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Chapter Text

Chapter 1: Your basic transmigration beginning

Jonah Springster hated himself. He absolutely despised the person that he was, angry and out of control, and spitting and hitting, seemingly out of his mind half of his very young life. He was exactly the kind of kid who bit others and pushed them when he couldn’t get his way. Honestly, it wasn’t very different from how his dad got his way with his mom at home.

As Jonah grew, so did his ego and attitude. Everything he did was stained with that awkward defensive youth, which made him seethe and curl in on himself more, yelling and insulting and pushing others around to assert that he was in fact not one to be pushed around. He got enough of that at home too, after mom finally bailed out.

In high school, things got a little bit easier: he found friends who understood him. He kissed his first boy with blood leaking out of his nose and knuckles bruised. Caleb liked that. He smirked and said he liked that very much about Jonah.
Caleb became a catalyst. He never participated in anything Jonah and his friends did, but he was always there in the background. Covering for them and soothing classmates with his gentle and disarming demeanor. All the while he was pushing Jonah into the backwall of the school and telling him how hot it was when Jonah made that one girl cry or that other guy bruise.

It never exactly made Jonah feel good, but he figured this was just how he was. How he was supposed to be. Boys will be boys, right? That’s what his dad always said when teachers attempted to talk sense into him.

Then, one day, Jonah came face to face with his own ugliness: after being called several demeaning things by a classmate about his runaway mother and tiny boyfriend, Jonah tore at the other teen’s shirt and twisted him, throwing him down the stairs. The sounds of the gangly body flopping down the steps went thump-thump-thump-thump-thump… in time with Jonah’s sharp, stinging heartbeat.

His friends immediately went to bail. Caleb also pulled Jonah away, making him run despite Jonah feeling like he was still left there, standing. Facing the groaning, still body of his classmate. Several things ran in Jonah’s head, stuff he never really allowed himself to think of before: how hurt was the guy? Was he going to die? What would happen? What would everyone think? What would his dad think?

How could he do such a thing?

“I want out,” Jonah said two days after nothing seemed to be happening, everyone keeping hushed about the fight by some miracle.

Caleb and his friends were staring at him like they didn’t understand what he was saying.

“Come on, killer!” His best friend of the time, Zack, shoved at him the way he always did. “Don’t feel sorry for that asshole! You heard what he said about you! About Caleb.”

Caleb merely watched them, expression blank, eyes bright and blue and unfathomable.

“He got what was coming to him,” Zack sneered. “They all did. You know that!”

Jonah didn’t. Not anymore. Something had cracked properly and irreversibly, finally turning his hatred of others, of the world, inside out, against himself.

On his first year of high school, Spring, Jonah Springster called a mental health hotline for the very first time. And started a long, boring, but very cathartic journey to attempt to become someone else. Someone better than who he was, who he hated.

“Someone better than dad”, he thought in his hindbrain, but shut it off quickly. It wasn’t his parents, or the school, or the society. It was him. It was only him. Something was profoundly wrong with him. Had been since birth. That’s why mom probably ran so fast: because there were two messed up people in the household after Jonah was born.

When Jonah made it to college, he was just as surprised about it as his dad and relatives were.

“We were so worried for you when you were younger, but you turned out to become such a quiet young man…” his grandparents and cousins remarked with complicated expressions. “You’re always alone outside and at home… We can’t honestly help but worry for you, Jonah. College is a whole other beast.”

Jonah knew that very well. His dad had pounded it into his head that it was useless to apply, and later when Jonah passed the exams, that he would come crying home eventually anyway. He only had his dad left, after all, and his dad only had him left.

Jonah was eager to leave, so despite what everyone said, he took his headphones, laptop, and backpack, and left for college. The therapist he had been seeing since high school for anger management had instilled hope in him. College would be like a new start for him! A new environment, a new attempt to be better. To make amends.

How wrong and right at the same time one person could be…

Jonah was immediately faced with the problem of a small town: many of the students in his community college were of course from the same high school, even the same middle school, as him. Many recognized him, despite knowing him better these days for being an angry recluse, rather than a nuclear bomb ready to go off on anyone and everyone at a moment’s notice. People gave him a wide berth, but some who didn’t know him gave him the benefit of the doubt. Despite everything, Jonah was hopeful. He’d done a lot of work these past five years. He was twenty-three now, he wasn’t the exact same stupid person he was back then. He would be better.

But in this modern world, there is no changing or forgiving. There is only the person you used to be and a way out through isolation or death.

Caleb made sure he understood that:

It had been a long time since Jonah had last seen his ex-boyfriend. Caleb way back then was a fresh, angel-faced skinny thing, making bold moves and snaking into people’s hearts before they knew what was going on. He was good at talking and enjoyed watching people move as he desired. He once enjoyed watching how Jonah moved as he desired. Then Jonah decided he’d had enough. He wanted to change who he was, dumb as he was, and Caleb couldn’t have it.

Because if Jonah could change as a person, that would mean Caleb just didn’t want to. That there really was something wrong with how Caleb and his friends were. So, Jonah couldn’t have changed in Caleb’s mind. He knew what kind of rotten, violent person Jonah was, what he had done, and he wanted to Jonah to see it again also. To admit to all the bad things he had done, and confess that his efforts to better himself, were all a hoax. Useless. And come crawling back to him.

It was really a no-brainer that Caleb and Zack and Jonah’s former friends attended the same college. And Caleb immediately sank his teeth into the people who didn’t know Jonah – his horrid, furious Jonah – and made sure they knew what everyone else did:

“Do you know why everyone avoids Jonah Springster? It’s such a horrible thing…”

“… he once cut into another kid with scissors in grade school!”

“… bullied a girl mercilessly on his way home…”

“… beat up several classmates and was nearly expelled…”

Of course, what Caleb and Zack failed to mention each and every time, was that they had also done those things with Jonah. They had been right there, some of them through middle school, bullying and escalating each other. They even poured on Jonah the things that they alone had done. Things that went down when Jonah wasn’t around, or after Jonah broke up with Caleb and their friend group to play at being holier than thou.

Then came the final nail in the coffin…

“Jonah almost killed a guy pushing him down the stairs!”

And they’d all laughed back then. And none of them had helped. But the people didn’t need to know that.

The rumors and fact started to mix, until it all bubbled up and came to head one evening after courses, in the form of Jonah standing against a concrete wall and what may have been half the college campus surrounding him.

Caleb and Zack stood at the forefront, hand in hand, with sneering smiles on their faces, egging the mob on:

“You’re disgusting! Pretending to be someone you’re not… deceiving everyone and planning to strike when our guards are down!”

“Why did you come to this college? You should’ve left the town ages ago!”

“You made my life in school hell!”

“How fucking dare you face us like nothing even happened! You should go die!”

“It was all you! It was all your fault that our school years were so hostile!”

“It’s all your fault!”

It echoed off the mouths off the people, staring at him with inferno eyes and curled fingers like claws, repeating those words: “It’s all your fault! It’s all your fault! It’s all your fault…!”

And Jonah could do nothing to rebuke it. He knew that it was all his fault already. He’d talked about it intensively in therapy. He’d stared at his therapist in the face when she’d said that Jonah couldn’t possibly take blame for all the years of abuse and fights, even the once he had nothing to do with. He could only be responsible for his own actions and work to change his way of acting. Jonah had called her a liar. It was all his fault. Him alone. It was his fault that he was broken. His fault that he didn’t know what to do about it, and that he didn’t do anything about until he could’ve killed someone on stairs. Nobody forced him to do anything. Jonah was just born wrong and lived wrong and wanted to figure out how to repent for it.

The answer was simple. It screamed out of the mouths of the people he’d hurt, and the people he hadn’t even met. And the people who had been complicit and who had done the same things, and even more than Jonah had since he’d been gone. They were all saying: “You should disappear! You should not be alive! Pay with your life! You should kill yourself!”

…

Jonah hung on for four months. It wasn’t pleasant. But he couldn’t imagine anyone else had had a pleasant time when he had been around bullying others. So, he endured it, considering it all a part of his payment. He was shunned and shoved and beaten, while Caleb and Zack and Jonah’s former friends lead the angry mob on, reveling in the fact that they were righteous for once. Fighting for justice! Banishing the evil! It was intoxicating, the trusting and loyal eyes of their peers. It only accelerated the bullying of Jonah.

Jonah could take all of it. He deserved it, after all. He just needed to hang on and not hit back, not say anything. Then, his father called him out of the blue. It wasn’t normal for the man to inquire after his son, so Jonah answered without thinking much.

“Your mother is dead. I need some money for the funeral.”

Jonah went still, brain blurry, feeling like he wasn’t hearing right.

His father sneered, barking at him through the smartphone speaker: “What? I just need some money, okay! It’s for your mother! The woman who birthed a good for nothing like you! Consider it a payment for all you’ve done, Jonah. You did this!” the man spouted, mouth wet and spewing like he couldn’t explain fast enough, feeling the pit of immense guilt of beating his own wife and driving her away gnawing away at him. So, he found the perfect scapegoat in the son, who never could win against him. The son, who’d become conveniently so very quiet in the recent years. “Yes! Yes, this is your fault, you hear me! Not mine! You should’ve done something for her! You shou –“

The call ended. Jonah let the phone slide off his palm and on his campus room’s table with an empty clunk. He felt… boundless. Like he was stretched wide apart, floating somewhere in the atmosphere. His mother was dead. And it was all his fault. He’d done something wrong again, had done everything wrong from the start. He was wrong from the start.

It was still early outside, a faint mist soaking the late autumn air and layering everything in silver. It was kind of beautiful. The river especially looked alluring and distant, as Jonah walked on the edge of the high bridge. Far below, rocks were like black eyes, staring up at him, judging him. Seeing Jonah for what he was, had always been: a monster with no way out. Jonah could try to fool himself with mental exercises, better routines, distance from toxic friends and a father who didn’t even want him... but he could never escape from the fact, that he was an unwanted and twisted existence, from the very start. And he would always be that way, no matter what he did or thought or felt in his growing age.

And now he had caused a person he still held dear somewhere in his pitch-black cracked open heart to disappear from this world. But luckily, he already knew what he needed to do to make amends for that stolen life:

Jonah Springster, age twenty-three, stepped too close to the railing, and before he even had time to consider any other options, slipped on the wet pavement and fell.

Chapter Text

Chapter 2: Waking up in another world, as one does

Surprisingly, there were only minor aches once Jonah cracked his eyes open again. His long brown hair was matted against his forehead, greasy and heavy, looking like seaweeds clinging to a shoreline. The feel of them immediately made Jonah frown, lifting his hand to finger the way too long strands he didn’t remember previously having. As his arm came up, he became even more aware of the aches crackling over his joints and muscles.

“Jon!”

A voice startled Jonah from the side.

A small woman was standing in the wide doorway, holding a tray covered by a see-through dome. Underneath were coffee and various salty snacks laid out aesthetically on silver plates. The woman had the same long brown hair as him. Along her face were laughter lines, speaking of many years of joy. She was dressed in a sharp suit-dress, pale lilac and white in hues, making her look very soft and approachable despite her clearly confident demeanor.

Before Jonah could even utter a sentence, a load of information pierced through his head, making him grit his teeth in sudden agony. This strange woman apparently wasn’t a stranger at all, but his mother. Always had been.

His ‘mother’, Amelia Helsteen, tapped closer in her high heels, expression open with doting worry. “My goodness, you silly boy! Always getting into scuffles and ending up back home… You know, your father won’t keep standing for this for much longer!”

Jonah let out a haphazard sound, not sure if he was agreeing or not. He was still reeling from the amount of information flowing into his brain, trying to slot together the things he knew and the things that were now stabbing their way into the forefront of his mind. “I… This is…”

Amelia frowned, watching her son of twenty-three years struggle to get a word out as he clutched his head. She became immediately more accommodating, not wanting to see her beloved only child suffer like this. “Hold up. Let me see.” Amelia put the fancy tray down on the nightstand and put her well-manicured hands against her son’s cheeks.

Jonah startled, but then immediately, instinctively, melted into the woman’s hold. She had a faintly sweet smell about her, surprisingly soothing and nurturing, lilac and champagne, bringing memories to his mind he was pretty sure weren’t his. Yet, he welcomed them, remembering that his own mother was dead and there was his ‘mother’ right there, right then, offering him comfort, which he could suddenly remember always having, even though it was all at the same time very unfamiliar. It was incredibly confusing, but oddly comforting at the same time.

Jonah suppressed the urge to cling to the woman and cry, as he ground through his teeth as naturally and calmly as he could: “It’s… it’s okay… mom. I’m just a little tired, that’s all.”

Amelia gazed at her son, looking from one eye to another. Jonah stared back. Their eyes were the same, grey as steel, the only thing really that Jon had inherited from his mother. In every other way, her son looked just like her husband: straight nose, thin lips and broad shoulders, beautiful hands. An alpha through and through.

Amelia was satisfied with the clear and openly affectionate look she received back. She patted her darling son’s cheeks and lifted the dome to reveal the contents of the tray. “Well, you should be tired after the beating you took from that Dawnmoore heir,” she scolded softly, lips drawn into a helplessly indulgent smile. “You should really give up chasing Caleb already. It has been years, and he still hasn’t given his consent for courting. It is only polite to back off, dear.”
“I know, mom,” Jonah heard himself say – and he did know, surprisingly to himself: he clearly remembered Caleb – but not his Caleb – scowling at him through several ages from kid to young adult, saying that he would never lower himself to become the mate of someone like Jon Helsteen.

Jon. Jon Helsteen. That was his name now – or had always been rather.

Jonah frowned, wondering how the hell that was even possible. He very clearly also remembered his life until now as Jonah Springster, the whole miserable mile all the way to his death at the bridge… but he also remembered with remarkable clarity several details of this new place and these new people. He remembered running after a young boy who was so much like Caleb, it made him sick to his stomach. He remembered being raised in an elite family, rich and respected in engineering business, with a father and mother who loved and doted on him. So different from the Springster family…

Jonah also remembered with revulsion all the times he had cornered cute young boys by lockers and on the streets, talking filthy things, and picking fights with bigger, broader boys, nearly foaming at the mouth in rage. That last one was way more similar to how he remembered himself being as Jonah, minus the sexual harassment.

Jonah as Jon Helsteen was a sad, greasy, angry bastard, who relied way too much on his looks, brawn and money, and way too little on his brain and basic common sense.

And he was also an alpha.

Jonah – Jon, he had to start thinking of himself with that name – quickly looked up to the woman pouring coffee and setting salty treats for him to easily eat.

She was petite and nurturing, and she emanated a faint sweet smell which immediately put Jon at ease. Amelia Helsteen was an outstanding omega, married into the family by her parents will, but lucky enough to still find love with the alpha man she’d been tied to.

Jon thought immediately back to what his mother had previously said, and felt a dreadful pit open up at the base of his stomach. “Mom,” he cleared his throat, still a little apprehensive to call the woman that. “That… What you said… about Caleb…”

The delicate coffee cup in Amelia’s hand made a loud ‘CLINK’ as she stamped it on the nightstand. She sighed hard. Honestly, this son of hers…! “I swear, you alphas are so infuriatingly stubborn!” she fixed her son with a hard stare, which always managed to make the young man wither. “Listen here Jon Helsteen: if an omega doesn’t consent to courting, it’s just best to let go! No one likes desperate harassment. Not only does it bring down your own value as a person, it also brings down the value of this family.”

Jon watched, speechless, as this woman three times smaller than him stood over his bedside, towering with hands on her hips like a menacing beacon.

Amelia’s expression was grave, leaving no room for backtalk. “I’m warning you now for your own good, dearie: if you do not give up on Caleb Morningstar after returning back to the Mecha Academy, your father and I will take some serious measures to save face!”

Jon tried to rake his memory for another time when the original Helsteen son was threatened like this. He felt an apprehension bubble up in his body like it really was his own. “You mean…”

“We will pull you out of the Academy and send you across the planet to the Summer villa to reflect and meditate on your behavior!”

Jon threw the covers aside and jumped up. “No! Gods, mom, I swear…!” He wasn’t exactly sure why he was feeling such a powerful sense of abandonment and loss at the mention of being separated from the Mecha Academy, but as someone who had just crashed into this world and body, Jon quickly decided to just roll with it to not appear suspicious. Plus, it’s not like he was especially keen on meeting Caleb’s doppelgänger after all that went down with the real Caleb, his Caleb… “I swear to you here and now, mom: I do not want to have anything to do with Caleb Morningstar ever again!” Honestly, at this point in his life, Jon was content to avoiding Caleb and anyone named or looking like Caleb for the rest of his existence. No matter the world, real or fantasy. He could still keenly remember how Caleb looked at him when they broke up… How he had warned Jon that he would regret it…

And even more keenly, Jon remembered all the ways that Caleb and his former friends made good on those words in college.

Amelia examined her son’s face carefully from one corner to another. To her immense bewilderment, she couldn’t find any evidence of deceit or lingering affections. Which was… odd to say the least. Jon had been hanging on every word and gesture Caleb Morningstar made ever since they were little, just like every other young person seemed to. Caleb was a star that naturally pulled people into his orbit, so when he presented as an omega, he became instantly the most coveted omega on this side of the planet. Jon had been heartbroken over Caleb, every rejection causing him to lash out and do outrageous things for Caleb’s attention… but now, after receiving yet another beating from the prestigious Dawnmoore heir, it almost seemed like Jon meant what he said.

Amelia wasn’t willing to be too optimistic yet, however. She was this silly alpha’s mother after all. She knew that her stubborn and spoiled son’s heart wouldn’t turn so easily, couldn’t turn just because he’d been sent packing yet again by a rival alpha. But she wanted to believe Jon was willing to concentrate more on studies than chasing tail, so she merely plastered on an indulgent expression and offered her son one his favorite fried chicken treats.

Jon ate away at the snacks eagerly while sipping the piping hot coffee. He was starving! It felt like dying and crashing into this new world had taken all the juice out of him. Which made sense, he supposed… Dying was not pleasant. And crossing realities or whatever happened to him, couldn’t be easy on his mind or spirit, or whatever.

As Amelia was leaving his bedroom, she looked back one more time and reminded him that after the weekend, he would have to go back to the Academy. No matter how embarrassing it may be after his defeat in a fight.

Jon merely waved her off, not caring about any of that. He remembered the incident through the original’s memories, but Jon still had no real attachment to this world or its people, so he looked at the whole thing as his original’s mistake, rather than his own. One could say there was almost like some kind of thin film between Jonah Springster and Jon Helsteen’s memories, separating emotional input, but still filtering through with powerful events and connections.

Like Jon’s mother, for example. Or Caleb.

Except those were also separated by how Jon perceived those two people: Jonah as Jon had never felt bitter towards his real mother, even after she left. All his good memories of childhood were linked to her, so even after arriving into this alpha body in this new world, Jon’s own emotions melded seamlessly with that of the original’s towards Amelia Helsteen. But with Caleb, it was different. Jon’s own personal resentment and bittersweet longing of his ex-boyfriend clashed strongly with the Caleb of this world, so despite the original’s mad puppy love, Jon’s own powerful complicated feelings completely overpowered the crush, overturning previous attraction lingering in the memories and crushing them to mere sentimental powder.

Jon truly had no intention to indulge his original’s feelings. For whatever reason, Jon was now the owner of this body and holder of these memories and past feelings, so Jon decided he would act according to his own wishes and desires. He had died once already. So, now that he was in a whole new world, he regarded it as a chance to make his stupid, childish wish come true and try to be someone better, someone he himself might even like.

Feelings refreshed after this reflection, Jon pounced off the bed, ignoring the still lingering aches of bruises from the original’s fight, and went about investigating his room. And himself.

The room was extravagant, screaming pampered young master. It had some weights and other compact equipment for exercising, or maybe more like releasing pent up pressure, Jon observed as he caressed the claw marks on the hanging punching bag. He turned his fingers around, scrutinizing the neatly kept sharp nails and nice, long fingers.

Feeling curious, Jon decided to take a look at himself in the gilded full-body mirror by the huge walk-in-closet. He couldn’t help but breathe out a sigh of relief.

Jon couldn’t be absolutely sure at first from his memories alone, but now that he saw himself, he was happy to notice just how similar he and the original Jon Helsteen looked. They were nearly identical, in fact, aside from the animalistic properties that came from Jon Helsteen being an “alpha”, something Jon was familiar with from being a queer kid browsing written porn on the internet. As well as claws, Jon had sharp canines which tried to peek over his lower lip, perhaps a bit overly long and more than likely causing a lisp in the past when he was getting used to them. His pupils were narrow and changed keenly with light and darkness, and his eyes were such a light grey that they appeared like the sky after punishing heavy rain.

Jon was even the same height as he used to be, his body sleek and strong, but his overall height not much above 175cm, which made him actually on the shorter side of alphas in this world, he remembered.

All in all, Jon was pretty satisfied with how he looked, the familiar image looking back with a sharp relief.

Except…

Jon’s thin lips twisted, showing the prominent fangs as he pulled at his long, long hair. Jon had never had such long locks. His dad had always made sure to cut his hair short enough for the razor to scathe his scalp, and despite the eventual rebellion of teenage years, Jon still couldn’t tolerate hair any longer than his nape. In his memories as Jon Helsteen, Jon could tell that he liked having his hair tied up at the back of his head and throw his head back to let it flow as he stood like he was posing on some movie set.

“Gross,” Jon muttered involuntarily, s-letters whistling as he attempted to adjust the word over his fangs. Seemed like this was something he needed to get used to all over again, since this alpha body was technically new to him, despite all the memories and knowledge of this seemingly omegaverse world he gained with it.

Thinking about how he was essentially experiencing a transmigration story into omegaverse, Jon had a feeling that things would be at the same time frustrating and potentially hilarious.

…

One of the immediately frustrating and hilarious things Jon found out over the weekend, was that the Helsteen manor was overly enormous. Like, way too over the top impractically enormous. He spent the entire weekend running laps around the fancy manor, cursing at being unable to find specific rooms despite his new memories of living in that damned abomination of a house, and deciding immediately after having sat around a dinner table way too large for three people, that nobody in existence needed a house that big. Maybe like an orphanage or a school campus housing students, but no single person or family needed a house that unnecessarily inconveniently big. Jon couldn’t wait till he got back into the Mecha Academy. If he remembered correctly, his room there was at the very least a way more livable and reasonable size. He could actually see the other side of the room. And experience sci-fi-esque mechanical vehicles both all over again and as something new and exciting!

Another frustrating yet hilarious thing Jon found out, was that nobody was willing to cut his hair short. Nobody. Every single servant of every single secondary dynamic he asked, blanched, and kept hovering the scissors over his head, asking over and over: “Are you sure about this, young master?” Jon didn’t know whether he should laugh or cry at that. Jeez people, it wasn’t like it would never grow back! Hair is a replenishing resource on the human body. Calm down!

Finally, on the Sunday evening when he’d yet to track down someone to cut his hair for him, Jon stared at himself in the bedroom mirror and simply went: “Fuck it.”

The faces of the servants next Monday morning were priceless, not to speak of the faces his mother and father made.

“Umm,” Amelia made an uncertain sound over her morning coffee, glancing her pale grey eyes at her husband beside her.

Tavaste Helsteen was your typical alpha ex-mecha pilot, rugged, mountain-like and scarred over the left eye. His eyes and hair were dark brown, fingers long and elegant, mouth thin and downturned into a permanent scowl. Inside however, he was a calm and doting husband and father, merely very busy these recent years with the newest developments in mecha military research and political turmoil. In fact, he hadn’t been home for a whole month, having only returned after hearing of his no-good son rough-housing and making a mess of things at the Academy yet again, only to now meet him at the breakfast table like this…

Tavaste frowned, thick brows furrowing over the Empire morning paper. “Is this some kind of statement, Jon?”

Jon froze yoghurt spoon mid-way to his mouth, completely engrossed with the book in his hand. His hair which had previously been long and luscious, was now cropped so short it barely reached the tips of his ears. The back and sides had been brutally shorn with a razor, creating a hatch-job of an undercut, since Jon could hardly properly see the results of his work on the back. The dark strands atop his head were hacked at different lengths, tickling his brows and ears in an unusually wild and careless manner.

Amelia could hardly decide what she thought about this brand-new look. So, she could only raise her porcelain coffee cup a little, make a noncommittal sound and sip at the hot liquid.

Tavaste was even more lost for words, never having seen this side of his son before. His narrow eyes shifted down, widening a fraction. “Are you… Is that a mecha textbook?”

The beta maid taking their empty plates away nearly dropped the delicate porcelain.

Jon finally got the spoon in his mouth and swallowed the deliciously fruity yoghurt. “Yeah,” he simply answered, not seeing what the big deal was, and turned his attention immediately back to the textbook. If Jon was to survive in this world as the son of an ex-mecha pilot and a trainee mecha pilot himself, he had to refresh his original’s memories on the subject. It was only common sense.

The people around him obviously didn’t know any of this, merely seeing the very rare sight of the playful and lazy Helsteen young master immersing himself seriously in his studies. His short and blunt answer shocked his parents greatly, since the Jon in their experience had always been loud and chatty, filling the whole room with his laughter. But not this past weekend… Jon had seemingly become completely introverted and quiet, preferring to train his body alone instead of with a trainer or a gaggle of gold-digging omegas, and avoiding leaving the house instead of going out to party and pester Caleb Morningstar.

The husband and wife glanced at each other, silently communicating with their expressions. ‘Let the boy be’, they came to the common consensus, ‘He needs to mend his poor broken heart and pride in peace’.

Jon was completely oblivious to all this, biting on the silver spoon and eyeing the Empire’s standard mecha designs with rare, utter glee. He could have never even imagined getting to ride a robot, but here he was! This was totally worth all the stupidity of your standard omegaverse bullshit!

…

The Mecha Academy Jon and this world’s Caleb both attended was called the Imperial Mechanic Forces Academy, IMFA for short. Seeing as Jon Helsteen was a part of the elite of the society, IMFA was obviously the most prestigious Mecha Academy on this side of the Earth, only rivaled by the former-enemy-tentatively-allied empire on the other side of the planet. Basically, in this world, Earth was split in two after years of fighting and landmasses changing due to constantly advancing space races and mecha development, to fight off a bloodthirsty alien-beast invasion. If Jon could peruse correctly from the original’s meager, horny brain, the two Empires in control of Earth put aside their differences to fend off the alien invasion, so things were still cold and fragile between the two super forces.

At the Academy, Jon had decided to firmly avoid this “Caleb Morningstar” he could see in his original’s lovesick memories. He grimaced with every memory of having been smashed against the pavement for being an utter pervert towards Caleb, and furiously swore to leave the poor man alone, not just because he was essentially a different person from his own Caleb, but also because he felt sick to his stomach every time, he thought of Caleb cruelly smiling at him and spewing hateful words. He never wanted to be faced with that person again, not in any shape or form. His heart just couldn’t take it.

With these thoughts buried deep and precious under his ribcage, Jon set out of the Helsteen mansion with his head held high, hack-job hair billowing, donned in the standard green IMFA uniform. His parents watched the young man they’d raised jog towards the gates from the white mansion steps. Tavaste and Amelia leaned against each other, huge, scarred alpha and a tiny ample-haired omega. Amelia reached up with her face, aiming in her high-heels to take in her husband’s gunpowder and iron-laden scent, which had comforted her for many decades now.

“He seems so happy to go back to the Academy now…” Amelia mused. “Despite what happened last week.”

Content, Tavaste rumbled so lowly it was barely audible, but his omega could feel the powerful tremors nonetheless against her cheek. “Alphas are like that, my love. Quick to anger, quick to forget.”

Amelia pssh’d, rolling her charming wide eyes. “Uhhuh. Like our Jon could forget the omega he’s drooled after ever since presenting just like that! No matter what he himself says.”

Tavaste smiled, humored. “True. When it comes to omegas, there’s no one more stubborn than a hot-blooded alpha.”

The hot-blooded alpha in question was burning up alright, but not for any omega. Jon couldn’t help plastering himself against the air-metro’s window, staring at the city shining in orange morning light with utter glee. This world was so similar to Earth, yet also technologically more advanced! People on the air-metro browsed phones like normal, but many of them had plastered the phone against their palm or wrist, curving the flexible surface against their skin like it was glued to it. Jon’s was similar, able to stick conveniently to his skin and be peeled off and simply held when needed. Some people even held some kind of foldable version, which they could stretch from a small smartphone to a tablet size by pinching the corners and simply pulling or pushing as they wished. It was very exciting! The skyscrapers were also filled with aesthetical images from a local art gallery, advertising the gallery’s open times and artists. Were it any other kind of ads, Jon may have straight up hurled. But the abstract splash painting projections were interesting and nice to look at, so he didn’t really mind them. In reality, being able to advertise on every building surface would be a goddamn capitalist nightmare, Jon knew. But in this kind of fantastical world, the space was more idealistically used, so it was all fine.

The IMFA was similarly made of modern square buildings but stacked at odd angles on top of and inside each other, in order to create interesting geometrical shapes. Walls were painted in non-confrontational beiges, browns and desert-reds, with the Imperial Mechanic Forces Academy plastered in stylized steal-lettering on the side. The on-site campus was split into sections by secondary gender, meaning there were Alpha, Beta and Omega quarters, each marked by their first letter. This was most likely to maximize comfort, similarly to how many campuses in real life would pair women together and men together respectively in shared apartments and rooms. Omegas would experience heat once every season, alphas went into rut similarly, and betas were completely exempt from this infuriatingly hot and heavy biological conundrum, so they could each help their roommates out who were experiencing the same thing as them.

‘Wish I had been hoisted into the body of a beta…’ Jon couldn’t help musing as he exited the air-metro and walked into the inner yard area of the Academy. He was already feeling a strange degree of alertness at the sight and smell of people passing by, his nose assaulted with sweet and spicy, mild and nearly non-existent scents, depending on the person and their secondary gender. The original Jon Helsteen may have been walking all cocky and flirty among the students, but Jonah as Jon couldn’t help feeling a little anxious. Though he had smelled the people living in the mansion, they were his family and service people, those who had raised him, so he didn’t have any reaction to them. But here, with all these young and athletic pilot-candidates and mechanic-trainees, Jon felt like he was walking on a tightrope, like people were watching and judging him.

He felt vaguely like he was back in his college in his previous life.

But here, the gazes were more likely due to Jon’s sleazy past behavior than anything Jon had experienced as Jonah. Logically, Jon knew that. But emotionally, he was suddenly feeling the pressure of a campus-setting and a huge cluster of students surrounding him from all sides. He couldn’t close his senses from them… especially the omega and alpha scents were slithering down his throat and alerting his brain to any potential mates and rivals. The intention of his body being alert may have been benevolent and natural, but for Jon…

“You’re disgusting!”

“Pretending to be someone you’re not…”

“You made my life in school hell!”

“How fucking dare you face us like nothing even happened!”

“You should go die!”

Jon’s shivering pupils accidentally caught the gaze of a pretty lady omega walking just to the side of him. Her expression was strained, delicate fingers clutching an expensive looking leather bag as she shouldered her beta friend beside her. The beta woman looked up too, lips pulling into a tight line at the sight of the alpha.

Jon’s heart stuttered.

“IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!!”

He ran. An alpha shouldering his way through people wasn’t an unusual sight, but one so clearly smelling of sour distress was a whole another thing. People were clearing way naturally, startled by the powerful odor Jon was wafting as he sped away from the other students, and when people who recognized him held out a hand to catch him, Jon ran even faster.

His heart was hammering, attempting to puncture right through his clavicle. Claws were pulling further out from his cuticles, ready to rip into any threat or non-threat approaching him, but Jon hid them into his armpits until he found a quiet space behind the Academy under some luscious oaks.

“Fuck!” Jon let out immediately when arriving at a tree and threw out a punch. The poor tree thumped in protest, branches shaking and creaking as Jon started to really maul into the rough bark, uncaring of the splinters stabbing into his knuckles and fingers. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Jon repeated, eyes wild and stinging, scent growing acid-toxic in the face of overwhelming rage and panic.

In the past, Jon would have lashed out. He would have torn into those people making eyes at him, attempting to desperately, destructively, tell every single person crossing his path: “I am NOT one to be messed with! I am strong! Do not approach!!”

“It’s a defense mechanism.”

Jon remembered his therapist telling him.

“You’re afraid of being hurt. Deeply afraid. So, your way of ensuring you don’t get hurt in the first place, is to quickly attack, before you yourself can be attacked.”

That’s how people stayed away. That’s how they knew Jon was not weak, vulnerable. At least, that’s how most knew… Before Zack and his friends… and Caleb… Caleb…

“Jon?”

He drew in a sharp breath, nails stilling deep in the bark. The oak looked like it was marked by a bear.

Slowly, heart still tight and raw, Jon peeked over his shoulder.

An omega was standing behind him. Pale haired and blue eyed, an angel among mortals. He had darling features, ones that were easy to love and even easier to feel hurt by. A face and body Jon was keenly familiar with, had kissed and held and fucked in his previous life. But which he these days kind of hoped he wasn’t keenly familiar with.

Jon sneered, pupils contracting among light grey irises. The shading of the tree made the colour appear darker, murkier, making the alpha look more threatening than usual. “Kind of in the middle of something here, Caleb.”

“I can tell,” the sweet, innocent face told him. Caleb had dove-like eyelashes, thick and washed of color. Jon had spent once hours worshipping that beautiful man, basking in turn in the soft smiles and whispered words in secret places, but now… found himself instead feeling raw and strung out at the sight of him again. Abandonment, ridicule.

As Jon turned his back to the omega and continued to claw his frustration into the tree, Caleb stepped a little closer. Jon’s back went instantly rigid. He couldn’t help inhaling this Caleb’s scent, trying to find that familiar bodywash and deodorant he once knew, but finding something sickeningly floral and minty-fresh instead. His nose wrinkled; brain confused between sighing dreamily like the alpha he was, and gagging like the bitter ex-boyfriend he also was. God, it was confusing for his poor brain!
Caleb’s voice was gentle as he observed the venting alpha in front of him. “You always come here when something’s bothering you. And I know what’s bothering you this time around.”

Jon looked up, very blatantly unimpressed since he was sure he already knew what this world’s Caleb was going to say. This sweet and poison-laden Caleb with the angel’s face.

Caleb sighed, as if extremely aggrieved. “I’m so sorry to have tempted you with my alluring looks and scent,” the omega amply admitted, “I should have known… I should have cut you off earlier, your unstable temperament considering. I mean, look at what you did to your hair, not to mention the tree…”

Jon looked back at his claws sunk into the flesh of the tree, so that Caleb Morningstar couldn’t see him blinking uncontrollably hard. The words were surprisingly applicable to his stupid violent temper in the real world, even though he knew that Caleb was talking about the original owner of this body, the one who had continuously harassed the omega. Jon seriously felt like he was being bashed on the head with a rock with each sentence coming out of this Caleb’s mouth.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone of this little outburst…” Caleb smiled, looking at Jon through his lashes the way he always did when wanting to appear particularly docile and agreeable. “As long as you promise to this time leave me well alone.”

“Done.”

Caleb blinked, mouth open for another round of cajoling and reassuring, until the alpha’s words registered in his head. “What?”

Jon frowned at his claws. He… may have underestimated just how sharp and long they were. “I said ‘done’! Now go away. I’m busy,” he grunted, giving an experimental pull. He wasn’t budging. That was a problem.

Caleb shook his head, barely believing what was coming out of THE Jon Helsteen’s mouth. “I… You’re telling me to go away?”

This time Jon looked back again, his temper flaring, and he bared his teeth out of pure instinct.

Caleb startled back, scent spiking in surprise.

Jon’s fangs had always been a bit too long, protruding over the lower lip and making tiny dents against the ruddy skin there, sharp white points like icicles peeking out of a cave. Now, those fangs that many had laughed at when Jon was a kid and lisping hard, were presented in their full threatening glory, showing just how much damage they could do if clenched down on skin and bone.

“FUCK – OFF – CALEB!” Jon roared, eyes stinging with sudden worn-out emotion from years past. “It’s over between us!”

Caleb’s legs shook instinctively in the face of this explosive emotion and overpowering alpha scent. Despite the long whistling s-letters, he couldn’t even elicit a grin, his instinct forcing his body to turn around and run, before he’d get mauled, or worse. As

Caleb quickly made his way back inside the campus, he felt incredibly confused and more than a little put off. That wasn’t the Jon he knew. The Jon he knew never used such language with him, never spoke in such clipped and concise way, and definitely never would have threatened to attack him!

Also…

Caleb turned his chin, pondering with furrowed brows. “Why’d he say, ‘it’s over’ like we’d ever dated?”

Back in the yard, hidden by oaks, Jon was having a real conundrum. He had calmed down a bit after the outburst, feeling like some very old weight had lifted a little from his shoulders, but then came to notice that he was seemingly unable to detach himself from the tree.

“Come on…!” Jon scowled, pulling at his claws dug deep in the sturdy trunk. That’s what he got for abusing trees as a substitute coping mechanism, he supposed. “Stupid fucking alpha nails!” he growled, placing his boot against the trunk, and really attempting to pull despite the strong discomfort of his claws being pulled from the skin. “Stupid fucking head for thinking up stupid copings! Stupid brain for stupid anxiety…!”

“Don’t do that!”

Jon was forced to stop again, this time supremely bewildered at the completely unknown voice.

Hanging branches parted for a young alpha man. He was also a student according to the dark green uniform, but probably a senior year pilot looking at all the sewn mission badges he had on his jacket lapels and sleeves. High level pilots were allowed to attend practice missions and drills before they’d be eligible for real army work against the alien-beasts threatening Earth.

Jon watched the man approach with great apprehension. Green eyes swept over him, assessing Jon’s prickly appearance. Despite the sour scent of distress still lingering on Jon, the man didn’t shy away, merely flicked his long red ponytail off his shoulder and lifted his hand up.

“It’s okay, alpha.”

The gentle light voice made Jon wind up even more, raising the fine hairs on his body in instinctive warning: strange powerful alpha approaching at a vulnerable moment! Do not let close!!

The man seemed to understand this, since he raised both of his hands in clear sight and tried to give a comforting smile to his junior pilot. “Don’t move, please… You’re going to rip your claws right off their roots if you keep doing that. And that would be a shame, wouldn’t it,” he added with a twinkle of amusement.

“So, what the hell am I supposed to do then?!” Jon couldn’t help snapping, despite repeating in his head, against his fried nerves and alpha instincts, that the man more than likely wouldn’t hurt him, and everything was fine, he was fine and should keep his cool…

But as always, no matter how well Jon logically knew something, his emotions had a whole different take on things. So, he barely restrained himself from growling and snapping his jaws as the older student drew closer.

The senior alpha couldn’t help flitting his gaze a little down from his junior’s eyes, noticing the way his fangs protruded over his lower lip, sinking brutally into the soft flesh. The corner of the man’s lips twitched, but he held back a smirk as to appear more approachable. “I can help you unhook from the bark, but I’m gonna need you to promise you won’t try to take a bite out of me, okay?”

Jon swallowed thickly, reminding himself to take deeper even breaths to at least calm his body, if not his mind. “Alright…” he agreed tentatively, hackles raised, but keeping still all the same.

The man touched his red ponytail again, seemingly out of habit, and pursed his lips as he very, very carefully put his slender fingers on Jon’s and started working his claws out one by one. The man’s fingers were calloused, but well-tended to, claws impeccable and finely curved. A contrast to the clearly abused claws of an alpha on the edge like Jon’s. The older pilot eyed each finger curiously, marveling how the hands he was currently cradling while working were at the same time so nice and so disheveled.

Jon was staring hard at the stranger’s face, tracking his expression for any indication of mirth or ridicule or malevolence. But the man just looked down as he unhooked each claw, momentarily gently squeezing each fingertip between his slender fingers like affirming that each claw was still tightly attached.

After Jon was free, he crooked his head in equal parts annoyance and embarrassment. Back home, he would have definitely been laughed at by his friends and left hanging until he found a way out himself, for better or worse. But here in this fantastical world, he was helped without question and looked at with an equal degree of worry and amusement. The only reason Jon wasn’t blowing a fuse was exactly because he wasn’t sure how to react in the face of instant help and such genuine seeming concern.
“Thanks,” Jon managed to spit out, mouth twisted.

The man let out an easy, “You’re very welcome, alpha”, as he twirled his ponytail and observed his junior curiously. He didn’t think he’d ever seen this one before, and he was quite well-connected around the campus. He swore he would have recognized someone so… haphazard. The other alpha was shorter than him by a whole head, and as the junior further tilted his head down to the side in clear frustration, it gave the man a quite lovely view of lightly flushed cheeks shadowed by dark brown hair.
The man couldn’t help from reaching out to dust off fallen oak leaves from the hacked-up strands, pondering in amusement: ‘They’re the same as his claws… Everything about this little junior seems to be a little off, a little sharp and serrated at the edges…’ Protective, almost. Fiercely guarded.

Jon startled at the hand approaching his temple, jolting automatically away with a sharp stabbing terror deep in his core.

The man paused, faced suddenly with the most devastated, terrified look he’d ever seen. Like he’d just went for a stab with a knife rather than a careless caress.

Jon took a couple of steps backwards, awkward and way too aware of the odd look the man was giving him. Heart hammering anew from old festering memory, Jon shot back a hasty: “Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Bye.” And promptly ran back into the campus just as the bell for classes chimed.

The older alpha left behind still had his hand up, but this time reaching, tentatively raised at the junior’s retreating back. Wind blew through the heavy oak branches, drifting luscious leaves over eyes as green as Summer, gentle yet serious, rimmed with dark straight lashes. Long fingers snatched a leaf from the air, twirling it between claws, pondering at the completely chance encounter with the strange little alpha.

A picturesque view, for no one to see.

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: Let the others make excuses for your sudden personality shift

The first classes of the day consisted mostly of theory concerning mechas, the beast-aliens, and history of the Empire in general. Jon made sure to pay close attention in order to refresh his original’s memories, especially after he noticed just how spotty his memory of these subjects was.

‘Damn that original!’ Jon couldn’t help gnashing his teeth. ‘What was he doing during classes? Browsing Tinder and eye-fucking betas and omegas?!’ Not that Jon wasn’t a first-grade slacker in middle and a portion of high school… but loneliness did wonders for studies, at least in Jon’s case. Once he left Caleb and his toxic friend group, he found himself existing by the edges. Engaging in solitary activities was a must. Otherwise, he would have already gone nuts a long time ago. So, he filled his days with binge watching, reading, attending gym, and studying, avoiding both classmates and home.

But at least this way the IMFA classes weren’t boring at all and held Jon’s attention for the most part. Bits of his attention though went to how people seemed to whisper around him, avoiding eye contact when they noticed Jon glancing back, and resuming when he tried to concentrate on lectures of alien-beast biology.

Later in the day, Jon’s most awaited class finally rolled in. Although his original had piloted a reserve mecha before in the Academy, he didn’t seem to be very good at it.

With mecha piloting, it was important to keep one’s mind clear and focused, and even if one could achieve such a high affinity rate with their mecha as to go completely balls to the walls emotionally, it was considered rare. Having that clarity combined with high emotion was something the pheromone and instinct driven ABO people had naturally difficulty with, so it stood to reason that someone like the original Jon Helsteen wouldn’t be able to pilot mecha very well. Which, if Jon read the memories correctly, was quite the embarrassment for the son of a seasoned mecha pilot, especially in an Academy that aimed to train the best of the best in the Empire.

Jon wasn’t sure how exactly he would fare, his own temper as Jonah considered, but he was still just excited to even get a chance to do something cool like this. Most people couldn’t even imagine piloting mecha where he was originally from, and here he was now, walking into one of the warehouses holding mechas, in tow with a veteran trainer and classmates.

“Here we go kids,” the gruff-looking female alpha declared as she pushed the warehouse doors open. “4th generation mechas, courtesy of the Dawnmoore, Sundown and Nyx estates, and funding from the Imperial army!”

As the students echoed their admiration for the two dozen or so mecha towering in rows like statues, their trainer, Melanie Torrent stared at the young adults’ clamoring with an expressionless face.

“No touching,” she advised from under lightly furrowed sharp brows. “Even a single one costs enough to send you into a lifetime of debt that your mommies and daddies are gonna be crying blood over having to pay.”

The overall enthusiasm plunged instantly as people scurried away from the long metallic legs of the humanoid mechas. There were a few who didn’t have as starstruck reactions, like Caleb Morningstar who merely surveyed the steel giants with distant awe as if he’d already interacted with them plenty.

Jon made sure to be on the very tail end of the group – both out of habit and to avoid Caleb as much as possible. After having met the omega under the oak trees just that morning, Jon had gotten a refreshing hit of just how he both didn’t and did miss his ex. Even though this omega very clearly wasn’t the exact same person but rather an exaggerated version of him, it still stung fiercely to watch Caleb from behind surrounded by people and smiling, praised as an angel despite having done some nasty things in his lifetime. Not that Jon could hoist the blame on his ex… After all, everything that had ever gone wrong was all Jon’s own fault.

Shaking off the self-pity, Jon concentrated instead on listening to Melanie explain about the three mechas they would be test-driving today. These simple reserve mechas were situated in the hangar testing area for them, a giant white room to cut off any outside interference from natural phenomena like weather and such. To the side was a testing room up towards the ceiling, where some other trainers and mechanics and medics waved at them. The medics attended to familiarize themselves with mecha related injury and trauma, and also for the safety of the students. They would be piloting approximately fourteen to twenty meters high mechas, after all. Accidents were bound to happen.

Jon was basically vibrating out of his skin looking at the at-ready mechas, fangs pressing into his lip so hard the skin ached.

“You’ll get your turn soon enough. Don’t you all even worry.”

Jon startled at the vaguely familiar voice addressing their group.

The red-haired young senior pilot from earlier that morning approached Jon’s class leisurely with long confident strides.

Some omegas instantly clustered forward, fanning themselves with their jacket lapels to not-so-discreetly spread their scent at the beautiful tall alpha.

Melanie Torrent nodded familiarly at the alpha pilot. “Jacques.”

“Jacques Rayne, at your service,” the senior pilot saluted cheerily back at her stoic face.

Jon stared at him, deadpanned. Of course, in a fantastical world people had to have the most fantastical sounding names.

Melanie gestured to Jacques and explained that he was there to help the students see, what piloting mecha was like at its best as a well-rewarded pilot, and to give out any advice from the point of view of a student.

Caleb’s sky-blue eyes gleamed as he assessed Jacques. The little omega looked absolutely smitten. Jon swallowed down a sudden surge of jealousy, smacking the original Jon Helsteen on the head for still harboring such feelings and filtering them over to Jon who was the one alive in the body now. There was no need getting all hot and bothered. Caleb could date whoever the hell he wanted. It was better that he got interested in someone else in fact, so he would stay well away from Jon from here on out! Plus, in some distant and self-harming sort of way, Jon was kind of curious to see this other version of Caleb acting in love. Especially with someone who had the same nose and brows as Jon himself, bearing an intimidating presence… as if this person was pulled straight out of his Caleb’s teen-fantasies…

As Melanie directed them into the backroom for decontamination and suiting up, Jon observed Jacques and Caleb interacting with an odd nagging in the back of his head. It was as if this was all reminding Jon vaguely of something. Something that he had read or watched in the past… maybe one of the transmigration online novels he’d read, or something. Those had plenty of scenes like this: two destined lovebirds doing their very first courting dance –

”Hey, Jonah! Check this out.”

”What is this? Did you write this? Is this your horny day fantasy?”

”Shut up! You read a lot! I want to know what you think of –”

The name Jacques Rayne had been ridiculously classic and Jonah had laughed himself to death at age sixteen, laying on Caleb’s bed post make out…

Jon nearly bit his tongue when memories of a certain stupid, daydreamy story started to filter into his brain. He was biting on his lower lip so hard he could feel pain, the two fangs piercing into the skin as panic and utter disbelief and ridicule pushed into Jon’s head: Mechas. Boring, basic-bitch sci-fi-esque setting. Omegaverse setting. Horny undertones fit for a teenager. Men catered to a very specific and familiar taste. Caleb Morningstar. Jon – Jonah – Helsteen.

“No fucking way!”

“Yes, Mr.Helsteen?”

Jon glanced up at their trainer and quickly made a noncommittal sound and waved his hands. Everyone was looking at him weird and whispering. Jacques’s eyes lingered with a frown as Jon wiped at his blood-slick lower lip, sinking back into chaotic thoughts.

This was reminding him an awful lot of the ridiculously self-serving, Gary Stu-esque story his ex-boyfriend Caleb had given him to read over and over when they were still young. He made comments on the story! He came up with some names too just for shits and giggles because he read so much fantasy! It couldn’t be…

Jon leant against a wall as the three mechas they would be using were introduced and concentrated on stopping himself from hurling out of pure disbelief and sickness. He was perfectly fine with transmigrating into a stupid fantasy world with ABO dynamics. He was NOT fine with transmigrating into something his horny ex-boyfriend projected his self-insert character into! This kind of stories were always the most dangerous! Jon was very aware of that as a consumer of these kinds of stories where people traveled to mystical places and books and movies, only to have to fight against the plot or destiny or whatever other omnipresent bullshit to simply try and survive! He just wanted to try living better this time! He did not want to be the background character for the story of Caleb’s self-insert smacking his lips on as many guys as possible!

‘I hate you!’ Jon thought at this world’s Caleb smiling at others with all his power. ‘I hate you so much! Why am I here? What Hell is this?’

Hell indeed. Was he being punished? Was that it? He had been so horrible in life that now he had to be a useless side character watching the previous love of his life marry two or three perfect men and live happily ever after?

An image of Caleb mouthing along with a chorus of students hurling hate and death threats at him came rushing forward. Jon turned his head away quickly, but could not prevent a gush of musty, sour pheromones from billowing out in defense at the sudden distress he was feeling. Hell. This was Hell. This was what he deserved. This was his punishment and there was nothing he could do about it. He had to watch Caleb getting his perfect life while living in a hated person’s body. He deserved this.

Caleb was caressing a mecha and making amicable small talk with Jacques, commanding his attention – everyone’s attention. He was the school sweetheart, just like in real life out of story. He was the center of attention who everyone always believed no matter what.

Jon gnawed brutally on his lower lip, pupils small and quivering as his panicking mind tried to recall all the possible punishments that usually followed, when a story’s plot was derailed. He would maybe die? Suffer a horrifying, torturous death? His loved ones in this new life would be ridiculed and destroyed?

No! Jon instantly rejected the thought, thinking back on his new parents, on the firm but gentle omega and the stern but permissive alpha. He shivered hard, sweat on his brow as another wave of sickness fell through him, along with a reminder of the call he had gotten about his mother’s death.

Not again. Not again because of him. It couldn’t be his fault all over again!

Jon swallowed bile back into his stomach and stared at Caleb with hostility and desperation in equal amounts, scaring the students who noticed him. Jon wouldn’t let that happen. He would live silently on the edges just like he had learned to do in life, stay away from people important to this self-insert Caleb, and make sure he didn’t fuck things up for all these people around him. He would not be the source of their suffering all over again. He wouldn’t be able to take it, the burden of it. It would shatter him. Make him want to die all over again, and he wasn’t ready to die, didn’t want to. He wanted to try being better. Hopefully, this story his ex had manufactured for himself to get everything he ever wanted, would allow that. Hopefully, this Hell he was in, would allow that. Otherwise, he would… He’d have to… again…!

“Easy, alpha,” a low rumble vibrated into Jon’s body through a hand at the crook of his arm.

Jon flinched away instantly.

Jacques didn’t seem to mind, merely pocketing his hands into his sweatpants and leaned down a bit so he could better look the shorter alpha in the tiny, shivering pupil. “Hello, junior. How’re the claws holding up?”

“Good,” Jon answered as he marched with the group into the designated alpha pilot dressing room, hoping to get away from the person who Caleb clearly wanted.

Not comprehending he was the reason for the other’s distress, Jacques chuckled at the familiar-feeling clipped answer and prickly attitude as he followed them all in. “Wait, hold up! You’ve chewed up your lip and the blood might throw off the mecha’s system.”

“What?” Jon barely had time to ask, when suddenly Jacques was in his face, popping a red lip balm open and carefully tipping Jon’s face up.

“Hold still…”

Jon opened his mouth, painfully alarmed and aware of how this looked to the other alphas getting into their pilot suits, but apparently no one felt the need to let out even a peep at the senior pilot’s actions. Jon was petrified. His heart was about to explode from anxiety. What would Caleb think?

Jacques swiped the pocket-warmed balm over Jon’s lower lip, stinging the torn flesh.

Jon finally got enough of his bearings back to jerk his head to the side, cheeks and ears flushed. He wasn’t immune to a good-looking guy’s presence, and Jacques was a danger for his survival in the story, so he was pissed.

Jacques calmly capped the lip balm, gaze tracking Jon unconsciously licking his abused lower lip. “Cherry,” Jacques smiled, the sides of his eyes crinkling lightly in mirth.

Jon turned away and threw a random cabinet door violently open so he wouldn’t just punch the other’s face in.

All the other alpha students stayed quiet, but eyeballed each other in surprise and question at the interaction they’d just been witness to: ‘Since when is Jon Helsteen connected to THE Jacques Rayne?’ ‘How’d he do it? I wanna become close brothers with one of the Academy ace pilots too!’ ‘Are they friends? Or maybe… No, no, they’re both alphas,’ everyone immediately shook their heads, discarding that train of thought in their heads. Still, they were supremely curious of the two, and as Jacques moved ahead to show another student how to put on the skin-tight pilot suit, a few alphas flocked around Jon.

As Jon was slipping into a standard black pilot suit and stood up to fit his arms into the sleeves, he was suddenly met with his classmates’ half-familiar faces. Only half-familiar most likely since they were alphas and thus were not in original Jon Helsteen’s radar. Jon thought for a bit to himself that it might be a good idea to foster some familiarity with the other alphas, since it was very likely that the omegas all unilaterally hated him – or more like his original, but still him – for all the drooling and perving Jon Helsteen had done so far. Maybe if he had some friends not connected in any way to Caleb, he could have some help in the future when this Hell started throwing rain and thunder his way for existing within Caleb’s sight.

So, as a small cluster of alphas started to question how the heck Jon got so close with Jacques Rayne, Jon pinched his brows and stared at them nonchalantly to hide his trepidation at being surrounded from all sides. “Is Jacques Rayne really that amazing?” Jon asked as he zipped the bodysuit up to his neck. The suit instantly sucked all the air in and basically vacuum-sealed him in, like he’d seen in many sci-fi anime. His t-shirt and boxers felt weird underneath, making him wrinkle his nose.

“IS Jack amazing?” the alphas around him blinked, disbelieving of their classmate’s words. “Holy shit, your head really is only full of omega pussy and beta tits, Helsteen…”

Jon felt so embarrassed for his original that he could just die! Why did he have to be reborn in this supremely horny sleazebag’s body? WHY?! Why did Caleb name the two of them so similar in clear spite?!

“Jacques ‘Jack’ Rayne is a legend,” one the alphas hooked Jon under his arm, making grand gestures at nothing. “He’s the second highest ranking mecha pilot in the whole IMFA, and also the only one who’s ever won a duel against our very own young Captain Dawnmoore!”

‘Dawnmoore,’ Jon’s brow twitched nearly imperceptibly at the mention of the funny, basic fantasy name. Seeing as that person was so famous, he must be someone Caleb would pursue in the future. Jon would have to be extra cautious and aware to avoid that great alpha student, though if he remembered something about Caleb’s taste in men, one of them was the distant and mysterious type, so if he was lucky, Dawnmoore would avoid him harder than Jon avoided him.

To gather more information, Jon asked with an attempt at the original Jon Helsteen’s haughtiness: “And this makes Jacques Rayne so legendary? Some good marks in piloting and sticking to Dawnmoore heir’s side?”

The alphas around him couldn’t help but wonder just how filled with sex and slick Jon’s thick alpha skull was… It was really impressive, even from the point of view of other alphas. “Well, yeah. Since both Jack and Captain Dawnmoore have gained the trust and honor to directly help the army in Beast annihilation missions and lead the academy in the mecha fight nationals every year.”

“Mecha fight nationals?!” Jon unexpectedly burst out, pale eyes wide and shining like the silver sky after heavy rain.

All the alphas in the dressing room glanced to him at the sound of his outburst, but instead of immediately looking away in boredom, their gazes lingered on the upturned corners of the wild and unruly looking youth’s mouth. The way his fangs just about touched the flesh of his lower lip, which was something they hadn’t paid attention to before, now seemed like a great unearthed treasure they all had merely thrown away before at a careless first glance.

There seemed to be something… different about Jon Helsteen after he’d last been beaten by the Dawnmoore heir. He’d come back to the academy with his hair carelessly shorn and cut, not even glancing, not to mention throwing a pick-up line at any of the omegas and betas in class. He’d been seriously concentrating on the material at hand, and the whole class had been wondering the whole morning in whispers, if Jon was feeling the heartbreak of the campus darling omega’s refusal and losing to his rival way worse than usual.

Now, the alpha-side of the class couldn’t help but wonder if Jon Helsteen had critically hit his head in the said beating and lost some of his memory.

“Jon,” one of them tried tentatively to ruffle Jon’s head. “What’s up? For the first time, you’re being kinda cu –“

The wide hand approaching from above reflected in Jon’s pupils like a hawk flying towards a field mouse. His reaction was faster than with the other alpha who’d managed to hook him under his arm, as the hand came swinging down at a familiar angle from up above.

The whole room went silent as a heavy burst of alpha musk gushed out, taking over the entire compact space. The scent assaulting their sensitive noses was akin to teargas: pungent and acidic, a scent screaming at the whole world to stay back, go away! ‘Please don’t hurt me,’ it said in sour, vulnerable flavors stinging the palate.

As the alphas around Jon were still trying to figure out how to take the sudden outburst, another scent suddenly punched right through the sourness. Every single body went rigid. Sweat started seeping out of the young alphas’ skin, tinged with barely suppressed apprehension.

Jacques Rayne rounded a corner of lockers, hand squeezing down on thin locker metal one slender finger at a time. The metal squeaked pathetically. Jacques’s usually so refreshing green eyes were currently deep and dark like a swamp, hiding decay and unknown beasts at its depths. His natural pheromones, fawned over by so many lucky enough to get a whiff of it, were currently so overwhelmingly moss and ravines and rot and storms lighting trees on fire, that it was getting hard for the junior alphas to breath.

No one dared to move under the survey of a clearly superior alpha as Jacques swept his eyes over the scene.

A door at the end of the dressing room clicked shut with skittish finality, drawing Jacques’ attention momentarily, then directing it through the ensuing silence back at Jon’s classmates left behind by him.

The alphas now standing around Jon’s empty spot looked at their feet, hands behind their backs akin to a military stance.

Jacques would have been amused had he not just been assaulted by such a genuinely fearful, familiar scent. “What… happened here?”

Goosebumps crawled up the spines of everyone present. They directed their gazes at the four alphas who’d previously surrounded Jon.

After being stared at by the emotionlessly smiling face of Jacques Rayne, they finally caved in and explained what had happened. That they were just talking and wondering why Jon was so different that day compared to the usual, when suddenly Jon had just flinched when one of them had moved to touch him, and had bolted out before they had time to react against the strong burst of fear pheromones.

“We’re speaking the truth, sir vice-captain!” One of the alphas immediately broke out the honorifics, hoping to ease the usually friendly man’s anger. “We weren’t trying anything! We were just curious what had caused this sudden change…”

“And he watched for his head?” Jacques asked curiously, hand easing the harsh grip on the metal locker as he took the situation in. At the others’ nods, Jacques thought back to Jon Helsteen’s reaction to him reaching out to fix his hair back under the oak trees. ‘Could he be instinctually guarding against a head trauma?’, Jacques wondered, absently flicking his red ponytail. ‘That would make sense if he fought against Percy… that guy does not pull back any punches.’ Satisfied with this conclusion, Jacques instructed the other alphas to quickly get ready and calm themselves so their lingering stress wouldn’t affect their mecha integration ratings.

Jon’s classmates agreed hastily, sucking their suits in and pretty much coming to the same conclusion as Jacques had. Clearly, Jon had hit his head hard after being punished by the campus’ mecha Captain and was now in some state of confusion or partial amnesia even, which affected his personality. Feeling a bit sorry despite Jon’s usual reputation, as fellow alphas they felt that they should try to make things a little easier for Jon as he slowly recovered from the trauma. It’s not like none of them ever went around chasing tail and getting into fights, after all. So as alpha comrades, they should at least try to look after their classmate.

…

Meanwhile, Jon who had no idea about any of these conclusions people were drawing from his anxiety attack, was huddled in a corner by the white training room, leaning against the wall with his arms tightly drawn against himself, attempting to breath slowly. Cradling oneself in one’s arms was a natural reaction from the body to ease stress, Jon had learned through his anger management and anxiety sessions. He’d been incredibly ashamed of it before, but had slowly started to accept it over the years, allowing his body to make himself more compact and smaller, despite how weak it made him look. It was merely a necessary instinctual step his body took in order to kickstart calming down, so fighting against it would only result in further agitation.
In his head, Jon made sure to also repeat self-assuring mantras like ‘I’m alright, I’m okay’ and ‘No one is trying to hurt me… No one wants to hurt me…’, and of course his classical, ‘Do not attack, do not attack, do not attack, there is no need to react with violence, do not attack, do not attack, do not –‘

“Well then, welcome to your fifth mecha integration and piloting tests class 5B!”

Jon parted his eyelids, glancing up through the messy fringes of his hair.

The rest of his class had finally assembled, people shoving each other and making jokes about their mecha integration rates:

“This time, I’m going to be above you!”

“No, you’re not! My integration rate is a whopping 43%!”

“I’m so nervous… It’s gonna affect my integration…”

“So, hungry… Can this stupid test be over with already?”

Trainer Melanie Torrent was standing in front of the elevator leading up to the observation room, scrutinizing the young adults’ faces with something akin to boredom or mild contempt maybe. Jacques Rayne was standing beside her, smiling comfortingly at the two- or three-years younger students with some major big brother energy.

The senior pilot noticed Jon looking from his lonely corner and waved at him discreetly with a warm grin.

Jon stiffened at the unexpected kindness after his embarrassing freakout. This time, he didn’t resist his new alpha body’s natural reaction and his own temper, and actually opened his mouth to hiss lowly and show off his canines.

Just like last time, Jacques took this prickly treatment in stride and merely softened his expression, like trying to tell Jon something without words. Jon couldn’t even imagine what that could be, so he decided to just ignore the weirdo and focus on Melanie.

Melanie swiped a hand over one side of the room, showing off the smallest sized mechas waiting for integration. There were four of them, spaced about six meters away from each other and connected tightly to the wall with some hooks and machinery. Melanie explained that each of them would be boarding on their own turn, integrate with the semi-intelligent machine’s nerve system, then afterwards do a round of test piloting.

“During the piloting phase,” Melanie revealed with a slight upturn of her lip. “We’ll be using a real Beast to simulate an actual psychic attack.”

People started gasping, some showing fear, some excitement. Jacques in turn described how their IMFA team had managed to drag back a half-dead specimen for study, and it would be heavily restrained in chemical goop while the students tested their wits against it.

“The most important thing…” Melanie added, tapping her brain. “… is that you keep in mind, that this is merely a test environment. You’re not in actual danger at any point, even if you will most likely feel like it when faced with the Beast. When the psychic attack breaches your mecha and mind’s built-in defenses, you’ll be experiencing stressful hallucinations, meant to paralyze you,” her face darkened, clear brown eyes darkening. “Or to drive you insane.”

Many students fidgeted nervously. Jon couldn’t help some restless movement either, shifting from one leg to another while gripping tightly his forearms.

Melanie looked around, seemingly satisfied with the cautious looks. “If you truly wish to pilot mecha, you’ll be expected to encounter these Beasts. Remember that. You are here for a reason. You chose this!”

Emboldened, some students actually stepped forward to volunteer in going first. Caleb was one of them and many looked to him with equal parts approval and concern – he was after all a sweet-looking omega. Of course, people would be worried for him. Caleb was always so sugary over the venom, getting along with others with frightening ease…

‘No one will care what happens to you, though’, Jon thought at himself, looking down at his tightly cradled arms. The familiar feeling of isolation and numbness actually settled his nerves somewhat. When you’re already at the bottom, there’s nothing to lose, after all.

…

The students went in waves of four. They weren’t allowed into the observation room up against the ceiling, so they were all left to idly bide their time in the backrooms and attempt calming rituals before their turn eventually came.

Jacques and Melanie took the elevator up into the observation room, looking down at the mecha standing silently in the stark white rooms.

Melanie leaned closer to one of the terminals, glancing at the displayed arrays of numbers and code. “How’s it going so far? Any promising ones in sight?”

A beta medic recording in-real-time data didn’t even glance up from the terminal she was tapping on. “Not yet, Mel… All standard numbers so far.”

Melanie couldn’t help breathing in deeply, mildly disappointed. Well, she hadn’t really expected much from this year’s crop. After a gem like Percival Dawnmoore had been delivered right into their hands by the young man’s parents, Melanie felt like they would be paying the price by having to wait several years before any other potential pilots with high integrity rate appeared. A trainer could always hope though…

Jacques was also keeping an eye on the displays showing the upper bodies of the students sitting in their mecha. They appeared peaceful through the mecha’s inner cameras, numbers barely tipping over 30%. Lucky ones could make it to 45-46% on good days, if they had even a shred of talent and sturdy will. These types were usually betas with their natural sense of calm, or particularly strong-willed alphas, but it wasn’t too strange to see some omegas also here and there; while alphas were known for their stubbornness, no one could beat an omega in terms of passion. And sometimes, passion helped them achieve the kind of calm and clear state of mind needed to pilot a mecha. It wasn’t too usual though, so Jacques didn’t linger too long on the few omega candidates.

Except for…

“This Caleb Morningstar,” Jacques spoke up, stroking his ponytail between nimble joints. “I’ve heard some general things around campus about him... What do his previous merits look like?”

The medics, mechanics, scientists, and trainers present shifted through some older data, bringing up files of Caleb next to the omega’s exceptionally innocent and angelic face. His hair was beautiful, Jacques observed with tingling warmth. Like golden fields swaying under sunlight. Made one wish to extend their hand and touch it… fist it even…

Tempering the slight rising arousal in his scent, Jacques shifted and cleared his throat. “His numbers are pretty good. Reaching 52% isn’t something to sneeze at.”

Melanie nodded, reluctantly fascinated as she too stared at the completely harmless looking beautiful youth. “He’s an omega with a strong will, clearly… Reaching 50% automatically qualifies him for an application permit for IMFA’s official mecha team.”

Jacques smirked, tracing Caleb Morningstar’s thick eyelashes with hungry eyes. “Mn. Percy will sure be pleased for the eye candy”, he joked, knowing better than anyone else that Percival Dawnmoore would be more likely to drool all over a brand new mecha than even spare a second glance at another person, omega or beta.

Melanie glanced back at her second-best pilot, expression deadpan. “That eye candy will be your direct future junior teammate. So, keep it in your pants, Jack.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jacques waved a lazy hand, admiring the pretty little omega man for that whole time he was displayed in one of the main displays. He had a good feeling that today’s tests may actually have been worth his time, after all!

…

Standing behind the fourteen-meter tall mecha’s neck was nerve-wrecking. Jon had never been afraid of heights, but this was daunting in a whole another way: metal whirred and clunked as each of the four pilots twisted and pulled the hatch door open. It was like a hole into space, dark and rimmed with red and blue lights tracking the mecha’s status and marking for the pilot where to grab to pull themselves into the cockpit. Jon breathed deeply in, then out, and jumped right in at the same time as the other three students.

The mecha jerked, minute strokes like it were alive and choking on the foreign organic object sliding into position deep in the chest cavity. Jon startled a bit at the feel of silicon-parts suddenly jumping out from the sides and clutching at him but managed to calm when his original’s memory of this part trickled into the forefront of his mind. The mecha was semi-conscious, which meant it had an artificial intelligence helping to guide all the complicated functions happening within the mecha, while the pilot was still getting into the reigns.

In the first place, to help humans pilot such a massive monster in the heat of battle, help from a virtual program was a must. No human could move such a behemoth with just their own mental strength and reflexes. Some of that needed to be patched up by automatic calculations, the mecha’s own A.I working together with the pilot to make the most out of dancing on the battlefield. An A.I couldn’t make complicated in-real-time decisions. A human couldn’t match an A.I’s speed and efficiency in sending messages around such a huge, hulking body, and keeping a track of what was happening all around a chaotic battlefield. It was a joint effort, a marriage between human and artificial mind to make a metal warrior, which could match against the fearsome enemy invading Earth.

Which is why a calm and clear mental state was a must for a pilot: overt emotions and chaos of mind would only confuse and clash with the mecha’s A.I, overheating and paralyzing the complicated machinery as messages got jammed and crossed.
Jon was overly conscious of this fact, as he allowed the mecha’s A.I to quickly measure him and strap him comfortably into the cockpit’s seat.

It was very quiet for a moment. Jon let himself be guided by his original’s memories and leaned back against the seat, eyes closed. The moment the A.I sensed his muscles relaxing, it promptly tightened its hold on the pilot and began to plug itself in.
Jon’s eyes snapped open in pain, teeth clenching as the cockpit’s seat punched needles into his suit’s marked sections all along his back and neck.

The darkness around him started to light up slowly, turning orange as the mecha was waking up.

“This is it...” Jon panted, feeling cold sweat seep out of his temples and armpits. The pain wasn’t too bad, the needles were very thin yet sturdy, carefully connecting him to the mecha’s nerve system to reach maximum efficiency and the least amount of lag between the pilot and machine.

There was a strange sensation of tingling along Jon’s scalp and spine… A sense of alienation and connection interlocking and making him nauseous.

‘Bear with it!’ Jon reminded himself, biting into his lower lip, vaguely tasting cherry lip balm. Despite his body having experienced integrating with a mecha before, for this Jon currently, this was all still a very new experience. ‘Calm! Calm… Stay calm,’ he did his best to remind himself, heaving heavy, moist breaths out loud as the tingling turned into buzzing and radiant spots started to dance before his eyes as the A.I struggled to properly integrate. ‘If I can’t calm down and think clearly, I’ll be rejected!’ he gritted his teeth harder, lower lip splitting and releasing the taste of salt and iron and faint traces of artificial cherry flavor into the cockpit. ‘I’m not weak.’

The cockpit hummed.

‘I’m NOT weak!’

The mecha jerked again, twisting its neck, and lighting its external lights as a connection was finally being established.

“I...” Jon muttered under his breath against sweat and dull pain, looking ahead. “… am not Jonah anymore.”

…

Jacques kept fingering his ponytail the whole time Jon was displayed on one of the monitors. He couldn’t help the nervousness, felt others be affected by it too as Jon Helsteen struggled once more to integrate. The evidence was all over his previous four test records: Jon Helsteen wasn’t suitable for piloting mecha.

‘13%...’ Jacques breathed out through his nose, eyes set on the tightly clenched brow of the junior alpha. ‘Could be worse… but it’s nowhere near enough the desired numbers. With this, he won’t even be able to make a single step with the actual combat mechas.’

The A.I would reject him the moment he was swallowed and strapped into the cockpit as it sensed that the pilot was in a state of chaos. It was a curse for those who just couldn’t put their emotions aside, or who had no idea how to find peace with themselves.

There were emotional pilots, of course, who could still reach high integration numbers and even reach a state of Flow with their mecha without disturbing the A.I, but so far, Percival Dawnmoore and four more pilots across the planet were capable of this.
Jacques himself had attempted it once. Not purposefully, he’d just entered a state of high emotion when one of his squad mates was caught by two Beasts. Watching their mecha being pried open by massive jaws… Jacques had lost his cool and dashed forward to save the beta.

But then he froze. Or rather the mecha did. His precious companion in battle, Spiderlily, stumbled and spasmed wildly as Jacques’ panic flooded the system, overtaking it and causing crossed messages being send all over the mecha as he couldn’t decide on a course of action… just a desire. So, he failed to reach Flow. And their team lost a squad mate.

Jacques knew it couldn’t be helped, that he couldn’t have forced the higher connection or his mind to calm down in that moment, but he still couldn’t get rid of the thought in his hindbrain, telling him that he’d killed them. By being less talented than Percival Dawnmoore. By not being strong enough, in control enough.

Jacques took a deep breath, easing his stance and flicking his red hair over his shoulder. Having an omega as a teammate, especially one he felt attracted to, may just prove to be exactly what he needed to further his mental training. Keeping away would be a challenge, surely, but keeping calm and rational even as the omega sweated and wafted his pheromones would be a good challenge.

With that in mind, Jacques’ attention swayed away, eyes looking far away into the distance, playing fantasies, leaving behind the displayed image of Jon biting his lip, until red seeped into the orange light.

Chapter Text

Chapter 4: Boys don’t cry

After the integration test, each student was given the chance to attempt piloting a mecha and facing a trapped Beast. If only as an encouragement to try harder and know what the pilots fighting were up against.

Caleb was at the very front of the line as the highest ranked, making many alphas grind their teeth, while omegas silently pumped their fists in solidarity. Jacques was also smiling pleasantly as he sat ready in the selected 20-meter combat mecha.
The mecha may have been a big one, but it was still considered trainee friendly since its design was simple and A.I more straightforward, since it didn’t have a lot of functions combat-ability wise. It was more like a tank on two feet, black, robust, and designed to carry a lot of weight, thus moving slowly. All of its weapons had been disabled however, since this was only a simple training with people who hadn’t even touched an actual combat mecha before. Suddenly giving them heavy artillery weapons and plasma shields would not be a good idea. The whole white training room would be wrecked in an instant!

Plus, the Beast they’d caught and trapped in black chemical goop was still a precious research subject, so the academy didn’t want to risk the trainees accidentally killing it by pushing the wrong button while they were showed stressful sights by the alien creature.

Jon, who was standing at the very end of the line, fixed his sight on the huge mecha towering over them and glowing with orange external lights. The eyes of the mecha were staring down at them like they were mere ants.

Melanie gave a signal in the observation room and Jacques turned the mecha to face the opposite wall.

It split open, tiles sliding aside, as a platform was revealed, holding some kind of lump in the middle of it.

Everyone stood on their tippytoes, attempting to see what was happening several meters above their heads. Jacques stood in front of the shifting lump stuck to the platform with foam-like elastic black substance. His mecha didn’t even twitch, showing the absolute control Jacques had over the situation. No matter what he was feeling, it wasn’t intense enough to throw the mecha’s A.I out of control and cause rejection. The stressful hallucination Jacques was experiencing, though recent, didn’t even make a dent. He merely smiled serenely, with a hint of contempt, as he watched the violent scene of his teammate being torn apart in front of him. His scent didn’t gush or fluctuate either, keeping even as Jacques was able to distance himself from the scene, treating it more akin to a bad dream than anything else. It couldn’t touch him. It had already happened.

Suddenly, the students were forced to take a step back, as Jacques moved the giant clunky mecha with astonishing fluidity and made a kick high in the air, just above the lump shifting restlessly on the platform. Some of the chemical goop suddenly bulged as more was sprayed on the Beast, tempering its’ movements, and forcing it to hold still, despite its’ instincts to flee the attack made just a hair above it.

“Like that!” Jacques declared as he performed a careless spin and a bow as the students clapped for him in awe.

Perfect control! Perfect movement! Not even a bit of confusion, lag, or signs of rejection! Calm, collected and fluid.

Needless to say, after such display, everyone was feeling equal parts excited and nervous to follow that up.

“Alright,” Melanie spoke through the white room’s speakers. “First candidate, Caleb Morningstar, please step into the elevator and the rest of you to the backroom to safely wait for your turn with the mecha. Each time the mecha is used in the piloting test, it will be decontaminated so no scents of your classmates will affect your results...”

Caleb skipped into the elevator, eager to meet with Jacques before the senior pilot had a chance to leave for the observation room. Jon along with the rest of the students filed into the backroom, anxiously waiting for their turns. As the self-insert protagonist of the story, Jon was sure that Caleb would top the whole class and display incredible piloting skills, befitting of seducing even the cold and elusive Captain Dawnmoore.

As the other trainees chatted amongst themselves and alphas pushed each other around, Jon sought the most desolate corner of the backroom and sat on the bench. Remembering how his integration test went, Jon was determined not to repeat it.
Climbing into the mecha had been daunting, frightening even, but what had been even more frightening, was how much the whole procedure had freaked him out. Jon thought that he might have done even worse than his original to be honest, and that made his stomach twist around itself into several knots.

He wasn’t even better than that original Jon Helsteen sleazebag.

‘One more time’, Jon thought to himself as he assumed a more relaxed position on the bench, closed his eyes and sought to close off the whole backroom. His shoulders shook up, then down, then up again, then down, as he evened his breath.

People were talking about Caleb, how amazing getting 52% in integration test was.

Jon’s brow furrowed. He sucked his bottom lip in, tasting the two small scabs sliced by his protruding fangs. There was also a hint of cherry, making Jon frown a little.

He needed to close it all off. All of it. Caleb, Jacques, his classmates… even the person whose body he had been flung into.

It was just him and the mecha he would be climbing into. Calm. Even. Safe and undisturbed, unjudged.

Breath in.

Breath out.

Jon could feel his knee shaking restlessly. He moved fingers on it, not clutching, but taking that into account. That movement merely meant that he was excited, nothing more.

Breath in.

Breath out.

It was good excitement. Not bad. His body sometimes had a difficult time telling them apart. And that was fine, it had to be. That was just how his body functioned. And that’s why, he so often fell apart. Which is why he needed to remember, right there and then, that no one was there to hurt him. No one actually cared about him, nobody cared how Jon would do in the test. It only mattered to Jon himself.

Breath in.

Breath out.

Nobody cared if he was weak. Nobody cared if he was strong. Nobody… cared. So, there was nothing to feel anxious about. No need for fear or anger. It was just a mecha, a machine… one that he was excited about riding. And this excitement… was good, not bad.

Breath in.

The knee his hand was resting on was completely still, lax.

Breath out.

Jon opened his eyes, silver irises coming into view as slit pupils adjusted to the bright ceiling lights.

He breathed once more in turns, forcing ease by regulating his breaths, thus regulating his heartbeat, thus affecting his brain. It was all to reach a state, where Jon didn’t feel like snapping. He’d just have to see if it lasted all the way through the piloting phase. Or would his temper flare and ruin everything once again, just like it always did.

‘Damn’, Jon huffed, blowing at the dark hairs tickling his brows. ‘There go the positive reinforcement thoughts’.

“Jon Helsteen?”

He looked to the side, eyes wide.

There was no one else left in the room.

The assistant beta who’d come to get him merely smiled and told him it was finally his turn to pilot.

…

In the observation room, everyone was already pretty much popping champagnes and clapping each other on the back. Even Melanie Torrent, the stone-faced alpha trainer, gave a satisfied little smile, as they all kept playing back Caleb Morningstar’s performance in their heads.

“It was incredible!” Many praised, barely even looking at the next and final pilot trainee climbing into the mecha’s neck-hatch. “Caleb Morningstar may be an omega, but he’s displaying incredible maturity and control… We have been blessed this year once again!”

Jacques was also excited, practically itching out of his skin, wanting to get an opportunity to fight the omega and press the little angel underneath him. He wasn’t willing to give anyone else the chance to strike first, Jacques was determined to be the first to make a mess of the calm and collected omega. Jacques Rayne was an alpha, after all. And alphas always pressed onward when they saw something that piqued their interest. No matter the challenges.

…

Jon once again felt like he was being swallowed by the mecha. He was maneuvered and strapped in similar to the smaller testing mecha, but this time, Jon could clearly feel the sheer weight and power of the machinery surrounding him as he slid into the leather seat and was firmly embraced by the cockpit. The moment Jon’s head hit the seat, needles punched through his suit and skin, like the A.I was in a hurry to connect with a pilot.

“Ssson of a –“ Jon couldn’t help lisping into the darkness, twitching in pain as the A.I sought to connect their nerve systems. Bright spots molted out of the walls and dim screen in front of him as the huge mecha’s eyes became Jon’s eyes, every single wire and electric current coursing with information of the outside world, of the white room and the creature quivering on the platform.

Jon gasped, opening his eyes. He’d not even noticed closing them. Sweat was pouring out of seemingly every single pore he had. A strange scent was quickly filling the cockpit, not pungent and acidic like vomit after a hangover, like gut-wrenching panic, but instead wooden and smoky, with a strange side of earthy sweetness, comforting.

‘What? What is this?’ Jon automatically lifted his jaw, scenting the stifled, closed space moist with his sweat.

Something familiar… fermented leaves and heat, sugar from a busy hive of workers.

Oh.

Jon’s breath eased suddenly, his mouth opening around a disbelieving laughter. “It’s tea...” he said so quiet not even the mecha could have heard it. “Camellia flowers and honey.”

Jon’s mother had always loved nature. She’d been especially fond of honeybees, first offering them flowers, then a home in the backyard of Jon’s childhood place. The garden was small, but it was hers… her kingdom away from the man inside the house. Jon partook of the gifts of that kingdom, in secret. Camellia and honey in a form the man would not notice… an innocent little teacup shared between mother and son.

Jon’s brows tensed, then relaxed, his expression unreadable. He took another deep breath of the pheromones filling the cockpit – his pheromones – and breathed out, through regretful grit teeth.

‘Right, I missed your funeral...’

Jon’s head thumped against the seat, punishing strike for only him to know it as such. He closed his eyes, then opened them, cold silver in the dim warming light of the mecha. “You better have given her a good sendoff, old man.”

Otherwise, Jon might just have to figure out a way out of this fantasy world and crawl back to reality through his own soaked, rotting corpse.

“Mr. Helsteen?” A voice suddenly called out through the mecha’s comms system. “Are you alright?”

“Yes!” Jon said quickly, gripping the armrest handles and looking ahead as the screen and his sight cleared up.

“Are you sure?” The woman’s voice questioned him further with an empathetic edge. “We don’t have to keep on going if this is causing you overt stress. Your numbers have gone even further down these past couple of moments...”

No fucking way.

“I’m doing this,” Jon growled, gaze fiercely focused on the sight viewed through the mecha’s senses.

A trembling lump was fixed tightly on the platform on the other side of the room. It was covered in thick black substance, chemical goop used to non-violently restrain all movement. The Beast within it only had one eye left to stare at with through the blackness, but it had it firmly fixed on the tank-like mecha in front of it. It was almost like it was meeting Jon’s eyes through the chest cavity. Like it knew Jon’s real flesh and blood body was right in there, looking at it, measuring it up.

Jon pulled his lips back, despite not being able to show it to his target.

“Ready, Helsteen?” The voice warned him right before it happened. “Psychic attack incoming!”

The eye staring at him from the blob of black was pale. Very pale. Its pupil grew through the iris, swallowing the snowy paleness, and swallowing Jon too with it.

Even though Jon knew what to except, it didn’t lessen the impact of all his senses being assaulted and upended, torn from inside out, until they belonged to the Beast and could only transmit what it wanted them to transmit.

And what it wanted to transmit, was pain. Misery.

Jon had no way to evade the darkness overtaking the orange glow of the cockpit, or the impression of a huge hand that followed.

“You miserable little creature!”

Jon’s ears rang at the shrill, coarse voice. His body instinctively seized up, hands flying from their position at the armrests, coming to cradle his torso.

His hands were so small… so pale and fragile, fingers like little pink worms jutting out of his palms.

“Did I not tell you...” the voice boomed, footsteps following right behind it through the darkness. “… to never touch my things?!”

“Teddy, please…!”

“Stay out of this!”

A thump, heavy and filled with sharp elbows and shoulders meeting hard wood floor.

Jon got up from the chair, intending to run, but was startled to realize that something was restraining him, pulling him back from his spine and neck. He struggled, meaty little hands reaching behind his head and grasping at the long metallic things pulled taut from the simple white wood chair he’d always had in his bedroom.

“JONAH!”

He didn’t have time. Jon pulled harder, struggling against the strange metal tubes attaching themselves deep into his flesh, his spine, and felt them pulling something back, making every single cell scream.

Jonah was screaming.

The man was there.

The bedroom door banged nearly off its hinges as a man as tall as a tower stood in the doorway, framed by the glare of the harsh yellow light of the hallway. Walls were plastered with cornflowers and dandelions, the colours of his mother’s bruises. She was just barely a shape nailed to the ground, lifting her head through a veil of long dark hair, a single eye staring from between the stump-like legs of the man in the doorway. Her single visible eye was white like snow, nearly swallowed by the pupil.

“Filthy thing.”

Jonah had no way to evade the hand, which was larger than world, reaching for him high above his head. It reflected in his pupils, a familiar chapped palm reaching for his hair to pull him up by the strands like a doll dangled from its strings.

Jonah ducked, trying to dash between the legs of the man, but failing, getting caught by the metal tubes chaining him to his bedroom chair. Jonah wailed, an animal sound as he grasped the tubes and pulled, but the chair wouldn’t fall or budge, seemingly screwed in place.

“Jonah.”

The hand came, as it always did. It found him and grasped him by the hair, wrenching despite Jonah digging his nails deep into the floorboards, holding on for dear life.

“Jonah!”

Small hands grappled at the splintering wood of the doorway, grey little eyes moist and bruised staring into the single pale eye watching him through long dark hair from a watery hard-to-see face of a woman.

“Crying again, Jonah?” A voice above him sneered, yanking until Jonah’s head was nearly wrenched off the neck.

“No...” Jonah closed his eyes tight, unable to meet the face staring down at him.

“Good,” the voice spoke, clipped, smooth, near gentle. “Crying is stupid. Crying is useless. Like you. Like your mother.”

Jonah opened his eyes, looking back at the woman slumped in the hallway.

The eye staring through the long hair disappeared into the strands. A small voice, indistinguishable, muttered at the stained carpet.

Two steps, heavy in sound and weight, pincered the small pathetic form under a shadow darker than any room or night was dark.

“You ruined us, Jonah,” a voice spoke too gentle, too mellow. “You were never supposed to be here. But you are.”

“Please,” the form in the hallway muttered, only hair visible for eyes to see, pooling along the floor and the walls, disappearing into the cornflowers and dandelions. “I can’t take this anymore… Please...”

“Mom...”

At the first syllable, his hair was pulled again, and Jonah felt himself being lifted.

“No!” Jonah cried out, spit flying as he tried to bite at the hand going for his face, seeing it coming even without looking, spinning his head in blind panic. “No! Don’t touch us!”

“Jonah!”

“Don’t touch us! Don’t touch us! Don’t touch us! Don’t touch us!”

A sharp pain all along his spine as Jonah wrenched himself free of the hold, turning to bite at the hand hovering over his face.

His dad howled, all teeth and darkness and blinding eyes towering high above him. “YOU KILLED THIS FAMILY, JONAH!”

“DIE!” he screamed instead with the shrill nasal voice of a child too small to fight, too small exist in the world of someone so grand and towering and wanting to crush him under his weight. But Jonah screamed anyway, repeating the words he didn’t even realize he had the courage to scream out, mouth foaming and eyes wild, hack job hair flying sweat-slick against his face as he gnashed his teeth and threw out his arms at the man high above him.

“DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIE-!”

“Jonah!”

Everything was orange, glowing fire and spittle dripping from fangs too big for his mouth, mangling his words and tongue forming the words, making everything smell like acid and blood, fear and fury.

“DIE! I WANT YOU TO DIE!”

“JON!”

“Shit! Eject! Force eject!”

“It’s not working! He pulled the cords –!”

“Jon!”

…

The observation room was pure panic and chaos. The Beast was writhing on the platform, limbs previously restrained now trashing about with long horrifying claws, howling in throes of agony. The giant black mecha was squeezing the blob-covered beast, bulging its single white eye from the chemical goop like attempting to pop it out with sheer pressure of steel and rage.

“For fuck’s sake!” Melanie roared, showing trained scientists out of the way as she tapped in direct commands for the mecha’s A.I to receive. Each one came out red, secondary command denied. Melanie punched the terminal in sheer frustration and moment’s fright. It left a splinter, costing thousands.

“Stupid machine!” She sneered, looking up at the terminals displaying Jon’s in-real-time image and data. “Is there no way to extract him?!”

“That’s...” people were hacking away at their terminals, putting in commands and getting red letters with every single attempt. “We can’t! The connection between the pilot and mecha has gone straight to hell! The mecha can’t receive outside information because the pilot’s emotional output is jamming the system!”

“Then think of something!” Melanie punched another terminal, startling the scientist using it. “That’s our student in there!”

“He’s moving it...”

“What?” Melanie had barely turned around when Jacques had already dashed out, elevator doors closing after him. “Jack! Where –?! Shit!” Melanie turned back to the window and display screens, watching through the see-through flow of data and Jon’s face amidst the orange glow as the 20-meter mecha wrangled the Beast in its’ hold, chunky steel fingers digging brutally into the chemical goop and the body hidden underneath it.

The beast kept howling, single white eye staring directly into the chest cavity with unblinking, inhuman focus.

Melanie’s gaze flitted back to the displays, focusing again on the face etched with deep, deep lines of emotion so intense it felt like she could feel it. Long alpha canines were dripping saliva and sweat, puncturing the lower lip with every jagged breath the young alpha managed to take in between his nonsensical howls.

Melanie’s brows twitched, her expression equal parts worry and wonder as she slowly processed what Jacques had just said. “He can move it...”

In the middle of the chaos of keyboard tapping and desperate shouts and movement, a number next to Jon’s twisted blind face kept rising…

87%… 88%… 89%…

At Melanie’s next glance, she noticed that the blood on Jon’s punctured lower lip was starting to actually steam up.

The alpha trainer grabbed the first medic passing her by with a phone plastered to his forearm. The omega medic looked startled as he was pulled up to his alpha boss’s face, the brown eyes serious and glowing with great distress.

“At what point does blood start vaporize in the cockpit?”

The medic scrunched up his face, not understanding. “That’s… That would mean the mecha’s system is way past overheating and has started to literally fry the pilot alive...” as the words passed his mouth, he seemed to realize what Melanie was getting at. “Oh my gods, he’s going to die...”

Melanie dropped the medic, punched the emergency glass by the door and triggered the alarm.

The whole building was instantly awash with blaring sounds and red light.

The mecha facility’s security system instantly recognized an overheated, rampant mecha, and isolated the white room from the rest of the facility. The students who had already gone through their tests and were waiting in the backrooms were startled as the door to the testing room sealed shut and a warning rang out for every student and non-personnel to stay out of the white testing room, they’d just been in.

Caleb’s pale brows rose, bluer than blue eyes staring at the sealed door with a blank expression as the others began to panic. “… Jon?”

…

In the white room, people were rushing through the observation room’s access doors to take in the damage. The platform holding the Beast had closed up only partially, since Jon still refused to let go of the Beast, holding onto it like strangling the trapped beast was a matter of life and death for him.

Jacques ran through the narrow pathway connecting to hangars from where mecha were boarded, and found the one connected to their white room that Jon had used. “Jon!” he called out for the other, his junior’s name plastered on the display screen over a despairing furious face awash by the mecha’s orange glow, burned into Jacques’ sclera as he stared down from the platform a mecha would be leaned against. Now it was just an empty doorway, the black mecha meant to be leant against it at all times now far from the wall, clutching desperately at the Beast wiggling between the closing platform and the steel hands holding it.

“Jon, please!” Jacques screamed out, eyes watering at the sight of the steam pouring out of the joints and vents of the mecha. “It’s not real! You’re not in danger!”

“NEVER TOUCH USSSSSSS!” was the only answer Jon could hiss out from between the foam and the blood and saliva and pheromones clogging up his throat, making him choke, but not enough to let go, to let this man destroy them both again…! He had to protect them this time! He was not weak anymore! He would never be weak again!!

“Shit.” Jacques looked around, gaze scanning for anything to help him reach Jon. If only he had his mecha… If only Spiderlily was here, he could…!

“Captain!”

Jacques whipped his gaze down as a dark form exited the elevator down on the white room’s floor and ran towards the manic mecha.

A nimble body with broad shoulders hoisted itself up the mecha’s firmly planted heels, climbing the steel body with experienced hands and feet the way a rock climber scales an overly familiar gym wall.

Jacques Rayne could only watch, as Captain Percival Dawnmoore, made his way up the steaming hot steel body, grabbed the manual emergency eject handle, and twisted and pulled.

Short black hair blasted back from a cold handsome face, as hot air shot out from deep inside the mecha and a leather seat swarmed by metal tubes came rushing out.

Everyone watched with bated breaths as the thick smoke started to clear, then slammed their hands to their faces, either in horror at the stench or sight.

Jacques leant against the wall, quivering imperceptibly.

Percival Dawnmoore had never been seen being this gentle with anyone in his life: carefully, very carefully, he slotted his gloved fingers behind the pilot’s head, peeling him off the scorching leather seat. The black cloth of the pilot suit had melted into the leather. Skin had melted into the leather and metal, making a sickening sound as it was very gently pried off, freeing the heavily steaming red body from the clutches of the chair.

A medical team came soon rushing in, wheeling a bed below the mecha and shouting at the Captain working on the absolutely messed up pilot high above them.

Percival didn’t even glance at the medics, keeping his pitch-black eyes fixed firmly on the burned red face staring up at the ceiling, unseeing, unresponsive to any stimuli.

It took a long time to detach all of the metal tubes – the ones that hadn’t been ripped off by Jon’s trashing. But when the serrated red flesh of his body was peeled off the mecha, Percival carried him down just as carefully as he had detached him from the mecha, placing him on the medical bed like he was the most precious thing in the entire world. Even while staring at nothing, looking like he wanted to tear it all into pieces, before it all tore him apart in turn.

Chapter Text

Chapter 5: Body snatcher 

Jon had a dream.

It was a hot and heavy Summer. He and Caleb were fifteen, hiding in Jon’s bedroom on his creaky messy bed with the dark blue and grey covers. Caleb’s hair was greasy and sprawled over the blanket, a heavy halo smelling strongly of him.

“Caleb…” Jon muttered into the crook of his neck, biting hickeys into the flushed skin. “Caleb, you make me feel so good…”

The other merely hummed in answer, arching his body and burying greedy fingers into thick dark hair.

Jon’s heart ached, though he wasn’t sure why. He felt like if he didn’t hold onto Caleb tighter, bite him harder, the other might just disappear from under him. So, he felt that he had to confess everything as fast as possible: “I don’t know, you… You make me feel so normal. Like I’m alright.”

“Hm?”

“Like I’m allowed to exist.”

“Hm.”

Jon bit harder, marveling at how the skin under his teeth seemed to bend and twist like marshmallow. Like he was biting into a living painting.

Jon pulled back to look at Caleb and suddenly felt that the view was wrong, that he was too young, too smiling in that knowing, condescending way he always did, but which Jon never wanted to admit.

“You need me,” Caleb suddenly said, still smiling.

Jon felt a surge of rage but stamped it down quickly. He’d never hurt his loved ones. He’d sworn it, branded it into his heart after once striking his friend, and seeing his father’s hands in his own curled fists.

Jon was about to speak, ask what the other meant, when he heard the front door downstairs open. A careless bang, then hacking coughs and heavy footsteps under the floorboards of his room.

“You need to leave.”

Caleb lifted his head, brows high up.

Jon flew off the warm, sun-kissed and bitten body, leaving the safe confines of his boyfriend’s arms for the coldness of his room and panic. Heart beating in fury and fear, Jon grabbed the edge of his old heavy dresser and shoved it.

Caleb was still laying on the bed, head up and watching Jon push the dresser along deep scratched grooves, dragged into the wood floor from moving the same dresser time and time again.

In the hallway, murmuring and footsteps against creaky stairs.

Jon turned to Caleb, pupils wavering tiny pinpricks. “Fucking go!”

Caleb glanced at the door, expressionless. Like he couldn’t feel fear. Like Jon’s current sick, bubbling feelings were irrelevant, nonsensical.

“Jonah?”

“Leave already!” Jon hissed, gums showing, face red and fists shaking, feeling like he could just heave Caleb out by his pretty neck like a doll if he didn’t move.

Caleb must’ve felt it, Jon’s violence.

He took his backpack from under the bed, cranked the window open and without a glance back, jumped out of the window.

“Jonah, answer me!”

“Go away!” Jon – Jonah? – found himself yelling, listening to the increasingly heavier footsteps approaching, distorting the floorboards with the weight of the man who always seemed so much bigger than him, mightier… filling the world until there was no room for anything else.

“Jonah!”

“Shut up!” He screeched, clutching the dresser, claws bloody and sharp, fangs itching. “Shut the fuck up! My name is –“

“Jon?”

…

He woke up with a start, breath catching. Jon’s pupils contracted against the stinging bright light of the cream-colored room. He was struggling to take in the situation. The dream – half memory – had been so vivid that the real world and this fantasy one almost seemed layered on top of each other, imposing afterimages on everything he looked at. It made him feel disorientated, almost like he was still partly in a dream.

“Jon, can you hear me?”

His head finally twitched to the side, taking in the man and woman who had been waiting by his bedside for some time now. Jon Helsteen’s parents. His parents.

“Mom…” Jon croaked, throat surprisingly hoarse. “I…”

Amelia immediately embraced her son the moment his eyes found hers. “Oh, my baby boy! My precious…!”

“Careful, dear,” Tavaste Helsteen rumbled, heart aching but not showing on his serious face as usual. He wanted to also hold his only son quickly, but just seeing the damage the young alpha’s body had sustained… the mottled and red skin peeking from under the bandages and blanket… Tavaste knew it was better to hold back. “He might still be in pain.”

Amelia came to her senses with that, easing Jon from her warm, sturdy embrace. “Right, I’m sorry, honey. Oh, Jon! You’ve been in induced coma for a whole week! We’ve been worried sick!”

Jon scrunched his nose against the sour distress of an omega’s pheromones, the sweetness of his mother mixed with the stinging sadness and worry making his eyes water a little. “I’m… fine,” he forced out, taking a moment to investigate whether that was true.

He was wrapped up in bandages and some sort of full-body outfit, the bandages covering his hands and feet and neck, and the dark blue outfit taking over the rest of the skin. It was akin to a wetsuit, but wearing it felt somehow cooling and soothing… especially against the side of his throat under his jaw, as if there was something there squeezing a little with comforting cool pressure…

As Jon raised his hand up to feel his throat, a voice suddenly made him jump:

“Don’t touch that!”

The whole Helsteen family turned to stare at the person who had appeared in the doorway, under a sign saying, ‘emergency ward’. Jon traced the long red hair pulled from its ponytail, and worn wool pullover and jeans, confused by the haggard and casual state of the usually pristine senior alpha pilot.

Tavaste Helsteen immediately took control of the situation, narrowing his already narrow and steely eyes at the intruder. “Who are you?”

Amelia placed her small but firm hand on her husband’s knee, subtly squeezing to calm his protective instincts. “Are you the one who saved our Jon?” she guessed, eyes moist with gratitude.

Jacques Rayne who had just appeared in the doorway, glanced from the imposing old alpha to the strict-looking omega, and finally to Jon sitting on the ward bed. “I…” his green eyes flashed for a moment with a guilty light, like he was considering something, then simply stated. “I’m… not.”

Amelia’s gratitude shifted into confusion, tilting her head full of luscious dark hair.

Tavaste was also staring hard at Jacques, putting silent pressure on the poor younger alpha.

Jon jumped to Jacques’ rescue with a hand still close to his own collarbone. “He’s a classmate! A senior,” he awkwardly explained, not wanting to classify them intimately as friends or anything like that. “He’s been… helping.”

A memory of cherry flavor swiped across his lower lip made Jon suck his abused lip in.

Jacques’s gaze immediately caught that motion. His throat felt strangely dry as he spoke to Jon’s parents. “I was sent by our trainer Torrent to check up on him…”

“Trainer?”

Now both of Jon’s parents looked to Jon in utter perplexment.

Jon had only questions, no answers, so he looked to Jacques in turn.

Jacques managed to smile a bit, despite his junior’s sorry state. “You passed the piloting test. You made the training mecha move. A lot,” he chuckled, despite himself.

Jon’s parents didn’t know what to think, struggling to process this sudden turn of events.

Jon was struggling too, but it was all overshadowed by how ecstatic he found himself feeling. “You mean I’ll get to pilot mecha more?!”

Jacques smiled gently at the other’s clear excitement despite what had happened. “Yeah. You surpassed 50%, which automatically qualifies you to make the IMFA team. Congratulations.”

Amelia jumped to hug her son once more, uncaring of the bandages and cooling burn-suit. “Oh my gods! Jon!”

Tavaste also angled himself close, placing a hand on the edge of his son’s bed. “Congratulations. This is incredible news! I’m so proud of you, son.”

Jon took his mother’s embrace easily with a grin, but upon hearing Tavaste’s comment, something clicked.

Jon looked to his dad, grey eyes meeting grey. Their faces were very similar, narrow-lipped and -eyed. The man looking at Jon had a serious and intimidating appearance, but his whole powerful body language radiated only warmth and pride, making Jon feel surprisingly young and off-step.

“Thanks,” he didn’t know what else to say or do, so he simply thanked the man, his father, and buried himself into his mother’s hair, allowing the ample curls and sweet scent to hide him from these sudden vulnerable feelings.

Happy. He felt so indescribably happy, he actually felt embarrassed about it.

Jacques’s expression softened at the scene in front of him. He’d been at first only eager to make sure that Jon was okay, but now looking at the young alpha hiding grin and flushed cheeks into his mother’s hair, Jacques felt a whole different, tender kind of feeling budding between his ribs. Such a sweet sight… it was hard to resist joining in on the Helsteen family’s joy.

“Excuse me,” Amelia’s soft voice drifted from over her son’s shoulder. “Would it be possible to meet the one who saved our son from the mecha? I would love to thank him in person if possible…”

Jacques made a hesitant sound, pondering on what to say. “Captain Dawnmoore is… unfortunately busy at the moment.” Busy scrubbing his personal mecha clean from head to toe with neurotic care, and already forgotten about the person he saved in favor of doting on his mecha, but sure. Busy.

“Dawnmoore?” Jon’s parents’ voices overlapped, brows scrunching in identical expressions of distaste and puzzlement.

‘The original Jon Helsteen’s love rival saved me? No way…’ Jon just couldn’t wrap his head around the idea of being hoisted off a mecha by a person who had punched him previously into oblivion, possibly killing the original Jon and thus bringing Jonah in. There was just no way that Percival Dawnmoore would bother saving a scumbag like Jon Helsteen, especially after beating him up over Caleb Morningstar. Unless…

Jon glanced at the people in the room as Jacques kept making excuses for why the Dawnmoore heir wouldn’t meet them for a show of gratitude. All of these people that felt so real to him, flesh and blood, powerful scent fingerprints… could it be that not only the plot was collapsing due Jon awakening in the original Jon’s body, but because this fantastical world currently was, for all accounts, a real one? Not just a story from the mind of a horny teen boy, but a chaining of real events capable of diverting any which way by his and every other person’s choice.

Jon couldn’t help looking at his parents a little closer. These real people with real feelings thinking that he, a body snatcher, was their real son who also had had real thoughts and feelings…

Tavaste’s gaze strayed in thought, catching his son’s for a moment. “Jon?”

“’m gonna lay down now…” Jon leaned back down, head all soft and dizzy with buzzing, carving, festering thoughts. He was itching to get at his own skin, feeling like bees were burrowing into his flesh and making a hive out of him, hollowing him out with sharp jabs of self-disgust.

The people around him, of course, didn’t think much of it, chalking it up naturally to Jon still feeling tired after just waking up from his induced unconsciousness.

Amelia Helsteen patted her son’s bandaged hand with small, well-groomed hands. “Rest well, son. I’ll come see you again tomorrow when you’re hopefully feeling better.”

“Take your time,” Tavaste added, brow pinched in concern at the slight tremors crawling over the alpha. There was no need for a discreet sniff, anyone nearby could easily smell the acrid anxiety bubbling poisonous over the usually heated, leafy scent of Jon.

Jon merely nodded, laying still in the blankets, dead and staring blankly the way a beached fish might.

His parents comforted him with a few more words and touches, before leaving him to rest.

Jacques lingered in the doorway, carefully nosing the air. But ultimately, he found no words to offer his pliantly laying junior, so he merely stepped back out and shut the door of the emergency wardroom behind them.

The room was awash with cottony silence, humming of monitoring devices, trickling of plumbing and the distant footsteps of medics and visitors alike. Jon lifted his hands up to his ears, pressing with a blank look on his face.

This world was so very loud. Full of sound.

And he’d carelessly stolen one of them.

It wasn’t like Jon had wished to be transmigrated here to this real fantasy place with all these real fantasy people… but that still didn’t lighten the weight of his sin pressing in on his eardrums with the sounds of life, and the sound of the dead.

The living soul of Jonah Springer in the dead body of Jon Helsteen.

‘It’s not me you see and remember,’ Jon swallowed a strangling lump growing behind his Adam’s apple. ‘It’s your son, your rival, your friend, and an asshole.’

Jon took him from them. Just one of the many things he was at fault for.

“It’s all your fault! It’s all your fault!”

Tight knuckles clenched around the blanket and the burn-suit, kneading at the hidden skin with loathing, razor nails. Even reborn, it was at the expense of others. No matter how much Jon wished to be better, it seemed he may just have been born rotten to the core after all.

A choked off laugh broke the silence. Through reddened, watering eyes, the wardroom appeared warped, distant and just perfectly lonely for someone so wrong.

Chapter Text

Chapter 6: Accidentally stealing your ex’s self-insert’s crush

It took three weeks for Jon to make enough of a recovery to attend school and just generally move about normally again. His mother came to dote on him endlessly during that time, showering gifts and kisses enough to embarrass Jon for years to come. He was not used to such powerful affection from a parental figure but tried not to let it show. He needed to play the part. Play the part of a son, which he was actually not. Every single time Amelia Helsteen smiled at him, Jon smiled back and thought: ‘I’m not your son. This body is stolen. Your son is gone and all you have is me.’

But he could never tell that to them. Jon’s parents would be devastated to know that their son had already passed on, and their current one was only a subpar replacement. Jon couldn’t burden them with such twisted grief. So, Jon swore to keep quiet and do his best to be better like he wanted to all along. He would a good son and love them back with all he could. He would take care of them – try to be deserving of their love. It was all he could do for these people who so selflessly doted on him.

Almost no one else came to see Jon while he was in the campus ward. Aside from Jacques, who got some sort of weird joy out of poking fun at Jon and making him prickle like a hedgehog. Jon had no idea what to make of his senior.

The other one was Melanie Torrent, IMFA’s official mecha team’s trainer. She came to congratulate Jon for making the cut and gave him access to the channels meant for the team, plus extra materials for piloting mecha.

“When can I get my own mecha?” Jon asked, eyes sparkling.

Melanie couldn’t help giving half a smile at the enthusiastic poor boy in bandages. “Not until you come back from a few battles alive buddy. We have a tight budget, you know.”

Jon was disappointed, but understood, of course. Money didn’t grow on trees even in fantasy worlds.

As Jon finally got to gingerly walk out of the ward with a nurse escorting him, he tried to scratch at the side of his throat close to his jaw. It had been really itchy there in particular as skin started to grow back, but each time the omega nurse slapped his hand away firmly and scolded him:

“Your pheromone glands were partly burned off! They are going to be extremely sensitive while they heal, so keep them covered and clean for another two weeks. And stop scratching for gods’ sake!”

Jon made a pathetic whine and dug his fangs into his bottom lip as he curled his claws into his palms. It itched so fucking bad, he was about to go insane! He slapped the slight bumps of the glands a few times to ease the itching a little, and made his way towards the first lessons of the day like every other student. He had done his best to keep up with the others during recovery and there was going to be a test, so he was feeling nervous, which helped turn his attention away from his healing glands.
He got further distracted when all of a sudden Caleb Morningstar himself crossed his path with a gaggle of friends and admirers. Jon slowed his step first to let them just go past him inside the central building, but Caleb had something else on his mind as he slowed down and forced Jon to engage with him. Jon was truly unlucky. He had sworn to stay out of Caleb’s way in order to not get in trouble in this world, but here he was again, surrounded by a crowd with Caleb at the helm, smiling at him his angelic smile. A shadow of a flashback filtered over Jon’s gaze but blinked it forcefully away.

“What?” Jon couldn’t help asking rudely, which made the others scowl.

Caleb didn’t take it to heart. He merely batted his gorgeous pale eyelashes lazily at him and pouted his lips to deign concern like a saint of a person, despite their previous disputes. “I’m so sorry about what happened to you back in the mecha testing area, Jon! The whole school knows about it. I sent you flowers, did you get them?”

He did in fact get them and threw them in the garbage. But he merely smiled flatly and said “yes” to avoid a fight.

Caleb seemed relieved and smiled wider. “We’ll be working together from here on out. You know, since you made the mecha team also.”

Oh, God, Jon forgot about that completely! He was so enamored by the mecha that he forgot Caleb would be there too, right by his side learning and fighting. How could Jon survive something like that? Caleb would definitely find a way to get Jon killed for being such a douche to him as the original Jon Helsteen, or just because this fantasy world catered to the real Caleb’s tastes and possibly was afterlife’s punishment for Jon for being such a horrible, irredeemable person when he was still alive. Apparently, suicide did not count as paying for anything one did in life, no matter how much one wanted to try to be better and try again.

Maybe another suicide would –

“What?” Jon startled, waking up suddenly from his spiraling thoughts. He noticed everyone looking at him weird, maybe slightly concerned.

“I said…” Caleb stepped a little closer, looking so beautiful and so cruelly neutral. “… that I hope you’ll treat me better than you used to. And if you touch any of our other teammates inappropriately, I will have you kicked out of the Academy. Got it?”

This was a no-brainer for Jon who wanted nothing to do with anyone, especially Caleb. He just wanted to have a better life and pay for Jon Helsteen’s stolen life to his new parents. “Yeah, you got it.” Jon bumped past the omega, staining him with an angry smell of overly fermented camellia leaves like bitter tea with a gush from the wounded glands.

Caleb’s gaze trailed after him, sharp and suspicious, nose wrinkling against the offending burst of scent. The others around him congregated close, forming almost a protective circle around their campus angel, wafting their own scents to cover up Jon’s hostile one.

“Are you okay?” A tall beta beauty asked in concern.

“Don’t let him get to you,” an alpha woman growled, putting a sturdy hand on the omega’s shoulder, a little too close to a gland. “He’s acting better now, but he may be just plotting something.”

Caleb merely hummed and shrugged the offending hand off. He was truly feeling that something odd was going on with that alpha Jon Helsteen, but was unable to figure out what exactly. He would have to watch closely and see if he’d have to take any actions to remove Jon from his life permanently…

…

Jon chewed on his pen the whole time the history test was going on, trying to cram into his useless brain everything that had happened in their Empire for the past five hundred years and pour it onto the screen on the table. Every single student had a touch screen on a table in front of them, either writing with a pen or tapping at keys to fill out answers on the online test. A beta teacher was walking amongst them, spreading a very thin layer of calming freshly cut grass scent as she went, possibly to help calm down the students’ nerves. Jon appreciated it, especially since that seemed to help his itching glands for some reason, keeping Jon’s claws off them.

The Scarlet Empire was named after the military upending the power struggle between church and government a few hundred years ago. According to text books Jon had read from for the test, this was because the church had declared the freshly invading aliens as gods arriving to deliver judgement, while the government tried to lobby for a more scientific but capitalistic view of capturing and researching the aliens to make money out of them. The two parties got into bloody struggles over this, mostly with the power of their influence and media, inciting conflict between the people of the Empire and hurting hundredths of thousandths of citizens. The church even sabotaged the government, so they would fail to implant some of their views and protections against the aliens, and in counter, the government labeled every religious person a fanatic and jailed them no matter who they were or what they believed. The military led by IMFA’s very own Percival Dawnmoore’s ancestor, Fleur Dawnmoore, staged a coup to seize the means to act upon the invading threat as they saw fit: with violence against violence. Their Empire became a military country with a tight grasp on the view that the aliens were not gods or means to make more money, but simply a threat that must be eliminated for the survival of planet Earth.

The Scarlet Empire in just recent years also joined hands with the Frost Empire, which had formed from several small countries fusing together after wide devastation from the alien attacks. They were stationed on the other side of the ocean up North and used the cold as a natural deterrent against the aliens as they fought. Both Empires were benefitting of this cooperation after years of hostility between the Empires, as the Scarlet Empire was leading in mecha development and Frost Empire in the human enhancement department. It was even rumored that the youngest prince who was piloting a mecha in the Frost Empire, had excessive body modifications done to allow him to reach peak synchronization rates with his personal mecha. His synchronization was rumored to be a whopping 99%! If it was true, it was incredible. Inhuman even to become nearly one with the machine.

Jon was practically salivating as he wrote these things down, just thinking about that amazing synchronization rate. You could handle delicate cutlery with that kind of synch rate! He was super jealous!!
His daydreaming was burst with the chime of the bell. Everyone finished sending their answers and Jon all but ran outside to the one place in IMFA, which he was truly interested in, and which had become available to him recently: the mecha training center, which was a side building separate from the main building itself. Jon was granted access as they scanned his credentials and face, and he got to walk through the area his class had been through the previous time with the towering mechas, but without anyone escorting him. Jon was spinning around himself as people passed by, doing their own thing, just taking in all the different mecha models and caressing the metal chassis of a mecha being built in the hangar. Some mechanics hanging from wires up above smiled at his enthusiasm in amusement. Every single pilot was the exact same, whether they showed it outwardly or not. They all loved mecha.

“Like what you see?”

Jon startled and looked up at one of the machines lowering some kind of big, bulky camera on the floor. Jacques was perched on the camera, holding onto the wires, and grinning at Jon’s sparkling wide grey eyes.

“I mean,” the senior pilot flicked his red ponytail with easy flair. “You’ve already seen this, but it is different when you can just walk around by yourself.”

Jon couldn’t help agreeing. He took a closer look at the bulky piece of machinery as clanked on the floor in front of a shorter mecha. It was a head, the lens on the front being the single eye of the tank-like mecha on four feet.

“I’ve never seen a four-legger one up close,” Jon admitted with admiration as two mechanics started wheeling the head away.

Jacques gave a friendly smile and dusted off his hands. He was wearing the very tight black bodysuit of a pilot, and Jon couldn’t help his gaze trailing down those wide shoulders, over well-defined abs and the sharp hipbones…

Jon looked quickly back up at the other when he realized he’d missed something being said.

Jacques gave him a look, looking thoroughly self-satisfied. “Eyes up here, junior. I know this body is a piece of art, but…”

Jon flushed instantly red and on pure instinct he couldn’t stop, simply whacked Jacques right on the nose. Then panicked as people around them gasped and Jacques held his nose with a pained sound. Jon apologized awkwardly, feeling his heart hammering painfully inside his ribcage.

“It was a reflex!” Jon tried desperately to explain the violent impulse. “I didn’t mean it!”

“Hitting your seniors now, are you?”

Jon froze, canine dug deep into his lower lip, and turned to see Caleb walking up to them. Caleb gave a cold look at Jon and turned his whole attention then towards Jacques, who seemed to feel instantly better when a beauty was attending to him.

“It hurts…!” Jacques whined pathetically, appealing to the omega’s nurturing instincts shamelessly.

Jon however didn’t see it that way. The only thing he saw was the red nose and bruised skin, and Caleb holding Jacques’s face, and people whispering and muttering all around him. Jon couldn’t quite hear what they were saying, but he knew it wasn’t good. Jon had reacted with violence against embarrassment, against vulnerability, just like in the past. He hadn’t caught the motion like he was supposed to. All those hours in therapy and he still threw a punch at another person for nothing! For being teased! How fucking messed up was he?

Jackques and Caleb were in their very own pink bubble when Jon slunk past them and ran away. But unlike the senior alpha, who was busy playing weak, the golden-haired omega noticed Jon running away. Blue eyes crinkled at the edges, making the innocent gaze sharper, dissecting, slicing at the back of the quickly retreating alpha like Caleb could open him up and reveal his inside for his own perusal. The Jon he knew wouldn’t retreat like that. The Jon he knew was dumber than that, hot-headed to hell and back. But now Jon was actually avoiding fighting? Suspicious. Very suspicious.

Jon was running away from all of this, from those gazes following him and judging him, feeling his lungs squeeze tightly. He tried to repeat the mantra, that no one here wanted to hurt him. That they didn’t know him, didn’t hate him. Jon even wrapped his arms around himself tightly as he hurried down the hallway, then rounded some corners and slunk into a vacated room full of mechanical parts and pieces from different mechas. He hid behind a huge hand and sat into its hard embrace, leant against a crooked finger. And he tried to breath. In and out. In and out. Calming his senses which were still telling him that he was in danger and pheromones which were spreading so easily from the itching, healing glands, like they were two unraveled pockets spilling their contents on the road. Jon huffed angrily at his own sickly anxious scent, trying to repel it from his sinuses. It pissed him off to smell so keenly what he was feeling. It felt like it was amplifying his sense of danger, and he couldn’t have it. He needed to calm down before he started swinging again! He needed to! He –

A sudden spray of ethanol hit Jon’s hacked up hair. He coughed at the harsh stench as it covered up all his anxious smell of rotting camellia leaves and essentially purified the air around him. Jon was sneezing and coughing in confusion. “What… the fuck…?!”
Another spray hit the front of his green uniform. Jon jumped up from the mecha hand and swatted the air like looking to hurt an invisible enemy. “What? What?!” he asked around bared teeth, then caught the sight of someone lowering themselves headfirst to his face-level with a spray bottle in one hand and a rag in another.

It was an alpha for sure: that powerful yet sleek frame, black monolid eyes that challenged the looker straight on, and a scent that was as harsh as a desert. It burned the nose with searing sunlight, dry heat, and venom of scorpions and snakes. It was a truly offending smell, clearly spelling the owner’s displeasure.

Jon stared at the young man hanging upside down from a mecha chassis. The young man stared back with a slight wrinkle of his nose.

“You stink.”

Jon’s brows lifted as he stared, incredulous. “I stink?”

The unfamiliar alpha had a pilot suit on, so he was probably one of Jon’s future teammates. It wouldn’t be good to start things off the wrong foot. On the other hand, he had just been sprayed down with ethanol for having an anxiety attack. And that was not okay.

Jon bared his teeth again and tried to throw a punch at the other alpha, but the sleek form merely flexed back up, then lowered down to stare at him. Jon felt even more furious than before. This man was mocking him!

“Get down here and let me beat you to Hell and back!”

The other merely arched a sharp brow. “Why?”

“Why?!” Jon sputtered, hopping in place ready to rumble. “Because you fucking sprayed me with that horrible smell and ruined my attempts to calm down! So, now you get to serve as my calming punching bag!” In his mind, Jon did know that this was not how he should be acting if he wanted to be better, but he was just so incredibly mad and itchy and guilty from punching Jackques! He needed to vent, and this alpha just plopped right into his lap like a gift from Heaven. So be it. Jon was itching to fight again, to feel bruises and blood on his skin, the sweat of another in his nose!

The other alpha stared at him for a moment, then dropped down like Spiderman. He was very agile with incredible balance, that was clear from the way he moved, prowled like a beast. He walked forward with the spray bottle and rag, wielding them like pistols or swords, poised and dangerous.

Jon suddenly had the premonition that he was going to get his ass kicked. But that was what he was looking for, now wasn’t it? A fight. Not a fair fight necessarily, or one that he could win. Just a fight, a physical, primal collision between two people to stave off the wicked drumming of his heart and prickle and buzzing in the back of his head.

“Come on!” Jon shouted, jabbing his own chest with a fist the way he used to as a teen.

The other alpha rolled his neck, observing him. The person before him was a junior clearly, still in his school uniform, and unmarked by the light rubbery smell of the pilot’s bodysuit and mecha’s metal and silicon. A distinguished nose took in all kinds of smells from the younger alpha: fear. Anger. Camellia leaves. Honey, which left a tangy, sticky feeling on the other alpha’s tongue, making him unconsciously move his mouth like he was swallowing something hard. This always happened to him when he found a scent which he was more sensitive to. It coated the inside of his mouth and made him chew and swallow as the powerful mental image the scent brought manifested in his mind’s eye. The black eyes narrowed at the unknown junior. Even under all that ethanol to cleanse the air, his scent still stuck out. It was annoying.

As Jon waited for the other to make the first move, he couldn’t help but observe the way the other swallowed hard several times in their staring contest. Feeling a sense of danger suddenly, Jon made the first move and rushed forward with his hands up and close to his chest, protecting his face.

The other alpha noted the stance imitating a boxer. It was incomplete, just a shadow of the real thing, so not a real boxer then. Long legs maneuvered around the fierce junior and ducked under a jab aimed at the jaw. Black eyes noted the good stance, but also how the legs were a little too open. So, he aimed there and made the other stumble. And then took the startled junior alpha’s head into an armlock as he fell, and the senior pilot kicked the other steadying foot from under the alpha.

Jon gulped hard, clutching at the arm holding him firmly hostage. Completely on furious instinct, Jon twisted himself around just enough that he could bite the other on the side of his bodysuit. Long canines were desperately resisted by the stretchy material.
The moment the other felt those fangs, he whacked the middle of the junior’s spine with punishing strength, eliciting a long whine of pain. And just when he was about to show the junior how a real bite felt, the door to the storage room opened and Melanie Torrent blinked at them.

Both alphas froze awkwardly, one perched in the other’s hold.

Melanie squinted at them. “Percy, let go. We need him to have a working body today.”

‘Percy?’, Jon startled, then was dropped unceremoniously on the cold, hard floor with a thump. Jon rubbed at his jaw as the other sleek alpha stood aside at perfect attention like a soldier. This couldn’t be…

“Jon Helsteen, meet your team Captain: Percival Dawnmoore.”

It was. Percival “Percy” Dawnmoore, the Scarlet Empire’s proverbial military prince. And Jon had just cursed at him, tried to punch him, and bit him. His fangs had pierced through the material of the bodysuit, two small holes revealing tawny skin.

Jon felt embarrassed all over again. First, he punched his senior on the nose, then fought his Captain?! He was so fucked! He hated himself so much! Why was he like this?!

Percy observed the other through his most trusty sense: smell. His nostrils worked silently in taking the other’s scent in again. Anger. So much anger. A huge surge of it, but it had a different flavor to the previous one when they fought. This one was venom. A snake biting its own tail with silent fury, hidden from others. Poisoning himself where no one else could see. It made Percy curious. He had never smelt something like this before. It was an interesting new experience which he filed neatly away in his brain’s massive catalogue of things of interest.

Melanie could tell that the Captain was observing everything about his new teammate and wouldn’t speak up, so Melanie took the initiative to get the two acquainted. “You are the same age actually: twenty-three years old. Percy came to the Academy earlier than his peers due to his fast learning and family connections.” It wasn’t a taboo to say it out loud. Percy knew it. His parents knew it. Everyone knew it: Percy was birthed to pilot a mecha and so he took several leaps in his studies to just do that and only that. Percy was essentially a mechamaniac. He lived and breathed mecha, and nothing else could enter his eyes when faced with one.

Melanie was very aware that there was some friction between the two. It was no secret that Percy had previously beat up Jon Helsteen for harassing an omega – the one who was going to be their teammate. The trainer could already feel a headache forming. She would have to do some heavy emotional lifting to pull this team together and she was not looking forward to it. Unfortunately, sexual harassment wasn’t enough to get one pulled out from the Academy. Alphas were alphas, and so forth. It was sad, but also Melanie was secretly glad that Jon Helsteen had stayed in their sphere of influence. To leave out a gem that could reach 89% synchronization rate with a training mecha would be a crime against everything their Empire stood for!

Melanie snapped her fingers, suddenly getting an idea to bridge the gap between the two alphas. “You know, Percy… Jon here is the one who got the highest synchronization rating out of all the 5th classes.”

“89%!”

Jon nearly choked on his spit when Captain Percival was suddenly right in his face, staring at him eyes wide, face emotionless but somehow still intense. “Say what?”

“89%!” Percy repeated, biting into his thumb in a rush of excitement. “You’re the 89% pilot I saw in the reports!”

Jon blinked back, taking several steps back so he wouldn’t be assaulted by the other’s powerful pheromones. “Y-yeah… that’s me,” Jon admitted awkwardly, trying to smile, but not sure if he honestly should. Sure, it was an amazing number, but on the other hand, he had to have been saved from the mecha like some weakling…

“You looked so much smaller when I pulled you out,” Percy said without much prompting, as if having the same thought process as the other alpha. “So light. So fragile. But I could also tell that you are powerful!” His pitch-black eyes took that same keen look again. “I could tell. You wouldn’t have gone so far otherwise. You really love mecha.”

In reality, Jon had been locked into a trauma-loop, but he wasn’t going to tell that to anyone. He did give a strange look to his Captain, realizing that it really was him who saved Jon. It wasn’t a crazy rumor or a mistake. It was real. “You saved me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Percival was supposed to hate him because nobody really liked a guy like Jon Helsteen. He had even beat up the original so bad that he might have just died and thus been replaced by Jonah as Jon! Percival must not have known who he was. Only that made sense.

Percy blinked at the other’s question, honestly confused. “I saved you because that is what a soldier should do: save lives.” It was that simple. Nothing else. No grudge, no affection, nothing. Just simple guideline drilled into Percival Dawnmoore’s head by his parents ever since he was conceived and could understand words. He was to be the people’s shield and sword. He was to sacrifice his own body, so others could live. That was what a soldier did. And if Percy got to be a pilot at the same time, then he was truly living the life that he should be living. There was nothing complicated about that.

Melanie knew all this as a family friend to Dawnmoores, but Jon on the other hand was completely taken back by the pure, untainted look in his Captain’s eyes. His black gaze was like the night above a desert. Vast and full of stars twinkling in the extreme temperatures of space.

Jon found himself falling into that gaze and quickly shook himself out of it. He closed himself off physically by putting his arms around himself, making soothing motions up and down his sides. This wasn’t how their relationship should be. Jon was sure of it! Percival was supposed to hate him because of Caleb. But instead, the Captain looked at Jon like he was something fascinating and new. Almost like he couldn’t even remember what happened between them over a month ago.

Wait. Jon looked back at the other alpha. “Do you not remember what happened between us before?”

Percy tilted his head, face blank.

“You know… What happened with Caleb Morningstar?” Jon tried again, speaking a little quieter, ashamed and mad at the original’s behavior. “The… sexual harassment? You beat me up for it?”

“Oh!” Percy came back to life, then gave Jon a once over. “It was you?”

Jon wasn’t sure how to feel about Percival not recognizing him. But Jon did cut his long hair off… Maybe the Captain was just face-blind? “Yeah, it was me. But not anymore!” Jon hurried to assure to save this calm between them. “I’ve learned my lesson! Seen the light! I will…!”

“No.”

Both Melanie and Jon looked at Percy in puzzlement. Percy simply stared back at Jon, gnawing on the skin of his thumb, eyes sharp.

“No, that was not you. You’re completely different. You smell different. There was no camellia. There were leaves, but from birches and they were rotten. And the honey was too sticky and sweet, disgusting.”

Jon couldn’t help taking a step back when his Captain swooped closer like a hawk, scenting his junior.

Percy’s monolids quivered as he thought hard. “It’s not the same… this one is… fine.”

Melanie looked back to Jon with a quirked brow, telling him that this was quite high praise from someone with oversensitivity to smell like the Captain. Jon merely stared completely dumbfounded at the man before him, who’s eyes were so pure and clean, and whole countenance so powerful and strict. This meeting with Percival Dawnmoore had gone completely different from how Jon thought it would. Instead of hatred, he was faced with accusations that he stank, then with a proclamation that he smelled just fine.

Under Jon’s troubled gaze, Percy watched him back with an outwardly empty but on the inside chipper look. Percy didn’t know how or why, but he was sure that this person in front of him was different from the one he had met over a month ago by chance when discovering an omega in distress. As a soldier and fellow schoolmate, Percy took swift action to mercilessly punish the assailant and teach him a lesson on how to properly act with other human beings. That Jon had been annoying, barking senselessly and shouting vulgar things which made Percy’s ears ring and his foot stomp harder. This Jon was wary and cautious and full of rage, yes, but he wasn’t just using it against others. He was directing it at himself. And he smelled way more pleasant than that time. The leaves had shed off their rot and flourished, then been fermented carefully into something tasty, something with a coat of honey on it. Tea. Jon Helsteen smelt of tea and had a synchronization rate of 89%. This Jon Helsteen Percy was eager to engage with. Another mechalover was so rare, after all.

…

Percival Dawnmoore was not known for particularly liking people. He liked machines. He really liked mecha and gladly talked the ears off anyone willing to listen about them. So, it was more than a little surprising for everyone on the IMFA team, both old and new students, when they got to the training room that had real combat mecha waiting for them, and their aloof Captain was sitting almost knee to knee with another alpha. And not just any alpha. Jon Helsteen! The guy he’d brutally beat up! The guy every omega and beta were so careful around! A famous sleazebag and a peacock among alphas! Completely opposite in every single way to Percival, and yet here he was, constantly talking to the other, who looked like he didn’t know what to think, and might have even wanted to run away from his Captain.

Caleb entered with Jacques at his side and instantly froze when he saw one of the most handsome yet difficult to get along with alphas by his desperate pursuer’s side. Jacques blinked in bewilderment, but otherwise seemed glad about what he saw. Caleb on the other hand was instantly burning with fierce jealousy. He had tried to get close to the Captain of IMFA team for months now! Tried to chat him up at charity balls his parents took him to and find him in the hangar bay at school, but Percival was elusive and quiet. He always merely glanced at Caleb batting his eyelashes at him, like Caleb wasn’t the most alluring omega in existence, but just some bug clinging to the Captain’s shoe! It made Caleb furious, but all the more eager to pursue the other. Truly, the Captain was an alpha worth admiration: Percival had several commemorative badges from the battlefield against aliens, and also prizes from several different schools of combat and martial arts. He was a great shot. He knew more about mecha than anyone else at school! And sure, Percival often slacked off on all other topics at school and stared emptily into space instead of engaging with people, but that was just part of his allure! This ditzy and air-headed side of him lend his harsh appearance some cuteness which just made everyone’s teeth ache when they saw it! Even Jacques couldn’t help teasing the other when he was like that!

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Jacques suddenly quipped from the omega’s side with a crooked smile. “The mechamaniac found someone to bother.”

Caleb made a non-committal sound and stared hard at Jon’s back. He could still remember every single time Jon Helsteen had held him down or copped a feel of him. Remembered all those horrible, greasy words and demeaning comments made in poor attempt to flirt with him. It had gone on for years. Caleb had endured it because he knew he had the upper hand in the end. Caleb was a high-class omega and knew how to spin a tale to get the maximum effect from people. He knew his way around the masses, so he could move them against his enemies and protect himself. That way he had always gotten Jon into trouble for what he did. And he would do it again, if the alpha wanted to get in his way and try to pretend to be someone he wasn’t. Caleb didn’t want him anywhere near the people he liked. Jon didn’t deserve happiness. He was an awful person, always would be. People didn’t change that easily, and Caleb would prove it to Jon himself and all the others. All he needed was time and an opportunity. And Caleb could be ever so patient.

So, he sauntered over with the other team members, Jacques coming to the other side of Jon to question how the hell he had gotten so close to their Captain in such short time. And Jon just looked back at Jacques with some confusion and told him it was mainly because he had gotten such a high score in mecha training.

And oh… that chafed Caleb. That spot… that praise was supposed to be his. He was the one who was supposed to impress everyone as an omega, and now some stupid alpha had stolen the spotlight with an injury and some impossible numbers?! Infuriating!

Making an attempt to catch his Captain’s attention, Caleb went for a topic he knew the alpha liked: mecha. “Captain, would you be willing to help me pick out a mecha most suited to my combat style later?”

Percy glanced at him, then looked back at Jon. “Jacques can do it. Jon, what kind of mecha do you like the best? Walkers or fliers? Many legs or two legs? Close-combat or sniper type? What colour? Do you like black? Mine is black with purple LEDs. I named him Wanderer!”

Jon did his best to answer, although the speed at which Percy talked was crazy. Captain seemed to be extremely excited to have someone to talk mecha about, so Jon didn’t dare admit that although he liked mecha, his original hadn’t been as into studying them, so he didn’t have as much information about them as Percy clearly had.

As Percy started info-dumping about the benefits of maneuvering around with two-legged mecha versus one with many legs, their trainer fortunately made her way over to them in a pilot suit of her own and gestured for them all to follow her. She towered over them, hair in a tight bun, standing at attention and looking each one of the new and old candidates over. A light scent of freezing mountain air and pines wafted over them from the powerful alpha trainer as she suppressed some of their overt excitement.

“Alright, kids!” Melanie bellowed, startling the newbies into more alert positions. “We will first record the newbies’ current synchronization rates on a fresh batch of standard combat mechas. Then you will perform a series of movements and take shots at targets to practice fine movement with the A.Is. Then we’ll do a final recording of your synchronization rates, wash up and take a rest.” Then she turned towards the team Captain. “The rest of you will continue as usual sparring with each other in your mecha. Percy, you assign the pairs.”

They separated into new pilots and old pilots. Caleb was busy networking with the other pilots, while Jon was busy staying far away from him and looking at all the impressive mecha lined up in the testing room they walked into. The standard combat mecha were simple mass-produced models, easy to maneuver for any pilot and only a single submachine gun strapped to one arm and a long blade strapped to the other. They were all white with orange and blue LED-lights on their faces and bodies. A single lens was working as the mecha’s eye, easing the strain to the brain.

They piled into secondary gender assigned changing rooms and Jon was glad to see Caleb go with one other omega. Three betas filed into the beta changing room, leaving Jon alone in the alpha changing room. Which suited him just fine and allowed him to discreetly scratch his scabbed over glands when no one was looking. Jon washed up, put on his pilot suit, and let it vacuum seal him in. This black outfit had the official IMFA logo on the lapel and left arm, and there were rubber circles all along his limbs and spine, marking the spots where all the cables would attach to connect Jon with the mecha A.I. It was kind of freaky, but also reminded Jon of the many mecha anime he’d watched when he was young.

He took the elevator to one of the mecha and glanced at the other pilots standing level at their mecha’s necks. Caleb caught his eye somehow and smiled. Jon shivered, instincts confused between attraction and fear, alpha and man. He did his best to squash whatever was left of his lingering affection towards the real Caleb and the original Jon’s feelings towards this Caleb, and wrenched open the hatch of the mecha’s neck when Melanie called out for them to begin loading in. Just the same as the bulky training mecha, this one basically ate Jon, the silicon passage full of warning signs working like a throat to swallow him down into the chest cavity. Jon landed on the squishy chair, wondering at the feel of being wrapped up by a slowly warming, ticking machine, and let out an unconscious surprised noise when the mecha sensed him seated and strapped him in. Jon braced himself for the pain of thin yet sturdy needles entering him, but it didn’t lessen the sting much at all. He breathed in and out to calm his body as an orange and blue glow engulfed the inside of the mecha. Jon felt suddenly a bout of nausea as the A.I connected with his senses and lit up the lens at the pointy head of the white mecha. There was nothing but movable handles in front of him, plus some buttons and pulleys for emergency orders. The handles of this combat mecha had buttons on it, laid under each finger. Jon thought happily that years playing video games might actually be useful for this and breathed deeper as the mecha whirred and shuddered to life.

On the other side, Jon could hear other mecha coming to life. He glanced at them, the mecha’s head turning with Jon’s. The A.I projected in real time what it sensed on the outside to Jon, showing him several identical white mecha jerking their legs and shaking their arms. One even confidently pointed the submachine gun attached to the arm at some targets on the other side of the room and fired. Jon and a few other mecha startled visibly at the sudden loud rattle of bullets shooting out and empty bullet casings raining down on the floor. When silence commenced after a moment, Melanie’s voice rang out through the comms:

“Please don’t do that before I tell you to.”

Jon could imagine the trainer’s blank look and chuckled, nervousness still there but now laced with anticipation.

They were instructed to first walk from one end of the large room to the other, do some simple jumps and lunges, stretch their arms and swing them about, then finally point their guns at the targets on the far wall. Jon startled again, unused to the sound of such huge guns spitting out bullets at high speeds. He felt embarrassed by the reaction, by the fear it displayed, and gritted his teeth hard, fangs poking his lower lip. A scab had formed there by all the biting, so it was sensitive, but Jon paid it no mind. He was going to prove himself and all the others that he wasn’t a coward. He was strong. He was calm and strong and wouldn’t freak out like last time when faced with that freaky one-eyed alien! He was better than that!

Sharp claws raked at the glands sweating under the skin-tight suit.

“Jon, your synchronization rate is dropping fast,” the trainer’s voice startled him. “Calm your emotions. This is just practice, not real battle.”

‘Yet’, Melanie Torrent thought to herself as she stood in the upstairs control room, looking through the window at all the white mecha firing at targets. On the screens beside the window, the young pilots’ vitals and brainwaves were displayed, along with their synch numbers. Few assistants tapped away at their keyboards, zooming in to one pilot then another, checking in on them and trying to say calming words. Melanie’s sharp eyes trailed from one pilot to another. She was disappointed to see Jon Helsteen’s synch rate dip so low below the standard 50% line, but at the very least the others were displaying pretty good numbers. Caleb Morningstar especially was holding a steady 57% synch rate even while shooting at the targets like hearing huge guns fire was second nature to him.

‘What’s wrong with Helsteen though?’ Melanie wondered, wrinkling her brows at the young alpha chewing on his lower lip and jumping each time gunfire started. She guessed it wasn’t that odd for Jon Helsteen to have low synch rate considering what he used to have, but the previous time he reached Flow! He was one with the mecha at one point, and not just because he had been melting into it from the incredible heat. Yet now, it seemed like he couldn’t get himself into the same state of mind. Melanie wondered about it, pressing a claw against the underside of her chin. Last time the high synch rate happened when Helsteen thought he was in danger. Maybe he could only move a mecha properly when he was in real combat. Which he would be in eventually, but maybe…

“Stop shooting.” Melanie leaned against a table and spoke into the mic. “Good. You guys are doing good. Which is why next, I’d like you all to pair up and face each other from the opposite sides of this room.”

Confused, every pilot slowly but surely made their way to a partner and faced each other from opposing walls. Without knowing it, Jon and Caleb were facing each other, an alpha and omega, one teeming with stress and one blinking in contempt at the other.

Melanie took another look at the dropping synch rate of Jon Helsteen and quickly leaned into the mic to instruct the pilots. “Since you are so good at moving mecha, let’s see you moving them against each other. Mock fight! Don’t wreck the mecha though. We just got them. So, no guns or swords.” She counted down and the mecha started to advance towards each other.

Each one was slow, tentative, testing out the feel of preparing for a punch or a kick. Jon was feeling better than before listening to the thumps of the mecha moving. Fighting was something Jon could do. It was familiar. He had been doing it for most of his life. Against his peers and against… his father. Jon frowned, took yet another deep breath, let it out, and then lunged at the other mecha. His synch rate was still on the low side however, which made the mecha’s movements stilted and easy to read.
Caleb quirked a brow at his stuttering opponent and stepped forward. He moved the handle on the inside of the mecha to wind up a punch from below, then released it just when a stumbling hit was coming his way. Caleb easily dodged and sent the other mecha reeling back.

Jon let out an indignant sound at being countered so easily and wrenched at the handles, fingers clenching over the buttons. This mecha didn’t have fingers, just pointed stumps meant for hitting or stabbing. Jon moved the handles and bent his feet in the silicone in the middle of the machinery. The mecha whirred and clicked, A.I attempting to grasp everything being filtered in through the connection between it and the human inside it. It understood the commands, but they came through sluggishly and in bits and pieces, making it difficult for the mecha to react to anything in time.

Caleb sent out a kick and sent the other flying. He sneered, disappointed for getting an opponent like this. He wanted a real challenge! He wanted to show his good side to everyone! There was no way to do it with an opponent like this! Fuming but reluctant to show it, Caleb took two large steps and jumped on top of the prone mecha.

Jon gasped in alarm as a heavy weight settled on his mecha and made it even harder for him to move. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!” He attempted to grapple with the other mecha, but the pilot inside clearly had a higher synch rate as the arms coming at him slapped his own aside easily and went high up. Jon saw a fist coming at him from above. His pupils contracted. He ground his teeth together so hard it hurt as a punch hit his mecha right on the lens. Which meant he saw it coming right at his eyes. Cold sweat coated the inside of Jon’s suit as the whole mecha shook with the punch. He went to grapple again, but the synch rate was still too low. The other pilot made their mecha lean right on the malleable “jugular” and hammered more punches in.

Jon jumped in his seat, muscles tense, gums aching. Fear stench filled the inside of the mecha sour and sickly. Jon was breathing hard, panic blurring his vision and making the pointed metal arm look like a fleshy pale fist coming at him again and again, accompanied by the sound of his name echoing. A roar burst out of Jon’s lungs as he kicked out his feet. The mecha on top of him twitched and leaned down even harder. Breath wheezed out from between Jon’s clenched teeth as he jerked his legs against the restraints and cables again, forcing the mecha to ram its’ feet against the ground and thrust its’ hips up.

Caleb braced against the rattling of machinery as his mecha was lifted off the ground suddenly. He huffed in annoyance at the feeble attempt at fighting back and brought both of his arms up high. He was going to put an end to this futile resistance!

Jon looked back up from his handles and suddenly two huge fists shattered his eyes – lens – eyes in a burst of orange and sparks of wires being broken! He shrieked, expecting pain, but not feeling it for some reason. Shaking his head, Jon gasped in sharp and ragged, furiously pulling air into his lungs as alarms started beeping, showing error messages right before his eyes as the A.I informed of the damage to his eyes – lens – eyes. More pheromones burst into the air like pollen from a fleshy flower. It itched. It itched, it itched, it itched so bad! Jon’s claws climbed up his neck and he scratched with blind panic, ripping the skin open and letting blood out. The mecha sensed the injury of its pilot and let out a sound like a screech. The A.I compensated for the lost vision by pooling resources into other sensory machinery. Jon could hear the mecha on top of him. Every single punch hammering him into the floor and forcing him to submit. The creak of the arms moving and the air whooshing. Jon rasped out a “I’m not weak anymore!” and took the A.I’s advice to bend his legs way up and upend the entire mecha so he could get the legs around the opponent’s headpiece.

Caleb gasped in surprise as his head wrenched back as if physically grasped on the inside. He hadn’t experienced a sensation like this before: the mecha’s senses blended in with his, making him think it was his body being clamped down on tight with unyielding metal. A sense of danger bubbled up, making the sweet, minty scent flow bitter.

The synch rate next to Caleb Morningstar’s image took a five-degree dip down.

Jon Helsteen’s synch rate on the other hand was rising steadily. The young alpha’s face was frightening, shadowed by clear rage and fear as he shrieked with the mecha and slammed his broken face against the other mecha’s face.

Everyone in the observation room grimaced as more orange glass flew out. A few screamed when a huge orange chunk embedded itself into the bullet-proof glass of their window, making a very slight scratch.

Melanie got to the mic instantly. “Alright! Stop the training! Jon! Caleb! Now!”

“Caleb?” Jon rasped out, claws dyed red against his open gland, and promptly froze. He hit Caleb. He hit him! He’d never, ever hurt Caleb like that. Like… like…

Like his father hurt his mother.

Jon tensed suddenly in on himself, muscles seizing against his will and his hands flying off the handles. He squeezed his head as an intense feeling pressed against his skull, making it feel like his brain was trying to explode out. Jon was vaguely aware that he was having some kind of panic attack or an episode, and tried to breathe in and out like he was taught.

Meanwhile, Caleb startled at hearing Jon’s name and stared through the partially broken lens at the other’s smashed-in eye full of exposed wires. The omega imagined the alpha’s face like that: smashed in and bloody, vulnerable under him. Not so cocky now that he was the one being pinned down and shown his place! Caleb grinned savagely and threw in one more punch, cutting wires and making Jon inside his mecha gasp out as the mecha’s senses simulated pain to his chaotic mind.

The people inside the observation room made note of this interaction and tapped away at the keyboards in worry.

Melanie ground her molars together hard, feeling guilty for inciting this, but contradictorily also glad to see Jon’s synch rate at 71%. It was almost like Jon could only pilot mecha when he was living in a moment of violence. Which was concerning. Melanie made note to assign the young alpha a therapist to dig into it. They didn’t need traumatized pilots on the field before war had had the chance to do it to them!

“Caleb Morningstar!” Melanie shouted again in warning.

Caleb huffed, blowing his blonde hair off his sweaty brows, and got off the mecha underneath him. He was tempted to spit but resisted. He had an image to uphold, and he wasn’t breaking it over Jon Helsteen.

The other mecha quickly re-attached to the hooks on the walls and pilots popped out to run over and see what had happened. Everyone was worried, but more of Caleb than Jon. The other was an omega and the other an alpha. Everyone assumed therefore that the one on top pummeling the other was Jon and were fuming at him for bullying the fairer sex like he always used to.

But then when the mecha on top got to its place and the pilot emerged up on the platform, every student was shocked to see Caleb Morningstar wiping daintily sweat from his brow and opening his pilot outfit to air himself out. The three betas gulped as they were teased with the tantalizing sight of a visible collarbone and pale skin, almost too perfect to believe.

Caleb was very aware of what he was showing to the others and relished in the fact how easy it was to make all the others forget about the existence of Jon Helsteen.

Their trainer however didn’t forget. She hurried down as all the mecha settled and pilots came down to the floor level and gave them all a fierce look. She was like a mother bear advancing on unruly cubs. Her winter scent blew at them like a blizzard grazing them with chunks of ice.

Jon trailed after everyone else like usual, a little dizzy. His head was feeling oddly heavy and full. There was an emotion trapped inside there so powerful that it made sounds outside himself come from far, far away, and the space feel warped and dream-like. Jon was keyed in on Caleb standing there surrounded by all the others. Jon was breathing unevenly, making sure that the omega was unharmed even through the anger sparking in his chest. Claws became redder and redder as Jon scratched at the itch of his glands. It hurt but too distantly to register properly.

Everyone suddenly became aware of a strange scent spreading into the air. Melanie’s steps slowed as she approached, brows furrowing as she scented the air around her pilots. The scent of camellia and honey was powerful. It took hold of the back of the throat and the top of the tongue, coating everything in hot tea, scalding yet soothing, making swallowing harder. Melanie worked her throat as she shook her head. The others present did the same, utterly confused at the scent that was equal parts alluring and stained by something sour and painful. It made them all want to hug someone. Hold and not let go.

Jon walked forward like a zombie, completely unaware that he was scratching himself or that he was spreading his scent around. He just stared at Caleb, advancing on him.

Caleb coughed as the familiar, yet also unfamiliar scent clogged up his throat. A mental image of drowning in a cup of tea and being choked by honey made him feel dizzy. Dizzy and tingly deep in the pit of his stomach. “Jon?” he asked incredulously, unwilling to believe that this was the same person, the same scent that he had come to hate. Where were the rotting birches? Where was the overly sweet and coarse honey? How was it possible for one person to smell like that and also like this?!

Jon merely stood awkwardly on the edge of the circle of people around Caleb and brought his hands around himself in a comforting lonely embrace. “Did I… Did I hurt you?” his tone was harsh, but the words were gentle, laced with a tremor. Self-blame and guilt.

Jon remembered promising to never hurt the ones he liked and loved the way his father hurt them. And although Caleb had done horrible things and violated Jon’s trust, that didn’t mean that Jon wanted something bad to happen to him. It didn’t mean that he actually wanted to hurt him in reality, the way he sometimes dreamed of doing. Reality and dream weren’t the same. Reality was that hurting others was a slippery slope, and he didn’t want to slide back into that person he used to be. So, he felt guilty. He felt like a bad person for hurting Caleb, especially considering what the original Jon Helsteen had already done to him. This Caleb was basically innocent to everything Jon held him guilty for from his own world. He realized that now that he’d hurt him. He didn’t want to engage with this Caleb. Not like this anyway. It wasn’t worth it.

Caleb stared back at Jon, for once not knowing what to say. His mouth was coated with sticky sweetness that was comforting yet hurt him, and he didn’t know what to make of it. Of the trauma that it spoke of clearly without the person himself meaning to.

Melanie took a deep, shaky breath, re-reminding herself to get Jon to the campus therapist. This wasn’t good. This was something beyond the things she’d heard about Jon Helsteen. And it made her worry. “Jon, your glands,” she realized then suddenly, seeing the bloody claws clutching at the pilot suit.

Jon let out an absent sound and touched the sides of his throat below his jaw. The suit’s collar reached way up to cover the neck where a cable attached close to the brain, so the glands weren’t visible usually. But there was blood there seeping through the black fabric. Jon zipped his collar down.

Everyone immediately flushed red and held their noses. “Stop! Stop! Stop!” they begged as the scent got even more powerful and dug its way into their stomachs under the navel. A burning sensation was aroused there, tempting them to come closer, to hold and soothe… to make the bad things go away and –

Melanie snorted on the scent, only half-ashamed of her stirring arousal. She was more confused by it. Alphas didn’t usually react this way to the scent of another alpha. What usually happened was that the scent of another alpha agitated and incited a fight, flight or freeze reaction. Melanie as an alpha in charge should have been wringing Jon’s neck for spreading his scent like this and affecting everyone’s mental state, but instead, she felt like she should use that hand to caress him. Which she wasn’t going to do because her will was strong from years of training. One didn’t get into her position if they were ready to slobber over every pheromone-gushing student that crossed their path.

Melanie was also very aware with just a glance and a whiff of Jon’s scent that he wasn’t in the right headspace to regulate his scent. Or possibly even realize what it was doing to everyone else. Just as the omegas were starting to breath hard and squirm in their suits, and the betas taking tentative steps towards the dazed alpha, Melanie grabbed Jon’s arm and started pulling him towards the changing rooms.

“Pilots, clean up! Jon, you are coming with me.” Melanie took out her phone and slapped it on her arm for a hands-off mode. She called for a medic to come treat Jon’s glands and she was going to stand guard so nothing untoward happened on her watch. Jon’s scent was way too alluring for his own good and Melanie was also tremendously curious as to why that was. Maybe a medical professional could enlighten them.

…

Percival Dawnmoore froze the moment the older pilots walked out of their training room into the hallway. Jacques bumped against his back, making a questioning sound. Percy sniffed around loudly, head turning this way and that, face blank as usual. Percy wasn’t one to emote much, so the others immediately started to question him:

“What is it? What do you smell, Captain?”

“Blood? Do I need to jump someone?!” Vy, a blue-haired beta with an earthy dark skin asked, claws ready for action. She was their team’s frontliner, so she was used to acting first and asking questions later. Plus, she loved to brawl, unlike most betas who were known for their mild temper and good control on their emotions.

Vy’s twin sister Olive took her shoulder, holding her back. It was the role she was responsible for: keeping her rowdy sister in check until they needed her to start punching. Her hair was red, a stark contrast to her sister, as well as a mark that she had lost a bet to her twin.

Percy started jogging towards the changing rooms. Confused, the others followed him, then eventually also caught a whiff of something. Something nice and… warm.

“Smells like tea,” Olive commented as they got to the doors of the changing rooms and Percy just walked in through the alpha one.

Jacques shrugged and followed their Captain in, leaving the two betas glancing at each other and back at the door.

“Watch it, alpha!” Melanie Torrent was growling lowly at the alpha medic in front of her, holding him by the back of his neck. “Touch him inappropriately and I’ll give you the neck ache of your life!”

“I’m not doing anything!” the alpha medic defended himself, hands hovering over the two wounded glands of Jon Helsteen, who just sat there looking a little out of it. And smelling really, really good. The medic swallowed several times, trying to get the honey scent clogging up his throat to go down and stop stimulating his need to dominate and provide. With sweat on his brow, the alpha attached plasters for open wounds on the glands and tried not to curse at his shaking hands.

The door to the alpha changing room opened then. Melanie whipped around, fingers crooked like that of a bird of prey, ready to defend in her own heightened state, but relaxed then when she realized who had come in.

“Percy. Jacques. What are you doing here?”

“I’m not really sure,” Jacques admitted, coughing at the deeper flavor of camellia and honey present in the air. “What the heck is happening here? This smell is…”

“Who hurt you?!” Percy was by Jon’s side before anyone could react. His black eyes were trained straight on Jon’s face. Percy’s cheeks were flushed, and he was swallowing hard constantly, but other than that, it was as if he wasn’t affected by Jon’s agitating smell at all.

Jon turned his head to look at Percy, then the others. He tried to come up with an explanation, mind slowly but surely calming down. “I… I kinda fucked up,” he chuckled in embarrassment. “We had a mock fight with the mecha and I…” He didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to admit weakness, but ground out the words anyway. His therapist would be proud of him! “I had a little panic attack. That’s all.”

“A little one?!” Melanie couldn’t help barking out. She felt instantly guilty when Jon flinched and lifted his hands towards his head like attempting to cover it against a hit. Melanie narrowed her eyes and licked her canines, mind grinding away with a sliver of angry sickness. She’d seen similar motions in her field of work from people who had a history of surviving abuse: the instinctual covering when faced with yelling and hands approaching too unpredictably, etc. Jon’s scent was a strange mix of fear and anger, at the same time begging to go unnoticed and be noticed.

Melanie made soothing croons at the younger alpha as she started messaging the campus therapist. Jon stared at her, confused as to what the sounds she was making were and why they were making him feel better.

“Alright,” the medic sighed as if he’d done a difficult operation and stood up awkwardly. “I’m going to… go now. And shower. Have this room thoroughly cleaned after.”

“Sorry,” Jon mumbled, face red, as the medic quickly made his exit. He was starting to understand that his overflowing scent was causing people around him problems, though he wasn’t exactly aware what kind. His original’s memories on this were a little blurry, only marked by him flaunting his scent at omegas and betas to seduce them. And Jon was pretty sure that that was not what he was doing, because he didn’t want to seduce anyone. He was just feeling a little out of it.

Percy wavered on the edge of wanting to scent the other and being aware that it was rude to do so without consent.

Jacques, being looser with social rules, leaned a little closer to sniff at Jon and shivered as warmth trickled down his spine and pooled under his navel. “Gods, that’s… nice.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing,” Jacques said absentmindedly, licking his canines and the roof of his mouth, considering. He’d never smelled an alpha like Jon. He was pretty sure actually that no one had ever smelled an alpha this delicious as another alpha! Yet here they were, some anomaly present here in this young man’s biology, which made Jacques want to tip Jon’s chin up and clench his thigh with his claws. Jacques bet Jon had very nice feeling thighs. They looked strong under the tight pilot suit.

Jon frowned at the two senior pilots, looking from one to another with a growing sense of trepidation. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?” Jacques couldn’t help teasing, hand approaching Jon’s chin.

Only to be cut off by Percy leaning closer, nostrils flared. “Can I scent you?”

“Scent me?” Jon wasn’t sure he heard right. The original Jon Helsteen had barely asked that from his many crushes even though he should have, and from the context of the memories, he understood it mostly as something you’d ask of a family member, close friend or a crush. And Percy wasn’t any of those. He hesitated, staring straight into those pure black eyes with no malice or ulterior motives behind them, then gave his permission by lifting his hand.

Percy immediately rolled up Jon’s sleeve and put his nose close to the inside of the other’s wrist.

Jacques held his own hand in the air, clenching fingers in with a sudden stab of jealousy.

Melanie kept messaging, occasionally glancing at the younger alphas interacting to make sure nothing bad happened. If Jon had declined the scenting, Malenie would have thrown both the Captain and vice-captain out by the scuff of their necks.

Jon watched with great interest as he was scented for the first time possibly as himself, not as Jon Helsteen. There was a… strange, itchy feeling blooming under his ribcage watching Percy sniff at his wrist with such gusto. He was… flattered, maybe? Flattered that his scent was of such interest to the other. Which was an interesting thing to notice about himself as an alpha being scented by another alpha. He was pretty sure with his temper, he should have exploded in anger. But no… he was just feeling good about it. A little embarrassed but good.

‘Am I into alphas?’ Jon found himself wondering, gazing emptily ahead. He was very aware that it was not what was considered normal by the wider society. So, it was… queer… to be attracted to the same secondary gender in this world. Did liking alpha guys make him double queer? Did he like betas or omegas also? He hadn’t really thought about it after coming into this world and this strange new body. It honestly hadn’t crossed his mind, and now his head was spinning a little from all this self-discovering he was doing while recovering from a panic attack.

“Since we’re getting friendly…!” Jacques said suddenly with a strange amount of strain and teeth exposed. “May I also scent you, Jon?”

“Uhhhhh…” Jon honestly didn’t have a reason to not let Jacques also scent him. He just felt a little weirder about it because the other alpha had such an odd vibe about him at the moment. He didn’t want to offend him to by denying him in the presence of the others, so he tentatively gave out his other hand.

Percy finished scenting, glaring at his vice-captain as he laid his own nose close to Jon’s inner wrist. Percy was logically aware that he was feeling possessive only because Jon was one of the very few friends he’d made in his lifetime, and also because Jon’s pheromones were messing with his brain. Also, maybe because Jacques had such a smug expression on his face when he glanced back at his Captain. Damn him and his stupid handsome face!

“Alright, alright!” Their trainer started swatting at them with a serious look. “Off with you two! I need to have a moment with Jon here.”

Jacques and Percy were both surprised to find a slight growl spilling from their mouths. Jon was equally surprised, but Melanie was not. She’d already thought this might happen with the two alphas since they were clearly reacting to Jon’s fragile state. It was natural for alphas to want to protect people they considered close to them, and even strangers if they felt it their duty. And Melanie felt it her duty to have a serious talk with Jon about his mental state, without anyone else eavesdropping!

“That’s an order.” Melanie stared hard down at the two young alphas. She towered over them, hair in a tight bun, muscles rippling under the skintight pilot outfit. Her scent blew sharp icicles at them, asserting her dominance over them as their trainer and an older, more experienced alpha.

Percy caved in instantly because he was clever, though not much socially aware. Jacques on the other hand was very socially aware and smart, but for some reason wouldn’t back off as easy. So, Melanie let out a rasping growl, showing her sharp teeth. Which finally made Jacques snap out of his protective stance and duck out of the room with a flustered expression and a note of jealousy.

Melanie huffed in annoyance as they went and crossed her strong arms. Youngsters! So easy to provoke!

Jon looked up at his trainer in alert, fingers twitching against his thighs. He wondered if he should be gearing up for a fight or not. Was he going to get scolded for all his mistakes? He deserved it. It was all his fault. All his fault.

“Jon?”

Despite the gentle tone, he couldn’t help tensing.

Melanie sat opposite to him, calm and body open to show she wasn’t a threat or angry. She let out another rumbling croon like a mother might with their frightened cub. “Jon, you know I have to ask you some things.”

Jon let out some kind of sound, hugging himself tightly with a grim expression.

She inhaled deeply, then immediately realized what a bad idea it was and coughed out what felt like a clump of honey and tealeaves. Melanie didn’t want her pilot to feel bad for a reaction he couldn’t control though, so she held strong. “Jon…” she cleared her throat, forcing down a flicker of heat under her navel. “I’ve noticed a bit of a pattern with your high mecha synch rate and the way you look piloting the mecha.”

Another sound that said nothing came out of Jon. He tried to scratch his glands again but found the bandages got in the way. Also, his trainer gave him a scary look, so he just settled on closing himself off again by crossing his arms tightly.

“It’s only natural to lose control when faced with an alien’s psychic attack for the first time. We all get that.” Melanie looked to her hands and crossed her fingers together as she looked back up. “But when it happens a second time when faced with a combat situation… that’s when we start seeing a bit of a problem.”

“Am I being thrown out of the pilot program?” Jon asked with a degree of fear and disappointment. His parents had been so proud of him too!

“No,” Melanie shook her head, understanding the other’s fear more than well as a retired mecha pilot. “You’re not the first or last pilot of ours with some… emotional baggage.” She saw that Jon wasn’t fond of the expression, so she quickly continued. “Jon, have you ever worked with a therapist before?” Surprising to her, Jon gave an almost absentminded nod as his gaze wandered.

‘Interesting’, Melanie couldn’t help pondering what he went to therapy about. Jon Helsteen was known to cause trouble, not have them. He was seen widely as a carefree student at the end of the day, if lazy with his studies. “Well, since you’re an adult, you don’t need to get your parents permission. I would like you to meet up with our very own campus therapist. His name is William Bouchard. Get in contact with him as soon as possible.” Melanie ducked her head a bit to get Jon to look at him. “I can’t let you pilot before I’m sure you’re going to meet him. Our students’ mental health is important to IMFA. We can’t have you losing control in a mecha – it’s dangerous for everyone involved. It’s a huge war-machine.”

“I get it!” Jon quipped in annoyance, clutching himself harder. He knew Malenie was only thinking of his best but couldn’t help wondering how the hell he was going to open up about anything, when he wasn’t even an original resident of this world and body! His and the original’s issues were completely different! And there was no way expressing that without sounding absolutely insane.

“Good,” Melanie merely said and got up from the bench.

Jon followed suit.

The two stared at each other for a bit and Melanie felt a moment of sadness looking at the young alpha with hacked up hair and dark circles forming under his eyes. Melanie had five children of her own, of which three were alphas. One of them was nearly Jon’s age. So, it may have made her feel a little more protective of Jon than it was appropriate. She kept a distance between them by turning her back on the other and strolling out of the changing room with a throw away line: “Go see William Bouchard, Jon!”

“Yes, mom!” Jon snarled before he could stop himself, then blushed when Melanie turned around and looked at him funny. And then she barked out a laugh, making Jon scowl again. Watching the trainer go, Jon saw Jacques and Percy lingering in the hallway, opposite to each other like two soldiers facing over a rift. He huffed out a deep breath, hair billowing from his sweaty brow. He needed a plan for therapy and fast. He was not going to make them feel alarmed about his new father by opening up about his real, shitty father!

Chapter Text

Chapter 7: Don’t let anyone notice you’re not who everyone thinks you are!

William Bouchard was a beta with a pale complexion, seemingly permanent shrewd smile, and gold-rimmed glasses. He was twirling his pen absently while Jon filled some mental health related papers he’d also filled in his previous life. Every depression and mania related test seemed to be pretty much the same, no matter the world. Which kinda made sense. This fantasy world’s understanding of psychology must be pretty similar to the real world’s. Only there were some secondary gender related questions, since being an alpha affected one’s testosterone levels and whatnot. It was natural for an alpha to be wilder and feel the need to assert dominance, just not to a point where it became a problem.

After filling out tests and Mr. Bouchard looked at them, the beta took a deep breath and laid his chin on his crossed hands. Jon was feeling nervous under his dissecting, smiling gaze. He couldn’t get anything out of the other’s scent. Mr. Bouchard was keeping his mild beta scent close to himself, refusing to give his client anything to read from him.

“So, Jon,” Bouchard went straight to first name basis. “I’ve reviewed your case and some of the video footage from the mecha you’ve piloted…”

“Footage?” Jon asked in alarm.

“… and I think I have some idea as to what you want to talk to me about.”

“Oh, really?”

Bouchard made an agreeing sound and took out a work tablet to write on. “Tell me about your family.”

Jon sucked his bottom lip in, considering. He had practiced in his mind for this session. He could do this. He would not let anyone harass his new family because of his old family! “What can I say? I had an easy time growing up in a huge mansion surrounded by people doting on me. You know, basic rich person stuff.”

Bouchard was already typing something.

Jon glanced at the tablet but kept a calm attitude. He hoped his scent wasn’t giving anything away. “My mom and dad love me greatly. A little too much sometimes maybe,” he chuckled, remembering how doting his omega mother was especially. “They are very permissive. Too permissive,” Jon couldn’t help reflecting, thinking of how the original Jon Helsteen turned out. “It got me into trouble with people… the fact that I could do pretty much whatever at home meant that I thought I could do the same outside and not get in trouble, I guess.”

Bouchard glanced up at the young alpha, still smiling. He made more notes and discreetly scented the air in the modern, light-colored office room. The beta had a very sharp nose, a part of the reason why he was in the line of job that he was. He could tell many things from the mental images the client’s scent gave him and most of them were very accurate. To a scary degree. And right now, Bouchard could see in his mind eye a teacup full of tea and a dash of honey. The teacup had a fracture however, starting from the top and going all the way to the bottom. Bouchard inhaled deeply again and struck at that fracture. “Your way with omegas and betas is widely known at campus. Caleb Morningstar is in the same mecha team as you now. How do you get along?”

Jon had expected this too and spoke confidently: “It’s strained. We don’t like each other.”

“You don’t?” Bouchard quirked a brow. “That’s a fast change of mind.”

“Well…” Jon sank further into the cushy armchair in front of the table. “After you get beat up to hell and back by Percival Dawnmoore the military prince, you kind of must have a change of mind. I promised my family to leave Caleb alone and I’m planning to keep that promise. Try to be better, you know? I’m already twenty-three. Time to start taking things seriously if I want to become a real mecha pilot.”

“Indeed.” Bouchard smiled serenely and kept scenting. There was something odd about the way Jon Helsteen spoke of himself. The teacup Bouchard could see in his mind had several more fractures to strike at. Bouchard struck at another one. “Let’s talk about the mecha footage from your fifth training session. You faced a psychic attack from an alien. Rough stuff.”

Jon knew what was coming and he wasn’t sure how to go about things. So, he was prepared to give an answer that wasn’t an answer.

The beta tilted his head. “What did you experience during that psychic attack that made you so upset?”

“I’d like to not talk about it.”

Bouchard had expected in turn something like this at some point. He didn’t take it to heart. Everyone had their limits. But they were here to make sure that Jon could resume piloting mecha. And they could only do that if they figured out what made Jon tick. What trauma was triggered every time he entered combat? “That is perfectly fine. Then how about when you fought against Caleb Morningstar two days ago? You got very into it.”

“I didn’t know it was him,” Jon defended himself.

Bouchard kept smiling. “Indeed. But when you found out, you startled quite badly. And before that, you were fighting like someone fighting for their life. Not a bad attitude for a soldier, but we need to also remember that you cannot be one if you go into such a… volatile state each time you have to inflict violence on others.”

“That is true…” Jon gnawed on his lower lip. This was the stone he had tripped on while thinking how to answer his therapist’s questions. He had to give the man something or he wouldn’t get to do the coolest thing in this world: pilot mecha! “I…” Jon rummaged through his head. “I’ve been in a lot of fights. Like a lot, a lot.”

Bouchard made a noise of understanding and tapped at the tablet.

‘Just a smidge of truth for actual therapy… That’s not so bad, is it?’ Jon thought to himself, chewing his lower lip open all over again. “I don’t have the best temper. I mean as a person and as an alpha.” Jon shrugged. “I’ve done bad things. Hurt people. And allowed others to hurt people. I was hanging out with that kind of crew. That was how we did things. It wasn’t good but it made me feel like a part of something. A group.” A family. Family that had fallen apart. No wonder he was holding on so desperately to this life and the Helsteen family. “I was always so mad and so miserable, and I was afraid that others would see and what they would think of me!”

“So, you hurt them before they could hurt you,” Bouchard finished surprisingly gently.

Jon nodded and winced as he tasted blood on his lip. His heart was thudding hard from all the feelings he was having. It made him feel sick but also good. Good to tell someone all these dirty, horrible, disgusting things he was made of. “It’s easier to be angry than to be sad. I know that’s so fucking stupid but it’s just how I feel. Felt. I don’t want to be that person anymore. I don’t want to keep hurting people.” Jon was lisping a little, big fangs getting in the way as his words tried to blur together – he was in such hurry to get them all out, to make this person in front of him understand. “That Jon Helsteen was a piece of shit and I never want to be like him!”

Bouchard’s smile twitched as he scented blood in the tea, billowing out and staining everything red. There was a leak in the cup. “Have you noticed that you sometimes talk about yourself like you’re talking about someone else?”

Jon froze, lip between his teeth. He chewed faster, fangs becoming red and twisted his fingers around each other. He wanted to throw the table at the beta and run. He resisted the violent impulse and held fast. “That probably says something fucked up about me!” he laughed.

Bouchard reviewed his notes, tapping absentmindedly at the edge of the tablet. They were getting close to that odd feeling Bouchard was getting from Jon, but he didn’t want to push too far. Slowly chipping away at the broken teacup was better than smashing it all together. “It is quite normal to feel a degree of disconnection from the person you are and the person you were when you’re experiencing trauma. Or even disconnect between different sides of you.”

“But I’m the trauma!” Jon yelled out in sudden desperation, feeling that he wasn’t being understood. “I’m the thing that is wrong with other people’s lives! I’m wrong! I’m a trauma, not the one traumatized! I don’t get to be traumatized after everything that happened!!” He was gasping. Rasping for breath, eyes watering and face blotchy red from anger and so many other complicated feelings he couldn’t process at the moment.

“Jon…” Bouchard looked up to him without smiling this time. He was serious and sympathetic the way a therapist was expected to be, attempting to reach his client in his time of need. “It’s not that simple. The human mind is frankly quite dumb sometimes. You cannot just decide that someone who has hurt others isn’t also the one hurting. You are capable of hurting while being hurt and vice versa. And more often than not, people who are already having a difficult time tend to project it onto others or lash out to try to distance themselves from the hurt in their own lives.”

Jon kind of knew that already. His real-world therapist had often said something similar. But… “It’s not that easy…” he spoke in misery. “I know logically that what you’re saying is true. And I would think that maybe of other people in a similar situation as me. But…” he looked back up and let more of his anxious smell spill out. Letting go felt good. He was so tense. Always so tense and stressed out and careful. “… when it’s me… I just can’t… seem to… apply it.”

Bouchard nodded in understanding and took a moment to remind himself of methods that might help the other. “This is going to sound stupid and obvious, but I would like you to repeat these things to yourself every time you find yourself veering into this sort of self-punishing mindset.”

Jon blinked. “Like… Tell myself that that I actually am hurt when I think that I shouldn’t be and it’s ok to be hurt?”

“Yes.” The beta leaned back in his chair. “You need to reinforce true and good thoughts, until they become your natural way of thinking. Each time, every day, whenever bad, illogical thoughts happen. Learn to recognize when you are speaking to hurt yourself and when to build yourself up. You think you could do that as our first session homework?”

“I think so.” Jon thought for a moment and then couldn’t help asking: “But don’t I deserve to think badly of myself? I mean, it’s true, isn’t it?”

“Well, why don’t you tell me some of the things you feel bad about doing? How have you hurt others over the years?”

Uh-oh. Jon had walked right into that trap. What the hell could he tell? As Jonah he had beat up people, tormented them with words and messed with their stuff as a teen. Jon Helsteen as a teen on the other hand, as far as Jon could peruse from the blurry memories, had forcibly tried to kiss people, slapped them on the butt, pressed them against the wall, said gross things about their bodies… Jon wanted to pull the skin off his face thinking that he had to say he’d done any of that! But he supposed he had to give the therapist something… “I… uhhh…” Jon rubbed at his gland’s bandage to feel some ache to ground himself with. “I used to… push people down and try to kiss them.”

Bouchard noted the question-like statement. And also, the very strange dead-calmness in the camellia and honey scent. It was truly like the young alpha was talking about someone else. It was very odd. Usually, when talking about things that people were ashamed of or mad or sad about, their scent would unconsciously change into sourness, sharpness, or rot. But there was nothing happening with Jon’s scent.

Bouchard was almost doubting his nose, when Jon started talking about things other than sexual harassment. When the topic shifted into beating people up and messing with their things, Jon’s scent became heavily stained with rot, tealeaves wilting and the teacup in Bouchard’s mind’s eye cracking.

The beta stared at the alpha thoughtfully, interest piqued.

Jon was busy describing how he threw rocks at one boy in his school with his friends until the kid was bruised all over.

Bouchard noted the tremor in his voice and the self-loathing hanging heavy in the air and drawing angry lines in his expression. This one was a real memory.

Jon changed the subject suddenly, as if realizing something, and started to busily tell about how he’d tormented Caleb Morningstar.

Bouchard’s brows crinkled very slightly as he studied him and scented the air. No changes whatsoever. Jon seemed to even be mad at someone else than himself. A case of dissociation – depersonalization perhaps? Truly curious. But even then, there was usually some degree of change in the scent. This was as if listening to accounts about two different people: this Jon who didn’t like himself and some other person named “Jon” whom he didn’t like.

The tablet let out beeps to show that time was up for their session. Jon took a deep breath like he’d run a marathon. Bouchard smiled as usual and made final notes on the tablet, then started scheduling the next session with his young client.

Unaware of each other’s thoughts or feelings: Jon was patting himself on the back for his good performance, and Bouchard was already more than aware that there was something wrong with Jon’s sense of self. Both smiled, Jon with some difficulty and Bouchard with the look of a cunning old fox. They both agreed that the first session had been quite fruitful.

The moment Jon was out of the door, William Bouchard leant towards his intercom and pressed a button to connect with his secretary. “Amanda, could you get me any previous IMFA medical records of one student named Jon Helsteen?”

…

Jon spent the rest of the day laying in his small campus apartment. It had a kitchenette, a bathroom with a bath and a shower, some closets and desks, and a bed. Jon’s state of the art rich-kid laptop was sitting abandoned on the worktable and the previously empty bookshelves were being slowly filled with books that Jon found interesting. Mostly fantasy, some dystopia, some zombie apocalypse… that kind of stuff. The original Jon Helsteen had used the room mostly to masturbate and work out, so Jon had a lot of decorating to do. He was considering getting some kind of plants in the corners. The room was depressing in its white blandness that pretty much every student apartment had.

Sometimes his phone beeped to inform him that his parents missed him very, very much, and hoped that he was staying out of trouble (not sexually harassing anyone). Jon did his best to reassure them. Even some of the servants who had watched Jon Helsteen grow from a baby to a very unruly young adult inquired after him, which made Jon feel a little weird, since he wasn’t used to the whole ‘young master’ thing yet. It was fine when he got to do what he wanted back at the home mansion, but the moment people tried to do stuff for him, Jon just felt guilty. Staying in an apartment was way better for his nerves: he could do his own laundry and cook his own food and eat instant noodles straight out of a pot! It was the best life he could imagine having! Plus, piloting mecha. Which he would do his best to keep doing no matter how much his teachers and faculty members were worried about him and his little freak outs. He just needed to stop having them! Somehow. The breathing exercises were good, but clearly didn’t make the cut anymore.

Jon rolled over on his bed and dug out an empty journal and a pen. He wrote down things his real-life therapist had said and what his current one had, and tried to combine them into a list of things he could try to use to calm himself down in case of another episode. So far, he had:

- Steady breathing to calm body

- Try shocking the brain by having something hot or cold

- Carry something to fiddle with

- Forcefully turn thinking around by reinforcing good thoughts when bad ones happen

- Get out of the situation

- Eat something super spicy or super sour

After making the list, he started making preparations. Jon went to a corner store to buy some sour candy to munch on. He also ordered handwarmers online to hold, both for the freak outs and just because they were comfortable. Jon was busy rubbing the handwarmers against his cheeks in contentment when there was a knock on his door.

It was some omega he could vaguely remember from the original’s memories. Which meant it was someone the original had harassed. Great. Jon closed his eyes and opened them again, already dreading this meeting.

“Hey, Jon.” The omega woman had gorgeous black curls, pouty lips painted pink and ample chest. Her shirt showed a large portion of the upper parts of her boobs, making Jon nervous both as an alpha and as a gay man. If she came onto him, he didn’t know what he’d do.

Jon murmured a greeting back, still eyeing the woman with nervousness.

The omega seemed to be able to tell that she wasn’t exactly wanted. So, she snarled and poked Jon right on the chest. “What? What’s with the attitude? I grace you with my presence even after what happened last time, and you’re making that face?!”

Jon was startled by the sudden hostility and tried to desperately remember just what the original Jon had done to this poor woman in particular.

But the omega pushed on, standing on her tippytoes to reach him. Jon was assaulted by a cloud of cotton candy and hot chocolate scent, which made him awkwardly hot on the inside and the omega pout up at him. “You promised you would pay me back for that dress you ruined, and here I am.” She came right in then, breezing past Jon and promptly taking her shirt off.

Jon’s eyes widened in shock. “What are you doing?!”

“Get on the bed,” the woman who’s name Jon couldn’t even find from his blurry memories ordered and started taking her jeans off also. “I’m going to be going into heat in a day or so…”

“Oh no.”

“… and I need a good knot to sit on! And since you’re so eager to have some omega pussy, I, of course, came to you.” She swung her hair back with flourish, sitting on the bed. “Soooooo, you’re welcome. Let’s have sex.”

“Oh God,” Jon couldn’t help letting out, face red as an alarmingly alluring sugary scent spread around the room in a deliberate gush.

The omega on the bed was spreading her pre-heat scent around by swooshing her hair, smirk on her lips as if she was confident that Jon would break down in front of her and jump her.

So, she was very confused when the Jon in front of her didn’t approach him, and looked downright terrified. The omega frowned, legs spread provocatively. “What’s wrong?”

“I…” How to explain that Jon was very much not straight and also very much not the same sleazy person the omega had hoped to find? How?! “Jeeze! Uhhh… Jasmin?”

“Jessica!”

“Right. I have to… tell you something.” Jon took a deep breath, then promptly choked on the cotton candy scent assaulting his lungs and attempting to stir some action in his pants. Jon was feeling panicked. He needed to get out. He felt weird, nauseous almost being there with the woman attempting to seduce him into having his way with her.

Jessica groaned, legs still spread, but hands propping her up so she could really stare the alpha down. “Come on! I’m feeling it! I need some knotting and you want some slick. Let’s get it on already, Jon! This is what you do best!”

“Nope.” Jon was backing away now, wanting nothing more than to get away from the omega and her offending scent. It made him feel something dark that he was attracted to a woman all of a sudden, when he very much knew he shouldn’t be! He didn’t like women, but this scent was making his body think he did, and it made Jon’s head spin. “No, no, no, no! I don’t want this. I’m not this person you’re looking for anymore!”

“What?” Jessica looked extremely confused when her provocative display wasn’t working. “Where are you going?”

“I just… I need to…” Jon couldn’t hold his breath – the scent was inside him! It was in his brain and coating the roof of his mouth and curling under his navel, and he needed to get it out!! “I’m sorry!”

“Jon Helsteen!”

Jon ran out of his apartment like he was being chased by a horny banshee. Some people in the hallway could smell the pre-heat scent on him, making comments as he went, but Jon ignored them all and ran right outside, until he was in the back of the school where the towering oak trees were. Jon’s breathing was ragged, and his chest stung from the panicked run. He leaned against a sturdy oak, sipping its fresh, earthy smell in. Jon wanted to bury his head into the grass and dirt. He wanted to be an ostrich and burrow right in there to get rid of the scent of the woman wreaking havoc in his body.

“I like guys, I like guys, I like guys…” Jon spoke against the grass, rolling around in it like he was on fire. Which he kind of was. The lewd type. “Gorgeous pecks and muscles on the back, and hipbones and stubble against my cheek, and that mouthwatering, sweat-salty musk…!”

“What the hell are you on about?”

Jon shrieked, startling out of his stupor, and seeing Caleb Morningstar standing in front of him in baggy jogging clothes. “What are you doing here?” he couldn’t help asking, to which Caleb arched a brow.

“You always come here when you’re upset,” Caleb simply answered. “And me and a whole bunch of omegas saw you run out of the alpha dorm like you were being chased.”

“And you came to me?”

Caleb was put off by the question and what it said about their relationship, so Caleb didn’t answer it and asked instead: “Why are you being so weird? Even our classmates are saying stuff like Percival Dawnmoore gave you a concussion and you have memory loss, and such. It’s not true, is it?”

“Yes!” Jon jumped up, immediately grabbing onto this golden lifeline of an excuse. “That’s why I’ve been so out of it and acting different! My memories are kinda blurry, you know…” he chuckled, rubbing dirt off his shirt, and adjusting himself so the omega didn’t see his semi-aroused state. “That’s why I’m like this! Damn that Captain Percival for giving me probably permanent brain damage!”

“You are talking weird.” Caleb felt even more suspicious about Jon. He sucked at lying. Nobody was going to believe the words coming out of his mouth. “That was the most unbelievable sentence you’ve ever said. What is really going on with you?”

“My brain is mush!” Jon declared in frustration, just wanting the other to leave already. “Haven’t you noticed how I avoid people now?”

“Yeah…” Caleb admitted, eyeing him with his angel-eyes. “I’m glad that you aren’t harassing anyone anymore, but it’s not that easy to change, you know.” There was a fire in the omega’s eyes, a spiteful, hateful inferno from years of having to deal with unwanted alpha attention. “You’re a bad person, Jon Helsteen,” he sneered. “Never forget that. You’ve done disgusting things and you don’t deserve happiness. So don’t try to fool anyone like Jacques or Percival into thinking you’re someone worthy of their attention! It’s not fair on them.”

Assaulted by the other’s words, Jon’s brain came to a halt, grinding its wheels over the words and quickly agreeing with them. Caleb was right. He wasn’t a good person: not as himself or as the original Jon Helsteen. He had a lot of debts to pay, and he would never be able to pay for it. Not with his death. Not in this life. Not ever. He was just like his dad: born with a desire to hurt people which he couldn’t quite squash down.

Then, from his hindbrain, William Bouchard’s voice filtered in with that cunning smile: “Reinforce true and good thoughts, until they become your natural way of thinking. Each time, every day, whenever bad, illogical thoughts happen.”

Jon felt stuck. Were the things Caleb said true or illogical things? They felt very true. They hurt and Jon liked that they hurt. Because he deserved it. It was all his fault. Everything. Everything was his fault. Or was it? His head hurt.

Caleb stared at the alpha in front of him with a growing sense of unease. He’d never seen Jon like this. He looked… lost and small. So, unlike an alpha. Vulnerable. Like Caleb’s words had really cut into the deepest part of him and he didn’t know what to do with those words. Caleb almost felt bad, except he didn’t let himself feel that way. Because Caleb was right: Jon had been a pain in several omegas’ and betas’ asses ever since he presented. Caleb hated him. Hated that Jon he knew so keenly.

Which was why he was all the more confused when faced with this Jon.

Considering, Caleb swooped closer to boldly scent the other the way Jon had scented him countless of times. Expecting the hit of sharp, dried-up honey and rotting birch leaves, Caleb was blown away by the cotton candy of pre-heat scent, and the sour tea and burned honey under it. It was a distressed scent, with a layer of omega’s heat over it. An odd combination, since Jon was nothing if not a horny bastard glad to bask in the heat of an omega. But this layer of heat-scent was very thin, barely touched the alpha, and the scent of stress was way more powerful. Not to mention the things Jon had said to himself when Caleb arrived…

Caleb’s head hurt. He felt like he was missing some crucial piece of information that formed this Jon in front of him, but he couldn’t grasp it.

The two guys stood in front of each other equally in pain over their messy thoughts. They were an odd pair, a confident yet confused omega and a covering and anxious alpha. If anyone saw them like that – Caleb Morningstar and Jon Helsteen – they would have to do a doubletake. No one would believe their eyes!

And that included the very group of omegas that Caleb had been with, spying on the two of them. They had initially been concerned over their dainty and kind friend, but now, seeing the two standing there like that and with the words they’d heard, all of their pretty little heads were spinning.

“This is huge!” one of them whispered, getting their phone out and furiously typing away. “I’m posting this!”

“Me too!”

The gaggle of omegas were typing furiously away, filling social media with pictures of the two and wild rumors about Jon Helsteen having some kind of brain damage, which had shifted his personality and made him demurer. More omega-like. Which people found extremely funny, considering Jon Helsteen’s reputation. Campus rumor mill was grinding away so fast that by the time Caleb and Jon had separated, pretty much everyone knew that there was something going on with Jon Helsteen. Some people were saying that Jon got what was coming to him. Some others made pointed, dirty comments about an alpha looking so weak and submissive. And others were intrigued, strangely, remembering the way Jon smelled these days and secretly liking the photos of the distressed alpha and proud omega.

In the mecha bay, one Captain and one vice-captain were staring at their phones.

Percy was hanging off his personal mecha like an acrobat, cleaning supplies hoisted up on a stretched-out metal arm and stared blankly at the posts raining down the campus message board. He wrinkled his nose at the slander towards non-standard alpha behavior and raised his brow at the comments meekly and roundabout asking others if Jon smelled different these days to anyone. Which made many point out that one’s scent was a fingerprint and could only change when faced with great trauma. And there was no way that Jon Helsteen the sheltered playboy had gone through any of that!

Percy thought back to the reports he had seen of Jon’s performance in the mecha. There was a mention of a traumatic episode when faced with a psychic attack. Jon had reacted like someone fearing for their life and it made Percy sad, thinking that Jon had been hurt irreparably, but no one believed it possible because of his past behavior.

And the scent fingerprint comment… that did pique Percy’s interest greatly, as he clearly remembered both scent fingerprints from Jon before Percy beat him up and after. There was a clear difference there, but Jon didn’t display any signs of having a psychological shadow of Percy who had hit him. As if he couldn’t even remember how things had gone and thus couldn’t form an emotional response to it.

Percy put his phone down on the mecha’s hand and stared head-down at the mecha bay, lost in thought. What had happened during Jon’s recovery at home?

Jacques was thinking along the same lines, but he was fuming at the rumor mill churning away with glee and chagrin. Jacques hated when rumors started flying, because the truth was often much more complicated than what was presented. And he just couldn’t believe that the Jon Helsteen he’d personally met could ever sexually harass anyone, despite being very aware that there were many people who had experienced it firsthand from him.

There was something weird going on, and Jacques also pointed his mind towards the scent fingerprint and trauma. Perhaps Jon Helsteen really did have some kind of personality shift from being hit by Percy. Or perhaps, something else had happened, something that no one was aware of. Someone had hurt his junior so horribly, that his whole biology and personality had shifted. And there was a small protective fire burning in Jacques, wanting to find exactly who it was, and what the hell was going on with this odd, skittish, furious alpha.

…

After only a few days, Jon was buried in weird rumors pondering his mental and physical state. He didn’t mind it at first, just content to ignore everyone like in the real world and study, but when alphas came at him to give their condolences and omegas came at him to curse him out and say that this was karma… Well, Jon just couldn’t stay out of it anymore. Things were getting extremely awkward, because even some teachers started treating him like some precious porcelain and Jon’s parents had called him to ask if he was okay and needed anything from them. Jon’s father even threatened not-so-subtly to sue the military royal family for damages, but luckily Jon got him to let go off the thought. He couldn’t have his family fighting against the powerful Dawnmoores, especially since Percival was his team Captain! He did not want to burn down that bridge: he wanted to be able to pilot mecha! Not to mention, he felt that the two of them got along pretty well. If not for Caleb’s clear interest in Percival, Jon would even entertain the thought of befriending the cold-faced alpha. But now with these rumors and what Caleb had said back then, Jon felt that he should be extra careful around the sly omega. Especially since Caleb had started to stare at him every chance he got. Jon had no idea what that was about, but it couldn’t be anything good. He should just keep his head low, make some comment about his mental state to soothe everyone’s curiosity and ride things out until interest towards him dissolved.

Jon got back to his apartment after school but stopped at the front door. Someone had written in lipstick on the wood: “ALPHA-SUB” and below that “HYPOCRITE SLUT”. Jon mouthed the words to himself, understanding the last one but honestly not comprehending the first one. He guessed it was slang for something. Something rude which he didn’t get.

He couldn’t help muttering: “Nice rhyme.”

Then before he knew it, one of his neighbors had also gotten back from his classes and saw the bright red messages on the door. His neighbor was someone from his class, an alpha named Thomas or Tommy or something like that. “Holy shit! Someone tagged your door?”

“Yeah.” Jon opened his door to go in, but the other alpha got closer with creased brows and read out loud:

“Alpha-sub? Wow. They really called you that? Shitty!”

“What does it mean?”

“It means a submissive alpha, or someone who’s an alpha but not really. Not a real alpha. Omega-like.” Thomas – that was his name – shrugged, looking angry now. “I can’t believe someone would actually write that on your door!”

“It’s fine.”

Something about his response and cool attitude made the other alpha uncomfortable. “You really are different.”

Jon lingered awkwardly in the doorway, one foot in and one out. He just wanted out of the conversation so he could start scrubbing away the lipstick messages. He didn’t know what to say to that. “Okay… I’m gonna go and get my door cleaned.”

Thomas leaned in, watching him through the crack with perverse wonder and also serious worry. “Oh my gods! You really are cracked in the head! The rumors are true! Wait, what about your scent?”

“Goodbye!” Jon shouted angrily and slammed the door shut. He huffed out a breath, raked fingers through his partly shorn hair and stared at the blank white walls of his student apartment. He was going to go crazy with these people getting all up in his business! So what if he was being weird! So what if he was messed up in the head or his scent had changed or whatever! Jon Helsteen was a stupid, horny person, who no one should care about! They should just spit at him and go about their days, not stalk him down the hall and write slander on his door!

Feeling out of it, Jon went right into the small supply closet, scrubbed away the lipstick from the door, and burned his skin with a searing shower. The wounds on his glands cried pink as blood mixed in with water. The scabs became loose, and Jon couldn’t help picking at them. He would have to put a new open wound plaster on them. His claws raked close to the itchy glands, absently remembering back to his senior pilots scenting him. Percival’s straight lashes had made such beautiful shadows on his cheeks and there were moles close to his ear under the short black hair. Jacques’ long red hair had spilled over his shoulder, smelling of bodywash for men, and there was a hint of a stubble growing along his jaw and upper lip. They were both handsome men. Jacques was on the cusp of being beautiful even with the way his lips curved into such a naturally seductive smile, and Percival had long limbs and a lithe but powerful body, capable of bending into all kinds of shapes. Jon could imagine himself kissing either one of them as a test. To see if he liked it. If he liked other alphas.

The message on his door came to his mind: Alpha-sub. Submissive alpha, alpha who wasn’t a real alpha. Maybe that was true. Maybe the people of this world could tell that Jon hadn’t been born as an alpha, but just as a normal person with no secondary gender. Maybe they sensed it and struck right at that oddness since Jon Helsteen was someone who deserved their scorn. And so was he himself.

Jon recognized with sudden clarity that his thoughts were going into a bad direction. He had promised to start changing his thought process, so he tried to think that maybe he didn’t deserve every single bad thing coming his way. Maybe. Maybe he wasn’t the worst person to ever live. Maybe he wasn’t like his father…

Jon got out of the shower and toweled, then wiped the foggy glass of the mirror. His own face, slightly altered by animalistic traits stared back at him. There were the facial features of his new parents, but also the shadows of Teddy Springster, his real father. There was his nose and his brows… his dark-brown hair…

Jon clutched a single strand and pulled it down his brow, staring at it, pupils slit.

Jon had punched Jacques in the face. Jon had gotten into a fight with his Captain. Jon had hurt Caleb in the mecha.

His father had hurt a lot of people too. His father liked to hurt people, probably. That was the only thing that made sense to Jon. And Jon… did he himself enjoy hurting people?

His expression distorted as heavy, angry thoughts started bruising his skull again, hammering self-hating words against his thin self-confidence. Jon pulled at the hair, fingers trembling, then out of pure furious impulse, punched the mirror. Cracks threw a spiderweb over Jon’s face. He clutched his fist, sucking air in as pain flared on his knuckles. He picked a piece of mirror from his skin and threw in the garbage. The punch hadn’t helped. Jon’s head was still so, so full of emotions greater than his body could fit, and it made his ears buzz and heart hammer. Jon scratched his face. His father’s face. But also, Tavaste and Amelia Helsteen’s face. It made his thoughts quiet a little, but his hair… the dark hair poking into his vision in soggy spikes…

Jon pressed hard against the sides of his head and quickly started to throw clothes on himself again. He ran out of the alpha building and straight into a corner store. He fumbled with various hair dyes and then held fast onto a bright blue one like the Halloween spray-on colors. He paid to a concerned looking beta clerk and ran back into his apartment, banging the door so hard that he could hear a painting drop off the wall somewhere. Jon’s head was pounding, so he didn’t care much for that. He only cared about his hair. His ugly, disgusting hair. He had to clean it. Had to change it, stain it some other colour lest he just rake it all off. It would scare his parents if he did. So, he did the next best thing: Jon pulled on rubber gloves from the sink closet, poured out eye-stinging blue goop and started rubbing at his own head furiously, faced with his own cracked vision in the mirror. Quickly, everything in the bathroom became blue.

Chapter Text

Chapter 8: If you become any more ragged, I may just have to start hitting on you

It was a relatively quiet day in the Helsteen mansion when the matriarch and patriarch got a videocall from one of the most influential families in the Scarlet Empire. Tavaste looked at his phone with a stern expression as he and his wife relaxed in the garden, watching the flowers bloom. As a mated couple, the alpha and omega were very in tune with each other’s feelings, so Amelia knew instantly that the call was not an expected one.

“Who is it?” she asked over the rim of her cup of tea.

“The Dawnmoores,” Tavaste murmured, putting his tablet down and picking up the call on the phone instead.

A tawny face with moles here and there came into view. The woman was an alpha with a strong jaw and nose, looking proud and cold as she assessed the Helsteen alpha back. She had a suit on instead of the black military uniform she was usually seen in on the television and internet. She was one of the matriarchs of the Dawnmoore family, one of Percival Dawnmoore’s mothers. “Good morning, Mr. Helsteen,” she started amicably. “I hope you can spare me a moment of your time to smooth some things over.”

Tavaste knew what she was talking about. As the CEO in the engineering industry, he was always kept on top of things concerning his family, especially his rowdy, flirty son. “Indeed, this call has come just in time. Saves me the trouble of reaching out to you, General Dawnmoore.”

Amelia stayed quiet and listened closely to the conversation as she sipped her tea. Let the alphas posture and bark until a mediator was needed.

General Eleanore Dawnmoore blinked lazily at the other alpha through the screen. “First of all, let me apologize on behalf of my son for the overt violence he has used on your son.”

Tavaste nodded in acknowledgement.

“Secondly, allow me to say that Percy was merely doing his job as a soldier of our Empire, protecting an omega in distress. So, let us keep things on the low and not make a scene here. We both know which one’s son is in more need of disciplining after this altercation.”

Amelia wrinkled her nose while Tavaste merely stared icily back at the screen. “And if you don’t mind me saying: beating a mere civilian into a state where their personality and biology face alterations is considered in most circles quite an over-reaction. You might want to school your son on some basic decency instead of military etiquette.”

General Dawnmoore huffed on her end, looking down at her nose at the other alpha. “Your son is a known miscreant and mine a war hero. Think about which one people will back if we go about this publicly, Mr. Helsteen.”

Tavaste was about to growl out something when a small, manicured hand rose up at his side. He went quiet so his wife could speak:

“We do not wish to make this into some sort of witch hunt. That would be very crude of all of us, wouldn’t you agree?”

General Dawnmoore frowned. The phone was turned so she could see the omega spooning sugar into her tea by the little white table with all the calm in the world. The omega was small but straight-backed, held herself with poise and power, which made the Dawnmoore matriarch calm herself. She took a deep breath and inquired what the Helsteens would like to do about this rampant rumor and the rift it was creating between their powerful families.

“Let’s have dinner, all of us!” Amelia chirped with a saccharine smile capable of toppling even the most stubborn alpha. “Us… the kids… We’ll let them speak their piece in a controlled environment and forge a better relationship between our families in the process. And talk about those next generation artificial intelligences our company is currently working on for you.”

General Dawnmoore straightened herself even more, unconsciously aiming to please the beautiful omega. “I find that an adequate solution. We will be in touch.”

The call cut before anyone could say anything more to that. Tavaste threw the phone on the table and let out a pent-up growl, low and searing, scaring the lingering servants further away from the pair. Only Amelia got up and closed the distance between the two, massaging her husband’s wide, strong shoulders. She knew the scars underneath from Tavaste’s years of serving in the military himself and was careful not to agitate old wounds as she worked her fingers on him.

“Calm down, my most beloved,” she crooned and felt the alpha let out a huge sigh. “I’ve got this. Our family will be just fine.”

“I don’t like that woman,” Tavaste growled out, canines bared. “She’s always been haughty and arrogant, looking down on others like it’s her right! No wonder her son has become basically a fighting robot with barely any emotions!”

“Easy there…” Amelia kissed the top of the alpha’s head and let him crane his head back to kiss her back properly. After a lingering moment, Amelia put her head against her husband’s shoulder and let her massive amount of brown hair spill over his suit. “I know what I’m doing. I’ll smooth this over, you’ll see. Our son will be just fine. No one will overtly bully him on our watch,” Amelia hummed, wondering distantly how their son was doing in the middle of all this. Percival Dawnmoore had saved his life previously from a mecha, so perhaps their relationship wasn’t as bad as the parents were making things out to be, but who knew… Twenty-somethings could be just as difficult as teens on occasions. Adults were just big kids after all.

…

Back on campus, the message boards were buzzing with activity since Jon Helsteen had put up a selfie and a comment about the rumors spreading about his health. It basically said that, yes, Jon did experience a concussion and had some memory loss, but he had also promised his parents to try to be a better person, so that was that. It still didn’t explain his changed scent mark, but people let it slide for now, because the selfie Jon had provided was just unbelievable! Jon Helsteen was not bad looking. He had after all bedded many omegas and betas, but this new look he was sporting was arousing all kinds of mixed reactions in people:

Jon had dyed his hair a bright blue, which contrasted nicely with his brown eyes, making them look darker and broodier. With the hacked up, partially shaved hair, dark lines under his eyes, plasters on his glands and faint scratch marks on his cheeks, he truly looked like a delinquent now! His previous look had been pampered and sleek and princely, so this new one was making people question even harder if Jon Helsteen had only ‘partial’ memory loss, or just a whole new damn personality. These changes were just way too sudden and back-to-back!

There was a portion of people who were a little flustered by the selfie, leaving likes but not daring to comment in fear of getting targeted by the people who had been wronged by Jon. The difficult mood lifted a little however when both the IMFA team Captain and vice-captain left comments on the selfie, calling the new hairstyle ‘nice’ and ‘more fitting’.

In his room on campus, Jacques was grinding his teeth over the semi-exposed vulnerable glands, hating that others got a look at them, even if they were covered by plasters.

Caleb on the other hand felt like Jon Helsteen had disappeared from this world and been replaced by someone entirely else. His head was spinning looking at this new Jon, who was honestly speaking way more to his taste than the previous one, and it scared him senseless!

There was one more person staring at the selfie and comment in his office: William Bouchard, Jon’s campus therapist, had the young alpha’s medical files on the screen of his computer and his phone open in front of him. The beta glanced through his gold-rimmed glasses at the comment about a memory loss and the IMFA entry report, which had Jon’s scent fingerprint on it.

It was near impossible to change one’s scent to such degree as to what had happened to Jon. While the honey had stayed, the type of leaves in his scent had changed completely. It was honestly a medical mystery as to how that had happened, since not even trauma could change the scent this much. Bouchard became even more curious as time went on, as to what on Earth had happened to Jon Helsteen from the time he got beat up by Percival Dawnmoore to when he attended school again.

...

“Jon, are you sure you’re alright?” Thomas and a couple more alphas came up to him after Jon had sat in his seat at class, and gave him searching, worried looks. Many others were also looking from the sidelines, whispering either with furrowed brows or staring openly curiously.

“I’m fine!” Jon huffed out, fangs pressing into his thoroughly abused lower lip. “Sssslept like a dream!” he lisped in frustration. “You can all just leave me alone like you want to do and ignore my existence, or whatever.”

The alpha trio glanced at each other in clear concern but decided not to push the topic further. Jon had dark circles under his eyes, scabbed lower lip, and faint scratch marks on his face that hadn’t been there the previous day. People couldn’t help but worry. The change was truly just way too sudden and fast, as if a different person had emerged through some immense trauma in the previously haughty and loose alpha when they weren’t looking.

Caleb was sitting in the front, eyeing back at Jon through his angelic hair, while a group of omegas and betas discussed some internet video around him. Jon looked utterly disheveled, and it was getting to a point of strange where Caleb couldn’t even derive proper pleasure from it. Everything was so strange. He was itching to know what had happened while Jon was recovering at home, but couldn’t possibly just ask the alpha, since they didn’t get along at all anymore. So, Caleb just sat in his desk, fuming and biting at his nail, and trying to pay attention to the group around him to maintain face.

The classes went on without a hitch, and oddly with Jon Helsteen answering many of the questions. The teachers couldn’t help staring with an open mouth as the usually dumb and uncaring alpha sat hunched over and gave out perfect answers. ‘Who is this person?’ they couldn’t help wondering behind their tablets. ‘Just who on Earth is this alpha?!’

Jon merely ignored everyone as to not encourage any interactions with himself, and even jogged away from the classroom after the last class, so no one could catch up to him. He had done his best to raise his average scores despite the original Jon’s abysmal results, and now it was time to dive right back into mecha training again! Jon was feeling good as he strode to the mecha bay, passed the several mechanics working on the mecha, and got into the alpha changing room. Where he wasn’t alone this time around.

Jacques and Percy both looked up when they heard the door and cheered up immediately upon seeing their junior pilot.

“Jon!” Percy declared with outwardly emotionless gusto. “Your hair!”

“Yeah,” Jon chuckled awkwardly as he put his stuff into a locker and started taking off his school uniform.

“Your face,” Jacques couldn’t help saying in turn as he looked his junior up and down with concern. “And your body.”

Jon looked down at himself. He knew that he had scratches on him here and there from his own punishing claws, not to mention the fresh scabs on his knuckles from when he punched the mirror at his apartment. Jon didn’t say anything back and merely got into a sleeveless and baggy pants like the other two. “I’m guessing we have physical training today?”

Neither Jacques nor Percy said anything to that. They glanced at each other, reading one another’s concern, and carefully approached Jon.

“The things they say online about you are shitty, but they’ll pass.” Jacques eyed the bruising of Jon’s lids, then the scabbed lower lip, and tutted. He uncapped his cherry lip balm, forcefully turned the other’s face and furiously swiped the abused, dry lip moist.

Percy felt a strange sense of alarm at his vice-captain’s motions, but couldn’t quite place why, so he ignored it and crouched on the bench next to Jon. “I like this person you are right now, and if anyone bullies you, I’ll give them hell!”

“Thanks…” Jon answered with embarrassment, jerking himself free from Jacques’ hold and licking the familiar cherry flavor. Heat curled in the pit of his stomach, and he fought against a blush. “You don’t need to pay attention to me. I can take care of myself just fine.” Jon had always been fighting, at home and school, until he gave up. Giving up was a choice. He could start fighting again, if necessary, if someone actually threatened him, so it was all fine. “Besides…” Jon shrugged as he made his way to the door. “I’m used to getting hurt.”

The door swung closed in front of two alarmed faces, and Jon saw none of this.

…

After everyone else on the team had arrived, Melanie Torrent took them to a more private gym within the mecha building and stood there in her sports bra and yoga pants like a meticulously sculpted statue. Some of the young omegas couldn’t help gulping down saliva at the washboard stomach and happy trail leading to a faint bulge at the front, perfectly outlined by the tight black pants.

“Alright!” Melanie shouted out, startling them all. “Today is another day of physical training! A pilot needs to keep in shape: you may not be moving like the foot soldiers, but you are flexing and bending around in the mecha to make it move. So, let’s get to work and make sure you can keep fighting in your machines until either your enemy stops you or you stop your enemy!” She blew into her whistle and started instructing the juniors on how to use the gym equipment to maximum effect.

The seniors were five in number this time, their previously only omega pilot having come back from sick leave. She had long blond hair in a bun, a cute small face, but serious sleek muscle underneath her sleeveless shirt and yoga pants. She and the two beta women, Vy and Olive, started jogging on treadmills and having a conversation. Percy and Jacques were spotting for each other, making sure they could do their back muscle training correctly.

Jacques couldn’t help glancing at the juniors occasionally. He had eye for beauty, always had had, and this time too he took stock of the eye-candy available. The omegas were lovely like usual, if not somewhat plain when compared to Caleb Morningstar by their side. The blonde omega basically radiated his own light, making the room feel lighter in his presence, and exuded a delicious minty-fresh scent which cleared the pathways in the body. It was a nice change of pace to the overly sugary scents many omegas naturally had.

Caleb’s eye met his. Jacques did a flirty little wave with his fingers, then suddenly caught a whiff of that bewitching camellia and honey mix which coated the top of his mouth.

Melanie Torrent was helping Jon use a machine meant for thigh muscles, making sure that the young alpha didn’t overdo it with speed versus actual power. Jon’s bright blue hair swayed gently over his brows, shadowing his dark circles further and making his skin look sickly pale against the faintly mottled red spots that still lingered after the incident with the mecha and alien. The skin had healed fantastically but still held some discoloration in the right lighting. Jon looked tired already, like he was carrying the weight of the world, but also determined as he pushed the weights with his legs. With every ounce of sweat squeezed out, the camellia and honey spread further from the wounded glands.

Jacques gulped down the alluring scent and looked back to Percy who was seemingly laser-focused on his own training. Even though it would bring attention to Jon, Jacques couldn’t help asking his friend and Captain: “So, what do you think of Jon?”

Percy concentrated on even breathing as he mulled over the answer. “I like him.”

“Yeah,” Jacques laughed out with a roll of his green eyes, then leant closer to the other. “But I mean like… what do you think of him as an alpha? What does the alpha inside you say?”

Percy didn’t even stutter in his pace despite finding the question odd. What did his inner alpha think? It didn’t think much. It was simple biology, egging him on to claim a mate and breed. What was there to think? “He’s another alpha, so my instincts want me to show my dominance, but I’ve killed most of that instinct over the years.” He said it as a matter of fact, because to him, it was. His omega and alpha mothers had drilled this belief into him: a good soldier was mind over matter, until time came for muscle memory to take over in a fight. Never should a soldier let themselves be taken over by instinct in a social environment because instincts could lead astray and dull one’s rationality. Even in a battle trusting in instinct alone was dangerous, so Percy had practiced meditation and mental image training since he was five years old. He had always been good at keeping a check on his emotions for some reason. At least at home, in training and on the battlefield, he was praised for showing little emotion and just acting as instructed. To Percy it had simply always made sense to do as rules dictated as long as those rules weren’t stupid. Why would people break rules when they made sense?

Jacques was somewhat familiar with the military prince’s personality, so he merely sighed and gave up on questioning the other. If push came to show, Percy would most likely not even realize he was attracted to Jon, since it wasn’t socially conventional for an alpha to find one attractive. And Percy was all about them rules. Jacques even himself was a little confused about this new aspect of himself, but also couldn’t help finding it only natural for him to find Jon appealing to his inner alpha:

Jon had grown more and more into that ragged, angry, and clearly fragile individual that appealed to an alpha’s instinct to protect and provide. Pack alphas in the olden times took care of everyone in their pack, including other alphas. These days it was more about competing for resources and mates, but Jacques held onto the simple fact of biology that body chemistry sometimes knew some things the modern mind didn’t. And Jacques’ body chemistry stirred with the sight of someone like Jon, who needed protection but absolutely refused to have any. It was infuriating. It was a challenge. And everyone knew that alphas loved challenges.

Jacques glanced between Caleb and Jon, undecided. An independent yet nurturing omega was very appealing, but it didn’t quite tickle his instincts enough. Jacques held immense respect for omegas like their senior pilot Cassidy and junior Caleb, but if it came down to who he felt needed his attention more, then…

“I’ll be right back.”

Percy didn’t even glance his way as Jacques swaggered over to Jon who was now working his thigh muscles all alone. The other junior pilots had left some room between them and Jon, as if they were shunning him. Jacques wasn’t too surprised, since there were all kinds of weird stuff going on online about Jon, but it made him feel a little sad. Jon didn’t seem to care, or he was just too concentrated on his work out.

Jacques moved with grace and casualness like he’d just happened to end up where Jon was. “Spread your legs a little,” Jacques said, smirking at the wording. He was pleased to see Jon doing as he said, most likely not thinking, only reacting. His junior seemed to really be in the zone. Jacques leaned against the equipment, discreetly scenting the other and letting warm honey coat every inch of his mouth, then be washed away by hot tea. He encouraged Jon to keep going, until he couldn’t anymore and had to take a break. Jacques took this moment to do something about the jealousy that had built in his heart slowly but surely and handed over a water bottle. Jon was oblivious to what was happening between them as his original’s memories were blurry: as Jon took a swig from the water bottle, Jacques very naturally extended his hand to pat him on the shoulder and turned his wrist to brush his pheromones against the space between shoulder and throat. Jon faintly registered a waft of something calming yet fierce passing him by; a rainstorm over towering oaks and pines, bathing everything in the musk of the wilderness. It made him shudder and feel a little hot so he fanned himself with his shirt, confused at the sudden change in smells.

As Jacques exited to help spot for his other juniors and Jon drank his water, Caleb’s keen eye observed their interaction. Beautiful blue eyes framed by thick lashes fluttered languidly with hidden malice. Caleb had warned Jon not to try and fool others into thinking he was something that he wasn’t. Jon was still a stain on his family name and a shameless man, who had harassed countless people and fucked around as he pleased. Even if he lost his entire memory, that still wouldn’t erase the things he had done.

Caleb glanced towards Captain Percival. He made a decision and wandered over to the handsome alpha exuding powerful pheromones with his sweat. Some of the other omegas were getting affected by the mix of different pheromones but Caleb kept his head cool, knowing that this was part of the training for them: not to be distracted by anything when there was work to be done. So, he confidently sidled up to Percival as the man was taking a break and offered to help him stretch out his back. Percival glanced at Caleb emotionlessly and allowed the omega to touch him, both sitting on the floor and Caleb pushing and pulling at his Captain’s sleek body. Caleb couldn’t help licking his lips as peeks of strong back muscles were revealed under a white tank top. He even did his own discreet scenting, taking in the mercilessly searing desert wind and sand in the other’s scent.

Unbeknownst to Caleb, Percy was more than aware of the scenting. He concentrated on the floor in front of him, but at the same time smelled the omega pheromones firing up in the air around him, slithering into his nose and mouth. Percy closed his eyes and let the mental image made by the scent show him who this person scenting him was:

A field of flowers – roses – bloody red and hiding thorns under tender leaves. And below that, mint – growing abundant and wild and trying to climb up every single thing it could reach. Trees, houses, fences… people. The mint took over and clung stubbornly like it was its right to do so, covering Percy’s airways and his body, claiming him without permission, with arrogance.

Percy blinked his lids open and continued to stare at the floor, not saying anything or reacting in any way. He merely let the over-eager mint pass through his lungs and be blown back out, tickling his inner alpha like a peacock’s tailfeather, then filed the scent fingerprint away into a file of this junior. Mind over matter. Percy’s instincts yielded to his trained serenity and before he knew it, the stretching was over, and Percy was walking to his fellow teammates chilling by the treadmills. Without even glancing back at the omega, Percy put his head against Olive’s sweaty back and rubbed his forehead hard against the mild scent there. The women startled a bit at the sudden appearance of their Captain but calmed quickly at the familiar sight. It was not their first time to see Percival covering one scent with another. It was merely a sign of trust from him to do so with another person’s scent, so Olive merely accepted it and leaned against the treadmill.

“Eager omegas, huh?” Vy grinned from the side, ruffling her bright red hair.

Percy grunted and leaned his face into the scent of grass and sunlight on Olive’s dark skin. Betas were a blessing to him: their scents didn’t offend his overly sensitive nose like alphas’ and omegas’ did.

Just then, Jacques came also over and quirked a brow at his Captain’s shenanigans. “What happened to you?”

Percy looked to the side, still leaning against Olive’s warm back. “Mint is a wily plant…” he murmured, sharp eye on Caleb Morningstar, who was now lifting weights. “It’s hard to kill and even harder to stop it from spreading and choking off all the other plant-life.”

The others cocked their heads, not understanding what on Earth their Captain was talking about. Percy kept silent after that, concentrating on training even harder and ignored everyone else around him.

Jon was doing the same in his own isolated bubble, staying consciously away from the others and enjoying the silence which had become his companion over all the years in the real world. Quiet was good. Harmless. It meant that no one was getting hurt. Everything was better just like that: Jon in his own corner of the world, Caleb in his own. Nothing could be his fault, if Jon only turned his gaze away from others and kept a civil distance. Jon could be nice to his team- and classmates but not too much. It was the best for all of them. Nothing could be Jon’s fault.

…

That was all good on a thought-level, but in practice, it was like his changes in personality and appearance had made him visible to a group of people who got a kick out of bothering others. For an entire week he had people, mostly alphas for some reason, approach him and accompany him to places, helping him carry things and even defending him online for having some kind of trauma. Which everyone seemed to think he had in a major way, because they often stared at Jon like he hadn’t slept, showered, or eaten anything since popping into this world. Which was wrong! Jon slept, he showered and ate, but the bruising under his eyes persisted as his dreams were either emptiness or vague, mixed-up memories of his father or the violence he had committed himself. Or implications of suicide, where he died in strange ways that didn’t make sense in the dream or in reality. Sometimes Jon even saw Caleb smiling up at him from underneath him, the real Caleb and this world’s Caleb, naked and beautiful and vicious. It made Jon ache deeply in a way that he hated. He refused to miss what he had with Caleb in high school and punished himself for it by studying instead of resting.

Okay, so maybe Jon didn’t sleep all that well after that psychic attack from the alien. Maybe the resurfaced isolation and slander were so similar to what had happened in the real world, that it made him space out and his head feel full and heavy with emotions which made him punch walls. In any case, Jon didn’t need others to baby him or feel sorry for him, and he definitely didn’t need them to cause Caleb to do a hate campaign against him in this world also! So, he did his best to dodge other people and seek out places which were made for solitude. His test scores were up which was great! Teachers and his parents were so proud, and it made him feel good in a childish and fragile way. Things were fine. As long as Jon could keep living without succumbing to his rage and make his new parents proud of him, he could tolerate pain, loneliness or whatever. Everything was just fine!

Too bad some people didn’t seem to believe him.

Jon was starting a new week by taking some time alone in a training mecha. It was getting late, but he didn’t feel like sleeping, so he piloted the two-legged heavy mecha around a large training room and occasionally punched and kicked targets. He was so into it that he didn’t even notice when another mecha appeared into the training room and caught a punch when Jon made a sudden turn around.

“What?!” Jon was startled to see a deep red heavily customized mecha in front of him.

The mecha let go of his bulky hand and did a little curtsy with surprising grace. It had a somewhat feminine curvature to it with long, thin limbs, blades on each arm and a giant snipe rifle folded on the shoulders to be deployed at command. It was a gorgeous long-ranger and Jon couldn’t help staring at it mouth open. It even had some kind of prongs jutting out of its hips, like the petals of a flower, flexible and metal sleek.

A notice came in that another pilot from a secure channel wanted to connect with him. Jon allowed the connection and heard Jacques’ voice in the cavity Jon was sitting in.

“Hello there, friend!” Jacques chirped and did a little spin in his mecha. “Care to spar with a fine, red lady?”

“Your mecha is a girl?”

Jacques chuckled. “To me she is. A lovely lady of battle: Spiderlily!”

The mecha truly was honoring its name. Just like the flower in question, Spiderlily had thin metal petals which may have been used to tie something up or perhaps to cut something. The head with five eyes even had protective thin petals around it as a collar, making it harder for enemies to hit the orange eye-lenses needed for sniping.

Jon couldn’t help frowning. “Are you sure you want to fight like this? I mean… this mecha is essentially a pseudo-tank and yours is very… dainty.”

“She is more used to long range fighting, but not completely helpless up close!”

After getting the assurance, Jon got excited at the proposal of a mecha fight. In the forefront of his mind though, he played back how he’d gone basically feral against Caleb. As the two pilots took a bit of distance from each other and got ready, Jon took a deep breath and told himself to take it easy. To just… relax and roll with the punches. Don’t take shit but also don’t try to kill the other person. He could do that. Hopefully. If he couldn’t and it got out, his therapist would probably not like it.

“Ready?”

Jon looked a Jacques through the single eye of the mecha.

Jacques smirked back inside of his own.

On command, both mecha launched forward. Jon was looking to collide with the frail red mecha, but Spiderlily’s thin, curvy frame slipped away from his grasp, moving with astonishing speed. Which made sense: the mecha had barely any weight on it aside from its basic skeleton and sniper rifle. So, the engines propelling it had nothing major pressing them down, unlike on Jon’s big and beefy training mecha.

Jacques laughed with genuine delight as he spun his mecha around the other. “Like a bee against an elephant!”

“This elephant still has sturdy limbs!” Jon grinned savagely and threw out his arm suddenly from an unexpected angle.

Spiderlily took a hit to the hip, making the dainty mecha shake and stutter. The petals around its hips however did immediately shoot out and wrap around the big fist, pulling Spiderlily towards it like on a jump-rope and letting the red mecha smash right into the core of the training mecha with its feet.

Jon gasped out as he was kicked in the gut despite not feeling pain. The A.I made a suggestion so fast that Jon didn’t even register it. He just reacted as suggested and grabbed onto the thin metal plates wrapped around him.

Jacques was still smiling despite Jon figuring out how to counter his attack. Unfortunately for the junior, Jacques was far more experienced and his mecha was custom made for him, so he and Spiderlily’s A.I together made quick decisions with human and machine brainpower combined that Jon could not achieve yet.

Jacques had his mecha flex its feet around the training mecha’s big head and turned forcefully. Though his mecha didn’t have much weight or power to it close range, this did get Jacques close enough to thrust his two hand-swords right into the line between the mecha’s head and neck.

It was over before Jon could blink. One moment he was pulling Spiderlily close to crush it, then the red mecha was right on him, too close to disentangle, and two swords sliced into his arteries – neck – arteries! The A.I immediately blared as the whole head of the mecha was swung off its shoulders and the inside where Jon sat became coated in red emergency lighting. Blind without the mecha’s single lens, Jon stumbled around and threw a hand up from the handle to feel his gland. A strong, alarmed heartbeat pulsed under the raised part of the skin and plaster. Jon breathed hard, trying to remember that the mecha had lost its head, not Jon himself. He still had his. And he wasn’t blind, he could still see. The A.I was blind. It was okay. It was okay! It was okay…

Jacques let the petals disentangle from the other and jumped off with flourish. Spiderlily spun around in happy circles on its thin feet and Jacques laughed at the training mecha stumbling against a wall. “What do you think of my lady now, Jon? Pretty good for a long-ranger, huh!”

Silence. Or not quite. There was heavy breathing there, buzzing in the comms, desperate gasps for breath.

Jacques became worried. He remembered Jon’s previous freak out against the alien and what had allegedly happened between him and Caleb. Without waiting much, Spiderlily strode over and got on one knee in front of the bulky training mecha. The neck-part of the red mecha popped open. Jacques climbed out, some hair loose against his face, and made his way from one mecha-arm to another, until he got to the neck and could pull on the emergency handle there.

“Jon!” Jacques was almost bunted into the chin as the younger alpha crawled out, breath heavy.

“Shit!” Jon gasped out, mad at himself for getting afraid and disoriented again. He wiped sweat from his brow, face harsh and sickly under the white lights of the training room. “I’m fine! I just… You caught me by surprise!”

“It could happen in a real fight,” Jacques couldn’t help explaining his decision of decapitation as he helped Jon up from inside the mecha. “You need to be careful letting anything that close. The aliens have numerous ways to separate the hinges in the armor of the mecha.”

Jon nodded, breath evening out. He wavered on top of the mecha, very aware that they were several feet off the ground.

Jacques instinctively steadied the other, hands feeling the slight tremor in the smaller body. Jacques observed closely Jon’s face, noting that in the past week, there wasn’t still improvement on his complexion or state of nervous dishevelment. He gave a careful sniff. Jon smelled faintly of sour panic, and he seemed tired. Not physically exactly but just in general tired. “Have you been sleeping well?”

Jon let out some kind of noise as he tried lowering himself down the arm of the training mecha. “It’s fine.”

“Is it?” Jacques frowned and climbed down far more nimbly. “You don’t look so good.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You know what I mean.”

Jon sighed deeply as he finally dropped down beside the other. Here it was again: another alpha trying to get all up in his business for some reason. And it was someone Caleb liked which made Jon extra careful as he turned his back and merely said: “It’s just stress. It’ll pass. I can take care of myself.”

“Because you’re used to getting hurt.”

Jon actually slowed down at that, looking over his shoulder.

Jacques was standing where he’d left him, hands at his sides curling towards fists and a serious, searching look on his face. A few strands of red hair had escaped the ponytail, shadowed one eye, and gave the senior pilot a more dangerous look than usual.

Jon felt oddly oppressed by the whole vibe Jacques was giving, which made his fight instinct itch. Or perhaps it was the alpha body he inhabited, answering to a subtle expression of dominance. Jon sneered, long teeth lending a snake-like venomous look to his expression. “Yeah. I am. It’s not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal?!” Jacques gave a shout without meaning to, vexed by this nonchalant answer which completely disregarded one’s own wellbeing. “Is that what you say to others when they get hurt? Is that how little you think of pain?!”

“It’s life, Jack!” Jon shouted back, arms spread to gesture around them, at everything. “People get hurt. I don’t like it and I don’t want to be the one hurting others again, so, that means I get to be the one who is hurt! That’s logic! That’s justice.” Jon explained with all the security of someone who had lived by such rules for years. “You don’t have to worry about me. Just go back to flirting with your adoring omegas and let the rest of us live our lives.”

“That’s so sad!” Jacques grit his teeth, even more frustrated by the other’s words. “I don’t like that. You are a good person. I don’t know about the Jon Helsteen from before because I didn’t know him. But I do see you right here in front of me and I can tell that you are suffering and enjoying it in some sick way I don’t understand!”

“Wow!” Jon gave a loud cackle at the roof and started turning away again to get away from this useless conversation. “Thanks, Doctor Jack! You nailed it! You nailed me. I hate myself and so forth! Whatever.” He strode away, already endlessly tired by this exchange. It was like he had swelled into a huge balloon from all the sudden emotions, then been pricked by a needle into a tiny, pathetic patch on the floor. He needed to get some peace and quiet. Maybe hit the study hall that was open around the clock, so he didn’t have to think about this disastrous meeting in bed…

Jon reacted purely intuitively to the force rushing at him. He turned just in time to put up his arms against Jacques’, who started pushing him backwards with such hurry that Jon couldn’t get his feet under him.

“I don’t understand!” Jacques snarled, canines sharp and pupils slit. “I don’t understand people like you, who fester in self-hatred! It’s stupid! It doesn’t take you anywhere!”

“What do you know?!” Jon barked back, snapping his teeth. “Mr. Perfect Vice-President is giving me life advice? Oooohh no! You don’t know my life! You don’t know what kind of person I am deep inside!”

“I could know if you let me!” Jacques pushed and pushed and pushed until Jon’s back was against a white wall. His paleness and dark circles became even more apparent against the whiteness, making Jacques’ mind buzz and heart ache. He wanted to scoop the other up and wrap him in a blanket and give him some fucking soup! Which Jacques wasn’t used to feeling, so it just fueled his anger further. “It can’t be so bad that you’re supposed to just take everyone’s curses and glares and the isolation that has clearly started to happen! That’s right!” He drew a breath. “I noticed! It’s pretty apparent when looking at our team practices!”

“You don’t know that!” Jon was starting to become desperate because he couldn’t explain. Because he couldn’t be understood. Because his hurt wasn’t from this fantastical world.

“Okay, so you harassed some omegas and betas. You’re not the only one, unfortunately! But none of those others are taking it like you! You clearly don’t want to do that anymore! You don’t like that person you were. So, you’re not just that person who hurt others, Jon!”

Jon was starting to lose his will to fight because there was just no way to get his point across without revealing that he wasn’t the real Jon Helsteen.

Jacques was surprised when the other alpha became slack against the wall, his expression full of some deep despair that made Jacques’ heartbeat faster and his need to hold the other greater.

“You don’t know me…” Jon tried to explain again without the words that could explain. “I hurt other people. It’s how I’m built. How I was born. I have so much anger and it has nowhere else to go.” He looked up at the other alpha, blue hair sweaty on his brow, tired and hollowed out. “So, I keep a distance. It’s better for everyone. It makes everyone happier. And I deserve it. So, just… don’t do this thing where you approach me just because you feel sorry for me.” He shook his head, gathering his strength to push the other away and turn away from him again. “Because that also feels shitty. To know that I’m so weak that it makes me some charity case.”

“You…” Jacques didn’t know what to say to all that. There was so much information but not enough at the same time. There was huge shadow looming over Jon, pressing him down, drowning him, and instead of grabbing any rope, he much rather cut them all off to not drag anyone else in. It was sad. It was maddening. It was… appealing to some deep, dark, primal animal inside Jacques!

Jon squeaked it alarm when he was suddenly lifted and manhandled into a fireman’s carry. Jacques had his feet and head in a lock, strong arms holding him in place as he flailed and cursed, and the older alpha started walking out of the mecha bay.

“Wha…!” Jon started to get seriously worried as they passed some late-night workers, who gave them odd looks but a wide berth, since Jacques was clearly so pissed. “Jacques, wait! Wait! I can walk! Put me down!”

“Where’s your apartment?”

“Seriously, let me the fuck down!”

“Where is your apartment, alpha?”

Something about that… about how Jacques called him “alpha”, made Jon quiet with a sudden sense of nervousness and annoyance. He wanted to at the same time bite the other in the face and crane his neck at him, which was an odd conflicting feeling based on alpha instincts that Jon wasn’t all that familiar with. So, he grasped on the annoyance and tried to struggle, but the other alpha’s arms held onto him even tighter, making Jon hiss in pain.

After a couple of minutes, Jacques was opening Jon’s door with Jon’s own keys and hauling him inside like a wet sack of laundry. Jon made a noise when he was thrown on the bed and propped himself up with his hands to watch in great confusion as Jacques closed the door, took his blanket and proceeded to make a caterpillar out of his junior. Then, while Jon was still blinking in a daze of not knowing how to react, Jacques went to his fridge and closets, and started making something from the meager ingredients.

Jon watched him from his blanket burrito, utterly blown away by this change of events. “What is happening right now?”

A low growl came out of Jacques’ mouth in warning. Jon decided to just sit there and see how things would go. It couldn’t be anything bad. Usually when people wanted to hurt others, they didn’t put them in a blanket and start cooking a meal. And speaking of, Jon was getting kind of hungry… how long had it been since he last ate?

After some time, Jacques finally seemed to have calmed down and he had a bowl of chicken noodle soup with minced vegetables in his hand. Jon ate without a question. He was hungry and the soup smelled amazing. He never really had any energy to do any proper cooking in this world.

Jacques stood there in the small apartment, surrounded by Jon’s smell, and pushed down a contented rumble. He didn’t want to let the other know how godsdamn pleased he was with himself for being able to provide like this for someone. As an alpha and a person, he was feeling extremely good and capable, more so even than when fighting in a mecha. This was a more mellow feeling that sat warm in the chest and made a smile pull insistently at Jacques’ lips.

While Jon was eating, Jacques looked around his apartment curiously. There were more books than he thought someone like Jon Helsteen would have. There were even some plants sitting on shelves and desks, giving the otherwise sterile room some coziness. It was very clean also, aside from some clothes hanging off the computer chair.

Jacques glanced at Jon eating away and then quickly lifted his hoodie to his nose for a quick inspection. He shuddered in pleasure as camellia leaves and honey slid down his throat.

“Okay…”

Jacques startled but didn’t let it show. He merely stood there again with hands behind his back.

Jon was looking him up and down like he didn’t know what to do with him. “This was… a thing that you did.”

“Yeah.” Jacques shrugged, appearing nonchalant like he didn’t just fireman carry someone into a bed and give them some homemade soup.

“Why?”

Jacques sucked air in through his teeth, trying to think of how to explain himself. “It’s just an alpha thing,” he settled on then as the simplest explanation. “You’re a part of our IMFA team. I’m the vice-captain, so I’m responsible for my juniors’ health. And you looked like you needed some taking care of.”

Jon didn’t necessarily like how that made him sound, but he did get some really good soup, so… “Alright. So, will you leave now that I’m fed?”

“Go to sleep,” Jacques ordered suddenly with that same air of dominance which made Jon’s hindbrain itch.

He showed his teeth but agreed. He did need sleep.

“And eat something in the morning.”

“I will!”

Jacques made motions to show that he would keep an eye on Jon and then finally left the apartment. Jon took a deep breath, put the soup bowl away and raked fingers through his blue hair.

“What the hell just happened?”

Chapter Text

Chapter 9: Awkward family lunch interrupted by an event

On the weekend when many were visiting their family and partners, Jon got a call from his parents that they’d reserved a table at an upscale restaurant for all of them and the Dawnmoore family to hash things out between Jon and Percival. Apparently, there were rumors moving also in the business and military world, and the two big families didn’t want to risk cutting ties, mainly because the Helsteens were responsible for the artificial intelligences and mechanical brain of the mecha. Peace was very wanted, and their parents seemed to think that Jon and Percival still didn’t like each other. Which made sense since it wasn’t like Jon and Percival were friends or anything on campus, so their relationship could be seen as cold and distant despite them being on the same mecha team.

Is what Jon thought until he was on his way to a sky metro from the campus, and a black and purple motorcycle pulled up next to him on the street. Jon stared at the person with the dark helmet and leatherjacket, trying to guess if he was being mugged or not, when the visor opened and Jon saw familiar dark monolid eyes.

“Captain?”

Percy looked his junior up and down, noting the nice-looking jacket, white turtleneck and dresspants. His eyes crinkled happily at the corners, making the dark eyes twinkle. “We’re going to the same place. Hop on.”

Jon wasn’t short on money as a Helsteen, but he had been as Jonah Springster, and he was used to thinking frugally. So, of course he took the free ride.

Percy felt arms wrap tightly against his waist and felt a sudden shudder at his neck, despite not being able to feel Jon’s breath there. He imagined feeling it though and didn’t find it unpleasant like he usually would in a situation like this.

Percy gave Jon an extra helmet and the two sped to the South of the city, where glass towers and modern architecture changed to a more Art Deco style. The restaurant was on the highest floor of an old hotel, where the people looked at Percival’s rugged clothes with clear disdain, until they saw his I.D and realized who they were looking down on.

“Right this way, young masters!” the beta lady squeaked, cold sweat beading on her brow, and the alphas were quickly escorted into the glass elevator which took them straight up to the twelfth floor.

Jon could barely blink at all of the jewelry and gold watches people were sporting. The air stank of power, both literally and figuratively. Everyone was posturing and flaunting their scents in an act of dominance. Even the omegas were fanning themselves, spreading their pheromones defiantly at both their rivals and business partners just to watch them squirm. Jon gagged a little as he walked past them with Captain Percival, who didn’t even seem to be breathing because of all the scents.

“Jon! Percy!” A familiar bright voice shouted.

Jon was relieved to see that their parents had taken a table from the back, separated from the others with succulents and marble. Amelia Helsteen beamed at the two young alphas and got up to boldly hug both of them. Percival became stiff, but otherwise allowed the embrace from the small sharply dressed omega.

Tavaste Helsteen and General Eleanore Dawnmoore were sitting opposite each other, idly watching their phones like the other didn’t even exist. The beta woman next to the General was her wife and a famous brain surgeon, Fiona Dawnmoore. She looked more like their son: the same eyes and tawny skin, the same sort of slightly dreamy atmosphere about her that Percival sometimes had.

Jon sat down beside his mother and was surprised when Percival plopped down beside him, next to his own mother.

Amelia and Fiona went right back to what they’d been previously talking about: “You’ve got to give me the name of the shop you got those earrings from! We should go out together sometimes! Just us wifeys.”

Fiona hummed absentmindedly and straightened the utensils in front of her. She didn’t seem to be agreeing or disagreeing, but at least she was smiling.

Percy looked at his own utensils and copied his mother. Then he did Jon’s also. And Fiona straightened her alpha wife’s utensils.

“We’ve already ordered,” General Eleanore drawled out, tucking her phone away. She and her wife were both dressed similarly in charcoal grey suits, only their ties were different colours.

Tavaste’s eye twitched. Amelia put her hand on his to help calm him. They had also coordinated their outfits, having greens and blues on their suit and dress.

Jon looked from one set of parents to the other. Tension was thick between the alphas and vaguely one-sidedly chipper between the beta and omega.

The waiters appeared like magic just a moment after, carting in several plates laden with delicious dishes in vivid colours. They were placed in the middle where everyone could take their own share of each. General Eleanore and Percival both told the others that Fiona would start first.

The beta focused again on the present and took some of the salad on one plate and the prawn soup in the tastefully decorated bowl. Then she looked at all the others and nodded firmly.

Then it was a war on food from all sides. Jon was salivating at all the dishes he’d never gotten to taste before. He put a piece of buttered lobster in his mouth, and it melted there, making him shiver with delight. The scents were incredible and the tastes were even more incredible!

The moment General Eleanore put plates down, Fiona straightened them out so that they were again in the middle and not sloppily displayed. It seemed like something the beta did almost without thought, like second nature. Percival again did his own plate before his mother could.

The conversation was dominated mostly by Amelia. Though alphas were obsessed with dominating the space they went to, omegas were often the ones leading charge in social places. Fiona Dawnmoore nodded along, and the two elder alphas ate quietly while listening.

It would have been awkward for Jon, were it not for Percival chattering constantly about mecha. Jon got really into it when the topic of his own custom mecha came into play. They played around with thoughts of making it blue like his hair – a calming colour with the unpredictability of the ocean. Percival offered to help paintbrush frothy waves on it when Jon would eventually get the mecha. Most in IMFA team got one of their own after enough merits had been accumulated in battle. Jon couldn’t wait! He might even choose one with many legs, so he could carry heavy equipment and have a good center of gravity. Something spider-like, all creepy-crawly.

Amelia cut into their conversation with a deep sigh. “Oh, honey, no! You know I hate creatures like that! How would I be able to take photos of you in your mecha when the times comes if it looks like a spider?”

General Eleanore stirred her risotto stiffly with a spoon. “One must first prove their worth. Your son has a lot to do before he can be allowed to waste school money.”

Tavaste rose to the challenge immediately, utensils clattering down. “You’re saying my son is unworthy of a custom mecha?”

General Eleanore huffed through her nose. “What I’ve heard of him so far, I’m frankly surprised that he’s been allowed to continue piloting at all.” She looked to Jon, making the younger alpha’s hairs stand on end. “Mental health plays an important part, and your son seems to struggle in that department.”

Wow! Jon had no idea how the General had gotten that information. Although, thinking logically, she was the head of the Scarlet Empire as the highest ranking in the army history, so perhaps she had simply held out her hand and people had clamored to pile Jon’s personal files onto her lap. It still chafed Jon’s ego to be looked down on by someone so high up the privilege-ladder, and he couldn’t help making it clear by baring his teeth.

Amelia gave her son a look and tutted, slapping his wrist. It wouldn’t do to ignite General’s wrath.

Percy paused food halfway to his maw. “You said the same thing when they said I might have autism and I pushed through.”

Fiona’s mild beta scent suddenly stabbed into everyone’s nostrils with apple sweetness, then mellowed out just as quickly. She gave her wife a side-eye.

Amelia and Tavaste each took a sip from their wine glasses to cover how hearing this gossip was making them mirthful.

General Eleanore looked sharply to at her son. “You do not have anything. You are my legacy. You were made a perfect soldier!”

Percy didn’t say anything to that, just kept on eating.

Jon on the other hand wanted to laugh. He’d thought that his Captain was a bit unusual compared to his peers, so him having autism made perfect sense to him. It also explained why Percival knew so goddamn much about mecha and was so eager to share about them: it was most likely his special interest, which had worked out for the General. Her son really had exactly the kind of single-minded passion needed to perfect piloting mecha. She should be proud instead of denying the thing which helped make her son the soldier he was today.

General had even seemingly offended her own wife, Jon noted in the back of his mind smugly.

Fiona excused herself a moment later, arranging everything just so before leaving for the bathroom.

Amelia considered going after her but steeled herself. It wasn’t good to snoop. It wasn’t her battle to fight. She was there for her own son. “Well, our son said he’s gotten help in the mental health department, and we trust his word when he says, that he’s feeling better already.”

Jon stilled, trying not to look guilty. Sure, he was trying to be better, that was true. But was it actually working? That was questionable. His own brain was working against him, and he didn’t always have the patience or wit to react correctly to whatever garbage came out.

Percy on the other hand was merely wondering if he should replace his mecha’s current four-lens head with a five-lens one, completely ignoring his parents. Seeing them argue wasn’t unfamiliar to him. It was merely background noise to his intense training to be the best possible protector for their Empire he could be.

Percy did however keep an eye on Jon. His keen nose caught flavors of both amusement and guilt, trapping them in the back of his mouth, then letting them go after Percy finished digesting them. He swallowed hard, feeling the tea and honey settle warm in his belly, then looked back up at the adults left at the table. “We can leave after eating. Me and Jon get along just fine now. He’s different from the other Jon,” Percy explained without much thought, just stating the truth – his truth. “I like him.”

General Eleanore looked at her son weird. Tavaste and Amelia on the other hand were pleasantly surprised at the other’s words. Jon just drank water with gusto to stop himself from looking weird and pale.

“Really?” Amelia asked hopefully, abandoning attempts to calm the General in favor of calming the one who’d put their son into his place. “Are you sure? Jon did approach Caleb Morningstar with bad intentions. No one would blame you for not liking our wild child.”

“That Jon wasn’t the same as this one,” Percy said again, agitating Jon further. “They don’t even smell the same.”

The adults frowned, looking at Jon who was busying himself with shoveling food into his mouth so he wouldn’t need to answer any questions.

“We have been… getting some word about that,” Amelia admitted with some worry. What on Earth could have traumatized her baby so badly that his whole scent changed? It couldn’t be because of Percival Dawnmoore, could it? Would that be enough to change one’s whole scent fingerprint?

“It’s fine!” Jon exclaimed before anyone else could say anything. “It happens! I just got a freak concussion and lost some memories, and it changed my personality a little. It’s gone. Happened already. Can’t do anything about that.”

“Other than sue,” Tavaste finally spoke, gripping his wineglass a little too hard as he stared at General Eleanore.

General looked back up at the other alpha. “Again, it wasn’t my son’s fault that your son decided to act like a sex criminal.”

“Our son is wild, but he would never force anyone!” Tavaste ground from between his teeth. “We would have heard about it!”

“Both of you, calm down!” Amelia said just as the ground shook and all the glasses on the table clattered.

Everyone in the restaurant stilled, murmuring and looking up from their plates.

General Eleanore’s wrist started beeping. She lifted her sleeve to look at a smartwatch. Her expression was severe. “Shit.”

Another harder tremor, then a boom as somewhere close by something collided with dirt and showered the side of the hotel with rocks and dust. The windows trembled. Glasses collapsed and spilled drinks onto expensive suits and dresses.

Fiona Dawnmoore stumbled out of the women’s room, looking more annoyed than anything else.

“Everyone!” General Eleanore shouted as citywide alarms started blaring. “Get into the shelter! We are under alien attack!” She then looked to her son and started striding away with a phone against her ear. “Percy. Come.”

Percy put one more shrimp into his mouth and jumped up from his seat.

Fiona Dawnmoore came up to Jon and his parents, and pinched Amelia’s jacket sleeve between her fingers. “Shelter. Now.”

“Jon! Amelia! Quick!” Tavaste started herding them in the middle of the panicked crowd running towards the stairs.

Jon glanced at his parents, then at Percy and General’s retreating backs. “But… I’m also…!”

“You are not going out there!” Tavaste barked out at the same time as Amelia shushed him. Both parents pushed him forward. Jon had no choice but to comply. His parents clearly didn’t want to see him pilot mecha in the middle of this chaos, probably because he’d just been injured in one, so Jon stayed quiet and followed instructions to evacuate to the nearest shelter, which was in a hospital a little away from the hotel. They could make it if they ran. Hopefully.

The alarm was deafening outside. Glass-sides of community buildings and workplaces were showing a black simplified warning sign of an alien inside a triangle on red background. There weren’t too many people in the streets because the hotel was to the side of the city center. No one drove, everyone either got on bicycles, scooters or jogged.

Tavaste kept them all close, Fiona included. Many of the alphas in the crowd were shepherding omegas and betas and children towards the nearest shelter. Their strong scents formed a cloud of calm determination, which allowed everyone to keep from pushing each other and jog in an orderly fashion.

Jon couldn’t help glancing around, wondering when they would see an alien, a tank or a mecha. Maybe their hotel had been nearly struck by a big tree or a chunk from another building.

Their group wavered when another boom sounded close by and a storefront collapsed against the sidewalk. Brick and cement rained down, startling everyone. Something was wriggling in the dust cloud, dragging itself out of the debris and gazing at everything with many eyes.

The first burst of fear pheromones exploded, and someone screamed. Then it was pure blind panic, as another and another and another person exuded their fear pheromones and the alphas’ scents weren’t enough to drown it all out.

Tavaste covered Jon’s mouth and nose and told him to only breath when he needed to. Amelia and Fiona were holding their fabrics in front of their own mouths and noses, walking briskly forward despite the chaos around them.

Jon tried not to let his own fear get the best of him but knew still that some stress scent billowed out of him sour like vomit. He felt distantly sick. He’d never been in war, aside from getting through army, but even then, war was a thing that happened in distant places with distant people that he didn’t really have any real touch with.

This was different: the sweat of the people, the feel of their bodies, the sounds they made and the terror in their eyes… it was all overwhelming. It reminded Jon’s mind of scenes of violence. It made him want to fight. He wasn’t made for running away. He was forged with violence at birth, violence at home, violence at school, then at army – and finally in here, in the mecha pilot program. His blood screeched with feral fury and fear, making his head buzz and eyes dart around wildly, looking for the source of danger amidst collapsing buildings and cracked asphalt roads.

The primary school where the shelter was came into view. People were being escorted inside by disaster workers in orange, shiny vests, and there were ambulances present.

A crash reverberated the road under them. Amelia cried out as chunks of asphalt and clouds of dust hit their backs. Tavaste looked over their shoulders, showing his teeth at the pale alien creature wriggling its way out of the ground it had crashed into. Fiona pushed the alpha’s back hard to stop him from relying on pure instinct and trying anything stupid.

Jon saw his own reflection in the alien’s single eye. It was similar to the one he had faced against in the mecha training. An alien capable of psychic attacks.

“Don’t look!” he hit his father on the side of his jaw to get him to look forward again.

The alien let out a strange cry. Wrangled and frazzled, vaguely metallic. It split open to reveal teeth upon teeth upon teeth in its hidden maw. Several appendages shot forward, dragging it against the ground towards the shelter where people were running.
The people at the school gate were alarmed at the sight. Normal police men were trying to cover for everyone by shooting at the alien, but it merely flinched with each shot of the bullets and seemed to grow angrier.

Jon heard a startled sound from behind him, barely audible in all the other noise of people running and shouting. He glanced back and saw Fiona Dawnmoore stumble as a fleshy appendage grabbed at her ankle, pulling her backwards. She didn’t scream. Didn’t cry for help. She stayed silent with an odd look on her face, like the beta was watching herself from faraway. Or like she was aware that no one could help her, and she’d only doom others if she were to call anyone to her aid.

Jon noticed her, however. And faced with that look… with those matte dark eyes and hair disentangled from a bun, hanging across her tawny face… It reminded him of someone. Someone precious, who’d walked out of his life a long time ago.

‘He’s going to lose his mom,’ Jon’s thoughts ran faster than his legs, than those around him. ‘Percival is going to lose his mom like I did’.

Fiona lay on the ground, propped up by her elbows, staring after them. The alien had its appendages around her feet, pulling her towards its single, gaping eye, and the mouth hidden underneath it.

Jon slowed down.

His parents immediately noticed and grabbed at his jacket.

Jon however wrestled out of their holds, and without further thought, ran at the beta and alien.

Fiona Dawnmoore’s eyes grew bigger as she watched him approach. She was saying something, but it wasn’t audible under the bellowing of the alien and screams of the people.

The alien’s eye started pulsating, black engulfing the white.

Jon was a beast. There was nothing more going on in his mind than his mother laying on the floor of their apartment, looking up at him from between a sturdy man’s legs. He jumped on all fours when he reached the alien, grabbed onto its closest appendage, and bit right into it.

Two long fangs punctured the alien’s flesh after some furious struggle, where Jon could only hear the blood in his ears and the confused cry of the alien as it jerked its appendages and flailed about. Saliva was starting to foam as Jon tasted blood that was foreign and rancid and horrifyingly metallic like poison. But he kept on biting, even when the appendage let go off its original prey and wrapped around Jon instead.

Jon let out garbled growls, sinking his fangs into the pale flesh again and again. The alien didn’t like that one bit. It strangled Jon’s body, squeezing him like a pathetic ragdoll while trying to make eye contact to achieve a psychic connection. Jon shut his eyes tightly and gnawed and spat and hissed, aware of death approaching, but unable to let go. He was in too deep inside of his own head. Too deep in a haze of red and fists and bruises and words that hurt like they were physical objects hurled at him.

Then, suddenly, he felt a tremor. And the alien under his fangs let out a sad sound as it was squashed under a heavy metal foot.

The appendage slipped out of Jon’s mouth, smearing blood and foamy saliva all over his face. He looked up. And up. And up.

A black two-legged mecha with purple LEDs ground its pointed foot against the pale alien’s body, making gory mush out of it. The machine had avoided Jon by mere inches. And now it was reaching towards him with a huge hand, that had surprisingly well-detailed digits and palms. A lot of love and effort and money had gone into this custom mecha.

Jon let out a little sound as he was lifted off the ground and hidden within the curled fingers of the mecha. The machine was warm. Engines were blasting off steam from within it, airing out the mecha, making it seem like it was breathing. Jon gulped, then spat out at once the rotten blood in his mouth. It was purple like the mecha’s LEDs, except far darker. Jon was feeling ill. He may have been poisoned by the alien’s blood for all he knew.

“Get in,” a voice suddenly blasted through the mecha’s hidden speakers.

Jon sat still as the mecha lifted him up, and with surprising delicacy, cradled the alpha against its neck. Jon found the handle for the mecha’s hatch and without thinking much, pulled it open and slipped in.

The mecha worked to swallow him with its silicone-laden walls. It was kind of hard to breath since it was so warm inside the mecha. Plus, Jon’s regular clothes made the slide more difficult than the sleek pilot outfit.

Then he was spat out into the familiar space within the mecha’s chest, and Jon plopped right on top of something.

“Welcome…” Percy grunted against the other alpha’s flank which sat on his shoulder right against his cheek. “… into Wanderer.”

“Thanks!” Jon wriggled in the limited space, until he found himself falling right into his Captain’s lap, between the strong arms which were wrestling with the handles of the mecha. “Uh…” Jon glanced at the other, blushing when he noted how close their faces were. “Sorry about this.”

“About almost dying?” Percy squinted his eyes and made a hasty jerking motion to boost his mecha into the sky with a gust of the engines. “You should be. I got dropped in from the cargo plane just in time.”

“They dropped you on top of civilians?!” Jon yelped when he was jostled in the other’s lap as the mecha took off into the air.

“I asked them to. I saw the alien by the shelter in the radars. It was the fastest way to minimize damage and death count,” Percy explained, used to all these questions about his way of thinking on the fly. He knew his mecha and he knew what he was capable of in it. His synch rate was displayed in the very farthest right corner, going back and forth between 97 and 98%. Percy knew that he wouldn’t hit anyone when dropped. He would be able to maneuver himself just right while falling. And he had happened upon Jon, another pilot, and a friend. Something had stuttered within Percy, making his decision-making skills warp, and he’d guided Jon into his mecha before he knew what he was doing, or why.

Jon was a little confused himself too, but very much enjoying the feel of the custom mecha. There were so many things displayed in the chest cavity, but much more in the Captain’s eyes, surely, through the A.I of Wanderer. The mecha was very high-end, possibly the best one the Scarlet Empire’s mecha unit had!

“WP01,” Percival was suddenly saying into the mic of his suit. “Shelter 8. Battle mecha. Model…” he glanced at Jon from over the alpha’s shoulder and Jon glanced back, then looked forward again, fighting a blush. “Model 67H. Over.”

“Did you just call a mecha for me?” Jon guessed based on the fact that his Captain’s mecha was definitely not some standard battle mecha, and Model H meant always a heavy one. Percival’s mecha was a midi, not heavy or light, an all-rounder.

“As much as I like holding and smelling you, it’s hard to pilot.”

Jon made a startled sound, getting even redder, while Percy looked his usual self as he jerked his handles again and guided Wanderer through the air at another alien approaching the shelter. Percy made a zigzag-motion, which would be hard to do with regular synchronization rates, and blew right past the wriggling alien, taking its top-half with him with a slash of his plasma sword.

Jon held onto the other’s forearms, gritting his teeth against the speed as they blasted towards another place already. Jon couldn’t see what was going on outside, because he wasn’t linked to the lenses of the mecha through the A.I, but he could make out something from all the numbers and letters flying past the left side of the screen. The A.I’s calculations were displayed there as it worked to move in tandem with a human brain. The speed of the calculations was incredible, and Jon could only catch a word here and there.

“When’s my mecha coming?” Jon couldn’t help asking, trying not to move too much on the other’s lap. He saw a mole here and there on Percival’s skin from so close up. Captain handled the mecha with confident and comfortable movements like it was a part of his own body, and Jon admired that very much about him. He just couldn’t stop himself from flinching and glowing red under the alien blood and frothy saliva, whenever the other alpha’s nose and mouth brushed against his neck hair, way too close to his healing glands.

“Your glands seem to be healing well,” Percival suddenly commentated as if thinking something similar. “I don’t smell any pus or blood.”

“Yeah.” Jon shivered at the lips brushing against his neck. He didn’t want to enjoy the closeness, but Percival was handsome and nice to him and confident in his own skin, and it all attracted Jon to him.

Caleb had been like that too. He’d been nice and confident and comfortable with his own body and identity as a gay teen. Someone wary and secretly self-loathing like Jon didn’t have a chance against a boy like that.

Jon buried his face into his palm, masking his dark amusement by wiping the alien blood from his cheeks. ‘I really can’t escape you even with other people. Everyone attractive reminds me of you somehow…’ And Jon hated that about himself. His seeming inability to truly let go off Caleb, of all the good times they’d had between the bad ones. How did people stop loving? Hating didn’t seem to lessen the lingering feelings. Was it easier for others? Was Jon just that weak? That pathetic?

He let out a startled bark when something nicked him on the neck.

Percy shook his head like a dog as he bit into the back of Jon’s jacket, teeth grazing the other’s fragrant but sadness-tinged neck. He didn’t want to smell this sadness on the other, this loathing. Not just because he had come to care about the other alpha, but also because they were in the middle of battle, and Jon would have to fight soon also. “Pull yourself together, alpha!” Percy yanked him by the jacket one more time and made some quick wrist- and finger-movements on his mecha’s handles to release a hail of bullets. “This is a battlefield! There are people dying around us!”

Jon breathed deeply, taking in the other’s calm and steady desert scent, pulling strength from it. “Right!”

Together, they breathed each other’s scents as Percy twirled around his mecha, scaled buildings and put bullets and plasma swords into the flesh of the aliens they found. Percy kept updating Jon on the status of his combat mecha which was approaching their position around the grade school shelter with rapid success. Until finally…

“They’re ready to drop the mecha!”

Jon grunted in agreement and started scaling the silicon ladders back up the throat of the mecha.

Percy turned his mecha around, flew across the streets towards an empty construction site and called for the air support to drop the heavy mecha.

Jon nearly fell right out of the neck hatch when the massive four-legged mecha boomed against the ground with a hail of dust. He held onto Wanderer tight as everything shook, then allowed Percy to help guide him to the neck of the other mecha.

This one was fully charcoal grey, with the orange label “67-H” painted on the side in flaky letters. The mecha looked like a crab crouched on against the construction site, nestled between the bare beams of a row of townhouses being built. Jon wriggling his way in and pulled the hatch shut. Lights lit up across the silicon passage of the mecha as it swallowed him down. Jon plopped into the malleable seat, then creased his brows when something jerkily stabbed at him through clothes. The mecha had tried to connect with him, but failed due to the stiff material of his nice clothes. Feelings the mecha heave as if preparing to exert more force into the stabs, Jon quickly leaned forward and pulled off all the clothes aside from underwear. He then leaned back in and sucked air through his teeth as several needles attached into his limbs and spine.

Jon closed his eyes as the A.I connected with his brain and started running diagnostics of the outside. Jon breathed in and out slowly with determination. “I need to do this,” he told himself with force, gripping the handles of the mecha. “I need to help people. I can’t freak out! I need to do this!”

The heavy mecha roared to life. It had much bigger engines than Percival’s Wanderer, but despite that, it was still a lot slower due to the heavy plating and weaponry. It was a literal tank mecha, meant to take a heavy beating without flinching, and keep still under the force of a heavy gun firing.

“Let’s do this!”

The A.I didn’t react visibly to the battle-cry, but it did immediately show red dots on the scan it had made of the immediate environment around them. Together they made the decision to go towards the closest ones, since Percival was already flying high above, diving at the farther away ones like an eagle towards helpless pigeons.

“So cool…!” Jon couldn’t help saying as he watched the other through the mecha’s lenses.

Then he heard in the chest cavity a stilted: “Thanks”. And flushed again in embarrassment as he realized that Percy had already connected with this mecha’s secure channel.

They worked together to tear apart as many aliens as they could, but they just kept raining down from the sky like meteors. Pale bodies with many appendages and different numbers of eyes, some with clear maws and others with hidden ones. The psychic attacks were the worst and Jon noticed that each time one was coming at him, Percival was diving into the mix to intercept the attack. Whatever the other alpha was faced with within that mental space didn’t seem to bother him one bit as Captain sliced yet another alien in half.

Jon bit his lower lip, agitated. He felt pathetic for fearing those psychic aliens and needing help with them. It shouldn’t be like that! He was only creating extra work for his Captain, who could be saving countless other people in his faster mecha, instead of coming to his teammate’s rescue. Jon was supposed to be a soldier. He was supposed to use his inner violent nature to do something good with it, but here he was, covering from some of the enemy like a little kid.

Jon stared down at a one-eyed pale alien blob which was dragging itself across the streets towards the shelter. The alien ignored him completely like he wasn’t even a threat. Jon gritted his teeth and had his mecha take a wide, sturdy stance. The A.I knew what he wanted without words. The cannon on the back of the mecha unfolded out and propped itself against the mecha’s wide shoulders. Jon took aim together with the A.I. If Jon couldn’t get close to the psychic aliens, then he could take them out from a safer distance and still be useful!

“Fire!” Jon shouted at the same time as the cannon catapulted out a heavy pointed bullet. It cut a long line across the air and hit the alien square on the side, throwing it straight into the side of a store, shattering the display windows. Jon flinched but couldn’t help grinning wildly as the alien was thrown through several walls by the sheer momentum of the heavy bullet. “Yes! Take that!”

The A.I informed of more aliens, but their numbers were clearly dwindling out and they hadn’t reached the shelter yet. Jon and Percival were doing good work getting rid of them before they could reach the shelter. Jon wondered if his parents saw him. If they knew that Jon was piloting this particular mecha and if they were proud of him.

“Pilot Jon Helsteen!”

He nearly choked on his own spit hearing the General’s voice all of a sudden.

“What are you doing?” the older alpha growled, clearly angry. “You were not given permission to board a mecha on this battlefield!”

Someone else’s voice was seemingly trying to explain in the background, saying something about Percival and emergency, but the General wouldn’t have it.

“We have order here in the army!” she sneered in her place at a close by base’s consol. “No one even sneezes without specific orders to do so! You’ve violated the rules!”

“Well, sorry about that!” Jon sneered back as he pelted another alien with a heavy bullet. “But I was kind of thinking that saving lives was more important than some stupid rules!”

“Stupid rules?” General Eleanore gritted her teeth, veins pulsing in her forehead. “This whole system is built on those stupid rules! It guarantees everyone’s safety!”

“Mom, I gave permission!” Percy quickly cut in, getting annoyed by their yapping in his ears in the middle of combat when they all needed to focus and keep their synch rates high. “You can punish me later for the breach of military structure and rules. But right now, we all need to focus on this!” he cried out as he speared an alien climbing on a roof with his plasma sword, coating the building in rancid purple.

The General couldn’t deny that arguing now was useless, but it didn’t make her any less pissed off at the fact that someone had cut through her authority like it meant nothing!

Jon didn’t entertain the General anymore either, and even cut the line to her to have some peace of quiet to work. Turning his crab-like mecha, Jon and the A.I started crawling along the streets towards the other side of the shelter, when on more alien stumbled from the sky in high speeds, hitting one of the planes monitoring the situation above.

The warning came through the standard line of communication, but it didn’t mean much when both an alien and a plane spun rapidly towards the ground by the grade school shelter.

Jon froze, unsure what to do. The A.I stuttered as its pilot was confused, dropping the synch rate.

Percy let the Wanderer’s A.I take full control of his senses and merely yanked the handles according to them. He was entering a flow state, where his own thoughts became completely seamless with the A.I’s and any emotional output was cut off from the connection. Percy merely moved as his instincts and the A.I told him and intercepted the plane before it could crash into the ground by the soccer court on the school grounds. Percy breathed out in vague alarm as his midi-sized mecha was crushed underneath the plane, softening its fall, but burying his mecha’s feet into the grass from the sheer impact.

The alien that had dropped with the plane created tremors along the ground as it hit the court, making the people in the basement of the school cry out. Children were either deadly silent or crying, not knowing what to do. Parents, relatives and lovers were clutching at each other. Tavaste and Amelia were holding their phones, watching tightly the emergency stream which was being displayed by one of the news helicopters patrolling over them despite the danger.

Tavaste looked to his wife, kissing her ample curls with a pained expression. “Our boy will be alright. He’s tougher than he looks.”

Amelia said absolutely nothing. Her eyes were glued to the stream on her phone, showing the legendary Wanderer crushed underneath a military plane and an alien just outside their shelter, wriggling out of the pit it had created with its impact.

And the bulky, crab-like mecha galloping at the torn apart court with relative speed.

Jon short of breath in the mecha even though he wasn’t the one whose body was being exerted. His pupils were thin slits. He could only stare through the mecha’s two lenses at the black and purple mecha, struggling under the weight of the plane it had caught.

“Percy!” he cried out and heard a chuckle from the other end of the comms.

“I like that…” Percy said with clear strain in his voice as the A.I projected a feel of a large weight on its pilot in the flow state. “Call me that.”

“Percy!” Jon yelled again, angry and worried sick as he watched the pale alien body wrestle out of the pit in the previously pristine grass and reach towards the mecha in front of it.

The alien had clearly realized that its enemy was in a bad position and decided to take full advantage. A single eye opened, white and foreboding. A red pupil emerged from within, more frightening than any that Jon had previously seen.

He hurried his mecha, but there was only so fast a heavy machine could go.

The alien’s red pupil overtook all the white of its eye. It wrapped its appendages around Wanderer’s midsection and cockpit, the eye staring straight at the pilot hidden within.

Percy huffed out from between his teeth, feelings a foreboding sensation at the back of his neck. The same sensation he felt when an alien maw closed around his cockpit, or an appendage dismantled his mecha’s limbs. A sensation of death approaching from that single red eye quivering amongst pale flesh. “Victory in life, honor in death,” the words of the military came to him without any prompt, drilled into his mind, made a part of his bone. A willingness to accept death for others, branded into him before he could even understand what a life meant. “Bloom like a flower, bright and deadly.”

“Percy!” General Eleanore’s roar reverberated in the comms.

Percy flipped a switch open on the console in front of him and prepared to press the button, staring straight at the alien as his mind started to swim. “Bloom bright and deadly.”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Jon’s cry jostled everyone in the comms.

A crab-like mecha galloped over fences and crashed straight into the pale, unmoving alien, turning it over. The red eye was pulsating, and the alien cried out in that strange metallic noise, grasping immediately at the mecha over it. The two tumbled around like stones, appendages squeezing the heavy plating of the mecha, unable to penetrate it so easily. Jon hissed and spat back at the alien that could not hear him, but could probably feel him – his rage, his fear, his bloodlust. Because the next moment it turned itself literally inside-out, popping its single eyeball to the other side of its body, pressed right against the heavy mecha’s cockpit.

“Give it to me!” Jon rasped, hands shaking, sweat on his brow salty and stinking of camellia and honey. “I can take you! I’m not afraid! I’m not a child anymore!”

The alien roared high-pitched and serrated. Then the red of its eye engulfed everything in Jon’s vision, making his senses confused. It felt like he was sitting in some viscous red soup, floating in an endless ocean, before everything started to hurt from the back of his head to his frontal lobe, and he had to let out a throat-ripping scream.

Percy’s calls grew into buzzing background noise in his ears, as his own blood roiled and made everything hot and scarlet.

Chapter Text

Chapter 10: I hate myself but I’m trying

The view was all puss and viscous red like from an old, festering wound. Jon blinked slowly, suspended in a blurry ocean of fuzzy sensations that kind of reminded him of being drunk. Or dissociating on the bathroom floor at home or school. His glands were leaking. He could see two streams like curly scarlet strands rising from below his jaw, colouring the surroundings deeper shades of red.

In the fuzziness, Jon heard banging on a door, childish laughter, and teacups clattering against cracked old plates.

Jon remembered how he and his mother used to crouch underneath the kitchen table when he was little. They poured tea into little cups that were just right in Jon’s small hands and pretended to be somewhere else. Somewhere that had no booming voices or bony knuckles or neighbors looking away with pity or staring with judgement.

Mother’s hands had always been cool and slender, stroking Jon’s head. She had smelled just like this: camellia leaves which she had grown in the garden and drank away like a secret treasure away from the man, who was always angry, always suffering from one thing or another.

Jon remembered his father mowing the lawn early one morning after she’d left. The camellia leaves struggled against the blades, refusing to disappear. Jon’s father poisoned the ground with salt and rat poison the next month.

Jon had drank his last cup underneath that very same kitchen table, despite being too big to crouch under it, with cuts on his forehead and lip split and bleeding into the hot liquid.

Caleb had been like a salve to his bruised ego and body back then. Something forbidden and secret and soft; another boy pressed against Jon’s body, trading kisses after throwing stones into rivers and beating up kids from upper grades just to prove that he could. That he wasn’t afraid. Oh, how Caleb smiled… delighting in the violence which he never had to stain himself with. Just a bystander, enjoying the way Jon destroyed himself, so Caleb could fix him up after over and over again to eternity.

Jon blinked at the viscous red around him, feeling air bubbles between his lids. They floated clear and soap bubbly, resembling tears in some way.

Jon’s father swam in that space, a whale of a man. Huge. Moby Dick, a destructive god below the waves of Jon’s life. Always there, always so angry, always so hurt.

Just like Jon. Jon was just like him that way.

Another figure swam by in the redness. A hand tilting Jon’s chin up, putting lipstick the colour of wine and blood over Jon’s chewed up lips. First, it’s Caleb. Then after a lazy blink, it’s Jacques, grinning at him, hair billowing, the same colour as everything else.

Jon tasted the lipstick. And swallowed a cherry, stem and all, feeling it scratch his throat.

Jacques melted away, redness becoming brown, then black, hair moving like ink over the familiar tawny face of Percy. His moles were leaking with his hair, making him look like a painting in sweltering heat. A strong hand reached to where cherry had scratched Jon’s throat open, and fingers the inside, right over the jutting Adam’s apple.

Jon let out a surprised sound akin to a moan, startled that it didn’t hurt, but felt good instead.

He pushed the hand away, feeling filthy, curling in on himself in the sickly red ocean, glands still leaking like silk strands towards the surface. Jon denied entry from the kind hands, squeezing his biceps and knees, trying to become a crab with a hard shell. Ugly, sharp crab with huge claws to slash others with.

Just like his father.

A claw suddenly pushed its way out of his mouth, giant and bony and painful. All shell. A huge red crab trying to burst out of Jon and show everyone exactly who he was. Who he had always been. Someone meant for hurting others. Someone of violence, of yellowing bruises and snotty blood and loud voices screaming insults.

He worked to spit the crawling, wriggling creature out, but a hand grabbed at his throat suddenly, squeezing right on his glands. Then another, pushing the crab back in, trying to force it down his injured throat, making Jon choke and panic and claw at the current.

They didn’t understand! They were trying to see something that wasn’t there! To make something new and newborn-trembling out of him. The hands denied his horrors, his spikes, his shell, and tried to push it all back down the throat that was desperately yelling it all out like curses at the world.

‘I’m strong!’

‘I’m scary!’

‘I’m not scared.’

‘I’m not weak.’

Jon shook his head violently, disentangling from the hands, and showed his fingers down his throat, coaxing the crab back up. Sharp legs pierced his throat. Claws sliced his cheeks into a hideous grin. And Jon faced them all with that face, that shell:
Old parents. New parents. Old friends. New ones. Old Caleb. New Caleb. Showing what he was. Presenting the macabre. His truth. True self.

The water trembled. On the surface far above sight, something was happening.

Jon stared up at the salty, yellowish foams above, and blew out a bubble. Which wasn’t a bubble, but a cherry, breaking disgustingly sweet and sharp between his teeth and crab claws, painting his mouth red again.

He imaged a kiss on those lips. He couldn’t see from who. But he liked it. Even though he shouldn’t. Because it wasn’t meant for him. For the crab that he was. But for the thing they all saw him as. Nothing was for the crab. Nothing.

“Jon!”

The garbled, watery yell got him to shake his head again. There was still a whale swimming in the water around him. With a red eye that was watching him. Telling him that he wasn’t right. Wasn’t born right. Didn’t live right.

So, it would be better if he just let the crab burst open his head. Reveal his true form to everyone. Reveal the hideousness to everyone he had been keen on fooling. It would feel good. To release it all.

“Jon! Jo… Wake…!”

“Brainwaves… rate too high…”

Jon tilted his head back, eye on the eye of the whale. Pushing the crab out of his throat. It was stuck. It was slicing him open. It hurt so much. It hurt to be who he was. It hurt.

‘Mom, I’m so sorry I never protected you,’ he thought suddenly, blinking at the scarlet waves trembling around him. He vomited again, or tried to. The crab legs curled and wriggled like gills against his throat. Against the wound the cherry had left there. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t a good enough boy, dad. I’m sorry I took the real Jon’s place from you all. I’m sorry I’m too messed up to change.’

The whale stared at him with its bright red eye as it swam by.

There was beeping somewhere far away and red lights blinking.

Then a sudden gust of air, and the water disappeared, becoming just puss and blood coloured void, dotted with Jon’s own liquids. He blinked in alarm, the whale’s eye turning brighter and brighter, angrier. It was like a lighthouse, pulling him in.

Then there were arms pulling him in. Circling around him and another person popped into the void beside him, floating there, hair leaking like ink, dark eyes like two black moons staring at him.

“Jon, wake up! You’re hurting yourself!”

“What?” Jon looked at his hands, slowly, dream-like. They were really red. The underside of the claws full of gore and strands of dyed blue hair. Jon was feeling hot all of a sudden. And cold. He was shivering, bleeding both sweat and blood onto his very nice white sweater and dark dress pants.

Percy was suddenly all around him, embracing him tight to his black pilot suit. Reeking of searing desert sand, punishing, merciless, and sharp with fear. He held him fast and covered the eye of the whale with his sleek body.

But the eye was still there. Staring at Jon. Pulling him in. Speaking to him in all the voices that ever mattered to him.

“I’m sorry but I don’t know what to do!” Percy was crying, probably. His cheek felt wet against Jon’s. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

There was a pain in Jon’s gland on the left side. Jon let out a choked off sound as a pain bright like supernova burst inside his brain, kick firing hormone production into high gear. He needed to fight. He needed to push away. He needed to assert dominance! He needed to claw and punch and bite and kick! He needed to kill!

Jon screamed, feral and blind with sudden fury, as sharp teeth ground against his gland, attempting to mark him against his will, and Jon’s entire world became that point of contact.

Percy didn’t let go. He didn’t growl either, not like an alpha making a stance, but he was crying, Jon smelled his tears salty against his face as Jon shrieked and roared, wriggling against restraints.

Something bellowed out all metallic and beastly right into Jon’s mind, but he didn’t care. He was being marked. He had to stop it. He had to kill the attacker! Kill!

Jon bit onto the shoulder in front of him and growled high-pitched like a motor. His pupils had shrunk into teeny tiny little dots. His claws dug deep into the flesh wrapped around him. He fought hard. Tore with his teeth. And the attacker just took it, holding him with far too much despair, smelling too much like grief and regret.

Jon kept on biting and clawing and screaming. The being outside of him kept screaming too, but it was going further and further away. It was becoming background noise. Meaningless. Not the eye of a whale, but the eye of a minnow. Circling him in the redness uselessly, glaring at the two men holding each other, one with violence, one with despair, both with intensity beyond strangers.

The red ocean popped like a bubble when Percy’s canines pierced through the injured gland. And Jon froze, gulping a breath.

…

Everyone listening to the comms in the nearest military base had some very odd looks on their faces as they were forced to listen to two young alphas growling and yowling like beasts fighting in an alley over scraps of food.

General Eleanore Dawnmoore had pushed aside the alpha who’d been at the mecha observation station and was typing furiously. She put in her own personal security codes in order to shut down the crab-like heavy mecha, which had trapped a very angry alien underneath it. It was a good position which allowed the alien to be possibly extracted for research. They hadn’t seen a red-eyed one often, so this was a chance that the General had to take advantage of, even at the expense of the two pilots inside, one of which was her own son.

She glanced at the monitors where the pilots’ health was displayed. They were both injured, but it seemed like Percy’s were due to him intervening with the other’s self-harming. The red-eyed alien seemed to have been able to break through Jon Helsteen’s mental barriers and triggered some bad coping mechanisms, making the young alpha suicidal in the mecha. It was a frightening ability for the aliens to have. If they could not only paralyze pilots by making them hallucinate, but also make them act according to those hallucinations, it spelled more trouble for their soldiers on the front line. A rogue pilot in a mecha was a danger to everyone around them, so Percy’s intervention was absolutely the right thing to do to save the people in the shelter. They couldn’t have a heavy mecha with a cannon wreaking havoc. Not on the General’s watch.

She gritted her teeth, stomping down a growl. That Helsteen youngster was a loose cannon! She would have his head for this!

At the same time, outside the shelter, military personnel were already marking down the site of alien contact and firing black goop from a heavy vehicle at the contact point between the mecha and the ground. The pale alien with a single red eye screeched and wriggled, making the mecha on top of it creak with horrid noise, but it was too late for it. The alien disappeared under the black goop, eyeball and all, and every single noise and movement was muffled from the outside world.

People were cheering as the situation was reported to be under control all over the city. Medics worked with injured people, firemen sought out trapped individuals and the police monitored that everyone was behaving themselves and not causing panic.
Fiona Dawnmoore sat in an ambulance with a heat-blanket and a bottle of water. She had scratches and bruises on her, but otherwise she seemed to be alright. The beta didn’t even seem shaken by what had almost happened to her before Jon’s intervention.

Tavaste and Amelia ran out of the shelter as the first people were let out and spotted the beta.

“Fiona!” Amelia jogged over to the ambulance. Her fine dress was crumbled and dusty, and her curls had escaped their original place, but she looked beautiful, nonetheless. Everyone opened way to the omega as she held the beta’s face between her palms. “Are you alright? What happened?”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle, thanks to your son,” Fiona spoke clearly despite her cheeks getting smushed by the tight hold. “He saved my life. Our lives.”

“I saw…” Amelia’s voice was steady, but her facial expressions were fragile, trembling. She couldn’t quite smile, and she refused to cry. Crying was reserved for a reunion with her foolhardy son. “When do you think…” She swallowed hard. “… we can see him?”

Fiona looked from her to Tavaste, then glanced at the mecha tangled with black goop. “They have to go through a health test. If they’re injured badly, then you’ll get to see them after a couple of days. Unless you climb into an ambulance with him.”

The omega and alpha folded together, holding each other tight. They knew the price of having a soldier as a son in the middle of this Earth-wide crisis, but it felt like their son especially was prone to getting himself in trouble. Their poor hearts could barely handle it. They just wanted their son to live the kind of life he wanted and come home to see them once in a while. How did it all get so messed up the moment Jon got into a mecha?

While the parents were looking on either with held back fury or great concern, Percy and Jon were having a small crisis within the heavy mecha.

“You bitch!”

Percy didn’t flinch as a he was slapped right across his cheek. “Fair.”

“Asshole!” Jon barked out as he slapped him again, then punched him in the gut for good measure. “Motherfucker!”

Percy squinted his eyes at the splashes of pain, but he knew he deserved it. He’d bitten Jon hard enough to pierce flesh right on the gland, which would have meant a marking if it had been mutual. It had been the only thing Percy was sure could have quickly snapped an alpha out of their stupor, since getting marked triggered the fight, flight or freeze reaction. Sure, Percy could also have stabbed Jon, but he really didn’t want to inflict any more injury on top of the other ones Jon already had.

Percy glanced at the other from head to toe. Jon was panting hard and holding onto his left gland, which was bleeding onto his white jumper collar. His blue hair was disheveled and been ripped out by sharp claws from here and there, becoming thinner at points. There were two deep slashes dug by claws on his cheeks and one on his throat on the Adam’s apple, making Jon look kind of insane. He reminded Percy of cartoon villains, especially since he had such a wild and alarmed look to him. But at least he was still alive and not laying dead by his own hands like he would have been if Percy had not crawled out of Wanderer and forced his way into Jon’s mecha.

Jon stared back at Percy, cradling his left gland protectively. His pheromones had exploded in the small space, but Percy didn’t seem to notice it because Jon had been so busy hitting him out of pure indignation. Jon had never felt so vulnerable with someone his age – aside from those times he’d had sex with Caleb. He felt naked and there were hot and cold waves traveling through him, raising goosebumps. And his glands were both pulsating with an almost strange, sweaty pleasure, which made the insides of Jon’s thighs tingle.

He licked his sweaty upper lip and noted with tension that Percy followed the motion. Jon let out a low growl, which was threatening to turn into a whine, because he was embarrassed and alarmingly finding the situation kind of maybe arousing. He never thought he’d be into biting, but he guessed he was. Also, alphas. He was into alphas and fighting over dominance with them. Not just dominating or being dominated but actually fighting for it, pushing and pulling. He wanted Percy to bite him again and suck on his gland, and bite Percy back and hold him down underneath him. He was full of adrenaline from the fight and endorphins from the pain, and his poor body was very confused between aggression and affection. Luckily his mind decided on utter exhaustion.

Percy was startled to notice Jon swaying and trembling, sweat slick like he was running a high fever. He quickly hugged the other despite the warning growl he got and helped prop Jon up. Percy’s nose was close to his face. They both averted gazes awkwardly. Percy could smell the camellia and honey and how they were so hot and thick that they clogged up Percy’s nose entirely. He could only swallow hard repeatedly to try to get the searing trail of honey-scent go down his throat, feeling an odd buzzing in his body that he hadn’t felt often before.

Percy shifted his position to help Jon start climbing up, when Jon suddenly froze stiff, then kicked Percy right on the chin.

Jon didn’t even say he was sorry, just scampered up through the throat of the mecha to get away from the other alpha.

Percy rubbed his chin with a whine of pain, then shifted again, and noted the pressure building under his navel. He looked down, brows scrunching in disbelief. A half-hard cock was pressing at the tight pilot suit, prominent and proud. Percy flushed, head down, unwilling to look back up at Jon’s feet. The scent of coiling, red sand and burning Sun trickled into the air, mixing happily together with the tea and honey, stirring heat with even more heat.

…

Jon’s mother nearly fainted when she saw him all bloody from head to collarbones, cheeks slashed open. Tavaste had to carry her into the ambulance, so they could go with Jon to the hospital. And while they were there, Tavaste who had a clearer head from being hardened in army himself, turned his head this way and that, sniffing the air. Jon was shivering and bunching his fingers together like he really wanted to scratch himself. And he had the smell of arousal about him. It wasn’t a strange scent for a playboy like their son to have, but this situation they were in painted it strange. Tavaste glanced at the other ambulance trailing after theirs. Fiona and Percy were sitting in it. Tavaste looked back at Jon, who didn’t want to meet anyone’s eye. An idea formed inside the older alpha’s head, but he kept his thoughts to himself. The kids were still young. Alphas were at the height of their adrenaline junkie phase all the way to mid-twenties, and their pheromones could get all mixed up. If something came up, Tavaste wanted to believe that their son would ask them for help.

Jon in the meanwhile sat through the whole ride to hospital having an identity crisis. He was an alpha-lover. He liked guys and alphas. He really was double the queer he used to be! And he couldn’t help projecting his original parent’s view onto his new ones, fearing what they would think about this. Jon’s original father had made it very clear that he would skin alive any “fag” Jon would bring home. He’d always held the hope that gayness would be just a phase for Jon, making Jon in turn only hold onto his identity tighter. Jon didn’t want to turn away from his own queerness, but he was afraid that Tavaste and Amelia would want him to have kids one day to continue the family legacy. They were a rich family, after all. Surely, they would be disappointed that Jon wasn’t attracted to some omega guy who could have kids with him.

They reached hospital like that: one son fearing he failed his parents, and one parent wondering how he could support his son. Both unaware of each other’s struggles.

The hospital staff was busy as one could expect after a violent attack. People had been crushed by debris, choked by massive dust clouds, sliced and chewed up by aliens… not to mention the patients who were in catatonic state after failing to awaken from a psychic attack. Jon was the most horrified to pass them in the hallway. His eyes stayed glued on the vacant bodies void of working minds, stinking of fear even when he couldn’t see them anymore and a nurse was stitching up his wounds.

“It just looks like a lot of blood,” the kind omega nurse assured as she cleaned and sewed up the wounds Jon had clawed on himself. “Luckily, you didn’t get too deep with the throat.”

“Thanks to Captain…” Jon couldn’t help distancing from the other with the title as he glanced to the side and saw Percy in the opposite room getting an inspection.

The omega nodded, serious as she worked. “Captain Dawnmoore has done a lot for all of us, but you have as well.”

Jon let out a confused noise which honestly hurt his throat now that he wasn’t panicking about being horny.

The nurse glanced at him, then back to her work. “You were very brave, young pilot. Do not downplay your work. I don’t downplay mine even though this is all just routine for me at this point.”

Jon considered her words carefully and looked back to his parents huddled in the chairs in the corner.

Amelia fanned herself with a hand, feeling ill from stress, sour scent wafting around her. Tavaste merely smiled briefly at his son. That look did a lot to assure Jon, and the pride he got from it made him childishly happy. It pissed Jon off that something small like that affected him so much. Stupid real father, father issues. He needed to somehow get into all that in therapy.

…

Jon got home soon after getting his stitches, but his parents carted him immediately back home instead of letting Jon go to his campus apartment. Many of the servants were present to greet them and expressed their concern for the young master they’d watch grow from a small baby into this stubborn man. They babied him, gave him all kinds of sweet and salty treats, fluffed his pillows, warmed his blankets for each cool night, and most importantly, refused to let Jon out of the mansion.

Jon felt like a fairytale princess: he was trapped on the highest floor of the mansion, drooped over the balcony railing, watching other immeasurably rich people jog past in their tight yoga pants and drive in their sports cars. It was incredibly boring even though Jon had pretty much every kind of game console he could every dream of in his room. Jon hated multiplayers where annoying strangers bitched at each other and ruined each other’s plays, and he didn’t have the patience for many of the grindy single player games. Mostly he just played roguelike games, tore into his punching bag to keep in shape, and wondered what everyone else was doing in at school. Sure, he got the homework and finished it just fine, but he wanted to get back into a mecha! He wanted to talk more about his own custom mecha with Percy and train with the others, even though Caleb was there projecting hateful vibes at him.

Which was something Caleb did on social media, Jon found out during his recovery. Caleb and several omega and beta were taking stabs at Jon’s account, which was amusing to Jon, since he didn’t really care about social media all that much. Jon just posted a pic of himself draped bored over the fancy railing and posted it without doing anything to the picture. Whatever. People found hating others easy, so it was useless to put in extra energy to try and look good. Let them see him with his hideous Joker-like stitched scars across his cheeks. Maybe it would scare some of the eager alphas away from him. Convince them that Jon was really cracked in the head.

His IMFA team sent him well-wishes and trainer Melanie even sent flowers with the tag: “Congrats for surviving first mission!” It made Jon grin.

On the fourth night of Jon not returning to campus and posting a pic of himself on the exact same balcony railing, something a little unexpected happened. Namely, Jon’s thought of himself as a fairytale princess seemed to also exist in other peoples’ minds:
Jon perked his ears as he read his English homework on the balcony. He could a car park close to the stone fence of their garden, which was sort of odd, since Jon’s balcony faced to the backside, overlooking the city center further away. There was just a field there full of fancy stone art and sculpted plants, plus a small driveway for the servants.

One of the maids outside rushed over to see what the noise was about. Jon watched her go curiously. The beta maid arrived in front of a red sports car that parked at the gate and the person who had gotten off the car. Jon could make out long, fiery hair all the way from his balcony. The maid seemed flustered, probably because Jacques was a smooth talker. It took no time at all for the alpha to charm his way in.

Jon cocked his brow, grin crooked. ‘What are you doing here, Jacques?’

He watched the alpha be escorted inside like a secret admirer. Jacques slipped in through the servants’ quarters and in no time at all, a knock came from Jon’s door. He hailed them in. The beta maid had an amused look on her face as she stepped in with Jacques in tow.

“A guest for you, young master.”

“Thanks.”

The beta maid hummed, still looking very amused, and left them alone in the bedroom.

Jon sat down on the floor of the balcony and watched Jacques’s approach with curiosity.

The older alpha looked sly, smirking wide as he walked closer with his hands behind his back. Jacques had a simple leather jacket, white t-shirt and jeans on. His hair was braded from the sides, trailing into a ponytail at the back. His smirk wavered as he considered Jon’s disheveled, scarred state. “You look like crap.”

“Thanks.” Jon rolled his eyes.

Jacques suddenly took a bouquet of white roses from behind his back and stood there like a gentleman on a romantic outing.

Jon was feeling blindsided by the gesture. His eyes stared wide, taking the bouquet in like he’d never seen one before. Because he’d never in his life received one. Guys didn’t just appear with flowers in their hands where he was originally from.

Jacques’s smirk came back alive full bloom. “For you, my ailing patient.” He even got on one knee like he was proposing, taking great pleasure in the puzzled and flustered state of the other alpha.

“Thanks…” Jon repeated dumbly, scratching at the necklace of bandage around his throat. He held the bouquet awkwardly, not really knowing what to do with it. So, he changed the subject: “Why’d you come over so secretly? Do my parents have a reason to not let you in?”

Jacques merely kept smiling as he plopped down across from Jon on the balcony. “I like to make an entrance. And I have experience with breaking into many homes for a chance to meet a lonely prince or princess.”

Jon huffed, not amused by the other’s comment despite having thought along the same lines before. He put his nose close to the roses, scenting them delicately. He wasn’t all that into flowers, but the roses were okay. The scent was not that strong.

While Jon was occupied, Jacques lifted his face towards the wind and flared his nostrils to take in the other’s scent. He felt bad as he took in notes of sickness from the healing stitched scratches along the other’s scalp, cheeks, and throat. His desire to bundle the other into a blanket all over again and squeeze him tight so he couldn’t run into trouble flared up again. “Why are you so reckless?” he couldn’t help asking somberly. “Percy is strong. You don’t need to run to his rescue. And you don’t need to run unarmed at an alien and bite it to try to save someone…”

Jon noted the growling note at the end of the other’s sentence, and though the words made him feel a little bad, his fighting spirit rose through. “I couldn’t let Percy do something stupid to sacrifice himself for others just because he got a little stuck!” Jon hugged the roses, aggravated. “Plus, his mother was in trouble. I couldn’t let him lose a mother.” Because he knew how much it hurt.

While listening, Jacques admired the picture Jon cut with the roses in his embrace. Bright blue hacked up hair and grim, scarred face over the pure white cluster of flowers was picturesque. Jacques itched to pull out his phone for a picture. “Still… I don’t like how much you keep getting hurt. I’ve literally never seen anyone accumulate as much injury as you have after becoming a pilot. I mean, you’ve barely been on active duty, and you already got brain damage, horribly burned, traumatic episode, wounded glands… and now stitches all over the place!”

“I’m a big boy,” Jon snorted, amused by the other’s concern over his pain. “I can handle it. It’s not the first time I’ve had to suffer. I’ve got plenty of experience in the department of pain.”

He said it like he was proud of it, which made Jacques all the more concerned. He once again wondered at the changed scent fingerprint. And felt a powerful surge of protectiveness over the young man cradling the roses on his lap. “Nobody deserves to suffer so much…”

“I do,” Jon let out without really meaning to. His expression became vacant, eyes looking to the side like gazing at something else entirely than the world before him, making others wonder just what was hiding underneath that gruff exterior that could make him look like that.

Just when Jacques was about to say something back, the loud sound of a motorcycle zooming close came from the other side of the mansion. Both alphas perked in alertness. People were running along the mansion hallways for a moment, then a very excited looking omega maid ran into the room, ignoring etiquette in favor of exclaiming: “Young master, Percival Dawnmoore is here to meet you!”

Jon blinked in surprise, while Jacques’s expression became sour. The maid didn’t even ask if the Dawnmoore heir should be let in, they just assumed he could walk wherever he pleased, and so Percy manifested in Jon’s bedroom with a bouquet of some sort of blue flowers Jon didn’t recognize. There were two of kind and Percy held them with the stoic attitude of military personnel in his brand name sports jacket, pants, and converse.

Both Jon and Jacques got up to greet him, and Jon took the opportunity to give the white roses to the cluster of maids who’d escorted Percy up. They were all looking at the military prince with wide, admiring eyes, cheeks ruddy, until they were awakened by Jon clearing his throat awkwardly and handing over the roses.

After the maids disappeared, Percy took the opportunity to hand his own flowers to Jon, holding them stiffly. The bouquet was carefully thought out by him researching flower language. He’d decided on blue irises and blue stars, symbols of courage, strength and endurance, perfect to say everything he wanted but couldn’t arrange on his tongue when faced with Jon.

To both Percy and Jon’s surprise, Jacques snatched the flowers midway and held them like they were meant for him instead.

“Oooh! Blue like his hair. How quaint!” Jacques smelled the bouquet loudly seemingly with relish.

Percy stood there, hands still up, not knowing why his chest was simmering with such sudden hatred for the friend he cherished.

Jon felt the tension between the two despite being unaware that it was due to him. He basically ripped the flowers from the other’s hand in order to not be rude to his Captain and sort of friend, and held the bouquet close to his chest with a degree of protectiveness. “Thank you, Captain.”

Percy couldn’t help feeling a degree of pain from being addressed like that, so distantly.

Jacques as someone who knew Percy from a few years ago, saw this, and felt conflicted over empathizing with his friend and feeling competitive over a shared crush. The further away the two were, the better. But on the other hand, the air between Jon and Percy was super awkward, and honestly, Percy wasn’t the best at connecting with people, so…

Jacques looked to be in pain for a moment, then suddenly beamed with all the ease in the world and scooped both alphas under his arms into a hug. “Aww, what’s this? Why are you guys being so distant? We’re all fellow IMFA teammates! We should be friendly if we wanna survive on the field!”

Percy was surprised at the other’s actions but accepted the familiar hold without question. “He’s right.”

Jon nodded, also knowing that Jacques was right, but burning hot underneath remembering Percy and him in a mecha, close to each other… biting… struggling… the outline of the other’s cock against his leg when he was climbing up the throat of the mecha…!

An alpha butler this time interrupted them with a severe and even displeased look on his face.

Jon had a moment of paranoid panic where he thought the other somehow knew what had happened or what he thought, but the salt-and-pepper bearded butler instead announced: “Young master, your friends are here to see how you are ailing.”

“Huh?” Jon couldn’t believe his ears. Jon Helsteen had friends? Since when? What kind of –

A flash of pain at Jon’s brows, and he suddenly was assaulted with blurry memories of twisted, laughing faces, breaths smelling like booze and money being thrown at scantily dressed dancers.

His face twisted in barely held horror. ‘Oh no. Those kinds of friends.’ The kind Jon himself had also had in real life. The kind that was poison in the veins. Snakes waiting to bite at each other.

Percy and Jacques immediately noted the tinge of anxiety in Jon’s scent and became stiff. They positioned themselves on instinct as alphas by Jon’s side, one step behind him, watching over his shoulders for who were about to arrive.

Jon wasn’t sure if he could just tell the butler to get rid of them. That would probably be suspicious, right? So, he allowed them in with a mutter, and the butler’s look of displeasure grew as he exited to go get them.

When the door opened again, it was for a cluster of four alphas, each one dressed in brand clothes with hairs smelling of hair wax and skin wafting expensive cologne mixed with boisterous alpha body odor. They were boldly declaring their ownership of the space they came into by letting their scents billow out and burn at Jon’s throat with notes of cactus, citrus and whiskey. It smelled like a bachelor party in the bedroom by the time every alpha surged forward to hug Jon with loud voices, declaring their worry, their sadness, their stress over his health recently… and none of it was real. Jon could tell. He saw it on the clothes they wore. On their expressions. They were just there because suddenly Jon had two powerful and well-liked people posting nice things to him. The alpha guys clearly had avoided him the moment trouble came knocking in the form of karma catching up to Jon Helsteen, and only now, that Jon had something to give to them again, they came crawling back like cockroaches. Jon wasn’t originally rich, but he did know how rich people operated, just how important their own image and social relations were to them. They didn’t actually care about Jon. They cared about their reputation and having fun without getting in any serious trouble.

Percy and Jacques knew that too as well-off people in high places. Percy had had to wade the ocean of these kinds of people since his birth, and both of his parents had drilled into him over and over again how to recognize these kinds of troublesome people who only took and never gave. Jacques on the other hand had naturally good social skills and could smell the trouble on the young alphas from the first whiff.

“Jon! It’s been a while, man!” The alpha with slicked back blond hair and baggy pants was named Nathan as far as Jon remembered. There was also Oliver with dark eyes and skin and a fashionable hoodie on, Patrick the red head with chains around his neck and too many rings on his fingers, and Dave who had a classic bad boy dragon tattoo snaking up the side of his throat and a huge t-shirt on.

Jon smiled painfully as he was hugged against his will. All four of them ruffled him and pushed him around and it reminded Jon so much of his own old friend group that he felt vaguely nauseous. Their betrayal had hurt, and he saw it reflected here with these people with their sly smiles and arrogant body language. He was frozen under this familiarity, not knowing what to do.

Jacques on the other hand smiled wide and suddenly rubbed his inner wrist against Jon’s neck.

The four alphas noticed this possessive gesture and backed off, a little confused by it. Nathan ran a hand through his greasy slick hair and looked up at Jacques the way an alpha looked at someone they recognized as their superior. “Hey, guys! Fancy seeing you here. Great!”

“Great…” Percy muttered, pinching the hem of Jon’s shirt between his fingers to tug the other closer to them.

There was a tacit understanding between the two friends: they knew and trusted each other, and they didn’t know or trust these newcomers, so they would keep a united front in front of them to deter them from the person they felt protective of.

“Percy!” Patrick quipped overly familiarly and tried to sling an arm over the other’s shoulder, but was dodged instead, making his approach awkward. “Great to see you! I watch every single one of your battles and games on the National and Worldwide Mecha Competition!”

“You beat the shit out of the Frost Empire’s team last time!” Oliver quickly joined the other, making punching motions and laughing.

Jon stood there, staring at the blue bouquet that had suffered after being trapped in the forceful embrace between Jon and Nathan. The flowers looked so sad, crushed, and tilting at odd angles. Jon held them carefully against himself, wanting to squeeze tighter but afraid to kill them. He watched the others interact, smiling for a second then looking blank again, head buzzing with heavy feelings. He wanted to get away. He wanted to throw himself off the balcony and crush himself on the grass below. And he knew it was bad to think like that, so as Bouchard had asked him, Jon tried to turn that thought around and concentrate on the fact that he wanted to live this life and live it better. Which meant getting rid of this toxic friend group that had only made Jon Helsteen worse as a person over the years.

“You didn’t need to come.” Jon closed his eyes for a moment, gathering his strength, his anger to help him. “You know, my parents aren’t thrilled about everything that’s happened. They’d rather I concentrate on studying and piloting mecha, than stay out partying and chasing skirt.”

“What are you talking about, dude?” Nathan laughed with a mean tinge, brows furrowed. He didn’t really believe all this crap about Jon Helsteen, the playboy changing and becoming like another person, but seeing it now right in front of him… He and the guys were getting more and more curious. “Life is meant to be fun! We’re still young. You have all the time and money in the world to not worry about any of that.”

Jacques found himself huffing in amusement. “No wonder your families never comment about your successes and merits at parties,” he grinned, stabbing right where it hurt. “With that attitude, I doubt you’d even make it at IMFA.”

“We totally could!” Oliver hissed, temper flaring, and walked forward with a threatening lean. “We just don’t think that kind of stuff makes you guys any better than us. You’re just a playboy yourself… Jacques Rayne. Just like our Jon here.” He slung an arm around Jon again, bumping their cheeks together.

Jon couldn’t hide his disgust and discomfort at being manhandled. He barely let his real-life friend group touch him like that. It had all been reserved for Caleb.

So, Jon pushed out of the other’s hold and walked over to a side table to put the scrunched-up flowers to safety. “You know what? I don’t care about all that anymore. I really don’t. Whatever I was like in the past… It’s all gone now. Can barely even remember it.”

“Oh yeah, we heard.” Nathan cocked his head, puzzled. “There’s really something different about you. The rumors weren’t lying.”

Dave who had stayed quiet most of the interaction suddenly pulled Jon by the back of his shirt and straight up scented him, nose to his spinal column, where needle marks from connecting with mecha were.

Anger flared in Jon, and he whipped around, nearly cuffing Dave across the temple.

Dave stared at Jon with a hand over his mouth, seemingly thinking this whole thing hilarious. “Oh my gods, it’s true! You did get fucked in the head for real! Your scent is different!”

“Don’t you fucking touch me!” Jon snarled, wiping at his neck to get rid of the gross sensation there.

Percy’s chest trembled as a growl bubbled to surface.

The four alphas were smart enough to know when to back off. They put their hands up, and Nathan chuckled. “Whoa, man, we just wanted to see how our boy was!”

“Your boy?” Jacques barked out a laugh and jabbed Nathan right between the collarbones with a well-manicured claw. “I don’t see a mark on him. You don’t own him in any capacity. And like he just said: he doesn’t do that life anymore. So… why don’t you small fry scram, before we make you?”

“Whoa!” Oliver looked to Jon as if expecting some help from him. “We’re just as worried as everyone else! We came here to see how you were!”

“And now you have,” Jon answered grimly, shoulders squared up. “I’m fine. I don’t need anyone to play nurse for me here. And I’m kind of busy anyway, so as far as I’m concerned, you can all go!”

Percy and Jacques looked at him like kicked puppies, while the four alpha friends glanced at each other incredulously.

“Wow,” Dave remarked, licking the warm honey scent from his lips with surprising relish. “I didn’t think you’d grown a spine, but here you are. Proud of you, dude.”

“People don’t really change!” Oliver shot back, angry at the betrayal of the person they’d been pulling around by the scruff of his neck for the better part of his life. “Everyone may think you did, but we know you. And we know that once your new friends find out what you really are like…” he nodded at Percy and Jacques, who showed their teeth in response. “… they’ll betray you. And you’ll come crawling back to us, Jonny boy.”

“Oh, gross!” Jon snarled, shaking his head like shaking the words out of his ears. “Don’t call me that. Ever. And get the hell out!”

By this point, two very large and imposing looking older alphas came inside, one man and one woman. By the look of their bodies and clothes and devices in their ears, they were security guards of the mansion. Nosy servants outside had most likely noticed the discord within the room, or perhaps even smelled it. The guards looked at all the quests through their black sunglasses and craned their necks as they asked everyone to kindly vacate the property before they would be shown out.

“I’ll show them out!”

Jon’s growl took everyone by surprise. His fangs looked like a viper’s as he opened his mouth to hiss, and he had wide shoulders, bulky hips, and strong legs. He could absolutely take someone out if he wanted. If he wanted. Jon Helsteen had never been a fighter, but right in that moment, everyone saw that he was dangerous, that there was anger there which was brutal and hot and relentless. It burned between Jon’s furrowed brows and pulled taut the stitched on his cheeks, making him look honestly frightening in that moment.

Nathan watched those hands flex into fists, and he too had to admit, that this Jon was way, way different from the previous one. He believed that this Jon would take them all out if they pushed it anymore. And this Jon would not care all that much that he’d hurt them, no matter who their parents were or what kind of dirt they had on him.

The four alphas glanced from Jon to the security guards to Percy and Jacques squaring their shoulders also and showing their teeth. The situation was completely different from what they’d expected when they walked in trying to get an easy one in. They looked back to Jon and without saying goodbye, started to meander away, escorted by one of the security guards.

The female guard stayed however, staring down at the two guests left, despite recognizing Percival Dawnmoore as someone she shouldn’t mess with. This was still their place of employment, and they’d guarded the Helsteen heir for the better part of his teens and young adult life, so they didn’t really care about all that. They just wanted to do their job well and get paid well. So, the security guard stayed, waiting for Jon to either signal that it was fine for the two young alphas two stay, or for the security guard to lift them by the backs of their shirts and throw them out.

Jon himself was considering what to do about Percy and Jacques, who had with genuine concern and kindness come over to see him. Jon wasn’t sure he wanted them to stay, considering how high-strung he was currently. He was brimming with a need to punch something or someone, and he didn’t want the two men to see that side of him. Not this side he’d gotten from his father. Not this side that he wanted to temper and be able to control better.

“I think…” Jon took a shaky breath, fists trembling, a hiss lisping his words. “… you ssshould get out too.”

“Jon…!” Jacques let his shoulders slump and made his stature smaller to appeal to the other alpha with a degree of submissiveness. “I’m sorry I handled it like that, but those guys are really not good…!”

“Yeah, I know.” Jon’s brows furrowed deeper as his anger rose a degree by Jacques’s words. “I’m not sssstupid!”

“I don’t think that!” Jacques defended himself, alarmed to see Jon become even angrier.

Percy however was more straightforward and treated everyone’s feelings with the same straightforwardness with which he felt his own feelings. “Okay. Let’s go, Jack.” He wasn’t even feeling sad, just thinking that it was understandable that Jon didn’t want to be around people sometimes. He was the same way.

Jacques however was a very social, extroverted person and didn’t like being kicked out with such hostile feelings present. “Jon, I’m sorry!”

“It’s fine!” Jon assured way too loudly and turned his back on them. He saw the flowers on the table, their calming, beautiful blue wilted forms, and stroked them carefully with his violent, trembling hands. “I’m just… not… feeling so good. I just want to be alone.”

Percy nodded in perfect understanding, pinching Jacques’s leatherjacket between his fingers and tugging on him to make him hurry.

Jacques glanced from one friend to another, feeling bad for leaving Jon like this, but also feeling helpless towards the other’s closed off back. His shoulders slumped in defeat, and he started walking to the door with Percy in tow. “Alright. We’ll see you at campus, okay?”

Jon let out some kind of answering noise and worried his lower lip with his fangs. The moment everyone was out with a clack of the door, Jon punched the wall so fast and hard that his knuckles creaked, and the wall groaned. He shouted out, whipping his arms and stomping his foot, then punched the wall again. And again. And put his forehead against it to bang his head on the hard surface and really feel the wall meeting his skull. Jon screamed at the wall, head like a volcano erupting, making his whole body shudder and heart beat with feverish speed. Jon bit at his knuckles just because he could, to feel the pain, and chewed on them relentlessly until there were dents in the skin and the knuckles split open. Then he licked the blood and smelled his own sickly, sour, stressed out scent, and sneezed at it, annoyed. Weakness showed in scent way too easily in this world. It was bothersome. Jon wondered if he could somehow cover it up or suppress it. He’d need to search around online.

A knock came from the door.

“Yeah?” Jon yelled out, forehead against the wall.

“It’s me, your father.”

Jon startled. He’d thought it was his mother, coming to check up on him like she usually did. But this time it was his father? The man, who was mostly working and not so much raising a kid? Not that Jon blamed him for it, he appreciated good work morals himself and was just thankful to have a dad who liked him well enough, but still. It was odd.

Jon tentatively went to the door and cracked it open.

Tavaste cocked his head at his only child, noting the red mark on his forehead from banging it against the wall. “Do you need more painkillers?”

Jon shook his head and backed away to let the other in. Jon felt weird about Tavaste walking around his room, strong arms behind his straight back, dark hair and neat beard greying slightly, suit immaculate. It was such a contrast to the bedroom that was still half-stuck in teenage years with the torn-apart punching bag, porn magazines that Jon had neatly arranged himself after moving into the room in the shelf with some new books he’d ordered, and all the gaming gear.

Tavaste noted the schoolbooks open on the bed and some scattered over at the balcony, and simply nodded in silent approval. “Your mother has been quite the worrywart over these past few days.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed.” If it was up to Amelia, Jon would have quit the pilot program and moved back home from the campus apartment. She was trying to cover up her fear over Jon’s accumulating injuries and failing at it spectacularly. It warmed Jon’s heart. He liked to think his real mother would have cared about him as intensely if he and his father hadn’t run her out.

Tavaste hummed, clearly fond. “She just doesn’t like seeing you get hurt. After the difficulties with your birth, we were both afraid she wouldn’t make it through another one, so you are truly the jewel of our eye. I’m aware that fact has made us very… protective of you.”

Jon huffed out a laugh, rubbing his knuckles. His anger was subsiding, being soothed by the presence of the confident older alpha and his scent mixing in with Jon’s very subtly. Tavaste’s scent was very simple: it left the taste of the ocean salt on one’s tongue and smelled of rain. It was a very calming scent to Jon’s mind, and he sniffed at the air to get more in.

Tavaste seemed to notice, because he asked next out of nowhere: “Can I scent you, Jon?”

Jon let out a confused sound, not having even thought it possible between parent and child, although he had some memories of it. His very human mind just had ignored it as a thing.

Tavaste and Jon met in the middle and Jon craned his neck a little to let Tavaste lower his head against his. Temple against temple, Tavaste took a careful sniff of his son’s distressed scent and was glad to smell it mellowing out. Jon in turn breathed in Tavaste’s aftershave, noting how it was similar to the man’s own scent fingerprint. Possibly custom made, them being a rich family and all.

It was a nice moment that calmed their primal instincts and the two settled down on Jon’s huge bed to talk.

“Jon,” Tavaste started as he arranged his hands and feet neatly together. “We do not like this new habit of getting hurt.”

“Understandable.”

Tavaste blinked serenely. “I’m not against you being a pilot. I was a soldier myself back in the day. I know it takes sacrifices of the body and mind to get the work done. Your mother has also experienced that, but it is different when it happens to the person you’ve raised from birth. You can continue piloting mecha, but you need to be more careful in the future and take better care of your health.”

Jon nodded, feeling a little ashamed for causing his parents so much worry. He was used to having a parent who didn’t really care what happened to him, so this was a new experience for him, and for his parents too it seemed, to have a son like him. They were both trying their best to adapt to each other.

Jon felt again a sharp stab of guilt at being the one getting this talk, instead of the real Jon Helsteen, who Tavaste was talking about so fondly. It also made him sad to know that this love and concern wasn’t for him. Not really.

Tavaste continued, unaware of such depressing thoughts: “Are you happy, Jon? I mean… We’ve seen the posts about you. Our PR keeps us on top of things concerning our family, and I’m a little concerned that there are a lot of things you’re not telling us about your current situation.”

Jon looked at his hands, unable to face the other’s sincere, caring face. He’d crack. He couldn’t spill out that he didn’t care about any of that and only wanted to live peacefully avoiding Caleb Morningstar. That would be suspicious. It was too much of a 180 degree from the original Jon Helsteen. Head trauma could only explain so much.

Tavaste lowered himself, trying to connect with his son. “There’s also the matter of your scent fingerprint changing. I didn’t want to believe it at first, but I could smell it clearly just now.”

Cold shivers ran through Jon as he realized that the previous scenting wasn’t just for comfort, but also for investigation.

“Something like that doesn’t just happen. It takes something horrible, life-changing to change one’s scent.” Tavaste tried to see and smell how Jon was feeling, but only got stress from him. “You’ve changed as a person after the last time you were with Caleb Morningstar and Percival Dawnmoore. I’m happy to see you do more for your life, but it isn’t worth seeing you in pain. You’ve also abandoned your previous friend group… a fact that everyone is happy for,” Tavaste couldn’t help admitting from between his teeth. “But it is all just so sudden. So, be honest with me now: is there something your mother and I should know?”

Be honest. Such a simple ask, but one Jon couldn’t abide by. Not if he wanted to keep this life, these people around him. They wanted the original Jon, needed him to exist. Some ghost from another world possessing their son would only frighten them and make them do possibly something scary. And Jon didn’t want to be hated by them. He wanted their love. Wanted to have parents who were alive and didn’t leave or beat him up. Was it so much to ask? Was he a horrible person for enjoying this stolen life and love?

Jon knew the answer to that and only became more depressed. He stayed silent, unable to give any satisfactory answer.

Tavaste was extremely worried. He knew that there was something major his son was hiding, and seeing him hide it from him while looking and smelling like that… It only made him feel more protective and angrier for him. He couldn’t have anyone hurting his son and getting away with it. Their son had been a real menace, but he was clearly trying to be better now, and Tavaste wanted to reward that change. Both the son Jon used to be and the son that he was now were important to Tavaste in different ways. He wanted to protect both versions of him. But Jon wasn’t letting that happen by hiding things from his father. And it made Tavaste feel helpless. And alphas, especially head alphas, didn’t like feeling like they couldn’t help their mate, children, or pack.

Jon knew he had to give something if he wanted Tavaste to leave the room, so he looked at the sky above the balcony, at the familiar yet fantastical world displayed there, and spoke slowly with care: “Some stuff has happened that I can’t really explain. Maybe ever. But know that I will do my utmost, to be a good son for you and not let you or mom down.” Jon looked to his father. His brown eyes were clear but melancholic. He looked older beyond his years. Like he’d lived through hell and come crawling back. It was that kind of gaze. Tired. And resigned. “I just want to try to live my life and be someone better. Can that be enough?”

Tavaste considered his son for a good moment, then finally extended his arms to hug him. Jon accepted the embrace that was well transmitted to be dodged, and pressed his face against a powerful shoulder, breathing deeply. Ocean waves washed over Jon’s mind, frothy and salty. Tavaste scented the top of his son’s scarred head, smelling hair dye and camellia and honey, instead of pine and alcohol and strange perfumes. He couldn’t help wondering what ever could have changed his son so much, but he accepted it. He couldn’t do anything else except accept it and be there to support his child. That was often the only thing a parent could really do after their child grew up: support the person they’d become and who they tried to be.

Chapter Text

Chapter 11: Be my bad boy, be my man!

“Okay, I’m gonna go now…” Jon turned around to look at his parents and group of servants who had come outside to wish Jon good luck at campus. Tavaste had a hand on Amelia’s shoulder, who was anxiously twisting her fingers around each other and looking like she wanted to put her claws into Jon’s school uniform and never let him go.

“Come here, honey, come here…!” She surged forward for the umpteenth time and held her son’s cheeks, where the stitches had been removed, leaving pale scars behind. She’d wanted to swipe make up on each of Jon’s cheeks, but the alpha wriggled and denied her until she had to give up. Her big eyes were gleaming with stress and unspoken feelings, heart at a bursting point when she thought of her son in a mecha again. “Oh, come home safe! You have to promise me!”

“I promise,” Jon murmured obediently from between the slender palms smushing him. His heart ached but he was really going stir crazy in the mansion. He needed to be set free or he’d start tearing at the walls!

“Please, please, please, be careful!”

“Alright, dear…” Tavaste approached and pulled at his mate, but Amelia clung tightly onto their child.

“Promise me, Jon!”

“Mom, I really have to go!”

“Amelia, please let go. He’s gonna be late from the sky metro.”

“No, don’t go!” she suddenly hugged Jon tight. “I love you!”

“Mom…!” Jon felt helpless in the face of the painfully sour stress pheromones, but he really had to go. So, with the help of Tavaste and the servants, they peeled Amelia off him, and Jon got to finally walk away, waving back at them. Tavaste held tight onto Amelia, who still twisted her fingers around each other, clearly anguished. Jon tried to smile reassuringly. He wanted to do right by his new parents, so he’d be more careful from here on out and bring himself back home to them. He’d promised. And he couldn’t imagine himself breaking apart the hearts of the two adults watching him go with such forlorn expressions.

People at the sky metro were very obviously staring at the scarred alpha, who looked like he belonged in the streets, but had the prestigious green IMFA uniform on him. The common people didn’t recognize Jon, but the rest of the students on board did. They were whispering and murmuring amongst themselves. The opinions were mixed. Even though most omegas and betas had a bad image of Jon Helsteen, they couldn’t deny his bravery in the last battle against the aliens. They didn’t want to think it true that Jon could be so heroic but looking at the very obvious slashes across both of the young alpha’s cheeks and the wounds on his throat… even the most stubborn individual had to admit that Jon had done good. And the omegas and betas who hadn’t personally experienced the playboy, sleazebag Jon Helsteen, couldn’t help eyeing him with favor and red cheeks, batting their eyelashes at him.

Jon noticed none of this. Or rather he knew he was the center of attention but closed his eyes and ears from everyone. He simply sat in his seat in a far corner, headphones on and stared right out of the windows at the city awakening to the day all around them.

The alphas, some of whom weren’t all that better than Jon had been in his past days, were either churning with bitter jealousy and shooting glares at Jon or huffing in annoyance at literally all the others in the sky metro and congregating around Jon like a flock of falcons protecting a precious egg.

Jon sensed their presence but ignored them harder, glaring at all the tall glass buildings of the city center until they arrived at the campus site.

The Imperial Academy was buzzing with activity as people had seen Jon’s post about him getting out of house arrest. Jon walked in with long strides, headphones blasting depressing alternate rock and punk pop. He felt like he was walking around in a movie set. Everyone was staring at him while Jon was trying his best to ignore them. People were both glowering with hatred and smiling charmingly. It was a perfect split down the middle, it seemed. Everyone was really confused about him, and Jon was even more confused about what he had done to get this sudden surge of positive attention from some. Especially the alphas.

“Jon! Oh my gods!” Thomas and a few other alphas attached to him the moment he entered the 5F classroom. They were really excited to see him. “How are you? How was the battle? Are the scars real?”

Jon growled low at all the poking and prodding, both verbal and physical, and ended up swatting harshly at all the hands pawing at him. “Get off! What’s wrong with you guys? The class is starting. Go away!”

Thomas chuckled, seemingly not offended at all. All the alphas had odd grins on their face, like Jon’s gruff and unapproachable attitude was amusing to them rather than off-putting. Even a couple of omegas were glancing at him shyly. Jon felt claustrophobic in this class full of maniacs. He slumped on his desk, shoulders high and raked claws through his hair, wondering just how the hell any part of him called out to these weirdos. He looked like someone who belonged in prison or mental hospital! What about that was appealing to anyone?

Not that Jon was completely blind to the charm of a bad boy, but he’d thought there was a limit to what people tolerated with a guy like that! He had insane scarring on his face! That was supposed to be unappealing not charming!

While the class progressed and Jon did his best to write down notes while ignoring everyone, many of the alphas were stealing glances at Jon’s strong bone structure, the way the slashes on his cheeks almost made his cheekbones more pronounced, and his blue, partly shaved hair left his nape wonderfully vulnerable. The glands that barely peeked out of the stiff collar of the standard school uniform looked rubbed raw and red, stimulating imagination, and making their teeth ache.

Jon felt sweltering under the stares, instinct pinging that he was in danger. The moment class ended and people got up, Jon bolted out with his stuff and ran all the way to his apartment. There, on the door, was again the word “alpha-sub” but written with a black sharpie, and Jon’s anger flared. He let out a shriek and punched the door, denting the surface over the word. Jon entered the safety of his apartment, sucking on his knuckles which were aching from the hit.

When Jon exited, cleaning supplies clenched in his fists, Thomas and a neighbor across from Jon, Kevin, were both standing outside his door, talking quietly. They looked to Jon, who only glanced at them from under furrowed brows, and crouched down to scrub at his door.

Thomas rubbed at his arms, clearly awkward. “Sorry that this happened again.”

Jon said nothing, just scrubbed.

Kevin cleared his throat, pulling on the sleeves of his hoodie. “It’s not bad though. To be… like that.”

Jon stopped scrubbing very pointedly but still stared at the door.

Both alphas sensed that they were treading on some very thin ice, but they’d already opened their mouths, so they better finish what they started.

“I mean, if it was true…!” Thomas continued, rubbing at his arms even harder. “But just in general, it’s not a bad thing to be.”

“People are just shitty about stuff like this. When people are different,” Kevin finished, hoodie string between his teeth.

They were both immensely nervous because this had been a point of heated conversation between certain groups of alphas, who either just awakened to the appeal of an alpha mate when seeing Jon, or who were already attracted to other alphas but were hiding it due to societal pressure.

Jon was aware in the back of his head that this was the type of queerness that was heavily looked down upon in this world, and thus something one should be all the prouder of, but he couldn’t help getting angrier as a defense from their words and the word on the door. Jon ground his teeth together hard and whipped around so fast that the two alphas could barely react. Thomas gasped as his hand was scratched and Kevin jumped back when the side of his waist was hit by a fist with a wet sponge in it.

Jon rose to his full height, which was admittedly shorter than most alphas, and bared his teeth and squared his shoulders. “I don’t… want to… talk about it. Understood?”

Both alphas nodded furiously, shoulders high and claws out on instinct. They didn’t attack back however, because Jon looked so… vulnerable standing there despite his anger. He looked like someone they should protect rather than fight against, so they submitted under the other’s anger and backed off into their respective apartments, letting Jon sit back down and scrub furiously at his door, every single muscle tight to the point of hurting.

…

Jon woke up to some private messages where people invited him to all kinds of parties and gatherings. He deleted them without answering, ate some noodles straight from a pot for breakfast and got ready for a new day. The classes went pretty much similar to the previous one with Jon isolating himself and others sneaking looks at him, then him finally bolting out and towards the mecha training building. Strangely enough though, before Jon could get inside, he heard quick steps behind him, and a small hand slammed the door back closed as Jon had grabbed the handle.

Caleb was panting hard, blonde hair disheveled, clearly having ran out of the class all the way after the alpha.

Jon looked at him oddly, not knowing what to expect.

Caleb panted for a good moment, flushed and staring intensely, then gulped a deep breath. “Did you… really save… Percival’s life?”

“Yeah…?”

“You did?”

“Yeah.”

“You?”

“Yeah.”

They stared at each other.

Then Caleb exploded with more intense emotion than he had felt in a long time. “What’s wrong with you?!”

Jon was startled by the outburst, not having seen even the real Caleb like this before. “Uhhh…”

“You’re a coward! You bark and bark and bark, but you never attack! Not really!” Caleb started pacing back and forth, raving at the air around them. “You posture and do this little thing like you’re about to punch, but then you chicken out because you realize the other person is actually going to beat the shit out of you for real… And, and, and!” Raspy gasp of breath. “And that’s the kind of person you are! Jon!”

“Alright.” Jon wasn’t sure what else he could say. He was just so put off by the other’s unnatural outburst.

“I’m going insane!” Caleb couldn’t help laughing, looking at Jon through those incredibly blue eyes and pulling at his halo-like hair. “Nothing makes sense anymore! Am I in another dimension? Are you real? Am I real?”

“We’re all real!” Jon quickly assured, unable to harden his heart at that precious, distressed face he’d loved for many years. “Everything’s just… It’s just…”

Caleb waited for him to answer, to give him something to hold onto. Because everything about Jon Helsteen was freaking the omega out, Jon realized. Caleb Morningstar wasn’t his Caleb in any other way than as a reflection of some fifteen-year-old’s fantasy of himself, made alive in this dimension Jon had stumbled into. And that Caleb had only known a version of Jon, who had hurt him. Just like Jon knew only a version of Caleb, who had hurt him. They both were expecting to be hurt by the other, and when it wasn’t actively happening, they became confused and felt out of touch with reality. Because people didn’t change as fast as Jon Helsteen had. And it scared Caleb. It really scared him.

Jon couldn’t help sighing and raking a hand through his hair.

Caleb grabbed a hold of that motion. “Why blue?”

“Huh?”

“Why blue hair? You like red. Red lips, red hair, red cars…”

“No, I like blue.” Jon wasn’t sure why he was admitting so bluntly to the differences between him and the original Jon. He just… looking at this Caleb, he just suddenly felt so… connected to him. Sympathetic.

Caleb’s gaze fell to the ground, and he clutched himself tight, claws digging into his uniform jacket. “What the fuck?” he spat out, utterly confused. Caleb felt like he was actually talking to a different person. Like the person he hated had been spirited away and been taken over by someone else. Was it divine retribution or the work of the devils? A personality disorder? Caleb had no idea, but he found himself hacking out a laugh, stuck between joy and horror at the unreal reality. “What is happening here?”

Jon stared at him, helpless. He scratched at his white shirt collar, wanting to get at the skin underneath, but knowing he should let the scars heal or his mother would have a fit.

Caleb’s gaze found the glands just barely peeking out of the white collar. His blue eyes stared with maddening intensity at the slightly raised bumps there below the defined jawline, and without much thought like a wire snapping inside, Caleb surged suddenly at Jon and bit into him.

Jon shouted in pain, brain halting in disbelief as the small omega clutched him like a beartrap and tore into the side of his throat. Jon grabbed a hold of him, alpha pheromones rising, and pulled the back of Caleb’s jacket as hard as he could. Caleb resisted, biting even harder, and inhaling violently in the pheromones that were leaking out of the wounded gland: camellia. Not birch but tealeaves, dried and soaked in hot water, passing through his throat, coating the top of his mouth with honey and washing away any bad smells. Caleb felt himself calming without a reason, finding the scent incredibly pleasant. His omega instinct was to submit in the face of the rage Jon was releasing, and Caleb did let go just as suddenly as he’d latched on. Jon threw him away with an animalistic roar, holding onto his gland, which hadn’t been pierced luckily – the trauma of that might have been too much for Jon’s body and mind to handle after Percy’s bite.

Caleb lay on the ground, head up, watching dazedly with blood soaking the corners of his beautiful mouth, as Jon raged like a headless beast, trying to calm down from the fear reaction the attempted marking had triggered in him.

Just then, some people came to look what on Earth all the noise was about, and saw Jon Helsteen clutching at his throat, saliva dripping from between his clenched teeth, looking absolutely unhinged as he wavered on his feet, trying desperately to not beat Caleb into a bloody pulp on the ground.

“Alpha! Omega!” One of the older mechanics barked out in a commanding voice to snap them out of it. “What is going on here?”

“Jon! Caleb!” Jacques had also come out with them, having been in the hangar chatting up a pretty beta, when he’d noticed the familiar roaring voice. Jacques glanced from one to another as Jon drew in ragged breaths like he was having a panic attack, and when Jacques noted Jon’s pose and the blood on Caleb’s mouth, his own fury surged out with surprising intensity. “What did you do?!” his voice boomed out, startling everyone around him into covering, appearing submissive to pacify him. “What did you do?!”

Caleb said nothing weirdly enough. He just propped himself on his skinny elbows, looking a little out of it, and stared at Jon with bizarre keen interest.

Jacques went forward, grappling with Jon, trying to reach him. “Jon! It’s okay! You’re safe! You don’t need to fight! It’s over! The situation is over!”

“Hhhhhhhhhh!” Jon hissed saliva bubbling, fangs piercing into his lower lip as he still held tight onto his gland in order to not hit anyone.

“Jon, look at me…”

Jon did his best to look. Jacques’s beautiful face had some freckles which Jon had never before noticed. Those green eyes had such nice dark lashes, which blinked lazily at him, giving butterfly kisses like a cat to a friendly acquaintance. He was also an alpha but there was no sign of aggression anywhere. Just serenity. Just care. And Jon little by little let himself trust that he was safe again.

The dark, ear-ringing haze of fight reflex subsided, and Jon hesitantly removed his hands from his glands. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. The scent of rotting tealeaves and burning honey changed back into a thriving warmth, and Jacques drank it in, still holding onto Jon’s forearms.

Jon was quiet. He felt embarrassed that everyone had witnessed his outburst and furious that once again someone had tried taking a bite out of him! He glanced at Caleb, who had stood up and was staring back at Jon with that eerie calmness. Jon bared his teeth, lip bloody. “Never – ever – fucking touch me again.”

Caleb merely nodded. He was at peace now that he had gotten a taste of Jon’s scent fingerprint. It was different, there was no doubt about it. The Jon he hated was gone. He had no clue how it had happened, but this Jon in front of him was someone different. It was useless fighting against someone who didn’t even know Caleb the way Jon Helsteen had known. That Jon was dead, and this one had taken his place. And his scent was…

Caleb licked the roof of his mouth, the aftertaste of honey lingering there sweet and cloying. It reminded Caleb of the omegas he hung out with. But the taste was from an alpha. Curious. Very, very curious.

Jacques stood there between the two, weirded out by how angry he’d gotten at an omega for an alpha. He wasn’t used to fighting for another alpha because an omega had hurt them. It didn’t happen all that much. Well, it happened, but mostly omegas used their scent and stature to soothe alphas and avoid trouble that way, instead of straight up attacking like an alpha. It was like Jon and Caleb had switched roles in that moment and it was confusing Jacques. He snapped out of it however when Jon stormed inside, pushing through the small crowd of mechanics. Jacques glanced back at Caleb who was still staring after Jon and rushed after the other alpha.

Jon was cursing up a storm and reeking of anger, which helped give him a clear path unbothered by other people. He ripped open the alpha changing room’s door and banged it shut, then went about punching and kicking several metal lockers in quick success. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

“Jon?”

“No!” Jon wasn’t sure why he said that. He just pressed his forehead against a cool metal locker, breathed slowly, calming his heartbeat. ‘I’m good,’ he told himself, firmly, despite not believing it. ‘I’m alright. No one wants to hurt me. No one wants to hurt me.’

Jacques cracked the door of the changing room open and peeked inside. “How are you feeling?”

“Bad!” Jon pressed his forehead against the locker harder, refusing to meet the other’s eyes.

“Right.” Jacques let himself in and got closer, wondering what he could say. He’d never in his life encountered an alpha being forcefully bitten by an omega. He wasn’t sure what one was supposed to say in a situation like this. “Do you… need anything?”

“No,” Jon sighed, feeling a little calmer after repeating mantras to himself. “Or maybe. Do you have something cold or hot, or sour or spicy at hand?”

Jacques was a little confused but went to his locker and pulled out a thermos. He uncapped it, poured black tea into the cap, and gave it to Jon. Jacques observed the other holding the slowly heating cap like a mug with relish, and held back a satisfied purr. He’d provided security for his crush, and it was making him feel all proud and giddy inside. “So…” He approached slowly as to not break the calm moment. “What was that about between you and Caleb?”

Jon blew on the tea, watching the dark brown surface ripple and took a sip as he considered the answer. “Some old stuff. He was mad for a reason, and he bit me. The end.”

Jacques raised a brow, feeling licks of anger as he remembered the way Jon held his gland. “You gotta be pretty godsdamn mad at someone to try to forcefully mark them.”

“I don’t think he tried to mark me so much as rip the whole gland off,” Jon pondered now that he had his mind about him again. “Honestly, Percy’s bite hurt a lot more. He really went for it when he was waking me up from my freak out in the mecha.”

“Huh?” Jacques froze, eyes wide, processing the words with all his brain power. Percy, the person who didn’t even realize he was crushing on Jon, had gotten to bite him? That Percy? And also Caleb. Two people now had apparently taken a bite out of those delectable bumps of skin full of delicious pheromones, and Jacques was left licking his canines in aggravation! He was trying to be a gentleman here and give Jon time to take in his advances, but it looked like Jacques would have to speed things up or he’ll be left in the dust by potential rivals.

Just then, Percy came in with two other young alpha pilots, and they all started changing their clothes. Percy was confused the entire time they dressed by Jacques hovering over Jon, seemingly attempting to cover his half-naked state from the others in the room while throwing glares at Percy in particular.

Jon was also properly confused by the other’s actions but chalked it all up to his senior feeling protective after the bite.

They had a few more students to integrate into their team from other classes who’d passed the pilot tests. Unlike Jon’s own classmates who avoided him due to his bad reputation and strife with Caleb, these new classmates actually inched closer to ask stuff from him about piloting, making Jon feel awkward since he was more used to isolation than this sudden friendliness. Yet again though, Jacques shooed the new students away with a bright smile and clenched teeth, smelling slightly dominating, and helped Jon into one of the heavy mecha. Jon blushed as the other’s hands slid from his sides to his waist, then to his thighs as Jon climbed into the mecha’s neck entrance. He slid in quickly, leaving a very satisfied looking Jacques outside of the mecha.

Percy glanced at them from inside his own custom mecha, taking everything in from behind purple lenses. His mecha’s feet and spine were still damaged, but he had a back-up mecha, which he’d named “Orchid” after his beta mother’s favorite flower. Percy wondered why Jacques was acting with Jon kind of the way he usually acted with his flings. Except with Jon, it had a more… protective feel to it, perhaps. It couldn’t be that Jacques was targeting Jon. Jacques had never courted alphas. He was a very stereotypical alpha in how he fawned over omegas and preferred them over betas at the end of the day, though he flirted with both.

Jacques glanced back at Percy, as if sensing his friend’s gaze and smirked.

Percy’s brows furrowed, feeling annoyed for whatever reason. It was like he was losing a fight even though they weren’t even fighting.

While the students were shooting at targets in different kinds of mecha, their trainer looked through their profiles and results so far, pondering which ones she should take to the mecha World Cup coming up. It was basically a friendship game between the two big Empires and also a chance to see how each of them had progressed in their military tech and training so far. Melanie was very interested in the new prosthetics they had come up with for their injured soldiers. The youngest prince of the Frost Empire had lost his legs in a huge battle for the borderlands of their Empire and gotten brand new ones. If they really didn’t hinder a soldier’s combat abilities, then Scarlet Empire might buy some from prosthetics from them. Melanie just couldn’t help wondering if their own military would use the body modification technology humanely. She’d heard rumors that the Frost Empire had soldiers replace body parts with mechanical ones to heighten their synchronization rates, which had all kinds of fishy qualities to it. She didn’t want her own students have to go through any unwanted body modification just because the government said so.

“Percy,” Melanie dialed into a private channel between her and the team Captain. “I’m thinking of our World Cup team composition. Do you think we can take Jon and Caleb in, or should we suspend either one.”

“What would we suspend them for?” Percy shot in succession at multiple rotating targets while paying attention to his newer teammates and their efforts.

“Jon for having violence related trauma and Caleb for attacking a teammate.”

Percy froze for a second, barely noticeable as he continued to shoot and slice targets. “Caleb Morningstar attacked someone? When?”

“Just this morning.” Melanie yawned, wondering idly what to make for dinner for her family. “Apparently, she bit Jon Helsteen outside the mecha building. The details are unknown and neither Jon nor Caleb seems to want to spill the beans on what the fight was about.” Melanie paused for a moment, pondering. “When I asked Caleb, he just looked at me oddly and said that he had nothing to do with Jon Helsteen anymore, because Jon Helsteen was gone.”

Percy frowned and looked up at the sleek, slender midi mecha Caleb was piloting. The mecha had a similar base to Percy’s Wanderer, but less customized. It suited the omega’s careful and cunning fighting style, leaving room for both flourish and straightforward brutality. Caleb was moving efficiently like nothing was bothering him, but Percy could read some stiffness there, stress.

Percy had honestly never heard of a case where an omega had forcefully attempted to mark an alpha. Even just biting anywhere close to the neck in aggression was basically unheard of.

A flash of a tender, flushed bump under the jaw came to Percy’s mind. A scarred gland, clawed open, leaking blood and clear fluid, emitting a mouthwatering scent which made one’s throat burn in pleasant anguish.

Percy swallowed hard, imagining the taste of camellia and honey clinging to the inside of his mouth. Jon’s pheromones had been an eye-opening explosion of emotions and mental images for him. Never had he been so sad yet so eager to bite someone and drink in their unique, sweaty flavor.

There was an anxious pain in Percy’s stomach at the thought of Caleb or someone else in general biting Jon’s neck. It wasn’t right. It didn’t feel right. It felt awful. The thought made Percy gnash his teeth together and fingers curl tighter around the handles of Orchid. There was a fury bubbling inside him which he hadn’t felt in ages. He had good control over his emotions. He was always praised for it. So, this time too, Percy inhaled deeply through his nose, placed both hands against his stomach and chest, and felt their warmth there, soothing him. He listened to his mecha breathe and click and churn. He knew every single noise by heart. Like he was born in a mecha. This was his womb. He was back in his original home within the wires and metal sheets and pipes and silicone patches. Nothing could bother him when he was piloting. Nothing.

“Percy? Percy!”

He let out a dreamy hum and concentrated on his trainer’s rambling again.

“What do you want to do?” Melanie put down her team’s records, took out her phone and tapped in a list of ingredients she should buy after work. “This’ll be your third year. I want you to start taking more responsibility. Especially if you’re going to lead a private team of your own after graduation like the General wants.”

Percy went quiet again. He thought back to her alpha mother, to how she acted in the hospital after the last alien attack. After Percy had pulled Jon out of his stupor in the mecha. She’d been so mad at both of them. She’d called Percy immature for running to another pilot’s rescue like that. It was risky, after all. A mistake on the other pilot’s part, not Percy’s. He should have just concentrated on helping the people. But Percy didn’t want to. In that moment, when he saw Jon’s mecha writhe and heard the other’s distressed breathing and pained rasping, he couldn’t imagine leaving Jon on his own against the alien. Jon was more volatile. It was his strength and weakness. His passion was a glorious volcanic explosion which dazzled and puzzled Percy, who had always kept his feelings in tight reigns. It was what he had been taught. It was what everyone commended him for. But Percy was finding that he was a passionate person on the inside. When it was about mecha. And Jon. And he felt like he wanted to know that side of himself better. No matter what his alpha mother thought or felt. Or even if she would end up being disappointed in him.

“Percy, are you okay?”

He came back to himself, blinking at the heavy mecha firing a gatling gun at the wall until it breached through the hardest target. He could imagine Jon in there right now, yanking on the handles and grinning wildly. That handsome scarred face.

Percy took his hands off the handles and pressed his palms to his cheeks. They were warm. His heart was beating fast. “I’m sorry, Melanie.”

In the room behind the bulletproof glass, the older alpha paused at the near whispered words. She looked up at the frozen black and purple midi mecha.

Percy closed his eyes, concentrating on his own accelerated heartbeat. On how good he felt when he thought about Jon. “I’m not really… in a state of mind to think about stuff… like that. Right now.” He opened his eyes again and stared out at Jon piloting his mecha with awkward gracefulness of an eager child throwing a favorite toy around. “Can we get back to this later?”

Melanie acknowledged that, and Percy closed the channel. Then opened up another one. “Jack?”

Jacques jumped a little, surprised to hear his friend on their private channel. “Percy? Are you okay?” he asked in immediate concern. “You don’t usually use this channel in the middle of classes.”

“Do you like Jon?”

Jacques nearly choked on his spit. He coughed a couple of times, cleared his throat, then assumed his usual calm and charming persona with rehearsed ease. “How so?”

Percy kept staring at Jon’s heavy mecha, ignoring a stray rain of bullets from a newbie’s mecha grazing Orchid’s shoulder. “I think I like Jon. I really like him. But I think you might also like him, because you kind of treat him like your flings. And I don’t know how to feel about that.”

“Uhhhh…”

While Jacques was blown out of water by the perfectly articulated, genuine and analytical stream of thought, Percy continued with a clear air of serenity and acceptance of the sticky situation. “I don’t want to stop being friends because we like the same person. I really like you too. You’re one of my only friends. You didn’t think I was weird or cold like some others do – I know they do,” he said before Jacques could say anything contrary. “I’m not good with people. I don’t even like people in general all that much. But I like you and I like Jon. I want to keep both. Is that stupid? Are we going to have to like… friend break up because of Jon?”

Jacques was frozen with his own mecha as well, Spiderlily standing perfectly still and poised in the middle of the lane. The older teammates who knew the Captain and vice-captain better gave wondering glances at their mecha, but didn’t try to call out to them.

To be perfectly honest, Jacques had thought Percy way too out of touch with other people to know about his own feelings. But it turned out that Percy was way more in-tune with his own emotions than the other alpha gave him credit for. It made Jacques feel ashamed of himself as a friend. And also, because when he thought about Jon, he excluded Percy completely like he didn’t care about how his friend felt at all, or what fighting over Jon would do to their friendship. They’d known each other longer than they’d known Jon and Jacques had let a crush come in between himself and a good friend.

He grimaced, arms slack against the silicone of the mecha’s inside. “I’m sorry, Percy. I’m a shitty friend.”

“I don’t think so,” Percy said in confusion, but Jacques denied his words.

“You are… so unique,” Jacques couldn’t help breathing out, almost laughing at the ridiculously honest conversation which Jacques knew for a fact turned into vicious fights between other people. But Jacques was weak against this kind of genuine spirit. He was good at being angry at deception and horrible words, not this kind of caring softness. “I don’t understand how your brain works! I want to be mad at you for also liking Jon, but you are just so godsdamn… you.”

Percy tilted his head, carefully listening to the other’s words, fearing the eventual turn around to spitting rage like he’d seen with drama like this in fiction. “I don’t want to stop being friends with you. I’d rather be friends than date Jon, even though I hate that I just said that, because I really, really like him. But I also really, really like you, Jack.”

“I hate you!” Jacques groaned as he slumped into his arms against the control panel. “I mean, I don’t, but I also do right now. You’re probably the only person I know who can look at this so logically and say all that to another person’s face! If I didn’t know you so well, I would question if you do actually like Jon all that much.”

“I do. I think.” Percy thought back to the bite incident with Caleb and growled at the mental image. “Yes, I do.”

“Crap.” Jon huffed into his arms, then looked up at Jon’s mecha.

Two alphas stared at the same person piloting a mecha, both holding eager tenderness and protectiveness in their hearts, as if reflecting off one another.

“So… what are we gonna do?”

…

“So…” Michael Bouchard tapped a finger against the side of his tablet. “Sounds like despite the biting incident it was otherwise a pretty good day?”

“Yeah!” Jon declared proudly from his seat across his beta therapist. “I didn’t freak out while shooting at targets in the mecha! I hid sour candy in my pilot outfit and chewed on it just in case to shock my system.”

Bouchard chuckled at the mental image. “Good to hear! I’m glad you’ve found more ways to keep calm and escape panic attacks.” He wrote some notes on the tablet and looked back up at the alpha with a more serious expression. “I do want to talk about the bite though. Both of them. Two near marking incidents is a lot in such a short span of time. I can’t imagine what that does to one’s mind and body.”

“The pheromone rush was startling,” Jon admitted, scratching idly at his left gland where Percy’s teeth mark still lingered. The feel of it under a plaster sent a shiver through Jon. “I felt like I could actually kill someone like that.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I didn’t,” Jon murmured, a little surprised actually. He’d thought he could take someone’s life like he had almost done as a teenager. Pushing that guy down the stairs and seeing him just lay there had been a lifechanging experience. A wake up to the violence eating him up and turning him more and more into his father. “I’m glad I didn’t. I like Percy. Even though I shouldn’t.”

Bouchard cocked his head in question.

Jon attempted to elaborate on the drama between Caleb and him. “I think Caleb likes Percy, which means if I spent too much time around him, Caleb’s going to do something about that.”

“Do what exactly?”

“I dunno. Make everyone hate me even more with his pretty face and words. Whatever he says, everyone is going to believe it.” Jon shrugged, mind floating back to the real world. To the way he was isolated by both those who knew him as the bully and those who didn’t know anything about him. The Caleb of this world had similar ammo to use against him, so it was a very real danger for Jon to watch out for. “Because I’m not a good person.”

Bouchard sighed through his nose, pondering how to go about unpacking all this he was hearing. “You’re trying your best to change which is already commendable. Not everyone wants to change for the better, and some people just give up when the going gets tough. You, however, have been sticking with all this and are open to change. That matters, Jon.” The beta pointed at him, while clutching the tablet.

Jon made a noncommittal sound. There was silence as they both observed each other and looked for something more to say.

“Back to the bites,” Bouchard said eventually, adjusting himself in his plush office chair. “Has the forceful marking attempt changed the way you look at your team Captain?”

“Like, am I mad at him now?” Jon took a moment to seriously think about it. “No.” He blushed, then was angry at himself for blushing when remembering that bite. “It was… an interesting… experience.”

Bouchard made an understanding sound and put more notes in with a sly smile on his face which Jon hated.

“Stop smiling!” he spoke from between gritted teeth, claws digging into his chair. “It’s not funny! I’m too old to find out stuff like this after something like that!”

“Oh, you’re never too old to discover new sides about yourself, Jon.” Bouchard smirked, gold-rimmed glasses glinting in the office lighting. “But that does put a new spin on the incident and your previous words about not being allowed to like Percival Dawnmoore.”

Jon ground his teeth together so hard his gums hurt.

Bouchard leant back in his chair, scenting the air lightly. “Do you like Percival as more than a friend?”

Jon refused to answer, but the deepening blush and notes of achingly sweet honey spoke for him.

Bouchard merely kept smiling. “We can come back to that.”

“Or not.”

“How about Caleb? How do you feel about him now that he has taken a bite out of you?” Bouchard tilted his head, particularly interested in this answer. “It’s not every day that an omega attempts to forcefully mark an alpha.”

“He wasn’t marking me, okay!” Jon shouted out. “Why does everybody think that? He just went nuts and bit me for the sake of biting me because he’s a little bitch and I’ve hurt him before, and he doesn’t like me attempting to pretend I’m something I’m not!”

The air around Jon turned toxic, making Bouchard huff out a breath to clear his sinuses. He quickly grabbed onto Jon’s words. “Wait. Jon. Are you basing your entire journey of healing around not offending Caleb Morningstar?”

“No!”

“No?”

“I don’t think so!” Then Jon got to thinking about how in the back of his mind he was always afraid of somehow catching the other’s attention and how Caleb saw his relationships with others and what they meant to Caleb and… “Maybe. A little.” He peeked at the other from under his blue bangs, eyebags shadowed deeper by the tilt of his head. “Is that bad? He has every right to destroy me if he wants to. And he wants to. So, it’s good to be careful, right?”

“Jon, that is not how you should measure your healing and becoming better,” Bouchard made sure to state firmly. “You should want to become better because of yourself, not because you fear that others don’t like you or want you or wish to hurt you. Motivating yourself through fear is not the most efficient way to go about things. It just reinforces the fear itself.”

“But I’m really afraid.” Jon scratched himself miserably, tearing into the plaster and scabs underneath it. “I’m…” Afraid of being alone. Of the whole world hating him. Of living alone with a bottle of beer in his hand, watching late-night talk shows and yelling at the neighbors while drunk until passing out on the sofa at 5am. With an empty house echoing of memories of love and hate and blood and cheap whiskey. “I’m used to being alone but also, I don’t think I… like it. Anymore.”

Bouchard took on a sympathetic look. “We weren’t created to live alone. It’s natural to want company.”

“Even if I’m horrible?”

“Even then. But you’re not horrible, you’re lost and confused and hurt. Hurting others while hurting yourself, remember?”

“Yeah…” Jon agreed reluctantly. He glanced absentmindedly at his claws and saw how red they were and hid them quickly as if his therapist hadn’t just watched him open himself up in front of him. Figuratively and literally. “How long do we still have?”

“Not long I’m afraid.” Bouchard glanced at the computer’s clock then made some final notes on his tablet. “Jon, I’d like you to keep reinforcing good thoughts and using the methods of calming yourself you’ve found. But I’d also like you to allow yourself to like and be liked by people.”

“No,” Jon said immediately out of pure self-loathing habit.

Bouchard wasn’t having it. “I insist that you let yourself create meaningful relationships with your peers. Do not let your fears rule you. Especially your fear of another person.”

“Who is allowed to hate me and destroy me.”

“You are obsessed,” Bouchard stabbed back with his words and blasé look as his tablet started beeping to signal the end of their time together. “I can assure you that Caleb is most likely not as interested in you as you are interested in him being interested in you. He has his own life and you have yours. Avoid engaging overly much with Caleb and try being friendly with others. That’s your homework for this session.”

“I hate you,” Jon sneered without really meaning the words.

Bouchard was more than aware of that and smiled to himself as he started putting his things away. “See you next week!”

Jon walked away grumbling and banged the door shut so hard all the books on the shelves rattled. He then looked apologetically at the startled desk worker and quickly skittered off.

…

Later at night a group of young alphas was once again having a meet up at their favorite club, where the omegas were pretty, booze flowing and drugs available only for those who knew where to look and what to say.

Nathan, Oliver, Patrick and Dave sat around a table in a dark corner of the club. Strobe lights hit their eyes in ways which made their pupils flash red, and skin look pallid one moment and hellish the next. Each of them had an omega under their arm or cuddled up against them, laughing or idly scrolling on their phones. Oliver and Patrick were making a scene to impress their dates, while Dave was busy making out with some black out drunk omega guy he’d pulled from the dancefloor, and Nathan was sitting quietly with his on-and-off fling Jennifer under his arm.

They were both immersed in the flood of posts on the IMFA campus message board. Jennifer was a student there, so she had complete access with her own personal campus account. She was showing Nathan pictures of Jon Helsteen with a displeased purse of her plump lips.

“Look.” She shimmied closer to Nathan who pressed his chin against her ample dark curls. “I told you: he let an omega bite him. They got a picture right here!”

“Well, how about that…” Nathan murmured, watching the picture of a gorgeous angelic omega with blood on his lips and Jon clutching the side of his throat like he was squeezing his gland. Jon looked horrible in the picture. Weak and distressed. Angry.

“I can’t believe he’s become such a pussy!” Jennifer complained, stretching her long legs, and nearly knocking her half-empty glass over with a knee. “I offered myself to him and he completely blew me off. And now this!” She snorted, throwing her phone down on the table. “Weak-ass alpha-sub.”

Nathan made a sound and lifted the omega’s phone for another look. He scrolled to some of the pictures people had taken of Jon secretly from further away in study halls, library and even mecha bay. The tight pilot uniform had an oily sheen to it, making the contours of strong thighs, shoulders and hips shine. Nathan cocked his head, unsure of what exactly he was feeling. He was used to regarding weak alphas with condescension and arrogance, but with Jon, for some reason he was also feeling something else entirely. Interest. Arousal.

Jennifer smelled it on him but mistook it for the alpha’s general interest in her. She turned with a wicked smirk and kissed at Nathan’s neck, while the alpha’s eyes stayed glued to the picture of Jon raking fingers through his shock blue hair in the black pilot suit.

Dave detached from the omega he was sucking on to say: “He smelled really fucking good last time. Really fucking good.” As if sensing the direction of his friend’s interest.

Nathan smiled cruelly, an idea starting to bubble up in the back of his head. “Jenny, you got those pheromone blasters on hand still?”

“Those roofies?” Jennifer asked, not really even paying attention to the conversation as she gulped the rest of her drink down. “I dunno what they’re called, but sure. I can get some more.”

“I’ve got a fun idea.” Nathan grinned down at her wide bleary eyes. “Which I think you’ll find especially funny, my poor, discarded dear.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 12: He should be at the club!!

For the next couple of days there were the pilots preparing for the friendship games with Frost Empire and the three guys – two alpha and one omega – staring into space and doing mostly nothing. Jacques was thinking about what the hell kind of love triangle they were forming between him, Percy and Jon… Caleb was wondering if his true sexuality was actually men who smelled sweet and were submissive to him, so basically omegas… and Percy was doing calculations on what kind of new spinal column he should get for Wanderer to replace the broken one. People were noticing and poking at each of them, trying to get their attention, but they were focused on their own little problems like the rest of the world didn’t even exist.

Jon was slightly worried, glancing at each of them in turn, then settling mostly on Percy and Jacques who were suddenly less actively friendly towards him. They seemed to be thinking hard of something whenever Jon entered their field of vision and Jon had no idea what that could be. So, he suffered in the odd state of trying to be friendly like his therapist told him but not being able to make the first move. It had been so long since he’d last tried to actually contact other people that it felt like he’d lost the skill all together. Was that possible? Could a person forget how to interact with other people without anger or fear? It felt like that. Jon was just putting on a grim, unapproachable face and grinding away in practices and at school, being the complete opposite of friendly and open like he was supposed to be.

Until the third day when the leaves started falling and turning from multicolour towards brown. Jon had been forced to sit in the cafeteria for lunch because he’d forgotten to go to store and his apartment was full of bread and noodles and literally nothing else. He needed some variety, and the cafeteria was the place where to get it from. Unfortunately, that meant socializing with people who were interested in him for whatever reason. Like Thomas and Kevin, his two neighbors, and a couple of female alphas and betas and omegas. Basically, one third of Jon’s class had crammed themselves into the same far corner table Jon had sat in specifically to avoid gathering attention. But here they were. All together. Sitting and eating. Or rather picking their foods, because Jon had trouble eating while anxious and everyone wanted to chat idly like it wasn’t weird to talk to the person you were previously mostly keeping in isolation.

“It’s gonna be Halloween soon!” Kevin piped up, holding a spoon over his soup. “Which means parties!”

“THE party,” one of the omega girls grinned, making a dazzling motion with her hands. “This year the campus afterparty is going to be at club Pulse! It’s the hottest place right now.”

“Nice!” Thomas smiled back and looked to Jon with kind eyes. “You gonna attend, Jon? I know you’ve gone the previous years,” he laughed. “Remember the pictures from last year? Oof!”

Jon held back a growl, swallowing his anger down and forcing out some kind of smile, maybe. “I don’t know. I have a lot going on.”

“Oh, come on, Jon!” the other female alpha, who was apparently Cecilia, leaned in close enough that Jon could smell her charcoal and marshmallow scent. She was like a campfire which Jon couldn’t appreciate because he was currently being roasted on it. “That’s exactly why you need to come with the rest of the class! Loosen up! You need it!”

Her hand was approaching Jon’s in slow motion in Jon’s eyes, making him dig his claws into the table, until suddenly there was an arm between the two’s faces.

“Hi!” Jacques smiled so bright and beautiful that it dazzled everyone like a flashbang. “Sorry to interrupt but I couldn’t help overhearing you talk about the Halloween afterparty.”

“And I also overheard!” Percy declared stiffly from behind his friend, standing like a commander facing his troops in his green uniform.

Jon had never seen Percy in it. He couldn’t help taking this novelty in, letting his eyes rake from slender, toned legs all the way to wide, confident shoulders, and handsome light brown face. Between him and Jacques, Jon didn’t know which one to look. They were both incredibly handsome and so very there in front of him.

The others were having similar feelings, dazed by the sudden appearance of the two campus bigshots.

“Excuse me,” Jacques said and somehow perfectly naturally moved Cecilia and her chair aside in order to pull in his own chair up and sit beside Jon.

Percy approached the omega on Jon’s other side, stood there staring at the poor young woman for five uncomfortable seconds, until she moved out of the way, letting Percy take her seat.

Jon was surrounded from both sides before he even knew what was happening.

Both guys turned to him, boxing Jon in even more and making him feel so very small. Damn his short stature!

“You know,” Jacques kept the conversation going like it hadn’t just been rudely and unnaturally interrupted by them. “Our mecha team usually goes to these kinds of shindigs together! You’ve just joined, so you should totally come with us!”

“Yes,” Percy said a little too loudly, got a subtle look from Jacques, and forced himself to relax all the tension he’d gathered while they had planned this meeting.

The omegas looked to each other, giggled, and stole more lovestruck glances at the trio sitting there. Three hot alphas mingling there right beside them? What luck!

The betas were mostly of the same thought, but the alphas definitely weren’t. They immediately knew exactly what was happening and couldn’t help clenching their fingers into fists, jealousy poking at their insides as the two surrounded the very awkward looking Jon who’d given up on eating at this point.

Jon was busily pondering how to turn everyone down, but his therapist’s advice kept haunting him in the back of his head. Jon touched his fingers together, mouth a flat line as he murmured something about attending only the afterparty and only if he wasn’t left all alone. Because being alone at a club surrounded by drunk people did not sound like an ideal situation for his poor, anxious and lonely mind. Things would probably evolve into a fight with Jon’s luck. And temper.

Everyone was happy to see Jon agree to come, although the alphas were forcefully laughing and staring at Jacques and Percy, one of whom stared back with an even greater smile and one whom didn’t have any idea why he was being stared at so intensely.

“Okay.” Jon quickly took his tray and only partially eaten food and made to leave. “I’ll see you guys, probably. Or not.”

Jacques and Percy rose with him. Jon walked away briskly but found himself closely followed by two sets of footsteps all the way to the tray disposal station, then out of the cafeteria, where he was suddenly grabbed by his elbows from either side. Jon let out a startled noise as he was being carted away around the school, until they reached the backside with all the heavy oaks. Jacques and Percy looked around and let him go, leaving Jon standing there not knowing what to do or what was happening, when Jacques took out a blanket and a bunch of lunch boxes.

“What is this?” Jon couldn’t help asking despite knowing a picnic when he saw one.

“You didn’t eat at the cafeteria, and you still look like crap.” Jacques opened one tasty looking dish after another, making Jon’s mouth water without permission. “I can tell you haven’t been eating well. A well-balanced diet is important for one’s health. Eat up.”

Percy was already munching on fresh vegetables which were all separated neatly from each other clearly on purpose. Jacques knew how Percy was with food.

Jon on the other hand had no reservations or specific needs. He dove right in, scooping fried wieners and sandwiches into his mouth. “You made all of these?”

“What can I say?” Jacques shrugged, happily observing the two eating his food. “I like cooking.” Plus, it satisfied his inner alpha’s need to take care of Jon, but he didn’t voice that, only smiled smugly, knowing that the other alphas back in the cafeteria were left licking their wounds.

Percy opened another box which had all the food items again separated neatly from one another. Even the brown sauce for the meat was separated into a compartment of its own.

Jon blinked in confusion. “I didn’t know you eat your food all separated like that. You ate just fine from a plate like everyone else in the restaurant.”

“Mother forces me to.” Percy munched on a delicious piece of roasted beef. “She says my preferred way is childish and weird and will make others make fun of me. I’m surprised she tolerates mom arranging the cutlery and plates to be honest.”

“Wow!” Jon sneered. “Your alpha mother sucks!”

“Sometimes,” Percy admitted without much emotional input, simply stating a fact.

Jacques kept observing keenly the two of them eating and admitted to himself that it wasn’t a bad scene. It was surprisingly peaceful. Like they were meant to sit together like this. He suppressed a content purr but some of it slipped into his words as he spoke: “So, about that Halloween party…”

Jon chewed slower, a little anxious again. “Look, I’m not good with parties. I haven’t been…” he stopped talking so suddenly that the other two alphas were a little startled and quit eating. Jon rearranged the words, realizing he’d almost let too much of the real him slip in. “I mean, the last time I was in a party wasn’t that good. It was with my previous friend group.” Probably. “The person I was then and the person I am now don’t get along. So, to speak.” Jon wasn’t sure if he was explaining anything well, but he was trying. He wanted to be honest with friends, but it was so hard when he had a completely different life somewhere else from the original Jon. How to explain that he was too used to isolation to stand huge, rowdy crowds without actually mentioning it? “I don’t want to go to a big party. I’ll take the afterparty though. Less pressure to mingle at a club where you can barely even hear others talk.” Not to mention he’d never really been to a club before. When he still rolled with his usual crew and Caleb, they were too young. Then when he reached his twenties, he had no one to go with. Or the energy or desire to go. Now, he’d get to experience something so many people at college always raved about.

“Don’t worry,” Jacques reassured. “Just like you asked, me and Percy will stick by your side. You won’t be left completely alone.”

“Good.” Jon nodded to himself. “Because if I’m alone and have nothing to do I’ll probably start drinking.” It’s in his blood after all. All beer and cheap whiskey coursing through his veins courtesy of his father.

“I’m excited too!” Percy admitted. “I’ve never been to a club. Or a bar. Or a party. It’ll be a whole new experience!”

“Wait.” Both Jacques and Jon looked at Percy with furrowed brows. “You’ve never been to a party? Of any kind?”

“What about birthday parties?” Jon couldn’t help asking.

Percy pursed his lips with disdain. “They’re more like balls or soirées than parties.” He scowled, growling a little. “I have to wear a suit and talk to potential mates. I hate it!”

Both other alphas felt genuinely bad for Percy. At least their parents weren’t trying to wed them to some up and coming debutante! They could just imagine Percy standing there, staring at some pretty and flowery omegas in huge dresses with his dead eyes and cold expression. Awkward for everyone involved but most miserable for Percy himself who already wasn’t all that into people in general.

Jacques guessed that Percy’s parents wouldn’t be too happy about their son mating another alpha. It could potentially become a huge mess. Jacques was worried already about it. He didn’t want to think that Percy might get kicked out of home, but it was a very real threat for those who loved others within their secondary gender. When it came to his own parents, Jacques was pretty optimistic that they would accept a person of any gender as long as Jacques could provide them with a child. Which wasn’t something Jacques was too worried about. There were plenty of ways of acquiring children in this day and age!

It had been something they had been talking about, Jacques and Percy: they had had an open talk about their feelings towards Jon and each other, and what that might mean. They didn’t really have any sexual feelings towards each other necessarily, but sharing Jon wasn’t repulsive to them in the slightest. Jacques and Percy enjoyed each other’s company, and in the ye old days, they most likely would have formed a small pack with each other. The situation they were in with Jon however was akin to two friendly alphas competing over the same territory and coming together to defend it from foreign rivals.

Percy talked about polyamory. Jacques wasn’t all that sure what their relationship dynamic was. He just knew that he didn’t want to let go of either one of these alphas, just like Percy himself had said once. They would figure things out together as they approached Jon and felt around how Jon perceived them. Hopefully things wouldn’t end up in one of them having to lick his wounds. That would be such a bitter ending to things.

Jacques watched the two alphas talking about hating crowds and social exhaustion, senses on alert for any intruders. He was perfectly content observing the two of them and enjoying them eating the food he provided for them like a good, competent alpha.

Percy was having his own thoughts about things, though his were more streamlined and based on simple raw data he’d accrued on the internet these past couple of days. His browser history was full of polyamorous queer material, and Percy mostly wondered while eating if the three of them would end up forming a triad or vee relationship; triad being all three of them having romantic feelings towards each other and vee having one person engaged romantically with two but the two others not being romantically involved. In a vee, Jon would apparently be a kind of “hinge” between Percy and Jacques, connecting them all into a v-shaped threesome. Of course, Percy was aware that nothing of the sort may end up happen if Jon only felt something for one of them, but Percy was hopeful that they both would be able to court Jon while staying friendly. It was his own ideal situation, but everything depended on Jon, who’s feelings neither alpha knew of.

Jon simply sat there, observing the two and wondering if it was really alright to go along with their pace. Bouchard had told Jon to allow himself to be friendly with others, but this was Percy and Jacques. Two alphas who had caught Caleb’s eye. Jon could recognize a crush one he saw one. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to dip his feet again into being ostracized because he made the wrong choice in friends and enemies.

As if on cue, when Jon looked back at the campus, he noticed the omega in question looking at them through a large window. Those incredibly radiant blue eyes held a hint of hostility but now after their fight, also something else. A strange edge which Jon’s mind wanted to read as lust but which he didn’t want to accept as such. He was so over Caleb. He needed to be. His therapist was right when he said that Jon was obsessed. His every social choice had Caleb’s beautiful face hidden behind like a vengeful ghost waiting to lay its talons into him. He was still afraid of Caleb. Still letting the man rule his life.

Jon shot a look back at the two alphas in defiance and tried a smile. “So, what time are we going to the afterparty?”

…

Jon’s mother insisted on coming with him to buy some new clothes for Halloween. Jon wasn’t one for costumes, so he simply updated the original Jon’s drab and dandy wardrobe with something a little more practical. A little more ‘new Jon’.

Amelia stared at each of the clothing items her son picked out with furrowed brows, not used to seeing such… tattered style in vogue with the circles they ran in. Two omega servants stood by her side, holding shopping bags and glancing at each other, vaguely amused by their mistress’s distress at her son’s fashion choices. All the store clerks escorting them and their gold card around on the other hand were ecstatic to get such high-profile customers in their a little off the way alternate fashion stores. Jon first had tried to go into a flea market by pure habit, but Amelia had stopped him with utter horror, absolutely appalled by the thought of her baby wearing anything someone else had already worn. Jon on the contrary was weirded out by the store clerks flattering them endlessly and Amelia simply swiping mindlessly her golden credit card like money was just wastepaper to her. Truly, they were from different worlds – in more ways than one.

When Halloween finally arrived, the whole campus was abuzz with excitement. The academy was decorated with all kinds of creepy-crawly things, some of them projected in the air to seem more real and frightening. Practically everyone attended the on-campus party from students to staff. Jacques was in his element in the middle of a dense cluster of omegas and betas flattering him and touching his biceps and long hair. He was dressed, of course, as a vampire, a deadly seductor, which made the fairer sex swoon. Percy on the other hand was wandering around the party in a simple sheet with eyeholes, the tattered ends trailing across the floor. His teammates were showing off all the food to him and listening to Percy’s analysis of the robotic decorations with some amusement.

Jon was watching the hubbub from his campus apartment which happened to face towards the gym-building the party was held in. He was cutting holes into some of his shirts and jeans himself, since everyone knew that for some reason holes in clothes costed extra with fashion brands. Some designers would most likely have fainted watching the alpha carelessly slice fabric open and smile to himself as he tried each of the items on one by one. Jon had never been one for dress-ups but the general rule of the afterparty seemed to be that everyone had something extra going on. So, Jon had purchased some more high-end robotic items as suggested by one of the store clerks he and his mother had visited. Amelia had clapped enthusiastically at the simple add-ons, making Jon flustered but in a good way. It felt good to be praised by a parental figure, even just for silly things like a Halloween costume.

A knock came from the door. It was Kevin from across Jon’s apartment, holding a sewing kit and some cleansing alcohol and saline. On his dark face was a chalky but colourful imprint of a skull, reminding Jon perhaps of the masks and painted faces in the celebration of the Day of the Dead. Perhaps this world also had one and Kevin was representing his culture.

Kevin shuffled in, black clothes a stark contrast to the paleness of the standard student apartment décor. He sat down by the balcony where Jon plopped himself back to, and looked at the Mountain Dew, sour candy and torn clothes strewn all about. “Preparation for the afterparty?”

Jon nodded. “You got the needle and stuff?”

“I’ve got it all!” Kevin grinned, canines shining, and pulled on rubber gloves. He opened the sewing kit, and they watched Kevin boil the needle in hot water, then lather it with alcohol. Dark eyes glanced into paler ones as Kevin knelt beside Jon and held his earlobe. “Still a chance to turn back and do this professionally.”

Jon couldn’t help grinning, nostalgic of the situation. “I’m more of a DIY kind of guy.”

“Suit yourself. Just remember to keep it clean and go see a doctor if there’s an infection.” Kevin had the steady hand of someone who had done this a hundred times.

Jon bore through the pain, mind wandering back to past when he was thirteen and him and his friends pierced each other’s ears in much dirtier environment at one of their bedrooms. Jon had caught an infection. His father was furious that he’d been so stupid and smacked him so hard that Jon’s ears had rang for half a day after.

Kevin watched the suddenly solemn looking alpha and cleaned the wound before putting a ring through it. He let Jon breath for a bit, then asked if he wanted another one. After getting the go-ahead, Kevin kept on piercing, keeping a nose out for any notes of distress but Jon took the pain quietly like a pro. It made Kevin wonder if he’d actually done something like this before, although he couldn’t remember a time when the Helsteen playboy had had a piercing.

“Are your parents gonna freak out when they find out you have piercings?”

Jon smiled again. “Not these ones.”

Kevin made a confused noise, finished cleaning the second puncture and put a ring through that one too. “Okay. This is enough, I think. I’ve still gotta prep for the afterparty myself.” He was quiet for a moment, looking at Jon through the bangs of his kinky hair, appearing shy. “Maybe I’ll… see you then?”

Jon felt that. That moment of tender, almost juvenile affection in how small it still was, how new. And how brave asking another alpha like that was in this society. So, Jon couldn’t outright deny him, giving a crooked grin instead. “Maybe.” He already had an unofficial date with two other alphas he needed to figure out. And himself too – he needed to figure out what he wanted from them.

…

The Halloween afterparty was held in the Pulse, a club that had operated only for a couple of years, but which was very well received by young people. Students especially would go there to unwind after long days slaving over their work, and this time too, the braver student body moved on to Pulse for the Halloween afterparty. Pulse was decorated for the event with holo-ghosts drifting in the ceiling, steam machines creating ominous fog on the dancefloor and the DJs all had different kinds of masks and make up on to create images of monsters and villains. The bar out-front served theme appropriate drinks, candy from bowls and the strobe lights were pulsating, bathing the space in white, purple, teal, and pink light.

Jon stood there by the front door taking it all in with a sharp sniff. All these scents mixed and made stronger by sweat… There was bound to be some disturbance. Jon was already a little tense, expecting something to happen, when he spotted the large table his mecha team had claimed.

The beta twin sisters with bright hairs spotted him first. They wore matching outfits, Vy the red hair having a Frankenstein’s monster look and her twin Olive with the blue hair being doctor Frankenstein himself. They painted a fun picture. The fiery Vy was very suited to be a hulking monster and stern Olive the doctor.

The others had creepy nurses, pirates, animatronics even. Jacques was in his vampire suit which had survived the night of getting pawed by lustful hands and Percy sat in his extremely simple sheet-ghost outfit which did not look like it belonged to a club scene.

“Jon!” Jacques stood from beside his friend, canines looking particularly long and dangerous in the outfit. “You’re… Wow,” he breathed out, swinging his hands like he was at a loss for words. “You’re… here!”

“Yeah,” Jon agreed awkwardly, trying to put on a brave front in this whole attempt to allow himself to be liked and like others.

Jacques and Percy were both very much staring at Jon. Their crush had shown up as a devil with curved horns, sharp nails painted black, a robotic tail which clicked and moved about, and ripped jeans and shirt – a shirt which had been sliced through the chest area so it exposed collarbones and very nearly his…

“Nipple,” Percy let slip, then was faced with everyone’s odd looks, to which he quickly switched up: “Nippy. Outside. Kind of. Don’t you think?”

Jon burst out in a helpless laugh, tension suddenly released.

A beautiful laugh which illuminated his scarred face and made him look charming and tender beneath inflicted violence and protective crab-shell gruffness. Several people who saw it gulped, mesmerized by the contrast between the scarring and the way Jon’s overly long fangs poked at his lower lip goofily.

Jacques and Percy both wished to commit this sight of Jon’s first ever laugh before them to memory.

Everyone quickly made some room for Jon, and they started ordering drinks and fetching games for the beginning of a long night. The sky was already dark, moon hanging over the club, people were starting to really get into dancing and Jacques kept close count of how much Percy and Jon were each drinking. Jon didn’t think alcohol could feel good or being around inebriated people could be nice, but surprisingly no one was getting angry. Everyone was having fun playing old board games and sipping drinks – even Percy was trying out his first ever cocktail called the Hand Grenade. It was a green drink which the older bartender had mixed into a beaker for the Halloween theme. Everyone in the table, young and old, were nervously watching Percy sip the drink like it was juice.

“Slow down!” Olive finally intercepted by putting her hand over the beaker. “It’s not water! It has vodka, rum and gin in it!”

“Is that a lot?” Percy wondered while moving his game piece around the board.

Vy grinned from under the heavy monster make-up. “Let’s just say, we don’t want to find you puking your guts out in the bathroom on your first ever bar night.”

“I think I might want to drink something after all,” Jon said it almost like a question, like it wasn’t up to him but the others, or as if he might get punished for wanting to drink.

The others were nice enough to happily recommend some drinks based on what Jon liked.

“Let me get it for you,” Jacques offered chivalrously, swooshing his vampire cape and red ponytail dramatically. “Something simple. You like it sour? Bitter?”

“Let’s go with sweet.”

The omegas on the team looked up from their fruity drinks, surprised. Caleb, who had sequestered himself quietly in the corner like a phantom in a simple serial killer outfit, wondered how many alphas any of them knew who liked sweet things. Or dared to admit it.

Jacques blinked his surprise away and went over to the bar to order. He was quickly back with an orange drink from which Jon smelled citrus fruit and something offending to the nose. The alcohol. Right. Of course, it didn’t smell great.

“What is this?” he took a swig and found the drink actually quite appealing. Cold and fresh and tasting of orange juice and something else.

Jacques sat back down beside him, and it was his turn to prevent Percy from sipping his drink like juice. “It’s Screwdriver’s sweeter cousin: Harvey Wallbanger. It has vanilla in it.”

Jon sipped the drink, feeling better and better about the night as it went on. The cluster of people didn’t even bother him when he had his own little group around, who didn’t hate him or want to do anything bad or seek merit in violence. He felt safe. He felt… free. He felt like smiling.

And Jacques and Percy, under his sheet, were smiling right back at him, mesmerized by the blessed sight.

“Come on!” one of the younger omegas suddenly cheered with rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes. “I wanna dance! Let’s go dance!”

Percy outright denied the opportunity. He would not be caught dancing even as a mind manipulated corpse! The thought of being stared at while moving awkwardly made his anxiety spark.

Jacques on the other hand gave his hand out to Jon specifically. “Wanna try?”

Jon stared at that sexy smirk, long eyelashes throwing shadows over cheekbones and red hair licking the sleek material of the black cape. Some babyhairs curled upwards in a silly manner on the older alpha’s forehead, making Jon’s fingers itch to smooth them over. “Okay,” he ended up answering, a little dazed by the happiness the other radiated at that.

Percy, Olive and Caleb stayed by the table, while everyone else made their way to the next room, where smoke machines made ghostly images out of dancing bodies and the strobe lights lit everything in different colours in pulses with the beat.

Jon wasn’t unfamiliar with dancing. In fact, this kind of thoughtless, chill dancing style that discos and clubs allowed made him feel loose and relaxed. There was no specific way to move right. It was all about just feeling the music and sweating on the dancefloor until you dropped.

The mechanical devil’s tail he had attached to his studded belt undulated as if sensing its owner’s movements. Jon felt the alcohol buzz pleasantly in his veins. His hands moved up his chest to his neck and hair, reveling in the strangely powerful feeling of freedom coursing through him. He felt like himself. Like someone else. He felt alive and glad to be alive. It was the strangest thing. It made him smile and pupils widen, fangs poking against his lower lip as he spun around and let himself just feel the beat.
Jacques entertained his team’s little omegas by spinning them around and lifting them up, grinning at their delighted squeals. He looked at Vy and Jon, who were dancing around each other, the tall beta and short alpha making quite the pair in their monster and devil outfits. Jacques’s lips parted as he took in the way Jon flexed his waist, tantalizing peeks of muscles moving given by the tattered shirt. In this huge room underneath the neon colours, heavy bass in the ears, people were abandoning their usual masks and letting loose, allowing themselves to explode their feel-good pheromones and stain each other in a wild bouquet of scents. And even in the midst of it all… Jacques could make out Jon’s: the camellia and honey pouring out scalding hot and cascading over him, making his gums ache and itch, and his claws twitch around his little teammates’ hips.

Vy as a beta seemed to not take notice of the incredible scent that easily. She merely threw her half-shaved hair back, laughing raucously and making suggestive movements close to Jon.
Jacques’s instincts flared in alarm.

Jon took his senior’s playfulness in stride, not really worried about it in his current state. He even cuddled close to her, mimicking the way her hips moved, and together they grinned wildly, throwing their hands out and really giving into the beat.

“Jon!” Jacques’s voice drowned into the music.

Jon swung himself from side to side, eyes closed, feeling so incredibly happy… so happy to be alive that it made him light-headed. Was this how people usually felt, he wondered. Were they all this happy to simply exist? To not think about who’d be better off with them being gone from the world and how they were born wrong? What ecstasy it was to feel this way!

Suddenly a hand cupped Jon’s waist and another Vy’s middle.

Jacques and the team’s omegas and betas hissed viciously.

A half-drunk guy with piercings and a snake-like bodypaint squeezed both Jon and Vy against himself, leering at them nostrils flared.

Vy and Jon had ugly looks on their faces, their moment of fun interrupted by some random guy looking get a bite out of someone.

Before Jacques could be the knight in shining armour, Vy plowed her heavy boot down on the uninvited guy’s foot and Jon straight up kneed him in the crotch.

Dancers who had taken some notice of the situation whooped, jumping up and down to the beat and flashing lights.

Jacques surged forward before the guy could get himself back up and pushed his face against him. “He’s mine!” A startling burst of possessiveness made Jacques growl out just for the two of them to hear. “Back off or I’ll shred you to pieces!”

“Whatever, man!” The guy – a beta by his mild smell – grimaced, still holding his crotch in pain. “Not worth it to get kneed again!”

“That’s right, honey!” Vy shouted, moving herself again seductively yet angrily to the beat. “Get lost! Before we get security on your ass!”

The beta backed off with a sulk and Jacques turned around, running fingers through his hair and grinning as he faced Jon – or where the alpha used to be. Jacques looked around confused at where the other had been just a moment before, eyes wide.

Jon walked over to the bar and tapped his black claws against the counter. “Can I have another one of those Wallbangers?”

The bartender nodded and started making the drink.

While watching, Jon became aware of a person with lots of curly dark hair sliding into the seat beside him.

“Can I get an Annabelle from the special list?” Jennifer, who Jon remembered running from in his room, slouched against the polished dark wood counter. She had a similar gimmick going on as Jon: her devil horns though were plastic and her little wings fabric, and she was wearing a fake leather miniskirt and a top with a pentagram on it. She turned to look at Jon, cheek in palm, luxurious hair covering her bare shoulders. “Hi.”

Jon didn’t say anything back. He stared resolutely at the bartender, mood soured, not sure how to act with the woman considering how things went last time.

“Oh, come on!” Jennifer sighed with drama. “Don’t be like that! Consider the last time a misunderstanding between two old pals who used to have sex on the regular. No biggie.”

Jon observed her grin and found it predatorial. The omega had something on her mind, Jon could tell. He wasn’t dumb. He used to hang out with bullies and be a bully. “What do you want?”

“To say… that I’m sorry.”

That took Jon by surprise. He arched a brow as his drink was put in front of him.

Jennifer got her own drink just a moment after. It was red with some kind of candy eyes like that of a doll’s staring back at him from the tall glass. Jennifer stirred the crushed ice and candy eyes with a long straw. “It’s just… you surprised me. I honestly didn’t think you’d deny me. You didn’t used to.”

Jon couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for the pretty omega who looked actually genuinely down over the difference between the current Jon and the past Jon. He sipped his drink in thought. “Things have changed with my injury. I’m not exactly the same person anymore.” He shrugged, tired of explaining the issue. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright.” She messed with her hair, turning to look around the dancefloor further away. “Not like we were an item. It was just… kind of embarrassing for me, you know?”

With the way her legs were spread, and she was almost having her heat and everything? Yep. “I can only imagine.”

Jennifer let out something like a laugh and scanned the dancefloor, spotting the IMFA mecha team. “Those your new friends?”

Jon turned around too, drink held between them. Jacques and the others were having fun moving to the beat and swirling around in the smoke. Jon was lost in thought looking at Jacques’s red hair cutting through the smoke and lights, a striking contrast against his light skin, green eyes and black coat. Like a streak of blood among the smoke and ghastly people moving to the beat. And every time the alpha turned, his fake fangs poked out, promising a good bite. And a good time.

Jon slapped a hand over his collar under which his gland was hidden. The skin there tingled at the memory of Percy’s bite. A hot tingle ran from Jon’s navel to his inner thighs, raising the skin on goosebumps. Black claws sank into the meat of his thigh through ripped jeans and scratched to ground him with pain.

Jennifer’s eyes drifted from the dancefloor to the alpha next to her and back. She sipped her cocktail, slender hand making a quick motion over Jon’s drink between them. She downed her drink when Jon remained quiet, and observed the world through the distortion of the glass, heart aching and scent souring. “Well, good for you. Making better friends than you used to have and all that. Real good.”

Jon glanced back at her in suspicion and caught a whiff of the sourness in her cotton candy scent. Before he could think of what to say to that thinly veiled poisonous reminder of the original Jon’s so called ‘friends’, Jennifer thumped the empty glass on the table and raised two fingers to her forehead in a salute.

“I’ll see you around, Jon.”

“Or not,” Jon huffed into his glass and took a big gulp of his drink.

The corners of Jennifer’s eyes crinkled sinisterly. “Someone will.” And with that, she waved her hand and disappeared between the undulating bodies.

Good mood gone, Jon took a look at his sweet drink and downed the whole of it just to feel something else. Jon made a face as he put the glass down, wondering if the drink tasted a little different all of a sudden.

“Jon!” Vy called out from the dancefloor, towering over many of the others in her Frankenstein’s monster suit. “Come back and dance with us!”

Jacques turned to give him a look, corners of his lips hooked up, body flexible as he danced. He exuded an air of elegance as a vampire which called to others and made them look at him eyes sparkling.

Jon felt a similar effect. The man was positively dazzling. And smiling at him. Jon felt a bit of shyness curl in his stomach but plowed through it by jogging over to the others and letting Vy lift him up on her strong arms. Jon didn’t manage to dangle there long since Jacques got behind him and fastened his arms around Jon’s thighs, letting his butt rest on his shoulder. Vy let Jacques take the little alpha and smirked knowingly at them as Jon slid down the tall body. Black claws skirted over the frilled white shirt and black dress pants, testing the waters. Jacques’s breath stuttered, eyes lidded as he observed the younger alpha pressed against him. From his vantage point over Jon’s shoulder, Jacques could clearly see the pretty collarbones and a peek of nipples under the black shirt. It made his mouth water and pheromones surge.

The scent of rain poured over the two, landing over the camellia flowers and leaves, stimulating their own scent with the freshness that comes with heavy rain.

Jon dipped his head back as Jacques nosed against his neck, below his ear. He shivered when lips touched the freshly made piercings, silver hoops clinking against each other.

“Nice addition,” Jacques murmured, very much appreciating having something additional to pull with his teeth. “Silver suits you.”

“Thanks…” Jon let a smile slip on his face, eyes falling shut as he tuned in with the beat again and simply let go of everything.

Team of pilots moved around each other in the sea of people with hands thrown up and hips undulating and mouths gaping in brazen grins. The DJ in gargoyle body paint and robotic wings made wild gestures over the soundboard and the lights started flashing rabidly with the bass. Sound reverberated through the feet and into the heart and Jon felt like he could drown into it all. His scent was growing stronger, honey sliding down his throat and strong tea burning in his sinuses in a way that Jon hadn’t experienced since he first noticed his very own scent in a mecha. He breathed it in, instincts rejoicing at the comfort of one’s own scent marking territory. Sweat beaded on his forehead and over his upper lip and between his collarbones and in his navel… Everything felt heady and wet yet dry at the same time.

Jon touched his forehead. It was on fire. ‘Huh’, he thought in idle confusion, heavy beat in his ears. ‘Maybe I should go cool down.’

He took stumbling steps forward, robotic tail lashing behind him as if answering to his muddled state. Jon steadied himself on Jacques, who had surged up to grab him again and press his face against his neck. Goosebumps broke over every inch of Jon’s skin. He wanted to punch Jacques. He wanted to bend over and tease him. He wanted to throw the other alpha over his shoulder and show his dominance. He wanted to get on top of him. Badly.

“Where are you going?” Jacques breathed against the fine hairs on the other’s shaved neck.

Jon chuckled, sight bleary. The constant switching of light and darkness was confusing and making his head hurt a little. “Just…” he became aware of just how dry his mouth was. He needed water and quick. “Just need a little break.”

“Let the boy go, Jack!” Vy shouted over the music. She’d found a new dance partner, a short girl in a witch costume, possibly an omega. “Nobody likes clingers!”

Jacques laughed, buzzed himself, and let Jon struggle out of his hold, despite the alluring scent making a home in his head and his whole-body ache in need. Jon smelled incredible! More so at the moment somehow. Jacques really hoped that no one else smelled the same thing as him because Jacques found his head practically swimming with the flavors of honey and tea served piping hot and steaming right into his hindbrain.

Jon stumbled out of the pile of people jumping and swinging under the blinking lights. His sweat gleamed in the sudden strokes of white and his skin appeared corpse-pale, giving the alpha a ghastly look along with the scarring on his cheeks. Jon’s tongue lolled out, tasting the glimmering salt on his lip. He felt thirsty. So incredibly thirsty.

The bartender glanced at him as he came up to the bar, then took a better look when she saw how the young alpha was heaving and sweating but still incredibly pale. “You okay?”

“I dunno,” Jon admitted, wiping his slick neck and smearing his scent into his tattered shirt. He made an odd sound sort of like a laugh but without the presence of humor.

The people at the bar next to him trailed off in their conversations, scenting an odd but alluring heady smell gathering in the air.

The bartender squinted her eyes and put the glass she’d been polishing down with a soft clunk. “You shouldn’t be here like that, kid. You should be at home, recovering.”

Jon made a questioning hum as he pawed at his glands absentmindedly. Each stroke gave him a pleasant shock which made his canines and thighs itch.

Camellia bloomed in the air, curling into sinuses and pouring honey like nectar hot into the throat of the people present.

Two omegas closest to him started coughing, flushed, and shot him nasty looks. Everyone else close by started to take notice too, frowning at Jon.

The bartender signaled a bouncer and gave Jon a glass of water, which he downed quickly. “Go home, kid. It’s real impolite to be out and about when you’re in your rut.”

Rut? Jon stared at the empty glass in front of him, his own reflection distorted. The sickly picture he painted was ugly to him, the scars standing out pink and slightly raised like a grim smile. He flinched away, brain projecting images of people advancing on him and yelling at him for being the horror in their life that he was.

“It’s real impolite to be out and about…”

He was doing it again. He was endangering others. He was out here stinking up the place and causing discomfort to others, basically sexually harassing them with his scent. Just like the original Jon.

The bouncer came to stand by him. Jon pushed himself off the table, head full of static and burning emotions which branded the inside of his mind with ugly words against himself as if by instinct. Jon let himself be escorted out, his friends at the table not taking notice as they laughed over making Percy try different drinks. The robotic devil’s tail seemed to droop with its owner’s mood as Jon stepped out into the night air. The moon was high in the sky, partly hidden by thin clouds. The air was crisp, but Jon couldn’t feel its sting on his skin. He was burning so hot that his breath billowed out in heavy steam in front of him.

The beta bouncer looked at him, considering the other’s condition as the young alpha just stood there in the cold, staring ahead with glassy eyes. “You need a taxi?”

Jon startled, shaking his head. Trying to get his tangled mind full of barbwire and scorching honey working. “Uh…” he let out, watching the steam pour out of his mouth. “N-no. I’m… I can walk. It’s close.”

The bartender didn’t question him.

After the door to the club was closed, Jon looked to his feet, making sure his steps were steady as he walked towards where he knew the campus grounds were. There weren’t that many people out and about since most were at parties for Halloween at this hour, but some who passed Jon gave him a wide berth, putting a hand to their faces to avoid his offending stink. Jon flushed in embarrassment and hatred against himself. His eyes stung. He felt strangely overly emotional. The rut was making him want to tear into someone. Himself, mostly. He wanted to punt his head through the brick of the storefronts and stab himself into the glass display windows until the stench of his blood overrode that of his stupid rut. He wanted to take his dick in hand and mark the site, and then bite himself for doing it, thinking it. Punish himself for getting like this where there were other people.

“I’m so stupid…” he slurred as saliva filled his mouth in thick layers, trickling down the sides of his mouth. His gums ached with the need to bite, to mark. “So ugly… so stupid…”

“Yeah, you are, Jonny boy.”

Jon turned on pure reflex, claws out in nasty hooks, hiss on his lips, when more people came behind him, and someone pulled his head into a hoodie. The cloth wrapped around his head and Jon screamed into it, putting his fangs through the fabric, but he was getting manhandled by several hands. He kicked and punched and clawed, drawing blood which he smelled in the air and growled in triumph, despite being carried off slowly, staggeringly to another location right close by.

“Ow, fuck!” Oliver shouted, dark face twisting as his cheek stung from a particularly deep scratch. “You little bitch!” He raised his hand to smack Jon as one of the other guys removed his hoodie. Nobody stopped Oliver from scratching his own claws through Jon’s scarred cheek, marring the sickly pale flesh with fresh red marks.

Jon spat the saliva filling his mouth at the alpha and laughed deliriously when it hit Oliver square between the eyes.

“Okay, that’s it.” Nathan rolled his pale eyes, took a step, and used the momentum to kick Jon in the side of his head. He watched Jon stumble to his side like he was feeling his brain rattle in his skull. Their former friend was clearly delirious from the pheromone blasters they’d had Jennifer give him. It was perfect. Less trouble. Less of a mess. “Be the good little alpha-sub you are and let us alleviate you from your condition, old pal,” Nathan crooned with bitter satisfaction.

Dave brushed the prickly skin of his shaved head and pulled Jon by the back of his torn shirt. The robotic devil’s tail lashed out, voicing its owner’s anger. Dave dropped low, tattoos flexing under his tank top, and scented Jon right on his left gland.

Jon let out a shrill sound that grated the ears and jerked his head to the side to bite Dave, but Patrick jumped in then, grabbing Jon’s hands and keeping them behind his back. It was a struggle though. Jon wasn’t an alpha for nothing. He had a strong, virile body that was fueled by rage and self-hatred, and he gave as good as he got. Which resulted in Patrick getting a headbutt right on his nose and Jon getting enough free room to move to rake his claws against Dave’s face.

Dave didn’t so much as flinch, more used to rough going than the other pampered third-generation rich kids. He grabbed Jon by the sides of his neck, right on the glands, and headbutted him back as hard as he could.

Jon’s nose let a sickening crunch. He howled, red bleeding into his vision and pupils, and jumped Dave, raising his fists to punch him to another life.

“Grab him!” Nathan yelled however, and both Oliver and Patrick wrestled Jon backwards, managing to wrench his head back by the bright blue locks and force him onto his knees with his hands back.

“That’s a sexy look you got there, Jonny,” Nathan commented partly to piss the previously prideful alpha off, partially as an honest compliment of what he was seeing:

Jon was wrenched into a uncomfortable arch, where his black shirt and its holes were held tight against his skin, making every single revealed pale spot extremely visible by contrast. His jeans hugged his thighs and hips, and his combat boots scratched against the concrete of the empty store back they were in. His tail slapped the ground behind him, and his horns arched towards the back of his head like perfect handles to hold, and there was saliva and blood trickling down his chin, making Nathan want to bully him more, paint him even wetter and redder.

Dave stood up and spat out saliva pink from his own blood. He stood the tallest of them all and he had the least visible reaction to Jon or anything else happening, making Jon focus more on him as a threat.

Nathan skated manicured fingers against Jon’s robotic horn and then squeezed it, pulling the smaller alpha closer to his crotch. “You know, you could have avoided this by playing friendly like usual. We’re your friends, Jon. We hung around for a number of years before these so-called new friends of yours.” Nathan’s brows pinched. His slicked back blonde hair was already falling apart a little, revealing the other’s unhinged state. “We had your back. Us. And you just fucking threw us away like some trash!” the alpha bellowed, making the others flinch at the sheer volume and stifled rage on Nathan’s face. “Like you’re suddenly so much better than us after cracking your head! Well…” he chuckled, pulling Jon even closer by the horn, smushing the side of his face against the half-hardness in Nathan’s nice dress pants. “You also became weaker due to it. An alpha-pleaser.”

“Alpha-sub!” Oliver hooted and kicked Jon in the shin.

Which only served to make Jon angrier, burn hotter. Sweat trickled down his temples, exuding more of his unique scent for the people present to take in.

Dave especially took a particularly deep breath, savoring the hot honey mixed into a cup of strong tea. His tongue came out to lick his sharp canines.

Jon shivered, both with unfortunate arousal and deep disgust. It was a confusing mix of emotions, made all the more confusing by his own animal instincts which wished to both dominate and be dominated. He wanted to tousle with an alpha and see if he could be beat. If Jon would turn up on top or the other. He wanted a fight. Not this… this gross situation where he was outnumbered and held like a feral animal. “Fuck you and your fathers!” he growled, spit foaming pink as the blood from his broken nose bled into his mouth.

Nathan clearly didn’t appreciate his comment because he made a sudden hand movement which cracked Jon’s head to the side so hard it gave him vertigo.

His ears were ringing. It felt like his eyes and brain and eardrums were rattling like marbles in his head.

While the smaller alpha was stunned, Nathan pulled down his zipper and took out his cock, pumping it towards Jon’s face, cheeks flushed. “This is for treating us like crap!” Nathan panted, exhilarated by the experience of dominating an alpha like this. “You’re our little bitch for tonight, Jon! Imagine that while you take everything we have, little sub!”

Dave palmed his dick through his jeans, licking his lips and baring his teeth in a threatening manner.

Jon drew whatever air he could into his lungs, half-choking on his own saliva and blood. ‘You deserve this’, some sick part of him tried to carve into the inside of his skull. ‘This is your punishment for everything that you’ve ever done. Worse than death. It’s all your fault.’

Jon shook his head, growling like a chainsaw deep from his chest. That wasn’t right. Nobody deserved this. Nobody! “Sssshut the fffuck up!” he lisped at himself, gasping, head buzzing from the hits.

That earned him another whack, which threw his head to the other side. Some blue strands ripped from how tight Oliver was holding him. The man cursed and grabbed a hold of his other horn instead.

Jon whined and threw his head around the same way a dog does when fighting against a muzzle.

Nathan laughed and pushed his pre-coated cock against Jon’s cheek. “Now…” he breathed with a wild grin, face red and pupils just small pinpricks. “If you dare to bite… I’m gonna have Dave here do something unspeakable to your glands.”

Jon’s glands ached at the mention with the memory of Percy but also at the memory of Caleb and Jon’s own punishing claws. He clacked his teeth together in warning.

Nathan yanked him by the horn and kneed him in the jaw.

Jon nearly bit his own tongue as his teeth smashed together. Agony traveled in reverberations from the front of his face to the back of his head. His head lolled, claws and shoulders twitching. He wasn’t a stranger to violence. He could take this. He could survive. He’d survived before. He’d survived…

“Jonah! You son of a bitch, you left the backdoor open again for anyone to walk in through!” The deep voice shook his mind, making Jon tremble without his permission. “Jonah! JONAH!”

“Good boy…” Nathan spoke as he coaxed Jon’s mouth open, slick from foaming saliva and blood and Nathan’s cock’s leaking pre. “Good little sub –“

Jon’s jaws wrenched together, and Nathan let out a bloodcurdling scream. The other guys immediately worked to get Jon off their friend, but Jon held on, sinking sharp teeth and long fangs through delicate flesh and cartilage. The sound coming out of Jon was nowhere near human. His pupils bloomed as red flowers and his blood smeared against Nathan’s lower belly from his nose and Jon’s vision was blurry from the explosion of rotten emotions he’d kept in his heart for years now.

“Fuck!” Patrick whined in sudden fear at Jon’s single-minded madness. “He’s gonna bite it off!”

“Do something you fucking pricks!” Nathan screamed as he pulled Jon away now by his horns.

“Okay,” Dave sniffed, bent down, pulled his fist back and rammed it against Jon’s stomach with all he had.

Jon let go off Nathan’s dick with a sputter. Then with a violent shiver, bent over and promptly vomited on the concrete floor, rancid with alcohol, the day’s dinner, and dark blood.

Oliver and Patrick stumbled back, trembling in trepidation. Things were not going the way they thought they would.

“You motherfucker!” Nathan shrieked, folded over to hold his bleeding cock. “I’m going to kill you! I’m gonna –“

There was suddenly a high-pitched scream as someone came crashing through the empty store’s door. A ghost had arrived. White sheet was billowing out as the wraith dashed at the nearest body, which happened to just be Nathan himself. Claws raked holes into the cloth and teeth came bearing down through it, making for a horrifying sight as the covered creature bellowed out its bloody fury.

“What the fuck? What the fuck?!” Oliver questioned as he pressed against the wall, only to jump when more came in, looking just as mad.

Jacques was leading a band of colourfully dressed young pilots into the empty store by the backstreet, not knowing what to expect when Percy had been leading them there, nose against the ground like a bloodhound, but what was in front of him made his great patience snap like a twig:

Jon was hunched over, gagging over a pool of his own vomit, blood and saliva trickling down his face, eyes wide and unfocused like he was stuck in some horrible nightmare. Which Jacques could tell was exactly what was happening around him by the look of the good old “friends” Jon used to hang around.

Nathan had his dick out and a furious Percy tearing his sheet-costume to pieces in order to get at the hysteric person under him. Oliver and Patrick were standing there looking like they were ready to flee, and Dave was staring at them with the single-minded focus of an alpha defending its territory. Which made Jacques even more furious if possible.

“He… is not…” Jacques hissed, fists shaking. “… your… territory!” He lunged towards the man who ran to meet him, and both toppled over each other, fists flying and heads snapping backwards at the force of the punches.

Olive was calling the police in the background, while Vy and Caleb stood at the front of the others, practically vibrating with fury.

“These guys are rapists!” Vy hollered in her hulking Frankenstein’s monster suit. “Get ‘em!”

“What?” Patrick couldn’t help laughing out, not quite believing what he was seeing. “An omega’s gonna fight me? Gimme a break –“

Caleb roared from his small mouth, brain buzzing with visions of Jon and his friends harassing him and other omegas and betas wherever they went… and now this Jon, who wasn’t really Jon, folded over himself in his own puke and blood… Caleb lost his mind. He was on top of Patrick before the other knew what was happening and bit him right on the nose, determined to pull the whole flesh off the cartilage there with his little teeth.

While Patrick screamed in surprise and fright, Vy stomped over to Oliver, only to startle when the guy turned tail and ran towards one of the windows. “He’s trying to escape!”

“Come on guys!” Their eldest omega pilot shouted out, blonde hair billowing under her angel outfit and the omegas took off after the running alpha as a furious flock of paradise birds with deadly talons bared.

“That’s right,” OIive could be heard barely over the volume of everyone screaming and growling. “We’re at the 7th street, close to the Pulse…”

“Kill you! Kill you! Kill you!” Percy screamed from under the tattered remains of his sheet-ghost, eyes bleeding red and blood painting his fists as he rammed them into Nathan so fast past the other’s defenses that Nathan could only lay there and take it.

“No killing!” Olive shouted over the noise.

“Yes killing!” Jacques shouted back with Vy, who was helping him take down Dave. Everyone was covered in bite and claw marks and bruises from punches and kicks. Dave was very strong. He was growling low and dangerous and punching Jacques so hard that the alpha was seeing stars.

Vy grabbed Dave into a chokehold, which pulled the alpha away just enough for Jacques to get his bearings and punch him under his ribs and take his breath away.

Olive tapped over to Jon, who was still shivering and sweating and salivating, staring at the ground. “Oof!” Olive huffed as the other’s delicious but distressed scent hit her sinuses. “That’s strong! Real strong!”

“’m sorry…”

“It’s okay,” Olive assured him, touching his shoulder gently with her doctor’s glove. “How are you feeling? Still gonna be sick?”

Jon shook his head and tried to swallow, but it just made his face hurt. “My face hurtsss sssso muchhhh,” he lisped, fangs scraping against his lower lip as he spat at the awful taste in his mouth.

“Yeah,” The beta agreed, calm on the surface but simmering on the inside. “I have some tissues here somewhere…”

Jon took the offered tissue with numb fingers and tried blowing his stuffy nose. It hurt so goddamn much! His nose was probably broken. If Jon knew some feeling, it was a broken nose. “Where’re… what is…?”

“Just sit tight.” Olive prevented him from getting up. Especially since Jon clearly started immediately feeling sick again and gagging. “Let the team take care of things here.”

“You – sick – bastards!” Vy cried out as she refused to let go of Dave’s throat even when the alpha slammed her into walls and empty metal shelves.

Jacques shook his head, feeling dizzy after being hit in the face by Dave so many times. The guy was like a fricking freight train! But he had to help Vy! Avenge his alpha! His alpha!

All three startled when all of a sudden Percy flew into the fray with a horrible shriek and put his fist right into Dave’s ripped stomach.

Dave actually sputtered at the punch. It hurt more than he thought from someone Percy’s size. Dave was a big, bulky alpha and Percy was all long muscles, but he packed a real punch. Literally. And he was fast and well-trained.
Vy quickly disentangled to let the Captain work on the asshole alpha.

Jacques watched, eye bruising shut, feeling complicated over having another alpha avenge his crush. But it was Percy. So, he didn’t try to interfere, only observed with some satisfaction as Percy made a series of complicated, fluent moves to evade Dave’s bulldozer punches, and pushed him down until Percy was holding the alpha by his arms, trapping his head in a hold which was near impossible to get out of.

“Krav Maga,” Percy hissed out, showing his canines from behind the other. “You practice it?”

Dave couldn’t do anything against the tight lock, only struggle in vain and make things more painful for himself.

Jacques turned to glance at Nathan laying unconscious on the ground with his bloody dick still out. “You didn’t actually kill him, right?”

Percy gritted his teeth, clearly unhappy. “No.”

Olive sighed in relief and looked towards Caleb and Patrick.

The small omega had folded Patrick on the ground under him and was holding him by the arm, threatening to break it if the other moved even an inch.

By the time the police arrived, the situation was under control and all the offenders were caught by the team of young mecha pilots.

They were really surprised when a bunch of omegas turned up from the other end of the alley, full of scratches and bruises, but holding an unconscious guy between them even more scratched up and bruised than all of them combined. They looked really proud of themselves as they gave Oliver over to the cops.

The two alpha police on duty looked a little frightened by what Percy had done to two of the other assailants, and quite impressed with what Caleb, a single omega had done to Patrick, who came along mutely and looking quite ashamed now that he was caught.

“Now,” one of the police turned to the omegas and betas present. “We’re going to need you to come to the station with us and give witness accounts. Unfortunately, also the one who was assaulted in this case.” He gave them sympathetic looks to which all the omegas and betas looked just confused.

Caleb was just plain pissed off at the presented assumption. “It wasn’t an assault on any of us, but at another alpha!”

The cops went still for a moment, then looked to the most injured alpha, who was absolutely Jon. Jon was just standing there with a hard-on he hadn’t even registered, eyes glassy, vomit on his pants and blood and saliva all over his lower face. The scratches on his cheek were bleeding steadily, and he had darkening bruising on his face and under his shirt seen through the cut holes.

One of the alpha cops came over and immediately scrunched up his nose at Jon’s powerful scent. He pinched the bridge of his nose and looked seriously at the young alpha. “Let me guess: pheromone blasters?”

Jon startled and looked up, confused. “How… Is that… possible?”

“Very,” the cop glanced towards the group of assailants, some who’d have to go through a hospital before anything else. “It’s been going around at parties for some time now. Wouldn’t be surprised considering they tried to… well.” He shrugged, not wanting to say the word in front of the victim.

Jon blinked, swaying on his feet. “Okay.”

“Alright, you need to get this one home,” the other cop finally decided for them. “The blasters aren’t dangerous to health, but they can be used for this kind of purpose. The effect will wear off by itself after a few hours. He’ll just need to ride it out like a particularly nasty rut. And go see someone about those injuries.”

Jacques nodded immediately, putting his vampire cape around Jon. “We’ll make sure he gets help.” His expression hardened. “You take care of those guys.”

The cops nodded and a few of the teammate’s volunteered to give their own accounts that very same night. Jon would come after he’d recovered and could string together proper sentences without feeling sick.

Jacques made a call on his phone as their team started to disperse. Nobody wanted to go home alone after that, so people went back to the campus in groups. Jacques and Percy both stayed with Jon, shoulder to shoulder, until their ride came in the form of the Rayne family’s personal drivers. They boarded the non-conspicuous silver car and rode first and foremost to the hospital.

The hospital staff was kind about Jon’s condition, treating him just like any other patient. They spoke calmly and coherently, not minding Jon’s scent since they wore facemasks and were trained for these kinds of cases, and drew some blood to make sure that there wasn’t anything else affecting Jon.

“I’m sorry to ask this,” an older beta doctor spoke through her facemask. “But how far did things go? Is there need for a rape kit?”

Jon shook his feverish head. “Just… mouth.”

Jacques and Percy winced from their spots in the waiting chairs. They refused to leave Jon’s side and were agitated by his smell, so the hospital staff let them be, after getting confirmation from the patient, of course. Jon found their presence reassuring, even to his alpha instincts.

‘Good mate candidates’, his hindbrain hummed under the nausea and heat. ‘Protectors. Providers. Strong. Reliable. Worthy to fight!’

Jon stared ahead dazed as the doctor held his mouth open and swiped the inside with a cotton swab. They would use the sample against the four alphas in investigation and court if there was something there to be found.

“’m gonna sue them?” Jon asked, still out of it.

“Are you kidding?” Jacques couldn’t help huffing in anger. “Your parents are going to bleed their whole families dry! You’re their only son!”

“And they’re very protective of you,” Percy added while massaging his temples, feeling a little light-headed from all drinks he had tried.

The doctor cleaned up Jon’s wounds and after making sure his temperature was within reasonable range, she offered a room for Jon to recover in so they could keep an eye on him while he was still drugged.

The room was in a ward that had heavier security because it housed patients with heats and ruts, and the rooms were well-sealed and had great airflow to help keep the alluring scents in and protect the patients while they were vulnerable. A big alpha nurse showed them into the room and pointed out a minifridge full of water, juices for easy sugar in-take and some dry rations to munch on.

Jon all but collapsed on the bed. He’d been mostly concerned about surviving the night, so now that he felt he was safe, he actually felt the hard-on between his legs. He wriggled uncomfortably, hands between his thighs, looking for friction, and winced at the bruises and vomit on his pants. He ripped them off, growling at the offending material clinging to his sweaty, pale skin.

The alpha nurse glanced at the two other young alphas still present. “You’re going to have to leave now. Unless you’re mated.”

Both Jacques and Percy felt a sharp panic at the idea of leaving Jon by himself in his hour of need, even though it was mostly a selfish feeling borne of lust and possessiveness. They looked to each other, fighting with their inner alpha and rational mind, both wanting different things.

Jon’s lids fluttered as he pressed into the white bed. He breathed in his own scent as it slowly filled the room, and the other scents present. The nurse was most likely on some sort of pheromone blockers because he didn’t smell of anything, but Jacques and Percy… they smelled amazing.

Searing desert wind mixed with the smell of camellia and heavy rain blended together with honey, making an odd but comforting mix of scents.

Jon’s cock throbbed and his glands pulsed painfully yet pleasantly as he drew the scents in. Saliva trailed down the corner of his mind and his mind was filled with a cloud of insistent thoughts: ‘Mate. Mate now. Safe. Safe with numbers. Safe with pack.’
Jon whined, too exhausted to blush. “Can they… stay?”

The nurse pursed his lips, wondering about the breach of protocol. But then he looked at the two alphas practically ready to fight him and the one gasping more of their scents in… He sighed. “I’ll give you an hour. Then you leave!”

“Thank you!” Jacques blew out all the stressful energy he’d built up while the nurse debated their case.

Percy glanced at the nurse, then quickly crawled into bed with Jon, nuzzling under his jaw and nosing the old and new injuries there with a content purr.

Jacques watched the nurse leave with keen attention, feeling territorial, and then looked at the picture the two alphas in his life painted in front of him:

Jon had curled around Percy like a big spoon, smelling desert Sun in the dark hair, and holding tightly the other’s arms so he could rut against him and Percy couldn’t escape. Not that he wanted to based on the loud purr he was emitting. But Percy was still fighting the hold, alpha instincts telling him to assume a dominant position over the object of his affection.

Jacques smiled in amusement as the two started to bit by bit evolve into wrestling, and when Jon pushed Percy down under him in a great feat of strength and determination, Jacques pounced.

Jon let out a startled sound as another heavy body engulfed him and pressed against his back. Jacques put all his weight on pressing Jon to the bed, so that Percy was squashed underneath them both and growling up at them in indignation.

Jacques grinned. “Oh, hush you! The strongest alpha in our Academy should learn to take it easy sometimes and let others take care of him.”

“I could suplex you both!” Percy shouted out.

“Shut up, both of you!” Jon groaned, cock pressed tight against Percy’s raised thigh. He breathed hard, burying his face into Percy’s neck, and scenting the gland under his jaw with great fervor. The desert sands and prickly cactuses and the night sky over the expanse of red hit his sinuses, making Jon drool and lap at the gland.

Percy full-body jerked at the unfamiliar feeling of his glands being touched. His face grew red and he let out a warning snarl which was more bark than bite because this was his crush – his alpha – challenging him for dominance. Not some stranger attempting to dominate him against his will.

Jon lifted up to show his fangs right at Percy’s face, hissing in warning for the other to stay put as he bent down again to lap the gland that was giving him all these tasty pheromones to feel.

Jacques smirked wide, flattening the two underneath him and watched with a teasing glint in his eyes as his friend struggled to accept being on the bottom. “This is all for our Jon! He’s the one in rut and we’re practically taking advantage of it, so he should be the one to lead.”

Jon purred deep and low at the words, nipping as a test the gland and feeling elated when he wasn’t denied.

Percy started panting, lungs filling again with Jon’s concentrated scent and the scent of his friend above them. It was a nice mix. A calming scent that at the same time riled him up and made him squirm.

Jacques was looking at them with a sadistic streak, corners of his mouth stretched wide and green eyes lidded and hazy. “Let’s see what our fiery little alpha can do, shall we?”

Chapter Text

Chapter 13: Boys like boys and alphas

“Ow!”

Percy winced as Jon pressed a tentative touch on his broken nose, now covered by patches. It was still a bright red blotch of colour like a target painted in the middle of the other alpha’s face, for a fist or a kiss. Percy chose to soothe the injury by taking Jon’s cheeks carefully between his hands, mindful of the purplish bruises there and brushed his lips against the bloody, cracked nose over the white patch.

Jon held still, overtaken by the gentleness of the other’s touch underneath him. His lips opened a tad, allowing the two alphas’ scents to paint his tastebuds with images of a vast desert with a strange oasis of prickly, green trees in the middle. He imagined himself lounging under those sturdy branches, desert heat on his skin, making him burn up from the outside and on the inside, throat parched and tongue peeking out to taste his own sweat. A touch of tea soothed the burn of a dry throat, sliding down with copious amounts of rich honey which clung to the teeth and tongue and the roof of the mouth with sweet possessiveness.

It was the combined illusion of their scents, creating a soothing and harmonious image between the three alphas scenting and kissing each other.

Jacques pressed his lips against the back of Jon’s shaved nape, eyes fluttering shut, enjoying the powerful perfume they had made.

Jon felt himself trembling, which was stupid because this was nowhere near his first time with a guy. But… maybe it was his first time with someone who didn’t want anything special from him. Who didn’t want to use him or ruin him.

Both Percy and Jacques took note of the trembling of those strong limbs. They shared a look over Jon’s shoulder as Jon burrowed his face against Percy’s gland, breathing in faster the concentrated scent there. Percy embraced the wide shoulders with a sigh, allowing Jon to put his whole weight on him. Jacques’s on the other hand started going lower, dropping kisses over the ripped shirt. Jon made some kind of noise, tightening his hold on Percy, who let himself be squeezed like a plush toy. Jon only tensed when he felt Jacques’s lips right over his belt on his lower back where the devil’s tail was still fastened and lashing out.

“Ssssh, alpha,” Jacques hushed with an even tone, squeezing the other’s thigh a couple of times and entangling the robotic tail around his fist. “Ssssh.”

Jon was listening keenly to the sound of a belt buckle opening and jeans sliding against skin. He shivered hard, shoulders and neck so tense he could feel a headache forming.

Percy latched his mouth onto Jon’s gland, suckling to form that delicious bruise called a hickey on the sensitive patch of skin.

Jon’s mouth parted as a mouth worked on his gland, sending waves of heat through his body, and a pair of hands slid his ripped jeans down to his knees.

“Nothing big is gonna happen,” Jacques assured to further soothe the tightly wound body under him, even though his mouth was watering at the sight of a revealed pale ass propped up by his friend’s knee. One of these days Jacques would taste what it would be like without slick coating the way for easy access, but this wasn’t that day. Jon didn’t need anything more to stress over right now. He just needed a release from someone he could trust. And Jacques aimed to be that guy.

He kissed right over the two cheeks, pressing himself against Jon’s waist, and dipped his hands between the two alpha bodies.

Jon’s claws dug into Percy and his teeth found the soft patch of flesh by the jaw when fingers came to wrap around his hard cock.

Percy bit back with some resentment but the experience was pleasurable for both.

More so for Jon, who was shivering and twitching as Jacques peppered kisses against his sweaty lower back and massaged his cock slowly, digging a thumb at the slit, until he could get enough precum out to slick his palms. Jon jolted when suddenly Jacques bit him right on the ass cheek, making him raise his head and hiss at the other fangs bared.

Percy whined at the loss of the other’s gland, a little confused, while Jacques just took on a pathetic look to appeal to Jon. It ticked Jon off to know that the older alpha had practically mastered the kicked puppy look to get away with being cheeky, so he growled further in warning and lowered his head back against Percy’s neck and took his frustration out on the tender gland there.

This time it was Percy’s turn to complain as sharp teeth dug into him, and Jon shook his head like a dog tearing apart its favorite toy. Percy kind of just let it happen, knowing his own strength and endurance, and showing incredible trust towards the others despite the teeth devouring him.

Jacques noted the reaction with interest as he kept on sliding his palms against Jon’s weeping cock. ‘An omega would have been quivering and weeping pathetically at this point’, he considered while licking his teeth mark on the pale cheek. ‘An alpha won’t just take such bullying laying down, I see…’ It was something new. It was a challenge. And his alpha instincts reared at it.

Jon could practically feel the smirk forming on Jacques’s devilish mouth. ‘Gimme a break…’ he thought in frustration, ready to kick the other like a horse if he did something dumb again.

Percy squirmed as he felt his friend’s hands move against his clothed cock. He wasn’t sure what to think of the sensation. It was just weird, not bad, or good. Percy had the desire to put both alphas into headlocks with his limbs and gnaw at them, but resisted it, using calming mantras. He was very aware that they were doing it like this for Jon’s sake. Everything right now had to go the way Jon wanted.

Jacques apparently forgot the memo completely as he started jerking Jon off with practiced movements, getting the hang off how Jon liked it as he listened to the whines and gasps. He grinned against the other’s hip wicked as can be. “There we go, my alpha. Such a good alpha… So good submitting for me!”

Percy choked hearing the sudden dirty talk, while Jon’s head jumped up again, face angry red, and he did as promised: a combat boot kicked out at Jacques’s side hard one, two, three times, until Jacques was forced to let go and back up, whining with fake-sadness.

Jon let out an annoyed bark, then turned to Percy and proceeded to aggressively make out with his face. Percy was a little startled but quickly went with it, inhaling Jon’s spiking scent and rubbing circles on his glands with his thumbs. Jon purred at the pleasant pressure which sent continuous tingles down his spine and thighs, having him bow his back and rub his thighs together. His flushed dick leaked precum in ample rivulets, heavy and twitching against Percy’s thigh. Both alphas panted against each other’s mouths, bodies quivering and muscles cramping. Unlike Jacques, Percy didn’t seem to be in a hurry to relieve either himself or Jon, leaving both keening and on the edge as Percy clung to Jon’s tongue and chased it with great relish.

Their lips parted for a moment for Jon to pant: “You like kissing, huh?”

Percy just entangled their mouths again and pushed both of his knees between Jon’s legs, so Jon had to arch his back and spread his legs further.

Jacques was drooling at the sight presented to him from the end of the bed. He was already fantasizing about railing Jon into the bed and making him beg for mercy, when his stalking approach back on top of them was interrupted by Jon wrenching his mouth away from Percy again and glaring at Jacques.

“Stay… put… alpha!”

Jacques surprised himself by plopping obediently back down at their feet. He watched, extremely jealous and miffed, cock half at mast, as the two alphas resumed writhing and rocking against each other, so busy making out, that the pressure under their navels was building into a steady agony.

Jon gritted his teeth, drool connecting his lips to Percy’s who looked so dreamy and out of it underneath him, soft and obedient with little stars in his dark eyes… Jon let out a long breathy noise as he sat up, fisted his cock and started to furiously jerk himself off. He had to close his eyes because the pleasure and pain were frying his senses and forcing choked out gasps. The two alpha scents were so concentrated around him, making every single inhale a bliss and hell that he couldn’t…!

Jacques and Percy watched, lips parted with little hearts in their eyes as Jon growled guttural and low, asserting his dominance as he spilled over his fist and all over Percy’s dark shirt. Both alphas let out sudden, purely instinctual howls, soft and strained as to not alert anyone else in the hospital, and Jon struggled to answer, choking up with an alerting amount of anxious post-orgasm energy. It was like he’d been brought to heaven then dropped down into an ice-cold pit. Something felt jammed inside him, a heavy rock sitting in his airway, as his instincts clamored to answer a pack’s first howl together, but something in the back of his mind reeled at that.

He could hear his real father’s footsteps in his mind banging against floorboards, calling his name, and telling him it was his fault that mom left and…!

“Jon?” Jacques put a careful hand on the other’s shoulder, while Percy got up on his elbows and stared in heated puzzlement.

Jon’s breaths were coming out hard, not because of arousal anymore, but because of distress. It was apparent in his quickly souring smell leaving the searing desert and the oasis behind. Jon blinked the bad thoughts away and looked from one alpha to an another, clearing his throat.

“Sorry,” he mumbled awkwardly as he shuffled off Percy, cock softening as the mood was killed. “I don’t… I don’t really know what came over me. I just zoned out. I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, it’s fine,” Jacques tried reassuring, but Jon had turned sort of cold and distant, practically exuding that he wanted both of them out of the room, despite the two’s lingering aroused state. And they might as well leave, the time the alpha nurse had given them would come to an end sooner than later, and they didn’t want to push Jon any further on their first time together.

Percy sat up, wrinkled his nose at his dirty shirt and looked back to Jon.

Jon bit into his thumb, gnawing the skin open as he considered the other. “My shirt is still cleanish. Sort of. You can have that for the road. My parents will come get me a new one tomorrow.”

They exchanged shirts. Percy inhaled Jon’s scent in from the sweat-moist torn shirt while Jon held onto Percy’s with surprising lack of aversion to his own cum on it. Actually, the strong mix of scents made Jon feel a little better, more stable, for some reason.

“You sure you wanna be by yourself?” Jacques asked at the unsaid distance with his superior social awareness. He didn’t want to leave Jon but didn’t want to intrude either. Those moments when he noticed Jon go dark were honestly a little frightening. And he didn’t know what to do then, aside from give space and wait for the other to reach out for them. Jacques was raised to be considerate of others and it sometimes got in the way of him acting rather than merely waiting endlessly.

After assuring the two that he would be fine on his own, Jon watched them leave his pale patient room with the wide-shouldered alpha nurse waiting for them. Jon felt a little guilty leaving the other two hanging by a thread like that with their needs uncared for, but he honestly felt like if they had continued, it wouldn’t have been a very good experience for any of them.

Gloomy, Jon took another look at Percy’s stained shirt. Now that he was alone at last, Jon hugged the gross shirt close to himself and finally collapsed on the bed. He let out a serious of ill grunts and huffs, feeling completely wiped out. He’d been holding himself together ever since those idiots had attacked him and not let himself fully fall apart or lose his fight until this very moment. He’d had to hold himself together for everyone around him. To be sure that he was safe. And even when he felt safe with… with his… guys… he still felt that unwillingness to truly relax underneath. He’d taken care of the fire nibbling at his sanity and tenting his pants, and finally had nothing to give anymore. No one to show a put-together face to. He could just lay there, that deep heat simmering low somewhere underneath his moist, pained skin, and breath!

Jon stared at the ceiling, nibbling absentmindedly on the shirt Percy had left him, and wondered what to tell his parents this time. He’d gotten hurt again, which he’d promised to be more careful about to his dad. He’d gotten himself date-rape drugged, beat up and sexually assaulted all within one night – just a couple of hours really. And he felt it. Oh, Jon felt that near non-existent passage of time in every cell of his body: there were bruises on his jaw, a nausea looming in the back of his head, a blooming agony across his face every time he moved his nose or blinked his eyes, and his gut had a fist-shaped bruise on it right below the ribs where the “press here to make someone choke on their breath” button was.

He still tasted vomit in his mouth and could not fathom how Percy could be so horny for him that he’d endured that, and felt the bruising around his eyes from sheer exhaustion. He needed a shower. Badly. So, he limped over to the small private bathroom and drank the water from the shower, avoiding getting his fresh patches wet, brushed his teeth with freshly provided tools by the sink, and stared at his image in the mirror. ‘Really, how can anyone be horny for this?!’ he wondered idly, brain hot and filled with static. His hair was all over the place and his grim face looked like a dangerous criminal’s mugshot! He was disgusting!

Disgusting.

A sudden image of that guy Nathan’s cock approaching his mouth made Jon’s stomach cramp and he bent over the toilet, ready to expel more of his empty stomach, but nothing came out. He merely gagged for a long moment, face slick with sweat, heaving, then washed the drool from his mouth and stared into the mirror again.

His own image started to distort slowly in his tired eyes. Jon felt dead-tired.

Back in his room, Jon helped himself to the minifridge, chugged down a whole bottle of juice, and cuddled a cold-water bottle to bed. He avoided sleeping, merely blinking at nothing and browsing on his phone, because the doctors had wondered if he might have a mild concussion. He stayed up as long as he could, until the light started filtering through the drapes and he finally allowed himself to pass out of sheer exhaustion.

…

“I cannot take this anymore!” Amelia Helsteen screamed, practically pulling her own hair out as she trembled in Jon’s hospital room in her sensible jacket and pencil-skirt. “I’m losing my mind!!”

“Lia… Honey…” Tavaste made an attempt at softly approaching, but Amelia’s scent was like a bomb dropped into the middle of them, expelling everyone with vile floral odor that only some flesh-eating plants could produce.

She was furious. It was an understatement but really the only one that described the way her neatly tied hair was now drooping across half of her face and how she was trembling from sheer adrenaline. “Our son – only son – has been to the hospital in a short span of time more times than ever in his life!” she shrieked, making everyone present cover from her, husband to son, to the unfortunate doctor and nurse present. She had a crazy look in her wide eyes like she was ready to put someone to death.
Which might just be true. Everyone knows one thing in this world: there’s nothing more frightening than an omega protecting their children. They’re so hopped up on adrenaline then that their muscle-strength surpasses what their body normally could provide and the predatorial mind to lash that strength out at just about anyone entering their field of vision.

Jon knew that Amelia was fighting for him at the moment but also felt the need to cover under her panic and fury, presenting himself small and vulnerable with sagged shoulders, arms pulled together and head lowered so she’d feel protective instead of just… mad at him. Because all these hospital visits were kind of Jon’s own fault. Some more than others, but still.

“I want to kill so… bad… right now!” Amelia roared with the volume of a lion, small teeth bared and pupils tiny and quivering. “If the law wasn’t in my way, I would have those boys who did this to our son executed by my hands personally!!”

The beta doctor and nurse nodded slowly with stiff smiles, making abortive glances at Tavaste.

The man knew that he should be controlling the situation as the pack alpha, but he was honestly kind of afraid of Amelia right now. He’d literally never seen her like this. It was usually him blowing up and her calming him down. This was a complete role-reversal, and he wasn’t sure how to approach his wife and mate. “Dear… My most beloved…”

Amelia fixed him with a look. Her eye was twitching and the saliva in her mouth was starting to foam.

Tavaste took a deep breath as all the hairs in his body stood on end. “I know you’re angry…”

“No shit!”

Both the husband and son flinched.

Tavaste made an effort, carefully growing closer to her with open palms pointed at the roof in surrender. “… and so are me and Jon. Him especially, I’d imagine.”

Amelia looked to Jon, noting his small, child-like sitting position, and felt herself be calmed by it a little bit. Her rational mind came back just enough for her to hear her mate speak:

“We’ll make them pay for hurting our precious child. But if you full murder-rampage on their asses then you’re also going to go to jail, and you won’t be there to protect your son from future hurt!”

Amelia gritted her teeth, fists clenched and shaking. “I do hate not being there for him…” she went quiet for a moment, then her face started crumbling, as she went from one end of her inner emotions to the other. “Like I wasn’t any of the other times!” Her tears came in a violent burst of choked off breath as she buried her face into her hands, clearly ashamed and devastated.

Tavaste finally came close to embrace her, glad to have this instead of the murderous ball of rage they’d faced earlier. This one he could reason with. “There, there, love. Neither of us could have seen this coming. Not on any of those times.”

“I made the choices which led to all of those hospital visits!” Jon opened his mouth, bolstered by his mother’s tears and the stink of shame around her. “I was responsible for how things turned out.”

“You were drugged,” the doctor pointed out with a raised brow.

“Okay,” Jon admitted. “Not for that one, but the piloting incidents I was in control of!”

“You are so stupid!” Amelia wailed, sobbing through the enormous emotions inside of her.

Jon was familiar with emotions greater than his own body, but it still pained him to see his parents like this. He promised to be a good son for them! He promised!

Amelia took a ragged breath, snot starting to run. “We were so happy when you started taking your life more seriously and getting better friends, but now all of this has happened! I don’t know what to think!”

Jon didn’t know what to say for that matter, so he just kept his mouth shut and chewed the abused skin of his lower lip, instincts on high alert.

Tavaste looked to the doctor and discreetly nodded for her to continue her report.

The beta doctor resumed her reading of Jon’s patient records. “The drug used on him is one that we have been seeing on the streets a lot recently. It’s known simply as a “pheromone blaster”, which is a kind of drug which stimulates one’s pheromone production in such way that a heat or rut can be triggered early. Some use a similar legal medical variant to drive themselves into earlier heats or ruts simply to schedule their life better or to synch up with their partner for maximum fertility chance.”

Jon wrinkled his nose, scenting himself again to make sure he didn’t smell at all of anyone else except himself and his… boy… friends. Friends who are boys. Friends with benefits of some sort.

He felt dumb trying to sort out just what they were after the previous night. He still had Percy’s dirty shirt stashed in the backpack that his parents had brought with them. Jon had changed the Halloween outfit into a normal hoodie and sweatpants, which hid most of his bruised body luckily from sight.

The doctor continued browsing as the nurse gave Jon the first dose of some stronger prescription painkillers for his broken nose and bruises. “We’ve listed carefully every single thing that was done to Jon for the sake of a smoother trial.” The doctor offered some papers in a folder with respectful bow. Then she nodded to all the Helsteens. “Madam, master, young master.”

Amelia was still simmering with rage when they signed out of the general hospital and boarded the compact black family limo. Tavaste made a motion for the driver to start going. The air between them all was awkward. Jon squeezed his backpack, taking comfort in the presence of Percy’s shirt in there. Amelia was swinging her leg over the other with a furious pace and Tavaste sat between them as a big boulder, poking both of their shoulders and forcing them into a smaller space in their seats.

The driver got mentally prepared to be deaf and pre-emptively raised the privacy glass between them.

The moment the dim glass snapped shut, Amelia opened her mouth: “We’re pulling you out of school!”

“What?!” Jon shrieked at the same time as Tavaste turned to look at his wife.

Amelia leant against her husband, face red and eyes puffy and glistening from crying. Her sharp teeth ground hard against each other. “Ever since you went back, nothing but bad things have happened! You’re coming back home where we can be sure you’re safe!”

“That’s not fair!”

“Lia,” Tavaste joined the argument. “We can’t keep him at home forever! It’s just not feasible! Plus, he’s an adult, so it’s also not legal to hold him against his will – no matter our relation to him!”

“He’s going to die at this rate!” Amelia screamed, making both men flinch at the sheer power of her voice. “And then what are we going to do?”

“I’m not going to die!” Jon tried to assure, but Amelia was running high on stress and adrenaline.

“You can’t promise that!!” She swung her hand in emphasis.

Jon’s vision focused on that movement and his entire body tightened to a painful point. Suddenly his hearing was sharper, his sight, his sense of smell… he could count each bared teeth in his mother’s mouth, feel the heat of her breath, and see the tremor of her clenched fist.

Jon’s heart thrummed in his ears. He had the faint illusion of smelling the sourness of cheap beer in the cramped space of the car.

Amelia took a deep breath, ready to make her stance crystal clear, when she was at once hit by an explosion of shattering, dried honey and tea gone completely cold. Tavaste noticed it also and turned his head quickly to their son, who was frozen stiff against the car door, positioned like he was waiting to be attacked with his own fists up to his chin and head tucked in like a turtle. He was visibly trembling from how tight he was holding himself still, muscles straining.

There was raw fear in Jon’s eyes, his vision getting muddled and ears ringing from the rush of blood to his head. His broken nose hurt under the plaster, throbbing with the heavy pumping of blood.

“Jon…?” Amelia gasped, choking on the scent spreading like tear-gas in the small, confined space. Her eyes started tearing up again as her omega instincts screamed at her to protect her child, to swaddle him and tear apart anything that would hurt him! But she was frozen by his visceral reaction, which was very clearly aimed at her, at her rage.

Like she was going to hurt him.

“Jon?” Tavaste turned fully to their son and touched his arms gone steel-hard from clenching. “Jon! What’s happening? What’s wrong?”

Jon clenched his teeth together so hard his entire face burst in agony. His eyes were tearing up against his will and he was trembling as he was in turn assaulted by Amelia’s omega pheromones attempting to soothe him. It all seemed so deceptive to Jon, who had just seen and tasted her fury on the tip of his tongue. The sudden turn was unnatural to him. A lie meant to lure him into false sense of safety before the bottles and furniture started flying.

Jon flinched as his father called for him, his panicked mind overlapping the two father figures from two different realities as his name was called:

“JON/JONAH!”

Before anyone could react, Jon started hammering the door handle down in the middle of the busy highway. Before he could get out of the door however, the car alarm noted the driver of an open door and he noticed with a glance at a mirror someone trying to exit, and the driver reacted immediately by stomping on the break.

Cars behind them screeched to a halt on the bridge leading to the richer part of the city. Jon had the door open but couldn’t exit in the middle of the rushing cars because Tavaste had reacted before realizing what was happening and held their son tight against himself. Jon was struggling for his dear life to get out of the hold, biting on the powerful forearm and elbowing and kicking with anxious fury at his attacker, who was only trying to prevent him from getting himself splattered all over the road in blind panic.

“Oh my gods! Jon!” Amelia nearly burst out crying again, the stress all too much for her. Her body was also seizing up, muscles tightening against the trembles wrecking her body.

“Holy hell…!” Tavaste breathed out, not having fought against his own son like this since they’d had a furious spat about Jon trying drugs at his own thirteenth birthday party. Jon had similarly bitten and kicked him, but this time it was clearly fueled by pure terror. Jon’s new honey and camellia scent was ice-cold to the nose, burning one’s throat, and Jon was breathing fast and struggling without any real strategy or mind, merely wanting to bolt. From them! His own parents.

“Jon!” Tavaste managed to pull their son back into the car and wrenched the door back shut. “Becker, lock the doors!”

The driver did as instructed, rattled by the sudden situation.

Jon breathed even faster as Tavaste tightened his hold on him, one arm around Jon’s sternum and another coming to grip his middle. Jon was basically sitting in the man’s lap, trapped in every imaginable way in a small space with who his brain was convinced were people who were trying to hurt him.

“Amelia!” Tavaste grunted, eyes watering also from their son’s stink. “I need you now! You can’t go into shock! This is your child, your pup!”

Amelia snapped out of her stupor and shook her head, trying to expel the offending scent. She told the driver to start driving them home and pushed herself against the alphas grappling with each other. “Mate! Pup!” She hissed into her husband’s arm and burrowed her head against Jon’s jaw where the scent was the strongest. She started rubbing her own glands and the inside of her wrists against the two to stain them with her floral scent, lilacs blooming in the middle of the cracked honey stains and dry champagne mixing in with the bitter, dark tea. She reverted to using words from the old world, from when people were more animal than human and danced around campfires and puppy-piled and fought viciously for territory with their bare hands and teeth. The words itched at all of their hindbrains, breaking through on a deeply primal level.

‘Parents’, Jon’s brain started to filter in through the haze of panic. ‘Pack. Safety. Warm, nurturing omega. Strong, steady alpha. Stable pack. Safe.”

‘NOT SAFE’, another part of his brain screamed all static and old bruises. ‘DANGER. SHE WILL HURT ME! HE WILL HURT ME! HE ALWAYS HURTS ME WHEN MAD!!’

‘Pack!!!’ the animal part of him screamed back, two sides, two logics and two emotions tearing Jon apart on the inside. ‘Pack means safe! No hurt!’

Jon let out some kind of sound from between clenched teeth, muscles aching from being wound so tight for so long.

Tavaste kept holding him and Amelia piled right on top of them, forcing herself to calm down in order to bring peace to their splintering pack bond.

“Hush, my baby. Hush!” she started whispering in a mantra, fingers petting what she could reach, brown hair flowing over them as a soft waterfall.

Tavaste somehow got out a purr despite his own anxiety, letting the soothing rumble echo in his chest against the two smaller bodies on top of him.

The driver kept glancing at them with worry as he drove them all the way to their mansion door, where the family remained in the limo for a bit longer, just scenting and holding each other. Jon’s breaths evened out little by little, and he nosed at his mother’s hair, remembering in mixed nostalgia his own and this original’s mother when they were both young and mom used to use laundry detergent that smelled exactly like lilacs.

‘God, I miss you mom…’ Jon finally laid limp in the constricting hold, tears welling up as he thought of his dead real mother, buried somewhere he could never visit. He could only hope his deadbeat dad had gotten her a nice spot in the graveyard and maybe even planted camellia on her grave. She deserved it, even if she hadn’t been there for Jon for years. She was a good mother. She’d made life easier in that foul house in her own little ways.

He stirred when Amelia got off him and his father. Her eyes were bloodshot and tired, and she still had the lingering rot smell of stress around her. She held Jon’s cheeks and stroked them without a word. Jon felt moved even without the original Jon Helsteen’s fractured memories. Amelia was a good mom also. She had had the right to get angry: Jon had made empty promises on being a better son and only caused worry so far. No number of good grades and better social connections could fix nearly giving his parents’ a heart attack three times in about two months.

“I’m sorry,” Jon mumbled, but the omega only shook her head.

“No, I’m sorry for getting so out of control and… startling you.”

There was something about her tone which made Jon think that they were going to have a conversation about all this at some point. But for now, they were all mentally exhausted and sorely needed some TLC. And pack bonding, apparently, because they all piled into one of the movie rooms and servants kept filling the room with pillows and blankets, and all kinds of treats. Jon ate cookie dough ice cream straight out of tub, Tavaste patrolled the room like an animal waiting for an attack to appease his pack alpha instincts, and Amelia applied soothing cream on Jon’s bruises. She kept tsking and muttering curses at Jon’s former friends and their families. Jon had no doubt now that things would go like Jacques said: his parents would torch those rich kids’ entire pack fortunes to the ground before they would feel satisfied.

“I’m going to give it to Tiffany and Lo when I see them the next time at Women Of Business brunch!” Amelia grunted from between clenched teeth. “I’m going to pull Lo’s stupid highlights out of her stupid grey hair for how she’s raised her son!!”

“Easy, omega,” Tavaste murmured as he allowed himself to finally settle down in the pillow and blanket fort with them. He scented around, calmed by the lack of immediate stress in his family’s scents.

“I still don’t want to quit the Academy,” Jon said between spoonful of ice cream.

“I know, honey,” Amelia sighed as she pet his dyed hair. “I was being a little hasty. I just… I’m so worried about what’s going to happen to you while I’m not looking! Three hospital visits in two months, Jon! Three!”

Tavaste nodded solemnly. “It would make us feel better if you commuted from here to school, son.”

Jon felt sour about having to give up his own personal space and freedom, but he also didn’t know how to alleviate his parents’ completely rightful worry, so he spent the rest of the day moping, until it was time to retire to bed. They slept in the movie room like they were camping which was kind of fun. It made Jon feel like a kid again.

He fiddled around with his phone as his parents snored between blankets a couple of meters away, and noticed someone else was up too:

Hey baby, Jacques dm’d him the moment he saw him come online. How’re u feeling?

Jon snorted at the other’s brazen flirting. Pretty bad, tbh. Kind of had a freak out. My parents threatened to pull me out of the Academy and now they’ve settled instead on wanting me back home!

Oh shit.

And I don’t wanna! I’m not moving back in with my parents! I’m thirty-three and financially independent, thanks to them. I want to have my own freedom!

It took a long time for Jacques to say anything back. Jon scrolled through the campus message board, corner of his mouth tilting up when he saw people bashing his ex-friends and assaulters. The word had gotten out and although no one thankfully mentioned Jon by name, all the assaulters were mentioned and being socially destroyed one by one. Jon had an eerie suspicion of Caleb Morningstar’s manipulative hands moving in the background, pulling puppet strings on this witch hunt. It made his blood run cold from remembering when he was being hunted by the real thing.

Then, Jacques continued their messaging: Hey so random idea: u could move in with me instead.

Jon held his fingers over the phone for a minute, then typed out if it would be awkward, or just weird considering how they hadn’t known each other for very long.

Jacques was eager to prove him otherwise: U need extra protection so ur parents don’t freak out anymore. I can give it to u. I have a great apartment with great security, and u know… I would be there as company.

Jon had never shared a space with anyone other than his parents. Before he had been socially destroyed in real life, he may have once looked forward to staying on campus apartments with friends. Now, he was presented again with such an opportunity… except it was with someone Jon had some… unfinished business with.

He bit his lip, wondering how to breach the subject. Don’t you have someone else you’d rather share an apartment with? He waited for an answer anxiously, noticing himself hoping that Jacques would push on and convince him that this was a good idea.

Who else would I want to share a space with? Ur my boy ;)

Like a boyfriend? Jon sent before he could back out and put a hand over his face, shielding himself from his own morbid embarrassment.

Unbeknownst to him, on the other end of dms, another alpha was practically vibrating with excitement.

Jacques quickly wrote back: Do u want to?

Do you?

Yes.

Jon almost couldn’t believe it was that easy. He’d been hiding his crush towards Caleb for two years before they started going out. And only because Caleb had noticed the way he seemed to notice everything and approached him. Although Jacques also seemed the type who went for it when he knew what he wanted. And what he wanted was… Jon. For some reason.

Okay, was the only thing Jon dared write back. Then he quickly closed the app and threw the phone aside, so he could hide his face in his hands and scream quietly into the sweaty palms.

In an apartment close to the IMFA campus, one Jacques Rayne was doing something similar, except he was busy licking his itching canines and imagining that strong, flexible body in his bed, in the middle of his stuff and his scents. He was greedy for their scents to mix again and make a perfume so fine it would make Jacques drool whenever he thought about it.

Chapter Text

Chapter 14: Two’s a meal, three’s a feast, four’s a yet unknown future.

In the Frost Empire, where five small nations previously stood, a wide stretch of snowy hills and icy crevices showed itself under the setting Sun. A plethora of mostly white mecha roamed the land which appeared barren on the surface, but hid so much more from the aliens advancing on the Frozen Empire’s borders, nibbling away space from the people.

“OO-5 here,” a low woman’s voice sounded through the comms. “I’ve got eyes on a type 3 alien. Long-ranger. Permission to fire.”

“Permission granted, OO-5,” a younger voice broke through the momentary silence. “Fire at will.”

One of the sniper mecha took a shot at a pale alien with too many limbs ambling their way. The heavy bullet expanded within the alien upon contact, rupturing its eyeless flesh. The alien let out a fierce scream that had almost a metallic tone to it, making the pilots within range flinch hatefully. As the first alien fell twitching and crying, another leapt over the snowy hill like it had just been waiting for something to happen. Then another. And another. And so many more.

An alien with a bleeding red eye bellowed, it’s pupil disappearing, and one of the pilots in their mecha threw her hands to her head and shrieked in utter terror.

“It’s an ambush!” The plethora’s leader yelled out and started his heavy machine gun in the mecha’s arm. “Ready your weapons! Hold the line!”

Several white camoflaged mecha took loping steps forward. Two-legged ones wove amongst the aliens running at them and tangling with the mechanical limbs, while many-legged ones stood still with their tank-like bodies, taking careful aim and firing huge bullets at the pale, wriggling bodies.

Metallic screams echoed with animal-like cries as both aliens and humans jumped and slashed and fired at each other. The one with a single red eye, took its gaze off the pilot who had scratched her own eyes off and started at her neck, and the red eye aimed at another through their mecha. Another scream as a pilot succumbed to the painful hallusinations and manipulations of their own body, turning them into a ragdoll at the alien’s whims.

“OO-5!” the leader shouted out as he kept firing. “Get the Priest!”

The single-eyed alien nicknamed ‘Priest’ kept undulating its strange body as if dancing on the hill, as the woman sniper aimed her rifle carefully in the backlines and took her shot. The Priest saw the bullet despite its single eye already occupied and cartwheeled sideways. Then turned its gaze towards the sniper and snared her mind and body into its hold.

More aliens poured out of the snow under the bloody evening light. They attached themselves to the mecha and tore at their seams, wanting inside where the soft and bony prize laid vulnerable for their consumption. Several pilots screamed as they were exposed to the harsh winter of the Frozen Empire. They were losing this border area.

Suddenly a new mecha flew into the field, hard-light blades stretched out. The blades sliced into pale undulating flesh, spilling vile purple blood everywhere. The mecha was pale blue with the royal imprint of a snowflake with a sword stabbed through the middle painted at its side in bright orange.

The pilot inside was filled with wires like a porcupine and his legs dangled over the silicon seat, more wires stabbed straight into the stubs of his lower thighs, where no legs were attached. His dark skin gleamed with sweat as he exerted himself, pulling the handles, and fingers flying across the buttons there to release a flourish of small missiles at the Priest gazing from the hill.

“Retreat!” the pilot shouted into his mic, broadcasting his words to all of the plethora to hear. “Retreat back into the base right now!”

“But…!” the leader tried, long alpha canines grinding together, when he suddenly shuddered as he felt a nearly black dominant gaze through his mecha walls land on him.

“That is a royal order!” the pilot in the blue mecha shouted as he sliced an alien strangling a mecha in four pieces. “Your prince commands you: RETREAT NOW! And live to fight another day!”

A chorus of strained agreements echoed through the comms, as the prince halted his two-legged mecha on its shapely, powerful legs and stared down at the aliens feasting on a few lost pilots and prying open their mecha like delicious lobsters. His eyes blazed with naked hatred. A finger jabbed at a big red button on the keyboard.
The Priest alien scrambled to stand after the missile strike and faced then a blinding light like the first ray of the Sun over the horizon.

“Eat this, you manipulative motherfucker!” the prince barked out, wires flying, as his mecha opened a section of its head like a jagged maw and a beam of light launched out of it.

It obliterated the snowy field in front of it, boring deep into the red eye of the alien and making its howl wobble out all pathetic and pitiful. The rest of the aliens quickly leapt away from the beam’s way and barked in strange tones at the blue mecha, hesitating to approach as their leading alien came out of the beam of light with a hole burned right through its flesh.

The prince took this opportunity to grab the nearest wreck of a mecha with him and boost his way back into the skies. His mecha stuttered at the weight of another, but the prince forced it, grinding his teeth against the projected strain so hard that they crackled and his gums started to bleed. He had been late and he knew it. It had cost his people their lives – his brave and stubborn people – and he had to carry their ghosts on his shoulders for the rest of his life. He should have been faster, somehow. Pushed himself even harder until he sweated blood.

He couldn’t think otherwise as he carried the fallen pilot with him back to the nearest military base, which hid under the snow, elevators opening and closing behind each retreating mecha to swallow them into the belly of the large underground facility.

People immediately came to greet them with short and stout grunt-mecha, designed solely to move things from one place to another. They took all the mecha in need of fixing with them, carting them and their injured pilots towards the medbay.

A mix of mostly dark-skinned people ran up to the blue mecha, waiting anxiously for it to open.

The prince took his time, drawing calming breaths as his Eagle’s A.I drilled the wires out of his flesh. There were many holes in the prince’s skin. Way more than any other pilot could ever have. The wires in his thighs fell out and the prince took a hold of the two mechanical prostethic legs attached to the chair for safety. He attached them back to the stubs of his thighs littered with wire-holes and finally climbed out of the royal mecha through its neck.

The people waiting were on him immediately when he lowered himself down the mecha’s leg.

“Your highness!” they called to him, faces creased with deep worry. “Here, water. Take this towel. You are bleeding!”

“It’s fine,” his voice came out hoarse from shouting and the dry air within the mecha. His own scent clung to him with his sweat, the blooming of millions of icy spikes over a crevice, from where a cold, unforgiving wind howled. The scent was harsh but fresh, bringing an illusion of a breeze to the people toiling away all hot and sweaty in the aftermath of the battle.

They seemed calmed by it. And the prince allowed himself to feel a little pride about it.

“How was my synch rate?”

A beta handler showed him a tablet with his mecha’s stats from the recent battle. “A solid 99% as always, my prince.”

“Good.” He nodded. “Recharge the lazer. I’m going back out there.”

As he started walking down the busy runway milling with grunt-mecha and mechanics, the soldiers ran after him, glancing each other anxiously as if egging one another to be the one to speak first.

“Your highness…” an older alpha officer tried with a deep voice of experience. “You just came out after using the lazer. It’s still on experimental phase… we cannot know what using it does to your brain and the rest of your body…”

“I’m…” the prince turned to them, growling in warning. “...fucking … going!”

And as the prince turned to keep on walking deeper into the base, the soldiers looked on with concern. This was their very new Empire’s youngest prince, Silvarium Ruiz, one of the three princes vying for the crown, and the only one who had turned a true soldier in these trying times. The eldest stayed in politics while the second, while also a soldier, never touched the battlefield, and governed the military from within the safety of the main city. Perhaps that was why the military folk and civilians who had seen combat as the aliens attacked were so attached to the youngest and smallest alpha prince: he was their concrete sword, their shield, the one they saw in action with blood and sweat on his brow… and recently dark circles under his eyes and spells of faintness when the prince thought no one else could see. They couldn’t help but worry for him. Silva gave his everything out there on the battlefield, especially after losing a good portion of his very first own plethora, the Hawk Team. He’d worked even harder after that, as if compelled by the ghosts of his teammates. It couldn’t end well. But no one knew what to say to the prince, who was just as stubborn as the newly founded Empire’s people, who’d had to hastily scrape a home together from five different countries and cultures after the alien invasion.

Silva made his way through the base to the very back where the communal spaces and private dwellings were. He punched his thumb against the door lock to his room, waited it to scan him, then rushed in to peel himself out of his sweat-slick white and grey pilot’s uniform.

Thick dreadlocks rained down as Silva shook off his hairband and kneaded his neck, where shaved prickly little hairs stabbed him in the fingers. Silva made a face as his fingertips touched where the wires had been punched into the base of his skull. His employment into the field had been violent this time because he was in such hurry to leave. He’d been woken up by an alarm late because he’d been so godsdamn tired after a previous battle, but he wouldn’t let himself whine about like some weak little bitch! He was a prince for fuck’s sake! It was his job to take care of his people, so he needed to be wherever action happened, whenever it happened!

Silva wriggled out of the pilot suit in his barren barrack room. The thight suit revealed dark, scarred skin full of small holes along the powerful back and thighs. Silva was a rather small alpha but built like a tank, as his omega mother the Queen liked to say. Silva had a sturdy frame of fat and muscle, big thighs and biceps, and an ample, strong chest that some people couldn’t help but take a second glance at when seeing him in more revealing outifts. And the pilot outfits were very revealing as they were only designed for comfort and easy access for the wires to burrow through.

His prosthetic legs clicked against the floor with each step he took to the bathroom. They were the finest work of engineering the Empire had to offer: robotic legs that looked quite similar to a mecha’s. They were bulky but smooth and shapely, designed to fit the owner’s bodyshape, and had even boosters inside them for modest levitation. They were military upgrades designed for fighting, which the Frost Empire excelled at: their soldiers often took body-modifications to heighten their combat abilities, and after losing his legs with most of his teammates’ lives, Silva had insisted on the best godsdamn legs to carry him in hand-to-hand combat when the situation called for it. He was determined to strangle an alien alive with his bare hands if he had to!

Dead-tired, Silva’s back hit the shower wall and he dialed on the screen by the side to check out the latest news. He scrolled past a bunch of paperwork sent to him on confidential channels, depressing newscast of the South borderline falling, and finally settled on out of Empire news about their sister Empire. The Scarlet Empire was experiencing heavy alien air-traffick recently and had already lost two islands. Their main city had even been attacked, but saved by their so-called military prince.
Silva couldn’t hold back a growl, his rows of sharp teeth grinding together. He didn’t really have any proper canines, as he had a mutation that ran in his family, where they all had more or less even sharp teeth. One of the things that distinguished them from the common people so to speak.

“Fucking Percival Dawnmoore! Bah!” Silva scrubbed at himself angrily. “What a stupid fucking name! Dawnmoore. Gaaah!”

“Your highness,” a voice suddenly chimed in through the screen.

“What?!”

The person was silent for a moment, cowering after being yelled at. “I… Umm… Y-your father would like an audience with you and your brothers in an hour.”

An hour. The lazer of his Eagle would be charged in half an hour.

“I’ll make it. Silva out.” He leant against the shower wall, just… breathing for a moment. He had to make it to the battlefield and back before his father would look at him like a failure again and his brothers would silently laugh at him. He needed to do this. He only knew how to fight. He wasn’t smart like his eldest brother or likable and smooth like his second oldest brother. He was… just a spiteful ball of rage who could benefit this Empire in only one way. Lucky him, war was a constant in this new and horrible world they’d all found themselves in.

…

Silva arrived to the room, which was technically his office while he was stationed at the South border. He didn’t really like the concrete room with a couple of metal shelves, a simple desk and high-security computer. He only used it when he had to do paperwork, which he loathed, or meet with his family, which he also loathed. Unless it was his mother calling. But no, this time, Silva had rushed from the battlefield a few minutes late with his hair wrapped into a messy ponytail, chest heaving in his white and grey pilot uniform, and blood across his face from where a dying footsoldier had touched him, thinking Silva was his little brother waiting at home. He’d held back tears with a clenched jaw. He hoped it didn’t show, as he sat on the hard office chair and logged in with his personal information.

The computer embedded into the table demanded his fingerprints and retinal scan. After giving both, Silva was greeted with the family emblem in bright blue and then his father’s and brothers’ figures sitting in the main city’s military advicement room. Silva was the only one in a messy uniform. All the other alphas sat with their backs straight, dark hair immaculately tied into tight braids or flowing freely, golden circlets around their heads and neat uniforms adorning their strong bodies.

The King and princes of the Empire were all shaped more or less the same, borrowing some wisdom from polar bears and seals in how they kept a good percent of fat on their bodies to brave against the harsh cold and potential starvation if they were left stranded somewhere during the alien attacks. Silva was still the biggest, partly because his second brother had gotten wrapped up in Scarlet Empire beauty standards and was thus getting leaner and leaner by the day, and his eldest brother and father hadn’t seen a day of military training in years, thus lacking the same muscular frame that Silva kept as a twentytwo-year-old in his prime. On the other hand, Silva was the one with the most scars accumulated, and it had started to bother him whenever he visited the main city’s presitigious social circles.

“Silvarium,” the King stated, blinking his near black eyes. His hair was tied into a braided bun from which smaller braids cascaded down his back and shoulders onto a blue and gold outfit and white and grey fur coat.

Silva greeted him respectfully by pressing a fist first to his heart then opening it at him, imitating the gesture of giving his heart to the Empire. He then looked to his brothers, who were staring at him, one neutral and one smiling. “Remus. Patel.”

Remus was the eldest son and currently the favorite of the Crown. His hair was shaved close to the scalp with fancy snowflake patterning on the back of his head. His outfit was very similar to their father, further making known his favorite position within the family and court.

Patel had flowing, long hair, which the men Patel seduced loved to touch, and golden piercings all over his body, glinting against the light like little stars. Patel also had gold eyeliner bringing out the darkness of his eyes and mostly golden and white soft clothing draped over him, showing off shamelessly his glands and collarbones. Their mother had always nagged him about it.

“Let’s start then.”

They all turned to their King-father, and listened to the latest twists and turns of the Empire’s life. Economics were still recovering from the last big attack on their food supplies for the winter season, construction was happening in the poorer districts (finally) to house the ones turned to homeless by the battles, and court was apparently pressuring the royal family about the upcoming friendship games with the Scarlet Empire of all things!

“You gotta be kidding me,” left Silva’s mouth with no cushion whatsoever.

Patel grinned and observed as the King’s eyelid twitched at the rude tone.

“No. This is no joke, Silvarium,” he said the name with such weight and venom that Silva had to duck his head under the weight of it. “You have failed to perform in the last five friendship games and the people have started to notice.”

Silva sweated at that, cold overtaking his body. He felt like he was floating away from the conversation the more his father spoke with his all important tone:

“Out of all of us, you are supposed to be the sword and shield of our great Empire. You are our show of strength. Yet you lose to some half-brained common soldier each year – a “military prince” as they’ve stubbornly dubbed him! You are a real prince! You’re supposed to be better than this. Your family expects better, your people expect better! People are starting to doubt us, our capability to keep them safe. And frankly, your recent failures in battle have me thinking that our people just may be right.”

Silva’s head jerked back up. His pupils quivered and he felt so very small as his father and brothers leered down at him from their golden, spotless, scarless pedestals.

“You have failed so many times in the one thing you’re supposed to be good at. What does that make you, Silvarium? Do you enjoy being the failure alpha, the lack of a crown’s weight as you frolick about in your mecha – which our people paid for?”

“No,” he said, quickly. “No, your majesty.”

“I’d like to think not,” the King inclined his head, face carefully void of any real emotion as if merely stating cold, hard facts. “You need to redeem yourself this year. You are my son, aren’t you? You are the people’s sword and shield, right?”

“Yes.”

The King’s teeth ground together, all sharp, even and perfectly white. “Then make this one count. Because if you come back from the friendship games, there will be no mecha waiting for you at home.”

No mecha. No place for him. No purpose.

Cold sweat trickled down Silva’s back. “Fuck.”

“What did you say?” Remus asked idly from behind his crossed fingers.

“Yes, your majesty.”

“Good. You may go,” the King made a motion of dismissal. “We have more important matters to discuss while you get ready for travel.”

The screen went dark and only the family emblem flickered in front of Silva’s expressionless face. His claws curled into his palms and he had to take several long and deep breaths, so he wouldn’t simply smash the offending computer to pieces. He ground his teeth together hard and dipped his fingers into the folds of his pilot outfit. From an inner pocket, he procured a picture faded from being handled repeatedly. A picture of a dark-haired young man with tawny skin and a vaguely dreamy expression on his face as he emerged from his black and purple mecha, victorious once again. Silva’s breaths came out harsher as his thumb caressed the picture and his pupils shrank into tiny black holes. “Percival fucking Dawnmoore…!” His fingers curled into a tight fist, crushing the handsome face and producing unexpected pain in Silva’s chest. After a while, he carefully opened his shaking fist, smoothed out the picture and simply… stared at it.

He was caught like that by a knock on the door. Silva quickly tugged the picture back into its hiding place on his body and was greeted by a superior officer, who saluted the prince the moment they laid eyes on each other.

“The lazer of your mecha is once more charged and ready for action, my prince.”

Silva’s feet felt numb and he held himself from staggering as a fainting spell struck him at the future strain his body was going to accumulate yet again. ‘Stop your whining!’ he told his body fiercely, closing his eyes from the black dots flickering across his vision. ‘We’re not done yet. I need to keep going.’
With that conviction, Silva opened his eyes, the darkness churning with cold determination, and walked back out on that runway like so many times before.

…

”The friendship games are coming up once again,” the IMFA trainer Melanie droned on, getting to the end of their current training program for the day. ”I’m not going to hold your hand on this one. Percy will be taking charge properly this year, which means I’ll be only advicing you when needed.” She looked to the military prince, who was staring at a point over everyone’s heads, probably thinking about something entirely else. Melanie sighed deeply. ”The Captain should be taking more responsibility seeing that he’ll be getting his own personal mecha team soon within the military. Consider these games your chance to qualify for that also.”

Percy jumped a little when he realized that the mechabay was getting quiet and everyone was looking at him. His gaze flickered from one pilot to another. ”Right,” he started, nodding to himself. ”I’ve been thinking about the team composition for the friendship games and come to some sort of solution.”

”Sounds assuring,” Vy murmured to Jacques who couldn’t help chuckling.

Olive jabbed her twin in the side with a sharp elbow.

”We only have six spots – five since I’m participating as the Captain – but I’ve reviewed all of your efforts so far, and have come to a pretty good solution.” Percy lifted a finger and pointed at Caleb Morningstar first. ”Caleb, I’m overlooking you attacking a teammate because your synch rate is good and you have the potential to grow into a reliable all-rounder.”

Caleb seemed surprised by this and quickly nodded with a carefully pleased expression. ”Yes, I’m sorry. And I’ll do my best not to let the team down.”

Everyone grew tense as the available spots slowly ticked down. Jacques was still the most formidable sniper in the team, so he’d come with Percy, of course. Vy was happily surprised to get to see some action as their fierce front-liner, and their only omega senior, Penelope, would take the other long-range position. All the juniors held themselves straight so tightly that their muscles ached. Jon was feeling the burden of being exluded so far from the threesome that he, Jacques and Percy had recently formed, but also knew that the friendship games were something important to their Empire, so Percy had no obligation to play favorites. Unlike Jon, Jacques was an obvious choice as a skilled fighter. Jon on the other hand, felt ashamed of his past performances. He’d tried working on his freak outs, but it seemed like he just kept on accumulating more experiences to freak out about, which was unfortunate. He really loved driving the mecha and would love to compete…

”Jon.”

Everyone glanced his way, eyes wide. No one expected this, least of all Jon himself.

”Y-yeah?” he inquired, just in case.

Percy pursed his lips, seeming undecided or maybe just doubtful of this decision. ”We need another strong front-liner who can really bring it and take damage for all the others. You fall into that category as a fighter more than anyone else here, but…”

Jon felt pained as Percy’s critical gaze fell onto him. The alpha was a Captain through and through in that very moment, not a friend, or something more than that.

”… I’m not happy with your mental performance.”

Jon’s teeth ached as his jaws pushed together. His nose also pulsed with pain, still recovering and littered with carefully yellowing bruises. ”Yes, sir…”

Melanie sighed deeply again, glancing back at Percy to further gauge his reaction. Melanie herself had been on the fence about including either Jon or Caleb, but she understood that Percy was trying to be objective and not let a little personal discord get in the way of pure, raw data.

Percy shifted from one foot to another, brows knitted together. ”But we don’t really have anyone else who is as fierce and has as high of a synch rate as you do from the ones left here.” He nodded towards Olive. ”Olive’s a skilled scout but in the friendship games, the scout position is a bit moot since the distance between us and the enemy team is so little and there’s only limited space to move around.”

Olive nodded perfectly serenely, already aware of this herself.

”And the rest of the juniors just aren’t ready yet.”

The others grimaced at that, very aware that their synch rates paled when compared to Caleb or Jon.

Percy seemed to have made his decision, despite not being entirely happy with it. ”You’re the only one this position can be given to, Jon. But we need a stable and confident teammate, who’ll have our backs.” It was like Percy was determined to stare right into Jon’s soul with those piercing dark eyes. ”Will you dedicate yourself to protecting your teammates, Jon?”

”Yes!” It wasn’t even a question for Jon. He wanted this. He needed this. He wanted to pilot mecha and fight and win and show everyone that he wasn’t broken or useless! He had value as a pilot. And he would prove it to everyone in the friendship games.

Percy looked then to Melanie for approval. The tall and muscular female alpha simply looked back to her students, not giving her feelings away.

”The friendship games will be held in the port city of Davdon in the local Mecha Battle Arena. You will all be given standard battle mecha to pilot in your chosen categories, so each of you will get the right type of mecha for your fighting style. The enemy will have the same equipment, except from their own Empire for the sake of comparing each Empire’s engineering and innovation. You’ll be essentially selling the mecha you pilot to the more prospective investors watching the games. So,” Melanie shrugged. ”Give it your all to show off our products’ good sides. Our Empires may be friendly now, but there is bad blood buried there and so both are highly competitive. So, don’t feel too bad about banging each other up. It’s all in good fun and the battles will be halted if any pilot’s life comes close to danger.”

Everyone felt excited whether they were chosen or not. Melanie would send them further instructions for a trip to another city, and they would all leave the mecha building together on a bus so they could be sure that everyone made it to the hotel in time to prepare for the games.

Jon was practically buzzing with all these feelings inside of him! Not just because of the friendship games, but for what came after the lessons for the day were over…

…

Jon’s family limousine parked in front of a very scandinavian modern house, tucked into the calmer parts of the main city, and facing the morning Sun. Jon could totally imagine someone like Jacques living in a fancy apartment like that. There were plenty of windows, but the property was also protected from curious glances by security devices, a high fence and both a frontyard and backyard.

Amelia took her husband’s hand as they stepped out of the car. She was wearing a wintery dress with a wide hem, furcoat and big sunglasses under a white hat. She looked old Hollywood to Jon, like a film actress scouting a potential new home with her family.

Tavaste was once again mirroring her outfit with a fur hat, a thick white coat and dresspants. The pair held hands as they sized up the apartment with critical eye, clearly already deciding to take an offencive stance in this battle for Jon’s new life situation.

Very new life situation. Jon swallowed as the gates were opened for them and the front door swung wide by the incredibly beautiful man, who made Jon’s throat dry by sight alone.

”Mrs. and Mr. Helsteen!” Jacques smiled with the power of a thousand Suns, channeling all his charm into meeting the parents of his fresh boyfriend. ”I am so glad to finally meet you face to face!”

Amelia put her nose up, clearly determined to not make this easy for the alpha courting their one and only son. Tavaste was of the same mind, looking down at his nose at the young man with sly politician’s presence practically baked into him.

Jon looked from one to another nervously. Tension was building and they were only at the front door!

Jacques didn’t take the cold front personally. Though he was very used to charming the parents of socialites and honor students, he was also aware of Jon’s fragile mental state and penchant for getting in trouble. It was understandable that his parents were feeling reluctant to give away their son to another pack so soon after the sexual assault and incidents with mecha piloting.

He guided the trio inside with a flourish of a born entertainer, flicking his long red hair tied into a high ponytail and showed them around the building. The Helsteen pair took in the personal and very neat furnishing, silently judging everything they saw. Amelia looked critically through the family photos displayed by screens on the walls and Tavaste surveyed the security detail with great care, while Jon observed all of this, barely able to take in his potential new home for all his trepidation.

What if his parents didn’t like Jacques? Was that possible? Was it possible to hate Jacques Rayne? Jon was properly starting to panic as he watched Jacques introduce the photos of his family and their many vacations, when another presence made himself known to them:

Percy came down from the upstairs part of the house, dressed casually in sweatpants and a wooly sweater which made Jon want to cuddle up to him and get lost in the soft material.

His parents weren’t too surprised to see Percy, because Jon had explained that he had a bit of a… unusual relationship going on with two alphas at the same time. Jon wasn’t very good at explaining it, just appealing to the fact that he really liked both of the alphas and hoped that his parents understood that Jon felt safe with them. He felt like they could form a pack together.

His parents weren’t all that optimistic. They knew that both boys came from reputable households and were very financially comfortable, thus not likely vying for Jon’s heritage, but they were still failing to understand exactly how this situation had happened. Their Jon was a known playboy. For omegas and betas! How on Earth did he find himself squeezed between two alphas? Did people’s preferences change that quickly or was this also something that his previous trauma had made possible?
Both of the older Helsteens were quite scared of the possibility that their Jon was somehow being duped here. They were going to get to the bottom of this and figure out if they could trust these eager lads with the jewel of their eye, who they both were incredibly worried for these days.

”Percival,” Tavaste greeted with far less hostility. ”Good to see you so well. I heard of the unfortunate losses of our two islands.”

Percy nodded, eyes glazing for a moment. ”Yes. We lost people. Every corpse accumulated is a horror that shouldn’t have happened.”

They were all silent for a moment to give their agreement. Then it was back to grilling the two newly acquired boyfriends on their intentions with one Jon Helsteen.

”So…” Amelia propped herself primly on the cream couch with her husband and crossed her legs with a serious air about her. ”You boys and our son have gotten hitched together, have you?”

Jon wavered for a moment, seated alone between his parents and his boyfriends. ”Y-yeah. We have.” He didn’t know what else to say. His real father was only interested in whether or not he had gotten someone pregnant and whether his bedpartner was a guy or a girl. He’d never been in a situation where his relationships were being appraised for simply existing. But atleast he didn’t have to do the whole homophobic dance with his new parents. There was that atleast. They didn’t even seem too miffed that Jon was involved with alphas and not omegas or betas like was more common.

Amelia’s hawk eyes stared right into the two alphas’ souls. ”How did that happen? Go,” she said as if planning to time them on their answer.

Percy looked startled by the sudden question and the strict reporter-like tone, so Jacques took over smoothly:

”It was really all build on comradery and curiousity on everyone’s part.” He smiled and fluttered his lashes like a good, filial boy. ”I admit that I was aware of Jon’s playboy reputation, but…” He looked to Jon with such a scorching gaze that Jon found himself averting it, hot under the collar of his knit black shirt. ”… the rumours really don’t do him justice! He has revealed himself to be the sweetest and most courageous man I’ve ever known.”

The smarmy words made Jon’s skin crawl. He couldn’t fathom how Jacques could smooch so naturally!

Amelia hummed non-committally as she nodded. Tavaste kept staring at the two alphas across them, hands folded over his broad chest, all alpha on alpha posturing and show of dominance.

Tavaste inclined his head arrogantly, feeling oily from all these pretentious, pretty words he was used to hearing all his life from all sorts of corporate bootlickers and shrewd politicians. ”I’m assuming you only started paying attention to him after his head trauma.”

The corners of Jacques’s eyes crinkled as he sized the older alpha back. He couldn’t help straightening himself to full height and putting his chest out as he spoke. “Yes, well… You know that I have quite the flirtatious reputation myself! I hadn’t even considered an alpha before meeting Jon on a faithful day behind the school and seeing him open and vulnerable, and just… himself for once.”

Amelia took out a handmirror and took to powdering her skin to put pressure on Jacques with this subtle implication of uncaring attitude. Tavaste took a more direct route of puffing out his chest also and raising his chin, nostrils flaring as he took in the other’s scent.

“Yes, I have heard of your ways and preferences,” Tavaste rumbled. “Makes one wonder about your faithfulness to our son, really.”

Amelia nearly rolled her eyes out of her socket. There her husband goes… falling into an obvious trap because of posturing.

Jacques grinned venomous like a snake, delighting in this powerplay he was about to smack down. “Oh? Then that applies to your very own son too, doesn’t it? I’ve just described both him and me to a T! How disappointing to see his own parent and pack alpha think so little of him…” he trailed off with saddened but thoroughly arrogant look.

Tavaste nearly choked on his own breath, not having recognized the implications for being too busy to prop himself up as the most dominant alpha present.

Jon wanted to die. He wanted to dig a hole into the ground and die in there. The best he could do was bury his eyes into his palm and puff out a frustrated breath. Holy shit, alphas were stupid sometimes, huh! He was so embarrassed of both his dad and Jacques!

Percy looked from the two alphas battling on one side to the alpha and omega sitting exasperated on the other. He took a sip of the tea and coffee Jacques had provided for them on the coffee table between them.

Amelia noticed Percy just awkwardly sitting there with his husband and Jacques fighting it out on the side, and granted some grace to the other by offering a smile. “How about you, honey? What made you fall for our son, really?

Percy thought about it seriously for a moment. Then… “I don’t know. I just really, really like him. Like I like mecha!”

Jon put another hand to his face, wanting to scream into his palms.

Amelia was understandably very confused by the answer. “Like… like mecha?”

“Mecha are a beautiful work of engineering, and human and artifical intelligence connection!” Percy started swinging his hands around excitedly as they got into one of his favorite topics. “The first time a human and A.I made mental contact – you know, in the robotics con of 2082 – was not only a leap in our understanding of the human mind and artificial intelligence’s capabilities and psychological depth, but a serious turn on how mecha could be utilized in fine-tuned work and action…”

“Percy!” Jon and Jacques basically grabbed one arm at the same time, putting Percy’s stream of words to a halt.

Amelia was staring at the enthusiastic young man with a frozen smile, while Tavaste was busy adjusting his outfit in an attempt to collect himself in this brief pause between him and his opponent.

“Percy, my dear friend,” Jacques couldn’t stifle a powerless chuckle. “That is not at all what Mrs. Helsteen was asking about.”

Jon nodded in agreement, thumb making calming circles on the other’s wrist.

Percy had a moment of feeling out of bounds like he wasn’t exactly sure where he was and with who, but he managed to collect himself and concentrate back in the moment from inside his own colourful mind. “Oh. What were you saying?”

Amelia blinked, smile stiff but vaguely amused. “I… I was just wondering why exactly you fell for our son. What made him so special to you? Surely you have many others starved for your attention?”

Percy scowled immediately, remembering all those debutantees fluttering and giggling and pressing themselves against him and suffocating him with their slithering, sweet smells… “No! I don’t want them! I like Jon! I like Jacques! I feel like we could be very happy together and I trust both of them with my life! We are a pack and I will fight for this happiness!”

It was said with such simple and earnest conviction that it was hard for either of the older Helsteens say anything to that. There was nothing hidden behind Percy’s words. They portrayed exactly what he said, his feelings and thoughts naked for all to see. It was like fresh breeze after a life of interacting with a social minefield of the higher society that Amelia couldn’t help but start laughing. Her laughter was like the tinkling of a bell, delighted and chittering, making other people smile unconsciously with her. Her lilac and champagne scent spread around the room, painting everything into a festive feel which all the alphas breathed in relief. It washed away all the previous hostility they’d built up and brought in a sense of calm for them.

Amelia shut her little mirror with a resounding snap and smiled wide and entertained. “What an answer! I think I couldn’t get a more straight forward one if I tried prying it out of you with pliers!”

Jon gave a tense grin, fangs poking against his lower lip.

Jacques was a little perplexed by the sudden release of the situation but nevertheless happy that it all worked out and Jon’s parents weren’t as on the offence against them as upon entering. He lifted up a ceramic tray with little teacakes on them. “Sweets, anyone?”

The rest of the day went by far more comfortably. Though Jacques and Tavaste still butted heads and Jacques took brave stabs at the older alpha to assert himself, Amelia seemed to be more amused by it now than put off by it.

“Reminds me of Tavaste when he was younger,” Amelia confided in Jon and Percy with a grin. “He was ready to fight anyone at a moment’s notice to show that he was the biggest honcho in the room. Oh, the memories!”

Both Tavaste and Jacques couldn’t help feeling a little undermined by her comment, not to mention childish all of a sudden. Jon enjoyed seeing Jacques all embarrassed from his usual confident and sexy attitude, and Percy was happy explaining all the ways in how Jon was his most special interest in the world.

Both parents were still quite interested and worried about their threeway set up.

“It isn’t common,” Amelia couldn’t help putting her worry out there.

“It’s called a Vee relationship,” Percy immediately took over to explain his findings on the topic of romance and polyamory. “That’s when one person is involved with two people, but the two people aren’t involved with each other. Jon is our meeting point, our hinge.” He made a victory mark with his fingers to mimic the Vee sign. “We are both romantically and sexually involved with Jon, but only friends with each other. Atleast for now,” Percy pondered, then looked to Jacques for confirmation, who nodded in assurence. “It doesn’t include cheating because everyone is well aware of the nature of the relationship and have come to an agreement on the terms of it. Which can be changed if the need arises at any point. Because we love each other,” he added, again very earnestly and Jon and Jacques felt like they were struck by Cupid’s arrows. Percy really couldn’t be anyone but his own blunt and genuine self, and they wouldn’t have it any other way!

Tavaste didn’t seem convinced, but Amelia took one glance at the way Jon and Jacques looked at Percy, and how they held his twitching, busy hands, and just how honest Percy was… Amelia saw that they were willing to try out a different kind of relationship dynamic for the sake of all of their shared happiness. It might go well. It might not. One could never know, not even with the most “normal” relationships.

Tavaste looked to his wife for some kind of confirmation, trusting her judgement on people matters more than himself. He was too competitive and possessive. Even now, he felt the need to grab onto their son and pull him to their side, back to his original pack, because he felt like they were losing Percy to another one. But that wasn’t really happening and Amelia knew it. It was merely a natural transition between a family pack and a partnership pack. Their little boy was growing up and they needed to get with the program if they wanted to do right by him.

“Alright…” Amelia sighed, finally feeling properly pacified. “We… give you silly boys our blessing.”

Jon looked quickly to Tavaste, putting a lot of weight on his words as the father. As the father who’s approval he desperately wanted after he’d been starved of it with his real one.

Tavaste noted the heavy gaze full of begging and fragile emotions, and couldn’t help but yield to it. He was weak when it came to his packmembers. He loved them to bits and wanted them to be happy and protected. “Alright. Fine. I don’t understand this…” He gestured towards the three of them, three alphas together. “… but I can see you mean a lot to each other. And I also trust my wife…”

They pressed their foreheads together for a moment, Amelia smiling as she scented the mellowed scent of her husband and mate.

“… so, I will also trust that you three will do everything in your power to protect each other.” He observed them seriously, mouth set in a strict line. “Protect our son. Don’t let him get into any more trouble.”

“If he gets in trouble, we’ll be there for him,” Percy nodded back just as seriously.

Jacques took Jon’s hand and kissed the knuckles, making Jon flush and squirm in indignation. “We’ll do our utmost to take care of him. That I swear.”

Smiling, the Helsteen parents were able to leave the apartment with lighter hearts than when they came in, seeeing first hand that there were other people who truly cared for their rowdy son’s wellbeing. Jon felt a little emotional for some reason as he stood there, watching his parents board the family limo and his mother wiggle her fingers playfully back at him through the window. Jacques sensed it and placed his nose against the top of Jon’s blue head, breathing there calmly and letting Jon feel his arms around him.

After the limo drove off and they all went back inside, Percy rushed over to finish the leftover teacakes, while Jon was finally able to give Jacques an earful.

“Ow!”

“You fucking…!” Jon pinched him on the cheek, hard, growling low in his chest. “Would it have killed you not to antagonize my father?! Huh!”

“I couldn’t help it!” Jacques tried desperately to dodgde the painful pinching but failed at points. “He… Ow! He started it and I… Ow-ow! Just… felt the need to… Ow! Protect what we have!”

Jon huffed at that, all fight punched out of him by those words. “That’s so corny.” Despite saying it, he leant against Jacques, holding him tight and scenting his collarbone.

Jacques answered the hold with delight, burying his face back into Jon’s hair to scent him back.

Percy came over with the ceramic tray of treats, watching their tender moment.

Jon groaned a little as he realized something: “I guess this means I have to meet both of your parents also.”

“Oh, yes!” Jacques smiled, while Percy wrinkled his brow with a “Ew” and continued eating. Jon and Jacques laughed at their partner, and Jon basked in that feeling of happiness, feeling so secure and wanted perhaps for the first time in his life. He really felt like they had something good going on here, and just like Jacques had said, he felt compelled to defend it should anyone try to come between them.

Chapter Text

Chapter 15: Authority figures

Jon woke up to the most impossible sight and feeling in the world. He was cuddled between two alphas, taller one with his long red hair all over the pillows and arms gently around him, and the shorter one all tucked up against his side under the covers, only a thuft of black hair visible. A gorgeous purr was emanating from their little pile in the white and peach-coloured bed. Jon could feel his own under his ribcage, and two other ones pressed against his side. The comfort it all brought was pure ecstacy to his tired mind and body!

Jon couldn’t help reaching careful on the windowsill over them and snapping a picture. He looked tired with what were probably permanent dark bruises under his eyes, but extremely content and his skin had a healthier quality to it. He was wearing the shirt Percy had worn in the hospital, cleaned up but not smelling of anything other than pure concentrated alpha. Which was just how Jon liked it. He adored items he could smell his boyfriends from, both here and in the real world. And the whole apartment smelled very much like Jacques and his mild laundry detergent, meant specially for preserving one’s own scent over any artificial ones.

He was… Jon was happy. For the first time in a long, long time he just felt happy and safe and loved, and goddammit, it made him tear up but he held back and simply tapped at his phone to save the picture as his background.

There was shuffling beside him, which alerted Jon to the fact that Jacques had woken up. The other alpha breathed deeply, stretching his long limbs like a cat under sunlight and seperated just enough to be able to look back at Jon.

“Morning,” Jacques smiled just as content, purr still lightly rumbling from his chest.

Jon let out a sound.

Jacques noticed him holding his phone with the new background and reached for his own phone on the nightdesk.

Jon couldn’t help huffing out in amusement as he took a look at Jacques’s background, which was almost the same as his, except it was clearly earlier in the morning and Jacques was the only one awake.

They both looked down at Percy hiding from them and the rest of the world.

Jacques cocked a brow. “Which photo should we sent him?”

“Mine has a better angle since I’m in the middle,” Jon yawned and turned to shamelessly embrace Jacques, who hummed happily and hugged him back.

Percy seemed to instinctively follow them as he burrowed even deeper into a tiny ball, face smushed against Jon’s back. He kept up a steady purr under the blanket. Jon just wondered how he wasn’t choking or way too hot under there.

While Percy was sleeping in, Jon and Jacques lumbered their way to the big bathroom with an amazing pressurized shower in the corner. The tiling was dark green and the stone countertops dark grey, creating a somber serenity, which was cut back when Jon leant against the showerwall and Jacques slid down his body to take him into his mouth.

Jon gasped at the sudden moist warmth on his cock, hands flying to clench Jacques long wet strands. Jacques didn’t mind the rough treatment, just glanced up from under his long lashes and slowly but surely licked the head, pulling the foreskin back. Jon breathed hard, tossing his head from side to side, overwhelmed by the pleasure so soon after just waking up. His lower back and thighs tingled, and there was an insistent pulling right under his navel, and Jacques’s claws marred his hips from squeezing so tightly. It was all perfect. The pleasure, the pain, the tight hold he had on Jacques’s hair as a warning and Jacques being his own cheeky self and disregarding the warning entirely in order to raise Jon to the high heavens with every lavishing lick and hollowing of his cheeks. It was obvious that Jacques had a lot of experience in this area. Jon didn’t feel jealous though, not when Jacques gazed occasionally up at him with that steady, teasing look and spread his raintorrent scent over them with casual possessiveness.

“Jack, Jack, Jack…!” Jon whined, lower lip open and bleeding once again. “It hurts!”

Jacques slowly slid off his cock, a string saliva connecting them, and showed his tongue. “Then just let go.” And then he was on Jon again, pushing Jon deeper into his throat until he could nestle the prickly hair at his croch and swallowed several times harshly.

Jon keened and pulled harder on Jacques’s red hair, and then he was cumming, stars sparking in his vision and morning light from the skylight painting them warm and golden against each other under the water. A healthy blush coloured Jon from forehead to ears to his neck, where his glands throbbed in agitation for a good bite, for a permanent mark.

‘Mate’, his instincts whispered in heated melody. ‘Good mate. Mate now’.

Jon just stood there against the showerwall, paralyzed by the tremors wrecking him from head to toe. Jacques held him by the hips, savoring the feel of Jon’s dick pulsating in his mouth and Jon’s cum sliding down his throat. Jacques seperated, licked his lips, mourning the feel of Jon filling his throat and pressing down on his tongue, but he just had to capture the look of afterglow on the other alpha.

“I can’t wait to feel your knot,” Jacques confessed, planting kisses across Jon’s hipbone. “The things I’m gonna do to it. The ways one can play with an alpha’s knot that I’m pretty sure you know nothing of.” He grinned.

Jon felt a sense of danger tickle his hindbrain and his alpha instincts reared their head, clearing his foggy mind. Jon huffed in annoyance. “Just keep waiting. We’ll see how things go when our ruts hit.”

“I’ll take that challenge gladly…”

After showering properly, Jacques padded downstairs into his modern white stone and warm wood kitchen to prepare breakfast for his little pack, and Jon crawled on the bed to shake Percy awake.

“Percy…!” Jon groaned, still a little tired, valiantly rolling his boyfriend back and forth like a piece of dough. “Percy, wake up. Jacques is making us breakfast and we already had sex. I’m sorry we had sex without you,” Jon admitted with some guilt, still not entirely sure how this thing between them was going to concretely work.

Percy however just let out a long, sour note, and finally emerged from under the blanket, hair everywhere and eyes bleary. “No sex before… before meditation and… morning work out…” He sat up, completely out of it, and just stared at a point on the blanket.

Jon was a little amused by him. It seemed like Percy adhered to a strict routine whether he was at home or at someone else’s place.

Which apparently was going to be a problem:

“No!” Jacques put his foot down, hand firmly spread on the breafast table, claws out. “We will all eat at the same time! The breakfast will be cold by the time you finish your little morning routine, and Jon and I are already hungry!”

Jon couldn’t deny the presence of the sad growling coming from his stomach. He looked to Percy standing on the other side of the table, arms folded together.

“I have to meditate, do yoga and crossfit. Then breakfast. I’ve done things that way for years already!”

“You’re not in the army anymore!” Jacques scoffed. “You’re at my home, where I cooked you food and you’re going to eat it when it’s time to eat!”

Percy wasn’t having it. He actually showed his teeth in frustration. “I don’t want to! I will meditate! I need to meditate and exercise before breakfast!”

“Need to? You can’t change your schedule to fit your partners’?!”

“No!” Percy yelled, face blotchy red from both embarrasment of having to assert himself like this and anger that his routine was being blocked by someone. He had always done it this way! He needed to do it this way! It felt right! It felt good in his brain! Jacques’s way felt bad! It was so simple, why couldn’t the other see it?

Jon’s brain tickled and he was a little surprised to feel adrenaline suddenly kicking in. It made him shake his head in confusion, but something inside him insisted that he break up this fight. It was his role. These were his alphas. His pack.

“Alphas!”

Both Jacques and Percy startled at the sudden boom of Jon’s voice. Jon himself was even startled by it, but quickly made it seem like he’d done it perfectly of his own accord.

He crossed his own arms and puffed out his chest, embers of anger taking root at the stupid argument they were having. “I dunno why these things are so important to both of you, but how about this: today, we each do things our own way. From tomorrow on, Percy wakes up earlier to do his routine, so Jacques gets his pack-breakfast.” He looked at them both, a little apprehensive at the silence, and felt himself empty of his previous fire. “Is… Is that an okay arrangement?”

Percy, who was used to being bossed around by his alpha mother and higher military ranks, merely nodded to show his acknowledgement of what he thought was a perfectly adequate arrangement. Jacques however… His breath came out in big huffs and his claws nicked against the glass table, wanting to bare his teeth against the other alpha attempting to dominate him. Jacques saw himself as the one who needed to take care of the pack and so, this sudden upending of the order he thought they had, scorched his animal brain.

As Percy meandered outside for his meditation on the decorative rocks in the garden, Jacques and Jon locked themselves into a staring contest as their inner alphas fought for dominance with mere glances. Jacques showed his teeth as he growled and Jon answered by hissing and spitting like a snake, fangs long and threathening. Then Jon closed his mouth with a clack of teeth against teeth as his broken nose informed that the motion hurt a fucking lot. It diffused the situation effectively as Jon held his nose with a pained sound, and Jacques’s caretaker mode flipped back on.

“Are you okay?” he questioned as he fussed around the smaller alpha. “Let me see.”

Jon shook his head stubbornly, fingers on the white patch from under where bruises spread out like wildflowers. “I’m fine,” he insisted out of pure spite, still mad that his authority had been challenged, even though he hadn’t even realized that he saw himself as the authority of this tiny pack. Jon had never in his life lead anything or wanted to lead, but here, in this world, with these people, he felt the innate need to take control and direct things to a more mellow direction. He didn’t want to see his boyfriends fight. This whole Vee-thing was way too new and raw for them to start fighting immediately after moving together! Although fighting at times was normal for any partnership, especially after they’d started sharing a space, Jon just thought back to his real parents where things were ruled by anger and fear and a feeling of forebodement where a wrong word or step might trigger sudden acts of violence. He didn’t want anything like that with Jacques and Percy! He wanted to protect them from that terrifying possibility which loomed in the back of Jon’s head and painted signs of fear everywhere on these pristene white walls. He needed to take control. He needed to steer this pack clear of strife! He wouldn’t end up like his real parents.

Jacques scented a sudden freezing, offputting quality to Jon’s scent, but didn’t know how to approach. Jon had turned away and sat down, showeling pancakes into his mouth, clearly putting up walls to seperate the two of them. It made Jacques want to whine and crawl at Jon’s feet, which was such a sudden contrast to the earlier indignation and anger, that Jacques simmered into silence himself and also sat down to delicately pick at the pieces of fresh fruits and nuts.

Unbeknownst to them, Percy was keeping one eye on them as he meditated. He could sense the discord between two alphas attempting to figure out who ruled this pack. It wasn’t an unfamiliar sight to someone who lived and breathed military protocol. The military world was full of alphas trying to one up each other and take control. Percy’s alpha mother was always like that, busily asserting herself and making others feel small.

Percy breathed through his nose, wondering if he needed to pacify the situation at some point. Like he’d done for his parents ever since he was small. He really hoped it didn’t come to that. He really hoped that this household too wasn’t filled with passive-aggressive jabs, cold shoulders and messages passed along through Percy like he was a soldier stuck alone between two fighting nations. Sudden storms to shake things up. He really, really hoped that this thing between them all would work out.

…

They calmed down well enough towards the evening. But alarms were raised yet again, when Percy packed up his backpack right before bed and set out to leave. Jon and Jacques lingered in the foyer by the stairway and pictures of Jacques’s family, both of their faces creased with worry and alertness.

”Where are you going?” Jon asked with timidness that annoyed him. Percy had been skirting around them with an odd energy that Jon kind of recognized but also didn’t. It raised all kinds of alarms in his trauma-filled brain.

”Home,” Percy simply answered as he put his winter shoes on. Soon snow would fall for the first time this winter.

Jacques squeezed his own biceps, disliking the answer. ”But home is here…”

Percy was actually puzzled by the other’s words. He cocked his head as he looked back at them. ”Did we agree that I’d also live here?”

No. Jon and Jacques had made a deal all by themselves and only included Percy when it came to revealing their relationship to Jon’s parents. They’d made plans for each other, but not Percy. Percy had stayed quiet on his end, existing at the edges of them. Hidden in the morning photo. Meditating and working outside by himself. Sitting seperated from them as if watching the two other alpha, observing them in a zoo.

It worried them.

Jon worried his lip again, tearing at the tender flesh. ”But we’d like you to!” he hurried to tell, hit with a sudden sense of desperation borne of a foreboding intuition that he couldn’t place. ”Especially since this thing between us is so… new.” Fragile. Like a newborn.

Jacques glanced from one to the other, sighing heavily. He knew why Percy was leaving. Or atleast assumed that he did. ”Your parents don’t know yet, do they?”

Percy stared at them for a moment, thinking. ”I…”

Jon and Jacques looked back with such tender eyes… loving… caring. It stung Percy’s heart.

”I told mother.” He nodded to himself. ”Mom doesn’t mind. But mother is still looking for a better offer.”

”Better offer?” Fury crept into Jon’s temples as he imagined a prizetag slapped on all of their foreheads.

”Yeah,” Percy simply agreed, shrugging. ”It’s important. I’m her legacy.” He opened the frontdoor. ”So, I gotta go. I need to meet her before the friendship games and try to tell her about you guys again. And I need to recharge for that. Alone.”

”But…”

”Okay,” Jacques cut before Jon, entangling their arms to prevent the smaller alpha from surging forward. Jon looked back to him but Jacques kept his eyes on his best friend. ”You need your own space. You always have. That’s okay. We’re here for you.”

Percy glanced to Jon as if asking if he was of the same mind.

Jon didn’t like letting go of… ’Pack splitting. Splintering. Danger. Packmember in danger.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose, then immediately groaned at the pain there, and blinked eyes watery at his other boyfriend, leaving. ”Yeah,” he got out, despite not wanting to say it, not wanting to let go. ”We’re waiting for you right here. This is still your home too. And we’re your pack.”

Percy seemed bolstered by this. His head rose in alertness and he gave a quick smile, before turning and walking out of the door to the streets.

”I don’t like it!” Jon declared the moment the door shut. ”I do not like it one bit!”

”What are we supposed to do?” Jacques shrugged, peeling an apple. ”Force him to stay against his will? Tie him to bed?”

Jon chewed harder on his lip, blood staining his fangs. ”There’s something about Percy’s alpha mother I just do not like. She’s such a… such a bitch!” he sighed, pacing back and forth, a guard dog all too aware of a missing packmember and unable to truly relax.

”Agreed,” Jacques snorted in amusement. He wiggled an apple slice towards his boyfriend, who stomped over and took the piece into his mouth the way a piranha goes at other fish.

Jon chewed madly, brain busily humming. ”There’s just certain type of people you can tell do bad things to others when the doors are closed. You can just tell. It’s like a scent. Or a look, or something. There’s just something wrong with them that you can sense when you see them and see their loved ones… There’s just something…!”

Jacques watched patiently as Jon gestured around with his hands, looking for words but finding none. He offered another piece of apple and Jon took it, teeth clacking together over juicy fruit.

”I’m worried, Jack. What do you know about Percy’s family? Are they nice to him?”

”As far as I know.” Jacques ate at slices as he tried to remember. ”But honestly, Percy isn’t the type to complain. He’ll just spit out the most blunt or jarring stuff at points, without even realizing there’s anything wrong with what he’s saying or experiencing. He’s military raised. There’s a certain… attitude that comes with it. Certain natural yielding to authority, be it an officer or a parent.”

Oh, Jon understood. That was why his father and teachers and army hated him in the real world, in the life where he was Jonah and not Jon. They couldn’t make him yield. Jon had his own natural knack for kicking and screaming when he was being wrangled by others. If he didn’t like what he experienced, he made it known, and sometimes it got him in trouble. It mostly got him in trouble. He’d learned to pretend to submit or just hold still until the bad thing went away, then bite back when their backs were turned.

But Percy wasn’t like that. He was… earnest and loyal and calm and just wanted to help people when he could. It made Jon’s skin to crawl to imagine someone like Percy having to face a hateful and potentially dangerous parent. He couldn’t imagine Percy fighting back.

Jacques observed with part concern and part rising arousal as that fire Jon held so close to his heart took over his body. He was shining bright with it, hot to the touch and filled with the kind of rage you can only feel when fighting for someone else. It made Jacques worried for Percy. It made him really godsdamn horny!

He licked his lips, so close to Jon who was wincing against the scrunching up of his broken nose, and leant even closer. ”Look, let’s call him tomorrow afternoon and see how things went. Okay?”

Jon nodded, hateful. Then was awakened to his boyfriend staring down at him from literally only a few inches apart, lips parted, canines poking out tantalizingly. Jon could imagine those teeth in his skin, piercing, worrying at his skin. His glands.

Jon sucked in his bottom lip, aware of how Jacques’s eyes caught the movement and the slits of his eyes blew wide. Jon’s breath stuttered as he allowed hands to toy with the hem of his shirt. ”I…” He lifted his own greedy paws onto Jacques’s chest, feeling the warmth, the beating heart underneath. Beating for him right then and there. He shivered, thighs and the underside of his arms filling with goosebumps. ”Can we… Do you want to…?”

”Take your mind off your worries? Yes.”

It didn’t take long for Jon to desperately claw at the stone of the island countertops and Jacques’s knees to ache as he took him in his mouth again. All thought of stress evaporated for that moment and they both felt a sense of peace in each other.

…

The next morning Percy woke up to his usual alarm clock and checked his phone. Through the dead-tired slits of his eyes, he could make out a picture of all three of their Vee as the background: Jacques sleeping with his long limbs around Jon, who was taking the picture and looking exhausted, and finally Percy himself burrowed into Jon as only a thuft of black hair on a pillow. His expression softened into a smile.

A knock at the door, sharp and demanding.

Percy’s arm flopped down and he watched as the door was opened to reveal their housekeeper, an old, stout beta-lady in a dark dress.

”Sir, your mother would like you to attend breakfast with her in the sunroom after your morning routine.”

Percy agreed easily, because denying would go nowhere.

After dressing for the day into sports clothes, Percy spent twenty minutes meditating, fifteen minutes doing yoga and half an hour doing crossfit in their family mansion’s gym. It opened up to a beautiful garden, where his beta mom was wandering around like the dead in her silk bathrobe and slippers. She held a tablet under her arm most likely to catch up on news after a long day of neurosurgery in the central hospital. Both him and his mom were bad at waking up but forced to adapt to Eleanore Dawnmoore’s rigid schedule over the years. It was just easier that way. Far easier than the alternative.

His phone bleeped right after he was finished with crossfit. Sweaty and smelling strongly of the desert Sun, Percy took a look at the messages.

We miss you so much! Come back soon!! was written, then quickly after that followed with: This is Jon and Jacques. Even though Percy could see that the message came from Jon’s phone. Then before Percy could answer: If anyone does anything to you, I’m gonna fucking kill them. Remember that.

He just stared at the stream of messages for a moment, then replied with a stunted: ok.

Then came breakfast. The sunroom was the brightest room in the entire house, especially during morning and afternoon hours. General Eleanore Dawnmoore sat at the head of the table with her coffee, while Fiona Dawnmoore sat at her end of the table with a cup of even stronger coffee, and Percy just short of floated there in the middle with his own cup of coffee, which wasn’t really coffee, more like hot milk with some coffee in it. He mourned his mornings with tea whenever mother wasn’t there.

Eleanore took a long, stifling sip of her coffee. ”The friendship games are coming up.”

Percy nodded mutely as he cut into his salmon and egg bread. In this house, forks and knives were a must. Always.

The older alpha looked up from her phone, years of worry etched onto her face. ”I’m trusting that this year won’t be an issue either.”

Percy shook his head.

Eleanore merely nodded firmly. ”Good.” And went back to fiddling with her phone.

Silence ensued. Until Percy was just about finished with his food and Eleanore caught his attention again:

”Councelor Gilmesh’s omega son has come back from his studies abroad. I scheduled a meeting for after you’ve won the friendship games.”

Fiona raised her gaze from her tablet but said nothing.

Percy’s hands made complex, spastic motions as he tried to decide whether or not to say anything.

Eleanore lifted her own gaze, wrinkling her nose. ”Stop that. It makes you look stupid. I’ve told you.”

Percy forced his hands to still by gripping the tablecloth, even though his fingers were still spasming and twitching from the overwhelming emotions churning inside. ”Mother…” he started carefully. ”I’ve told you that I already have someone I like. Someone I’d like to have as a mate someday.”

”You’ve yet to make their identity known, which tells me everything I need to know about them.” Eleanore took another sip of her coffee. ”They’re not good enough. We need a good match for you. You are the Dawnmoore legacy’s heir. You will rule this Empire and run the military one day.”

Percy’s fingers threathened to do their little thing again. He gripped the tablecloth even harder. ”Well… You know.” The words! Where were all the words when he needed them? ”I mean, literally you know; you know them. Him. The person I like.”

Fiona’s brows crinkled. She sensed a storm coming.

Eleanore looked back up slowly, pupils slit.

Percy took this silence as a permission to talk. He needed to do this sooner or later. He couldn’t hide his feelings forever, especially now that he’d met Jon’s parents. He owed his boyfriend and friend that much. ”I’m in love with an alpha,” came in a surprisingly tinny tone which made Percy flinch and grimace.

”What.” Coffee cup clunked down.

Fiona dropped her utensils and looked up sharply. It was coming. The storm.

”Jon Helsteen…”

The time between Percy finishing his sentence and the edge of a phone hitting him on the forehead was nonexistent. Fiona sprung off her seat.

”Sit down, beta!”

Her body slumped down against her wishes, paralyzed by the powerful boom of the leading alpha’s voice.

Percy sat still, swaying a bit, barely registering the sudden hit. He never did. They were all so sudden when they happened. He never had any time to take it all in.

Eleanore’s claws curled into her palms. She was so mad that she was shaking. ”Jon… Helsteen?” Her voice was pure poison to the brain. ”An alpha?!”

”Yeah…” Percy answered powerlessly. The spot his mother’s phone had hit him was throbbing.

”How dare you!” It was like a whole different person had emerged from some deep, dark crevice of the alpha’s mind. Her eye twitched and her canines came in full show. ”After everything I’ve done for you! I raised you – I made you who you are, and this is how you repay me? By lowering your own value by getting entangled with some halfwit, sex crazed fourth generation rich kid?!”

”Not halfwit,” Percy muttered, pupils bouncing from one spot to another. Blood was starting to seep into the white tablecloth from where his claws dug into his palms. ”And not sex crazed. I mean, he likes sex, but…”

”Alpha!” Eleanore growled, red tinging the white sclera. ”No simple person is worthy of you. The person you mate is going to share in your power! You need to consider very carefully who you mate! This is the safety of our Empire that we’re talking about!” she screamed. ”The continuation of our family name and genes! Is an alpha going to give you that?!”

”We could… adopt or…”

Eleanore took her halfdrunk coffee cup and threw the dark brown liquid right in her son’s face.

Fiona hissed from between dull teeth. Eleanore’s fierce gaze fell on her. Feeling the weight like it was physical, Fiona’s head slowly dropped until she was glaring at her own clenched fists. She was wordless. She always was in these situations, unused to strife and conflict, always paralyzed by it like her head was full of cement. Sometimes Fiona wondered if this was why Eleanore had chosen her as her mate, not for her brain, but this inability to fight against her.

Percy sat there, gaze flitting around, mind somewhere behind his own body, watching himself over his own shoulder. Disconnected. Dissociation. Percy knew the words from soldiers on the field but he wasn’t on the field. This wasn’t a battle. Right?

The need for his mecha to surround him hit suddenly. He imagined himself in its silicon womb, tethered there by the sting of the wires and the presence of a cold and logical A.I blending in with him, freeing him of some of his emotional burden.

With a sudden blink, Percy realized that his mother was still talking. He made agreeing sounds and motions until the situation calmed down, and he could finally be excused. He thought he may have agreed to meet the councelor’s son but wasn’t completely sure.

Fiona staggered up from her seat and followed her son to the long, marble hallway. When they were some steps away, she snagged a hold of her son’s shirt hem. ”Percy…!”

He stopped to look at her.

The beta stood there for a moment, scouring for words to make this all right. To make up for her inaction. ”Wh… Whoever you choose… know that I support you. I just… want you to be happy.”

Percy heard the words but didn’t really register them. He nodded and continued on to the lower parts of the mansion, where their very own military grade training area was burrowed. There in the middle of complex equipment and computers, sat a huge ball, which opened after Percy input his own fingerprint in it. Orange light filtered out of the metal contraption. It looked exactly the same as a mecha’s pilot chamber. Percy stripped off most of his clothes, then climbed inside and closed the ball. Machinery started whirring as the simulation chamber started up and wires wormed into the warm living body they found. Percy breathed easier as he was plugged in. And blinked at his own hazy image before the simulation began. The screen showed lukewarm coffee dripping down light brown skin, painting the dark hairs into it. On the right side of his forehead, right above his brow, blood blossomed from a tiny wound. Barely anything.

It stung though.

Percy had the thought to open up the ball once more and took in his phone. Jon’s messages were right there for him to see:

We miss you so much! Come back soon!!

If anyone does anything to you, I’m gonna fucking kill them.

A moment of hesitation, then more words appeared, this time under Percy’s simple ”ok”:

Can I stay with you guys until the friendship games after all?

Chapter Text

Chapter 16: You are NOT immune to a pair of great tits

The moment Percy showed up at their door, Jon’s gaze honed in on the freshly torn forehead right above his brow. It hadn’t been there yesterday. Brand new. Barely anything but the way Percy stayed silent as Jacques cleaned the wound sent all kinds of alarms blaring in Jon’s head. Living nightmares occupied his brain with images of brutality against a person he had come to hold dear. They made him grit his teeth and snarl at nothing, an alpha looking to fight for their pack, their mate.

“It was her, wasn’t it?” Jon demanded with the singlemindedness of a splintered person recognizing one of their own. “Your alpha mother? The General? Death. Death upon her!”

“It’s rare!” Percy jumped to his mother’s defense immediately. “She has a temper. She didn’t used to be like this, it’s only in recent years that it’s gotten so bad! And it’s barely anything.”

“Parents...!”

Jon’s bellow startled both his boyfriends.

Tears stung in Jon’s eyes from how powerful his hatred was, his grief. “… are supposed to protect children! Not abuse them!”

“It’s not abuse!”

Both Jacques and Jon stared as Percy tried to logic his way out.

“It’s… a momentary lapse in judgement.”

“Oh my God…!” Jon buried his face in his hands and turned away so he wouldn’t punch anything in his boyfriends’ vicinity. But he had to punch something, so he got out of the bathroom’s line of sight, barreled down the hallway and started punching walls. “Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fucking fuck!”

Percy didn’t even jump. He was trained. He’d seen all kinds of people in the military. Jon’s temper didn’t faze him, especially since… “He’s mad for me, isn’t he?”

“Yep,” Jacques put a band aid on the little wound. “That’s why he’s especially mad, I think. He has the soul of a protector.”

Percy nodded. “He’ll be a good pack alpha. Fierce. But in need of a pacifying presence.”

Jacques stared. Percy stared back.

Long, elegant fingers raked through freely cascading red hair. “And you think… It’s Jon who leads us not… me.”

Percy arched a brow. “I thought it was obvious from how we both acted during his drug-induced rut?”

They were silent for a moment, then jumped when something shattered and Jon let out a long regretful whine of pain. Both huffed in mild amusement.

…

They spent some days simply getting a hang of their new routine. Percy was bad at waking up, but he managed, so Jacques and Jon could get up later and breakfast could be enjoyed by all. It was very important for Jacques’s alpha ego to see both his pack members well-fed by his own efforts. Jacques glowed in the kitchen and Jon had started up jogging around the new neighborhood, and Percy spent sometimes hours alone in the guestroom, making plans for his mecha and Jon’s mecha, which Percy was very invested in ever since talking about one with his boyfriend. Jon was a little unnerved by Percy’s need for space, especially now that he knew Percy faced trouble at home, like he used to, but it was simply how Percy was wired. He needed some time alone now and then. But he loved piling on the sofa with the rest of his pack, lounging there like a satisfied house cat over their legs. He seemed calm at Jacques’s place, which soothed Jon’s frayed nerves, but not his anger. Jon’s rage was a well-maintained furnace, churning below the surface and waiting for its time to explode. The house was at times filled with the sound of Jon huffing and puffing and grinding his teeth, which amused his boyfriends. It was such an animal thing to do, an unconscious reaction which Jon seemed to barely even register. It was sweet. It spoke of how much energy he put into wondering how to keep his pack safe.

It made Percy feel safe. And tickled Jacques’s instincts with jealousy but he managed. He usually took it out on Jon in bed, which was just fine for both of the alphas. Jon didn’t just roll over though, and fought back with everything he had, tossing his bigger alpha boyfriend around like a body pillow and shrieking and laughing when he was tossed about right back. Percy was sour the next after particularly loud sex, accusing them of interrupting his sleep and padded over to the guest room to sleep. Jon and Jacques mourned his presence in the mornings when things were calm and started the habit of sneaking in the guest room under Percy’s warmed blankets, curling into a pile. It took a lot of wriggling for Percy to make his way out of the tangle of clingy limbs.

On the morning of the friendship games, Jacques checked all of their bags again and again to make sure that nothing was missing, before they went to the academy to meet up with the rest of their team. They piled into an official team bus, Melanie lounging in the front with a sleep mask on her, and the rest of the team chatting and playing games and fiddling with their phones. Percy spent the entire trip looking up the enemy team’s mecha, eyes gleaming with excitement.

The sea-side city of Davdon was more on the rustic side, sporting lots of old fishing houses and taverns, with some more modern concrete and glass-buildings littered towards the city center. Mecha Battle Arena was situated to the side of the city center as a big dome with a roof that could be opened and closed as the weather called it. In preparation for this year’s friendship games, the Arena was open, and people were busily milling about, cleaning and carting stuff around and vendors were getting ready to sell their products to the masses.

The hotel Jon’s team was staying at, was situated next to the Mecha Battle Arena, and had a mecha statue flanking the huge double doors. The whole hotel was decked with mecha memorabilia and decorations, and everyone was ooh’ing and aah’ing, especially Percy who couldn’t keep still for the life of him. He was bouncing all over the place, until seized by Jacques by the scruff of his neck and dragged back to his team before he could disappear somewhere. They all got keycards and were assigned a partner to share a room with. Jon fingered his own keycard, happy share with Jacques, but sad about Percy sharing his with their trainer. Jon really didn’t like being apart from his other boyfriend these days. His instincts were still on high alert, wanting to protect his pack, so this distance was chafing for Jon. Jacques tried his best to comfort him by nosing his boyfriend’s hair and rubbing his scent on him.

Melanie instructed everyone to check out the mecha they were using and do some test runs in case of any problems. Jon grasped his boyfriends’ hands tightly, determined to not care who saw three alphas walking together like that. Percy swung their clasped hands in wide arcs, while Jacques just hummed happily.

The mecha were all stored in a customized bay. They were strapped into the walls for the following days’ fights – two-legged, many-legged, sword-wielding ones, cannon-wielding ones… There was a mecha for each of the contestants’ tastes as promised.

Percy wasn’t all that glad though. He stared at his assigned two-legged midi mecha coloured standard black. “I miss Wanderer.”

Olive beside him patted the Captain’s back. “If you flew in with your mecha, we would all be toast. It’s customized to hell and back! It wouldn’t be fair.”

“I know.” Percy frowned. “But it’s just not the same without Wanderer.”

Jon was staring his own four-legged sturdy mecha, already vibrating with excitement and ready for action, when the bay doors on the opposite side opened, and a group of young people came in with a mechanic.

“… and this is where your mecha are stored for the fights…” The mechanic was gesturing around, when the group of people noticed the IMFA team.

The dark man at the forefront stilled, brows deeply furrowed, and the rest of the people stopped also to stare. They were all most likely pilots since Jon spied the mecha-arm looking badges sewn into their bomber jackets. Their outfits and hairstyles were different from what Jon was used to seeing on the streets here in the Scarlet Empire, sporting braids and dreadlocks in complex designs, and warm clothes lined with fur, reflective patterning and winter camouflage colours.

Jon frowned back at the new pilots, not liking how they were sizing up his own team with a degree of hostility.

Jacques however popped the awkward bubble, as usual, by stepping forward. “Ah! Welcome Frost Empire’s esteemed pilots!” He smiled that ever bright smile of his as he came forward to extend a hand to the clear leader. “Looking forward to yet another year of fighting against each other and with each other.”

The leader with dreadlocks, serious face and a bulky body stepped up to shake Jacques’s hand back. He gripped it higher than a handshake, taking a hold of Jacques’s forearm. “Let us have a good fight.” The leader – Frost Empire’s team Captain – looked past Jacques straight at Percy.

Percy seemed to finally notice the newcomers after staring at his mecha enough. Surprisingly, he perked up at the sight of the Frost Empire’s team, and hurried over with that blank expression but clear excitement in his body language. “Silva!”

The Captain, Silva, pulled his mouth into a long, sour line, but Jon somehow got the impression that the short alpha was glad to be noticed.

Silva extended his hand to Percy, who gripped it the way Silva had from the forearm. The exchange had an odd energy to it, stiff from Silva’s side, and overly enthusiastic from Percy’s who swung their hands up and down wildly.

Inside, Silva was holding himself desperately together as he took in Percival Dawnmoore’s utterly serious face with the contrastingly sparkling eyes. He fought a blush and ripped his arm from Percy’s hold before the other could feel the clamminess of his palm. How disgraceful! “I’m…” he looked for suitably neutral words to convey the odd mix of emotions battling inside of his ribcage. “It’s… good… to see you again.”

“I’ve been looking over footages of some of your battles with your Eagle!” Percy started chattering immediately, hands going about wildly. “That divebomb you did on the type 6 alien when it was clutching that six-legged mecha? Suicidally incredible! You’re one of the only people I’ve seen who can direct the Frost- or Scarlet-variant M-CF-99 in such a delicate arc and come out with all their limbs still attached!”

“Yes…” Silva was incredibly relieved to be back on familiar ground: mecha. “My Eagle has seen some better days but handles still like a dream in the right hands. It’s been customized for my style of fighting specifically, so it handles a little rougher than your standard M-CF-99. Plus, we had to carve out some of the innards to make room for something… extra. So, it’s weight and balance is completely different.” He smirked, not allowed to talk about the laser project, but proud enough to drop some clues to his rival who was trembling with pent-up energy.

“I wish we could duke it out with our mecha!” Percy growled, fingers twitching and making abortive gestures as his feelings bubbled over at the thought. “My Wanderer and your Eagle would be the battle of a lifetime!!”
Silva was almost smiling, until some random stranger with the messiest blue haircut and an alarming amount of scarring came over and sidled up close to Percy. They looked… close. Very close. Percy didn’t even flinch, and the stranger was scenting the air between them with the alertness of a pack enforcer or perhaps even a pack leader.

The ‘stranger’ in question was observing Silva right back, nostrils flaring and eyes narrowing as he was blasted with a full-frontal assault of air so freezing that he felt like he’d snorted concentrated mint. He held back a cough by the skin of his teeth and tried to play nice with the person his boyfriend very clearly liked. “Hey, there Captain,” Jon rasped, embarrassed by the dryness of his voice against that overwhelming blizzard alpha scent, but soldiered on with a grin more like a grimace. “You gonna introduce us to your friend from beyond the sea?”

Everyone got… super silent for some reason.

Jacques pressed a fist against his mouth so his grin couldn’t be seen.

The people right behind Silva narrowed their eyes, all alphas or betas. Low growls were held in every sternum at the blatant disrespect towards their Captain and prince!

Percy didn’t notice anything wrong at all. He just gestured elaborately at Silva. “Jon, this is Silvarium Ruiz! The third prince of Frost Empire, and the best mecha pilot on either side of the hemisphere!”

Silva was momentarily totaled by his introduction as “the best pilot” by who he himself considered to be the best pilot alive, while Jon was stunned to further embarrassment for his brazenness in confronting the other. Jon never thought he’d meet real, actual royalty, but here he was!

“Oh, shit!”

Jon’s sudden exclaim tickled something in Silva’s brain. A sudden burst of laughter was freed for just about a second, before Silva’s hand was on his mouth and his dark face was glowing maroon.

The side of Jacques’s mouth quirked up. ‘Cute.’

‘Cute,’ Jon couldn’t help thinking while fighting his own blush.

Percy was merely looking from one to another, not exactly sure what was so funny about the situation.

It was all very awkward, but both Percy and Jacques were good at oiling the social wheels in their own ways. The Frost Empire’s team was clearly way more militaristic and uniform, all following Silvarium’s lead, while the Scarlet Empire’s team was more chaotic and individualistic, getting in the other team’s face without permission from their Captain. It baffled both sides just how different they were. The Scarlet Empire’s team couldn’t help but think the others way too stiff, while the Frost Empire considered the others way too rowdy.

Jon couldn’t help tilting his head back and forth, scenting the strange air between Percy and Silva. The two alphas were complete opposites as far as Jon was concerned, but seemed to have a tight connection borne of their similar status in their own Empires, as well as the stress that comes with it, and also being their own Empire’s best pilots. They seemed to have found a link through their shared interest in mecha, which Percy was more than excited to engage with.

“Let’s do a test run together!” Percy was practically spinning in place, worked up from meeting his friend and rival again after such a long time. “You and me, Silva! Let’s go!”

“Okay,” Silva agreed easily with a barely held back smile, which his teammates stared at in blatant surprise.

They agreed to have one on one mock battles, just for the fun of it, though everyone knew that how they performed was important: they couldn’t give too much away of their fighting styles and tactics to their rivals if they wanted to win the actual friendship games.

They went to the changing rooms to put on their pilot suits: black for Percy and his team, white and grey for Silva and his team. Their changing rooms were separate, so it gave some of the Scarlet team members a little bit of a whiplash when Silvarium Ruiz stepped out with his big frame on display. The pilot suit hugged all the valleys and gulfs of his sturdy alpha body, thighs, biceps and pecs straining under the fabric. Both Jacques and Jon had an urge to pinch the alpha to feel just how big he was despite his short stature.

The Captains started their mock battle first. Their mecha were the same, two standard model midis with swords taking careful yet confident steps as the pilots tested their systems. Both were immediately disappointed with the A.I of their loan mecha. Mecha Battle Arena equipment was just way below the two Captains’ standards, after being used to their insanely customized mechanical babies. It didn’t take long however, for both of the pilots to lock eyes through their mecha’s LED-eyes and storm at each other.

Jon tensed the moment Silva jumped and brought a glowing orange blade down, but Percy countered it as if he knew exactly the angle of the other’s attack. In fact, both pilots seemed to be hyperaware of each other, as if they’d spent hours upon hours staring at footage of one another, and inside mecha, Silva found that connection especially exhilarating. And releasing. He’d admittedly felt a bit shy about seeing Percival Dawnmoore again, but seeing the other alpha respond to him so positively and feeling the fluid tango of battle they engaged in… Silva’s connection with his loan mecha heightened. Percy’s own flow state bubbled forward as he put everything else aside and concentrated on only Silva, playing the motions of the other pilot in his mind in layers like observing him on different timelines, Percy’s mind fast playing every option Silva had at his disposal against him.

It didn’t take long for everyone watching to simply stop and stare with their lips parted as the two black mecha glowing faintly orange soared into the limited space of the Arena. They made butterfly-like motions, evading and colliding and weaving between each other’s strikes. It was honestly beautiful. Like the two were meant to move just like this: together in harmony rather than clashing with violence and bitterness over some stupid game of two Empires posturing.

Percy found himself laughing. Silva’s grin was full of sharp teeth as they spiraled towards the ceiling together, slashed at each other in a hard angle, then boosted back down.

A cloud of dust and bits of concrete from the platform below hit the reinforced glass and hard light walls, making everyone flinch. Two mecha stood up from the mess. Looking closer as they stood still facing each other, Percy’s mecha’s head had a gash on it leaking fluid, and the connection between Silva’s mecha’s shoulder and torso threw sparks around.

The Frost Empire’s team cheered. Scarlet Empire’s on the other hand clapped politely, murmuring to themselves. They weren’t used to seeing someone able to stand toe to toe with Percival Dawnmoore, their military prince and mechamaniac. They didn’t know what to think as the two pilots turned their backs on each other and strode their mecha back into the bay.

Vy leaned closer to the others. “We might actually be in trouble a bit this year.”

Everyone couldn’t help but agree. They would have to do their utmost to support their ace or see them all humiliated.

…

Jon was all pent up after the mock battles. He’d kept his temperament under check, snacked on sour candy to keep his anxiety at bay, but he’d still put the Frost Empire mecha into the ground like he was planning to bury it there. It had made Jon tense up, especially when the medics came over to see how the pilot was feeling under that cracked chassis. And the look of apprehension in everyone’s eyes, the tenderness in Jacques’s as he reached out for Jon when he’d exited… It was hard to accept comfort. Especially when Jon was the one in the wrong. Hurting others even in excitement for battle was no excuse for excessive use of power.

So, later in the evening, Jon found himself in the fancy hotel gym, punching and tearing into a punching bag with his canines and claws out. He growled as he bit into the red bag and ripped pieces out of it. The clock showed it was around midnight, so there was no one else present. Percy was definitely asleep as per his schedule, and Jacques most likely was entertaining himself with midnight reality-tv, just waiting for Jon to come to bed. It made Jon’s heart ache. He wanted to curl against Jacques and hear him tell him that everything’s alright and people still like him, despite Jon being his own usual mess.

As he was wailing on another punching bag, he suddenly noticed from the glass-wall’s reflection someone else entering the gym. Jon turned his head, all four limbs gripping the punching bag like he was a gecko clinging to a rock.

Prince Silvarium Ruiz took a look at him and the ruined punching bags, not knowing quite how to react to the silly scene. He felt like it was becoming a bit of a theme with this particular blue-haired rascal. He dropped his gym bag on the floor. ”Trying to renovate the entire gym one piece of equipment at a time?”

”No.” Jon slowly disentangles from the punching bag, sliding his shoes down on the floor. ”I just… was working out some steam.”

Silva didn’t say anything to that. Just turned away to walk towards the running equipment.

Jon on the other hand turned his attention back to his claws, which had gotten stuck in the sturdy fabric. He yanked and yanked and yanked, getting increasingly more frustrated as he remained stuck, when…

A sigh. ”You’re gonna rip your godsdamn claws out like that.”

Jon turned again, blinking his brown eyes at the prince approaching him with steady, lumbering steps like a bear. As Silva worked at Jon’s claws for him, Jon was suddenly reminded of Jacques and his meeting at an oak tree, when Jon had worked his aggression and fear off on the bark and gotten stuck just like this. The nostalgia mellowed Jon down and he took his time observing the other.

And Jon had a lot to look. Just like he himself, Silva was also on the shorter side, but he beat Jon in every other aspect. Silva’s body was made for war and survival. There was plenty of meat there to grab, like on the chest, which Jon couldn’t help staring from the corner of his eye with a heated gaze. He had partners already, yes, but he also had a particular long-standing fantasy of being able to bury his face in between a man’s pecs. So, there! He wasn’t cheating as long as he was just looking! And appreciating the physique of another alpha from a tasteful distance.

”So…” Jon cleared his dry throat, face red as he desperately tried to look away from the magnetic power of finely sculpted pecs. ”You’re not mad that I pounded the shit out of your teammate?”

Silva glanced at him after getting the final claw free and quirked a brow. ”You really wanna phrase it like that?”

”Uhhhhh…” Jon felt goosebumps all over his skin, face getting even redder. Was he… being flirted with? Or was his horny brain just making things up?

Silva saw the other’s pupils blow wide and gaze wander. There was an interesting quality to his scent, one that Silva most often associated with omegas than alphas. The person in front of him, Jon, if he remembered his pre-match reports correctly, was warm honey and strong tea in a way that appealed to the primal parts of Silva’s mind. Now, the prince wasn’t unfamiliar with being flirted with. There was a lot of easy companionship going on in the army. Came with being isolated from one’s loved ones in freezing temperatures, surrounded by snow, wild animals and aliens. But this wasn’t army, this wasn’t one of his soldiers. This was a Scarlet Empire pilot, a rival who Silva would have to beat if they came across each other on the field.

That gave Silva a glimmer of an idea – an easy exploitation now that they were here in a gym before the matches. ”How about putting all that pent-up energy and fury into a real fight?”

Jon looked over the other’s shoulder at the blue mats he was gesturing at. ”You wanna duke it out? Now?” Jon glanced at the clock again, worried about Jacques waiting for him.

”Well,” Silva smirked, poking at a bear purposely since he saw one. ”I understand if you’re scared. I have a reputation, after all.” He lifted his chin arrogantly, somehow looking down his nose at Jon even though the other was a little taller than him.

Jon growled immediately at the challenge, the insinuation that he was a fearful child who couldn’t take a challenge. He was forged with pain! He could take on any alpha, any day of the week, and he had to scars to prove it in this life too! ”Lead the way, your highness…!”

It didn’t take long for them to go from standing on opposite sides of the mat, to Jon’s body hitting the mat with a splat. He wasn’t even sure what had happened between Jon going in for a grapple, and the prince going low so fast that his leg was just a blur. Silva was on top of him, holding his arm behind his back, smirking with a feral look.

”I win.”

”Again!” Jon grunted, smacking the mat to show that he was ready to get up. He tried again, paying attention to Silva’s feet this time. There were odd wrinkles on the prince’s sweatpants, as if they were getting caught in something as he moved his legs.
Jon slid a foot forward, ducked pre-emptively and slammed a palm towards Silva’s jaw. Silva leapt back, legs bent at awkward arches which surely should have hurt and spun a kick at Jon’s cheek faster than humanly possible. Jon let out a shocked sound when his teeth took a hard hit from something incredibly solid.

”Shit!” Silva exclaimed and immediately went to turn the sprawled alpha on his back to take a good look at him. ”I was trying to hit you with my shoe, not my leg, but you’re shorter than what I’m used to!”

”Wh’ssss your leg sssso hard?” Jon lisped as he rubbed his cheek, brain rattling in his skull as he looked down at the two bulky feet.

Silva was silent for a moment. Then he knelt and pulled up the leg of the sweatpants.

Jon got on his elbows to better look at the scuffed metal in front of him. The whole leg was covered in grey and orange parts, which looked like they followed the exact contours and anatomy of the human leg’s muscles, joints and bones. The peek of ankles and pinched fabric of the thigh gave it away that the prosthetic took up most of the foot.

”Is the other…?”

Silva rapped his knuckles against his thigh, muffled metallic sound answering. ”Also a prosthetic.”

”What happened?” Jon couldn’t help asking with a hint of somberness.

Silva’s face became even more serious. Haunted. There was a dangerous glow to his dark eyes as he glanced away. ”I made mistakes on the field. Cost my teammates lives. One survived with me. They’re in a coma.” Silva looked back over and quickly again averted his gaze. There was shame there. Pain. Fear even. Many things that Jon was so keenly familiar with that they hurt almost like they were his own. ”Lost my legs and got new ones from the royal military so I could keep on fighting.”

”And increase your synch rate, right?” Jon remembered suddenly from what he’d learned in history over the past months.

Silva got up and shrugged, appearing defiant. ”Yeah. Got some other upgrades while I was at it. It’s only meat. And either I perish in combat or live long enough to see the aliens go extinct. Either way, it was just the same to shave off some flesh and bone, and put metal in.”

”Doesn’t it… hurt?”

Silva was around the same age as Jon, but looked so much older than him in that moment. Silva smiled ruefully, shifting on his legs to leave. ”Seeing death hurts. Dying myself? Not so much, surprisingly.”

Jon watched the other go to his bag, sling it on his shoulder and leave.

After that confusing beat up, Jon retired finally between sheets with one of his boyfriends, laying on his back and staring at the ceiling while Jacques used his chest as a pillow.

”Jacques?”

”Hm?”

”Do you… Is the Frost Empire prince kind of…” Jon spun his wrist, looking for ways to get these feelings off his chest without insulting his partner. ”Do you think he’s hot?”

Fortunately, it was Jacques, so, of course, he answered easily with: ”Oh, yes. Definitely.”

”Oh, thank God,” Jon couldn’t help sighing in relief, soothed by their aligning vapid attraction.

”I wanna put my dick in between those tits,” Jacques continued, smiling against Jon’s chest and kneading pointedly there with his palms. ”And cum all over that overly serious face. See what he looks like then.”

Jon shivered, feeling his crotch stir in interest. He glanced to one side, then the other. Then finally couldn’t take it anymore and just asked straight up if Jacques wanted to have hotel room sex.

The answer was yes, yes he did.

…

In the room Percy shared with the team’s trainer, he scrolled over various news interviews where his alpha mother bragged stoically about her son’s skills, borne of their excellent breeding down generations. Tired eyes blinked slowly against the sterile light of the phone glued to his wrist. He exited the news to stare at the background photo, where he and his boyfriend and best friend were all cuddling in bed in perfect domestic bliss. A small smile came onto Percy’s face. Then, he noticed a notification pop up:

Remember to adhere to your schedule for a good match tomorrow, from Silva. Dry and to the point, no useless chitchat. Just how Percy liked messaging also.

You too. I want to fight you more than anything at your best! Percy hesitated, but allowed himself to sent the message despite the added context at the end. He found himself curling up under the blanket, feeling a little shy in his heart, fearing rejection from the other. Afraid he got too familiar with the aloof prince.

His worries were, however, unfounded, as Silva on the other end found himself blushing straight out of shower. Then followed a furious writing and deleting, writing and deleting string, after which he just replied with: Me too. And banged the back of his head against a wall and sighed deeply, hating himself for all these complicated feelings he just couldn’t stomp out no matter how hard he tried.

Chapter Text

Chapter 17: I want to protect you

The day of the official matches started up with great cheer and anticipation. People were funneling into the Mecha Battle Arena, some coming early to buy merchandise, which helped fund for the equipment and maintenance. IMFA team milled about outside with the people in their uniforms, herded by Melanie for safety. Jon was blown back just by how many people came up to them, wishing them good luck and wanting autographs, especially from Percy. He was their military prince. The person who zipped from battlefield to battlefield when needed. Some of them had been personally saved by him and his custom mecha, so they especially took the time to chat with Percy, who in turn listened earnestly and allowed the strangers to hold his hands in gratitude.

Jon did a little huffing and puffing when sometimes the fans were a little too enthusiastic, unaware of Percy’s romantic involvements. They were a little startled always when Jon positioned himself jealously and protectively in front of Percy, cutting off lovestruck looks and clingy hands with a furious glare and a warning growl. His scarred face really worked in his favor right then. Jacques was amused by Jon’s attitude and slung a hand around Jon, hushing him and nuzzling his temple to help calm Jon down.

“There’s no competitors, alpha,” Jacques assured as Jon was barking a growl at a particularly flamboyant omega man backing away from them. “Percy’s not going anywhere, dear.”

“What?” Percy blinked owlish, having no clue why Jon was acting the way he was.

“Nothing!” Jon huffed, turning his nose up and holding onto his alphas tightly, rubbing their wrists with his thumbs to stimulate their scent glands there and spread it on himself.

Towards the evening, they made their way to the mecha bay of the Arena. The Frost Empire’s representatives were already there, Silva busily talking to them and making little gestures with his hands. The dark eyes glanced back when he spotted Percy.

Percy immediately raised his arms to wave enthusiastically.

Silva tensed, unsure how to react, and turned back to his teammates, focusing on going through their strategies.

Percy was a little let down by the lack of reaction. Jacques and Jon glanced at each other, wondering if they should say something. But Percy picked himself back up, turning to his own teammates. Melanie watched over them silently, head down as she listened to Percy asserting himself as the Captain and explaining what he wanted his teammates to do.

The teams were split in two: Percy, Jacques and Vy would go against Silva and his vice-captain and vanguard. Jon, Caleb and Penelope would take on the other newbies on Frost Empire’s team.

“Remember to adapt,” Percy told them seriously, game face on. “Things rarely go how you expect or want them to. So, take care to think on your feet and look out for any changes in behavior.”

Jon was feeling jittery. He glanced over at his six-legged new generation tank-mecha. Heavy types weren’t built for speed normally, but because this one had more legs, it was able to reach good speeds when needed. Percy was planning to branch off Jon’s future custom mecha of this design into something more flexible and truly spider-like with fangs and everything. Jon was really looking forward to it. He’d just have to prove his worth and he could gallop on the battlefield with his boyfriends. And make sure they were safe.

Bolstered by this thought, Jon slipped into his mecha with everyone else as the lights started going off, low siren signaling to the people in the bay that mecha were being deployed. Jon grimaced when he plopped down into the silicon seat and wires hurriedly surged to connect him to the A.I. This was what he hated about standard mecha: they felt unnecessarily violent, as if all the changing pilots made the machine itself agitated and uncaring of the flesh it connected with. A humanizing thought, but Jon couldn’t help it when the wires punctured him, connecting his brain with the standard A.I. The A.I felt a little stiff despite the practices. Jon couldn’t imagine how Percy and Jacques were feeling without the smoothness of a familiar A.I and customized body.

“Ladies, gentlemen and others!” A smooth man’s voice boomed as the mecha were being transported to the Arena. “Welcome to the 49th annual friendship games between two great Empires!”

Jon tried to smooth his breathing, realizing all of a sudden that he was performing in front of people. He was a wrestler getting into their mask and outfit, ready to entertain the crowd, except these fights weren’t rigged and anything could happen. Jon could lose. In front of all these people who were rooting for them. In front of his boyfriends. And parents, who Jon knew were somewhere in the VIP booths, cheering him on with wine and cheeses in front of them.

“Everyone holding up okay?” Jacques piped up as he patched himself to Jon, Caleb and Penelope’s comms.

They murmured their agreements, but stress was evident. Jon could smell himself as sweat started to already bead on his brow from nervousness.

“Remember: it’s not life or death. Okay?”

Jon leant back and took in the utter calmness and gentleness of his boyfriend’s voice.

“It’s just fun. So go and play, you kiddos!”

“Fuck off!” Jon couldn’t help huffing with a roll of his eyes. “We’re only a couple of years younger than you!”

They laughed. Nervousness stuck to them despite the joking, making their fingers twitch on the handles and their mecha arms shake. Jon listened to the ceremony master droning on and on, smoothing politics, and finally, the platform their mechas were perched on started moving upwards. The floor over them opened. Jon blinked at the sunlight filtering through grey clouds. It was a cool winter day, not overly cold, so there was little frost clinging to the confines of the see-through hard light walls. The Arena had a curious infinity-shape to it, an eight which curved to separate into two circles around two artificial landscapes made for the mecha to run around in. Cheers could be heard from the other stage, distant but raucous. Everyone was excited to see the real show of the day: the princes of the two Empires clashing. Jon’s group was the less exciting part of these friendship games: an alpha and two omegas against three alphas. People pretty much expected to know which way the fight would go. Which just made Jon sneer, Caleb crick his neck, and Penelope clutch her mecha’s handles harder.

They couldn’t see the other Empire’s standard grey mecha from where they were left standing on the stage. There were fake buildings separating them, making the stage harder to navigate. High, towering ones reaching almost outside of the massive Arena, and low ones which mimicked plain family houses. There were neat rows of trees, light poles, and a fountain that could be seen through a narrow street. Cars meant for demolition had been donated to the Battle Arena and littered the winding streets here and there, perfect for throwing.

The countdown started. Jon took a deep breath in and tried to remember their battle formation. He would be the frontline, Caleb would dance around as needed, and Penelope would need to keep her distance, forming the backline as their sniper. Jon’s six-legged mecha moved its legs with his nerves. Jon was meant to act as a scout, going slow, and Caleb was going to keep to the shadows of the buildings until they found their targets. Penelope as the senior of their little trio, was in charge of them when plans changed, and they always changed in real combat. Nothing was ever static.

“… 3… 2… 1…” The ceremony master’s voice boomed as he bellowed with the hundreds of viewers: “FIGHT!” A siren blared and Jon’s team took off.

Penelope immediately started looking for higher ground to perch on, while the guys moved between the buildings, scanning for movement and infrared readings. Jon kept his eyes peeled, sweat trickling down his temple, cockpit filling with honey and camellia.

Caleb suddenly spoke up, dead-voiced: “Scared, Jon?”

“Fuck off,” he scowled, and led the way, mecha loping on its six legs like an awkward dog. Just when he saw something change in the infrared readings, a huge bullet zoomed past him, planting itself into the concrete wall behind him. Caleb immediately stopped moving forward and pivoted his mecha skillfully behind another building. Jon stood stock-still, a little rattled by the sudden attack.

“Move!” Caleb barked, stunned at the other’s indecision.

“Jon?” Penelope called out, watching them through the scope of her sniper rifle folded out of her delicate mecha’s shoulder.

Another bullet. The A.I took control and simply flattened against the ground so their cannon wouldn’t be hit square on. Jon cursed, hopped back on his chunky feet and started galloping out of the way. The enemy was seen in the infrared as a small blip several tens of meters away from them. They were standing still to keep their engines cooler in the winter environment, thus making their mecha harder to scan for. The sniper had noticed Jon’s team. Their mecha was just about visible behind a triangle roof, rifle leant against the peak.

“There you are…!” Penelope licked her lips, pale face scrunching up as if squinting with the mecha’s LED-eyes, and she pulled the trigger. The bullet was like a beam of light accompanied by a harsh sound as it skated against the triangle roof and scraped against the enemy sniper’s arm. Penelope cursed colourfully, stomping her foot, frustrated with the knowledge that Jacques would have hit that shot square on.

Caleb got into the fray as planned. His midi-mecha was fast, skipping through a lean alley. Caleb let the A.I guide the mecha’s arm around a tree, so Caleb could swing the mecha around in a harsh U-turn and sliced on his way a fake statue, so it fell on one of the lower buildings, collapsing a wall.

Another mecha came into sight then from the enemy side. It had crouched itself behind the building, wide blades at ready to ambush Jon if he came any closer to challenge their sniper.

Upon being discovered, the enemy mecha leaped out. It was fast, built like Vy’s mecha to be a berserker-type frontliner. Jon gasped when a blade stuck itself into the building close to him, shattering a window. The enemy frontliner hacked away at him, forcing Jon to retreat. He couldn’t shoot properly at someone so close range, only the miniguns could pepper the surface of the enemy mecha.

Caleb saw this and started to boost over to help, but was cut-off by the enemy’s midi-mecha, which forced him into close combat with their laser-swords. Sparks flew as the two blades met and shoved at each other, arms grappling and trying to get purchase.

Penelope was momentarily split on who to help, when the enemy sniper answered her fire and nearly took her head clean off. The omega quickly dropped down from the building she’d perched on and boosted away to find a new spot. The enemy sniper, unfortunately, used this opportunity to help take on Jon’s big mecha. It was like watching a crab scramble away from a very angry fish and the spear of a fisherman. Jon breathed loud and fast, adrenaline pumping as he watched through the lenses how close each of the enemy’s blades came to him. He was supremely irritated at being ganged up on. Not that it was his first time fighting an uphill battle.

“You motherfuckers!” Jon wrenched on the handles and his mecha made a strange movement, where he almost tripped over his own legs and sent himself skidding sideways.

The enemy did not expect this. The frontliner’s mecha beamed past him and the sniper lost him for a moment, as Jon scrambled up in the fashioned parking hall under a skyscraper. He ran through the rows of dilapidated cars, six legs carrying him quite fast, until he reached the other side of the skyscraper and aimed at where he thought the enemy sniper was.

The enemy pilot felt the house underneath them shake and quickly jumped off as it started to crumble into a pile of dust and bricks.

As Caleb came down onto the other midi-mecha with his sword, there was a sudden boom which shook the entire stadium. The pilots didn’t stop, and the crowd cheered, thinking the reverberation came from the collisions between mecha on the other side of the number eight-shaped stadium. Jon grunted in surprise as dust from the mock buildings trickled over his looming mecha. They were really going at it on the other side.

Using the rumbling as a distraction, the enemy frontliner sped through the rubble from the collapsed buildings and burst through right at Jon, laser-sword struck high. Jon barely managed a couple of steps backwards to avoid from getting hit square in the lenses of the mecha. He heard the metal screech as the laser cut into it somewhere above his cockpit. “Shit!” he exclaimed as the frontliner pushed him back into the hard light wall.

A wall, which all of a sudden burst open like glass from the outside, concrete and wooden seats splitting in a terrifying rain of human bodies first cheering, then being hoisted off their seats and screaming as they came tumbling down on the raining rubble.
The frontliner on top of Jon stopped immediately at the startling sights and sounds. Jon tried to turn his mecha head to see, but he was stuck under the other steel and silicon body.

Both teams’ snipers were the first ones to react when a standard grey and black mecha came stumbling down in the middle of the concrete and metal beams through the shattered hard light. Penelope and the enemy sniper aimed their guns, the infrared lenses of their mecha seeing unfamiliar movement, and took their shots. A serrated, almost metallic scream emerged from a maw full of teeth surging from the other side of the stadium. Its pale flesh undulated and shot out into every direction, seeking solid ground and targets to devour as it fought to untangle from the mecha underneath it.

“Oh, shit!” Jon’s gaze flitted from the fallen mecha to the horrible scene of human limbs jutting out from between pieces of concrete wall and metal beams.

The alien bellowed again, eyeless mass flaring.

The city-wide alarm started up right after it.

The comms came alive with chatter as multiple people attempted to patch through and communicate the situation to the only mecha pilots on scene. “It’s a new invasion!” A fearful voice broke through the static. “The military is on its way but we need you to –“ Crackle as the words cut off and the sound of the alien wailing made everyone clutch their ears.

There was a sudden clear call in the comms: “Dad! Father!”

Jon’s jumbled mind halted, reminded of where they were and what was happening. Of whom were out there watching the competition in rapidly collapsing rows of seatings. His breath caught as he pursed up his mecha legs into a point and hoisted the other frozen mecha off him. Jon clambered back up desperately, trying to remember exactly where his parents were seated in the middle of all the chaos. It was hard to see. There were half-collapsed parts of the fake city-buildings on the Arena within the shattered hard light walls, people running in blind panic and an alien wrestling with a delicate sniper mecha so that it could try to devour the easier small and fleshy prey running all over the place like ants.

“Team!” Percy’s voice broke through with a shockingly harsh and ragged tone. “Onto me! We need to act for the military and subdue any aliens we see, before all hell breaks loose!”

“My parents!” Jon couldn’t help gasping out, frantic eyes scanning through the lenses of the mecha at all the people running around. It was impossible to tell one from the other. Everything was a mess of sounds and sights, and the alien’s continues cries were hurting the ears.

“We can’t prioritize our own loved ones over all these other people needing more immediate assistance!” Percy reasoned coldly and logically with all his years of training and field-experience, but the words just irked Jon, pushing a growl out of him which startled the other alpha.

“Fuck you!” Jon spat out, scars marring his furious face and making all the lines in the orange lighting of his cockpit harsher. “Nothing goes over my family! Nothing is that important.”

The alien got tired of being pulled back at that point, garbled lowly and rolled itself so that the delicate mecha beneath was launched off its limbs and right into the opposite side of the stadium, breaking several more supporting beams and seats. There were screams that were immediately extinguished by the crushing weight.

The alien shook itself and took a few loping steps towards the people who were still trapped in the stadium, but two other mecha boosted over to cling onto its pale flesh with their laser-swords. The snow-camouflage marked them as Frost Empire’s pilots springing into action, attempting to subdue the beast biting at the prey covering uselessly under their arms from its huge maw. Unfamiliar language cut through the Scarlet Empire’s comms in bits and pieces as the Frost Empire pilots communicated, but the confusing sound of them shouting stuttered to a halt when whole another alien suddenly dropped right on top of the other one. This one had five eyes, all furiously blinking as dust flared up in a giant cloud, looking for any movement to grasp onto.

Jon was aware of Percy and the others talking but couldn’t focus his mind. He was gasping for breaths, head jerking around, eyes scanning over all the blinking lights and keys and pulleys in his mecha. He was panicking. He knew that he was panicking. He needed something to break out of it. He needed to calm himself. He needed…

‘Fuck it!’ Jon surged towards his own arm fangs out and bit into his own flesh as hard as he could. The sudden pain cleared his senses momentarily, allowing Jon to hear a chain of command happening:

“… aim!”

“Yessir!” a familiar voice. An alpha’s voice. Cherry chapstick and storm in a forest.

“Fire at will!” Other familiar alpha cried out, voice choked off by emotion.

The delicate sniper mecha in the rubble of the stadium jittered as its rifle moved over a broken shoulder. The crack of a bullet shooting out was like lightning in the air. The bullet pierced straight through the middle of the alien on top, coming clean through one of the eyes in the front. The many-eyed alien shrieked in pain. The one under it reacted to the agony of the other and wrenched itself out of the Frost Empire’s crushed mechas’ hold. It shot straight into the sniper mecha’s middle, teeth unfolding to pierce into the folds of the metal plating.

Staticky shriek wrenched from the pit of one’s stomach rattled the comms.

“Jack!!” Percy’s shout awakened Jon, peeling his priorities from his family’s unknown status to the moment at hand, the delicate mecha being wrenched open like a lobster under prying fingers. Through infra-red sight, Jacques’ body could be seen as only a thin sliver stuck to the chair, arms and legs twisted to minimize himself out of existence as the metal meant to protect the cockpit bit into his skin. The alien was emitting a strange, bubbling sound as it ground down on the mecha’s torso.

Between one breath and another, Jon found himself leant forward like he was crawling on his fours within the cockpit, moving his arms and legs rapidly and screaming: “GET OFF MY ALPHA, YOU FREAK OF NATURE!”

Jacques let out a pained whine, sharp angles biting into his cheeks and ribs and bruising his bones. A single green eye fluttered open, glistening from distress, and he could just about make out through the broken screens crushed against each other something moving towards the alien and him. Jon’s furious scream brought a desperate comfort as Jacques struggled to breath against the walls of the cockpit.

Everyone was calling out for Jon, but he couldn’t hear it over his own blood and the ringing in his ears. The A.I forced the mecha to move almost upside down between the collapsed bits of arena as it obeyed Jon’s blind will. The synch-rate had rushed to the 89% border, where it teetered along with Jon’s erupting mental state, high on adrenaline and bloodthirst. The alien barely had time to turn and try to meet the six-legged tank mecha with its thin teeth. Jon rushed right into that maw, warbled screech erupting from him as he thrust the handles forward and pushed down all the buttons to empty the miniguns and the cannon at the top. The mecha sunk into the soft inner tissue of the alien, the flesh there flushed warm purple and pulsating erratically as rancid blood started bursting out from within.

Every pilot was watching in respectful horror as the eyeless alien wobbled from side to side, clearly disoriented and confused as to what to do. The threat was inside of it, encased in its flesh and chewing it apart, burrowing a huge hole like a mole with four bulky and powerful metal legs and guns.

One of the Frost Empire pilots scrunched his face in disbelief and disgust. “Who the hell fights like that?!”

“Jon,” Caleb replied, oddly invigorated by the sight and containing his awe at the gory scene.

“Alpha…” Percy murmured, pupils wide, mouth salivating as his heartbeat climbed higher and higher. “My alpha. Ours.”

“Third prince, Silvarium Ruiz requesting permission to deploy!” A harsh yet calm voice startled them all through the comms.

Silva had ejected from his clunky second-rate mecha the moment the alien hit the ground and ran all the way to their shuttle, where his royal spare mecha was stored in just in case of an emergency. Like the one currently happening. He was stabbed through with numerous wires connecting his nervous system with the A.I of the mecha “Black Ice”. It had a striking and unusual sleek black colouring which stood out in the snowy environment of his Empire, meant to draw the attention of the enemy. In bright orange, the royal insignia was emblazoned on the side.

The people in Battle Arena’s mecha bay were waving their hands around, yelling at him, but Silva ignored the civilians. He was completely in work-mode, breathing in his own crisp and punishing blizzard scent concentrating within the cockpit.

“Yes!” Percy exclaimed quickly, snapping to this incredible opportunity. “I grant permission!”

“Sir!” an outsider from the military finally deemed to comment on the situation from the aircraft bringing official battle mecha over. “You do not have that authority! A foreign mecha operating on our lands must be granted deployment permission by a Colonel rank or higher! You are still only a Lieutenant Colonel!”

The Frost Empire pilots sneered as they worked to keep the many-eyed alien still for dissection by the two frontliners at the Arena. Percy and his team also showed ugly expressions. They really didn’t have time for protocol. People were actively dying, trapped, injured and one of their own pilots was in danger! The help of the Frost Empire’s soldier-prince himself would have been an incredible help!

Which was why Percy rolled his neck, cracking his spine, and took on his usual expressionless face as he spoke: “I, Percival Dawnmoore, will take responsibility. Prince General Silvarium Ruiz, deploy to the field!”

“Deploying.” Silva cut off the foreign military’s comms trying to patch through so they couldn’t bother him with what was for all account empty etiquette at this point. There were lives at stake. And Silva was a leader and a soldier in that moment. In time of major crisis, they all had to do with what they had. And the Scarlet Empire just happened to have Silva on their turf, ready to go.

A smirk played on those dark lips as Silva pressed on the boosters. “No hard feelings, Scarlet Empire.”

Just when the many-eyed alien was cut up into a gaping mess, a sleek black mecha burst right through the mecha bay wall and into the shattered arena. A pale alien that was falling towards the ground spotted the newcomer and spiraled towards it, maw wide open, determined to swallow the thing whole.

The snipers spotted it from their perching point on top of the Battle Arena hotel and called it out. Silva glanced up at it.

“Go to your alphas, Percy.” The black mecha hovered over the splintered ground, LEDs glowing the orange of a setting Sun. “In the meantime, if we do want to do protocol…”

Percy caught on immediately and was almost ridiculously relieved to be unshackled from his role as the one who had to keep his shit together. “Merging units! Command goes to the highest-ranking officer!”

“Yessir!” His team replied readily, well-aware that Percy wanted to selfishly run to his alphas’ aid like any real mate would. It was just easier for someone else experienced to take control of the situation. And Silva took control like he was born for the role:
“Snipers, separate. Form a crossfire over the area around the Battle Arena. Frontliners go with snipers. Escort them and engage any aliens on the way. Type H mecha comb the grounds starting from the arena and going outwards. Other midis comb out the immediate area for survivors and provide them an escape.”

“Through where?” one of Silva’s own soldiers exclaimed near hysterically, looking at the destroyed surroundings caging them all in.

Silva launched into the air, boosting with high speeds past the alien falling and immediately spun around to boost downwards instead, pushing the alien both feet faster towards the ground. The Battle Arena erupted in stone and dust and wood as the alien with several sharp limbs met the wall where the number eight-shaped arenas met each other, effectively splitting the Battle Arena open. Both arenas now had a huge hole on the side, made wider and safer by Silva grabbing hold of the razor-like tentacles whipping around and using his boosters again to drag the alien backwards, and finally throw it along the ground like skipping a rock across the waters.

“Through here,” Silva replied calmly, standing there with his mecha feet elegantly placed one in front of another as if poised for dance.

The alien thrown aside wriggled back up and opened three viciously red eyes from its flesh, the sleek black mecha reflected in its thin pupils.

Silva made a calling motion at it. “Come!”

Meanwhile, Percy had boosted over to his mates. Jacques panted in nearing claustrophobia as he attempted to press the emergency eject key. His broken and smashed-in screens emitted a dull sound of failure each time. The chute forming the silicon neck of the mecha had been bitten into deformed sliver. Jacques couldn’t fit out of it. He was well and truly trapped, steel slashing his skin and the stale air making his breaths come in shorter and shorter.

‘The vents are smashed-in also!’ Jacques realized in growing panic. If things kept on going like this, he might choke of breath before help could reach him. Just then, he felt the alien on top of him leaning in harder, making his mecha creak. Through the crackle of the comms, he could just about hear it: a call just for him, desperate and filled with terror.

“Jack!”

“Alpha!”

Jacques trembled as his muscles attempted to hold him in his sad little hug between all the protruding equipment. “Percy? Jon…?”

On the outside, Jon was gnashing his teeth on empty air within his cockpit as his mecha split the alien in half, bursting out of the other end slick with purplish blood. Percy landed on top of the alien’s hurt form, forcing it flat with his feet against Jon’s mecha’s continuously burrowing form. The alien screeched in agony, limbs uselessly flailing all over the place. Percy grabbed a hold of each flying tendril and pulled, growling and hissing with his pupils contracted in tiny dots. Jon put his mecha’s clumsy feet on Jacques’ mecha’s torso, clawing uselessly at the crushed chassis.

“What do I do? What do I do?!” he rasped as his gaze flitted from one warning screen to another. His mecha was too big, too full of clunky parts. There was nothing to grab with, cut with.

As Percy ripped the tendrils off and threw them aside, he called for Jon to get out of the way and jumped also on their alpha’s mecha. Using his laser-sword, Percy cut into the delicate limbs of the sniper mecha like cutting a stone out of a fruit. Jon’s sturdy feet clamored to help pull the crushed torso free. Inside, Jacques’ fingers were twitching uselessly, attempting to grasp his mates even through metal.

Percy thrust his sword between the sniper mecha’s head and clavicle, sending the head flying with a careless flick.

Jon observed in concern but trusting his boyfriend and packmate nevertheless with the on-site surgery.

Jacques glanced up, feeling fresh air rushing in. The gasped greedily, sharp corners of the crushed cockpit cutting into his sides and preventing his lungs from expanding properly.

“It’s okay, Jack,” Percy grunted as he aimed his sword a little more down and started sawing off chunks of the silicone neck. “We’re gonna get you out of there.”

“Yessir…” Jacques forced himself to hold as still as possible, watching from between sweaty red locks of hair as a giant sword cut closer and closer to where he was. It was a delicate operation filled with stress and each cut made only filled the three with more concern.

Percy put his sword down and carefully lifted the lightened torso in his arms. “We need better tools for this. He’s completely wedged in there.” He turned to Jon and lowered the torso and Jacques onto his heavy mecha’s back. “Jon, take him to the nearest shelter! The military should be there by now helping the civilians. Jack needs to be cut out by smaller tools.”

Jon took those orders and ran with them. He even sacrificed two of his legs to hold the torso part still on top of his form. Like using legs as a seatbelt. Jacques did his best to stay silent despite the discomfort and blood dripping down multiple cuts in his body, so that Jon could focus on carrying him.

Percy stood there where they’d left him, in the desolate Battle Arena brandishing his sword, and looked up. The sky… it was full of aliens falling like meteorites, their forms burning in the ozone layer yet never destroyed by their planet’s protective layer. “I have to protect them.” His mind went to everyone – his family, friends and boyfriends, teammates and complete strangers just living their lives… all of them were dependent on Percy’s performance as a soldier and leader. This moment on selfishness with his alpha and best friend… he would not them be a waste on all the other lives out there, buried in the concrete and metal, waiting to be rescued. Percy would protect them all. He had to. None of them had any other choice.

Chapter Text

Chapter 18: Purple and orange

Away from the mecha and aliens, under the rubble of the collapsed VIP seating, two figures in lovely leisure outfits held very still. The alpha was an older man with some scarring to his body and the corner of his face, brown hair peppered with the silvery signs of age creeping in. The omega was an older woman, refined like a fine jewel, scent of dry champagne and lilacs poisoning the stale air between the two with heavy notes of stress.

“Tavvy…” Amelia Helsteen gasped with racing breaths, blood sticking the luxurious cloud of her hair into the dust and concrete under her. “Oh, Tavvy…!”

“Lia…” Tavaste called back just for the sake of it, just to let her know that he hadn’t passed out yet under the weight of the rubble his big, broad body was desperately holding from crushing them both under it. “My beautiful Lia… So calm where another omega might panic and scream and cry…”

“Shut up! I’m on the verge of losing my shit, alpha!” Amelia fought to hold her breath steady, to not succumb to the blind insanity of fear. Her alpha needed her. Her instincts were telling her so, even though there was nothing that she could actually do for him in this horrifying situation. She watched as sweat beads and blood drip onto her dress from her husband’s weary face unwilling to show pain or tiredness. Her heart felt like it was being crushed by a fist.

Tavaste on the other hand felt quite calm despite the situation. As long as he could hold out, everything was okay. Even when blood started dripping down his back and head, soaking into his hair and clothes, it was all okay, as long as his mate was still alive and breathing.

Amelia wet her dry lips. “Are we going to die?”

“Nah.” Tavaste kept a serene face despite the cramping muscles. “We can’t leave our son. You know how he is.”

Amelia barked out a laugh which startled her and made her cough. The back of her head hurt and she was starting to feel slightly nauseous. She wondered if she got concussed when they had fallen from the VIP seating.

A moment crawled by. It was impossible to tell how much time had passed without sunlight or proper air to carry the sounds of fighting. It was almost eerily quiet, if not for the tremors making the alpha wince every single time as stones and steel beams shifted against his back.

Amelia tried to keep distracting him. “I wonder… if our boy is out there fighting again?”

“I’m sure he is,” Tavaste huffed, adjusting carefully his stance over his wife, his mate. “Jon is stubborn. And protective.”

“Just like you.” A strained laugh.

“Just like you!”

They almost smiled but not quite.

Silence again. Rubble shifted in increments, pressing on Tavaste’s injured back and head. More blood seeped into the fine wool-knit jacket he had chosen especially because his wife had been wearing a similar blouse. He’d wanted to match with her. Proclaim his claim in that primal, subtle way that every person sometimes liked to do. It would look good when they dug them out. If they dug them out. They could only hope as Tavaste’s body crumbled bit by bit, and the air started going stale and sour between them.

...

In the shelter of a general hospital, Jon hovered anxiously as a group of experts sawed and drilled at the torso of a sniper mecha. The air outside was cold and snow was falling with the alien bodies, visible for the people from the entrance of the underground parking lot leading to the shelter space. Jon’s heavy mecha was parked right there, outside the entrance, crouched and overlooking the sight of long red hair and a sweaty, flushed face emerging from within the mutilated torso.

“Is he okay?!” Jon couldn’t help uttering as medics and common mechanics with their borrowed tools pulled carefully at the rigid heated pilot’s body.

The medics didn’t answer as they pointed a light at Jacques’s eyes, looked into his mouth, took his pulse and did a series of other quick check-ups. Some of them crinkled their noses. An omega medic with furrowed brows took a quick emotionless whiff at the patient’s neck and frowned even harder. “Get the patient into isolation,” the omega started giving out orders left and right as they moved Jacques on another medic’s back. “Pheromone blockers, cold compression, water and sugar. Watch his temperature.”

“W-what’s happening?” Jon stumbled about, utterly confused as they took his boyfriend – his alpha – away from him. A growl that ended in a high-pitched whine crawled out of Jon’s throat, alerting some of the medics who were already rushing to attend to others.

One of them quipped over their shoulder: “Your teammate will be fine. He’s stable but delirious.”

Jon couldn’t help following the big beta medic carrying Jacques all the way into one of the isolation tents for more delicate cases. Everyone ignored him. They had too much to do, too many people to try and save and stabilize. So, Jon got all the way in and had to watch in rising alarm as Jacques threw himself around the makeshift bed, gasping and rasping and clawing at himself like he wanted to strip his own skin off.

Jon approached him, reaching with hands that were much cooler than Jacques’s skin under the pitch-black pilot suit.

The beta medic threw a harsh glance at Jon as he tended to the patient. “Who are you to him?”

Jon startled a little at the angry remark but recognized then what the beta was asking. “I’m his boyfriend!”

The beta medic didn’t say anything more to that, only lifted Jacques’s head enough for him to take big gulps out of some red juice.

“Jack…” Jon was confused by the heat and moistness emanating from his boyfriend. “What’s wrong?”

“Stress-rut,” the beta medic finally said, making Jon take his hands off quickly, only for Jacques to reach back for him with hot, begging hands.

“No, no! Please, don’t go!!” Jacques’s eyes were matte-blind and he was taking huge gulps of air in an attempt to take in as much of his beloved’s scent as he could. “I need you! Please! Alpha, come… Come here…!”

Jon observed in rising anxiety and arousal as his boyfriend’s gorgeous, sweaty face shifted from delirium into something more concentrated and seductive. A beast calling for his own to climb into his lap so he could ensnare him and keep him forever.

“I…” Jon ripped his hands off Jacques’s though it pained him. “I need to go! They need me out there!”

“Yes. Go.” The beta medic slapped a cold compression on Jacques’s forehead, making the alpha whine in relief. “End this all quickly so you can worry about your boyfriend. He won’t go anywhere.”

Jon’s claws curled into his palms as his instincts were telling him to stay and soothe his alpha. Protect him. Shelter him from all these other people in this vast concrete hall who might take advantage of Jacques.

With more mental strength than Jon ever knew he possessed, he escaped the medical area, chased by the alluring ghost of his boyfriend’s rut, and jumped into his crouched down mecha. The mecha swallowed him comfortably, taking him into its cockpit and Jon inhaled his own sweaty scent to calm down and concentrate on the matter at hand: save people first, then ride boyfriend’s dick hard until he cries. Jon actually shivered at the fantasy, licked his protruding fangs and jerked the controls of his mecha to turn it around in the parking hall tunnel. The sturdy mecha galloped out of the underground parking hall, walking over police, hospital and disaster relief vehicles like a giant spider. An alien looking for prey noted the metal object lunging at it, but Jon merely shot a large bullet into the alien’s screaming maw, making the pale wiggling thing choke on it and paralyze just enough for Jon to tear into it with the bulky feet.

“Outta my way!!” Jon bellowed as he literally ripped the alien apart with busy mecha feet and miniguns, a feral look in his eyes. “I’ve got another boyfriend to pick up! Move!!”

…

The mentioned boyfriend was in the process of helping arriving disaster relief workers and army people isolate the Battle Arena and dig people out of the rubble. Percy breathed hard, searching and searching and searching with his mecha’s heat vision, and carefully, surgically, unearthed another pair of people from under metal beams and concrete block dyed rusty by crushed and imploded bodies. He scooped up carefully some rubble and a form hunched over another in fancy clothes. The person on top had his whole back curve painfully downwards from the sheer weight of the Arena. The person, alpha by the look of their sight, had a bloody mop of hair melded into the longer hair of another person underneath them, long limbs curled around shorter ones to protect a beloved in a moment of panic. Percy didn’t think much of them at first, working purely on instinct and work-mode, but when the dainty hand of the person underneath brushed hair away from their faces to breath better and see the alpha, Percy’s very core shook.

“Jon”, he quickly patched into the comms. “I found your parents. They’re here. They’re safe now.”

“You found them?!” Jon spoke hastily into the comms. “H-how are they? Really, how are they? What do they look like?”

‘Not good’, but Percy couldn’t bring himself to say it as he watched the omega with blood-crusted brown hair hold the alpha on top of her and speak without audible words. She looked distraught. Broken. She was holding the alpha the way statues of angels and saints hold those they aim to save and forgive – a picturesque scene in the middle of the invasion marred by dark red, ugly scars and bruises, and jutting bone.

Percy remained silent as Jon babbled into the comms, and carefully deposited the mated pair into the arms of medics reaching for them. The two were immediately taken into an ambulance with the omega clinging to her alpha with such fury it was impossible to separate them. Percy felt himself shaking at the emotion displayed and wondered if his mother would be the same if something happened to her son or beta wife. Would she be just as distraught? Would she be driven mad by it? Or simply harden herself the way an old soldier does and go on, leaving their broken bodies behind?

As Percy wiped at a leaking eye, he heard suddenly a sharp call from the comms, and felt his mecha lurch forward. The A.I projected a weight on his back as the mecha slid forward in the dust and shattered glass, and Percy reacted to it by flipping switches and boosting backwards to meet the weight head on. The alien on his back was startled by the change of motion and especially the odd maneuver Percy performed with his heightened synchronization rate: the mecha grabbed the bulging flesh at its back and flipped itself up, vaulting right on top of the alien and stabbing plasma swords into its eyes. The giant lump with tendrils let out a shrill scream as Percy answered it in kind with a roar of his own as his swords slid right down the middle, splitting the alien in half. Another charged to replace its comrade, bunting Percy’s mecha and rattling his skull in the cockpit as his head hit the seat, the ceiling and wall. The mecha rolled until it collided with a building. Brick and steel collapsed in a burst, raining down on purple and black paintjob. The alien keened, loping forward over people and ambulances. In the cockpit, Percy spat blood from the back of his throat, whipped his feet up and pushed his high synch rate to supplex the mecha back onto its feet. He met the alien just about in time, embracing it with swords slicing deep into the rancid meat. The alien’s surface split into a maw within a maw within a maw, shark-like deeply embedded teeth crunching against the hard surface of the mecha. The alien wanted to do the same to Percy as it had done Jacques. His mecha wasn’t as fragile and lithe as a sniper built for long-range battle and speed, but there was also a limit to how much it could take. The alien’s immense bite-force could crush Percy within the mecha if he let it keep trying. But no matter how much Percy shot with his guns and sliced at the alien, it seemed determined to separate the pilot from the rest of the mecha. In fact, as the joints started to give in, Percy could see an odd appendage – a tongue almost – surge out from within the orchid folds of the alien. He flinched, breath rasping, as the tongue embedded into the surface of the cockpit, secured down with what looked like split hooks, and started pulling in. Stabbing furiously, Percy’s breaths were coming out harsher and harsher as the alien ignored the mutilation in favor of swallowing the cockpit. The tongue was pulling insistently, revealing a slimy pouch within the pale and purple flesh bubbling up to meet him. “Fuck!!” Percy screamed into the comms, when suddenly there was a flash of light and a burst of flesh and teeth.

The tongue was still attached to the cockpit as Percy felt his mecha being moved. He was taken by a sense of vertigo, as his body jostled against the seat and syringes buried deep in his skin. He was being lifted, boosted up by another mecha, Percy realized with a start. Underneath, the corpse of the alien he’d been nearly eaten by lay in horrid pieces like a field of lilacs blooming against the front of the broken down city.

Percy angled his mecha’s LED eyes up. A very familiar royal state of the art mecha came into partial view.

Inside, Silva was sitting on a throne of tubes and spikes going into his skin, a ruler in a seat of sweat and suffering, as he boosted them away from the wreckage below to take stock of the situation.

Within the other mecha’s embrace, Percy was staring up at the face he couldn’t see, cheeks aglow, dark monolid eyes wide. His scent spilled out in delighted sunbrusts and scalding sand. Percy found himself holding tight onto the royal mecha, swords still out, carried bridal style across the sky as they hovered there, together, for a moment in sudden silence. All the violence was happening far down below, people like tiny dots, mecha and aliens the most visible part of hurried motion. Through their A.Is, the two pilots of tentatively friendly empires felt each other’s hold. The artificial feel of steel holding steel an odd sensation despite both of them having held other mecha before in battle. Perhaps it was because it was them. Percy and Silva, purple LEDs staring with rapt attention at the orange LEDs refusing to meet the intense stare.

Red in the face, Silva was extremely conscious of the military prince’s attention on him. He wasn’t sure in what spirit that attention was, so he simply steeled himself to ignore it, and boosted both of them toward more aliens congregating towards the collapsed Arena below them. “Look alive, Percival!” Silva angled to go in feet first.

Percy’s gaze snapped down to the cluster of aliens swarming their earthbound teammates fighting back to back. He swung his legs off the other mecha’s arm, allowing himself to be squeezed tightly against a protruding angular chest chassis and mirrored perfectly the other’s pose.

Two steel and silicone and electricity laced gods of war descended in the view of soldiers, civilians and disaster journalists filming from their copters. First, feet met an alien’s pale bulging body, then swords swung out of two pairs of hands. The dark and bright shaded mecha spiraled around each other in effortless wordless communication, the pilot’s entering a flow state with their A.I. They zeroed in on the mass of lumbering and writhing beasts, slicing through them in precise strikes, swords sliding against one another intimately to create beautiful light notes like bells chiming.

Down the street, Jon had slowed down his mecha’s crawling, staring, bewitched, as purple and orange streaks of light folded as ribbons through the purplish foul-smelling alien meat, scattering pieces akin to petals from beheaded flowers. A dance of violence done for protection, thus made beautiful for the eyes of the viewers.

Jon’s pupils blew wide as he imagined the two pilots inside, sheering them from their mecha, only leaving two young men in illegally tight uniforms moving their bodies in a fiery tango where blood and sweat painted their faces and hair. His lungs contracted, breaths coming a little faster as his instincts praised the two before him: “Good! Powerful! Reliable! Dangerous! Mine!”

Jon startled from his slobbering stupor when the purple and orange lights disappeared within a dust cloud and Penelope’s voice came through the comms:

“Penelope to team. The immediate emergency zone has been cleared. I repeat: the immediate emergency zone has been cleared. Any further sightings?”

Jon surrendered his brainpower to the A.I of his mecha so it could do a widespread scan of the area around him. “Negative.”

Same response echoed from others. The situation was slowly, with each passing excruciating second, deemed calm. Prince Silvarium didn’t let them breath a sigh of relief though yet. He immediately ordered everyone capable to comb through the whole battleground for any trapped soldiers or civilians, and the rest of the pilots to assess their own health status and exit the battleground for immediate patching up. “They could come again,” Silva’s grim words made everyone tense again. “We must stay alert until we’ve properly secured the area and collected the injured and dead.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 19: Aftercare

The day passed by quickly as Jon and the others worked overtime to make sure that no more aliens were coming and people and animals were located. Jon dug out a child clutching her pet cat, both rasping and wheezing from the debris rained down on them and the fires which burned after aliens hit fuel lines and snapped powercords in the buildings and ground. He also found a pair of parents cradling a baby in a half-burned down house. The sight of their lifeless singed bodies covering a suffocated pale infant was violently burned into Jon’s brain, making him shake visibly, head twitching from side to side as he attempted to push through, to find more missing people.

His mecha however denied his will. The A.I sensed the confusion of the pilot’s mind and their synch rate dropped so suddenly that the borrowed standard tank mecha literally collapsed in the spot, all the sturdy legs splayed out as if Jon were a spider squashed under someone’s boot. He made several attempts to force the mecha to move, but it made error sounds and displayed a harsh red line down the middle of the screen – the A.I having cut its shared vision with Jon. Jon stared at that long red flatline and the synch rate in the corner, still shaking visibly as he grit his teeth through sweat and gulps of his own stressed out stench of rotten tealeaves. ”Useless.”

He wasn’t sure if he was talking to himself or the mecha.

The medics of the miraculously survived general hospital chastised Jon for attempting to keep on going in the state he was. ”Do you want to get stress-rut? Cause this is how you get stress-rut.”

Jon let out a rueful laugh. At least then he’d be the same as his boyfriend Jacques. Two alphas suffering the same ailment indulging each other.

Speaking of, Jon was very much keen to meet with Jacques as quickly as possible. ”Is he okay? Has he been calling for me?” His questions were answered with short quips of mostly positive updates, even though Jacques had taken quite the beating by being squeezed into a tiny bloody ball by his mecha chassis and the alien’s maw. He’d been suffocating and overheated by the rising inner temperature of the broken mecha, but was in the process of being cooled down and stabilizing his stress-hormones, not to mention testosterone and oxytocin levels, which were on insane levels during rut. Jon felt jittery as he was escorted into a ward very similar to that of the one he had been in when he’d been… almost raped. Jon was surprised to full-body jerk as the memory entered his brain. He wasn’t used to thinking of himself like that. Hadn’t processed it properly. He didn’t want to think about it while his boyfriend was suffering.

”Jack?” Jon closed the door with the dimmed glass behind him as the medic attending to him left. He careened from side to side, searching, but Jacques was nowhere to be seen. The bedsheets were a sweaty mess, pillow askew, three whole bottles of applejuice scattered on the floor. ”Jack? It’s me. Jon.”

”I’m here!” a muffled call came.

Jon peered into the small bathroom. It was a gross puss-white, making Jon wrinkle his nose, but clean aside from the long gorgeous body spilling chilly water everywhere.

”Hey,” Jacques whispered, voice gone hoarse probably from all his whining and growling, yearning. His pupils were huge, hugging the green irises, and his nostrils flared to take in Jon’s scent.

Jon gave a little smile and got on his knees in front of the bathtub. Jacques seemed bonetired. There was a redness around his eyes as if he’d cried. Jon lifted his hand to caress a freckled cheek and Jacques immediately leant into it. If it was possible, Jon would say Jacques’ pupils were shaped like little hearts as he stared back at Jon’s disheveled self.

”You look like shit,” Jacques murmured, blinking slowly as he shifted sideways in the tub.

Cold water sloshed out to tickle Jon’s shoes. He took his pilot outfit off, goosebumps all over his pale body. Jacques was watching him closely despite his weariness. Predator tracking prey with languid grace. When Jon approached, Jacques inclined charmingly with a hand, a siren calling a sailor to come into the water with him. Jon went willingly. He shivered violently from the cold and Jacques embraced him in response. An immense relief seemed to punch the air out from both of their lungs. They simply melted into each other, curling every limb to have maximum contact.

”Where’s our silly little guy?” Jacques breathed against Jon’s clavicle, eyes closed.

Jon swayed them back and forth to the undercurrent lullaby of their joint purring. ”He’s stronger than me, so he’s still probably cleaning things up. Finding people.”

Jacques shifted, cradling Jon’s jaw with persistent claws. He had a stern look about him. ”Do I hear admonishment against yourself, soldier?”

”Sorry.” Jon couldn’t quite meet the gaze peeling him open. His palms massaged Jacques’s shoulders. The other alpha felt warm even in the cold water. ”I just… I want to do more. Be better. I need to be better.”

”What?” Jacques scoffed with such immense tiredness that Jon couldn’t do much else but shake his head.

”Never mind.” He nosed into his boyfriend’s throat, gnawing self-soothingly. ”I don’t wanna think. I just want to feel you. Feel that you’re here with me.” Because Jacques had almost died. Could have died. Disappered from this world.

Jacques didn’t argue, was probably too drained by his rut-fogged brain.

They tangled together and laid kisses on each other, lips brushing expanses of skin, teeth marking territory with utter affection. Jacques’s breaths were prayers sung into the disgustingly off-white space of the bathroom and Jon ate them all up, shivering from both cold and casual arousal. There was nothing urgent about their movements. Both were stretched too wide and too tight by the happenings of the past day. So, they were consciously careful and slow as Jon lifted himself out of the water to stretch himself open for penetration. Jacques watched in rapture, caressing his alpha’s stomach and chest, pinching the tight bud of a dusty nipple.

Jacques sighed, spilling more water as he moved underneath the other. ”There’s lube and condoms by the bedside.”

They stopped enough to get out of the water and bundle Jon’s poor trembling form into a fluffy towel.

”After this…” Jon breathed as he chased away cold by clinging to Jacques. ”I need to see my parents. I need to know…”

”Yeah. Me too,” Jacques comforted, kissing the top of Jon’s head and collapsing into the sturdy hospital bed with him.

Jacques let Jon do all the work of stretching himself. He was in no hurry anymore, simply burning with the embers of his stress-rut after soaking in a cold bath and jerking off to the mental image of his precious alphas fighting in their mecha. His alphas. His strong, capable alphas who he loved.

Jacques whined and surged up to take Jon’s right nipple into his mouth. Jon groaned in answer and let himself be taken down laying on the bed. Jacques occupied himself with suckling hickies on the heaving chest while Jon lathered desperately more lube into himself, pulling at the rim of his asshole to test the limit.

”It’ssss okay,” he whined through his teeth, lisp crawling out, wanting to get things started properly already. To soothe his stress-addled mind with senseless fucking and rutting. ”Quick… Get inssside…!”

”Yesssss,” Jacques hissed back, snarling to show dominance at the alpha on top of him.

Jon gave a little laugh then hissed back, long fangs like that of a viper’s.

He keened when Jacques flipped them over, pressing Jon into the mattress. Jon got more excited as he fought back. It was playfighting considered to what they would do normally when having intercourse, but both were too tired to invest any more energy into the foreplay. So, Jon let Jacques assume control fairly easily despite his pride taking a bruising. He was more eager to feel Jacques inside of him. To feel the burn of him and the gross trickling of his semen down his thighs.

”You’re gorgeous,” Jacques praised eagerly biting into Jon’s throat and whipping his head sluggishly in a play of hunting the other. ”I love you. I want you.”

Jon could only breath helplessly, flayed open by the words, by the need and worship in them. His mind went back by years. Memories of angelic lashes and toussled blonde hair, a lithe writhing body underneath Jon’s own. A wicked smirk and frigtheningly self-aware blue gaze.

’It’s not the same’, Jon assured himself, literally letting his body go slack under the hold of Jacques’s teeth and hands spreading his legs open. ’It’s not the same this time’. He took in a huge gulp of breath when the discomfort of being filled started to overtake him.

Jacques licked at the teeth marks he’d left on his boyfriend’s throat, right in the front where the adam’s apple and self-inflicted scars were. He traced Jon’s facial scars with his lips, licking them as if he could heal the jagged scabbed Joker’s grin left there by their enemy. Jacques wanted to bite into alien flesh at that animalistic moment, the need to punish those who had hurt his loved one surging forward, but he shook himself back into the moment, concentrating on pushing deeper into Jon’s body and tracking him for signs of comfort and discomfort. Jon’s body was a religious text and Jacques was dedicating himself to deciphering its messages.

”Haaa…!”

Jacques looked up from the scars to inspect Jon’s twitching brows and the sides of his mouth. Jon seemed to be half-suffering, half-enjoying himself. It was a complicated expression enhanced by the odd brittleness in Jon’s smell. ”You okay?” Jacques had to ask. He was skilled at reading others, so he knew that Jon was thinking hard about something, closing himself off with everything else except his honeyed camellia leaf scent. There was an edge of rot there, that musty compost earthiness.

Jon took in steadying breaths. His mind had been slowly splitting into three parts: being there underneath his boyfriend who he loved, being in an empty warehouse with four heinous alphas looming over him, and being entangled with Caleb who was holding his face as if admiring his bare skull in his hands. It was confusing. Jon was a little freaked out by his inability to find his way completely back in the moment. ”I…”

Jacques watched intently at him looking for the right words to describe what was happening to him.

”I…” The word was taut, squeezed from between the strained muscles of Jon’s throat. ”I think… I might be… dissociating? A little? Maybe.”

”Oh, shit!”

”No! No.” Jon prevent Jacques from pulling out of him by clinging to him like a koala. ”I want this. I want you. Please, don’t stop.”

”You sure?” Jacques was looking at him so seriously again, brows furrowed in grave sober seriousness. ”You absolutely sure?”

Jon nodded despite finding it difficult to stare at Jacques’s face for the ceiling above them. He knew what he wanted. Most likely. He was just a little disoriented.

Jacques took his time settling down again, claws tearing at the pillow under Jon’s head. ”Tell me immediately if you start feeling like stopping. I mean it.”

”Yes.” Jon closed his eyes and concentrated on caressing Jacques’s back, on leaving marks on it with his claws. He needed to really feel Jacques. To have him smash this dream-like flightiness of the moment. ”Give it to me. I want to feel you. I want you to make me ache.”

”I’m not going to hurt you.” Jacques narrowed his eyes in concentration as he manouvered Jon into a more comfortable position tested a few times already by them, and then started picking up speed and push with more force to obey Jon’s words.

Jon tilted his head back, observing the world through lidded lids. ’I’m right here’, he assured himself as he gripped Jacques to the point of bruising the other. ’I’m with Jack. He is here. And I am here.’

Taste of bile and someone else’s spend lingered on Jon’s tongue as poison which he swallowed around. Jon heaved in great breaths of Jacques’s scent. It conjured up an image of a deep forest swaying back and forth in rain and wind, beating down on naked skin, marking it with all forces of the nature. Jon clung to that mental image, panting in more as he finally started to register Jacques’s cock meeting the walls of his insides. Jacques seemed to also realize the shift in how Jon was breathing and writhing and finally meeting his gaze head on again. It made Jacques more genuinely excited instead of carefully aroused. Jon’s safety was very important to Jacques and Jacques wanted Jon to know it, feel it.

Jon could have cried with how urgently Jacques wrapped him into his arms, claws digging into skin, hips hammering against hips to bruise and make Jon keen with how hard they were going. Jon slapped his palm against the wall over his head to prevent himself from meeting the headboard. Jacques noticed this and held the crown of Jon’s head while placing kisses on each scarred cheek.

Jon squeezed his eyes shut and closed his senses from all else except from smelling and feeling. He was in a forest underneath a powerful beast which was hellbent on using him until exhaustion. It wasn’t an act of violence. Not to Jon and the beast. It was a simple act of claiming, of liberation from the shadows of people clinging to Jon’s back with their dirty nails. The beast in Jon’s head roared with the storm and bit into him. Jon cried out as he realized that Jacques was actually biting him in real life. Jon’s hand came to hold Jacques’s head still against his neck right next to his gland, to prevent him from letting go.

”Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes…!” Jon chanted with a degree of frantic alarm. He was so incredibly turned on but at the same time he felt like he was having a panic attack. Which might have been the case but it was impossible to tell because Jacques was lost in moving inside of him and being milked by Jon’s insides and neither of them was all that concentrated on each other anymore. They were inside of their own heads, both chasing a high. Jon could tell from how Jacques’s movements stuttered and from the cadence of his whines that he was on the cusp of coming. Jon thought he was going to come too. At least his heart was beating way too fast and he was lightheaded and kind of feeling sick and still moving because it felt good and this was Jacques and not some stranger or Caleb.

A completely foreign high-pitched sound ripped from the pit of Jon’s stomach. Jacques let out a startled bark just as he came and Jon also spilled himself all over his own and Jacques’s happytrails.

Jacques came down from the high so fast it nearly gave him whiplash. ”Jon! Are you okay? Did I hurt you?” He tried to get Jon to look at him, but Jon was gripping his hands into fists, one over his stomach, another over his chest, and breathing with quick winded intakes while refusing to open his eyes. ”Jon!” Jacques felt a spike of genuine alarm. He remembered what Jon said about a panic attack and quickly got off him to get a cold compression and pressed it against Jon’s cheek.

Jon immediately clasped the cold compression. It shocked his system to have something so freezing against himself all of a sudden and Jon crashed back into his own body, into the moment where Jacques was looking at him with such care and concern, and Jon was trembling and breathing way too fast to be good.

Slowly, Jon started controlling his breaths. He held onto Jacques to prevent the other from moving away from him, so he had Jacques’s hand splayed against his chest and the cold compression against his cheek. Jon’s heart hurt. It was beating so fast but calming down bit by bit as Jon breathed evenly.

”Jesssussss fucking Chrissst!” Jon whizzled from between his fangs when he felt less like detaching from his own body and more like he was a real live person with a working mind.

”What the hell just happened?” Jacques gave a nervous little laugh and a wobbly grin. ”Did you actually have a panic attack while cumming?”

”I don’t know.” Jon let the freckled hand finally go to rub his eyelids which felt heavy and sensitive. ”But holy shit, now I’m really, actually, legitemately tired. It feels like I got fucked by the most handsome bastard in existence and then got immediately run over by a whole-ass train.”

”Are you okay?”

”You’ve been asking that.” Jon held his palms over his face to shield himself from the world and also to just take a moment to center himself without someone’s concerned face so close to him. ”I don’t know what to answer to be perfectly honest. It feels like a lot of stuff has been happening in such a short span of time.”

”To be fair, you have had an insane year so far. Absolutely ludicrous.”

”It hasn’t even been a year?” Jon finally looked back at Jacques, at that lovely flushed face framed by long ruffled red hair it was a pleasure to pull at, and felt a little better about everything. ”That’s insane. I feel like I’ve been this person for my whole life.”

”Yeah, you have.” Jacques smirked, one side quirking up more than the other as he carefully joked.

Jon wondered if that was actually true. If somehow he and the original Jon Helsteen were actually the same person but in two different realities. If somehow he has been both Jons and never knew it before becoming a part of this horny story his ex wrote when he was a teen.

Utterly drained, Jon abandoned all thoughts and just took a moment to cuddle with his boyfriend. Jacques calmed down as he was allowed to tend to Jon and satisfy his inner alpha’s need to protect and provide. Jon let Jacques give him sugary sports drinks, feed him snacks from the mini-fridge and bundle him up like a little kitten, all the while listening to Jacques purr uncontrollably as his most basic needs were being fulfilled.

When Jacques drifted off to sleep with a slight sheen of rut-hot sweat on his temples, Jon tiptoed out in his rumpled pilot outfit, aching deep in his hips. It was good. It helped ground Jon as he wandered halls back to the main lobby to ask for his parents and then followed the staff’s directions to the other end of the hospital.

Jon was endlessly tired but refused to collapse despite his mind and body both screaming at him to just stop in place. He had to see his parents.

There were rooms full of people injured by the alien attack, and Jon’s mother’s room was filled with people too, deprived of all privacy. Amelia Helsteen turned her head with a furrow of her brows as Jon entered behind the thin privacy curtain. Jon’s breath hitched in alarm. His mother’s head was wrapped tightly in layers of gauze, brown curls spilling out here and there from the holes of the cloth. She looked odd laying there in her fancy suit-jacket – dressed for opulence but covered in grime.

Amelia blinked slowly and then held her hand up.

Jon surged forward to grasp the small pale hand in his.

Amelia took several breaths as if processing words was difficult. Perhaps it was. She’d taken quite the fall apparently from the VIP booth, hitting her head on impact from several meters down. “I have… a severe concussion.” She swallowed hard, red-rimmed lids shuttering. “Also, a dislocated shoulder and a deep cut in the back of my head.” She huffed with a degree of dry amusement at Jon’s twisted, teary expression. “So, I’m faring a lot better than most of the others here.” Her expression softened then and she detached their held hands to caress her son’s flushed cheek instead. “Don’t cry, my dear. I will be fine. I just need… plenty of rest... and some help at home. Hopefully the concussion hasn’t done any permanent damage.”

“Yeah.” Jon swallowed thickly, an anxious lump trying to prevent him from breathing. “What about… dad?”

Amelia’s expression turned pained and she hissed as she adjusted herself, tiny fangs peeking out. “Tavvy is… he’s in… emergency surgery.”

A tinny whine punched out of Jon’s chest.

“His back… I don’t remember much since I was all weird from the lack of oxygen and the hit to my head… when they told me… but…” Amelia tried her best to collect her memory from when they pressed the oxygen mask to her face in that very same bed as she frantically asked after her mate. “He protected me from the collapsed debris. And it… fucked up his back.” She gritted her teeth, her senses trying to reach her mated pair but unable to do so. “He is strong, so they’re optimistic. But we’ll have to wait and see.”

“Okay,” Jon simply answered and they sat there in silence for a long time, until Jon noticed himself nodding off nearly on his feet and lifted his head to see his mother had drifted off to deep sleep.

Jon detached himself carefully from his mother’s hold, laying her hands over her stomach on the scratchy blanket, and wandered out of the hospital. He squinted his eyes at the harsh morning light. It had been a very, very long day for everyone. Jon wondered if he should just go home to Jacques’s place or the hotel room. If the hotel still was in working condition after everything.

‘Oh, wait’, he realized after a while of staring into space. ‘Percy. What happened to Percy?’

He returned to the crushed Battle Arena with heavy feet, walking like a zombie, asking the people milling about for directions. He eventually got in touch with a soldier who told him that Percy had just been called in by his mother the General. A warning prickle went through Jon’s whole frame and suddenly, his brain was on fire. He was bombarded with the booming memories of his father, of hiding from him in the bathroom after getting hit by a beer bottle, of attempting to hit the man back when Jon got suspended for punching a lawyer’s kid… Jon remembered vividly Percy returning all of a sudden back to Jacques’s house with a wound on his face and excuses for why and how his mother had given it to him.

People gave Jon a wide berth as he cut through them towards the conference room Eleanore Dawnmoore had commandeered for herself in the midst of the disaster. A shrill growl like a chainsaw revving ripped from Jon’s throat, rattling his rib-cage. The sudden spike of violent adrenaline laced with the sleep-deprived brain made Jon’s vision tunnel and ears hum so loud he could barely make out the warnings other people around him tried to make as Jon came busting into the conference room, just in time to see the General cracking the back of her hand across Percy’s tawny face.

“How dare you embarrass your Empire like this?!” The General had an odd, near hysteric look to her, pupils tiny and breaths ragged and stance wide. “How dare you get saved live on stream by the Frost Empire’s prince-soldier?!”

Jon full-body jerked when Percy didn’t even dodge the next hit to his face, just standing there with a curled back like a fearful dog in front of an angry master.

“I’m sorry,” Percy said, for some godawful reason. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“Is your head good for nothing more than getting fucked by alphas now?!” The General sneered with genuine hatred, raised her hand again, but caught Jon’s teeth instead when the young alpha shrieked in rage and jumped forward.

The surprise attack was ridiculously effective. The older alpha, a leader of her people, clearly had not had anyone challenge her physically like that in a long time. She balked as Jon clung to her hand and shook his head around in order to slice the flesh with his teeth. He wanted her skin. He wanted her fingers. He wanted to rip that horrible, abusive hand off so it could never again hurt anyone.

“Jon?!” Percy squeaked, startled.

The General got her wits back about her and bared her impressive set of teeth. “Insolent child!”

Jon choked sudden and vicious as a hard knee rammed right into his diaphragm. His long fangs slipped off as he was forced to fold in two. They left ravenous lines down a strong hand. A hand that immediately flew forward to take a fistful of dyed blue hair, so the General could knee with her other leg Jon in the face.

Jon barked out a bitter, wounded sound when the cartilage of his nose cracked. Blood burst forward. He gasped with a delirious grin: he was getting his nose busted a lot these days. It would be crooked soon from all the hits, yet another proof on his body for the violence he’d been born into, shaped by.

“Stop!” Percy screamed as red-hot alarm filled his whole body. He’d never had her mother hurt anyone but him like this before his eyes. He’d never seen the direction of her violence aimed at someone else. He was used to taking the brunt himself like a good, sturdy soldier – the way he’d been taught – but not seeing someone he cared immensely about be beat down like some rabid animal. “Stop! Stop! Stop!!” he cried desperately as he got in between them, holding his mother’s shoulders. “Don’t hurt him!”

“He is my soldier!” The General bellowed, towering over both of the men, reeking of out of control, toxic alpha pheromones. “You are my son and my soldier! I own both of you!”

Jon expelled blood from his clogged up nose with a single harsh breath and rammed against Percy’s back, clawing around him to get at the woman threatening his own goddamn child! “You are a poor excuse of a mother and a useless bitch of a ruler!!”

The General reeled back at the words challenging her. The young alpha was doing nothing but challenging her unquestioned authority, her position as the head of her family pack and her position as the head of the much larger, society of a pack. For the first time in a long time, General Eleanore Dawnmoore felt the sharp sting of shame as the virile young alpha came for her everything. “Shut your mouth!” she tried barking back, but had not the same fury, the same hurt and the same determination as Jon did.

Jon dug his claws deep into the woman’s strong back muscles, feeling them flex in pain. “You are not fit to protect anything! You should be in jail for all you’ve done to Percy!” he hollered blindly, whole body shaking as the image of his own father superimposed itself on the General through his exhausted mind. “I will never forgive you! Not for what you’ve done! Not for what you’ve said! I’ll never…” Tears spilled out hot and further blurring the already tunneled vision at the end of which his own father stood. “… FORGIVE YOU!”

“Jon!” Percy had the bare minimum time to glance over his shoulder, when he was suddenly bunted in the middle of his face by his own mother, then pushed back by a military boot by his middle. Both young men sprawled back on the floor, one on top of the other.

Blood oozed from the General’s hand and back. Her face was a sick, inflamed red, her stench acid and sulfur, the explosion of a volcano, covering the entire room with the darkness of soot.

Percy was frozen by the immense weight of the pack alpha’s presence bearing down on him. Jon laid underneath him, breathing through his mouth, salt of his tears stinging his eyes. It felt like they were going to die. Like this was a snapping point for the larger than life alpha.

And it may have been, when suddenly the door was crashed open again, and two figures stood there by the light let in through the hallway.

“What an ugly sight,” Prince Commander Silvarium Ruiz snorted, dreadlocks spilling down his back, the shaved sides of his head glistening with the moistness of sweat. His winter-camouflage pilot outfit was full of metal-rimmed circles, marking the inhuman amount of spots for a mecha A.I to connect to. There were blood on some of those holes, marking a violent, rushed detachment from the machine. Silva had ran over at the wake of merely hearing through the comms the General call for her son. The sound of it had been dangerous and would have reeked with toxic alpha pheromones if Silva could have smelled it. He was unfortunately very familiar with the offending stench: from his own family and posturing soldiers challenging the very young alpha’s authority in the Frost Empire military bases.

Beside the Prince, a rather odd chubby little figure stood in a disheveled yet immaculate pastel suit. “Indeed.” The omega man chuckled, cold light glinting in his emerald green eyes. His face had streaks of dirt and ash on them, marking him as one of the survivors of the recent alien invasion. “A pathetic excuse of an alpha clinging to the remnants of her power through sheer domestic violence.”

Jon was utterly stunned, not just from the Prince appearing, but the clearly civilian man standing there like he owned the place. Not to mention how extremely familiar he looked: the omega’s hair was a shocking red, cut short and greased back from a freckled face where a confident smirk sliced an opening. A luxurious feather boa hugged the frame seductively cinched by the waist into an hourglass shape. There was just an air of owning the room, the world, about the omega which shocked even the General into stillness with how out of place it was in front of all these alphas clustering the room.

Jon took in a hasty breath, blood burning his nose. The coppery smell was immediately washed away by the clarity of a prickly forest filled with marshes, berries and wildlife. In his mind’s eye, Jon could see a deer skirting through the trees, moving with uncanny seduction, then transforming into a nymph, laughing at the viewer mirthfully, inviting them to a chase that they would undoubtedly always lose. Jon was shook to his very core with a shameful hint of arousal, which was enough to shock him out of his furious stupor. “Wh-who…?”

“You!” The General tsk’d, face full of ugly sneering wrinkles.

“What a picture you paint, dear Eleanore,” the red-head omega smiled despite the situation. His fresh, earthy scent was like a balm to the room full of horrible, domineering alpha pheromones. Despite being omega, the man’s own scent took over the room, washing the alphas with cajoling and tittering and rather embarrassing need to please. “The media will be having a field-day with this one! Oh, yes, we will!”

“Pompous whore!” The General’s words cracked like a punch to the glass, but the omega’s smile merely widened with glee, as if he were not a pretty vase in front of a charging bull.

“Careful now! You may own the military and means of weapon production, Eleanore. But I…” A strange illusion of being completely overshadowed by this small man came over everyone in the room as his pleasant smell filled their lungs and made their home there. The omega grinned viciously with his sweet, tiny fangs. “I own the media! The word is what I say and what I say is ‘the current General’s time is over’!”

“You…! You, you, you…!” The General seemed to funny enough be at a loss for words with how mindlessly furious she was.

“Our Empire simply adores its protectors! Especially their sweet little military prince!” The omega leaned over, making himself physically smaller yet otherwise even bigger, all-encompassing. “And seeing this evidence of abuse of power and abuse just in general will be quite the blow to your reputation.”

“I…!” The General ripped at her brown hair, jittery, at her wits end. It was odd. It was like she was constantly on edge and unable to stop. Like this anger was now just her default setting. Like it was always there, underneath.

‘Like I have’, Jon thought, allowing Percy to curl protectively around him and dab his nosebleed with his sleeve. ‘Like dad did’.

"I’m… the one in control! I keep things in control! You need me!”

Silva looked on in blatant disgust. “You’re out of your mind, alpha! I can smell the rot of your scent all the way here through the calming omega pheromones! This is… this is just the state of your mind, isn’t it? You’ve succumbed to excessive domination disorder.”

EDD or excessive domination disorder as it was so kindly called, was a state of mind which everyone was informed about in sex ed as they started presenting. It was basically a state in which an alpha’s natural hormone production was in accelerated state at all times akin to a rut, due to excess amounts of continuous stress. Also known as “going feral”. The natural need to protect and dominate turned on its head and inside out, perverting itself into a state where the alpha was constantly in high alert, constantly assessing and seeking threats, thus turning often against their own people. They were basically unable to discern between friend and foe, viewing everyone as a hindrance and danger to themself and their pack. Even their own pack-members. Which was obviously not an ideal state for a leader of any kind to have. Especially one of a powerful military Empire.

“You have no proof!” The General seethed, but the omega man cut in again slyly:

“With this footage you will be forced to go through close examination for a case of EDD. Even if you fudge it, as I’m sure you will try like any leader clinging to their power, I will make sure one way or another that the people will know.” He grinned with clear relish. “Alphas like you… I despise the most, my dear Eleanore! I cannot just allow you to run amok. No one will trust you anymore. Only your blind, loyal followers will allow themselves to be bossed around by you, until they experience your violence first hand, and they realize that the cheetah actually will eat their face too.”

The General suddenly flew forward with all her teeth and claws out, spittle flying, making Jon wrap around Percy to shield him with his body, when Silva ducked low and rammed his mechanic prosthetic leg right into the General’s guts.

Percy gasped, clearly distressed to see his mother like this and beat around, but Jon just held him tighter, refusing to let Percy once again get up to protect this horrible parental figure. “It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay,” Jon murmured into Percy’s thick black hair, crooning sadly at the sickly smell of fear and grief clinging to his boyfriend.

“Everything is broken!” Percy exclaimed in a brittle little voice while clawing at Jon’s pilot outfit. “I broke everything.”

“Shut up!” Jon exclaimed a little too harshly, but unable to contain his anger. “You did nothing wrong! You broke nothing. She broke everything!”

“As the most dominant alpha present…” Silva crouched low to the ground, hands at ready to grapple as he observed the older alpha leader. “… I will take this fight. If this means breaking peace-time between our Empires, I will also take the sole blame for my family. The peace will keep on going. I will not allow war when there is no reason for one.”

“Now, that’s a real alpha,” the omega grinned, stance wide and guarded as if he himself was ready to fight with his small and soft frame against this hulking mass of a woman.

The General let out an eardrum-rattling roar, pupils near nonexistent slits as she was faced with an alpha directly challenging her for her position as the most dominant alpha in the room. Her scent surged forward with her body, attacking the Frost Empire prince with a stench of all-consuming fire burning the nose and lungs.

Silva expelled the scent with a harsh huff through his teeth.

Jon’s already omega-induced arousal spiked even further when he was suddenly hit face-first with a scent fresh and clear like a raging blizzard over a thick field of ice, putting out the raging fire. Percy tensed in his boyfriend’s hold, letting out a sound of confusion as his body also prickled with natural interest. The two alphas’ eyes tracked the dark body flexing underneath the sleek bodysuit. With every breath taken, Silva’s ample chest heaved and his stomach tightened into a hard board underneath the softness usually hiding it. His sturdy, wide body crouched low, mechanical limbs whirring underneath cloth, and Jon and Percy watched in stunned awe as an extremely finely honed and calculated leg-sweep made the General stumble. Silva’s light brown eyes flashed not with hatred or anger, but merely stern, serious intent, as he grabbed the arm flying forward to stabilize the woman’s body, and Silva pulled her harshly to him by it. The General was clearly unused to hand-to-hand combat as a high-ranking commander acting more as a voice commanding her troops than an active combatant herself. Silva, fresh from countless battles, flicked his dreads over his shoulder with a casual swing of his head, locked the out of control alpha’s arm with his leg and thrust his hips and arms in the opposite direction. A crack resounded in the room.

Percy winced, despite his instincts humming contently at the sight of a powerful, friendly and appealing alpha stepping up to aid him. It was a confusing state of mind for him: one split between worrying for his mother despite everything and being busy taking in every single move Silva made and committing it to memory.

Jon crooned quietly behind viciously grinning fangs. ‘Good alpha. Protector. Leader. Warrior.’

Silva didn’t let the General take a breath between breaking her arm and steadying herself. He stomped on the already injured hand steadying the woman, where long fangs had raked nasty lines, took a wide stance, crammed his thigh underneath the General’s stomach and hit her right on the spine as hard as he could give.

The General’s eyes rolled in breath-taking pain. All air punched out of her and she felt an agony shoot up the whole length of her spine akin to a steel-rod piercing the whole length of her body. She was foaming at the mouth, white and pasty, instincts refusing to give up, even though she was losing consciousness.

Silva sealed the deal by stomping on her head with his mechanical leg.

Percy let out a sharp cry like a dying animal.

Jon immediately sobered to shush and pet him as the General went finally unconscious.

Silva also was alerted by the profoundly sad sound as if watching someone die, and quickly let his oppressive scent dissolve. He went down on one knee and fist, prostrating himself in surrender and making himself smaller in front of the distressed alpha he cared for, and hurried to explain: “She’s merely unconscious! I made sure not to damage her spine or brain with the strikes more than was needed to make her stop moving. I prioritized immobilizing her and it may have been overtly violent as I was worried for your well-being.” Silva bowed his head, dreadlocks spilling to show the shaved skin of his neck, a vulnerable spot. “I’m sorry, alpha. I have caused you more distress in my haste and anger.”

Jon looked to Percy who’s head was tucked tightly underneath his jaw.

Percy’s claws caught on Jon’s black pilot outfit, kneading the other’s flesh in an attempt to calm down. His mind was still attempting to console between two warring sides. He was glad that the moment of violence was over, but anxious because he knew for a fact that the footage of his bruises, Jon’s broken nose and the General acting like a wild animal foaming at the mouth – literally – was going to be all over the news and social media very soon. He was going to lose his family, his normalcy. It was his fault, in his own mind. He couldn’t reason out of it: he was a son and a soldier and he failed to follow instructions and take the punishments of his mother and commander. He broke his family. What would his beta mom say? How would she look at Percy, knowing that it was him who let everything come crashing down on them? Where would they go now that the house would be empty of mother’s presence? Who would lead the Empire? Who would the soldiers look to for security and instructions in these dark times?

Everything was happening way too fast for Percy all of a sudden. His own brain was overloading itself with the stress of the immediate future, with the knowledge that he was supposed to step up and lead, birth a leader out of the soldier he was. Birth a ruling alpha for both his home and Empire from the simple, mecha-loving warrior he’d been molded into by his parents and his very own nature.

“Percy?” Jon murmured, scenting the spiking stressed out scent of the desert and a dark, dark night sky.

Percy trembled hard as both his mind and body overloaded. He was crashing down. ‘Autism breakdown’, Percy’s mind supplied clinically despite not having the diagnosis – not getting to have it because he was supposed to be a perfect son, perfect soldier, perfect legacy. And he was not. He’d broken everything. He was not perfect, even though he’d tried so hard to be, to please for all these years. “I… I… I…” Words felt impossible, bent out of shape. Percy bit his own tongue in an attempt to get them out. “I’m… shutting… down…” Spoken like a machine, like an A.I, but that was comforting for Percy. He loved machines. Felt kinship with their natural adherence to rules and clear-cut instructions, expectations. So, he simply let himself imagine himself like that: he became his very own mecha, dear Wanderer, cradled in a hangar by experienced hands ready to fix it. “I need… to call… campus… therapist.”

“Dr. Bouchard? Hold up,” Jon patted himself down for a cellphone, found the thin malleable piece of plastic and glass sheet, and handed it over to his boyfriend.

Percy moved with uncanny angular twitches as if imitating some sort of machinery.

Jon held him, trying not to eavesdrop the call as Percy left a voice-message, and turned to observe the others moving about the room.

Silva was handing out instructions to foreign soldiers like he belonged in that room, commanding the General’s troops. Every single soldier could smell the foulness of their leader’s stench, not to mention see the foam slipping down her chin onto the floor, making a sorry image out of the once glorious and towering woman. She was being dragged away for a medical inspection, hopefully a proper one that wouldn’t be simply erased from records to get the woman back in power.

Jon held Percy closer, protectively, leaning his cheek against the top of the other’s head. When he glanced to the side however, he was startled to notice a certain red-headed omega crouching down close to them with a wide smile on his face. “Hi?” Jon exclaimed in high-pitched, profoundly baffled tone.

“You’re Jon Helsteen, aren’t you?”

“Yeah…?” Jon felt intimidated by the smile widening slowly across the older man’s face. The smile-lines carved into the corners of those mischievous, beautiful eyes would have been disarming if not for the absolutely predatory feel the omega gave off seemingly naturally.

“I knew it!” The omega clapped his hands together gleefully. “Oh, I just absolutely loved that picture of you with the blue hair and scars on the balcony of your mansion when you were under house-arrest! I knew I was going to like you the moment I saw that,” he chuckled and extended a hand to shake. “Hi! I’m Florenz Rayne. Jack’s dad. Birth-dad,” he clarified with a playful roll of his eyes. “Eight kids and I still look to die for! Can you believe it?”

“Uhh…”

“This body still racks up quite the sum on HeatBuddy. Dad-bod truly sells!” He got up to stretch to his full-height – which wasn’t much – and struck a coquettish pose which accentuated his cinched hourglass shape in the rumpled pastel suit. The omega – Florenz Rayne – was spattered with dirt and ash from the collapse of the Battle Arena yet standing there, bathed by the golden winter morning light like he was Venus herself emerging from the sea-foam.

Several soldiers milling about eyed him with wide puppy-like expressions. They’d be wagging their tails if they could. Jon was blown-away by all this, not to mention extremely amused.

“You are…” he tried to put into words how a flamboyant middle-aged man like Florenz Rayne would have definitely been on a poster under Jon’s bed in his previous life, but finished instead with: “… one of a kind treasure, aren’t you.”

“Thank you, dear.” Florenz winked with good humor and crouched again by the two young alphas. “How are you hanging on there, Percy? Do you need anything from me? As a media emperor, an acquaintance or just as an omega?”

“H-how’s… Jack?” Percy forced out of his still shaking body, monolid eyes narrowing as he tried to not space out completely.

“Going through a terrible stress-rut but he got some help with that.”

Jon found himself blushing hard when Florenz glanced his way with clear meaning. Had Jack told his dad about that or had the man just, like, smelled all those lingering sweat and cum stains of the alpha on Jon?!

“Is this… all… going to be… public?”

Florenz became serious at that. A professional in his field and a veteran in life. “I’m sorry to use this footage but we have to get the proof of your mother operating with EDD out to the people. It’s extremely dangerous for everyone out there directly under the General and just passing by on the streets with a leader holding codes to several nukes and grade S battle mecha having a constant feral state going on.”

“I… see…”

Florenz’s expression softened a tad but he held firm. “I’m truly sorry it has come to this. Airing out dirty family laundry is never easy. But this footage will help countless people before it’s too late. This Empire needs a stable ruler. And you need a stable parent.”

Percy said nothing to that. His eyes glazed over and he merely let himself lean his full-weight on Jon, surrendering to his very own alpha to do with him as he pleased.

Jon embraced Percy firmly, instincts howling for him to protect Percy from everyone and everything in this extremely vulnerable state.

Silva and Florenz flanked the two as they exited the conference room and eventually the building. Jon had decided to bring Percy to Jacques’s place where he could be in a familiar and safe environment where nothing reminded him of his abusive mother. Jon felt warmed by the omega and other alpha acting like bodyguards on either side of him, then cold when he caught sight of Eleanore Dawnmoore spitting and hissing, barely coherent from getting hit so hard by Silva. Yet still apparently tough enough to come back to the moment.

Silva sneered at the woman clamoring to get the medics off her in the ambulance. “She’s still going? I thought I gave her a good one but apparently I was still too soft.”

“Mother…?” Percy stirred in Jon’s arms, but Jon tucked him more firmly against himself.

“Don’t look. She’s… not doing good.” That was an understatement. The woman was clearly raving mad from having lost to another alpha on her turf.

The General’s deadly claws dug into the doors of the ambulance, when she suddenly spotted someone in the crowd gawking at her.

Jon and the others followed her gaze.

Fiona Dawnmoore was standing in her charcoal gray suit separated from everyone around her like a lone rain cloud braving the clear skies. She was watching her wife and mate with a detached sort of expression, resigned and exhausted as if the weight of everything their small family had been through for all these years had finally come crashing down on her.

Percy’s eyes flitted to his beta parent. “Mom…”

Fiona inclined her head and that’s when the General snapped:

“You fucking witch!” she hollered, foam dripping down thick and off-white the peerless green military suit. Ruining it, the way she’d ruined her family, her people, herself. “It was you! You called that whore here! You betrayed me!!”

Fiona pursed her lightly painted lips and held her tongue. She merely met eyes with a couple of medics and nodded her confirmation. The medics began again to force the feral alpha into the ambulance. One of them pricked the raging General with a needle to get her to stop hurting the staff just trying to do their job for the safety of everyone present, but it didn’t seem to work. Eleanore was calling out vile things after her wife as she walked with small steps to their son as if ashamed. Eleanore caught sight of Percy again and started screaming:

“You are my son! My product! I made you! Everything you are and will ever be are because of me! Because I made you this person! Don’t you forget that, Percival! You are my son! Mine!”

Percy stared at the ground with a completely empty look, shaking anew from the sheer mass of stress accumulating within him.

Silva bared his teeth and stepped in front of the two alphas while Florenz took a hold of Fiona’s arm gently but firmly. Jon however, sidestepped Silva, took a wide stance with Percy in his arms and gathered all his breath to unleash a mighty bellow.

Everything went silent and stock-still. The sound emanating from the young man with shocking blue hair and insane scarring on his face was filled to the brim with years and years of terror and wrath and grief, and he was letting it out into the world, screaming it back at the feral alpha, who was staring at him with an open, alert expression.

Silva’s ears rung from the brave yet fragile sound, and he felt tears at the corners of his eyes, begging to be let free because that sound carried just so much weight with it. His heart felt heavy with it and he closed his eyes and locked his stance to bear the entirety of it without breaking down himself.

Florenz and Fiona on the other hand didn’t fare as well. They weren’t as mentally and physically trained to bear such a large emotional load and their knees buckled beneath them. Florenz just barely held them both up, gritting his teeth and openly weeping from all the pain he could hear in the cry.

Percy took a huge breath as if his lungs had finally unlocked themselves and he was able to breath, able to make a proper sound. He felt electrified, goosebumps all over his body, and he mimicked his alpha’s, his pack alpha’s cry with one of his own, letting out a lonely, much more gentle sound, howling out a single note for everything he’d been bottling up, every single emotion he, a perfect child and soldier, wasn’t supposed to experience or show.

Fiona cried at this, tears spilling freely. She felt her child’s pain and held back her own howl, because her sounds had been killed off years ago, a little after Percy had been born. When she’d understood why exactly the General had married a beta and not an omega. Why she’d chosen her, a clearly autistic woman with little defense against stress.

The people watched this, took this in, and wanted to howl themselves all their own pains out. Silva listened to the starting of howls with even breaths, respecting this display that wasn’t for him.

That morning, the whole city was alight with life and sound like a cry for battle, as the Empire’s main fractured pillar fell.

...

Outside of planet Earth’s swirling clouds and churning waters, the Moon made its meticulous rounds, carrying tiny lumbering blobs at its back. In the darkness of the Moon, burrowed deep underground, creatures with round pale and purplish bodies pulled themselves around by their tentacles, tending to their young. Their young that were incubating within bulbous masses of flesh folding themselves like orchid flowers, layers peeling away as the young outgrew their pods. One of the pale creatures with no eyes meandered forward in the tunnels, stopped by a flowering pod and unfolded its mouths. It opened truly like a flower facing the sun, peeling away its own layers of teeth within teeth, showing its vulnerable poisounous purple insides. Within was a standard mecha’s chest chassis. The creature vomited it out, crunched the chassis until the human pilot within – already dead due to lack of oxygen – was just a pasty mess, then gathered it and fed the mess to one of the young.

This fleshy pod was larger than others. It was the most well-tended to, the furthest ahead in its progress since the creatures arrived on the Moon. They’d managed to get some subjects to further enhance their own genetic line, and the proof of that, of their glorious evolution, was awaiting within the pod, curled into a fetal position.

The being within the slurry of sickly pink liquid was fed by the pod’s tendrils burrowed straight into its stomach. The being had fur growing from its head, a long, dark curly mess, and surprisingly humanoid features. The Frost Empire’s emblem was still on the suit the being sported, a bright orange snowflake over winter camouflage patterning. The being’s lungs worked through the slurry, filtering in and out blood and viscera that fell away from it as it continued to grow and change from its first, fragile form of a pale round creature with no eyes or teeth, burrowed under the ribcage of a dark human male. The two beings had merged seamlessly, long thin teeth peeking underneath lips, tendrils swishing like tails as the being slumbered, uncomfortably long claws twitching, dreaming of hunting and consuming and sunlight reflecting off seemingly endless expanses of snow on a planet with only one Moon.

Chapter Text

Chapter 20: Flock guardian dog mentality

Jon and Percy basically locked themselves into Jacques’s angular modern white house and spend their days anxiously waiting on news of their parents snacking on frozen pizza, bagels Jacques had baked before their departure to the friendship games in the Battle Arena, and soda they had stashed for their ruts by the gallons. They slept in Jacques’s room, curled up together in a nest of pillows and blankets and their missing partner and friend’s dirty shirt from the hamper tucked between them. Jon couldn’t help but worry when Percy couldn’t even get out of the bed the first few days, sleeping way more than was normal for him, and getting tired early during his morning exercise routines. They adjusted, despite Percy clearly feeling annoyed at having to change his routine to match his exhausted state. He spent a lot of his waking time sketching mecha ideas, making finishing touches on Jon’s future mecha while Jon binge watched this world’s version of Twin Peaks, noting with interest that it was the exact same except with omegaverse dynamics.

Jacques’s return was like a balm to their tender hearts. Jon and Percy kept milling about, nosing into Jacques’s glands, vying for attention and attempting to take over some of Jacques’s favorite pack duties. Jacques, however, stubbornly refused to let go of being in charge of the kitchen as feeding the others made him feel calm and fulfilled while his various bruises and cuts healed up. Honestly, now that the rut was gone, it was like Percy was in a worse state of health than Jacques who had taken a more physical and serious beating.

The media was going crazy over the results of General Eleanore Dawmoore’s EDD tests. Her feral state was highly debated in talk shows and on forums, people spitting back and forth, politics shifting and allegiances changing so fast that it was hard to keep up.

Percy suffered the most in this political turmoil. He was a Dawnmoore. The only heir. Thus, he was expected to take up the mantel of the General and leader of the Empire from his ailing and raving mother.
It wasn’t so simple, of course. People were openly questioning and analyzing Percy’s own state of mind for possibility of latent feral state, by-standers picking apart footage of their hero and screaming in both support and defiance. It was like the Empire was trying to split in two with the fall of their once stable and seemingly all-powerful leader.

Percy grew terrified to go outside. The media was on his tail, hounding him for answers, knocking on their door and filling Percy’s phone with so many notifications that just the vibration of the thing set the alpha on edge.

While Jacques concentrated on helping Percy relax and forget about the whole mess outside their home like a normal person, Jon concentrated on being an idiot and patrolling their home and the area around it like a crazy person. The journalists were getting a little freaked out by him advancing on them in his combat boots and baggy hoodie, hair all messed up, Joker-like facial scars and expression set into a bloodthirsty grimace. Jon found himself instinctively spitting and growling at the strangers invading their personal space and harassing his boyfriend, brain red-hot with the insistent thought that these people were on their territory and needed to be chased out. Jon felt like a flock guardian dog, angry and malicious but leashed and caring to his flock that needed him to protect them. Jon leaned into the feeling, letting out serrated growls when strangers got too close to their house. It resulted in some pretty unhinged looking pictures of him on social media but several familiar people liked them, so Jon didn’t give a crap.

In the wake of the alien attack, the trio was also expected to schedule with the IMFA campus therapist, Dr. Bouchard. Which Jon was sort of, kind of avoiding because everyone else surely needed the time with the keen-eyed beta more than Jon. He was fine! So fine in fact that he found himself occasionally staring at a random spot in the room because the world didn’t feel quite real and he was imagining two faceless crushed parents cuddling a dead ashy-skinned baby in a pile of rubble. Perfectly fine and normal for a young pilot after their first time on an actual battlefield!

Of course, his boyfriends caught onto him pretty quick because they had to share a space with their crazy guard dog alpha.

“Jon, you can’t keep avoiding meeting up with our campus therapist!” Jacques scolded while kneading dough in the kitchen with violent movements. “They won’t let you back on the field until they’re sure that you are of a stable mind. It’s a requirement for any soldier, but more so for students of the IMFA!”

“I like Dr. Bouchard,” Percy commented from the sofa where he and Jon were entangled together, watching some kind of documentary of early stage artificial intelligence development. “He lets me sit under the desk when I don’t feel like being seen in our sessions.”

Jon let out a frustrated growl against Percy’s chest. He was not taking his eyes of the giant screen. “I’m fine! I need to be here. They’re out there.”

“Who?” Jacques wondered with a quirk of a brow. “The media? Our neighbors?”

“All the paparazzi and journalists and whatnot, of course!” Jon growled even louder, until Percy’s hand came up to rake fingers through his blue hair. “I’m so on edge I just want to get on all fours and start biting their shins until I feel bone crack under the skin!”

“This is nuts,” Jacques declared as he smacked the dough on the counter. “You’re acting crazy.”

“You’re acting like a pack alpha,” Percy corrected, crooning into his boyfriend’s ear.

“What?”

“Really?” Jon lifted his head to look at Percy, confused. “But I’m not doing anything!”

“You’re patrolling our territory on high alert because of your pack mates’ injuries and breakdown.” Percy fluttered his lashes, talking as if all of this was self-explanatory. “You’re exhibiting pack alpha behavior. Since neither me or Jacques are rising up to fulfilling the role, you’ve taken it upon yourself to do it, whether you consciously realize it or not.”

Jacques looked up, offended. “What do you mean I haven’t done anything to fulfill the role? I provide for you guys shelter and food and fight for you all the time!”

Percy kept petting Jon, fisting the dyed blue strands and pinching the scalp a bit. “We’re all doing our part for our pack, but Jon is clearly growing into the role. He has the mentality of a pack leader, a protector and a leader.”

“I have the mentality of a flock guardian dog,” Jon snorted, to which the others chuckled in amusement. After silence stretched and the documentary and Jacques’s brutal kneading kept going, Jon huffed. “Fine. I’ll schedule a session with Dr. Bouchard. But you guys better inform me if some jackasses try to bother you guys! I’ll come running.”

…

”Welcome back, Jon.” Dr. William Bouchard looked exactly the same as ever: a shrewd beta with gold-rimmed glasses and long, slim fingers spinning a pen around. Bouchard’s sharp nose took in his client’s honey and camellia scent, losing himself for a moment in a strong mental image conjured by his extremely keen senses: there was that teacup again in his mind, cracked even further if possible, ready to splinter. There was, however, some gold in the porcelain this time. Kintsugi – a broken cup glued back together with gold. Beauty in the scars born of living a rough life.

Bouchard tapped the pen on the side of his tablet where Jon’s past session information was displayed. He tilted his head, coming out of the mental image back into the moment. ”You’v experienced some changes since we’ve last seen each other. Both healing and breaking.”

”Yeah, well…” Jon hugged his knees against his chest, curling into a small defensive armadillo in order to physically deflect the searching gaze seemingly flaying him open like a roasted fish. ”It was my first time in actual combat. I saw some pretty… rough stuff.” A couple and their baby. Ashes and debris. His mother lying in the hospital bed, pale and luxurious hair spilling out from between heavy bandaging. His father, in and out of surgeries, clinging to life, seen only through windows, unable to be there by his side. ”Death. Injuries. Destruction…”

Bouchard nodded empathetically, encouraging silently for Jon to continue.

”It was my first time actually seeing dead people. I mean…” Jon shivered, remembering the news of wars in his previous world, bodies wrapped in dirty cloths and warnings of disturbing material said by monotone, empty voices. ”I’ve seen death before, but always remotely. It hasn’t touched me. Not like this. This time, I was right there, within touching distance of a couple and their child suffocated by the fires in the aftermath of the alien invasion.” Jon’s claws curled into his palms, threathening to cut skin in his frustration, protective insincts flaring. ”I may have been able to save them if I was better. If… If I could have done more… been more… been… better,” he finished with a murmur barely heard. Jon was supposed to be so much better in this new life. He was supposed to become a good person. He needed to do more. He needed to.

An image of his broad, serious father diminished into a frail, lifeless thing on a sterile bed surrounded by beeping machines and showed full of tubes burned Jon’s synapses. Where was Jon when his parents were getting crushed? Where was he? He couldn’t remember. It was all becoming a blur. The whole attack. A maelstrom of pure instinct, violence and rancid purple fluids spilling from bodies of teeth upon teeth and eyes upon eyes.

Dr. Bouchard could easily scent the rising self-hatred. He expelled the foul smell from his airways in order to concentrate. ”You did everything you could, Jon. I have no doubt about that. You are not the first or last young soldier I’ve seen berating themselves in that very chair.”

Jon peeked through his hair, carefully assessing the truth of the words. Hopeful.

Dr. Bouchard kept tapping his pen on the side of the tablet as he considered his next words. ”You can only ever do your best in the moment that you exist. And your best always changes from day to day, moment to moment. It’s an unfortunate fact of human life. You fought with everything you had and these are the results this time. You are not some omnipotent presence on the battlefield as a pilot. You cannot reach everyone no matter how much you try or want. You are only human, Jon. You have limits.”

”I hate that,” Jon confessed even though it was a childish thought.

The beta didn’t admonish or laught at him. He merely nodded ruefully.

Jon kept shivering in his hoodie. He tugged the sleeves over his hands, wondering if the room was cold or if the frost was inside of him, rooted into his festering emotions. ”My mom is being released from the hospital tomorrow. I want to be there for her, but at the same time, I want to be there for my boyfriends. Jack is still sore from his injuries and raw from the stress-rut, and Percy…” Jon growled low, upper lip peeling back to show the unusually long fangs. ”He’s so scared it’s unlike him. I’ve never seen him like that and I hate it. I hate the rest of the world for making him feel like he needs to hide. Like he’s inadequate as he is.” His teeth clacked together, looking for something to chew on. Wanting flesh and bone, to feel the enemies of his pack crushed under his jaws. ”I think his shitty alpha mother has been trying to contact him, but I can’t be sure. Percy never says it, but I see the way he tenses in genuine distress sometimes when he looks at his phone.” Jon shook his head and breathed out harshly, trying to clear his head from the malevolence clinging to his hindbrain like an old toxic friend. It was sometimes particularly difficult to seperate the innate violence in him from the protectiveness he felt. He hated it too. He hated so many things and was unable to do anything about it all. Useless. He felt useless, despite the way his pack clearly enjoyed his antics of chasing threats around. ”I want to protect everyone I care about, but it’s hard because they don’t all exist in the same space.”

”Then… how about gathering them in the same place?”

Jon startled out of his spiraling thoughts, letting out a questioning sound.

Dr. Bouchard smiled at him a little mischeviously, like the answer to his problem was so painfully obvious. ”It’s quite common, you know, for different packs to merge momentarily together in times of need. Especially ones that have previously split because family members have simply moved on with their lives, gathering their own packs. It’s not out of the question for you to explain your worries and proposing to gather together for strength and safety. I’m sure your mother would appreciate the company, considering that her husband and mate is out of commission. Plus, it would give everyone something else to think about as they try to shuffle around pack duties in a new environment and with additional people.”

Jon blinked fast a few times, realizing just how simple the answer truly had been, despite his own blubbering indecision and worries.

Dr. Bouchard leant back in his plush office chair, following Jon’s train of thought displayed clearly on his face with amusement.

Jon looked back at the beta, brows scrunched together in disbelief. ”Is it really that simple? Can I ask my boyfriends and mom to live together so I don’t have to go crazy wondering who I should be supporting and protecting?”

”What do you think?” Dr. Bouchard quirked his sharp brow over his glasses. ”Do you think that would be feasible for you to do after this session?”

…

Jacques and Percy were watching some anime with loud sounds and mecha flying around when Jon burst in through the door, looking ragged.

”Jack! Percy!”

”Y-yeah?” Jacques twisted around, blinking owlishly with Percy who was just about to bite into a freshly baked bun.

Jon stared at them in determination, stance wide to assert himself. ”Do you guys want to be with your families too?”

Chapter Text

Chapter 21: Operation pack-merger

”It’s been a long time since my last pack-merger,” Amelia Helsteen confessed as she was escorted out of a luxury car by her omega assistants. The heavy bandaging was gone, but there was hair missing from the back in an ugly manner from around a horrid scar stapled shut. Amelia did her best to hide it, very conscious of appearing fashionable and in-control as a Helsteen matriarch. ”Last time I pack-merged was when an earthquake hit and me and your father went to my parents place with his parents. The whole family was together and all the pack alphas were going nuts scrambling to make sure everyone was alright!”

Jon huffed out a laugh as he hoisted his backpack over a shoulder. They’d arrived straight from the hospital, the Helsteen servants having gathered their mistress’s stuff and bundled them into the trunk.

On the sprawling mansion grounds filled with sculpted plantlife and fountains depicting water nymphs and swans, Jacques’s hot-red sports car was parked next to the looming double doors. He and Percy must have just arrived from getting Percy’s beta mom from her place.

Jacques’s family mansion was an old, victorian monster in cream and tan colours, standing at six storeys tall. Some of the windows on the upper floors had glass paintings in vibrant colours and gargoyles with delicate-winged fairies sat perched on the edges of the rooftop. The mansion was situated a few miles away from the capital, back facing acers of forest and front yawning out towards a hill displaying a lovely view of the busy, infinitely moving glass-tower city down below.

The giant double doors carved with flowers opened and a red-headed chubby little omega tapped down the stone steps with a casual flair. ”Darlings! Finally!” Florenz Rayne was dressed in a pretty scandalous sheer kimono with only silk pants underneath, bearing his damn fine pair of manboobs to the world. Barbells could be made out piercing the nipples and someone’s name inked in cursive on the left pectoral where the heart would be – most likely Florenz’s mate’s name. Jon tried not to stare. This was his boyfriend's dad.

”Florenz!” Amelia greeted with a degree of familiarity. They’d seen each other sometimes in social gatherings where the man flitted about in extravagant outfits like a bird of paradise, sinking his claws into disruptive alphas and pressuring them with his mere presence to cover and calm down. Amelia quite respected the flamboyant omega for that skill and determination. ”So nice to see you again! Especially as parents of our sweet sons!”

”Quite so!” Florenz held out an elegant hand full of gold rings and like magic, a servant materialized to put a flute of something white and bubbly on it. ”I’m going to save the shovel talk by turning it around and reminding you, Jon, that if that scoundrel son of mine cheats on you, I will set his beloved cars on fire.”

”Thanks…” Jon grinned nervously at the other’s viciously smiling face. He had no doubts about the legitimacy of that promise.

”Now, come, come!” Florenz turned around with all the grace of a dancer and strode back into the mansion. ”Everyone else is already touring the place. It’s just all of us, plus our youngests, so we have a lot of room to have this week!”

Jon perked up, sort of aware that Jacques had siblings from all the pictures at his boyfriend’s place, but he’d never really asked about them. Whenever Jacques mentioned any of them, he had this endearingly exasperated look about him – annoyed and glad for their existence in the same breath. Jon was an only child, so he had no idea really what having siblings entailed.

Inside, the lavish and bit of fashioned feel continued. The foyer was dominated by beautifully carved and sculpted furniture, stairs and banisters, plus a myriad of family photographs which changed in their gilded frames every few seconds in a slide show of the Raynes’ colourful life. Jon spied some pictures of Jacques as a rebellious teen, hair slicked back and dressed provocatively in leather with his fine collarbones showing, and then some as a finely dressed little gentleman-kid riding on his alpha mom’s wide shoulders and being peppered with kisses by his omega dad. There were lots of kids in the photos, actually, and it was quite hard at times to tell who was who. Most of them had inherited their mom’s deep brown hair, only Jacques seemed to have gotten lucky to be ginger like his dad.

Florenz inquired after the rest of his guests from an alpha butler, who escorted them through long hallways decorated by war memorabilia and what seemed to be various prizes the Rayne kids had one in their years growing up. There were also plenty of posters and magazine cover clippings of Florenz posing in outrageous fashion pieces and looking suggestively at the camera in sexy clothes that screamed ’hapless and frail omega in distress’. Judging by the names of the movies displayed and Florenz’s outfits, Jon had the funny feeling that those might have been adult film ads from the omega’s younger years. He didn’t have the courage to ask.

Amelia was non-plussed by this all, merely observing curiously the proud displays which told more about the love and respect the family held for each other than anything else.

In the back of the mansion between the tropical looking plantlife, there was a giant in-door pool trapped in a giant glass-room. People were playing around the heated pool, espacing from the snow and cold outside: a brown-haired, square-jawed older alpha woman, who Jon recognized from the family pictures as Jacques’s mom, was braiding a little girl’s hair, while she and her brother blew air into donut-shaped floaties. Jacques was lounging on a finely crafted deck chair, making sure to remain touching with Percy, who was sitting on the edge of the chair and chatting with his beta mother, Fiona. The two looked serious as ever, practically mirror-images of each other in demeanor, and spoke in hushed tones, both gripping the edge of their deck chairs as if they could crack under the tension. The Raynes were giving them space, but Jon knew from the position of Jacques’s head and the flare of his nostrils that his boyfriend was keeping an eye on his good friend.

”They’re here!” Florenz sang out as he walzed towards his wife and kids.

Everyone looked up, expectant. The two maybe preteen aged children watched the Helsteens approach with unbridled curiosity, hazel eyes sparkling with mischief. Jacques was already up, having scented Jon most likely the moment he entered the room. Percy glanced at him, but immediately focused back on the hushed conversation he was having with his mom.

A tray was carefully swung their way by an omega maid in prim pastel clothes. Amelia hummed in delight at the strawberry scent bubbling up from the champagne and plucked a flute in her freshly manicured hands. Jon waved the tray of with his hand and a silent ”thank you”, and stepped towards Jacques to meet him midway for a peck on the lips.

”How is he?”

Jacques glanced discreetly from a side-eye behind him. ”Calm but still brewing on the inside. He’s on constant alert, now that the General has been officially released into home recovery.”

”Bastards!” Jon wasn’t sure who he was cursing: the health officials deciding to slap the General on the wrist for her crimes and send her home as if that’ll improve her condition, or the woman and her loyal cohorts who were busily attempting to frame the whole thing as a mere sabattical from which the General would come out of all healthy and fine for an apology tour. It was disgusting how much influence and money could buy, and how much bullshit some people were willing to believe in order to get back to the status quo.

”Jack! Jack!” the two kids got their attention with their begging as they eased into the pool. ”Come play ball with us!”

The girl swung her hand around in a wild circle like winding up for a punch. ”I’m gonna powerblast you both in the face!”

”Play nice,” their alpha mom quipped from her spot on a deck chair while browsing her thin, steel-coloured tablet.

”I’ll play!” Florenz shouted out and actually prepared to jump in with his flute of champagne. ”Move over!”

A servant just about managed to pluck the delicate glass flute from the dainty hand when Florenz jumped in, silk pants and all, and drenched the edges of the pool.

Percy and Fiona flinched almost imperceptibly. Almost.

Jon immediately rose to action and started his new flock guardian dog routine of patrolling the perimeter of the room. He thought back to how his dad had actually done the very same thing when they got home after Jon had tried jumping out of the car in a panic attack. The memory eased Jon’s mood a bit, though filled him with melancholy. There were still no news about the surgeries aiming to fix his dad’s broken back. Just a lot of waiting. A lot of worrying. Hopefully, his mom would have something else to think about in this clearly much more rambunctious household.

Amelia settled in a deck chair next to the Jacques’s mom. ”Priya.”

”Amelia.”

”Adorable children!” Amelia smiled easily at the scene of Florenz and the kids playing chase in the pool. ”Your youngests?”

”For now.” Priya smirked, earning a grin from the omega.

The kids weren’t having it, though. Not Jacques, or the youngests.

”Ew! No!” They both clamored

Jacques looked in horror from his place at the side of the pool. ”Do not get pregnant again! You have too many children already, you mad people!”

”How many of you are there? Eight?” Jon couldn’t help asking as he rounded back towards the pool. He vaguely remembered Florenz mention something about that.

”Eight!” The three Rayne children shouted in confirmation, exasperated.

”I am not handling a baby!” the girl grimaced. ”I hear the others complain about sleepless nights all the time when we talk about me when I was little! I’m perfectly content being the smallest forever!”

”Yeah!” the boy splashed the water, making Florenz chuckle in amusement.

Fiona made a sudden abortive motion which flung her phone off her hands. It clattered on the floor, gaining everyone’s attention. It was vibrating furiously. Percy and Fiona both stared at it like it was a snake poised to attack them. Jon knew immediately who was trying to contact them. Everyone did. They moved in a surprisingly co-ordinated protective cluster towards the two, encircling them as each continued to do their own thing while keeping an eye on the offending device buzzing on the tiles. Jon growled harshly, mouth open, when Percy took the phone. Percy glanced at him and pressed a holographic button to shut off the phone.

The whole room seemed to heave a grand sigh.

”So…” Florenz looked from one person to another. ”Cocktails?”

Fiona rubbed her stress-lined face hard until it was red and murmured a soft: ”Yes, please.”

…

The adults retired later in the evening to playing poker in a warm-wooded lounge with lit candles, while the young alpha trio entertained the little ones. Jacques’s younger siblings Aura and Cavil ran laps around them all, pulling and pushing and wrestling with the alphas. Jacques was clearly wanting to leave, while also having an indulging little smile on his face as the soft-scented yet-to-present kids made Jon and Percy race each other with kids on their backs down long hallways. It was exhausting but Jon was having fun. He hadn’t really ever thought about wanting siblings but he could see the appeal. They were so annoying yet so endearing, full of energy. He wondered if he might want children in the future, after all. If Jon might make a better parent than his own real world father.

When Jon stumbled and nearly hit his head on a carved wooden post, Jacques called the whole thing quits with a declaration that it was his turn to monopolize his boyfriend and bestie. Aura and Cavil let them go reluctantly, and Jon walked away while rubbing at his own aching back. Aura had clung to him with her claws and bruised him with her heels, but it was good pain. Pain from playing rough for hours.

”Come on.” Jacques rolled his eyes as he pulled his two packmates by their fingers. ”I’ll show you my room.”

Jacques’s room was in one of the towers, sequestered neatly off to the side in the giant mansion. The walls were covered with pleasantly dark green wallpaper full of flowers clearly painted by hand. There was a chandelier clinging to the ceiling, letting crystal light spill onto a sturdy looking desk piled high with books and notes for studying, and a king-sized bed under a comfy looking cream canopy. There were posters here and there of bands which Jon didn’t recognize, photos of younger Jacques with wilder hair with different people, and even some with family members proudly displayed. It was a very comfortable space. Jon could see Jacques living there with no fear, no apprehension, no looming threat from his parents.

Just the mere state of the room marked how different their upbringing was from one another. Looking to the side, Jon thought that Percy may have been thinking along similar lines as he surveyd the room. Their bags had already been brought in and pushed neatly to the foot of the carved wood-frame bed. Both Jon and Percy had brought minimal amount of things.

Jacques threw himself carelessly on his old bed and turned sideways in a casually calculated way to appear sexy without really trying. Jon snorted softly at that but said nothing. Jacques was watching them both closely for some reason, as if looking for something specific as they took the room in.

Percy wasted no time getting his phone out and starting to tap on it furiously. Jon was curious as to what Percy actually looked at his phone for after being so afraid of it for a few good days, but it was impossible to sneak a peek without seeming rude. Percy appreciated his personal space, so Jon figured he could ask him about it at some appropriate time.

Jacques didn’t share the sentiment of letting Percy simply tell on his own time. ”Who are you messaging?” He grinned mirthfully. ”Your second boyfriend?”

Jon huffed out a laugh.

Percy looked up and curled a little more around his phone in defense. ”Not my boyfriend…”

”So, it’s that Prince Commander of yours,” Jacques put two and two together, grin widening. He was taking great pleasure in teasing the other.

Percy this time gave him a nasty look and clammed up, curling into a shrimp on a chair and tapping more aggressively at his phone screen.

Jon plopped beside Jacques, mirroring his pose of laying on his side with his head propped up. Jacques turned over to stare at Jon, still smiling that same smile speaking of some heinous plotting behind those glittering green orbs. Jon smiled back, suspicious. ”What are you staring us about?”

Jacques licked his lips and Jon followed the wet trail across ruddy skin. ”I can’t wait for our ruts to sync up, so we can finally mate for real.”

The confession takes a moment for Jon to sink in. Honestly, Jon hadn’t thought about the whole marking thing much. He’d experienced technically two forceful markings – one from Percy trying to save his life and one Caleb just wanting to tear at Jon’s gland – so, he maybe had some bad underlying feelings about it. But all in all, the thought about finally experiencing that oh, so beloved tradition of marking made an intense heat burn at the base of Jon’s navel. He imagined fighting for dominance with more ferocity than usual, all of them in a rut state of mind, only thinking of having each other and being the one doing the taking. Wishing to be the one to bite first and assert who was the boss, who really ruled this tiny pack of theirs. Jon dreamed of challenging Jacques – Percy would most likely relent much easier due to his logical and amicable nature – but Jacques… he would be a delight to wrestle against. It would be raw and animalistic. It would be like a wet dream skirting on the edge of a nightmare, just right when one loved thrills and danger. And Jon wouldn’t be a mecha pilot if he didn’t like the feel of adrenaline flooding his systems.

Jacques’s lashes fluttered in such a pretty way as he took in Jon’s growing blush and the way his gaze wandered over the length of Jacques’s long body.

Percy was aware of the rising heat in the room and shifted just a tiny bit in order to not draw attention to himself. He was busy trading notes back and forth with Silva about what the Frost Empire prince was doing on his vacation now that the Battle Arena was busted and the friendship games thus cancelled. Silva had taken pictures of the capital city with his phone. Even one of himself standing in front of a gallery with hovering holographic paintings in the background. Percy allowed his partners’ growing arousal to tickle his insides softly as he breathed their scents in and imagined for a moment that blistering blizzard painting the landscapes of their scents. Silva was showing his aptitude for cold temperature by parading around in only cargopants and a turtleneck made from the thick wool from the Frost Empire. His dark complexion looked ethereal against against the white snowy backdrop, haloing the partially shaved head.

Percy’s gaze lifted to his boyfriend and friend on the bed.

Jon and Jacques were doing their usual game of foreplay where they wrestled and rolled each other around, making biting motions at each other’s grinning face. Jacques growled deep and low at Jon’s resistance and attempt to pin him below him, to which Jon let out a funny little churring in mischief and jumped on Jacques’s lap so hard that the other let out a solid ’OOMPH’.

Percy furrowed his brows and rubbed his thighs together, considering.

Silva’s next message popped up on their chat: ”I’m honestly one of those people who would take the reigns of my people, so as to prevent them from getting lost and collapsing in the aftermath of getting betrayed by their leader.”

Percy blinked tears back and with another glance, did his best to sneak out of the room. In the hallway lined with family photos and war memorabilia, Percy breathed in clear air. Jacques’s room’s stuffy heated pheromone cloud had plagued Percy with a need to rut something, when all he wanted to do was to purge some of the buzzing energy looming in the back of his head.

He found himself a shadowy corner and sat there, clutching his phone close. He surveyed the long conversation he and the Frost Empire’s prince had been having pretty much the length of the whole day. Percy had tried to talk to his beta mom about what to do, but with no luck, as the surgeon didn’t have any experience with intricate politics or the pressure to live up to a long legacy of ruling alphas. Percy had considered speaking to his partners, but each time he started to speak, he was faced with the literal and emotional wounds that they bore bravely, and clammed up. Jon and Jacques were rich and priviledged, but they didn’t inhabit a similar position to Percy. They couldn’t understand. Couldn’t advice him, only comfort. And comfort wasn’t what Percy wanted at the moment. He’d had enough of it, now, he needed to move forward. Do something. Say something. He needed to figure out what to do and there was one person who he trusted and who knew something about being a leader of a large group of people and bearing their expectations.

Silva continued his message, clearly taking Percy’s momentary silence as a bad thing: ”It is just me looking at this overly logically. Of course, there’re lots of messy emotions involved, when your own parent fails even at the most basic job of taking care of their family pack.”

Percy observed Silva realizing the bluntness of his words digging a further hole.

”I cannot fathom what you feel. I can imagine. But I cannot tell you how to feel.”

Moving his knees rhytmically to alleviate some of his runaway energy, Percy thought about his answer long and hard, trying to put all his emotions and thoughts into words. ”That’s the thing: I don’t know what I feel. I think… there’s some specific way I’m supposed to feel in a situation like this – I just don’t know what that is. I mean…” Percy shrunk further into the soft wool collar of his shirt, becoming a sad turtle. ”There is just so much going on. I’m supposed to just shake this all off and take control of my mother’s military position. That’s what everyone in our Empire is screaming at me to do in social media. They want me to go through the ceremonies, sign the papers, help decide what to do with my mother’s EDD and abuse as the new family pack leader… And at the same time, I have responsibilities with my new polyamorous pack. I’m supposed to be physically and emotionally available after the battle against aliens, but instead, here I am, messaging you, seeking your advice, sitting in a dark corner away from them because their energy just doesn’t match mine at the moment and I don’t want to have sex.” Percy checked that Silva was still there, waiting, and seeing the green light next to his icon of a silver snowflake, he started typing again furiously. He wanted to spill it all out. Vomit his feelings from pressing his stomach like a heavy stone which occupied his every waking moment these days, always there in the background. He didn’t need comfort. He needed direction. Instructions! He needed someone to tell him what the hell to do!! ”I don’t know what to do…” he started writing, felt a large sudden lump in his throat, and made the sudden gut instinct decision to hit the ’call’ button.

It barely had time to chime. Silva answered immediately, wherever in the city he was. ”Percy?” the soft, worried call of his name in that dark timbre made Percy heave out a huge breath.

”I don’t know what to do, Silva…!” Percy finally broke down, letting go while clutching still tightly his furiously bouncing legs. ”I’m not a leader! I’m a soldier! I was raised to follow, not to lead!”

”Because your mother never expected to fail or die,” Silva simply filled the gaps, and Percy was so incredibly releaved to hear those words, to know that someone did understand.

”Yes! Exactly! And that’s what I thought too! I thought Eleanore Dawnmoore would be forever, but she’s not! She’s just a person and she never told me!” Percy took in a stilted breath, noting the strangeness of the sentence. ”I know that doesn’t make any sense, but she was just always so big. Bigger than life. She encompassed everything! And now she’s gone from every single position she used to occupy in my life and I’m supposed to pick up her slack and I don’t know how!” Percy pressed his face into his knees, trembling from how hard he was moving his feet against the floor. ”I’m really scared, Silva. I’m scared that I’m going to fail to live up to all the alphas that have come before me. I’m terrified that the people aren’t going to like me. That they’ll notice that something’s wrong with me and everything will collapse in on itself just because I wasn’t enough!”

”Percy…” Silva’s voice had a choked off quality to it, despite everything about him conveying only calm and care through the phone. ”You’re not just an alpha.”

”What?”

”You are not… just an alpha,” Silva re-iterated with solemn seriousness. ”You and I both, more than anyone else, have been raised with that ancient mantle of a ’model alpha’. We must be strong and steadfast. We must show no weakness against violence or emotion. We must control our behavior and feelings. We must always project to the world that we are in control.”

Percy nodded, sniffling as he could feel the center of his face burn with tears and snot building up. ’The body’s natural cool down mechanism’, his mind supplied. Another text book answer he’d looked up sometime in his life to better understand himself and others.

”You are first and foremost a person,” Silva explained with the most calming voice that Percy absorbed greedily by closing his reddened eyes. ”Raised to uphold impossible standards, not catered to you as an individual. You’ve taken in everything about fulfilling your position and legacy that you could. Your turn to lead has come sooner than it was perhaps supposed to. And that is why, it is important, that you have a little mercy on yourself as you learn firsthand from here on out how to rule a huge pack containing millions of people. You will most likely make mistakes and stumble. But that is only human. You are a person first, then an alpha, then a ruling alpha. And you can only ever do your best.”

Silence took over the space with all the tenderness in the world. Percy still had his eyes closed.

After a moment of not coming up with anything else to say, Silva’s voice dibbed lower to a careful: ”Alright?”

Percy opened his eyes. ”I love you.”

The words startled them both. Silva especially, because words of affection weren’t something he had the luxury of hearing in his position as the third prince. He used to always be an extra, always an after-thought, until he had proved his skills in combat and leading, and then all of a sudden he was included in the inner circle of the royal family. Yet the words of affection were still sequestered away from his ears. This was, perhaps, the first time in a very long while, that Silva had heard those words said, the form of them feeling foreign and odd and uncomfortably hot to his ears.

On the inside of his perfectly emotionless face marred by tears, Percy was panicking. ”As a friend. I love you as a friend. My very important friend, who I care about and appreciate always for being there for me even when he doesn’t have to because we are from opposing Empires with tentatively amicable relations. And also, I am not easy to get along with because I just don’t care for most people.”

Silva was quiet for a while, processing the word-vomit. ”Right.” He cleared his throat then, adjusting himself awkwardly. ”I… You too. You are… very important. To me.”

Percy nodded, despite the other not being able to see it. ”Good.”

”Good,” Silva agreed stiffly.

”Good.”

”Good.”

”Mhm.”

This time, the silence bore a secret something between them, a tension that had always sort of been there, but not acknowledged, not like this.

Percy’s heart was hammering painfully in his chest. ”Well. Thank you for the advice. Goodbye!”

”Go-”

The call was ended upbrutly and Percy curled into an even tighter little shrimp if possible. He let out a high-pitched little whine like a kettle whistling from overheating. His ears were blood-red. The soles of his feet were tapping against the floor with great urgency at the massive embarrasment and excitement and fear in Percy’s chest.

His thoughts were like a long line of code scrolling through his brain: was he cheating on his boyfriend and platonic partner by confessing something so stupid to another person? Was it even cheating if Percy himself had no idea in what way he even meant the love? Was it a platonic or romantic love? It was so hard to distinguish the two. They were so similar, especially since Percy’s extensive research into romance including a lot of the time sexual attraction and the desire to have sex. But, Percy didn’t always want to have sex with Jon. He liked being held and kissing more. In fact, sex was kind of gross to him. It weirded him out in this hard-to-explain way that made Percy feel his own awkwardness and strangeness and disconnection from other people ever more keenly.

’Oh, gods’, Percy’s long text of thoughts suddenly stopped, as a thought came to him unbidden: ’Am I asexual?’

”Percy!”

”A!” Percy let out a short shout and whipped his head to the side to notice Jon and Jacques both there just around the corner, looking like they were a little out of breath.

Both immediately went down on a knee to minimize themselves to Percy’s collapsed size in the dark corner.

”Where the hell did you go?!” Jon couldn’t help yelling, feeling a great urgency right under his ribs, battering at his heart and instincts. ”You just disappeared without a word! I thought something had happened to you! Why did you do that?!”

”Jon, calm down,” Jacques admonished, noting Percy’s wide-eyed stupefied stare. He gave an inviting little smile to his best friend. ”Sorry, we were just a little startled. What with you being so out of it lately, my and Jon’s parents being injured, and the paparazzi and social media hounding you… We kind of overreacted when you weren’t where we last saw you.”

”It’s okay,” Percy immediately replied diplomatically, recognizing a possible argument. ”I reacted badly to all the alpha pheromones you two were putting out, so I simply left. I didn’t want to bother you two when you were so wrapped up in each other. I just took a break to talk to Silva.”

”You could talk to us too,” Jon insisted with hint of a growl. His brows were furrowed with the desperation that he felt to keep his boyfriend and packmate close. ”You can always talk to us.”

”It’s not the same.” Percy stroked the glossy surface of his phone, looking thoughtful. ”I needed advice from someone who knows. Who understands. Silva gets what I’m going through right now.”

”Okay,” Jon huffed in frustration, still feeling on edge from Percy just disappearing on them. ”Can you come back to Jacques’s room with us though? I wanna hold you so I know you’re not going anywhere.”

”Clingy pack leader problems…” Jacques rolled his eyes, partly in amusement and partly to just see Percy smile back at him.

They filed back into Jacques’s room where Jon herded them both on the bed. He took the blanket carelessly thrown on the covers and wrapped them all into it, so that they were arranged in a sandwich-type puppy pile: Jacques on the bottom hugging Percy and Percy and Jon facing each other so that Jon could nose into his glands and gently chew on them for comfort. And as a kind of punishment.

Percy grunted as Jon bunted his jaw and ground his long fangs against the sensitive gland. ”This is supremely uncomfortable. We’re going to get all hot and sweaty like this.”

Jon simply growled in answer. He took a bigger mouthful of Percy throat and shook his head from side to side to show Percy physically how frustrated and on edge he felt about everything.

Percy had an unsatisfied look on his face but let Jon manhandle him for the pack leader’s own comfort.

Jacques planted kisses on the top of Percy’s head and rubbed his scent glands on him to further enhance the combination of all their scents perfuming the air.

They all took big calming breaths, nostrils flaring. There was the mental image of a desert with the black starlit sky. Pines and spruces pushed through the sand and rock, rainclouds lazily rolling in from the horizon, and at the base of the trunks, the evergreen bushes of camellia with their frilly red and pink blossoms, emitting the most delicious scent. Coating it all was a wash of honey, dripping dark and tempting from the branches and leaves and flowers, giving everything a strangely dreamy, sticky look.

It was odd but it was theirs. Their pack scent.

Jacques rubbed his cheek against Percy’s black hair in contentment. Jon stopped his gnawing and instead trailed his fangs and lips across the fine tawny jawline to thin lips and kissed Percy with all the time in the world. Percy closed his eyes, hand thrown over Jon’s neck lax and drooping, as he fully relaxed into his boyfriend and bestfriend’s holds. It was suffocating, claustrophobic even, but also comforting. Percy took on the uncomfortable building sweaty heat and let himself be consumed by Jon’s mouth working against his.

It was all going to be okay. This feeling welled up inside of them all as Jacques purred with his freckled cheek squished against Percy’s head, and Percy and Jon kissed each other with deep, languid motions. The previous hyper-alertness and aggression in Jon took a step back as he got to embrace his whole little pack in the safety of a home that belonged to their larger extended family pack. It was all going to be okay. They’d figure it all out. Together. Always together.

Chapter Text

That foul woman, former leader of the people, General Eleanore Dawnmoore, was calling both Fiona and Percy many times a day. Those first few days hanging out at the castle the Raynes called their own, both Dawnmoores were twitching and flinching each time their phones buzzed, up to a point where Jon once in a feral display of anger tried chomping down on Percy’s phone, growling wildly. His mother had to take him by the scruff of his neck like a disobedient puppy, calming the mood with the silliness of it all. Jon was so embarrassed at his behavior, he sulked most of the day, letting himself be coaxed by his boyfriends with treats and tea.

Today, it was time for Jon and Amelia to visit the hospital again for a follow-up on Amelia’s stitches at the back of her head, and for them to help decide what to do with Tavaste.

Jon and Amelia gazed at their loved one, laying in a secured room, connected to all kinds of tubing. He was otherwise healed, but his back still had complicated fracturing all over the length of it. The doctors couldn’t understand how the alpha had managed to withstand the pain while holding the concrete and debris from crushing him and his wife. Amelia’s heart felt like it was being churned to mush in a blender. It hurt so much, like a half of her had been ripped out and placed in that sad, white bed. Tavaste looked nothing like his usual strong and silently confident self. The man and alpha in the bed had deep, dark circles, a messy stubble Amelia longed to take care of, and sickly paleness and frailness to him that Amelia hadn’t seen since Tavaste was young and in the army.

One of the surgeon’s who had assisted in the hours long emergency surgery to save the man’s life was looking through files on a tablet as she explained the situation: ”His spine is, with all honesty, a travesty. Even if it’ll heal on its own, it will be bent and have odd bumps of healed bone. All the fluids between the individual knobs and joints down the middle of the back have been squeezed out. There’s nothing to protect the joints and bone from rubbing against each other! He’ll be in horrible pain for the rest of his life and will need lots of help with just everyday tasks.”

”Gods…!” Amelia slapped her face, pulling her cheek to prevent herself from bawling all over again. She needed to be strong. For herself as well as her son and her mate in medically induced coma. ”Can nothing be done to reconstruct the spine? Money is absolutely not an issue!” she hurried to add, but the surgeon beta looked apprehensive.

”Well… there is something.” The surgeon looked between Jon and Amelia. ”But it’s hard to get. Your husband would have to travel over the ocean.”

Amelia understood immediately. ”You’re talking about taking him to Frost Empire. To give him artificial augmentations.”

”An artificial spine, yes.” The surgeon nodded, scenting the air between all of them delicately to make sure she didn’t overstep. ”Our Scarlet Empire’s medicine isn’t as advanced in the production of proper artificial organs, limbs, skins and bones, so even if we got the spine here, we wouldn’t be able to install it properly. Even with instructions. All the needed know-how and equipment is in the Frost Empire. And it is an eleven hour flight to their royal central city. Not to mention getting the permission to pass through their borders in these… new turbulent times.” The beta was referring to General Dawnmoore’s revealed EDD diagnosis and collapse of her position and chosen ministers. The Frost Empire was most likely considering their stance on the peace treaty if the General was still somehow allowed to lead. The Scarlet Empire would need to stabilize and prop up a new leader, before amicable relations can properly continue to be forged.

Jon felt a sharp sting at that. Percy was so anxious about leading and now this! He couldn’t tell Percy that Jon’s dad’s wellfare was up to Percy taking his stupid fucking mother’s place at the podium. That whole thing was a political shitshow waiting to happen anyway: the General was still trying to lobby herself a model-alpha, who was ”bringing awareness towards ferality” and ”going through a healing process”. It was a classic apology tour Jon had seen from many influental people before and the fakeness of it sickened him. The public was half terrified over taking the General back and half enjoying the drama of the Dawnmoore matriarch and heir going at it in order to secure their position as the leader of the Empire. A voyeristic enjoyment which Jon as someone who had his foot in the clusterfuck happening could not share.

In the end, Amelia and Jon made the decision to wake up Tavaste for a moment to consult him on his own body and the living conditions and risks involved. Replacing a human spine with an artificial one was a lot of grueling, detailed work. It was dangerous. The damaged nerves would need to be partially replaced with wiring that relayed sensations and messages to and from the brain. If worst came to be, Tavaste would end up with a severe brain damage, as well as an inability to move his body from the neck down. It would not be much of a life. Would he even be able to communicate with anyone anymore? He’d have be fed and bathed, strapped with tubings to dispose of his waste without going to the bathroom… it was just a lot of stuff to go through in one’s mid-fifties.

So, they waited. They waited and waited and waited, until Tavaste started to stir from his deep slumber and was deemed aware enough to speak.

Amelia was fighting back tears and swallowing around a hard lump as she came to hold her husband’s hand. That hand used to be so strong but was currently so limp and light. Tavaste had lost weight bit by bit. His shoulders weren’t so wide anymore. His stomach chub was becoming a pit, hidden by the blanket. The leg muscles were growing soft.

Jon had never seen anyone in such a pitiful state. He’d been lucky like that. Usually it had been him in a hospital bed like this. It was difficult to push back against the grief and distress building up in the pit of his stomach.

”Hi,” Tavaste croaked, exhaling long and soft, unable to feel much of anything with the meds he was being fed with.

”Hey there, handsome.” Amelia kissed their clutched hands and began explaining what the doctors wanted to do to save Tavaste’s back.

The old alpha took the words in as best he could in his stupor. He asked multiple times for the same explanations, until he could wrap his head around the concept of an intense, invasive surgery. In the Frost Empire. If they would be welcomed there.

Tavaste was so tired that he could barely move his head from side to side. ”I don’t…” he thought about his next words for a bit, before continuing, ”… think… I would enjoy… a life… without being… able to… hold you two…”

Amelia closed her eyes with a pained look, nodding. In her heart, she’d already known the answer. Tavaste wanted to try the surgery. And if it failed, he’d want the plug to be pulled.

Jon was trembling as his parents spoke in hushed tones. His claws dug into the backs of his hands as he clutched them together like in a prayer. There was no god for Jon to pray to, but he still asked for whatever presence out there that sent him to this reality, to this world, to look out for his father and make the surgery a success. He didn’t know if he could survive losing another parent. Not after losing his real mother.

His camellia and honey scent wilted, wrapping around his parents’ scents in the sharp medical stench of the hospital, attempting to comfort himself and his loved ones. Tavaste fell asleep from the sheer exhaustion of speaking soon after.

...

Percy was so high-strung that Jon and Jacques could practically feel the distress vibrate from him on a daily basis. Percy was spending a lot of time either exhausted by the stress in bed or on his phone, messaging Silva about what steps he should be taking against his mother. Percy was starting to get into the mindset of a reluctant leader, which made Jon and Jack both uncomfortable for him. Percy was surely going to collapse in a breakdown again if he didn’t get some time for himself properly. Currently, Percy was only laying about and not directing his thoughts away, just endlessly worrying and arranging things. Jon and Jacques recognized that they needed to help Percy do something about it. They needed an off-day. A vacation. And a little something extra to tempt Percy into getting out of the castle and to do something fun. Which was how Jack got an idea of involving a certain someone in their good-natured scheme:

”You know, we should thank Prince Silvarium for all that he’s done.” Jacques glanced back at Jon, both of them determined. ”It would be also good for you two to be seen together, right? It would help solidify your future position to be seen close with a Frost Empire royal representative.”

”I guess…” Percy murmured from his spot under a heavy blanket. He looked like a ghost wrapped up in the white fluffy material trailing after him on the bed.

Jon bunted his head against the side of Percy’s face gently. ”Come on! It’s a good idea, right? Plus, you’d actually get to see Silva rather than just text him. The Prince and his team are going to be leaving soon enough now that the friendship games have been cancelled, so, this is your chance!”

Percy thought long and hard about it. He looked like a mess. His hair was all greasy and the underside of his eyes dark and sunken… he didn’t want to appear in public so unkempt. His mother would be furious with him. She –

No. Percy bristled at his automatic thought-process with deferred to his mother. He needed to stop thinking about his mother and what she wanted for him and how he appeared in her eyes.

Percy sat up more determined and nodded then firmly, promising to text Silva to see if they could come up with something to do together.

…

The next day, Jon and Jacques were flanking Percy like bodyguards, posturing and growling at the people gawking at their boyfriend and best friend in public. Percy was dressed in his most comfortable and soft leisure clothing, while Jon was sporting Percy’s leather jacket and ripped jeans, and Jacques had his red hair tightly wound in an effortlessly messy yet elegant bun above his flashy sports jacket and baggy pants. Their little pack moved forward with great determination across the city’s mainstreets where tall glass buildings had tasteful commercials for galleries and museums and fashion shows drifting by.

Prince Silvarium Ruiz was standing in light pale winter gear and sunglasses, appearing gorgeously unattainable and handsome like an off-duty professional sports player or maybe an undercover actor. He had his phone out and was browsing it, but the short alpha’s senses were keen enough to notice three other alphas approaching him from across the street the moment the natural flow of passerby and cars parted.

Silva lifted his nose to scent the trio’s general air, noting the hints of stress wafting off them. ”Good to see you guys. What do you have planned for today?”

Percy immediately started to vibrate in sheer excitement.

Jon and Jacques couldn’t help grinning in victory at the sight.

They had the whole thing figured out: Silva had spent so long first as a sheltered prince, then as a soldier for the royal military, that he hadn’t really had the chance to let loose and do stuff a normal teen would do when he was younger. So, Jon, Jacques and Percy decided to take Silva to the winter amusement park near the city center. It was set up close to the water’s edge where one could see the thick ice set on top of the waves. There were still some cracks showing near black depths from where aliens had fallen into the waters, making for an odd sight that had both locals and tourists taking pictures among the huge amusement contraptions, colourful booths and arcade centers. Silva was looking at everything with an amusing amount of suspicion as if he might be assaulted from any direction as people walked about laughing and holding hands and just generally relaxing after the previous devastating attack on the city. Everyone was happy to let Percy determine the pace for them, since he was the most likely to get tired or simply overwhelmed by all the sights and sounds.

First, they took it easy by tasting steamed buns and drinking coffee and latte. In the Frost Empire, it would be more common to drink mulled wine in the winter times and Silva was clearly missing it, wrinkling his sensitive nose at the taste of coffee. He did like steamed buns though and devoured several of them as they walked around looking at the flashing lights and blinking colours.

Next, they tried boarding all kinds of spinning attractions. Jacques had a sensitive stomach so he stood back and took pictures and videos of all of them. Jon was hooting in delight at the insane speeds, while Percy squeezed his eyes shut and held on for dear life and Silva simply sat there looking mildly confused. Jacques was laughing with tears in his eyes when Jon and Percy came out leaning on each other and Silva simply stood there pondering on what was so exciting about spinning around in a seat with other people screaming into his ears.

The ferriswheel was surprisingly a hit for the Prince. Jon observed happily as Jacques and Percy each took turns pointing out things in the horizon and down below for Silva, who took it all seriously in with nods, black eyes sharp on the movement down below. Like a bird of prey surveying for its prey, Jon thought with amusement.

They took some time then to warm up in the arcade zone. They had slushies of various colours and flavors, and each participated in stall and claw games. To a ridiculous point. Each one of them was an alpha, after all: competitiveness was baked into them! The very first lotus petal turning game had some serious excitement as each of them took turns throwing beanbags on lotuses and thus turning them over if the weight hit them correctly. This revealed a number for some kind of prize and they all vyed for the best one: a ridiculously big classic teddy bear with cute round eyes and a volumonous red bow on it. Other people were also competing for it, most of them for their beloved. Omegas were cheering on their partners, while the four alphas were selfishly wanting the best prize for themself to show off their skills, and finally, after some strategic throwing, Percy came out on top with his eye for detail and great hand-eye cordination. Percy held the teddy bear in his grasp, looking chuffed with himself. If he’d had a tail it would have wagged furiously in pride! The rest were left gritting their teeth and competitiveness only burning fierces within!

Jon dominated in the claw games: he had luck on his side and great patience when it came to games like that, so he scored several different mecha figurines for their two mechalovers. Percy was absolutely over the moon with all the mecha models, gushing over the details and explaining them hurriedly as Jon racked up more and more stuff for them all to hold. They ended up having to buy bags for all the figurines. One of them was even a limited edition copy of their Empire’s military-prince’s very own black and purple mecha, Wanderer! Surprisingly enough, after receiving it from Jon, Percy instead gave it out to Silva, who seemed a little flustered by the gesture.

Jacques and Silva had no other competition, really, in the shooting games. The two were throwing gloating glances at each other as they bent over to take shots at grand prizes, while Jon and Percy were happily leaning back and admiring the view offered in front of them.

From time to time, as Jacques and Silva postured and bickered good-naturedly, Jon and Percy pricked their ears with commentary from bystanders:

”Wow! Look at those two!”

”So hot!”

”The shoulders on both of them…!”

”Those asses!”

”They’re practically oozing dominance!”

Both Jon and Percy felt a sense of pride, but more so, Jon felt stabs of jealousy. He wanted to bark and gnash his teeth together to fend off competetion, but reminded himself calmly then: ’What competition? I don’t have any! I already won the fucking lottery of boyfriends!’ He chuffed to himself, huffing through his nose and propping up his chest like a fancy bird displaying his colours. Percy was anxiously looking between the two shooters, wanting desperately for both to win. One the one hand, Jacques was his best sniper and best friend, and on the other, Silva was also his good friend and an amazing soldier.

It was getting tense, though both alphas were smiling, their eyes sparkling. The vendor was at a loss to which one to give the biggest prize: a marshmallow cannon that was used just for that purpose; shooting marshmallows into one’s maw.

Jacques twirled his play-rifle between his hands, considering. ”Why don’t we up the performance a little?” He then turned to shoot a devastating wink to his packmates, turned fully around and with grand flourish, shot the rifle over his shoulder without looking.

PING! A target was downed from the very back row.

People sighed in awe. Jon felt goosebumps form as his heart beat faster, and Percy was jittering and swinging his giant bear around in sheer uninhibited excitement.

Silva stood there watching, hip cocked to the side, play-rifle in hand.

Jacques turned to him, smirking in challenge.

Silva raised his chin and brow a bit. Then he suddenly spun the rifle in the air, turned his back and bend over to shoot the rifle right from between his legs, close to his crotch.

PING! Another target went down, a moving one this time.

Jacques whistled high, genuinely impressed. And turned on.

Silva looked up, dreadlocks falling over his shoulder. He smirked back at the audience. Or rather, at the three alphas he was keen to impress. ”That’s what we call ”the reverse cowgirl” for you.”

”Cowgirl, huh?” Jacques remarked, heat radiating dangerous and seductive from his whole body language as he touched his long red ponytail.

”Wow.” Jon couldn’t really say anything else. He was desperately trying to stiffle the hard-on trying to happen in his pants from watching two alphas he was attracted to compete for THEIR attention. For Jon and Percy. It was too much. Jon’s forehead was feverish from the blush colouring his scarred face. ”I need another slushie.”

”Yes!” They looked to Percy. The poor guy was burying himself into his teddy bear, all red, practically steaming from his head, hiding away his cute reaction.

Jacques noted the blush rising on Silva’s face also as the all professional and stoic alpha registered the other’s reaction. ’Cute’, he couldn’t help thinking. He smirked, wanting to stir up trouble. ”I’ll end my fight for the best prize if you can figure out how to shoot a moving target from between your tits.”

Jon let out an indignant, scandalous sound at that. He would not survive the sight! How could Jacques even ask that from someone he didn’t know all that well?!

Jacques merely glanced from one alpha to another, waiting while metaphorically licking his chops.

Percy’s dark eyes just about peeked from behind the teddy bears head, sharp and hungry.

Silva blushed harder if possible, his already incredibly dark countenance becoming darker and his expression turning muddled. He was trying to decide between cuffing the cocky alpha blatantly hitting on him and enjoying the attention – and the chance to show off to Percy again.

People waited with baited breaths, many also blushing.

After a moment of standing there facing each other, Silva broke the eye-contact.

The vendor beta covered his eyes, embarrassed, yet peeking through his fingers at the full frontal sight of Prince Silvarium Ruiz squeezing the long pipe of the rifle between his ample pectorals, the alpha’s mouth set into a tight grimace under his flush. A full-mouth of shark teeth ground together in embarrasment and excitement as Silva bent over again, his body a shot from a porn video with the butt of the rifle against his thighs and hands, and another shot rang out joyfully as Silva hit the edge of a target just so.

People didn’t even cheer. They were way too flustered by the whole thing. A cloud of pheromones had formed around them all, broadcasting just how affected everyone present were by the display in front of them.

Jacques’s eyes were practically predatory as he assessed the Prince’s every single twitch and scent.

Jon found himself licking his overly long fangs.

Percy couldn’t take his eyes of his Frost Empire friend. The poor teddy was being strangled to death by his killer grip on it.

Silva moved from his compromising position robotically, all stiff from the attention.

The vendor beta finally moved, also just as stiffly, to hand over the coveted marshmallow cannon. ”Here… you go…”

”D’vra…” Silva’s mother-tongue slipped through soft and official. He turned to the other three alphas, holding the cannon surprisingly delicately, still gorgeously coloured by a blush, his powerful blizzard scent blowing in a storm over everyone else to fight back the other pheromones, to show off who’s the boss!

Jon, Jacques and Percy took the punishing winds of the scent bravely on, also to show off that they were worthy and wouldn’t be scared away so easily. Their shared pack-scent tempted the alpha of frosty aros and powder snowcaps with mental images of the red desert with a dark night sky, the rain and lightning rolling over and peppering camellia leaves and flowers with nourishing droplets.

Silva stiffened at first, then let his strong shoulders sag in a silent display of not registering them as a threat.

It was a shared victory for the three alphas. They felt a surge of pride, nearly wanting to high-five each other; Silva had accepted their approach of him, not finding them offensive enough to fight against their flirting and sharing of scents.

Jon and Jacques looked to Percy in-between them with fond smiles. Percy looked so incredibly happy. Happier than he’d looked in a long time. An intoxicating warm blush on his light brown face, constellation of moles at his jaw and a toothy smile which lit up the room with how genuine and naked it was. Jon’s eyes felt moist. He was so relieved for Percy. So relieved that he could have fun in a crowd like this and have a closer connection with someone he viewed as vital to his existence as a person.

Percy and Silva mirrored each other, Jon could see it now in front of him once again. Just like in the battlefield, they moved about with each other with a different kind of respect and affection than Percy did with Jon and Jacques. Jon and Jacques were from good families who loved them (in this reality). They were his underlings also in his mecha troop. Percy found something in Silva that he couldn’t find in them, someone who shared his pains and responsibilities. Someone who understood a different side of Percy and helped nourish and heal it.

Jon’s pack-mentality kicked in again, his alpha-brain assessing silently the situation: ’Good alpha! Fulfills the pack! Completes it! Security breaches of the pack are being filled! Stronger together!’

Jon shook his head a bit at the insistent thoughts. ’Alright, alright, I get it! I like him! His addition would be logically and emotionally beneficial! Jeez.’

As Percy pounded over to gush about Silva’s shooting form, Jon was nudged by Jacques.

He lifted a brow at his still smirking boyfriend. ”What?”

Jacques waggled his brows. ”He enjoys being embarrassed by people he’s attracted to.”

”Huh?!” Jon glanced from Jacques to Silva and back, then whacked Jack right in the belly. ”Stop analyzing him for kinks, you pervert! Come on!”

”Ow! It was just an observation! Have mercy, pack-leader!”

”Those scents just now…” there came suddenly whispers and murmurs from the side. Some young people were clustering together, making eyes at the alphas. But not lustful or admiration, but suspicious now. It seemed like some of the onlookers had been keeping a closer eye on their handsome group of alphas. ”They’re blended together as if they were together or something, right?”

”No way! They’re alphas!”

”And one of them is… wait, our military prince, isn’t he?!”

”I thought it might be and that is definetely his scent mixed in with the other alphas!”

”What?”

”What is this? What are they?”

"So weird…”

The giggles. The strange looks… judging, poking, excavating for the truth of what they all were to each other. Were they a normal group of alphas, just friends being friends, or perhaps…

Something abnormal. Something…. queer.

Jon bristled hard. His ears were burning, practically lighting up red between the strands of his bright blue hair. A growl was starting to bleed out, alerting Jacques by his side.

”What’s wrong?”

Jon’s growl persisted as he leaned closer to the taller alpha. ”Just some assholes mouthing off and making guesses at something that’s none of their goddamn business!”

”But it is…”

Both Jacques and Jon looked to Percy.

Silva frowned in confusion as Percy stiffened by his side, clutching on the teddybear so hard it was bound to tear.

Percy trembled. All his muscles were becoming tightly wound, pressing on the skeleton within in a wain attempt to stop the shaking and brimming anxiety. ’Stop it,’ Percy commanded himself with all the authority of a future leader, but no. His body would not stop. His mind would not stop either. He was feeling the weight of all those stares as more and more people had taken notice of what was meant to be a playful display between alphas who were perhaps, maybe interested in each other. And now… all that they were… all that they felt for each other, each tender and confusing emotion… was being feasted on by complete strangers.

The whispers persisted the more distressed Percy became, as if fed by his weakness.

”That is our Percival!”

”He has bonded with alphas? Why?”

”What’s the use?”

”Shut up!” Jon hissed, but it was useless. There were so many people around them. So many bodies pressing in on them, wanting to know.

There were even people attempting to not so stealthily scent them!

Jon exploded. His hand snapped out to clutch the arm of a girl omega leaning way too close to Percy. ”Shameless! How dare you try to scent someone without their permission?! Huh?!”

”Jon.” Jacques was suddenly there, holding onto Jon and forcing his hand off the girl.

Jon’s gaze flitted with Jacques’s faint nod of the head.

Silva was on high alert also, all his instincts pinging in alarm. They were being boxed in slowly with no way out. Surrounded by what were currently their enemies for all states and purposes. Citizens curious about their princeling soon turned king, vying for his attention, hungry for his mind and flesh, wanting to either build Percy up or bring him down… it did not matter. Silva was more than aware of this fact: to the people, a public figure was like public property. Especially someone they adored. They felt that they owned Percy in some twisted way and thus were currently grasping for him, wanting explanations for what they’d just witnessed.

’Alphas with alphas,’ Silva met Jon and Jacques’s gaze for a moment, then simply nodded. ’Is not something one sees every day, after all’.

”Percy.” Jon pulled all of them close together. His tea scent became scalding, pouring honey and water in a steaming waterfall all around them to fend off all these nosey people. ”Percy, can you walk?”

Percy nodded stiffly, head moving like that of a machine. He felt it again: mecha-like feel of his limbs, his extremeties. He was short-circuiting again. Useless. Weak. How could he ever hope to lead all these people like this?

They could all smell the mounting rot of stress from Percy. His desert scent was taking on a sickly feverish tone, stinging the noses of the alphas fretting over him.

Silva looked around them again. ”We need to get out of here.”

”Yes!” Jacques hissed as he hugged both Percy and the bear against himself, wishing to hide his best friend. ”This is already his second time falling apart like this! The possibility of a stress-rut is greater than before!”

”Shit!” Jon hadn’t even thought about that. He still remembered the way Percy had gone completely lax in his hold, becoming like a doll that could only be held together by his arms. The memory of it left him cold with distress. ”Shit, shit, shit! Okay. Okay! I’m gonna get us out of here!”

”Jon…” Jacques murmured in concern as he and Silva observed the way Jon started aggressively growling and biting at the air, lashing out at everyone and anyone around them.

People were yelping and flitting out of the way as Jon forced a path for them with sheer threats and determination. Silva was keeping to the back, watching for anyone approaching them unexpectedly and Jacques held Percy close, supporting the jittery lean body.

Teeth chattering, Percy cursed everything in his power as his stupid mind and body refused to listen to him. ”I hate this. I hate this. I hate mys-s-self. I’m sup-p-p-posed to be strong-nger than thi-s-s-s! I’m a so-soldier! I should-d-dn’t cave in under p-p-pressure like thissss!”

”Hush, military princeling,” Silva shushed while tugging lightly Percy’s backhair. ”I told you, didn’t I: you are more than just an alpha or a soldier. The person Percival Dawnmoore needs TLC right now after all the bullshit he’s been forced to go through.”

”Agreed!” Jon growled deep from his sternum as he shoved and pushed them a path all the way to the gate of the amusement park.

There was a discreet Rayne family car there already waiting for them as per Jacques’s request. Jacques put Percy into the backseat and got into the front seat himself. As Jon ran over to the other side of the car to get beside Percy and bark one last time at a couple of people taking pictures, Silva was left standing there a lone bird outside of a nest. His frostbite-scent surrounded him, furthering this isolation from the well-blended trio protecting and caring for one another. It was all so very… precious. It made Silva a little sick actually to look at them like that, despite his appreciation for their strange dynamic. It made him sick to see Percy not needing him at all, because he had others already. He had… no place here. With these alphas. It was very clear from the way they interacted with one another.

Silva took a step back.

Percy’s senses honed in on that small hesitant movement.

Silva’s gaze drifted towards the side. ”I’m glad you’re okay now. Then I’ll…” Just when he was taking another step, a surprisingly strong hold seized him by the sleeve and pulled him into the car. Silva let out a startled ”yip” as he was held against Percy’s trembling form, while Jon pulled the door shut and told the older driver to step on it as if it all were completely natural.

”Hey…!” Silva got out of his mouth in confusion, when Percy started growling and nuzzling him, and Jacques rapid-fired commands on where to go from there. Jon was busy scrolling social media to see who he had to chew out for taking stupid pictures of Percy during his break down.

Throughout the the drive, Silva kept calling out in vain, blinking hard and laying stiffly in Percy’s arms along with the discarded teddybear. The two were squished together in the backseat, Percy taking huge gulps of Silva’s freezing scent into his lungs and murmuring about how good it felt against his own searing desert scent…

And Jon and Jacques couldn’t agree more – even the driver alpha expelling the scent from his sinuses felt the relief the Frost Empire Prince-Commander’s scent brought on. It was acting counter to Percy’s, two completely opposing scents fighting for space and refusing to properly melt together to create a harmonous scenery despite the clear affection between the two alphas.

They reached the old castle-style Rayne residence just in time for Percy to start showing symptoms of stress-rut. Which Percy hated keenly and vocally as they brought his stiff body up the stairs and into the building. Jacques immediately asked for one of the rooms their house had specially for any stress-heat and -rut suffering individuals. A butler showed them quickly to the East Wing, where there were several similarly furnished rooms with plenty of pillow and blankets for nesting material, fridges for storing food and drinks, and en suite bathrooms for keeping clean.

”Wait… But… I…” Silva was completely stuck and fumbling for answers as he was also escorted into the room they’d be using as if it was natural. As if he belonged there with them. ”I’m not… shouldn’t I…?”

”Help Percy on the bed,” Jacques threw out as he stayed behind to talk to the butler.

Jon was busily inspecting the safety of the rooms, so it was up to Silva who was being tightly held by Percy to help the other to the bed. Percy collapsed like a ragdoll immediately upon hitting the mattress. His trembling body was wrapped into a blanket, making him a caterpillar with just his socks and hair peeking out. It was so cute. Silva was at a loss as he sat down delicately on the edge of the bed. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do but to watch over Percy while the other alphas secured the perimeter around the room. Yes. Then he would leave as he should.

Percy groaned into the fluffy blanket, eyes screwed shut. ”I don’t want a stress-rut! I barely even like sex!”

Silva huffed in amusement and set out to pet what little of the other’s hair was exposed.

Percy let out a tiny purr at that, toes wiggling in delight at the relieving touch.

After checking the bathroom, Jon went back to the door where Jacques was making a list of things they needed.

”I’ll go make Percy something to eat and drink.” Jacques glanced over at Percy and Silva. ”You do what you can for your boyfriend. I’ll do what I can for my best friend. Okay?”

Jon nodded resolutely. He knew just how nasty a stress-rut was. It didn’t last long, but it was still emotionally and physically taxing as it came suddenly and struck viciously. Jon was ready to help Percy out in any way he needed. Which needed some negotiation, Jon noticed, as he tried pulling Percy out of his blanket-wrap, only to meet resistance.

”Come on, alpha!” Jon tried as he pulled and pulled at the blanket in vain. ”You’ll be suffocated by the heat with this thing! Get your clothes off so I can help you relieve yourself of some of that need for closeness!”

Percy actually growled at him, surprising both of the other alphas. His face was ruddy and his breaths were coming out in small puffs as his body temperature kept rising and an annoying pressure was growing right under his navel. Percy hated not having control over his own body. He hated needing sexual closeness despite his actual desire for it being completely neutral and lackluster. Percy wanted to take both Jon and Silva by their faces and kiss them until they were breathless, hold them so tightly that they melted into him… but otherwise, he was just feeling sticky and miserable and horny, and it upset him.

A deep sigh wormed out of the shield of fabric and fluff.

Jon blinked in confusion, nudging the giant caterpillar in front of him.

Silva observed the situation, making calculations based on what he knew of Percy and what he potentially didn’t know. Then finally, he asked quietly: ”Percy, what do you want to happen right now? What do you want from your alpha?”

Jon glanced up at Silva then back down at Percy.

Percy peeked out of the blanket, near-black eyes narrowed in frustration. ”I want to kiss you. Badly! But I don’t…” he growled again in warning as the other’s hand grabbed his blanket. ”I don’t necessarily want to do anything else. Yet. Maybe. Is that… okay?” he asked in hesitation then, not sure if the other’s would think him lacking, somehow. Weird for not wanting to immediately jump to sex like his instincts told him to.

Silva gave a reassuring little smile. ”I’m sure your alpha will honor your wishes.”

Jon tensed when he felt a sudden pressure from the other. A freezing wind passing through his very bones and constricting his windpipe.

Silva’s gaze was perfectly blank as it seized the other alpha, daring him to say otherwise. ”Won’t you, alpha?”

Jon growled in turn, hugging Percy close to himself as he felt threathened not just as a pack leader but also just as a person, a lover. He wasn’t like those assholes who forced their partner to have sex just because they themselves wanted it! Long fangs snapped at Silva in blatant anger. ”Obviously I’ll do whatever the hell Percy wants! What kind of person do you think I am?!”

”Just testing,” Silva quipped easily, his overbearing presence dissolving as he kept observing the two. Somehow, he’d forgotten about his resolution to leave the moment an opportunity presented itself.

Jon and Percy didn’t drive him away either. Percy let his boyfriend peel him out of the blanket and set himself on top of him. Jon purred happily as he was able to slide against his beloved and take his face into his hands. First, they nudged their noses and foreheads together, testing the waters and scenting each other, then, Percy pushed forcefully forward and pressed their lips together.

Silva didn’t dare to move lest he disturb them.

Lips were bitten and licked playfully. Percy barely allowed Jon to pull them apart, wanting to feel the other all over himself from top to bottom. He sucked on Jon’s lower lip in a quiet demand for the other to hold him tighter, stronger, and trailed kisses along one side of Jon’s cheek where a scar slashed through in a peachy line. Jon purred, pushing his cheek against the other’s lips and rubbing his cheek against Percy’s face, making his alpha nip him in annoyance. Jon retialiated by burying his face into Percy’s neck and taking a hold of his throat. Fangs itched close to the glands by the jaw. Jon shook his head a little in a playful maiming action, while Percy surrendered to the dominating action and let himself be shaken.

Silva observed this all, honestly fascinated by the foreign display. He’d never seen anywhere how two alphas would engage in romantic or sexual activities together. This was like playfighting, where dominant and submissive roles were present, but neither actually wanted to assert themselves violently over the other. Jon was just giving Percy a casual reminder of who was the top-dog here and Percy gave a silent agreement by bearing his throat and allowing himself be shaken like a chewtoy. Silva wondered if Percy actually felt relieved to not have to take charge, since – like Silva – his life was so suddenly these days all about asserting control as the future leader of the country.

And indeed, Percy felt a great degree of relief, practically radiating it to Jon through his bodylanguage and scent. The sickly desert scorch eased into a comfortable Summer glow, where Jon felt like a lizard sunning himself comfortably under the blazing heat. As Percy started to also purr, Jon let go of his throat and licked at the indents of his teeth in apology. Percy answered by wrapping all his limbs around Jon. They could feel each other’s arousal. Jon kissed back up to the other’s face to make sure that this was okay. That it was fine for Jon to keep going. Percy fluttered his pretty lashes back, completely relaxed. Jon’s purr got louder as he started kissing and nipping his way down the toned tawny body hidden under the shirt. Jon took the shirt into his mouth and shook his head again violently, dissatisfied with the material blocking his intentions to show his partner a good time. Percy put his arms up. Jon peeled the shirt off him, threw it casually to the side, and then went back to kissing the delectable pecs and abs bared for his viewing pleasure. Percy was leaner than Jacques, but had tightly coiled muscles full of power, a body built for stamina and mobility. Jon delighted in it, in the contours of the other’s flesh. Percy shivered as his navel was kissed and a tongue was dipped in. He grunted, murmuring a ”Don’t like that”, to which Jon answered by retreating even lower, nosing at the light fuzz of dark bodyhair trailing towards the real treasure under the waistband of pants.

When the belt buckle clicked, Silva stood up so suddenly that it startled both of the other alphas who’d been in their own heated cloud of affection. Silva’s long dreadlocks trailed down his back in a thick bundle. His already very dark skin had taken on an even darker shade and there were beads of sweat growing on his temples.

He cleared his throat. ”I should be leaving now. Apologies for making my exit so late. I… wasn’t sure when to do this.”

Percy let out an alarmed sound which prompted Jon to chase after the Prince.

”Wait, wait, wait!”

”What?” Silva asked in alarm as his arm was clutched. He was very clearly flustered and unsure, heart beating fast at seeing Percy so… vulnerable. And Jon so… bold! It was pure insanity for Silva to stay! He wasn’t a part of this pack! He had no role here!

Jon could read most of this hesitation and bafflement on Silva’s face. He licked his fangs, still tasting Percy’s delicious salty sweat on them, and tried thinking what on earth was the best course of action here. What did he want? What did Percy want from Silva? It wasn’t like they’d discussed the details very clearly. This all was supposed to be just a test-run, to see how Percy and Silva felt about each other, and how it all felt to Jon and Jacques! They weren’t supposed to get all the way here on the bed! But now that they were and Percy was clearly getting distressed by Silva leaving…

”Can you…” Jon started, clamoring for something sensible for an answer that the Prince would accept. ”Can you watch for our backs?”

”What?”

”Like…” Jon tried explaining, gesturing wildly with his hands. ”Patrol outside of the room and make sure that no one other than a member of our pack comes in? Please? Your presence means a lot to Percy. To us!”

Silva’s brows furrowed and he glanced Percy’s way.

Percy was staring at him with the most puppy-eyes look, all starstruck and begging, hitting Silva right in-between the plates of his armor to get at his heart. He gritted his teeth so tight it hurt. For a moment, Jon was kind of nervous that he’d throw a punch, but Silva then ended up just ripping his arm out of Jon’s hold and barking out a: ”Fine! I’ll watch the outside for you. But then I’m leaving!”

Percy let out a long relieved breath, which Jon answered, even as the door was banged shut right in his face.

He crawled back to Percy, where the other embraced him tightly again and kissed him for his efforts.

”Thank you.” Percy’s voice was so small, barely a whisper.

”You’re welcome,” Jon murmured back, nuzzling Percy’s cheek as he sighed. ”I think Silva would be a nice addition to our pack.”

”Yes,” Percy agreed in delight, corners of his eyes crinkling as he smiled. ”I really, really like him. Just like I like you and Jacques. Silva is an important person to me.”

Jon huffed. ”Just don’t forget us during your honeymoon phase with him.”

Percy bit Jon’s cheek in annoyance. ”I won’t, you stupid alpha!”

Jon bared his teeth in play, grinning, then dived back down to Percy’s belt. He hitched down the pants and underwear just enough to have Percy’s hard-on pop out. Percy growled again, to which Jon lifted his head to see again if it was okay to continue.

Percy stared hard at him from under the shadow of his crossed arms. ”Is that fun for you?”

”Huh?”

”Does that, like, feel good for you? Sucking off someone?”

”Uhhhh, yeah, I guess so.” Jon had honestly never thought about it that closely so he was a bit confused by the sudden interrigation. ”I mean, I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t like it. There’s just something satisfying about it. About being filled and filling.”

”Okay,” Percy snorted and closed his face off with his arms. ”Continue.”

Jon rolled his eyes in amusement. Just for that, he took Percy’s cock into his mouth whole in a couple of swallows, making the other hiss and his knees jerk. Jon let Percy encircle him with his legs and squeeze the life out of him and concentrated on working at the hot velvety flesh inside of his mouth. He couldn’t help comparing his two boyfriends: Jacques’s was thicker, but Jon thought Percy’s was longer with the way it hit the back of his throat faster as he swallowed.

Jon listened carefully to Percy’s sounds, shifting the shaft between his fangs so they wouldn’t rake uncomfortably the sensitive flesh. It took some adjusting, since Jon’s fangs were a little long for his own mouth, but he’d had ample practice by now with Jacques. Percy whined high when a tongue came to feel at the underside of his cock, caressing the veins there in an inquisitive manner. Jon’s lashes fluttered as he started going on autopilot, working on intuition. He switched his brain partly off at the comfort of being able to bring pleasure to his boyfriend and suckled carefully at base of the cock, then worked his way back to the tip. He flicked the slit there with his tongue a few times, digging into it to make Percy keen, and then slowly but surely envloped the heated flesh again. Jon delighted in the way he could feel Percy squirming. He pressed the other’s upper thighs down with quiet insistence, holding him so he could decide the pace at which they went. Percy quivered hard, panting against his crossed arms, afraid to look down lest he break down completely from what he’d be seeing. He remembered Jon’s stress-rut, the way he was perched on Percy’s lap and how their cocks had brushed against each other until Jon came undone and howled his dominance and pleasure at the ceiling. Percy blushed harder at that and then laughed in a faint, choked-off manner: ”Now all of us three have had a stress-rut…”

Jon nearly choked on the cock deep in his throat when a laugh constricted him. He had to pull off to chuckle properly, which in turn made Percy laugh harder. ”Ahhh! You brat!” Jon admonished with a grin, then went down on Percy hard, deep-throating him again so suddenly that Percy let out a sudden long whine. Jon worked his throat-muscles and tongue until he could hear Percy’s breaths come out in abortive little gasps. He felt the cock in his mouth twitch in a familiar manner, ready to come, and pulled back again to hold the very tip inside of his mouth, fangs scratching lightly at the top. A cross between a purr and a growl erupted from Percy as his hips canted up in Jon’s hold and Jon dutily swallowed the cum dribbling on his tongue.

While Percy quivered and eased his breathing, Jon hummed happily and nuzzled against the gorgeus happytrail of his handsome boyfriend. They laid like that in silence for a bit, when Percy started wrinkling his nose and huffing in annoyance.

”Feels gross now… and hot still.”

Jon hummed again, a purr building anew in his throat. ”Wanna take a cold bath?”

Percy perked up at this. ”Yes! You got what you want and now I get what I want!”

…

When Silva came in to give them a big helping of curry and rice and freshly cut cucumbers, he was faced with an empty rumpled bed. After shuffling around for a bit, he could track the two’s smell into the luxurious bathroom, where Percy was leaning blissfully against the white porcelain side while Jon soaped up his hair. The water practically radiated coldness, which was probably why Jon wasn’t actually in the bath with his boyfriend. It would be uncomfortable for him. Percy on the other hand was relishing the drop in temperature as his overheated body floated there in the middle of soap bubbles.

”Silva!” Percy greeted in joy, face blank but his cheer noticable to anyone who knew him by tone and bodylanguage.

Jon also greeted Silva merrily with a grin. ”How’s our personal chef doing in the kitchen?”

Silva huffed in amusement as he came closer with the trays. ”Baking a whole cake as we’re speaking.”

”Oh, nice!” Jon threw some cucumber pieces into his mouth, desperate to wash the salty cum from his mouth. ”I’m gonna go get some more water and sports drinks. You take over for me a bit here.”

”Really?” Silva asked, startled. ”But…”

”Stay please?” Percy implored Silva as the other watched Jon leave the bathroom in a rather calculated manner.

Silva set the trays on the tiled floor, feeling like he’s been set in a trap. ”I’m taking this as you wanting to talk to me about something in private?”

”Yes,” Percy readily admitted. His long fingers played with the soap bubbles as settled into a better position in the bathtub. ”Are you… okay?”

"Sorry?”

”I mean, with this situation.” Percy stared seriously back at Silva, fingers gripping the edge of the tub. ”Sorry I dragged you into this whole thing with us… I just… In that moment of incredible stress, I didn’t want to be parted from anyone I trust in and care about. I wanted you also there with me. It was just an insistent instinctual need that overrode my common sense and…” He looked a little depressed, corners of his mouth drooping. ”And I failed to consider that this may have been awkward for you.”

”You are actually remarkably capable of logical decision making while in stress-rut. Most would lose their senses completely and think only with their need to breed.”

”Oh.” Percy blinked several times as he processed this observation. ”You’re right. Maybe I have gained better control of my emotions and instincts in my years long training to be a soldier and a pilot. Or maybe…” he murmured, mystified. ”… it’s the possible asexuality affecting my way of thinking during a stress-induced rut?”

Silva stayed politely silent while the other went through his thoughts. Then, after a moment, he began pondering his own answers. ”It has been… difficult to adjust to this situation you’ve all sprung up on me… But it’s not like you could’ve known you’re going to go into stress-rut back at the amusement park. You were having a panic attack and needed to get out of there without losing anyone you felt safe with. I can understand that. But this whole thing…” He gestured around them grandly with all the seriousness of a born commander. ”What do you want from me, Percy? What was this whole day really for – other than getting to meet each other?”

”I was depressed and Jon and Jacques thought seeing you would cheer me up.”

Silva made an encouraging sound, nodding for Percy to continue.

”We also thought… I guess…” A blush started to rise up on Percy’s cheeks and he retreated deeper into the water, jaw touching the freezing coldness. ”I… really, really like you Silva. I… want to be closer to you. Much, much closer than just friends over a great distance!”

”Percy…” Silva’s expression softened. His hand came up to the brim of the bathtub, where Percy’s own lighter ones poked at his fingers in question.

”We are a polyamorous pack. I’m sure you’ve observed it during all those times you’ve seen us interacting with each other.”

”And what would this you feel towards me be then?” Silva cocked his head, measuring the sincerety and weight of the words. He wouldn’t let himself be tangled into any kind of half-assed relationship. He knew that he deserved better than that. He wanted more. He wanted a pack that he could trust and a partner that could keep up with him, understand him. Ideally in a dream-world, Percy could be that person. But Silva had to be sure about it. He had to know the depth of Percy’s feelings and devotion. ”I won’t be just an extra in someone else’s relationship.”

”You’re not an extra!” Percy suddenly surged up from the bath, startling Silva who suddenly was faced with a lot of fine naked flesh right down to the nice sharp hip-bones.

Silva didn’t know where to look while Percy only looked at Silva’s face.

”You’re an indespensible person to me, Silvarium Ruiz!” Percy pointed at him wet and flushed and radiating the heat of desert from his toned body. ”In whatever way you let me be close to you, I will be! I love Jack and I love Jon, and I love you too! And if it all can work out, then I’ll be greedy and have you by my side too!”

Silva stared mouth open at the ridiculously radiant person before him. His mouth felt dry and he didn’t know what to say expect: ”I take it back… your mind is completely rut-consumed, you insane person…”

Percy actually smiled at that. ”I’m scared about a lot of things with people, but I’ve been taught to not be so scared when it comes to feelings by two very special alphas.”

Silva laughed, feeling defiated by that fire he’d witnessed. ”I’ll think about it… that’s the only answer I can give you right now.” In front of that adorable toothy grin, he could muster no other answer.