Vengeful Bonds - The Nobodies #1 - ch. 1 (Patreon)

THIS IS A/B/O.

THIS IS A/B/O

THIS IS A/B/O

THIS IS A/B/O

If this isn't your thing. Don't read it. This is a side project and will be updated when I can. I have a couple chapters I stared a while ago so those might come faster. Rogue is obviously my priority.

Fen

Hey little deer,

I never thought I’d be writing this type of fucking note,but if you’re reading this, I’m dead. Which totally sucks, not gonna lie. I know you’re mad. I promised I wouldn’t leave you on your own, but I guess I lied. I really thought I’d make it out. And I was so close to keeping my promise.

I’m sure Cerberus fed you some bullshit about me dying in the line of fire or maybe even said it was a training accident? That one’s pretty popular too. Whatever they told you. Don’t believe them. They’re full of shit. I died for what’s on this drive. The files contain everything you need to prove just how shady that company truly is. But be careful. These people think nothing of killing.

Everyone is disposable to them.

The encryption on these files is next level, Fenny. You’re going to have to use every single skill I ever taught you (and a few I didn’t) to crack it. It was the only way to guarantee the wrong people couldn’t read it. There’s things on here that could get a lot of other people killed if it falls into the wrong hands. Don’t let that happen.

Once you’ve opened the file, find Corbin Raider. No, not THAT Corbin Raider. His son, Binnie. He also works in Washington, but is fighting against his father’s shitty political opinions on hierarchical pack structures. Don’t be scared. You can trust him. Show him these files and then tell him he’s going to need a team. And tell him to find Loch. He’ll know what to do. Don’t let him say no.

I know you’re going to want revenge. I would. But this is bigger than that. You need to see the big picture. What these people are doing is dangerous. You’re going to need my friends to help you stop them. And you have to stop them, Fenny.

I love you, baby brother. Don’t forget that.

Stay safe. You’re the last of us now.

Josh

Tears streamed down Fenton Fletcher’s face, gut-wrenching sobs pouring from his lips like rushing water. He tried to keep his fist to his mouth to muffle the sounds, but it was impossible. He was shredded, the pain so severe it almost felt like maybe he was having a heart attack. Unlocking Josh’s final message had unlocked all the grief he’d managed to stuff down over the last two weeks just to survive. And now it was just erupting all over him at the worst possible time.

He was at work. He couldn’t let his co-workers hear him falling apart like this. It was dangerous. He’d only been there eighteen months, and he’d come in with the deck stacked against him. He was young. The youngest in his department. He was an omega.The only one in his department. He worked in intelligence and encryption, a field dominated by traditional alphas. All of them waiting for him to choke.

He never should have cracked the cipher at work. He’d been working on it at home each night, with no luck. Josh had hidden his final message behind a cipher, only cracked with a keyword, a word that only he and Josh would know. Fen had thought he knew his brother better than anyone, but hour after hour, night after night, every word he tried failed until he started to think he never knew Josh at all.

But today, while sitting at his desk, eating his strawberry yogurt, the answer had struck him like a lightning bolt, stealing his breath and leaving him shaking with anticipation. The fucking answer had been staring him in the face all along.

Literally.

Little deer. Little deer.

Fen had known the term of endearment was a clue when the first paragraph of the letter wasn't hidden behind the cipher. Josh wasn’t the type to give him nicknames. Fen thought Josh was telling him that the word was related to their childhood.

When they were kids, their father would make Josh go deer hunting with him out in the woods by this huge man-made lake an hour from their home. Fen went too. Not because their father wanted him there but because he was too little to leave alone and it would look bad to abandon an eight year old on his own for a week. And Jimmy Fletcher was always concerned about optics. Couldn’t have people thinking the police chief was prejudiced against his own omega son. Even if it was the truth.

When Fen was older, his father still brought him along. Someone had to cook and clean. And it certainly wasn’t going to be the two alphas, no matter how badly Josh wanted to help. They both knew it would only make it worse in the long run.

Their father had dragged them to the same cabin every year. A cabin that belonged to some old couple who had retired to Florida and rented it out for extra income. It had seemed like something to do with that place was the obvious key to the rest of the letter.

At first, Fen had thought maybe the key was the name of the lake the cabin sat on or even the city where it was located, but neither had panned out. He’d tried several combinations of words. He had tried the month or their trip each year. The name of the first buck Josh brought down. Anything at all he could think of that might be related to that trip.

Then, sitting in his cubby, a memory had crashed over him. An image flashing into his head. He was such an idiot. Deer wasn’t the hint. Little deer was. Whenever they would arrive at the cabin, they’d have to drive down this long private road to get to their destination. And at the entrance to that road, was a little deer cutout staked into the ground. And burned into the deer was the name of the couple who owned the property: Everdeen.

He should have waited until he was home. It was the smart thing to do. But he had to know if he was right. The computers at his job were unhackable. What was the worst that could happen?

He’d stared at his screen—that blinking black password box—for five whole minutes before typing each letter in, hands shaking, a heavy dread tugging at his stomach. He truly hadn’t known if he’d wanted to be right or wrong.

But he’d been right.

For approximately ninety seconds, Fen had been elated to unlock the rest of his brother's final message, but that elation turned to despair so fast it made his head spin. Everything was a lie. Everything.

Josh hadn’t died in an accident two weeks before his contract was up. He’d been murdered. By the company he worked for. A company Fen had known was dangerous. A company he’d begged Josh to stay away from.

Cerberus had a bad reputation. The private Blackwater type private military contractor had changed names several times to try to outrun their controversial business dealings.

Sure, they paid well—too well—but no amount of rebranding could hide why Cerberus paid almost three times more, per contract, than the average PMC. It wasn’t the highly sought after training as Josh claimed. It was their employees' willingness to blindly carry out atrocities for the highest bidder.

Cerberus called them soldiers, but they were actually something far more brutal.

Mercenaries.

Killers for hire.

Highly trained specialized former soldiers, many of whom had been dishonorably discharged for misconduct, given access to money and weapons with little to no rules of engagement.

Josh had taken the offer. He said he had no choice. His dishonorable discharge was a permanent stain on his military record. Nevermind that it had been for having an affair with an admiral's daughter. As far as employment went, he was a pariah.

So Josh had taken the job. He’d promised it would all be okay, that he would serve out his three year contract and come home rich enough to take care of them both. He’d promised. But it wasn’t okay. It would never be okay again.

Hot tears slid down his already scalding cheeks, sweat beading at his hairline and slipping down his spine until his thin pink button-down shirt started to cling to him. He tried to pull it together. He really did. But sobs just choked past the clenched fist pressed painfully against his teeth, just making him cry harder. He hated how emotional he was. And even though it had nothing to do with his secondary gender—he cried too much by even omega standards—his coworkers would use it to push their theories about why people like him didn't deserve to be in government spaces.

If they caught him crying hysterically on the floor of an empty conference room he’d probably be fired. At the very least, he’d be written up. He couldn’t afford either of those things. He couldn’t even afford lunch.

A laugh bubbled past his lips, before he snapped his mouth shut. Josh had left to make them rich, but somehow Fen was more broke than ever. He had spent every last dime he had on his brother's cremation. Cerberus had said Josh’s contract forfeited all monetary compensation in the event he violated their ‘rules’. They claim he was involved in illicit activities that resulted in his death. There was no proof, of course.

Classified, son. You work in security. You understand.

He did understand. He understood they were full of shit. His brother would never have participated in anything illegal. But that hardly mattered. There was nobody to tell. Nobody cared. And if they did, they certainly weren’t going up against Cerberus.

So that left Fen on his own in every sense of the word. So broke he couldn’t even afford the much deserved mental breakdown threatening to overwhelm him right then and there.

Just a month ago, everything was going his way. He had a highly coveted job with the NSA, his brother was finally coming home and they would be living together in an apartment in Maryland. Everything Josh had promised.

Now, his brother was dead— murdered—and Fen didn’t make nearly enough money to afford to keep the apartment his brother had worked so hard to afford for them. Fen couldn’t even contemplate having to look for another place to live. His whole life was unraveling so quickly.

He jumped as the conference room door crept open, and a guy about his age peeked around the door. When he spotted Fen, they both froze. Whoever he was, he was beautiful, slightly built with messy mahogany hair and wide hazel eyes.

Clearly an omega like Fen.

Even if he hadn’t been able to smell the boy's crisp apple scent, his appearance would have given him away. All omegas were on the small side, slender, sleek, packed on muscle differently than alphas or betas.

It was just biology.

When Fen had once made the mistake of asking his father why omegas were built differently, he’d snorted and said it made it easier for alphas to run them down for breeding.

Fen wiped at his tears, trying to get a grip to assure the other guy he was fine. But before he could speak, the door shut once more, leaving him in silence once more.

Fen’s shoulders sagged in relief. At least the shock of seeing the stranger had seemed to finally stave off his seemingly endless supply of tears.

His eyes burned and his nose was stuffy. He probably looked all red and splotchy.He let his head thud against the wall behind him, sucking in deep breaths, willing himself to calm down. There was no way he could return to his desk in this condition. Even with his scent blocker on, his distress would distract his coworkers and his boss would blame him…again.

He wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand, looking around for tissues or paper towels, anything to blow his nose and clean himself up. But there was nothing. He should have had his breakdown in one of the private omega bathrooms.

The door to the conference room opened once again. The stranger was back. He had a tote bag over his shoulder. This time he didn’t hesitate to enter.

Once inside, he locked the door behind him and walked the few steps to Fen, sitting cross-legged before him, smiling at him like they were old friends. He had a pretty smile and two beauty marks on his cheek that looked like snake bites.

Without a word, the smaller omega started unpacking the items from his bag. A bottle of water, a bag of peanut m&m’s, a box of tissues and what looked like…concealer? Fen frowned, waiting for the other to speak. Instead, the stranger opened the bottle of water and wet a tissue, wiping it over his own neck. Fen watched, fascinated. Before Fen could even ask why he was removing his blocker, the other man brought his hand to the back of Fen’s head, pulling him into a hug, tilting his head to give him access to his scent gland.

Fen sucked in a startled breath, chest tight at the selfless gesture. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, the apple pie scent instantly smoothing the jagged edges of his pain. What was happening?

As they sat there, the boy hummed a quiet nameless tune, allowing Fen—a total stranger—to huff his scent like an anti-anxiety medication. And it was working. His heart rate slowed with each breath, his emotions stabilizing as the other omega pumped calming pheromones into the air.

Fen had no idea how long they sat like that, but eventually the other man pulled back, handing Fen the water, indicating he should drink. He took it and dutifully gulped down half the bottle feeling almost drugged from the other omegas scent.

“I’m Seth,” he finally said.

“Fen,” he said, giving him a tired smile.

Seth nodded. “I work in communications. I’m an interpreter. You?”

It took all Fen’s strength to pull himself out of the scent induced stupor. “Cyber-Security and intelligence.”

Seth’s eyes went wide. “With all those alphas?” Then he wrinkled his button nose. “Ew. No, thank you.” He gently swiped his thumbs underneath Fen’s eyes, gently brushing his tears away. “You must be pretty badass.”

Fen fixed him with a flat stare. “What gave it away? The sobbing or the runny nose?”

Seth snickered, but then he grew serious. “What happened? Did someone do something to you? Cause there are rules here. People can’t just push you around because-”

“No,” Fen said, cutting him off before he unleashed the tangent clearly building inside. “It’s nothing like that. It’s just…” Fen closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “My brother died.”

“Oh, my God,” Seth said, instantly yanking Fen forward again, shoving his face back into his neck. “You poor thing.” Unlike before, this time, Seth also buried his face in Fen’s neck. “You smell so sad,” he said. “I bet you normally smell so pretty, but right now you smell like…dead flowers. Are you okay? Well, not okay obviously, but like…do you need to go home? I can call you an Uber or…something?”

Fen shook his head against Seth’s neck, unable to pull himself from the comfort of this adorably nosey stranger. So he just embraced it, using the boy’s freely offered scent particles to fool his brain into relaxing.

After a bit, Seth moved from in front of him to sit beside him, tearing open the packet of candy and offering it to Fen. When he gave Seth a look that indicated he was too tired to even lift his arms, Seth grinned, then began to feed him the candy. Fen let him, enamored with the pretty omega. When the candy was all gone. Fen’s head dropped to Seth’s shoulder, a smile playing at his lips when he felt him rest his cheek in Fen’s blonde hair.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go home?” he asked.

Fen nodded without lifting his head. “I need this job. My brother and I shared that apartment. Without him sending me money for rent, I’m kind of fucked.”

“You can move in with me and San,” Seth said, like it was a perfectly normal thing to invite a stranger to move into your home.

“What?” Fen said, lifting his head to frown at him.

“Yeah, San and I share a three bedroom apartment two blocks away. It’s not huge but San just uses the third bedroom to store his art supplies. We’ve been looking for another roommate but it’s been…difficult.”

Fen’s brows knitted together. “I would think people would jump at the chance to live so close to DC. Is it the rent? Because I can’t afford a lot of money.”

Seth shook his head, his gaze sliding from Fen’s to stare straight ahead. “It’s…well, our living arrangement is…uncommon.”

“Uncommon? What are you like living in sin or something?” Fen asked, giving a humorless laugh.

“No, worse. I’m living with an alpha.”

“How is that weird? Don’t most omegas date alphas?” Fen asked, trying to put the pieces together.

Seth shook his head. “No, we’re not dating. He’s just a roommate.”

“You’re letting an alpha live in your house? In your space? Where you keep your nest? How? Why? Isn’t that uncomfortable during…you know?” He dropped his voice to whisper, “Heats? Ruts?”

Seth giggled. “This isn’t the old days. Lots of people with different secondary genders can live together now.”

“They can, but most don’t. Its…dangerous.”

Seth nodded. “But San isn’t like other alphas.”

Fen’s heart sank. He’d heard that before. This alpha’s different. He believes all genders are equal. Blah. Blah. Blah. “Yeah, sure.”

“No, I’m serious. We’ve been friends since middle school. Since way before we both presented. We always assumed we’d both be omegas. Or at the very least betas. Being an alpha wasn’t even possible in our eyes. Especially for San. He’s the most gentle creature I know. He loves painting and poetry and he cries over sappy movies. Nobody was more surprised or more devastated to present as an alpha than San. If you think the prejudice against omegas is bad, you should see how they treat a non-traditional alpha. He was an outcast from the moment he presented.”

Fen swallowed the lump in his throat. “That sucks. Nobody should be made to feel less than for something so stupid.”

Seth nodded. “I think it's because all those alphas were secretly hoping to mate and breed with him. He doesn’t look like the typical alpha either. He’s tall and lean, willowy, long blonde hair. A face so pretty he doesn’t seem real. He’s like some kind of mythical creature walking among us.”

“You sure you don’t want to mate him?” Fen asked, his amusement obvious.

Seth sighed wistfully. “We’re…incompatible in that respect. San is too soft for me. I’ll be damned if I ever let some alpha control what I do with my life—” His voice dropped down to a conspiratorial whisper. “But in the bedroom…let’s say I turn into a trad wife.” Fen barked out a laugh, watching as Seth’s cheeks flushed, but then he smiled, revealing two deep dimples in his soft cheeks. “What? I can’t help that I wanna be bossed around a little. There’s just something about an alpha when he’s all teeth and claws, you know?”

Fen didn’t know. His experience with sex was limited. His experience with heat and rut sex was nonexistent. “I…yeah, I’m on suppressants, so I don’t have to really worry about…that.”

“That? Fenny, are you a virgin?” Seth teased.

Fen sucked in a breath at that. “My brother used to call me that.”

Seth’s eyes went wide. “Oh, jeez. I’m-”

Fen held up his hand. “No, it's okay. I…I liked it.”

Seth's shoulders sagged. His relief obvious. Maybe Josh had sent this random stranger to get him through this.

“So are you a virgin, Fenny?”

Fen rolled his eyes, his whole body hot. “No. Shut up. Why are we even talking about this?”

Seth laughed again, the sound musical in Fen’s ears. “You brought it up.”

“Oh, right.”

“Come to dinner with us tonight. You’ll see San isn’t like other alphas. For real. Even if you don’t want to live with us, come have dinner with us. You smell so…lonely.”

Fen’s chest tightened, his throat suddenly thick with tears. He forced them down again. He couldn’t just sit and cry in a conference room all day. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

“Really?” Seth asked. When Fen nodded, he launched himself at him, bowling him onto the floor and laying on top of him as if that was a perfectly acceptable thing to do to a stranger. Seth had no concept of boundaries whatsoever.

“What are you doing?” Fen asked, when Seth made no move to get up.

“I’m a human weighted blanket. It’s soothing,” Seth said, voice muffled against Fen’s neck. “Do you not feel soothed?”

“My weighted blanket doesn’t have elbows,” Fen complained without heat.

When Seth didn’t budge, Fen let himself relax underneath him. It only took a minute or two before their heartbeats sank up, his lids growing heavy, the reassuring heat of Seth’s body not too much or too little.

Fen woke when someone gently shook his shoulder. He blinked slowly until all his memories rushed back in at once, like someone had opened the floodgates. He sat up straight, staring at Seth in horror. “How long was I out?”

“Like fifteen minutes, I promise. Just long enough for me to hide your puffy eyes with some concealer and apply some more blocker to your scent glands. At least now you don’t smell like an omega in distress. We don’t work with your run of the mill alphas. These guys are all high on their own pheromones. They’ll lose their shit if you go in there smelling like you did. Now, you smell like you again.” Seth nuzzled his neck. “Honeysuckle and…daisies? It's so nice.”

“Your scent’s nice too.”

Seth rolled his eyes. “My scent is boring. Maybe that’s why alphas pay no attention to me.”

Fen looked over the boy with his golden skin, full lips, rounded cheeks and snake bite beauty marks. “There’s no way alphas aren’t lined up around the block for you.”

Seth shrugged. Fen narrowed his eyes. “You don’t want alphas looking at you, you little liar. What do you do? Huh? Do you scent yourself with your alpha roomies clothes so guys think they don’t stand a chance with you?”

Seth gave him a sulky look. “Whatever. Nosey.”

Fen laughed, his first real genuine laugh in weeks. “I’m nosey? Okay.”

Seth made eye contact and they both laughed again. Finally, Seth threw his arms around Fen once more, hugging him tight. “Please come to dinner with me and San. I know you’ll love him. You’re…we’re meant to be…friends. I can feel it.”

Seth said friends, but it was so clear he’d wanted to say pack. Fen would have given anything to have a pack to lean on. But it had never seemed like a thing he could have.

Fen pretended to think about it for another minute, but he’d known he was going to go the moment Seth had offered. He didn’t have many options. Maryland wasn’t cheap. When he nodded, Seth squealed with delight.

“You’re going to love San, I just know it.”

###

Everything was a mess.

His life, his apartment, the lines of code blurring before his eyes. All of it. He should stop and clean up a little before the others got home but he just…couldn’t. After thirteen months and endless hours, he’d finally broken through eleven of twelve layers of encryption. He only had one layer left and he was almost positive this was going to be the final trick to cracking it…tonight.

He popped the top on another energy drink, downing half of it in one go, ignoring his rapidly skipping heartbeat. He wished there was a way to inject caffeine straight into his veins like heroin. He just needed to push himself a little more. He was already high off a lack of sleep, artificial sugar driven energy and the thrill of knowing he was going to finally—finally—learn what was so important his brother had died to protect it.

A sudden jolt of sadness shot through him, piercing his overworked heart like an arrow, sharp and unprovoked. He never knew when it would hit him anymore. When Josh had first died, Fen had fallen into a black hole so deep he wasn’t sure he would make it back out. There had been times he wasn’t sure he’d even wanted to.

Everything had been so hard back then. Things he’d taken for granted like showering and brushing his teeth had seemed pointless. Sometimes just opening his eyes was the only task he had managed for a whole day. Even once he’d gone back to work, he existed on autopilot, just going through the motions.

But then he’d cracked the code. Then he’d met Seth…then San. And everything changed. Everyday things had gotten better and better until the good days had started to outweigh the bad.

Fen hadn’t had much hope of things working out when he’d accepted Seth’s offer to go to dinner, but Seth had been right. San wasn’t a typical alpha. Not in looks and certainly not in behavior. San was sweet and quiet and sensitive. A deep thinker who only cared about making things more beautiful.

But even then, Fen hadn’t been sold on moving in with the two of them that night. So they’d started a campaign to…woo him into being their roommate. San cooked Fen dinner every single night, even nights when he didn’t stay over. Seth brought snacks and energy drinks to him in his department every single day, dazzling the alphas in Fen’s department. He was there so often, they started to suspect Fen and Seth were dating. That didn’t stop them from asking Fen if Seth was looking for an alpha.

The door to the apartment opened and shut, the soft, barely the scent of apple’s wafting into the room a moment before Seth did. Fen watched from the corner of his eye as the other omega fell onto the sofa, fully clothed, his arms hugging his abdomen. “Fucking kill me,” he wailed dramatically.

Fen snorted. “That bad, huh?”

Seth narrowed his eyes at Fen. “Have you ever had a heat after five years on suppressants? It feels like an army of tiny ninjas are hacking their way through my stomach. Look how bloated I am.” Seth yanked up his hoodie, revealing a perfectly flat belly. “I swear it’s worse than my presentation heat.”

Seth, like most omegas—Fen included—often chose to stay on suppressants year round to keep from having to deal with incapacitating heats. Many a heat had derailed an omega’s career before suppressants were widely available. Bosses had often used heats as a reason to fire omegas or write them up. Even now, they just brought attention to the obvious imbalance that still existed between secondary genders, despite some articles claiming they were now all equal in the eyes of the law.

It was all bullshit. Omegas had fought so hard to be considered equal, to put protections in place. Yet every heat just seemed to remind others that omegas were the ‘weaker’ gender. How were they the weaker gender? Fen didn’t know. Alpha’s were just as incapacitated by their ruts as omegas with their heats, yet that was not only accepted, but celebrated. Getting pregnant, bad. Getting someone pregnant, good. Make it make sense?

The bonus side effect of suppressants was it also served as birth control. Something still very much needed to protect omegas from alphas knocking them up then using it to trap them into mating bites.

“You could just find someone to spend your heat with,” Fen suggested.

Seth gasped as if Fen had suggested an alpha orgy, his hazel eyes accusatory. “I can’t believe you would even suggest that. I haven’t had a heat in five years, there’s no way I’m trusting some rando to knot me for a week straight.” He shivered as if to drive home the point. “Besides, when was the last time you had a heat partner? Oh, right. Never.”

Fen stopped his typing to turn and face his friend. “I am still on suppressants. If I wasn’t, I would most definitely find someone to help me out,” he lied smoothly.

“Lies,” Seth cried, then moaned.

Fen sighed and stopped what he was doing, going into his bathroom and grabbing the heating pad, plugging it in and setting it to the highest setting before placing it on Seth’s lower abdomen. Seth beamed at him. Fen shook his head, but smiled.

Once he was back at his computer, he said, “You could ask San? He’s an alpha and not a douche.”

Seth sighed. “A. I’m not having sex with the guy who mocks the way I eat my cheerios every morning.” There was the sound of a key in their lock and the hinges of the door protesting. “2. I don’t know how to be sexually attracted to someone that I once saw puke in his own backpack on a seventh grade field trip.”

The door closed, San entering and looking down his perfect nose at Seth. “I was sick that day, you insensitive dick. I don’t know how they thought bringing a bunch of kids to a museum that reenacted all the inhumane treatment of omegas throughout history was a good idea. Excuse me for not being a heartless monster.”

“That’s fair,” Seth muttered. “But I still don’t want to fuck you.”

San paused, narrowing his gaze at Seth. “Did I offer?”

Seth gave him a hurt look. “Hello? Heat happening right here in front of you. Your best friend is here, writhing in pain. Are you telling me you’d let me suffer?”

“You just said you didn’t want to fuck me? Remember?” San said, exasperated.

Seth sniffed, indignant. “Well, no, but still. If the tables were turned and you had a rut and like absolutely nobody else to ask, I’d take one for the team.”

“That’s…I feel so special. Thank you,” San said, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

Seth propped himself up on his elbow, narrowing his eyes at San, who still stood there with his keys in his hand. “Are you saying you wouldn’t fuck me if I asked? Not even now, when I’m writhing in pain? You’d leave me to suffer?”

San gave him a thorough once over. “Yes.”

“Wow,” Seth said, dragging out the word before flopping onto his back and making an exaggerated sexy pose with his body. “You’re loss. Look at me. Who wouldn’t want to hit this?”

San scoffed. “You have spaghetti sauce on your chin.”

Seth’s expression was comical as he began to scrub blindly over his very clean face. “Come on,” he wailed. “I’m dying here. Can’t you just stick your dick in me for the greater good?”

San gaped at him, looking at Fen as if asking if he was hearing this too. “Two minutes ago you said you didn’t want to fuck me cause I once threw up like twelve years ago. Stop acting like I’m hurting your feelings.”

Seth gave another pitiful mewl like a wounded animal. “The least you can do is come lay on top of me and scent me, fuck face.”

San rolled his eyes. “Well, when you ask so nicely.”

Seth grunted as San laid on top of him, then rolled the two of them onto their sides. Seth slotted his one leg between San’s thighs. He combed fingers through Seth’s hair as he tucked his nose into San’s neck, sucking in deep breaths like he was huffing paint and not his best friend’s alpha pheromones.

Fen snickered at his roommates' antics, then went back to setting up the final run on this sequence, half listening as their conversation continued.

As he worked, the two bickered about who was hotter and who would be luckier to have whom. But soon the two grew tired of fighting. “I need to start getting my room ready,” Seth grumbled. “My heat is going to really kick off in a few hours and then I’ll be climbing the walls.” He looked at San. “Are you sure you’ll be able to handle an omega in heat? We haven’t had to deal with this before.”

San nodded. “Fen said I could sleep in his bed tonight. “I’m hoping his smell might cancel out yours.”

“Oh, okay. That’s good,” Seth said, tugging at the collar of his sweatshirt. He was starting to sweat. It would only get worse as his heat built.

“You want some help building your nest?” San offered, continuing to pet Seth like a cat.

Seth sighed, then nodded. “Yes, please.”

San stood, taking Seth’s hand and dragging him to his feet.

“I already put my dirty clothes hamper in your room so you can find the smelliest pieces,” Fen said. “Just shove the losers back out and I’ll throw them in the wash. If you have stuff that needs to go in, I can do yours too.”

Seth stopped looking back and forth between the two before stalking up to Fen. “Take off your shirt.”

Fen rolled his eyes, but peeled his t-shirt over his head, heart squeezing as Seth buried his face in it inhaling deeply. “Mm.” He turned to San. “Now you.”

San snorted, slipping his shirt over his head. “A please wouldn’t kill you.”

Seth eyed him imperiously. “You don’t know that.”

Before San could fire a comeback, Seth snagged the shirt and made a run for it. Fen and San exchanged exasperated looks before San gave chase. Fen heard an oof, then a loud cackle. He shook his head again.

With one final deep breath, he hit enter and stood up. He didn’t know how long it would take for this to work. It could take ten minutes, ten hours or ten days. It was impossible for him to know. If it even worked at all.

He had to be right. He had to be. He was finally so close. He forced himself to walk away from the computer. Instead, heading to the kitchen to grab whatever non-perishable items Seth would need to hunker down in his room for the duration of his heat. Without a heat partner, he could be in there for an entire week, maybe longer. Heats spent alone sucked. Heats spent alone after coming off years of suppressants. Pure hell.

San would cook his meals and leave them at the door for him. Luckily, Seth had an en suite bathroom so wouldn’t need to open the door very often. No matter how much San and Seth protested that they had no interest in each other, biology was biology and an omega in heat was hard for any alpha to ignore. Not impossible, of course.

They weren’t animals. San would never force himself on Seth, but in his heat state, he would be…quite persuasive. But he still couldn’t consent. His omega brain wouldn’t understand that though and would see San’s refusal as rejection. So better not to risk it.

Fen gathered the water, some snack Seth liked, and the secret stash of sour gummies Fen had put aside knowing Seth’s heat was imminent now that the doctor had taken him off his suppressants. He brought it all to Seth’s room, not bothering to knock before he swung the door open. Seth sat criss-cross applesauce on the floor, nose buried in Fen’s hoodie, a look of concentration on his face. After a minute, he shook his head, then tossed it onto the non-keeper pile.

After twenty minutes, Seth had finally acquired the items he’d deemed optimal for his nest, fussing over where to place each and every item. Fen and San watched, both smiling. Fen hadn’t had to build a nest in years. Not since he presented. His stomach twisted as memories of his father flooded in. He’d been so disgusted having an omega for a son. Any reminder of his secondary gender had tended to end in violence, especially after Josh left for basic training. His father had never hit him, but his words were almost worse.

But now, with Seth and San, the nest looked cozy. For the first time Fen could remember, the idea of a heat didn’t send him into a cold sweat. Especially if he had someone to share it with. Despite what he’d told Seth, Fen had never even entertained the idea of heat sex. He’d never experienced a knot, never dated an alpha. Never even fucked an alpha out of heat. He hadn’t dared when his father was alive and by the time he’d died, Fen was on suppressants and had pretty much determined all alphas sucked. All his past boyfriends had been betas.

A strange sensation jolted through him, nerves maybe. No, not nerves…anticipation. Everything was about to change. He just knew it. He would crack that file and he would get vengeance for his brother. After that, he’d make sure to take all of Cerberus down too. No matter the cost.

Fen gasped as his computer chimed, indicating that the sequence had finished. Already? No. There was no way it would have finished that quickly if he’d executed the command correctly. Fuck. He left his friends to put the finishing touches on Seth’s nest and walked back to the computer, expecting to see the glaring red access denied flashing on the screen yet again. Instead, there was a new window open, one with hundreds of files.

He stared in disbelief for far too long, then whispered, “Holy fuck. I did it.”