#omega!billy

‘Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?’

The canned Christmas music pumping out of a speaker on the ceiling of the bland waiting room was giving him a headache. Billy had been sitting there long enough for it to transition from the over produced bubble gummy covers of pop stars singing ‘Jingle Bells’, to stiff churchy sounding hymns. His very catholic mother had loved those. Used to fill the house with the sound of angels bringing in the good news before the dishes had even dried after Thanksgiving dinner. So it was inevitable that he think of her, even though he had a rule never to do that. He hated this time of year. A whole holiday designed around the lie of happy family, goodwill, and a merciful god. What was not to hate?

Besides the creepy kid, there wasn’t much to look at in the waiting room. Brick walls painted the color of oatmeal covered in peeling posters with muted calming colors, depicting heavily pregnant women and smiling doctors. Trust US To Help You Plan Your Family. A bold black headline demanded. Billy felt like giving it the bird, but that would just make him look crazier than he already did.  

“William Hargrove?”

Billy jerked in surprise. Winced as the bruised skin beneath his sweatshirt stretched. But he stood and followed the tall thin woman with the blue scrubs holding open the door into the back hall where the exam rooms were. The nurse introduced herself as Susan and lead him to the second in a long row of square rooms with tightly closed doors. He supposed he would be glad for the privacy himself soon enough, but he still thought it made the place look like a prison. 

Susan got Billy situated on one of those motorized chair/bed things and grabbed a backless gown from one of the upper cabinets that lined the wall above the desk. It was next to a large metal sink. There was a stain near the drain, too faint to discern what had caused it, but for a moment Billy was captivated by it. Was it blood? Bile? Maybe chemical wash had corroded the metal?

“Mr. Hargrove?”  

Billy jumped again. Snapped, “It’s Billy.”

“Billy. The doctor will need you to get into this.” She set the folded gown on the seat beside his leg and gave it a pat. Her eyes dragged over his ratty jeans and the oversized sweatshirt he wore despite the practically balmy sixty degree weather they were having. “You’ll probably be more comfortable.”

No. Billy thought of the bruises covering his stomach and the excuses he’d have to make now to a nosy doctor and thought, no. No he fucking wouldn’t. But he needed those meds, and there was no way to get them without going through this circus. So here they go.

He changed into the gown. Ignored the nurse’s cluck of concern when she got a good look at the job his father had done on him the night before. All because he could smell Billy stronger than usual. His glare dared her to say anything about it. It was a toss up who that worked on. Some people got even pushier when they sensed a locked door. Susan was not a pushy woman. She avoided looking directly at Billy as she prepped the doctors tools and filled out his chart.

William Hargrove, fifteen, male, omega. And what brings him in today?

“I need stronger blockers. Mine don’t work worth shit right now.”

His doctor’s name is Dr. Mehta. She’s a short curvy Indian woman (strike one) and even though her scent is sterile and chemical with perfume, the no nonsense look she gives him is all alpha. And that’s strike two. Billy’s father would hate her. Would probably kick the shit out of him again just for the insult to his sensibilities. Say some shit like, ‘you going to let that curry monkey tell you what to do?’, because the only thing Neil Hargrove hated more than his omega son, were job stealing immigrants and female alphas.

Dr. Mehta pursed her lips and looked down at his chart. Flipped a page. Then another. Billy knew what she was about to say before she even said it, but it still comes as a shock to his system. Like a slap.

“Mr. Hargrove, this is the third time you’ve been here in under six months. It’s natural for traces of an omegas scent to linger, even on blockers. Especially around what would otherwise be a normal heat cycle.” Her grip tightened on the clipboard. The corners of her mouth pulled back like she was bearing her teeth. Billy locked his muscles in place, resisting the urge to curl up on himself and hide from the angry alpha.

“Giving you a stronger prescription so soon will likely have adverse psychological effects, as well as cause irreparable damage to your reproductive – ”

“I don’t care!” Billy snapped. He clenched his hands, fisting the thin cotton gown between his fingers and tried to breath through the feeling of rising panic. She had to give him the meds. She had to, or Billy’s dad was going to kill him.  

Nothing set him off like having to smell Billy and be reminded that his son was a wet assed sissy boy omega. He didn’t care that Billy’s scent and his heat were natural functions that he could not just turn off and on like a light switch. Neil would yell, slap, kick, and punch until Billy was obedient. Until Neil had knocked the bitch out of him and Billy remembered how to be a man.

“I don’t give a fuck about kids or heats or any of it. I won’t fucking regret it someday or change my mind, or – Christ.” Billy grabbed fistfuls of his hair, tugged until his scalp stung, trying to ground himself with the feeling. He was going off the rails and he doubted Dr. Mehta was going to listen to a hysterical omega. Who would?  

“Mr. Hargrove –

“It’s Billy!”  

He wasn’t helping his case he knew that. Knew it was unusual for an omega to hate their own name so much. The reminder of family bonds should have brought him comfort, might have if Billy were normal. If he’d been like all those smiling omegas on the posters, with loving fathers and protective mothers. He’d heard a story on the news about a woman who’d died trying to save her baby from a gang of traffickers. She could have lived, traffickers were only ever interested in unbonded omegas, only she wouldn’t let go of the stroller.

“Billy.” Dr. Mehta amended, softer. “I’m obligated to ask if there is any reason that you do not feel safe at home.”

She paused but it was obvious that she did not expect Billy to be truthful. He shook his head and she nodded. “Right. But am I correct in assuming that for a personal reason it would be unsafe for you to detox from prescription suppressants and allow your body to go through a natural cycle?”

Billy shuddered. With his eyes closed he almost forgot to nod. Only did so when her soft voice prodded him once more. No. No Billy could never let himself go through heat.

~*~

After having burned through most of the morning Billy left the omega free clinic twenty minutes later with a little brown bag full of white pills. ‘These are much stronger than you’re used to Billy’ the doctor had warned him. ‘You’ll need to wait a full twenty-four hours to make sure your system is clean before you start them. Absolutely do not double up on dosage and I’m going to schedule a follow up in week to check your progress.’ Billy sneered at the memory. Yeah right. Like he was going to give his scent even more time to get stronger and then go home to Neil.

He stopped at a corner store near the bus stop and bought a bag of chips and a soda with the last of his money. Billy cleaned pools and mowed lawns to make money when he wasn’t in school since he didn’t get an allowance like the rich kids and the idea of Neil giving him omega pin money was laughable. He was saving up for parts to fix the car his grandpa had promised to buy him when he turned sixteen.

He felt sort of bad that his grandfather was using part of his pension to buy Billy a car (even a used one) but Pops wouldn’t hear no. He said it was because he worried about Billy traveling downtown to the free clinic without an alpha, but they both knew it was more than that. Pops was old and wouldn’t be around forever. Having a car of his own meant that no matter how bad things got Billy would always have a way out.  

Billy washed his first pill down with a mouthful of Dr. Pepper on the city bus and ate half a bag of chips because the label recommended taking the drug with food. And for about ten minutes he felt fine. He sat slumped in the uncomfortable seat with its torn cushion, his head resting against the window and watched the colorful streets of San Diego pass by. Glazed eyes took in brightly lit shop windows decorated in silver, gold,red and green tinsel; couples walking arm in arm with their shopping bags, bouncing children with drippy noses trailing alongside them. A pair of old men ambled along the sidewalk together bickering, even as one helped guide the other with an arm snugly around his friend’s back. Billy blinked back tears… we two have run about the slopes and picked the daisies fine… and frowned. This fucking song again.

He looked up toward the front of the bus, thinking he might beg for the driver to change the station to literally anything else, but his head swam with the movement. He did not feel so well anymore he realized as a pounding set in. He gave up any thought that wasn’t laying his head down and slumped down again, letting the motion of the bus lull him. By the time he got to his stop in the burbs Billy was sure he was ill and all he could think of was getting to his bed.  

He forced his tired legs to put one foot down in front of the other, glad that he knew the way home well enough that he didn’t have to pay much attention. His head felt like it wasn’t attached to his neck, like it was liable to roll right off if he didn’t hold onto it with two hands. Distantly he thought that if someone were watching him now with an eye to snatch him and sell him on the black market he’d be easy pickings. He’d be a story in the newspaper that the omega wives would cluck their tongues about and the alphas would sigh over. ‘What was he doing out by himself when he should have been in school? Drunk too, by the sounds of it.’

Billy might have looked drunk stumbling down his street in the early afternoon but he didn’t feel it. He mostly just felt sick. It was strange but he could almost feel something pulling at him. The feeling reminded him of being caught in a riptide. He tried to push against it but it was a struggle just to keep his eyes open long enough to reach his house and find the extra key they kept under the pot with the dead plant in it on the front step.

When the door opened to the empty living room a sob caught in Billy’s chest. This might be the first time he could remember in years that he wished his father were home. He was scared he’d fucked up with the pills and poisoned himself and there was absolutely no one to help him. Falling onto the sagging couch in the middle of the living room, Billy told himself he just needed sleep. That it was a bad reaction, because he should have waited, but he’d be fine… he’d be… for auld lang syne, my dear, for… for the love of god! He fucking hated Christmas.

Billy tried to shout for the driver to turn off the radio but he couldn’t get his mouth to move. He was caught, and the tide was pulling him down, down, down, into the dark. The chorus of singing voices were still echoing in his head as he passed out.

~ Chicago 2002 ~

The first hint Billy had that he was not in Kansas anymore was the softness. It felt like he was laying on a bed of clouds, so fluffy was the pillow resting under his cheek and comfortable the mattress that cushioned him. He couldn’t help burrowing deeper into that warmth and softness. He’d never been allowed to make anything approaching a nest, but he imagined that if he had it couldn’t have felt better than this. The comforter lying over him was buttery soft… but it smelled strange.

The smell was the second clue. Because it smelled like omega. Ripe. Dense. Like he’d sweated out his blockers and rolled around in the sheets for hours. And that wasn’t good. That was dangerous. Billy had jerked awake and already started to scramble out of bed tearing the blanket and the sheets off the bed thinking, get them in the laundry and get in the shower right now right now, when he froze. Because it wasn’t just his scent that wasn’t what it should be.  

That couldn’t be right though. Could it? His heart picking up pace in his chest Billy tentatively brought a corner of the comforter to his nose and sniffed.His senses were flooded with the scent of a strange alpha. It was so strong he couldn’t figure out how he’d missed it until now. The whole room smelled like toasted almonds and and…Billy kept sniffing. At first it was to try and identify what else it was making that scent smell so good, so masculine and warm, but he kind of forgot about that along the way. Fuck he’d never smelled anything so good.

A low rumbling sound filled his ears and Billy yelped, dropping the blanket. He whirled around to face a threat that wasn’t there. The room – this big ass room that wasn’t his – was empty. He’d been startled by the sound of his own purr. Fear began to numb Billy as he realized that he was in a strangers house, with an alpha off his blockers. His frantic brain kept screaming that he’d been trafficked and that any minute now some huge ugly asshole was going to burst in here and try and knot him whether he wanted it or not. No. Fuck no. He was big for an omega. Hadn’t spent all that time bulking up and honing his body just to wind up a sex toy. If he stayed calm he’d find a way out. Billy forced himself to breathe and to look around the room for an escape route.

The room he was in was… well strange. There weren’t chains on the bedpost or anything weird like that. It was the ordinariness of it that was off putting actually. It was like he was Goldilocks and he’d stumbled into the house of some unsuspecting alpha and fallen asleep in their bed. Maybe he had? Billy strained for a moment to remember. He’d been so out of it, had he accidentally gone to the wrong house? Picked up the wrong key from under the wrong potted plant?

But no, even as he thought it Billy knew he hadn’t. This bedroom was the size of his living room. There weren’t any houses on Battle Creek road that could accommodate a room like this. The big four poster bed looked like it had been bought out of a catalogue. The heavy oak furnishings were obviously well made and the carpet beneath his toes was white. Only rich people had the time or the money to keep white carpets clean.  

He noticed there was a rack of dumbbell weights tucked in the corner near the closet and a pair of running shoes had been left haphazardly near the closed door of what was presumably the bathroom – if the sound of running water behind the door was anything to judge by. Oh fuck oh fuck – Billy wheezed, realizing that the sound of the shower meant there was a naked alpha with very big feet behind that flimsy looking door. Some sick pervert who had to kidnap underage omegas just to get his knot in.

Billy shook his head sharply and made himself focus. The door was sure to be locked but there were large windows on either side of the bed. He hurried over to the one on the right side, shocked to find it not only unlocked but cracked open to let in a biting breath of air. Billy pushed the window open as far as it would go and stuck his head out, dismayed by the sight of the ground too far below to jump and covered in a white blanket of snow.

“What the fuck?” he stumbled back from the window, struggling more and more to keep the panic at bay because that was fucking snow outside! Where the fuck was he? Drugs. It had to be drugs. They’d have kept him unconscious while they transported him across state lines, or god fuck, maybe even out of the country! That would explain why the blockers were gone and his scent was so strong too.

Abandoning caution Billy ran to the bedroom door to try the knob. He couldn’t believe it but it turned easily under his hand and the door opened to the hallway beyond. He saw the flight of stairs at the end of the hall almost immediately and made a beeline for them. But when he reached the top of the stair a soft sound made him stop. It was music, slightly tinny in that way it got when it was being pushed through a speaker, and it was coming from a bedroom near the stairwell. The door had been left open just enough for Billy to glimpse pastel blue walls dotted in daisies.

It was just a tinkling tune without words but Billy already knew them by heart. He heard them in his head as he crept closer to that door and pushed it open, pulled by the distant memory of his mother singing in the kitchen some Christmas long ago and her scent blooming bright with happiness. Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Should old acquaintance be forgot, and old lang syne?

Billy had walked into a nursery. There was a changing station next to a white wardrobe that bore small colorful footprints up the side, marking the growth of a child. There were toys and books lining a stack of shelves near a window covered in gauzy curtains, and an old rocking chair set beside it. Billy blinked, taken back by the sight of the big purple octopus that had been shoved onto it. The stitching on one of its eyes was mostly gone, giving it the appearance of winking. Someone had taped a small red squirt gun to one of its arms and pointed it at the door. What the fuck is going on? He thought even as his feet carried him to the edge of the toddler bed overflowing with pillows and stuffed toys. In the center of what was obviously a tiny nest even to Billy’s untrained eye, was a small girl.

Honey colored lashes rested against a round cheek. Her hair fell down her back in soft blond waves that curled a bit more in the back. She had a lot of it. Billy didn’t think kids that size usually had so much hair. Did they? He wouldn’t know. Didn’t like kids! But something about the pup asleep in the bed had grabbed ahold of him and wouldn’t let him go. Was it her scent, milky and baby powder soft with a hint of omega sweetness? Was this some kind of weird omegean baby fever because he was off his meds?

“Hard to remember why we set the limit at two when they’re asleep like this isn’t it?” A voice said softly behind him and it was only years of living with Neil that kept him from jumping out of his skin. He froze like a deer in headlights because that was the key to survival sometimes. If he didn’t move (didn’t breathe) Neil might not find anything that needed correction. But Billy could feel the alpha’s eyes burning into his back and the weight of his expectation. His skin was crawling thinking about having some strange guy behind him so…

Billy turned slowly, and gaped at the man – because it was decidedly a man – he found leaning against the door frame in nothing but a towel. Blushes and shy glances were for sissy omegas and girls, but he found his eyes darting away from the sight of the slick hair clinging to the alpha’s well defined chest and then back again for another look; because fuck me, the guy was hot.

“Babe?” Mr. Chest hair asked, that single word imbued with so much significance that Billy’s fear started to resurface. There was just no good reason for some old guy to be standing there calling Billy ‘babe’ like they’re in a sitcom and Billy’s June Cleaver. They’re strangers to each other and the guy has to be at least forty. Billy doesn’t see any grays but he’s from California sacred home of implants and hair dye so that means nothing.

“Where am I and who the fuck are you?” Billy demanded. He didn’t know what sort of reaction he expected from the alpha; but it wasn’t for the bemused smile on his handsome face to disappear and for his eyes to narrow on Billy in speculation. The alpha had pretty eyes Billy noticed, if only because they were rounder and softer than was typical for alphas. Billy didn’t think it detracted from his appeal one bit, but then again Billy wasn’t the typical omega either.

Disturbed perhaps by the sharpness in Billy’s tone and the scent of omega distress filling the room, the sleeping pup shifted in her bed drawing both their gazes. Billy held his breath and prayed the kid wouldn’t wake up. He didn’t know why, but whatever this was going to be he didn’t think a pup that young should see it. The alpha seemed just as relieved as he was when the girl settled and slept on.

“Well that’s one crisis averted.” He muttered before looking back at Billy again like someone gearing up for a chore they weren’t particularly fond of. “Why don’t we get dressed and then we’ll sit down and talk. Okay? I’m sure you’re very scared right now and have lots of questions.”

He knew it wasn’t a logical response but Billy resented that look and the implication that he could be handled like he was the one who was three-years-old.

“I’m not scared of you old man. I’m pissed and I’m leaving!” Billy declared, lowering his voice halfway through when he remembered the kid. But he wasn’t going to wait around either. The guy was taller but Billy had him beat for muscle, plus he was younger so that had to count for something. He barreled his way past the alpha but the guy didn’t try and stop him. Probably because he seemed more concerned with shutting the door of the kid’s room and making sure she wouldn’t see or hear whatever was about to happen next.

Billy took off down the stairs at a run.

“Damn it. Billy! Billy wait!”

He ignored the guy calling after him and took the stairs as fast as he could, hopping the last two to land at the bottom and bolt toward what he hoped was the front hall, judging solely by the brighter daylight he could see spilling across the stretch of wood floor beyond the archway. Thankfully he had guessed right. Dominating the short little hall between the stairs and some kind of living room was a set of big doors with fancy window cutouts.  

“Billy!” He could hear the alpha behind him over the drumming of his heart. He made a desperate break for the doors, praying, praying, oh please god please.

Billy stumbled out into the blindingly bright snow, his saint Christopher’s medal swinging and slapping against his skin from the momentum. That was when it sank in that he was without a shirt or shoes. Fuck, fuck fucking fuck! Billy took several hopping steps as the chill speared its way through the pads of his feet and up his legs. It was so fucking cold!  

A dog barked and Billy looked up to see an elderly woman in a set of pink hair rollers walking a fluffy white dog on the sidewalk passed the drive.

“Help!” Billy called out, waving his arms. “I need help!”

The woman looked up startled, her wary expression melted away into one of recognition and then scandal. Her face scrunched up disapproving, as if the sight of half dressed teenage omega in obvious distress was some kind of stain on the neighborhood.

“Mr. Harrington! Does your alpha know you’re outside in your underwear?!”  

Billy ran. He had no idea who this Harrington guy was that the old bat had mistaken him for, but he knew the woman would be of no help to him. She didn’t have a single question about why a teenage omega would run out of a house barely clothed making a scene besides did his alpha know. If that alpha caught up he could say whatever he wanted and that old woman would take it as gospel.

So Billy ran as best he could in his bare feet down the drive and into the street, ignoring the woman’s increasingly frantic calls.  

“Mr. Harrington?! William!”

Billy bit his tongue to stave off the knee jerk instinct to turn and correct her. Tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes.  

‘Your name is Billy.’ He told himself, bare feet pounding against un-shoveled sidewalks as he ran. ‘You might be an omega but you won’t be a victim. So fucking run.’

Billy ignored the pain in his feet and the cold gripping his body as he ran down the street, passing block after block of picture perfect homes with pruned shrubs, long driveways, and two-car garages all covered in cotton cob webs, pumpkins, spiders, and ghouls. What the fuck was going on? He’d heard of people holding onto their Christmas décor but who kept their Halloween decorations up past November?

Billy slowed as he reached the intersection of what looked to be a main street. The cookie cutter houses had given way to shops, and he could see what looked like a gas station two blocks down to the left. Billy stood at the intersection unsure of which way to go, watching the cars pass while he waited for the light to change. It was an odd thing to do maybe, wait for a light to change when you were being chased, but Billy’s thoughts were no longer on what was behind him but what was right in front of him.

The cars were all wrong.  

He couldn’t explain how in so many words. They were just off. He saw too many models and makes that he just didn’t recognize. It seemed excessive even for a rich neighborhood that so many people would be driving foreign cars. And the ones he did recognize looked weird. A slimmer body here, a rounder trunk there. And the ones that were the same, that should have just rolled off the factory floor for some Bob or Ted to show off in, they all looked old. Well used and ready to be handed down to some eager teen.

The light turned green. Shaking, Billy crossed the street. He was no longer thinking of running but of reflections. He needed to find his, because the cars were all wrong, and maybe it was just in his head but he thought that maybe his voice was wrong too. He’d been so scared before that it hadn’t registered, but his voice sounded different in his ears. Still recognizable but off. Just like the cars.  

A book store was the first shop on the strip. The window had been decorated in fake cobwebs and a paper witch riding a broom hung from a hook in the ceiling along with a trio of ghosts. But the window was clean and just lit enough that he could see his reflection in the glass.

Billy bit his lip, cringing away from the glass. The stranger had the same colored hair as his, but it was cropped short till it was longer in the front than the back, one annoying lock of hair still long enough to curl across his brow. Crawling over abs that looked like the ones Billy worked so hard to develop were a network of thick scars on the stranger’s abdomen, like he’d been in a fucking knife fight and come out the loser. But honestly it wasn’t the scars that Billy found the most upsetting. It was the fucking stretch marks on the man’s stomach, fuck, and the lines on his face. The stranger in his reflection was old.

A car pulled up to the curb behind him, it’s engine purring softly, and Billy just stood there. He was too numb to run. Too numb to do anything but stare down at the legs of the body that was somehow his but not his and wonder how he could have aged so much in a single afternoon. He had to be dreaming, he decided. There was no other explanation for it. Dr. Mehta had warned him increasing his prescription might have psychological effects right? Boy did he have a story for her! He started to giggle despite everything. Because it was kind of funny when he thought about the doctor asking him if he’d noticed any adverse side effects.

“Billy?”  

One of those side effects was a tall handsome alpha, now dressed in a long coat with smart looking buttons. He had a ratty pair of shoes in one hand and the coat was unbuttoned. He’d also left the car running and the door open, Billy noticed, as if he thought he might have to leap back in again at a moments notice. He needn’t have worried. Billy wasn’t going anywhere. It was fucking cold and this was all a dream so…nowhere to go.

“I’m old.” Billy said the only thing he could think of that seemed to matter in that moment.  

The alpha’s mouth quirked a little, like he might smile and replied softly, “Yeah. Fucking ancient.”

He waited, but when Billy didn’t say anything else and made no attempt to move he heaved a sigh and ran a trembling hand through his thick head of dark hair. “What’s the plan here B-Billy?” the alpha asked, stumbling in a way that made Billy think he’d been about to call him babe again. “I know you’re scared, but you’re gonna freeze out here. Will you at least put these on? They’re your favorites.”  

He held his arm out and wiggled the tennis shoes like somebody would wiggle a steak in front of a hungry dog and Billy rolled his eyes.

“You give me shoes and then what? Are you gonna let me go home?” Billy thought he should ask, on the off chance that this wasn’t a dream. Maybe he was having some kind of psychotic episode. Fuck for all he knew he was wandering around downtown San Diego right now talking to himself.

“I’ll tell you what. Let me get you somewhere warm and dry – your choice!” he added hastily when Billy tensed and looked liable to bolt again. “We don’t have to go back to the house. We can go anywhere you want, this bookshop even, Billy, anywhere. Just let me get you warm and I can explain.”

Billy shivered. If this were one of those dime novels they made for omegas he’d be saying some shit about how it was the quiet intensity in the alpha’s eyes that did it, or the way he said ‘just let me get you warm’ and so clearly meant ‘let me take care of you’. But the truth was, Billy was really fucking cold and these shivers were bonafide freeze your balls and shake em off shivers. He was probably going to start crying like a little bitch if he didn’t get warm soon.

Stiffly he reached out and took the shoes from the alpha’s hand. It fucking hurt to lift his feet and slide them inside the trainers. The soles of his feet had long since gone numb. He hadn’t even noticed that he’d torn them up until they were raw and bloody. Bad as it stung, Billy had suffered way worse and wasn’t about to be a sissy about it so he forced one foot in after the other.

The alpha watching him swayed a little, and Billy noticed the way he had to physically stop himself from trying to  stop him. That intense focus on him was a little unsettling, but not as scary as Billy would have imagined it would be. It was kind of nice in a strange way, watching the alpha bite his lip and wring his hands, all to keep himself from touching a distressed omega. Nobody would have blamed him for trying to help. Nobody would have stopped him either. A few, I’m sorries, it’s just my omega having an episode, and everyone would crown him alpha of the year and go about their business.

Shoes on, Billy stood up as straight as his stiff bones would allow. “How about we go to a police station?” he suggested just to be an asshole, but the brown haired alpha nodded easily and almost immediately agreed.  

“Sure. I can drive us there, only… you’d have to get in the car.” Hands dove inside his pockets looking for his keys before he seemed to remember he’d left them in the engine. This was definitely a dream Billy decided. Because this was starting to feel like a fantasy. A gorgeous alpha who didn’t posture or immediately try and put Billy in an omega’s place, who was so worried about him apparently he couldn’t even think straight? Billy snorted. He wasn’t born fucking yesterday.

“Here’s fine.” He jerked his head toward the bookstore and turned to walk inside.

“Wait! I uh –” The alpha turned and darted back to the car. Billy watched shivering as he turned the engine off and slammed the door behind himself. He came running back with something slung over his arm and Billy saw that it was a coat, similar to the one the alpha wore but in a darker coal grey. Billy snatched the coat warily from the alpha’s extended hands.  

“You had a coat the whole time?” he accused once he’d wrapped the stupidly soft thing around himself like a burrito wrapper. He immediately felt better in it. Like the sheets it smelled strongly of Billy, but it also smelled like the alpha too, and Billy had to resist the urge to rub his cheek against the collar to saturate his face in it. It smelled so good. Fuck. Why?!

“I figured if you did another runner the shoes would be more useful?” The alpha grinned sheepishly and shrugged. He was trying to subtly edge Billy toward the door of the bookshop, practically squirming in place, and Billy could smell the anxiety twisting through his scent. The guy was clearly going to pop if Billy didn’t get inside where it was warm, and yet he’d brought Billy running shoes instead of a coat…

He was so cute. And Billy was so screwed.