He was in the library one day, just chilling no real reason for being there, and there you were in your usual little private study room with a friend. The walls are thin in the library— they’re thin everywhere on campus really. He’s meandering to a seat kinda close to the study room— because it has to best light— when he hears faint, hiccuping inhales. 

He inhales sharply through his nose, because no it couldn’t be. But yes it could, there’s a salt to the air and you’re covering your face with your hands. He sees it through the tiny shitty window. His lips pull up from his fangs, flashing them uselessly. He itches to do something, to bite into something. What made you cry? What did it?

Xander presses his ear to the wall, just out of sight of the window. He’s breathing just through his nose. He’s never smelled you so clearly before. Salt from the tears but under it is just this little line of you that he’s chasing, trying to identify. Stupid betas smelling like nothing at all. He stops inhaling so hard when he hears you speak.

“H-he’s making me be so-some bitch that nags hi-him to do his wor-work,” you say, voice hitching. “I don’t want to-to be that. I’m not a bitch. Stupid alpha!”

Your friend makes soft, cooing reassurances that Xander doesn’t process. He can’t feel anything beyond the pounding of his chest. It wasn’t about him. Right? It wouldn’t be, because you don’t spare a thought for him outside of when a project is due. And maybe there’s something due in… in how many days? Xander thumbs open his phone and goes to your contact. He knows you texted recently and you would have told him when… oh. In three days. 

As he often does, Xander scrolls up in your message feed. All reminders to turn in work and update checks. He likes to go back to the first message you sent. It seems so tentative and polite compared to what you send now. He only ever sends you back a thumbs up. 

On a whim, for no real reason, he types out ‘finishing my part tn’ and then realizing that he hasn’t gotten it done yet, follows up with a ‘gonna send it to you in the morning’ and sends it to you. Waits. Paces around so he doesn’t look like a complete freak, suppressing a growl of impatience. He presses his ear back to the wall to hear when you make a small exclamation. You sound so relieved. You send him back a little ’Okay!’ and heart his message. Heart it. 

Xander imagines that as a reply to anything else he could have sent to you. Like ‘gonna be in the study room in 5’. Like ‘got you some coffee’. Or ‘come over and wear that blue tank top you wore last Monday pls, gonna fuck you in just that’. Or just ‘gonna take you out to dinner tn baby’.

Okay! And a fucking heart.

He also doesn’t let anyone else sit near you in group meetings. You’re the only beta there, and he can tell it raises your hackles. You usually sit next to one of the omegas (and their scent gets all over you, drowning out the faint smell of you and it’s always bothered Xander but he thought he just wanted to fuck one of the omegas), but Xander always times his arrival to be just after yours so he can steal the seat next to yours. 

And oh, it’s fucking good. You smile at him when he sits next to you. Ask him about his weekend. Talk about class. Fuck is it good. Granted, it does take Xander being overly on top of his portions of whatever project their on in the semester, doing his work well, and loudly agreeing with your opinions so the other two alpha’s in the group don’t even think of posturing to you (he’ll lunge for their fucking necks, he swears). But whatever, it’s not as if anything in this class is too hard to do. 

But it’s not enough. Once small talk is over, you turn back to your friend to speak to her. Once the class or the group meeting is over, you leave before Xander can get enough of your smell. Leave him salivating. He knows where you go and what you do and who you do it with, but it’s not enough. He wants to be there with you. He wants to lave his tongue over your neck, inhaling you with his mouth to understand your scent better. 

He’s desperate for it. So desperate he uses a hookup to get into your dorm building and blows her off with some excuse he doesn’t remember. He wanders every hall, scanning each door for your name plus your roommates’. And when he finds it, he (with no patience and much stumbling) picks the lock to get inside. 

Thank fuck, you haven’t done your laundry. Xander dives face first into your hamper, inhaling greedily. Yes, the salt of sweat. Yes, the musk of sleep clothes. And yes yes yes, fuck, the tang of something else, something more, just there— 

Xander pulls your underwear free from a pair of jeans. He swallows thickly and sniffs one more time. Fuck, it’s good. So so good. He tucks them in his pocket before turning tail to leave. 

He breathes it in all night. Fucks his fist to the thought of you really being there with him. He’d make his den up for you, he’s bought the soft blankets and the slightly firm pillows and the soft hanging lights so he can make it all perfect. He hasn’t built it yet, he got so furious the first time he made up his cozy den for you to lie in (so he can touch you, hold you, rub your neck and your back and your tits, and then slide his tongue into your pussy while you’re aching with want for him—) and you weren’t here. He tore it down aggressively and threw it all out. Then bought new stuff the next day so he was perpetually ready for when he did bring you into his den. 

As he lays in his half-done up bed, on the blanket he rubbed vigorously with your panties, and inhaled the mixing scent of you and him, he decides that maybe he’s in a good enough spot with you for the next step. It can’t be harder than all the omegas he’s pursued, can it? He’d even say that they were pickier than you. And he already knows so much about what you like.