#631

Max doesn’t understand George. But he can’t stop himself anymore, not from catching him nor from denying him. Especially not after the first run.  

The way George’s eyes met his, big and blue, desperate. His pink mouth drawn tighter each time Max refused to bite. Refused to rut. Refused to claim. 

It wasn’t lust that drove Max to catch George. Not that it was hard, to outpace the pack of slabbering alphas chasing after George. 

All too dull to notice how George’s scent curled in terror, never interest like the omegas he stood next to. How each backward glance carried nothing but fear. Each time George looked over his shoulder, panic sharp in his scent. Every backward glance tugged at Max like a thread, unspooling something primal within: his need to catch, to guard. 

The animal inside him refused to let George fall to the pack.

And when Max finally crowded him into the forest floor, he saw the relief on George’s face. Relief it was him and not one of the others. Relief that he wasn’t dragged down and rutted open by one. George’s scent shifted then, to cloyingly sweet with desperation, begging Max to bite, to mark.

Disgust burned through Max. At the thought of George laid open like this for any of them. Any alpha fast enough to pin him first.

Disdain at the way George’s body yielded, desperate and unthinking, ready to belong to anyone. For any smug, slobbering alpha who might have been faster. Who might have been here pressing him down instead.

But beneath it all, arousal coiled hot and sharp around Max. George's pliancy, the wracking tremor in his body, the rapid pulse at his delicate throat and how it tested Max’s restraint until his jaw ached. Still, Max denied it. Denied himself, every time.

He didn’t want to be welcomed by George because of some archaic run. He wanted George to want him when the heat was gone, when reason returned. To need him, not because of instinct, but because he could no longer bear the lack of him. 

Once the smoke and frenzy of the run bled out, when Max’s scent finally mellowed on George’s skin, he stood back and watched the others circle again. Watched George stumble through soft deflections and polite smiles, the practiced tilt of his head, the placating warmth he handed out like a perfect omega. Letting them believe he wanted them. That he still welcomed their attention.

As if he hadn’t been pinned down and smothered in Max’s scent days earlier, his scent bleeding relief.

Yet even as George smiled at them, his eyes sought Max. Big, blues restlessly searching and confused, waiting for Max to step forward past all the others. To court, to claim, to touch.

But Max never did.

And, when the next run came, Max caught him again.  Dispelling any rumours of last year being a one-off. 

By then, George’s stammers had become polished. All smiles, easy laughter and lies: “Maybe you’ll catch me next year.” But even from a distance, Max knew. George’s mouth spoke of interest, but his scent stayed flat.

Max became the big, bad wolf of George’s runs. The shadow in the trees, the press of heat at his back, the weight that dragged him into the dirt before anyone else could lay a hand on him. 

A relentless, immovable predator in his life. 

And he would keep doing it. Catching him, pinning him, denying him. Again and again. Until George dropped the devout little omega act, the soft deflections, the preens under unwanted hands, the empty promises of next time.

Until George asks. 

—- 

It's not that George welcomes it, the alpha attention. He doesn’t. 

But when the alpha who caught you barely looks affected when you’re wearing his scent, sticky from your drying slick and mind-to-mouth filter still syrupy slow. It’s hard to keep your footing.

So when the first alpha came around, George froze. Unsure of how to act, he looked across to Max, stretched out in the grass, calm.  Waited for him to step in. To push the alpha back. To let George act like a caught omega. To be George's alpha.

But he never did.

And when the alpha spoke, something in semblance of desire, George barely processed what was being asked. His lips shaped the same smile and stammered answer he’d come to learn. Heart racing at what was expected of him to act in this situation, when the alpha who caught you ignores you. 

— —  

In lecture, a palm lingers heavy in George’s hair, an indulgent, unwelcome pat as the professor slides the paper into George’s hand. “You write as beautifully as you look, George.” George forces a breathy laugh, soft and obliging, even as his heartbeat hammers and his scent spikes with unease. He curls his fingers around the paper like a lifeline.

When he risks a glance toward Max’s row, all he catches is his back. Already leaving. 

—  — 

Between lectures, he's stopped as he makes his way through the courtyard. Every passing pair seems to taunt him, a garden of entwined scents of enamoured alphas and their courted omegas. Everything George thought was promised when you get caught. 

A stray breeze lifts the scent clinging to his skin, mocking George with what it would smell like if teeth had actually sunk into his gland. He shivers at the thought, but it does nothing to deter the alphas pressing close.  Neither his wobble nor the fading smear of another alpha’s claim across him. He doubts they even notice how often his eyes flick back to the source of it. Max. More than what's polite or acceptable. But George can’t help it.

He glances again. And again. Tree-ground-blink-Max.

Max isn’t looking back, not even a twitch to signal he feels anything about the wall of alphas hemming George in. 

It makes the all too familiar irritation flare at Max’s carelessness. As if George is another omega. Not an omega who’s smeared in him, and definitely not one he’s caught twice now. He grinds his teeth together, careful not to drop his smile. 

“–arling? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” one of the alphas pressed, his voice cutting through the static in George’s head.

“Yes,” George said, the word falling out too fast, too light, before he even thought to stop it. His lips moved on reflex, shaping the same expression he’d learned to wear.

This time when he looks at Max, he stares back. Clear, blue eyes fixed on his.  Steady.

–

And so they went on. Like two bulls with their horns locked, neither yielding or looking away.

-

In the stands at the football game, an alpha leans in, voice smooth with suggestion, always suggestion. Like George’s smiles and well timed hums are anything more than decorum.

But the offending alpha brushes George’s arm as though it already belongs to him. George’s practiced laugh is thin, even to his own ears, his body angled politely even as his eyes search the field. Wishing Max would react. Intervene. 

But Max only played. And when his gaze finally landed on them, it wasn’t jealousy George saw. It was boredom. As if George being pawed at by another alpha wasn’t worth his attention.