after graduation.'

'As long as you're sure. I know we're at capacity...'

'We're not a factory. I want you to look after yourself, Caleb, and you've bonded a couple of times now, this can be the time when the grief gets harder.'

'Lucien's so excited to get back to his partner as well. It's super sweet, you know, and I'm glad we've managed to get some of his issues under control. I can sort of feel it, I'm going to need some time after Lucien, and a month or two doesn't seem like it'll be enough. I can always find some kind of place to stay off-site if you'd prefer...'

'No, no, Caleb, please. You offer the labour of bonding with someone you're eventually letting go of, we offer room to heal and recover from that as well. Kadek's returning soon, and Lucien won't be the only omega to graduate this year. It's the nature of the job, sometimes we have quite a few alphas available, sometimes we have none, and none of that is your responsibility to manage, but ours. I can tell you're feeling a bit flat about things, you're not nearly as arrogant as usual.'

Caleb's laugh was almost sweet. In another lifetime, he'd be the kind of alpha Gary would target in a club, but no, he was shaping up to be an effective companion in their selection of bolder, pushier and arrogant alphas that suited the few pushy omegas they tended to get.

Gary heard the front door open and close from a distance and knew Efnisien had returned. Gary had removed the ankle monitor wordlessly that morning, ashamed it had taken so long for him to get rid of it. He thought Efnisien would have something to say, but Efnisien had fallen into a kind of withdrawn silence that didn't even seem like the same sulkiness as before.

It was obvious the boy was sometimes angry, but something else was going on, and Gary... Well, he had work to do, and he still felt off kilter since Efnisien's surgery. Thankfully Efnisien was able to move around, able to go to the bathroom. He almost never mentioned being in pain, which was concerning, but also meant that just when Gary needed more space, Efnisien had given it to him. 

He had a lot of misgivings about letting Anton see Efnisien, but he could deal with them later. 

'We'll set up the meeting with Denis and see how they interact together around other omegas and alphas. If Lucien’s jealousy and envy levels stay manageable, we'll start the transition.'

'Just like that,' Caleb said, blowing out a sigh. 'I always forget how fast it happens at the end. But when it works, it really works, huh? And Denis is a good guy. Probably one of the few we really see through here, right?'

'He certainly seems genuine,' Gary said. 

'Yeah, going to have to keep an eye on my own possessiveness levels too. Handover's a bitch. No wonder they have all these alphas forcing one-way bonds in the other centres, so they don't have to get emotionally invested. I bet some do though.' 

'Some do.'

Kadek was one of them. He'd started out at a standard omega rehabilitation facility and realised it wasn't for him when he'd bonded to an omega being abused at the centre. By the time he'd come to Hillview, he'd gone through therapy and was pragmatic about it, but it was clear he'd been shocked by what he'd seen, the level of abuse he'd been expected to participate in, the fact that the bonding was only one way. Most omega rehab facilities wanted omegas helplessly and forcefully bonded to careless and callous alphas as quickly as possible, and ideally, alphas who never felt a thing for those omegas, all the better to push them back to the families or partners who'd sent them there in the first place. 

The session with Caleb wrapped up, and Gary felt an affectionate spite, sending Temsen an email letting him know to arrange a transition phase for Lucien and Caleb, starting with a meeting with Denis. This would be the sort of thing he'd be organising in his role as manager of the facility. It was nice, knowing his requests might annoy Temsen. 

He laughed quietly to himself. It was so petty, but Temsen was the same sometimes. Everything would be flowing smoothly, and if Temsen was having a bad day, twenty emails - all requiring action - would come through. Thankfully Faber could handle most of it. Likely Faber would be taking charge of the transition, too. 

Gary looked around the office with its stained carpet and empty, half-broken bookshelves, then stood and walked to the window and looked out towards the sand dunes. For a short period of time, it had felt like he could handle what was happening, but then Efnisien had gone into heat, needed surgery, asked Gary about James, figured out they were together, and had become resentful and demanding.

Gary wasn't prepared to be someone's carer, and taking the PACS medication brought its own side effects. More tiredness in the morning, a faint dizziness if he stood up too fast. He could manage it, the dosage wasn't nearly as high as what he was taking years and years ago, but the symptoms reminded him of James. 

Lately, everything reminded him of James.

*

At lunch, Gary paused in the kitchen after feeding Polly an afternoon snack - she'd been living her best life since Gary had started working from home - and looked down the corridor to where Efnisien was silent in the bedroom. Gary heard some tossing and turning, but nothing else. Perhaps the meeting with Anton hadn't gone well. There was a strong scent in the air, Gary's nostrils flared and his back stiffened when he realised there were hints of pain in it. It was faint, but there. 

Gary walked down the hall and found Efnisien balled up in the bed, half-covered by sheets and blankets, hair sweaty, and his first thought was that they wouldn't be able to avoid hospitalising him after all. And what if a hospital couldn't do anything for him?

Gary walked to Efnisien's side of the bed and sat, then reached out and touched Efnisien's overly-warm forehead. 

Efnisien whimpered and didn't open his eyes. 

'Are you awake?' Gary said. 

'I'm fine,' Efnisien said. 

'Do you think this is because of the surgery? Should I get Temsen?'

He tucked some of Efnisien's soft hair behind one of his ears and frowned at the way Efnisien leaned towards the touch, head bowing forwards. He was shivering too, it wasn't very noticeable, but it was there. He was poorly. 

'I'll give Temsen a quick call,' Gary said, sliding his phone out of his pocket. Efnisien didn't protest. Gary tipped his head back as he pressed the phone to his ear. Definitely threads of Efnisien's pain in the air, but his scent was richer too, full in the back of Gary's nose. Temsen had just visited, so why hadn't he said more about this in the morning?

'You're lucky I'm picking up at all,' Temsen said, by way of greeting. 'Everyone needs something today.' 

'It's a fun job, isn't it?' Gary said drily. 

'Schadenfreude isn't a good look on you, Gary. Is it Efnisien?'

'He's in pain, and-'

'Of course he is,' Temsen said, his voice low and hard. 'He's in heat, and you're neglecting him. If he were an omega, he'd be in agony looking for an alpha to fix what he was going through, and the only reason he's not, is that he has his pride and he doesn't make enough larentin.'

'I don't think this is just-'

'Gary, I want to be supportive today, I do, but you have a very obvious solution you haven't tried yet. Please try being close to him, and if that doesn't work, call me again and we'll arrange hospitalisation.'

Gary didn't know when it had become so difficult. Since he'd realised he found aspects of Efnisien arousing? Since Efnisien had slipped from straddling him into a medical emergency? Was it all just a punishment since Efnisien had pointedly asked him about James? There were ugly aspects to his nature that he wished he didn't have to confront, but Efnisien was shaking, refusing to ask for anything, of course he'd refuse to ask for contact after Gary had used alpha persuasion on him. He didn't want to be seen as an omega, and he'd been in a lingering, unsatisfied heat for days. 

'Ah, you're right,' Gary said. 

Temsen sighed. 'I'm sorry.'

It helped. It helped that Temsen pressed pause on his irritation and his overwhelm in order to acknowledge Gary's position. It would have to do. 

Gary ended the call and put his phone on the bedside counter, he didn't want it in his pocket if they were going to be here for a while. If it really was as simple as close contact, maybe he could get Efnisien stabilised in time to eat something. He stood up and walked around the bed, his chest ached when he heard Efnisien make a faint distressed noise as the distance between them increased. Gary paused and looked over at Efnisien, hating that Temsen was right, hating that he had a role in this, hating that he'd caused some of it because of his pettiness, his resentment, his anger at these changes in his life he couldn’t avoid. 

He took off his shoes, his socks, and after a moment decided to take off his trousers as well. He was sure Efnisien would protest, but if contact was what he needed, then Gary would offer more of it. That left him in his work shirt - a button-up pale grey number - and tie. He took the tie off as well, putting that on the bedside counter. Efnisien wasn't even watching him. He was curled up, facing the other direction, like he expected to be on his own for the rest of the day. 

Gary pulled down the sheet, the doona, as he got onto the bed. He moved his pillows until they'd give him better support at his lower back. He reached down and slid an arm underneath Efnisien's side, and the boy didn't really fight him. He could feel how warm and sweaty he was. 

'You're still in heat,' Gary said. 

Efnisien didn't say anything until Gary began pulling him into position, and he realised Gary wanted him to spread his legs. 

'I-I don't need this,' Efnisien said shakily. 

'Yes, you do,' Gary said firmly. 'It's not causing you pain with your stitches, is it?'

Efnisien said nothing. Gary didn't think it was. The pain scent in the air hadn't picked up at all. He knew it was shame and embarrassment Efnisien was dealing with, maybe fear as well, but none of those things was important as soothing the hormones coursing through Efnisien's body. He grasped Efnisien's thigh in one hand and pushed it outward, and Efnisien grabbed Gary's shoulders in a painful grip. 

'It's too much,' Efnisien said. 'It's...'

Gary forced his breathing to stay steady. What had started out as something arousal adjacent, days ago, was something louder now. He didn't know if it was Efnisien's scent prompting a response, or maybe it was Temsen telling him to get his saliva into the boy, but...

Gary took a breath. At least his cock was staying out of it. 

Efnisien settled against him reluctantly. They were chest to chest, Efnisien's legs straddled Gary's hips, his hands on his shoulders. Gary reached up and ran his fingers through Efnisien's hair, then pushed his head down towards Gary's neck.

'No,' Efnisien protested. 

'You won't ask for what you need,' Gary said. Efnisien tensed, but his neck muscles eventually relaxed, and his head lowered until his nose rested against Gary’s skin.

'Your scent makes me sick,' Efnisien said, sounding fractious, even as he inhaled.

'I know,' Gary said. 'It should still help.' 

Gary kept his hand firmly on the back of Efnisien's head, the other anchored around his torso, and he listened to Efnisien taking deeper and deeper breaths before he tensed and tried twisting away. Gary didn't let him go. A second later he felt a scrape of teeth at his skin, but it wasn't teeth snapping down, ripping his neck open, it was a threat. Efnisien letting him know that he'd retaliate, he was capable. 

'It's not fair,' Gary said, taking a bracing breath himself. 'I know it's not fair. But you're in heat, Efnisien. It doesn't go away just because you wish it would, in fact it tends to do the opposite.'

'I don't want to be near you.'

'If we get your heat stabilised, you won't need to be near me,' Gary said heavily. 

'It could be anyone. Any alpha.' 

Gary's teeth ground together briefly. There it was, the possessive instinct, and Gary's hand tightened in Efnisien's hair. 

'All right,' Gary said. 'I'll organise for you to be with another-'

'No, don't,' Efnisien said quickly, a tremor of fear in his voice. 'Don't.'

Silence then, as Efnisien breathed in Gary's scent and Gary felt horribly vindicated over the whole situation. After days of rising, seething petty resentment, holding Efnisien close was a balm. It wouldn't solve most of their problems, but it certainly helped with a couple of them. 

'You hate me,' Efnisien said. 

Gary frowned. Was that what Efnisien thought?

'I don't hate you.'

'You hate me. It's fine. I hate you as well.'

'Efnisien, don't tell me how I feel, I don't hate you.'

But sometimes, Gary did. Sometimes he had a burst of something rage-filled and furious that Efnisien was doing this to his life. His hand gentled at the back of Efnisien's head, and he thumbed behind Efnisien's ear gently, listening to his breathing turn shallow and weak in response. He liked it. So Gary shifted his grip and rubbed gently behind Efnisien's ear with more of his fingers, just to listen to the vulnerable response. 

'You hate me,' Efnisien murmured. 

'I hate how quickly you find the things in my life that I try to keep hidden from everyone else,' Gary said, because honesty tended to work better than lying. 'No one else I know dares to be as bold as you do, Efnisien. It's rude, and I don't like it.'

Efnisien was silent, like he was thinking about it, and Gary used the opportunity to gently run his fingers down the side of Efnisien's neck, steering clear of the dressing. Efnisien shuddered in his arms, then froze like he was surprised at himself. Gary didn't say a word, he didn't want to draw attention to it, because he knew Efnisien was spooked by all of this. Physical closeness at all had to be something he had almost no experience with, let alone like this. The only intimacy he'd ever known - as far as Gary understood - was years of his peak alpha cousin mounting him violently, until Efnisien developed a profound fear response to it. 

So this was it. All of this had to be new and frightening. 

'You get to know everything about me,' Efnisien said, his voice thin. 'Everything. I hate it. I just want to know a bit more about you, and suddenly your whole life is a secret. Your health. Your past. I thought it would be different here. I thought it wouldn't be like home.'

It was Gary's turn to go still, because the words had been soft, but they cored him out. He was nothing like Efnisien's family. Nothing at all. 

'Crielle never told me anything,' Efnisien breathed. 'Gwyn only told me things that never mattered. What he was doing at the gym. How much he hated omegas. What a bitch I was. No one else talked to me. You pretend like you're better here, but you're just one more peak alpha that... that needs to have power over others.'

'I do need that,' Gary said. 'I never pretended I didn't.'

'I looked it up,' Efnisien said. 'I looked up PACS. You could've told me I'd made you sick.'

Gary leaned back against the headboards heavily, and he didn't know what to do or say, and he loathed it. Nothing clear came to him. Of course he knew he should deny it, but he couldn't. And Efnisien's scent was mellowing, damn it, this was helping him. Gary wanted to walk away. He wanted to leave so badly he had to force his body to remain calm. 

The method of dealing with it later was useless when later was suddenly now. 

Chapter Text

Efnisien

*

It was humiliating, straddling Gary again like this. Efnisien felt more exposed, more embarrassed. Gary's bare thighs were warm through Efnisien's jeans, his hand was soothing and intense against his head and the side of his neck. Gary's scent was everywhere. Sometimes it made Efnisien feel nauseated and other times it made him feel something weak and liquid in his gut, like he was oozing down into a puddle. He kept breathing it in, over and over, and didn't know if he'd be sick or scream or fall asleep.

Instead, Efnisien had to think about the fact that Gary's heart - so close to his - might be failing. A thirty percent mortality rate when it relapsed. God. God. 

Efnisien tensed and tried to pull away again, but Gary didn't let him. 

'I could be killing you now,' Efnisien said. 

'I know that's not true,' Gary said. 

'But I made it worse, didn't I?' 

'It wasn't you specifically.'

'The situation made it worse, and I'm the fucking situation,' Efnisien snapped, then sucked in a breath when an index finger traced the outside of his ear. What the fuck was Gary doing? Why did it feel so good? 

'The thing about PACS...' Gary paused then. 'Once it starts, it's always somewhat there. It can go into remission, but it never fully vanishes. A heart affected by PACS never goes back to what it was before. So it relapses more easily than the circumstances that cause it in the first place. One of the reasons I didn't... want a partner, or to live with someone, was perhaps I could sense that it might return.'

'So get rid of me.'

'Really? That's what you want?' Gary said, his voice harder than before. 'What are you doing, Efnisien? Punishing yourself because you think that will somehow cure my heart condition?'

'I'm not punishing myself, I hate you.'

But maybe it was all true. Maybe Efnisien hated him and wanted to punish himself for hurting him and maybe Efnisien needed him too. He tried to turn his face away from Gary's neck, but Gary didn't even let him do that, the gentle hand at the side of his head firming. 

'I don't like your scent,' Efnisien bit out.

It was a lie. 

'I don't care,' Gary said. 'Breathe it in anyway.'

It was hellish that Efnisien had missed this. He’d missed Gary pulling him into position, missed him coming over and touching him, missed being close. He hated that it soothed the cramps. He was in the least amount of pain he'd been in for days, and it made him want to cry for how much he needed this closeness. He still didn't think about fucking, but he did think about Gary's hands, Gary's warmth. He thought about how empty the bed felt without Gary in it, how desolate his life was, how lonely, and then Gary was here and some desperate thing in him settled, quietened enough that he could realise how needy he was, how awful. 

'I had PACS long before I met you,' Gary said, rubbing Efnisien's shoulder briefly before moving back up to caress his neck, his ear, his scalp. 'It went into remission. What's happening now isn't as bad as it was, and the medication helps.’ 

'Relapses have a 30 percent mortality rate.'

'I know,' Gary said. 

'So you could...die from this.'

'I could,' Gary said. 'But I don't think I will.'

'And...James?'

'Efnisien, if you have any ability in you to be compassionate to someone else, please use it.'

Gary sounded desperate, and Efnisien felt horrified at himself, at the situation. He felt like he'd never talk about James again. Even though he had so many questions. Even though he'd heard his voice, and knew the name of his band, and knew what he'd studied at university. Gary had loved someone so much that losing him made him sound like that. Efnisien hated it. Hated that he cared at all, that he felt bitter and lonely because of it. He pressed his forehead into Gary's shoulder and bit his tongue until it hurt. 

If you have any ability in you to be compassionate to someone else...

Why did he have to say it like that? 

It made Efnisien feel like a monster.

'I know you're upset,' Gary said a couple of minutes later. 'The heat can't be helping. This isn't something everyone knows about, Efnisien. This is something...'

'And the PACS? Does everyone know?'

'No,' Gary said, sighing. 'Temsen, of course, and Faber. Augus knows, because he knew me back when I was diagnosed with it. Anton… Well, I’m sure he knows something. Most of the staff here have no idea. I'm private.'

'Must be nice,' Efnisien said, 'to get to be private like that.'

'Sometimes it is. And one day you'll get to know more about that too.'

Efnisien scoffed but couldn’t muster a retort. These people had given him more freedom than anyone else had, and now that he felt less fucking insane in whatever the heat had been doing to him, he realised he didn't feel distant from everyone. The heat messed with his head. He didn't know they could be like that. 

'When does it end?' Efnisien said. 'Because it ends for omegas when they get knotted, right? No fucking way are you doing that to me.'

'Enough pheromones,' Gary said, 'from a single source, and the heat will settle down. Ah, actually, I've been meaning to...talk to you about something.'

Efnisien tensed. Didn't that just sound fucking horrible? Nothing good would come of that. He could tell. 

'We're not- I'm not- You can't knot me,' Efnisien said. 'For a start, I'll die.'

'It's not that,' Gary said, sounding almost impatient. 'I understand why you're obsessed with the idea that people are about to fuck you, but we really don't just...do that for no reason here. Believe it or not, Efnisien, I can restrain myself.'

But those fingers were stroking behind Efnisien's ear again, making him feel warm and shivery, and Efnisien thought this was more than what they'd been doing before. He wanted to turn and bite Gary's hand, but not enough that it overrode his curiosity, his need to feel Gary touching him. Still, Efnisien wanted to warn him, wanted to point out that he could tell something had changed.

'Temsen stumbled across a study which might be useful, and I've decided to be transparent with you about it. The study found that ingestion of pheromones directly could placate a corrupted heat. I’ve read the study myself and it’s promising. The fact is, I think you could stay in this state for some time until something happens to trigger a settling of your hormones. Heats respond to pheromones, and they respond to the feeling of safety. Trying to get you to feel the latter is a challenge, but pheromones we can do.'

Efnisien stayed silent. Ingestion... sounded really fucking dodgy. 

'Alphas carry pheromones in their semen, sweat, and saliva. Our scent as well, but it's not enough to do more than take the edge off. Semen is out, I can't see a way we can get you to ingest that knowingly.'

There was some kind of response Efnisien was supposed to have, but his brain had stopped working. No way was Gary talking about this shit so casually. How the hell did anyone do that? 

'Sweat is like scent, it doesn't carry enough. The study capitalised on saliva ingestion, as it's the least invasive comparatively, and still helped to stabilise the omegas in question.'

'You...' Efnisien's throat wouldn't finish the sentence. 'Okay, yuck.'

Gary gave a breath of laughter, and Efnisien turned his face towards Gary's neck, his hips and thighs relaxed slightly. Gary laughing, that didn't carry any pheromones at all, did it? Efnisien still liked it. He tried not to think about how Gwyn would mock him if he saw him right now, behaving like an omega instead of an alpha, straddling a peak alpha no less, and needily. It was horrid. 

'I'd like to try it now,' Gary said. 

'What? Um, no?'

'When would you like to try it then? Efnisien, your heat isn't dissipating on its own. Wouldn't you like to stabilise properly? I know your default mode is to refuse things that would help you, especially when they involve touch or intimacy, because these things are new to you. But that doesn't abrogate your need for them.'

'How would it work?' 

'There's two methods,' Gary said, like he was explaining something clinical, like Efnisien wasn’t straddling his hips. 'The first is kissing. Otherwise I'd just suck on two fingers and put them in your mouth.'

Efnisien felt like his heart stopped beating. Gary spoke about it so fucking easily. But both of those options made Efnisien want to scream. Kissing? He wasn't ready for kissing. Was he? No. His mind raced. He tried to slide backwards to get some room to think, and Gary wouldn't let him go. Efnisien pinched his side meanly, and Gary flinched, but didn’t let Efnisien leave. 

'I know this is hard,' Gary said. 'I'm going to give you three options. You can choose one of the methods I've suggested. You can choose to do this later, but we will be trying it, and I'm not sure letting a lot of time pass will ease the stress and I am fairly certain your heat won't settle on its own. The second choice is that we can do this now. The third choice is you say nothing, and I'll make a choice for you in about a minute, and you can hate me for it instead.'

Efnisien's breathing turned shallow. He knew immediately which one he was going to choose. Knew by the fact that his mouth stayed closed, his heart raced. Because at times like this, he just wanted Gary to choose for him. He wanted to not have to think about it. He wanted to have someone to blame, and he'd blame himself if he made any kind of choice at all. And he wanted the cramps to leave, he wanted this dull needy pain in him to be over. He fisted up a handful of Gary's shirt and felt dizzy, and every breath of Gary's scent he took in didn't help that at all. 

What was he going to do? Just be quiet? Just let Gary do this to him?

Well, Efnisien had a fourth choice too. He could be quiet, he could let Gary decide for him, and then he could fight the asshole even if he did have a heart condition, because... because...

Because he had to.

He had to do that.

'Efnisien...' Gary said warningly. And then a dark, soft laugh. 'Really?' 

Efnisien's eyes opened, he ground his teeth together, and when Gary tensed to shift, Efnisien moved too, twisting to get out of his grip. 

A short, intense fight ensued. Efnisien writhed to get away, and was grabbed by the arm, the torso, pushed down to the bed on his back. Efnisien growled in response, twisted and tried to bite Gary's hand, but he missed, and his teeth snapped down on air. 

'Be good, Efnisien,' Gary said, 'or do you need me to make you do that too?'

All too soon, Gary's hand was in his hair, keeping his head pinned to the bed, one of his thighs resting between Efnisien's legs, and Efnisien had nothing he could bite. He looked on in horror as Gary slipped two of his fingers into his own mouth as he stared down at Efnisien.

'Don't,' Efnisien said suddenly. 'Don't.'

Gary's fingers slipped out of his mouth. He moved fast, Efnisien couldn't twist his head out of the way before a thumb slipped between his lips, then scratched at his gum hard enough causing a flash of unwelcome pain. Efnisien's mouth opened reflexively to cry out, to protest, and Gary's wet fingers slid into his mouth over his tongue and stayed there. 

Efnisien's teeth closed down on skin, but the bite wasn't hard. He stilled, panting through his nose, and had to look away because there was something insistent and dark in Gary's gaze. He swallowed helplessly when Gary's fingers moved slightly on his tongue. 

A wave of nausea came, but following behind it was a bolt of something hot and unsteady, making him feel dazed and weak. He went limp on the bed, his tongue moving absently against fingers in his mouth. Gary's fingers. 

Fucking hell.

The breaths he took became longer, deeper, and he knew something was happening in his body, something beyond his control, because the dull cramps had sharpened, become hungrier, itchier, like he needed something more. He blinked a few times, tried his hardest to resist sucking, but it happened automatically. Once, twice, and then he was able to force himself to stop again after he swallowed.

He felt...

He had no idea. He gave up on it. 

'There we go,' Gary said. 'God, it's really helping, isn't it? Is it enough?'

Some traitorous part of him shook his head before he knew he was going to do it. He laid there feeling limp and flushed through. He felt stupid. A little queasy. Gary's pheromones had a scent, but he couldn't really taste them. It just tasted like... maybe a little like coffee, but that was because the guy lived on espressos. Efnisien sucked in a breath through his nose, he didn't want this to help him. Not this. Not while Gary stared down at him like he was hungry. 

Gary didn't want him. He only wanted someone who was dead. Efnisien was imagining things. 

Gary slipped his fingers out of Efnisien's mouth. At the same time, he slid the thumb of his other hand between Efnisien's teeth, keeping his mouth open. Gary sucked on his own fingers again, more than before, and it was filthy somehow, Efnisien’s spit was on those fingers. Efnisien knew he should use this moment to get away, run, he didn't even have a fucking ankle monitor on anymore. Instead...

Instead he laid there and looked somewhere past Gary's eyes. Everything about this position felt exposing, even though he was wearing more clothes than Gary was. None of it mattered. Gary’s thigh between his legs didn’t feel warm anymore, but searing.

Gary's fingers wetly slid free with a faint popping noise, and Efnisien tried to close his mouth, but Gary's thumb kept his teeth apart, saliva pooling in the back of his throat. Fingers sliding past his lips, past his teeth, wedging in until they were deeper than before. Efnisien swallowed automatically, almost gagged, then whined. He tried to shake his head, and Gary responded by stroking his hair with his other hand. Slow, soothing motions. 

'There we go,' Gary said. 

Breathing through his nose wasn't enough, and Efnisien opened his mouth only for Gary's fingers to settle deeper, move over his tongue. Efnisien was struck by the absurdity of the situation, the terrifying closeness of it all, and he struggled again, this time without thinking about it. He froze when Gary dropped closer, his head alongside Efnisien's, his breathing right by Efnisien's ear. 

God, he was drowning. Drowning. 

'You like it,' Gary said, his voice low, directly into Efnisien's ear. 

Efnisien shook his head, bit down harder on Gary's fingers. 

'Oh, I know, you hate it too,' Gary said. 'The thing about alphas, Efnisien, is that some of them want to know what it's like deep down to have someone treat them this way. Maybe you're worried I'm treating you like an omega, but I like this best when I'm doing it to alphas like you.'

Efnisien groaned helplessly when Gary's fingers slid back and forth over his tongue, spreading his saliva around, moving over sensitive nerve endings. Efnisien's hands flew up and grabbed Gary's wrist, started to yank it away, but then he stopped. 

'Most omegas,' Gary said, 'nearly all of them, actually, don't react like you do, to things like this. You know where I've seen this behaviour before? With alphas. The first time they get pushed against a wall and realise they like it and dread it. The first time I ask them to bend over. The first time they taste me, and realise they're outmatched. Is that what it's like, Efnisien? But it's more complicated for you, isn't it? With all those sub-larentins. Your body must know it needs this.' 

Efnisien snapped his teeth down hard. Not enough to draw blood, but enough that Gary's muscles flinched against the hands Efnisien had around his wrist. Enough that Gary laughed a moment later, like he was impressed. 

'Is it helping?' Gary said, sounding like he was smiling. Efnisien refused to open his eyes.

What was this side of him? Efnisien realised he'd seen tiny pieces of it before, but nothing like this. 

'You hate that it's helping you, don't you?' Gary said, pushing his fingers deeper into Efnisien's mouth. 'Swallow, Efnisien.'

Efnisien swallowed, then pushed his head back into the bed. It didn't help him escape. The cramps were actually easing off. Goddamn it. For the first time in days he felt...weirdly peaceful. 

'It's okay to be angry about this,' Gary said, soothing now. 'It's all right, Efnisien. You can be angry. Any alpha would be.'

Gary's fingers spread over his tongue, rubbed insistently, and it felt... it felt like...

Efnisien opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling, heat spreading low in his gut, not the cramps from before, but something different. One of his legs shifted, and he was learning things about himself he'd never known, and he wished he could process them on his own, instead of on Gary's bed with Gary's words right next to his ear and his fucking fingers in his mouth, moving like they might move inside other parts of people’s bodies. 

Gary's fingers slid free, and Efnisien swallowed several times, and couldn't move. Gary shifted up and looked down at him, studying him, and Efnisien turned his head away, feeling like his face was on fire. Emotions were tumbling through him, not the bitterness or the resentment of before, but huge, helpless things. He was still drowning. 

Gary's hand cupped his cheek gently, his fingers still wet. 

'You're allowed to hate it, Efnisien. I didn't give you a choice, remember?'

'You did,' Efnisien whispered. 

'Not much of a choice,' Gary said, sliding his hand down and resting it on his chest instead, where it felt comforting instead.

Efnisien was never going to be the same after today. That was all he knew. In the grand scheme of things, probably only ten or fifteen minutes had passed, but they'd changed everything. His understanding of himself, his understanding of Gary, his understanding of his body… Tears came to his eyes, and he hated that he hurt so much less. 

It helped. But he wished it didn't, even as he craved more. 

Chapter Text

Gary

*

Efnisien seemed glassy as he ate lunch, but Gary could tell he'd calmed. For the first time in days, Efnisien seemed genuinely settled. He spooned up mouthfuls of soup occasionally but seemed happier to soak it up with bread and eat it that way. He wasn't protesting the lack of protein - though he was still getting more than any of the other omegas on-site and he'd likely need that for the rest of his life - and he looked like he might even be eating for comfort. 

But Gary could tell something had changed between them, and he knew it was his fault. 

He'd felt powerful, possessive, claiming, when he'd had his fingers in Efnisien's mouth, reading all of his responses. The shifts in his breathing, the twitches in his muscles, the way his legs shifted, brushing against Gary's thigh between his legs. He'd even been able to watch Efnisien's pupils dilate. 

There was no denying the fact it was violating. He wasn't surprised Efnisien had picked the option which let him fight back, which let Gary wear the blame, and Gary was strong enough to shoulder it, but as he ate lunch opposite Efnisien, he felt...something he wasn't familiar with. Something they trained alphas to deal with at Hillview, that Gary had never had to deal with himself before. He'd done something Efnisien would never have wanted or asked for under any other circumstances, and it only helped because Efnisien's physiology overrode everything else. It was...violating. 

Gary knew it was normal to feel guilty. It was normal to want to do it again. It was normal to feel sated. It was normal for companion alphas to feel this way with damaged omegas during their heats, and Gary wasn't with an omega, but he was with someone experiencing a heat. All of Efnisien's reactions were so much like an alphas’, but with an added layer where he became foggy and limp and soft when exposed to alpha pheromones. Or at least, when exposed to Gary's. 

It was definitely too early for wine. 

'I don't expect you to feel okay with what just happened,' Gary said, after clearing his throat, waiting until Efnisien had finished most of his lunch. He hoped the boy would keep it down. Gary knew Efnisien had a strong nausea response to his pheromones. He was tense, waiting to see if Efnisien would reject the whole experience. 

Efnisien didn't say a word. They were back to this again. Already. 

'The cramps are better?' Gary asked. 

'They're... Yeah. Not as- Not. Not gone,' Efnisien said, then put his spoon down in the bowl, about a third of the soup remaining, and he looked towards the glass sliding door. Gary couldn't read the expression on his face. Not like when they’d been on the bed, when he knew Efnisien wanted it and hated it, when he realised he could have Efnisien, could even make it good for him, and something in Gary flared like a ravenous beast. He hadn't felt anything quite like it, and only knew hints of it from when he had a curious alpha in his grasp at a club, and he knew...he knew he could push further, make them want it, make them realise what it felt like to be fucked by someone like him. 'They're better.'

'We may have to do it again,' Gary said. Efnisien wouldn't look at him. 'Unfortunately the study said we can't put saliva into food or drink, because the pheromones break down too fast. I would have suggested it if it was an option.' 

'Yeah,' Efnisien said, his voice rough. 

Gary had heard him whimper, moan, knew what it sounded like when Efnisien tried to catch his breath, or when he exhaled heavily, accepting whatever he was feeling because of what Gary was doing to him. 

He thought about how tentatively he'd told Mike about the bond he'd formed with Efnisien and wanted to laugh. 

The worst part was Gary's chest hurt less when he'd had Efnisien straddling him. When he'd slipped his fingers into Efnisien's mouth. It was entirely possible he'd just forgotten about it because the situation was so charged. He was afraid to acknowledge that being close to Efnisien might help his PACS, convince his heart to stabilise. This was new ground for the both of them. 

'How often?' Efnisien said finally, like someone asking how many times they'd have to go through an agonising cancer treatment. 

It brought Gary down to earth, and he polished off his espresso and then pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. He remembered James negotiating the chemo regime they wanted to administer at the end. It would have been brutal no matter what James chose, but that tone of voice was familiar. How long? How much? 

'I don't know,' Gary said. 'More than you would like, I'd imagine.'

Efnisien's eyes darted to his, quick and blue, then turned back towards the glass sliding door. A suppressed escape instinct, no doubt.

'I want a phone,' Efnisien said. 

'I know what you're going to look up on that phone, Efnisien,' Gary said. 

'You said you'd get me one,' Efnisien said. 'And besides, will it really...kill you? If I look stuff up on a phone? If I know more?' 

Efnisien's voice became small towards the end of his words, his shoulders hunched. Gary wondered how many peak alphas had ever been in this situation? To survive PACS, then be around someone who worried he was making it worse all the time? Efnisien had shouldered the blame for it easily, which was no surprise given his history. 

Gary had to really think about this. He didn't want to. He had to. Efnisien wasn't a Hillview omega, they couldn't just keep him away from the internet because it was necessary during the rehabilitation process, like they needed to with many of the omegas who came through the gates. Gary couldn't say: 'I deprived you of a basic human right because I was scared.' 

Gary laughed softly, sadly to himself, and Efnisien looked over to him. Gary thought his lips were pinker, more flushed than before. Having the boy shivering beneath him was addictive. 

'All right,' Gary said finally. 'You're correct. I'll ask Faber if he can work harder to get you a phone. We will have to restrict you from contacting your family, unfortunately. That's policy here, not just for your protection, but for the protection of everyone else too.'

'I don't want to contact them,' Efnisien said. His eyes seemed to say: You know why I want the phone. 

'Having more information - especially information you get from news articles - isn't going to make me any more likely to talk about the things you want to push me into talking about, Efnisien. And some of that information won't be accurate.'

'But I can't get it from you.'

'No,' Gary said, his hand absently drifting to his chest. He only noticed when Efnisien's eyes widened when he tensed. 'I'm fine.'

'Talking about it makes your chest hurt,' Efnisien said. 

Polly came over from where she'd been lying down. Her tail wagged sleepily as she approached Efnisien - not Gary - and then stood close enough to be easily petted. She didn't shove her face into his leg, or do the things she might do with Gary, and they seemed to have some kind of understanding. Gary watched, breath shallow and quiet in his lungs, as Efnisien stared at her for a long time, then tentatively reached out with his fingers. He flinched hard when she shoved her face at his hand, but he didn't jerk it out of the way. She rubbed her nose all over it, then licked it. 

Gary smiled when he remembered the panicked way Efnisien said: 'She's tasting me!' at the beach.

The fear had been real, but there was something charming about it all the same...

'Do you still think she's tasting you?' Gary said. 

Efnisien looked like he was concentrating. 'I don't know. Maybe she is.' 

'Maybe she's checking to see if you have any lunch left on your fingers.' 

'Maybe,' Efnisien said. 'She's soft.'

'The top of her head is softer. And her ears are even softer than that.'

Gary watched Efnisien reach out and smooth fingers across the top of her head carefully, like she was made of spun glass. He did it a few times, then stopped, and Polly came over to Gary instead and rudely nose-butted his thigh. 

'No treats for you, beautiful,' Gary said, rubbing the side of her face. She leaned into the touch and seemed happy, and Gary brushed his thumb over the whiter fur at her muzzle. He could tell Efnisien was waiting for him to respond. 'Yes. Talking about it does make my chest hurt.'

Since they both knew about the PACS, Gary might as well be honest. 

'Okay,' Efnisien said. For the first time since Gary had used alpha persuasion on him, there was something even and reasoned in Efnisien's voice. Gary felt it, the moment Efnisien decided to stop pressuring him not because he'd been forced to, but because he'd decided for himself that the potential consequences weren't worth it. Gary almost wanted to thank him. 'I still need a phone.'

'I agree,' Gary said. 'I just need you to know-'

'I get it,' Efnisien said. 'Whatever I find, I can't use it to bait you.'

'You probably will,' Gary muttered. 

Efnisien's laugh when it came was more like an exhale, a faint and crooked smile. His face was in profile, hair mussed up from Gary's hands, the bed, their struggle, his feverish sweats through the cramps that Gary let him suffer through. Temsen made it clear that Efnisien's pain was squarely on Gary this time, and he knew it was true. 

Efnisien so rarely laughed. 

'I probably will,' Efnisien said wryly. 'It's what Gwyn would do.'

'It's what you know,' Gary said, reaching over and dipping some bread into Efnisien’s leftover soup. 'You're far too insightful for your own good. I don't know if anyone's ever told you that, or mentioned how deviously smart you are.'

Efnisien's eyes found his again, the eye contact steady, and Gary marvelled at the fact that Efnisien really was an alpha in heat. He'd daydreamed about such a thing in the past, long before he'd ever met Efnisien. Wouldn't it be something? To see what it was like for an alpha to go through something like a heat? To be vulnerable and needy and yearning? To hate it and need the guidance anyway? To seek power and need to be overpowered? It was the stuff of Gary's fantasies, especially when he'd been younger.

'I can't tell if you're saying it to make me feel better about what happened,' Efnisien said, 'or if you really mean it.'

'I mean it. It's not flattery, Efnisien, it's mildly terrifying.'

Efnisien shook his head. He touched his fingers to his mouth, and Gary wondered how he'd respond if he brought it up, if he forced Efnisien to acknowledge what they'd done. 

'It helps,' Efnisien said, the words not quite grudging. 'But what does that mean? You don't want me here. You've been avoiding me. Do you think...?'

Efnisien didn't finish the sentence, cutting himself off almost like a directive had choked him. Gary desperately wanted to know what Efnisien had been about to say but left the sentence hanging between them. 

'I should be grateful, shouldn't I?' Efnisien said, eyes narrowing at the floor. 'Grateful this is a different rehabilitation centre than the others. Grateful you're all treating me like some novelty, a new kind of alpha. Grateful you're still giving me ardolphogen, and grateful that...' 

'You don't have to be grateful,' Gary said. 

'I should be. Compared to back home...'

'You don't have to be grateful at all,' Gary said. It was the one thing he knew was true, beyond the shadow of a doubt. 'It's like when you say I'm nice. I'm not. I'm nice comparatively. That's different.'

'The worst thing is you can be nice, but then you...' Efnisien shook his head. His hands went to his belly. 'You've been... You've been angry at me.' 

Gary nodded, because what else could he say? He'd been immature and petty and vindictive. He'd been trying to escape an inescapable situation. He'd been dealing with chest pain and adjusting to the meds and Efnisien hadn't felt like a friend or an ally, but an enemy in his own home. Gary had wanted to crush him into shape, make him sorry. His mother would be disappointed, she'd even be furious, though she never yelled. He could almost see the expression on her face. 

I don't know what to do, he wanted to say to her. I don't know what to do, and there's no one else who understands. 

Even Temsen as a peak alpha didn't know what PACS was like, had staunchly avoided bonding with anyone his whole life and couldn't know what that sort of love was like, that sort of loss. 

But Efnisien couldn't talk to anyone else who understood either. He was an omega who'd been surgically maltreated, forced to take hormones that likely almost killed him when he was younger. He’d been changed into an alpha while locked in the body of a brutalised omega, he still produced sub-larentins alongside the ardolphogen Efnisien needed to live without becoming sickly. Efnisien couldn't be trusted around omegas because he wasn't one, even though they were the only ones who would understand heat cycles. Alphas couldn't give him sage advice because none of them had ever experienced a heat. Gary had the privilege of knowing other peak alphas and was lucky enough to have two on-site. Efnisien had...no one like that. 

'You don't like asking for closeness,' Gary said. 'I think even if I'd not felt angry at you, you wouldn't have felt able to ask me for it.'

Efnisien shrugged. Confirmation enough. 

'There's no shame in it,' Gary said.

'Yeah? Seems like there's a lot of fucking shame in it, actually,' Efnisien bit out. 'If there was really no shame in it, you'd all be falling over yourselves to know what a heat felt like.'

Gary 0, Efnisien 1. 

'I don't think less of you, because you need that,' Gary said, trying another angle. 

'You just think less of me in general,' Efnisien said, sighing. 

'I think less of most people, in general.'

Efnisien leaned back in his chair. Even his body language was more relaxed after what they'd done earlier. Temsen was going to ask at some point if it was successful with a clinical curiosity, but there was nothing scientific about what Gary had done when he'd thrust his fingers back and forth in Efnisien's mouth, or when he'd sucked Efnisien's saliva into his own mouth, and realised he could taste a hint of that scent, a hint of pheromones, not quite alpha, not quite omega, beguiling in their intensity. 

'It's not the same,' Efnisien said. 'When Faber was over, you both ignored me. I'm like...a pet.'

Gary frowned. He hadn't given much thought to how Efnisien felt during Faber's visit, he'd just felt relieved to see a familiar face he associated with making his life easier. It had been good to talk to Faber about the business, about Hillview, about how Temsen was dealing with all the jobs and the slack that Faber had to pick up. He'd assumed Efnisien wouldn't find it interesting. That being said, Faber had shut Efnisien out as well. Normally he was friendlier. Could it be he was feeling protective? Even jealous? Temsen was right, he'd been neglecting Faber in all of this too, and it was potentially creating tension Gary hadn't noticed until now. 

'I slipped into a role,' Gary said. 'I'm not accustomed to involving anyone else in my discussions with Faber. Next time I'll be more conscientious.'

'I don't want you to do that for me,' Efnisien said, sounding angry, looking tired. 'That's just it. Doing things you resent doing...'

'Efnisien, I don't dislike you.'

'You do.' 

'I don't.'

'Your heart decided to shit itself because of me.'

Gary rolled his eyes at the phrasing. 'We're going around in circles on this. What are you trying to achieve? Do you want me to keep being angry at you? Is that it? Are you so scared of the closeness from before, even though it helped, that you'll sabotage it? Are you looking for fights because it's what you're used to? You're tired, Efnisien. You've been through something traumatic.'

'Like what?' Efnisien said, so desultory that Gary almost thought he was lying. But he wasn't. He really...had no idea. 

'The surgeries,' Gary said, staring at him closely. 'The heat, the agonising pain.'

'Oh, that,' Efnisien said, shaking his head. 'Come on. Really?'

'Yes,' Gary said. 'It's traumatic.' 

'Really?' 

'Efnisien, I...' 

Efnisien's upbringing. His aunt. Those directives. Was it so normal for him he really just didn't know anymore? Being sedated while screaming. Being in so much pain the scent lingered in the air for hours afterwards. Needing stitches in an invasive, sensitive place, to correct surgical malpractice that had happened years before. Not being able to speak about it, to disclose his fears around it, to share his memories of it, because of directive after directive which went beyond the temporary brainwashing of alpha persuasions, into near-permanent mind control, especially when done to the degree that Crielle did it. 

Efnisien stared at him, expression moving from disdainful to uncertain. 

'Stay here a moment,' Gary said, knowing he needed to clear the table, knowing it could wait. 'I need to show you something.'

Chapter Text

Efnisien

*

Efnisien watched Gary return with his tablet, he pulled his chair over so they were sitting side by side. Polly didn't move, she'd laid down at their feet under the table, and seemed to be happy. Efnisien was slowly - slowly - becoming convinced that maybe she wasn't going to aggressively try to bite his hand off or savage him to death. She really didn't seem capable. She'd make the worst guard dog ever, and no one even seemed to mind. 

'Here,' Gary said, bringing up a science article. 'This is what Temsen recommended I read to better inform myself about your case. It's been helpful.'

Efnisien was surprised when he saw the title: Post-Trauma Sequelae in Alphas after Combat. 

'Here's the other one,' Gary said, switching to another tab. 

The title: Alphas in Crisis, the Silent Shame: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after Interpersonal Abuse, a Review.

'He gave you...articles about alphas?' Efnisien said. It still surprised him after all this time. He felt like he was a magician's trick. They were all pretending he was an alpha, then they'd pull the curtain back and be like, Surprise! We still think you're an omega! Efnisien couldn't see a reason for Temsen to send Gary articles like this if that was how he really felt. 

'He did,' Gary said, 'because articles about omegas after trauma don't really apply to you. There's some universality in post-trauma, don't get me wrong, alphas, omegas and betas all experience difficulty trusting people or feeling safe after trauma. That happens in all of us. But there's degrees of difference. Alphas, for example, are more likely to reject closeness and physical proximity, especially in cases of interpersonal abuse. They can be more aggressive and irritable. The flight instinct is exacerbated. And - believe it or not - in situations where they have repeatedly experienced the forceful removal of their power and agency, they're more likely to fight using their teeth and nails. What we'd consider an 'omega' way to fight is very normal for anyone if they feel like they have nothing else they can win with.'

Efnisien looked at the tiny writing. There was a lot of technical jargon. He looked at Gary uncertainly. Of course there were things in his life he'd hated, but trauma was a big word. 

'Is that why I'm tired?' Efnisien said finally. 

'Well, I've also been...pushing you away at a time when you've needed the opposite of that. That's my fault.'

Efnisien didn't want to acknowledge it. Even while eating lunch, he swore he could feel Gary's fingers in his mouth sometimes, and he wondered if he'd be replaying that forever, except Gary had already said it was going to happen again. And again. 

Fuck. 

'Surgery is invasive and traumatic to the body, even when it's not traumatic to the mind,' Gary said, putting the tablet on the kitchen table next to Efnisien's bowl of soup. 'I have reason to believe the surgeries you've undergone have been traumatic to the mind as well. But even removing that, it's simply hard for a body to undergo anaesthesia, different medications, sedatives, painkillers, scalpels, stitches and more. It's not like we're born expecting that to happen to us. We react with pain and fear when something cuts us open, because we know that's not the natural order of things. We're biologically averse to it. Surgery is...meant to be ultimately helpful - and we can't even say it was every time in your case - but it's not like your body knows that, Efnisien.' 

It was the opposite of how Crielle talked to him, when she decided to talk to him at all. Efnisien felt weirdly emotional, he didn't want to deal with that on top of everything else, but he was just having reactions lately. Maybe it was the heat. The stupid fucking heat.

They didn't fight as much when they were close. Efnisien had noticed, and he didn't know what to do with that information. He'd never wanted to be with anyone. He didn't even know if he wanted to be with Gary. But he knew he needed to stay here. He knew he couldn't move out. Even thinking it left him shaky. If he ran away, he'd be running into a life of more pain, of unexpected sub-larentin heats that alphas noticed, even if they didn't understand exactly what was happening. 

He didn't like thinking about the future, he didn't want to think about it now, but in the back of his mind, a voice kept asking: What is my life going to look like in a year? In five years? In ten? 

He just kept hoping maybe he wouldn't be alive at that point. 

He startled when he felt a hand on the side of his face. Efnisien's eyes widened, because it wasn't a soothing hand on his upper arm, it wasn't fingers at his lower back, Gary was so close. 

'You're thinking some heavy thoughts,' Gary said. 'Do you want to share any of them?'

'No,' Efnisien said. 'I don't... I don't know.' 

'Do you want to get some sleep?' 

'You have to work, don't you?'

Gary sighed. 'In about an hour, yes. Though I only have two more clients today, and no more supervision for the rest of the week. Temsen's asked Augus to start training for supervision.'

'The other scary peak alpha,' Efnisien said. 

'Yes, that one. He's not that scary.'

Efnisien hadn't moved away from the touch, the palm warm against his face. He knew he should make some kind of stand, but he needed the contact. 

'How about we go to the couch for a little while,' Gary said, 'before my next client.' 

'You need to rest too.'

'Believe it or not, Efnisien, sitting on my couch with you against me is not the chore you imagine it is.'

Then why haven't you been doing it? 

But he knew why. Gary had said it himself, he was petty, he was angry, and the part he didn't say was that he was trapped too. Efnisien knew he was. 

Gary cleared up the dishes, and Efnisien reached out to Polly again when she got up, and touched the top of her head, which was soft and almost feathery. Her ears were like velvet, though he didn't touch them much, in case they were sensitive or out of bounds, and she'd get mad. But she seemed to like it all, and when he stopped, her nose tossed up, like she was looking to contact his hand again. 

He liked that. 

Gary came back and touched his arm, and Efnisien stood and walked with him over to the couch and in his gut he could feel it, spreading tendrils of need. Sometimes he felt like he was watching his responses from a long way off, and sometimes he was in them, and right now he could feel every inch of his body as Gary sat near the armrest and pulled Efnisien against him, so that Efnisien's body was over his legs and chest, back against his torso. Gary's arm came and rested over his side, draping down against his chest, and Efnisien was glad Gary had put his trousers back on after everything from before, but it didn't help that much. 

'So,' Gary said quietly, 'you're possibly the first alpha in the world to ever go through a heat. What do you think?'

'I hate it,' Efnisien said, and Gary's breath of amusement was welcome, because it sounded not mocking, but sympathetic. 

'It would be hard for anyone. It's hard for omegas too. Harder still that they get mocked and belittled for something out of their control. But for now I'm more interested in your experience. You still get the cramps?' 

Efnisien nodded. If he treated it like some kind of scientific experiment, he almost thought he could talk about it in a detached way, but he didn't want to pretend Gary was Crielle, and even now he didn't know how to feel about the fact that Gary had stuck his fingers in his mouth. Shit. Even kissing was on the table. It felt like cracking open a door to something Efnisien had never wanted to see beyond. He didn't want to have sex. He didn't want any of those things. 

But he couldn't hide from the fact that what they’d done before helped. Gary's pheromones quietened his body, turned outright pain into something needier, even as it softened him. 

Now, being close to Gary was a balm. It was like suddenly having a security blanket - even though he'd never needed one before - only that blanket was a person. A person who could be mean, cruel, and petty. A person who pushed him away, who missed the love of his life. Efnisien felt so small in this cottage ever since he'd learned about James, ever since he'd realised Gary could love, had loved, and the emotions were so big Efnisien thought hardly anyone else would be able to contain them at that intensity. 

'What are you thinking?' Gary said. 

Nothing I can talk to you about.

Gary stroked his arm, then reached up and stroked his hair instead. Efnisien tried to stay tense, but it was useless. 

'I hate that this works,' Efnisien said. 

'I know,' Gary said, which was annoying and comforting at the same time. 

'If I can't know about James-' -Efnisien felt distress alongside vindication when Gary's hand paused- 'can I... Does that mean I can't know anything about you at all?' 

'What?' Gary said, his hand immediately snarling up Efnisien's hair delicately, before combing it back into place. 'What would you want to know?'

'You realise how fucking stupid this is, don't you? That you know so much about me, and I know nothing about you.'

'Ah. Yes. All right. I can...talk more about my life. Would you like to ask me questions? Or would you like me to just...share something?'

'The last one,' Efnisien said. He had no idea what was safe to ask. He liked the sound of Gary's voice. If Gary chose what he talked about, Efnisien wouldn't stumble onto the 'might kill him actually' subjects he should be avoiding, even though he needed to know more about that too. Whatever.   

A pause, and Gary's hand went up above Efnisien's head but didn't lay in his hair, and then he heard the sound of Gary sucking on his fingers and froze, briefly considering making a run for it. How the hell was Efnisien going to be able to concentrate on anything while they did this? Was Gary even going to ask? Efnisien could still bite his fingers hard enough to make him regret it. Gary must know that. Gary knew that better than anyone. 

A minute later, wet fingertips covered in Gary's spit prodding at Efnisien's mouth. 

'What if I don't want to?' Efnisien said as he turned his head away. 

'I know if you had another choice you'd take it, Efnisien. But do you want to be in the kind of pain you were in earlier?' 

No. No. Efnisien didn't want that either. And maybe it was better like this, pretending he hated it, pretending it was something he thought of as completely disgusting. Because it was, it was disgusting, but he'd had to fight with himself not to immediately open his mouth when Gary's fingers came close. Had to fight with himself not to give in. 

'You... You sure you don't think of me as an omega?'

'Very,' Gary said. 

Gary's fingers found his mouth again, sliding inside when Efnisien didn't fight him, and he tasted a hint of the hand soap he used earlier. Gary's index and middle fingers coasted along his tongue until they were nearly pressed in to the last knuckle, and Efnisien reflexively squirmed against him - to get away, to try and handle it, he didn't know - and one of his hands came up and grabbed Gary's wrist, fingers digging in. He didn't pull him away, but he had to feel like he could. 

'Shhh, there we go. There we go. It will get better soon.' 

Efnisien's eyes screwed shut, and Gary's fingers rested there, keeping his mouth open. It kept helping. As soon as Efnisien swallowed - even though he was embarrassed to do it - it was like his hormones instantly responded. 

'Shhh, I know it's not fair,' Gary said. 'Let me think about where to start... I'm not used to talking about myself outside of academic interviews, that sort of thing. Believe it or not, a lot of people don't ask.' 

Efnisien's eyelids fluttered, his vision blurred. Gary's other hand gently stroked his hair, and Efnisien felt surrounded by him, Gary's arm around his torso, fingers in his mouth, his other hand stroking his head. 

'Well. I was born into an alpha family,' Gary said quietly. 'As far as we know there were no peak alphas, but there might have been somewhere in the family. Both my parents have passed away now. My mother in my early twenties, my father a little before that. I was born in Mount Lawley, in an old family home, and I was born into a lot of privilege. I was also very lucky. My parents married for love, not convenience or finance, though both had a lot of business acumen. They were happy together, I like to think. They should have had the chance to live that love into their dotage, but life doesn't always work out that way.'

Efnisien was folding every single word away. He knew Mount Lawley, he'd seen it on the maps app. It was an affluent suburb, and it was central to the main city of Perth, and it had the big arts academy and university there, and parks, and nice street views. Old Federation style houses, with broad verandas, red bricks and terracotta rooves, remnants of the early days of Perth's colonisation. Big mature trees down all of the streets, decades and decades old, offering lush shade that was obvious even from the maps view. 

He had to force himself to concentrate. After lunch, after everything they'd already done, Efnisien was tired. Gary's fingers in his mouth made him want to close his eyes and sleep while feeling this surrounded by someone. He should hate it, shouldn't he? 

'My mother worked as a financial planner from home, and she looked after native animals that needed to be rescued. She focused on birds, so our house was always quite loud. Though I suppose it came and went. In spring, it was at its loudest, and in autumn, its quietest. It bothered me a lot during my exams. Do you know what baby magpies sound like?' 

Efnisien nodded and felt the faint movement of Gary's fingers over his tongue. He held back the groan he wanted to make.

'Let's see...' Gary said. 'Perhaps I'm not telling you what you want to hear. I became a red wine aficionado early, because I inherited my father's collection, and it was a way of remembering him, and then it simply became...a part of my life. My doctor's not happy with how much I drink, I suppose that's not surprising to you. In high school I knew I wanted to stream into psychology, but never thought I'd end up in the job I have now. It all changed through university, my major changed three times. I tried being a companion once, and I was terrible. I doubt you're surprised to hear that. How are you feeling, Efnisien?' 

Efnisien's breathing had slowed. Gary's voice was hypnotic, and he was fighting not to sleep. He felt warm and lax, the cramps had gone. It was like he was turning into liquid, listening to Gary talk, having this happen to him at the same time. He kept thinking it might remind him of the ways Gwyn tried to dominate and subdue him, but it didn't. 

He made a faint sound, and Gary hummed back like he was pleased. 

'I wasn't prepared for how emotionally taxing it would be,' Gary continued, even as he turned his fingers in Efnisien's mouth and began to lightly explore, gently brushing his teeth, or the edge of his tongue. 'I knew it would be, of course, we're all prepared. We watch videos. We watch debriefings with alphas. We see footage from more...typical omega rehab centres. But I wasn't ready. It shocked me, I think, to see it up close for the first time, the damage we do to omegas, the damage we're expected to continue. And at the same time, Omega Theory was a growing region of study on campus, it was considered quite ground-breaking and controversial. I suppose it still is. 

'I was an idle student. Education and good grades came easily to me all my life. I used my pheromones without thinking quite often as a teenager, and I think some of the teachers felt obligated to give me higher grades than I sometimes deserved, but regardless, I'm rather intelligent. Omega Theory was the first place where I was really challenged to start thinking, to critically engage with my environment. I can't say I'm any better at it than anyone else. I'm quite stubborn and stuck in my ways, and I'm not nearly as flexible as many of the other alphas we have here, like Temsen. He would have wanted to treat you like an alpha from the beginning. That we didn't was wholly my mistake, Efnisien. I apologise.' 

Those two fingers sliding back, brushing across Efnisien's lower lip, lazily thrusting back into his mouth. Efnisien's neck was loose, half on the armrest, and he felt hot and unsteady and sleepy at the same time. 

'I've got you,' Gary said gently. 'It's all right, Efnisien. You can sleep. You're safe.'

At any other time, Efnisien would maybe argue if he heard something like that, but right now it was all he wanted. He nodded, and Gary's hand rested on the top his head, thumb stroking tenderly. It didn't feel like it had before lunch. It wasn't lustful, it didn't demand anything from him. He didn't know what this was. He thought he might cry. 

'You did well,' Gary said, thumb stroking over his ear. 'You're doing well.' 

Gary's voice nudging him towards sleep. Efnisien wanted to ask how he did that. There was no alpha persuasion in his voice, he couldn't even smell increased pheromones in the air, but it was like being gently shuffled to some other place in his head. It was so tempting. So tempting. 

'There we go,' Gary whispered. 'Like that, Efnisien.'

Efnisien took in a deep breath through his nose, cool and refreshing, and fell asleep on the next exhale with Gary's fingers in his mouth, settled and calm for the first time in days. 

Chapter Text

Gary

*

Just like that, Efnisien's heat was over. The next day Gary smelled it in the air, a clearing in Efnisien's scent. It turned fainter and became steely, less open. Efnisien's temperature settled to its baseline, he seemed clear-eyed and alert over breakfast. It should have brought a feeling of relief with it, but instead Gary felt odd about not having as many excuses to be close to him. He still needed to be close, that much was clear, physical contact genuinely helped Efnisien no matter what state he was in, but it was going to be harder justifying getting fingers into his mouth or making Efnisien straddle him. 

Efnisien progressed to solid food easily. He didn't complain about pain - though he never would - and the scent of those horrid cramps cleared from the house. 

There were other changes too. Efnisien didn't call Polly to him, but sometimes he dropped his hand down and let her sniff it, like he was daring himself and daring her in the process. It was endearing, because it obviously took some courage from the boy, and some restraint from Polly, who clearly wanted to lick him all over but had somehow picked up some cues from Efnisien, given his previous reticence to touch her at all. Their relationship with each other was careful, and Polly seemed extremely pleased whenever she managed to steal some attention from him. She always came to Gary afterwards and shoved her head against his thigh or arm or hand as if to say: See? See? Look what I did! 

Gary left Efnisien to some reading - he'd wanted to get started on some of the educational modules acquired for him - and went outside, walking to his office for the first time in a while. He refused to knock on his own office door, even though Temsen was currently occupying it. His nostrils flared as he checked if there were any new clients or scents lingering. But there was nothing today except for Faber's and Temsen's pheromones, which meant he could be rude. 

He opened the door, and Temsen didn't even look away from the screen, fingers flying rapidly over the keyboard. 

'I hate your job,' Temsen said. Today he wore a white turtleneck knitted jumper, which only emphasised the broadness of his shoulders. 'You need at least one other personal assistant.'

'I think his heat is over,' Gary said. He left all the retorts and verbal parries at the door. It was tempting, but he knew his job was hard, and Temsen was doing him a huge favour. 'I didn't expect it to happen so quickly.'

'It didn't happen quickly at all,' Temsen said grimly, fingers slowing. He turned and faced Gary, frowning. 

'It happened quickly once I got saliva into him,' Gary said. 

'I'm concerned his heats may escalate. We'll have to keep an eye on it, anyway. At least we know the saliva worked, and we can look at how to implement that across the board with new omegas in certain partnerships.'

'Absolutely. It's less obviously invasive than other methods, though it's still...quite invasive.'

'I think most omegas will have an easier time with it than Efnisien,' Temsen said, smiling. 'They aren't warring with alpha instincts, for a start. That internal push-pull must be quite something! I have to admit, I'm doing a remarkable job of restraining myself around him.'

'You want the case study, don't you?'

'Goodness me, yes,' Temsen said. 'It can wait. Has he realised your role in the prolonging of his misery yet?'

'Yes,' Gary said. He was tempted to walk around to the side of the desk where Temsen sat, his side of the desk, but he resisted. 'We had a talk about a few different things.'

'That as much as anything might have put the lid on that heat,' Temsen said soberly. 'Of course the pheromones helped, but genuine closeness is in more than pheromones, Gary, and you know it. Have you talked to him about James?'

'No,' Gary said. Temsen looked disappointed, Gary scowled. 'And I won't. However, because the little goblin is determined to find out whatever he can about it, can you please make sure Faber gets Efnisien a phone in the next few days? I'd like it so he can't make outgoing calls, but other than that, give him his access.' 

'He's smart enough to make outgoing calls if he wants to,' Temsen said, sighing. 'But of course. I'm sure you know my opinion about all of this.' 

'Not everything happens on your timeline, Temsen.'

'Some things don't happen at all,' Temsen grumbled. 'You have to talk to someone about it.'

'Yes, of course,' Gary said witheringly. 'So why not the incredibly vulnerable medical experiment? Hm? A perfect target for well over a decade of grief, don't you think?'

Temsen opened his mouth, eyes sparking up with rage, the golden patch in his brown irises looking like it was flaring. But abruptly he closed his mouth and stared at Gary levelly. Gary could smell grassy pheromones in the air, and his own scent too, woody and tannic. They were far readier to fight than usual. 'Do not pretend - not to me - that you're doing this for his welfare. Not after you spent days neglecting him to the point of agony.'

Gary's teeth ground together. He and Temsen glared at each other for a little too long, and the tension ramped. Gary wasn't in the mood for this, and Temsen clearly wasn't either, because normally he was an expert at de-escalation.

A quick business-like knock on the door - Faber's knock, Gary would know it anywhere - and Faber stepped into the room and then blanched. He placed a hand over his mouth, and Gary stepped back from Temsen automatically, even as Temsen turned back to the computer screen. 

'I seem to have interrupted something,' Faber said hoarsely, and Gary opened his mouth, but it was Temsen who talked across him. 

'What is it, Faber?'

'Ah,' Faber said, looking nervously between them. Gary felt some sympathy for the man, given his loyalty was primarily to Gary, and Temsen was his boss right now, and the air wasn't exactly thick with pheromones, but it didn't need to be to crush anyone who wasn't a peak alpha. What Temsen and Gary found easy to withstand was too much for most, and Gary knew his assistant was struggling. 'I- I- ...Yes. Well. That's... I wanted to say that we've arranged a date for Denis Deschamps to meet with Lucien Beaumont and Caleb, Sirs. Sir.' 

Faber looked a desperate apology to Gary. Then he closed the door quickly, leaving them both in the room, Faber no doubt rushing to get some air. 

'Oh dear,' Temsen said. 'Should one of us go find him?'

'No,' Gary said. 'If he gets overwhelmed like that, he needs time to himself. He doesn't like to be seen at all when he's vulnerable.'

'A strong flight instinct then,' Temsen said. 'He's been ever so helpful. I'm not even really trying to get my pheromones spiked, are you?'

'No,' Gary said. 

'He is sensitive,' Temsen said, scratching at a neatly maintained hairline. 'We've both been far worse than that, haven't we?'

'Yes,' Gary said, rubbing at his face. He walked into the main part of the room, closer to the comfortable chairs he used for supervision. He missed this office. Both the comfortable one he'd had in the cottage before Efnisien destroyed it, and the one Temsen was using here. 

'I am sorry,' Temsen said with his formal forthright way of speaking. Gary hadn't expected the apology at all. 'I've had to put Efnisien first as my patient quite a few times over the last few days, but it leaves you neglected, and I don't mean the PACS, Gary. I...am doing a terrible job of being sympathetic to your circumstances. It would be easier, I think, if your actions didn't have a direct impact on Efnisien’s welfare. It’s hard to think when he’s in agony.' 

'I know.' 

'I keep thinking about the pain he's grown accustomed to. I'm... And on another matter, I think I'm in the strange position of realising an alpha who's that vulnerable has a kind of appeal, if I'm being honest. I think I might see you as a rival.'

Gary lifted his eyebrows to indicate what he thought of that, and Temsen laughed. 

'It's not a serious rivalry,' Temsen said. Gary didn’t think it was, or he’d be unable to be relaxed about it. 'I don't want him, he's too much work. But I'm pleased to have identified why I've been in such a strange state. I think it started off as protectiveness and became that thread of: 'Here's an alpha not doing a good enough job with him, I know I'd do better.' Realistically, I'm not sure I would. I'm not as kind as you are, for a start.'

'Kind?'

'I would have fucked him as soon as I knew he was in heat,' Temsen said, smiling slowly. 'Which would have been a nightmare, given the surgery he needed for a start. You're far kinder than I am, Gary, for all that you're a small-minded, petty tyrant, when it comes to your grief.' 

'Fair enough.' 

'Goodness, but I am sorry. You're cast adrift all the time on this, aren't you? Well. Now's not the time to talk about it, but perhaps some other time? Will you still consider me when you need someone to talk to? Or have I inadvertently spoiled it?' 

'I don't know yet, Temsen,' Gary said. 'I have to admit you weren't a person I seriously considered over the last week. Especially after the surgeries.'

'Right. Right.' Temsen's eyes widened. 'Gary, I hadn't considered the reminders...'

'Leave it. I'm just pleased his heat seems to be over.'

'You know the right thing to do in the meantime is to push for more of a bond,' Temsen said gently. 'So that the next heat is easier on the both of you? But none of this is easy for you, is it?'

'You're doing a remarkably good job of chasing me out of your office,' Gary said, walking towards the door. 

'Then tell me where your power is,' Temsen said. 'Have you found any?'

Gary thought of Efnisien laying back against him the day before, mouth open around Gary's fingers and idly suckling as he'd fallen asleep. The way his spine shuddered, the feeling of Efnisien's hands around his wrist like he wanted to pull him away, even though he never did. He thought about how exultant he'd felt in that moment, coaxing Efnisien into sleep after several days of them not seeing eye-to-eye, Efnisien refusing to ask for what he needed, Gary refusing to give it to him. Gary had to give him hardly anything, and Efnisien melted. It was a damning sign of everything he'd never been given in his life, but it still made Gary feel like he'd won. 

'I'd like to find my power somewhere else for a change,' Gary said heavily, hand on the doorknob. 'That's the problem.' 

He left before Temsen could reply, and stopped once he was in the hall, nostrils flaring on the scent of Faber's discomfort and borderline fear. Ah, he'd have to do some damage control with Faber at some point as well. Still, after all that, it felt good to get out of his cottage.

*

It was a miracle Efnisien didn't seem upset when he returned. He looked up from where he'd been making notes in a pad, the tablet on next to him. Gary could see he was studying an education module. 

'I've reminded Temsen to chase up getting a phone for you within the next few days,' Gary said. 

Efnisien's expression was warily hopeful, and Gary thought about Temsen saying he was kind, Efnisien saying he was nice, and Gary still painfully aware they had Efnisien trapped here, and he should have always had the freedom of a smartphone in the first place. He sighed and walked over to the coffee machine. 

'Was it...nice to go out?' Efnisien said. 

'It was, actually. Temsen's working hard. I'm not exactly upset he's taken on some large responsibilities right now. And you? Are you wanting to go out?'

'I don't know,' Efnisien said, but Gary thought that was answer enough. If Efnisien wasn't directly saying 'no' to something, he wanted to do it. 

'Maybe later this afternoon? What do you think? Beach or forest? Or we could go for a drive?'

Efnisien pushed back into the chair at the mention of a drive, a hint of fear clouded the air. 'Maybe the...beach,' Efnisien said.

'Of course. I've been thinking... How did you feel about Enris when you first met him?' 

'The nurse?'

'Mmhm.' 

'He was okay? I mean I hated him because I hated...everyone, but he was...' Efnisien's forehead scrunched up. Gary wanted to walk over and smooth the lines with his thumbs and thought about what it meant to need a locus of power, and the resentment that came when he realised Efnisien was it, at least right now. 'I think in retrospect, I could tell he was trying really hard. He was like- He was maybe a little condescending? But I don't think it was on purpose.'

'No, it wouldn't have been. Enris is very genuine. But he did believe you were an omega, and sometimes they respond well to a particular tone of voice which is...comforting and reassuring, but also somewhat firm? It might have felt like he was patronising you.'

'Yeah,' Efnisien said. 'Why?'

'Eventually it would be good for you to meet some more people and learn how to...be around them. I've mentioned Enris before. He'd be susceptible to your alpha persuasions though.'

'I mean he's susceptible to yours too,' Efnisien said, looking unimpressed. 

'Yes, but I've never used mine in a murder attempt,' Gary said, staring back. Efnisien's cheeks pinked, he looked away after a couple of seconds. 'Kadek will be coming back soon, you know that don't you?'

Efnisien paled, and Gary leaned back against the counter. 

'He'll want to see you. He's not the kind of person to guilt-trip someone, Efnisien. Unless it's theatrically, as a joke. He understands why you did what you did. He understood it better than I did in the beginning, far earlier than I did.'

'He could still press charges,' Efnisien whispered. 

'No, once he had the measure of you, it wasn't a possibility. Do you think you'll apologise to him?'

'I can't see him,' Efnisien said. 'I've never- That's not... You all thought I was a criminal for ages. Like- Like you wouldn't try and do the same thing if you weren't drugged and taken to an omega rehab centre and knew what was coming next. Like you'd be any better, right?' Efnisien looked at him desperately, eyes begging. 

Gary's first thought was: That would never happen to me, it's simply absurd to even imagine. But it was an attempt to escape the discomfort of what Efnisien was saying. His next thought was: We don't do that here anyway. Which was true. They didn't forcefully rape any omegas that came through their program. Hillview wasn't about breaking anyone. But their website was deliberately vague on that so they could still attract prospective alpha clients who didn't understand what they were doing, and almost no other omega rehab facility was like them. 

'You're right,' Gary said softly. 

Efnisien said nothing for a long time as Gary poured his espresso. Today, Lachlan was dropping off lunch, so he didn't have to worry about that. He came and sat at the table, bringing a glass of water for Efnisien. 

'It's a system that works for omegas, but it is a manipulative system,' Gary said.

'What do you mean?' 

'Well... All right, so in most cases, omegas go straight to their companion alpha after a brief meeting where Enris or one of the other beta nurses is present. But in uncertain cases like yours, where you were dropped off and drugged, we put omegas in a frightening situation deliberately - the holding room - so their first encounter is with someone like Enris, who offers safety and comfort. Most omegas respond to that. The very next person they meet is their alpha, who knows to provide comfort and security. No fucking, nothing like that, but blankets, items of comfort, a soft voice. Omegas have an instinct to bond when they're afraid, even when they're afraid of the people they're around.'

Efnisien stared at him, horrified. Gary thought it was interesting, the way Efnisien hated omegas most of the time, but was clearly capable of feeling horror on their behalf. At some point, he'd have to dive deeper on how much omega identity Efnisien had internalised over the years. It was too threatening to him to do it now, but it was there nonetheless. That family had mutilated him into being an alpha, but they'd still treated him like an omega so often that...Efnisien had to be aware that his fate mirrored an omega's fate. 

'That's...' Efnisien started, then looked away. 'Why can't you just tell them what's happening?' 

'We do,' Gary said. 'We explain that they're at Hillview, we explain why they're there, who their alpha will be, and what to expect. I'm sure Kadek didn't tell you he was going to rape you, for example.'

'No...' Efnisien breathed. 'He...'

Efnisien's eyes moved quickly, as they sometimes did when he was thinking something through or remembering something unpleasant. 

'There were blankets and... soft things in the room. And he was... using a calming voice. But then he wanted me to breathe with him, at the same time as him. And then- And- He used alpha persuasion to tell me to calm down, and I snapped.'

Gary wondered why he'd never asked for the full story before now. All of these things were such an obvious disaster in retrospect for someone like Efnisien. 

'I couldn't be calm,' Efnisien said, his fingers grasping the table. 'And I'd- I was already- I already knew I had to get out of there. I thought it was a test.'

'A test?'

'I had to prove...that I could be strong enough to go h-home,' Efnisien said, staring at the table. 'That was all I had to- And maybe if I'd figured out a way...'

Efnisien looked up at Gary, something desolate in those blue eyes. Gary was sure he heard the exact sentence Efnisien meant to say, even as he got up and stormed down the corridor, slamming Gary's bedroom door behind him: 

Maybe I wouldn't have needed to go through any of this.

Gary stared at his espresso for a long time, then downed it at once, understanding why Temsen had forgotten to stay by Gary's side throughout this whole debacle, understanding why Temsen put Efnisien’s welfare first. No doubt he would have done the same, in a different position.

Chapter Text

Efnisien

*

Sunday morning, after a strange few days, Gary took Efnisien to the forest instead of the beach. Efnisien had a thick hoodie, Gary carried a large black umbrella, though it wasn’t open. It was chilly and windy, and Efnisien found the beach too cold when it was like this. Instead, they hiked along wet trails, leaves gleaming in the light, and Efnisien realised he was finding it easier than he had in the beginning. He used to get out of breath faster.

He pressed a hand to his chest. He'd been putting on weight, though it was happening so slowly he hadn’t noticed until he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and felt a pang of fear as his hand passed over his ribs. They were still visible, but he could tell the shadows weren't as sharp as they used to be. 

It was hard to force himself not to eat here. The food was always so fucking good, and whatever he liked they gave him more of, instead of withholding it. He found it bizarre, but if he enjoyed anything, Gary seemed to find that important enough information to pass onto the cooks. Or maybe they noticed what Efnisien finished. He'd had a jam donut for the first time in his life a few days ago, and he must have betrayed how much he'd loved it, because two more appeared in the days that followed. 

Efnisien followed behind Gary. Sometimes they stopped to look at something. A particularly tall tree. A group of kangaroos in the distance, resting or feeding together. They were easier to see when it was rainy because their fur turned sodden and dark. They didn't seem bothered being wet, but Efnisien wondered if they were cold. 

Polly didn't seem to mind it either. 

Today, they stopped in a new area by a giant outcrop of limestone that led down into opaque blackness. 

'There's caves all through here,' Gary said, as Efnisien stared at the giant hole that was easily four metres across. He couldn't see how deep it went. 'There's over 150 that have been formally recognised and logged, and many more besides. One cave, further along Caves Road, is so big that the Western Australian Symphony Orchestra performed and recorded an album inside of it.'

'Mammoth Cave,' Efnisien said. He'd never been, but he'd researched the area. He was pretty sure Gwyn had visited there once. 'So that's a cave? Like? Right here? Where anyone could fall in?'

'Yes,' Gary said. 'There's a lot of them. It's best to stay on the trails. This one's been logged by the government because it's quite large, and we've had a few applications from people wanting to explore it. We've let a couple of groups in, but it's a dangerous system and it doesn't go anywhere in particular, so we don't let people do that anymore.' 

'Shit,' Efnisien breathed. 'I don't like it.'

'Neither do I,' Gary said. He was smiling when Efnisien looked at him. 'Sometimes I think about the fact that this whole corner of the state is essentially riddled with limestone wormholes and I'm not sure how to feel about it.'

'Yeah,' Efnisien said. 'It's creepy, right?'

These were the kinds of conversations they were having lately. Ever since Efnisien's heat had ended, ever since the conversation about Efnisien's admittance to Hillview, it was hard to circle back to anything personal or serious. Faber had given him a phone the day before, and Efnisien hadn't been able to make himself search for James Visser.

Efnisien felt like it was dangerous whenever he and Gary came together, because even if they made contact - even if it wasn't terrible - they'd spin apart again. 

'It's like I want to go down there,' Efnisien said, looking back to the cave entrance. 'I want to know what's in there. But I don't want to go anywhere near it.'

'Yes,' Gary said. 'Do you want to keep on going?'

'People don't just...randomly fall into new caves do they?'

'Not here,' Gary said. 'It's never happened here.'

'It's obviously happened elsewhere,' Efnisien said, laughing. 'Fuck. That's horrible.' 

Gary’s expression softened. There were tiny droplets on his black and silver hair, remnants of the sprinkling, floating drizzle that was dusting their clothing, drops of water too small to sink in. His coat was thick and long, it went down to his knees and was belted at the waist, and Efnisien felt something strange and uncertain move through him. He looked away again. He'd had the strangest thought that Gary was actually handsome, even though his face was often stern, or indifferent. 

'Maybe we should head back,' Gary said. Efnisien was relieved Gary thought he was just tired. 

'I can do a little more,' Efnisien said. 

'All right. Another five minutes, but that’s all for today.'

Efnisien followed behind him with a hand over his mouth, sure that he could feel the shape of fingers resting on his tongue, and knowing from experience that his own fingers in his mouth couldn't compare.

*

That afternoon, Efnisien went to get some sleep. He often needed a rest during the middle of the day, which Gary said was understandable given everything he'd endured while growing up, and everything he’d endured at Hillview. Efnisien fell asleep quickly, breathing in the scent of Gary in the sheets, in the bedroom, briefly wishing it was night-time and that Gary was in bed alongside him. 

He didn't dream about home. Instead, he was aware of watching television in Gary’s cottage. He was on Gary's lap, facing forwards. Efnisien’s legs were spread either side of Gary’s thighs, and he felt open and vulnerable. He could feel Gary's arms around his torso, and his breath in the crook of his neck, hot and weirdly welcome. Efnisien was tense, he half-heartedly struggled, but dream Gary didn't let him go. He said something Efnisien couldn't understand, but his voice was like smoke, wreathing around him, and Efnisien sagged backwards, and his thighs spread wider over Gary's, and he felt... 

He felt overwhelmed. 

A hot, melty feeling working its way through him became Gary’s hand moving down his torso, and then fingers and a warm palm around his dick, and Efnisien struggled in the dream, scared, needing Gary to prove how powerful he was. He needed the fight first, he needed to not win. A hint of nausea behind it, there were memories of Gwyn here too, somehow. Gwyn had never touched him like this, ever, but having Gary's front pressed to Efnisien's back and a hand around his dick reminded him of mounting.

But right now, in this swirling darkness, it felt secret and safe, like Gary wasn't going to hurt him. Comforting words that never resolved into much at all, until they became: 'There we go, just like that.' 

Efnisien was getting hotter and hotter, his face burning up, a heavy heat between his legs as Gary’s hand moved. Efnisien was rolling his hips, he wanted more, but wasn't getting it. Efnisien opened his mouth to goad him, but in the dream he couldn't talk. His voice was taken. He tried to say something, anything, and instead Gary's other hand cupped his face.

'I know what you want,' he said. 

Finally, finally, more of that pressure around his dick, and Efnisien felt an earthquake coming. It started in his spine, pulled up in his balls, a wire jerking tighter and tighter. He dragged blunt fingernails down Gary's arm, but left claw marks instead, like he was some kind of animal. Gary didn't mind the blood, he laughed, the pressure increased and Efnisien gasped and gasped, wanting...wanting more, scared of wanting more. 

A flash of pain at the back of his neck when he came - he knew he was coming, even though he'd never done it before - and Efnisien felt like he was spinning outwards, spinning out of control, and the heat wasn't stopping but he wasn't in heat, he didn't need it to stop some dumbass cramps, he just...needed it. 

It felt like it lasted forever. The pain at the back of his neck, the orgasm, until Efnisien collapsed back, trembling and lost and frightened. What just happened?

A presence in the room, and Efnisien turned, sure it was Gwyn. But instead some ghostly, shadowy figure with no face at all. 

'Get rid of it,' the voice said coldly. James. That had to be James. Efnisien tried to push away, sure he was about to die. 

'Easy,' Gary said behind him. 'You won't believe how stupid he is.'

A hand around his neck, and Efnisien scrambled hard as the shadowy figure came closer. Pressure at his throat, hurting him, choking him, and Efnisien couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't even get his alpha persuasion out, he couldn't do anything. He had no power, he didn't want James seeing him like this. Not like this. He looked down and felt straps on his arms and ankles, like he was back on Crielle's table, and blind terror flooded him. He couldn't move. He had to stop struggling. Was Crielle here? He had to try and make them understand, he had to try and make them- If they could put off killing him for five seconds, he could warn them, he could let them know she was...

She was here...

'Darling, why are you hurting me like this?' Crielle's voice right in his ear, and Efnisien woke with a start, pushing up in the bed. 

He stared blankly, heaving for breath, and as his legs shifted he felt a wet, cold, claggy dampness. He must have pissed himself in his sleep. Fucking hell. Hell. He hadn't done that in years. He had no idea why it had happened now. 

He pulled the sheets back and frowned in confusion. It wasn't... It didn't smell right. 

Efnisien reached inside his underwear and brought his hand out, and saw a translucent, whitish liquid. He thought past the nightmare portion of the dream and remembered Gary's hand between his legs, remembered coming - he must have... 

'Shit,' Efnisien breathed, feeling like he was still in a nightmare. God, no, it was on the sheet. Fuck. He had to get rid of it. He just had to get rid of it. 

He started to rush off the bed, then stilled as he heard Gary's chair pushing out, footsteps coming down the hall, and immediately yanked the blanket back over his lap in the hope that he could pretend he'd just woken from a nightmare. That was all. Nothing to worry about. Never mind that he'd never fucking done laundry in this house before, and didn't even know how to do it, he was just going to have to figure it out. 

'Efnisien, are you all right? I heard-'

Gary stopped. He blinked a few times. He inhaled in a way that meant he was fucking scenting the room. No. Fuck no. 

Gary stared directly at him. Efnisien couldn't look away fast enough. This was awful. The nightmare had been terrible, but this was definitely up there and competing. Gary finding him after a dream like that? What would he even think? It was humiliating. Efnisien didn't know he was capable of coming, he didn't know he was capable of wet dreams, he didn't know his brain could put together a dream like that, like that! Gary's hands between his legs jerking him off, and Efnisien had come to it? What the fuck? He wanted to die. 

It didn't help that hearing Gary's voice now, after that dream, wasn't fucking helping. 

'Efnisien, it's okay,' Gary said. 

'Fuck off.'

'You had a wet dream. It's normal. I promise.' 

Efnisien stared at the bed, wished Gary would leave him the fuck alone. Everything was so confusing. 

'If you go clean up, I'll strip the bed,' Gary said. 

'No.' 

'Efnisien...'

'It's disgusting,' he said. 

'It's normal.' 

Was it normal for it to be a nightmare too? Was it normal to feel like he was dying? He couldn't look up. 

Gary inhaled sharply: 'Actually, I came down because I thought I could smell fear, and that's still... Ah. I see. A nightmare? Are you all right?'

'Please just leave me alone.' 

'I'll wait in the lounge. Go into the bathroom and shower, you'll feel better afterwards. I'll strip the bed. You can't stay here forever, Efnisien, but I'll give you some space.' 

Gary walked back down the corridor, and the pressure in the room faded. Efnisien placed a hand on his face and wondered if Gary thought Efnisien had dreamed about being raped or something, or maybe dreamed of being an omega. Maybe he thought the nightmare was the part where he came, which it should've been, not the fucking part afterwards, where James and Gary tried to kill him as some loving couple’s activity and then Crielle came and was going to kill them all. Fuck. Fucking hell. It felt like a prophecy, like he should remind them all over again how bad Crielle could be. It wasn't like they took him seriously, and he hoped Crielle would just forget about him but...

But it was too weird for her to do that. Especially since they weren't trying to break him, they weren't trying to make him into an omega anymore, they were continuing her work. 

No way would she be okay with that.

He walked into the bathroom with a change of clothes and stripped off. He got into the shower before the water warmed up, cleaning himself off, heart pounding. Even putting his hand around himself to clean the semen off reminded him of Gary's hand, Gary's fingers, though they weren't the same at all. It was like his mind had taken the tendrils of feeling he'd started to have when Gary got fingers into his mouth and magnified them times a thousand. No way would anything feel that intense with Gary, would it? That was just a product of his imagination. 

He stood under the shower spray and as his body warmed up under the increasingly hot water, he shivered in the aftermath, something cold in his soul, wishing he could rewind back to their walk that morning. 

He would have preferred to fall into the fucking cave.

Chapter Text

Gary

*

Gary knew Efnisien was mortified about the wet dream. The following day, Efnisien focused on his education modules and barely spoke a word. It was hard to draw him out into any conversation at all, even when they'd gone for a walk towards the fence-line of the property, closest to the road entrance. There was a buffer of bushland between the road and the fence, so it wasn’t visible and gave a sense of privacy. As soon as Efnisien saw the fence, he tensed and automatically walked in the opposite direction, and said nothing else. Gary thought about Efnisien's brief description of the guard dogs on the property back at his family home, and wondered how entrenched that agoraphobia was. 

Gary had his own mortification, though it was far milder. The day before, stripping the sheets, he'd reached out with an index finger and dragged it through the thin semen on the bed, then tasted it, licking the tip of his own finger. He'd noted the chemical tang of ardolphogen, which he was familiar with after sleeping with so many alphas, though the synthetic stuff lingered in his mouth differently. Behind it was something saltier, sharper, and somehow fresh. He loaded the sheets into the washing machine and knew he had every right to do what he'd just done, but he couldn't help imagining how Efnisien would react if he'd seen it. 

Another day passed, and Gary - in his office after a supervision session - used the software installed onto his laptop to look at Efnisien's search results on his new phone. He'd expected Efnisien to have looked up James straight away, and instead he saw results that surprised him, then made him feel guilty that he was snooping on Efnisien's private actions. It was what they did with omegas that came on-site that were eventually given access to their smartphones again – if they had them – but Efnisien wasn't in that situation. Still...Gary wanted to know. 

Efnisien had hardly used the search function at all, and what he'd looked up were things connected to Hillview. He'd looked up karri trees, kangaroos and then western grey kangaroos, he'd looked up ankle monitors - which Gary found interesting, because Efnisien wasn't wearing one anymore and had never complained about it - and he looked up microchips, which was more disturbing. After that, Efnisien had researched biometrics. 

He'd opened the maps app on his phone and looked up Hillview, and spent around an hour on the app, maybe looking at the aerial view, maybe using street view, Gary didn't know. 

That night - Gary in his office once more because he'd been putting off necessary paperwork - Anton called, which was unexpected. 

'Is everything all right?' Gary asked. 'Is it Flitmouse?' 

'No, no, I... meant to tell you what Efnisien and I talked about the other day. I've been putting it off. I kind of- I just... I owe you an apology. Just- Hear me out. I was talking to Flitmouse about everything, and he pointed out I’ve been unfair to you from the start and just keep doing it, and he’s right. I keep framing you as this guy Efnisien would hate spending time with. It’s unfair. And I think I never saw how difficult Efnisien could be until recently.'

'You say that like he didn't use alpha persuasion on you within the first sixty seconds of you meeting him.'

'Right?' Anton said, laughing weakly. 'You should know he used my phone to search for PACS and spent some time on the Wikipedia page. After that he tried to use my phone to search for James, and I hadn't agreed to that, so I took my phone back. But it wasn't quick enough to stop him from seeing some headlines. I tried to convince him it's bad to learn about someone from tabloids, but he's... Like he's pretty stubborn, actually?'

Gary couldn't pretend to be surprised. He laughed. It felt validating. 

'No, but really,' Anton said. 'And honestly he’s kind of manipulative. I was surprised at how mercenary he was. It's obvious he's distressed. He said you used alpha persuasion on him?'

'I did. It wasn't intentional. But I'll use it again if he's too pushy about it. He wasn't raised in an environment where he was respected, and he doesn't fear us the same way he fears those who raised him, at least, not anymore. I think elements of his personality are simply a product of his upbringing.'

'Yeah,' Anton said. 

‘This is not your finest apology,’ Gary said, smiling when Anton laughed.

‘Okay, here goes. I’m really sorry for constantly acting like Efnisien’s not just a victim of circumstance, but also a victim of yours. I have reasons for why I’m acting this way, but none of them are super valid. You’re a great boss, and more importantly a compassionate one, even if you’re not a companion and have never wanted to be. I’ve never seen you once make a decision about an omega’s treatment which I ultimately disagreed with, even if I didn’t understand your motives at the time, and I respect your values, and I’ve done a really bad job of showing that. I’m going to do better going forward.’

‘Wow,’ Gary said, and though he said it blandly, he was genuinely surprised. ‘All right, I want to hear your reasons.’

‘For why I’ve been acting this way?’

‘Yes,’ Gary said.

‘Really?’

‘No, I asked for fun, because I’m like that.’

‘Okay, okay,’ Anton said, laughing again. ‘Truthfully? I’m stressed. Flitmouse is stressed, and it’s contagious. I think I was looking for a safe target for my agitation, and it was you, because you’ve always been a safe target when any of us has been stressed.’

Gary didn’t think Efnisien would agree, but that was another matter.

‘Anton,’ Gary said. ‘I need you to listen to me, are you listening?’

‘Sure.’

‘I’m grateful for the apology, but I’m also aware that this is what you’ve been doing, and I wouldn’t have allowed it if I didn’t think I couldn’t handle it. Your words aren’t keeping me up at night, and you’ve raised some very good points in the past, even if you haven’t always done so fairly. It’s not in any way a bad thing for Efnisien to have a champion. Even a biased one. Is that a role you still want after your last encounter? You sound disturbed.'

'He needs friends,' Anton said. 'I think I was shocked at how... Before I thought you were steamrolling him all the time. But by the end of our encounter, I realised he holds his own, doesn't he? In his own way. Like of course you still hold the power, you're still dangerous to him, and he's basically a prisoner here, but like...woof, I didn't like being in one argument with him. It must get pretty intense between you two.'

Gary thought about the silent treatment he'd been weathering the last two days, the weight of Efnisien's shame on the both of them, and Gary's unwillingness to force Efnisien into anger instead. It disturbed Gary that what he'd smelled in his bedroom was fear, even if he instantly scented Efnisien’s come after that. He didn't want to ask about the nightmare, because he had a horrible feeling Efnisien might have dreamt about being raped by a specific peak alpha. 

Gary wasn't ready to know that was the impression he'd left in someone's unconscious. He'd been bracing himself against the knowledge ever since. 

Anton was silent, then sighed audibly. ‘Who’s your champion?’

‘Sometimes it’s Temsen,’ Gary said. ‘And, I think, from what you said – occasionally even Efnisien. He's obviously protective about the PACS. Oh, and Faber, though I rarely see him these days. There's a friend I can talk to on the phone. I’m doing all right, Anton. It was shaky at first, and it can still be shaky now, but we’re finding our way. It’s a new situation for all of us.’

‘Right,’ Anton said. ‘You knew I was using you as a safe target? Because I was stressed?’

‘This is a facility that has many employed alphas, and nearly all of them have been stressed or agitated due to the job they do. If I was unable to be a safe target for their anger, I wouldn’t make a very good supervisor, or a good boss for that matter. While I won’t tolerate outright disrespect, and I have my line – like anyone – the reason you felt safe enough to talk to me the way you have been is - if I’ve been doing my job correctly - because you felt like I might listen to you.’

‘You really just…complimented yourself in the biggest way, didn’t you?’ Anton said, sounding almost awestruck. Gary had to laugh. ‘God. It’s true though. I’m still sorry. I don’t want to forget that you get agitated and stressed too. It’s messy.’

‘It is indeed messy.’

‘Since you already know that you’re the best boss and best supervisor ever though…’

Gary laughed again. ‘I appreciate your anger on Efnisien’s behalf. Any alpha that feels as though they have to defend the weaker party when they cannot defend themselves, is an alpha I want to keep around.’

‘Aw, shucks. So…we’re good?’

‘Very.’

‘And…you’re good?’

‘That’s up for debate,’ Gary said in a rare moment of honesty. ‘But we’re walking forward, which is the main thing.’

'He's not afraid of you?' Anton said. 'Really?'

'Not like he was. But he was raised by an abusive peak alpha, and I'm... not an easy person to get along with. Neither's he.' 

Gary leaned back in his chair, even though it wasn't ergonomic, and it reminded him that his lower back was sore. He stared around the home office again. Efnisien could be hostile and combative, silent and withdrawn, rarely happy or content. Even when he studied, he could lose himself in it for hours and had to be reminded to eat or look after himself. Gary grimaced. It might be time to push at that agoraphobia. At some point, they'd have to trust Efnisien to go outside on his own. Not today though. The rain outside was miserable, creating a background of white noise to the conversation. 

'How was his heat?' Anton asked. 

'That's none of your business. He can talk to you about it if he wants to.'

A lingering silence. 'You respect him, huh?'

'Don't test me, Anton. I don't appreciate it.'

'It's not that! I mean I am curious, I was kind of hoping you'd tell me about it. It wasn't...only a test. Besides, he'll never talk to anyone about his heat. Most omegas don't like to and he's in a whole other realm with it. Like, if you haven't gotten Temsen to debrief with him about it yet, you should probably get on that.' 

'I beg your pardon?'

'I'm serious,' Anton said. 'Heats are a lot for anyone to go through, and they often leave omegas pretty shattered even when they're used to them. Whatever Efnisien went through, however atypical it was, his body has just betrayed him in ways he didn't want to experience and left him vulnerable to things he didn't have control over. Maybe you think that's not a big deal because he's been through a lot already, and he's probably used to some degree of betrayal from his body. But it's not the same, Gary. You know this from the basic research, remember? Heats mess with autonomy. I wouldn't be surprised if he was having the world's biggest identity crisis right now.'

Damn it. Anton was right. Of course he was right. Gary hated how painfully obvious these things were once they'd been pointed out. He'd just been so profoundly relieved the heat was over, that they had a solution to those agonising cramps. He hadn't considered how Efnisien's behaviour lately could be connected to the heat he’d endured. 

'Flitmouse is always really shaken after every heat he has, even these days,' Anton said quietly. 'Really shaken. It took him such a long time to even be healthy enough to have them again, but even then, Gary... Someone like Efnisien who's like...stubborn and manipulative and argumentative going through something like a heat, being forced to crave the company of other people, like... We talk a lot about how people do things against someone's will here, but that all happened against his will and his body created the situation in the first place. I've tried to imagine going through it and I can't. Even if I had someone like Flitmouse to share those feelings with, I just can't. And with the ardolphogen and... that alpha mind of his, please just keep an eye on him.'

'I'll do that,' Gary said. 'Thank you for the reminder. See? You're a fine champion for him.'

'I don't know about that. I felt pretty used the other day, and I was surprised at how easily he did it. He has a way of...pushing for something, it got under my skin. Maybe I shouldn't have given him the phone, but he kept telling me you were going to give him one anyway, and that he was an alpha. I'm sorry if I-'

'No, no, Anton, he's right. We've since given him a phone.'

'So... And you haven't blocked any words from the search engine?'

'Not like you're thinking,' Gary said. 'The regular stuff to try and stop him from contacting his family. Other than that, he can search for what he wants.'

'You must hate it.'

Gary didn't hate it as much as he hated the idea of being forced to talk about it. Wasn't that sad? He'd rather have Efnisien believing the absolute twaddle in the tabloids and the newspaper articles, than have to talk about the reality. 

'It is what it is,' Gary said finally. 

'He thinks the PACS is his fault. I'm gonna say one more thing before I get off the phone, but like, if...if my instincts are right, he'll change his behaviours to protect you from himself. I don't know if you're still having lots of arguments or whatever, but if he thinks he's making the PACS worse...' 

Gary thought back to the worst moment in Efnisien's heat, when he'd been in that thick sump of agony and even the body contact wasn't helping, when Temsen was there and Efnisien was screaming through gritted teeth - clearly trying to hold back the pain and failing - and he'd bitten Temsen freely, and for the first time, the first time ever, he'd refused to bite Gary and just stared at him instead with that horrified, agonised look on his face. Efnisien, even then, refusing to bite him.

Gary hadn't understood it at the time, but he understood it now. 

I'm going to have to make him talk to me, aren't I? At least about the PACS. 

'I need a holiday,' Gary muttered. 

'Yeah, I wish I could be the bearer of better news or something.'

'Anton, this has been very helpful,' Gary said, leaning forwards in the chair again. 'Truly. I appreciate the apology, but I appreciate everything else you've shared. It sounds like you're coming at this from a more balanced perspective, since getting to know Efnisien better. Do you still want to spend time with him?'

'Do you still want me to? I'm fully aware that I'm an alpha and you've just...spent a heat with him.'

'I'm not an animal. I can put my feelings aside. If you're good for him, you're good for him.'

'You're a better man than me,' Anton said. 'I needed so many sessions when Flitmouse started talking to Kadek more. Drove me nuts. I know Efnisien’s not an omega, but you're a peak alpha, the possessiveness has to be there, right?'

'Right,' Gary said. 

I'm still trying not to bond with him. At least...not more than I already have. 

'I heard Lucien's graduating?' 

'You know, you really are a gossip, Anton,' Gary said. Anton burst into laughter on the other line. 

'I miss Kadek! He'd talk to me about this stuff all the time. But he's coming back this week! Flitmouse is really looking forward to it. I can tell, because he's been incredibly stressed, like, my god that dude could power a city with pure agitation. He's made Kadek a scarf so he can hide the scar in winter.' 

'That's very kind of him.'

'He's made ten scarves actually, but I'm only allowed to say he's made one, so I don't make his agitation and affection too apparent.' 

Anton’s laughter on the other end of the line, and Gary's lips quirked when he heard Flitmouse's sharp voice coming through the phone. He wasn't close enough that Gary could pick up exactly what he was saying, but judging by Anton's reaction, it was a fairly typical call and response for them. 

'I gotta go,' Anton said quickly. 'He's so mad I told you. -No, no! Flitmouse trust me, Gary doesn't care how many scarves you make! He only cares about wine! He only cares about-' 

More laughter, and then Anton hung up with a hasty: 'Gotta go!' 

Gary put the phone in his pocket and stood, stretching for a few seconds before walking out into the lounge, where Efnisien was making notes at the little kitchen table, Polly asleep at his feet. Efnisien looked up suspiciously when Gary appeared. 

'I think...' Gary said, '...we have to have a talk about the last few days.'

'Nope,' Efnisien said, looking down again. 

'I don't know where you got the idea it was optional.'

Efnisien slammed his pen down and stood, an unexpected glint in his eyes. 'I don't have to talk to you about anything.' 

To Gary's shock, Efnisien quickly walked to the front door, slammed the door on Polly before she could reach it in time, and disappeared into the rain. With no shoes. Just bare feet. Gary placed his hands on his hips and stared at the floor, then walked to the small foyer and pulled his shoes on. 

Yes, well, that really could have gone better.

Chapter Text

Efnisien

*

Goddamn, it's fucking cold. 

The rain came down in sheets, dumping onto the grass with heavy, crushing abandon. The ground was soggy, splashing with each footfall as Efnisien ran from the cottage. He arced not towards the beach, not towards the forests on either side, but towards the fence line they'd visited the other day. To his surprise, Gary wasn't immediately after him. Efnisien sucked down breaths through his mouth - catching rain as he went - and his hair was plastered to his head in seconds. He didn't look behind him, didn't check to see if Gary was coming, couldn't even work out why he was doing this. 

He couldn't afford to keep fighting with him. Not with Gary's heart being the way it was. But was this any better? It wasn’t like they were going to let him go.

Where would he even go? 

His mind had been a maddening place since that dream. He wished his biggest issue was worrying about Crielle, but it wasn't. It was thinking about Gary's hand between his legs and thinking about how good it'd felt. What was fucking wrong with him? He knew, he knew it could be some awakening of his sexuality, so he'd tried to imagine literally anyone else in Gary's place, and each time - every single fucking time - nothing worked, nothing happened, not unless it was him. 

Efnisien put on a burst of speed, but he was already out of breath, already tired. Still, he was closer than he thought, scaling up the grassy wet hill. 

He heard footsteps catching up behind him, and just as he pivoted to cut into the dense forest instead - which felt too far even though it was only about twenty steps - the footsteps were just behind him, a hand hooking into the back of his jumper. Efnisien yelped and then choked as the fabric cut into his neck as he was jerked backwards mid-run, but Gary had already released the grip and gotten an arm around him instead. 

'Let me go!' Efnisien shouted. 

'Stop.' 

That was it. One word. Efnisien's entire body went limp, his eyes wide at how profoundly the alpha persuasion struck him. Gary caught his weight easily, then shifted them both. 

'Get your legs underneath you,' Gary said, voice distorted in the rain. Efnisien heard the sound of an umbrella opening, and the louder roar of torrential rain on that instead. Efnisien realised Gary only had one hand free and struggled hard once more. 

'For the love of god, Efnisien, just stop,' Gary said, sounding way too calm for someone who had run after him in the rain. Efnisien was heaving for breath. Even now, with his back against Gary's chest, all he thought of was that fucking dream. He wasn't even sleeping properly. He slept fitfully, afraid he'd dream it again, Gary there surrounding him, confidently doing that to him. It was so bad he'd thought about jerking himself off that morning just to give himself something else to imagine, something else to think about. 

He didn't want to want anyone. Not ever, and definitely not like this.

'Easy,' Gary said, the umbrella catching most of the rain, but doing nothing at all to stop it when it pounded horizontally into the both of them. It was so cold. It was hard to believe that it could be so hot in this state when the rain got like this. Angry and intense, like it could pulverise anything in its path. 'Easy now.'

'Fuck you. I'm not talking to you about anything.' 

'Come on. It's not good for you to be out in the rain like this.' And then after a long pause: 'It's not good for me either.'

Efnisien froze. Gary's heart. Gary's PACS. Efnisien had made Gary run after him and he was literally on heart medication. He screwed his face up, wishing he could stop caring about it. God, it wasn't that long ago that he’d have been fucking happy if Gary died of a heart attack. What was happening to him? 

They were so close. Even now, Efnisien's body was a treacherous piece of shit. He could feel it, heat between his legs because Gary was holding him and not letting go, and apparently some part of him responded to that. It responded to that. It was so disgusting Efnisien wanted to obliterate himself. He reached out blindly, digging his nails into his other hand, hard enough that blood appeared, raking across frigid skin that didn't even seem like it was his, except that it hurt. He did it again even as Gary's arm tightened against his torso. 

'Efnisien, stop,' Gary said, his voice far louder now.  

Efnisien screamed, wanting to turn his fingernails on Gary instead, but unable to make himself. Gary's fucking heart. 

His left hand hurt, it oozed and then trickled blood, and Efnisien stared at it wishing he could keep going. Something filtered through from a great distance, as he stared at the furrows in his own skin. It had felt satisfying - even though he hadn't done nearly enough - it was weird that he'd never done it before. Because he'd always wanted to. Always. 

There was a directive...

Efnisien kept staring at his hand as Gary turned him and walked him back towards the cottage. Efnisien was shocked at how far he'd come, how much distance he'd gained. The ground squelched under his bare feet and Gary's shoes, the water already deep enough that Efnisien knew Gary's socks had to be wet. The rain wasn't stopping. It had soaked through all of Efnisien's clothes, through to his underwear, and was streaming down his neck, the middle of his back, dripping down his legs. His teeth chattered. He couldn't make himself stop. 

He'd liked it, that morning, waking up to the rain. The sound of it on Gary's tin roof was nice. The sky had been covered in sheets of forbidding grey clouds, and though no bolts of lightning struck, no thunder rumbled, the heavy weather seemed to match Efnisien's mood. Now that he was in it, he wanted the heated cottage. 

Being this close to Gary was making him mental. He wanted it. He fucking wanted it. 

The directive not to hurt himself...

When had that broken? 

Had any of the others broken? He had no idea, he couldn't remember a lot of them. 

When they got back to Gary's cottage, Efnisien almost thought about running again. He knew there was no point, but the urge was still there. Instead he walked inside with Gary and as soon as the front door closed, the rain muffled and what he heard instead was the sound of the both of them rapidly dripping water onto the wooden floorboards and the entry rug. Gary shook off the umbrella near the front door and then hung it up. He looked between them both, before sighing explosively. 

Efnisien went to walk away, and Gary grabbed the back of his sodden jumper.

'No,' he said. 'If you're going to act like a child, I will supervise you like a child.'

'Fuck you. You were already treating me like a child, saying we're going to have a ‘conversation’ and that I have no options.'

'I could have handled that better.'

'Really? You? Is that even possible?' 

Gary's gaze turned threatening, and Efnisien swallowed and looked away and still felt those eyes pressing against him. He stayed silent and didn't move as Gary took his shoes off, his socks, and put them on the rack near the gumboots. He reached out and grasped Efnisien's arm and pulled him down towards the bathroom. 

'Strip,' Gary said. 'You need to shower to warm up before getting changed.' 

'You shower,' Efnisien snarled. 

'For the love of-' A pause. 'Efnisien, I'm cold, I'm wet, and this is a situation you helped create. Whether or not you like it, the consequences are here, and we both have to warm up soon. Do you want to shower with me?'

'No.' 

'Then strip and get in the shower,' Gary said. 

'Leave!' 

Gary stared at him for a long time, then looked down at the back of Efnisien's hand where the red, bloodied claw-marks were. He just looked at Efnisien again, unimpressed, and that said everything. Fuck. Fucking hell. He walked away in the limited space of the bathroom and started pulling his clothes off. 

Pulling off a wet jumper? A fucking pain. Wet shirt? A pain, it got stuck, snagging on his damp skin. Wet jeans? The fucking worst. Efnisien was going to think twice about running into rain that hard in the future. But at least he'd done it once. At least he knew what it felt like. His shivering became violent as he stripped down, and his teeth were chattering all over again when he stepped into the shower. 

'Don't make the water too hot straight away,' Gary cautioned. 'Start with something milder and then increase the temperature. Slowly.'

Efnisien did what he said, hissing as the mildly warm water touched his body. He wanted it over and done within five minutes, but Gary made him stay there for at least twenty, until the chill had escaped him, until he could hear it in Gary's voice instead. Gary with his bad fucking heart. Efnisien got out of the shower and wrapped towels around himself and faced the other way as Gary undressed, because he was curious, because he wanted to look, because he hated that there was a part of him that was interested. 

Gary stepped into the shower a moment later and groaned softly at the warmth. A deep, pleased sound. 

This can't be happening, Efnisien thought, feeling wild and trapped inside of himself. 

He needed a distraction. Any kind of distraction. 

'A directive broke,' Efnisien said, rubbing the towel over his hair. 

'Excuse me? A directive?' Gary said. 

Just like that, they weren't sniping at each other. Efnisien leaned back against the counter, and then sank down onto the plush bathroom mat. He buried his face in the wet towel briefly. 

'I think...' Efnisien wondered if he could talk about it, and he was scared of the pain that would come if he couldn't. 'She… She never let me hurt myself. It was a directive. I wasn't allowed. Not on purpose.' 

There. He said it. He could feel the directive's pieces inside of him, echoing through him like shrapnel. Pieces that flared mildly when he said, 'I wasn't allowed' and 'hurt myself.' 

'Excellent,' Gary said with heavy sarcasm. 'The one directive anyone probably would have approved of - if they approved of directives at all - and that's the first one that breaks? Just my luck.' 

Efnisien pressed back into the bathroom cabinets, and then looked at the back of his hand again. The cuts were jagged and messy. They stung, and he wondered if they needed cleaning when he'd had them under the spray of the shower for such a long time. Probably not. It wasn't like Crielle ever really cared about that shit. Gary and Temsen were the first people he'd ever met to think things like that mattered.

Maybe Temsen was right, maybe Efnisien really had been on antibiotics for fucking ages and just not known it. 

'That's a rather ironic directive,' Gary said, no longer sounding bitter or scathing, 'given how often she harmed you.'

Efnisien shrugged, even though Gary couldn't see it. When Gary got out of the shower a short time later, Efnisien caught sight of his body, just a glimpse, and told himself that he hated it. He hated seeing the black and silver chest hair, not ridiculously thick, but noticeable. He hated the faint muscle definition, not cut like Gwyn, but a peak alpha’s body all the same. He told himself he hated the hair on Gary's thighs, or the way his muscles looked as he reached for the towel. Efnisien chewed on the inside of his lip. Things like this went away, didn't they? This was just... Maybe he needed to look up Stockholm Syndrome or something. 

'Come on,' Gary said, once he had a towel around his waist. 'Let's get you dressed and in some blankets.'

'I'm fine now,' Efnisien said. 

'Anyone who bolts into a downpour at the prospect of having a conversation is not fine,' Gary said. 

Efnisien accepted the hand that Gary extended, then stood and followed him into his bedroom. Some of Efnisien's clothes were still out in the lounge - but Gary had moved the items Efnisien wore the most into his room, making some closet space, which felt weird. Even now, Efnisien tried not to think about it. He sat on the bed and wished he could pull out some of the stuff in his brain, maybe it would make it easier to think in a straight line for once. 

Gary sat next to him once he'd pulled on a pair of dark grey briefs and a long-sleeved shirt. 

'You hurt yourself in lieu of hurting me, didn't you? Because you're worried about the cardiac syndrome.'

Efnisien blinked. He hadn't expected that. 

'Maybe,' Efnisien said, evasively. 

'Efnisien... it doesn't work that way.'

'Seems like you haven't read the Wikipedia article in a while.' 

'No, it's more like... Look, I'm on medication, and it's helping. The medication comes with its own side effects, which aren't much fun, but you're no stranger to the side effects of medications, are you?'

Gary bumped into Efnisien's arm gently, before rocking back, and Efnisien looked at him in surprise. 

Is this really what you wanted to talk about? Efnisien thought. 

It was definitely something Efnisien wanted to talk about. He wasn't about to question it. 

'I'm not going to have a heart attack if I run after you,’ Gary said. ‘I'm not going to have a heart attack if you scratch me.' 

'But...'

'This thing that I have... This condition, I've lived with it for a long time now. A long time. I’ve lived it when it’s been acute, chronic, and when it’s gone into remission. I understand it better than most, certainly better than you. Yes, it's serious, but I can't live my life expecting to die every day. You can't live that way either, Efnisien. It also simply doesn't work like that. I think if I was going to die with this condition, it would have been the first time I went to emergency, my first and most life-threatening cardiac event. And even then I had good treatment, I didn't die. Kent and Temsen both know I have PACS, they understand the medications I need, and they understand what to do in an emergency.' 

'Stress makes it worse,' Efnisien said insistently. 

'I don't know what to tell you, Efnisien. You can't magically make yourself...' A long sigh. 'How was this supposed to work, exactly? How was watching you injure yourself in front of me, less stressful than you scratching me? How was running into the rain less stressful than you not doing that? You're going to twist yourself up and fray apart if you keep putting this sort of pressure on yourself. The situation you're in is hard enough, stressful enough, without you thinking you have to behave a certain way over a condition that isn’t yours to be responsible for.' 

Efnisien hunched down, pulling the damp towel towards him. He felt Gary watching him and suddenly let go of the towel, afraid that it was nesting behaviour. God, was it? He really felt like he'd be happier if he could hold onto something soft and warm right now.

Fuck, was it nesting behaviour? 

'I don't know what's wrong with me,' Efnisien said, his hands opening and closing on nothing at all. 'Something's wrong with me.' 

'I know,' Gary said. 

He reached out and took Efnisien's injured hand in his, and Efnisien let him. Gary's fingers traced the lines next to Efnisien's scratches. 'You must have used a lot of force. I noticed, you know, that you didn't bite me, after biting Temsen during your heat. It was a choice you made, wasn't it? Even then, even when you were in that much pain.'

Efnisien pulled his hand back into his lap and stared down. 'I feel like I'm not really an alpha anymore.'

'What?' Gary said, sounding shocked. Really shocked. Efnisien closed his eyes and tried to ignore how much they were burning in response, how much he needed Gary's surprise, instead of his knowledge. In that moment, it was a gift that Gary sounded disbelieving, instead of just believing him. After his heat, after that dream, after everything. 'Why would you say that? Because of the heat?'

Efnisien shrugged. 

'Would you use alpha persuasions so much on another alpha?' Efnisien said bitterly. 

'If he was behaving the way you do? Yes. Absolutely.'

Efnisien shook his head. Did that mean Gary did the same thing with James? The temporary lovers he'd had since? 

'I use them less on omegas than I do other alphas,' Gary said, sounding bemused. 'Peak alpha persuasion is heavy and hard-hitting. If you use it on omegas it's... It takes them a long time to recover their full faculties. It's not like using them on alphas, including you. But... Efnisien, I've been... remiss in not paying closer attention to how you've been recovering since your heat finished. It's natural for it to have a big impact. Do you want to talk to someone about it? Someone like Temsen?' 

'Not you?'

'You can talk to me,' Gary said, 'but judging by everything that just happened, I might not be the person you need to talk to about this. I know Temsen's not ideal either, but he does care for your confidentiality, he's not just going to tell me what you've said.'

'He has in the past,' Efnisien muttered. 

'And then you told him you didn't like it and pulled him up on some bad behaviour, and he's been vigilant ever since. Or you could talk to Anton? Is there someone else you might want to talk to?'

Efnisien reached for the towel again, grabbing it in his sore knuckles and wishing it was a soft, plush blanket. After an entire life never having instincts towards nesting at all, he couldn't keep running from how much he wanted it. He dragged the towel into his lap and stared down at it, and then laughed brokenly, eyes tearing up. 

'Look,' Efnisien said. 'It's a nesting instinct. I can't make myself stop. Or... I don't want to.' 

'Efnisien-'

'Alphas don't have this,' Efnisien said, his voice breaking. 'They've never had this. Why am I like this? Why can't I just be one or the other? I don't want to be an omega, I don't, but I can't- I don't understand what's happening to me. It's so pathetic. I wish the heat had never happened. Nothing's been the same. Nothing's the same now. I don't want to think anymore. About anything. She was right, you know, I'm a failure.' 

Gary's hand rested between his shoulder blades, then moved around his shoulders, pulling him close. Efnisien kept up his grip on the towel, and liked the way Gary smelled, and was too tired to run again even though the instinct was there. This new reality where they gave him a phone, and access to proper alpha education modules, and treated him like he was an alpha... it should have felt good. 

He was an impostor and he felt like he'd tricked everyone and only Crielle and Gwyn had seen through it to the truth. It terrified him. 

'Do you think you could talk to Temsen?' Gary said.

Efnisien shook his head, and then after a pause, nodded hesitantly. 

'You're not a failure.'

'You don't even know,' Efnisien said, smiling mirthlessly, thinking of the dream he'd had. Thinking of the way even being close to Gary now made him crave more. 'You don't even know. You'd hate me if you knew.'

Gary didn't say I know. He kept his arm around Efnisien's shoulders and as they shared body warmth, as he squeezed Efnisien's upper arm in reassurance, he picked his phone up off the bed and called Temsen.

Chapter Text

Efnisien

*

By the time Temsen came over - he'd been doing supervisor sessions with alpha companions - Efnisien had two blankets either side of him, and Gary had given him space. Efnisien was curled up by the pillows in Gary's bed, because he craved something soft at his back. One blanket was bundled in front of him, another bundled up at his legs, and he wanted about another seven blankets and his eyes screwed up tight as he alternatively got teary at the fact this was happening to him, and then sank back into seething rage that this was happening to him. 

Crielle had been right all along. That's why she'd sent him here. She saw it. She saw it long before he did, and it was inevitable that everyone here would see him as another omega. Maybe - maybe - they'd be nicer about it. So what? 

What if they made him into a good little omega after all, and he went home again, and...

Efnisien pulled the blanket up to his chin. A couple of blankets and some pillows wasn't enough. He'd tried telling himself he just wanted some comfort. He tried telling himself even alphas wanted the weight of a blanket sometimes. He tried telling himself he was cold, as he listened to the rain. But nothing explained his desire for more blankets, to hide away within them, except for the omega instinct to nest. 

When Temsen walked down the corridor and stood in the doorway, Efnisien looked up at him weakly, in the middle of feeling tearful. Temsen grimaced with something like sympathy, and came into the room, putting his doctor's bag down on the bed. He looked up at the ceiling as a fresh wave of rain hammered down. 

'The driveway out of Hillview is going to flood,' Temsen said, sighing. 'If it hasn't already. This isn't so bad, though. The spring and summer thunderstorms are the worst. Tomorrow it will be sunny again. Maybe even tonight. The weather moves through fast here.' 

Temsen sat on the side of the bed and pulled his knees up onto the mattress. His trousers were water-speckled like the rest of him. Umbrellas only did so much against blasts of horizontal rain. 

'Gary's talked to me,' Temsen said. 'But I can see for myself that you're expressing an instinct to nest. I have to say, it doesn't look like it's bringing you much comfort.' 

Efnisien wanted to laugh. 'It's worse without the blankets.'

'I see.' 

'I thought this was just a heat thing.'

'Nesting? No. It's not, but it's associated with heats, perhaps because both are associated with omegas. I don't really know. Nesting is a comfort-seeking instinct, a way of creating a warm space just for yourself - or yourself and a partner - within a larger space. We don't really know a great deal about why it happens.'

'But only omegas do it,' Efnisien whispered. 

Temsen considered him for a long time, and he waited for the other shoe to drop. He could imagine everything Temsen was going to say next. Efnisien exhaled shakily and rested his head on the pillows again, staring numbly at nothing. 

'You might not remember this,' Temsen said, 'but when I first talked about how we were going to treat you like the alpha you are, I said very specifically that even if you exhibited a trait like nesting, it didn't mean you were an omega, Efnisien. You can make these instincts yours. You don't have to make yourself be something you're not.'

'But I am this,' Efnisien cried out. 'How can you say I'm an alpha all the time when this keeps happening to me? It just feels...hypocritical.'

'What do you think?' Temsen said. 

'I don't know. I hate this. I hate that it helps. I hate knowing it would be better if I had more blankets. I hate this feeling.' 

Temsen nodded. He reached out for Efnisien's wrist, gently sliding it free from under the blanket and resting his index and middle finger on Efnisien's pulse. He slid his phone out of his pocket and looked at the stopwatch function. Eventually Temsen made a face, like he wasn't that happy, and let Efnisien's wrist go.

Efnisien slid it back under the blanket. 

'Can I use the back of my hand to check your temperature? Or would you prefer the thermometer?'

'It's fine,' Efnisien said. 

Temsen leaned forwards and pressed the back of his hand to Efnisien's forehead. The touch felt neutral, which was so different to how he would have felt if it was Gary doing it. When Temsen withdrew his hand, Efnisien stopped holding his breath. 

'Your temperature doesn't seem much worse than usual, which is good. Listen to me, Efnisien. I think of you as an alpha. I would struggle to think of you as an omega. So would Gary. You nesting doesn't change things. Have you ever seen how an omega reacts to a peak alpha if they've never met one before? Or aren't used to them?'

'I...don't know,' Efnisien said. He thought back to the omegas he'd seen around Crielle. 'Maybe...a bit passive? Or like...they're a bit out of it?'

'They often feel quite dazed,' Temsen said. 'It's not as noticeable when they're not near their heat, but omegas have a way of reacting to us which is specific, and we need to be careful around omegas because of it. It's one of the reasons peak alphas are more likely to be attracted to alphas and betas. At any rate, I'm getting off topic I think! What I wanted to say, Efnisien, is maybe you're an alpha, maybe you're something new. You're an alpha with some omega qualities. Maybe you're wholly alpha, or maybe you feel like you're a little of both?'

Efnisien stared at Temsen. He didn't understand. People were either one or the other, weren't they? 

'Your caregivers forced you away from something, towards something else, and in many ways succeeded. But now it's more about how you feel. We can't deny that you possess some qualities that people typically associate with omegas, but you possess an awful lot of alpha qualities too. So why can't you be an alpha who nests? Or an alpha who goes into heat? Just because it doesn't happen that we know of, doesn't mean it can't happen, or that it hasn't happened before.' 

'No one will believe me,' Efnisien whispered.

He was stuck on the idea that maybe he was something new. He knew that happened with primary gender, but this was... this was different. Secondary gender was wholly biological and inviolable.

Wasn't it?

'I believe you,' Temsen said. 'Gary does. Plenty of people at Hillview do. For a start, Kent's felt your alpha persuasion, he has no problems thinking of you as an alpha. But it's not just about...these things you can do, Efnisien. Or the things you don't do. You're not defined by the absence of nesting, or the presence of alpha persuasion.'

'No one thinks that way.'

'I do,' Temsen said, grinning. 'There are betas in the world who augment their pheromones because they feel like alphas, and there are even betas in the world - far fewer that we know of, because of stigma - who want to know what it's like to experience a heat or feel like they’re omegas. This world is far broader and more fluid than we often give it credit because humans like to feel safe in definitions. Can I tell you something personal?'

'Um. Okay.' 

'I only sleep with alphas,' Temsen said. 'That's normal for me. And some of those alphas, Efnisien, they want to know what it's like to be treated like an omega, even if they're scared of it. Some of them want to know something adjacent to that, because just like there are peak alphas who sleep with alphas, there are alphas who crave to be taken. They don't want to be in control all the time, they don't want to express machismo every second, they...wish for something different. I don't think of them as omegas, Efnisien. No one does.' 

Efnisien bit the inside of his lip.

'But if I ever met an alpha who wanted me to call them an omega, I'd do that,' Temsen said.

'You'd just indulge a mental illness, huh?' Efnisien said bitterly. 

'How fascinating. That's exactly what your cousin said. You know, I had the opportunity to talk with him when I escorted him off the property. He's very much a product of his upbringing, wouldn't you say? You've had the opportunity to meet more peak alphas now, so you can see for yourself we're not all like your cousin, Gwyn, or your aunt. What do you think of peak alphas in general?'

'You're still control freaks.'

Temsen laughed softly, his smile genuine. 'Yes. That's true. Do you really think I'm indulging a mental illness? I'd appreciate it if you'd take the time to consider that I'm a medical doctor with a lot of training and study behind me, who has travelled the world and seen some of the best and worst medical practices out there, and your cousin is a young man with no medical training at all, who has never had the chance to research this for himself.'

Efnisien felt chided. He took a slow breath, then wiped at his eyes and sat up, pulling one of the blankets into his lap. 

'But it's not like I can leave today and go and live as an alpha,' Efnisien said. 

'I know,' Temsen said. 'Do you think that's because there's something wrong with you? Or would you consider that it’s a broader issue in society? Wouldn’t you rather live in a world where you can go live as an alpha?'

'But I don't live in that world.'

'That's true as well. Maybe you could think about how unfair that is, perhaps? Goodness me, Efnisien, you might want to consider that the world is a terribly unfair place to just about anyone who isn't a middle-class beta, or an alpha or peak alpha. That doesn't just mean omegas, you know. It means anyone who doesn't feel quite like they belong. The world's unfair to alphas who want to feel like omegas, too. It’s unfair to alphas and betas who feel like they’re omegas. I'm not surprised you're trying to make yourself fit into the only concept of the world you've ever known, because that's what you know, but you're intelligent and capable, you can broaden the way you think about this. There's room - at least here at Hillview - to experiment with the feeling of being an alpha who nests. You aren't more alpha if you don't do it, and you're not less alpha if you do. You're just...an alpha with an instinct to nest.' 

Efnisien stared down at the blanket. 

'Everything's so hard,' he said. 'I don't want to have a heat again. I hated it.' 

'That, unfortunately, is a fairly common sentiment,' Temsen said. 'I have thankfully met healthy, well-adjusted people who really enjoy their heats. But they're usually around fairly open-minded families, friends and alphas who don't shame them for having them in the first place. They have agency. They're with partners they love, and you know what, even they can still struggle. Heats aren't easy, Efnisien. You've been through a traumatic one, but even when everything goes exactly as it should...' Temsen looked off into the distance, then stood up and walked over to the window, looking out at the weather. He frowned. 'I already had to skip my run this morning. What execrable weather.' 

'You don't like the rain?'

'Goodness me, no. You do?'

'Yeah,' Efnisien said softly. 'I think I... kind of love it.' 

Temsen smiled. 'Gary likes it too, you know. The miserable soul he can be. You should see him during a thunderstorm. I once... I'll never forget, this was a few years ago now, and it was around New Year's, and the most wretched thunderstorm blew through. Broken karri and jarrah trees on the roads, you should have seen it! During the worst of it, we had an unexpected power outage, and I remember trying to find Gary, and do you know where he was?'

'Outside?'

'Not just outside, he was on the shore, hundreds of lightning bolts all around us, the thunder on top of us - it hit several trees in the forest, ask him to show you some time. They're still there. One's still standing, even though it was split in half. And there's Gary, standing on the beach like a lightning rod. I was furious. He laughed when I got him back to the cottage. We didn't get power back for four days after that because the generators failed.'

Efnisien could imagine it so clearly. Gary standing out there on the beach, among all the lightning, almost daring it to hit him. 

'Efnisien, how are you feeling about your relationship with Gary?' Temsen said, looking out the window again. 'I think there's more going on right now than the nesting situation.' 

'Do you,' Efnisien said, glaring at him, even though Temsen was doing that thing where he wasn't making eye contact, was trying to be non-threatening. It worked, but Efnisien still felt nervous thinking about this stuff, let alone sharing it with anyone. 

'I'm not here to be your enemy,' Temsen said, his breath fogging up the glass. He raised a hand and wiped at it. 

'You want me to bond to him,' Efnisien said. 'It'd be convenient for you, right?'