#wipweek2026

Mack was never supposed to be an omega. Growing up, he was big and sporty and loud, always running and screaming and crashing into other kids on the playing field. When he presented as an omega at sixteen, no one really saw it coming.

“But that doesn’t make you any less of a real omega,” his dad tells him firmly on the way to Omega Partners, just after Mack turns eighteen. It’s an exploratory visit, finding out what their options are for a bond in the next year or two. “You deserve an alpha as much as anyone.”

“Sure, Dad,” Mack says. He’s distracted by the building they’re entering. It’s fancy, like when they go visit his dad’s office downtown. Just the lobby is like three stories tall with soaring glass windows and two different coffee shops right there in the building, and when they sign in with the guards and take the elevator to the eleventh floor, it’s all sleek and plush in muted pearls and grays, with velvet-looking furniture and watercolors on the walls.

It also has the most intense omega scent Mack’s ever smelled.

It hits him the moment he gets off the elevator. His first thought is why are they doing that in the hallway, because a smell as intense as that could only be a bonding. Mack’s never smelled one before, but this is what everyone says when they talk about it: the way your whole body is turned inside out, but it’s okay, because you’ll like it.

That’s always made Mack a little nervous, hearing that description. But this scent—he can’t imagine not wanting to keep breathing this scent. It hits Mack in the back of the throat and instantly travels down to his gut, clanging insistently against the walls of his chest and stomach the whole way like it’s trying to wake everything up. And everything wants to wake up, because the scent is so good. It feels like—like being outside on a sunny day, rolling dizzily down a bright green hill until the world spins around you, laughing the whole way because nothing’s ever been as good as this.

It has to be a bonding. And if that’s what a bonding smells like—well. Maybe Mack doesn’t need to feel nervous about having one after all. “What is that?” he asks, stopping in front of the elevators. He can smell it in his eyeballs.

“What’s what, darling?” his mom asks, as she and his dad sweep into the fancy-looking office.

Mack wants to stay in this spot and keep breathing all day, but he doesn’t want to look stupid for the people of Omega Partners, so he hurries after them. The scent comes with him, getting stronger as he goes into the reception area. Which would make sense, if there’s a bonding happening deeper inside the offices—but as soon as he comes into view of the sofas, he knows where the scent is coming from.

It’s another omega, sitting on a plush velvety sofa. He’s about Mack’s age, maybe, blond, with a face like Mack’s only ever seen on movie stars. The kind who are always playing the delicate perfect omega love interest for the strapping hero to win in combat. He’s looking at Mack, too: blue eyes, a little quirk of a smile.

There are some other people with him. It’s hard for Mack to look at them—hard to look away from the blond boy. But it doesn’t seem like any of them are bonding with him. This must just be the boy’s scent, all on his own.

Shit. If this is the kind of omega who shows up at Omega Partners, Mack’s never gonna find an alpha who wants him.

The boy raises a hand in a little wave. Mack waves back without thinking. He can feel himself smiling—probably too widely for an omega, bold and big and dumb, but the other omega doesn’t seem put off. He smiles a little more, then drops his eyes demurely before looking up again under his lashes. That scent has gone warm and buttery all around them.

“Macklin,” his dad says. Mack looks over, startled. His parents are standing by the reception desk, his dad tapping a pen on a pile of forms. Right: they’re supposed to be checking in.

“Uh, sorry,” he says, going over to the desk. The receptionist is outlining the various forms they’ll need to fill out, and Mack keeps sneaking glances over at the other omega. He’s not always looking back, but he’s always paying attention, Mack’s pretty sure.

He wonders if it would be weird to go over and sit near him. Talk a little. Maybe get the guy’s name. That wouldn’t be rude or anything, right?

When Mack is just about to finish his forms, though, a woman in a stylish omega-cut suit shows up at door next to the reception desk. “Will Smith?” she says, and the other omega looks up.

He and his parents follow her into the interior of the office, and the scent goes with him. There are just traces left behind, lingering in the air.

Mack breathes them in surreptitiously while he fills out the forms. They’re pretty in-depth. What does he like to do for fun—what are his friendships like—tell them about a relationship he has with an authority figure. Mack fills them out the best he can, but he can’t help thinking that the other omega—Will—probably had way better answers.

“He seems like a nice young man,” Mack’s mom says, and Mack startles a little, feeling like she read his mind. Then he realizes she’s looking past the reception desk, where they can just see the side of Will’s face where he’s sitting in the omega lady’s office. He’s talking, his face lit up with it and his hands folded neatly in his lap.

“A well-put-together omega,” Mack’s dad agrees. And then, to Mack: “You could learn from him.”

Mack gets a pang of shame. He’s not good at talking with his hands folded in his lap; he tries, but then he gets distracted by what he’s talking about and forgets, letting them fly all over the place. He bets Will Smith has never given an alpha a bloody nose and gotten sent home for it.

While he’s watching, Will cuts his eyes to the side and meets his, just for a moment. Mack drops his eyes to his form again, feeling his face get hot. He wishes he could hear what Will’s saying.

The forms take forever, but Mack’s doesn’t mind. He’s kind of hoping that maybe he’ll still be out here filling them out when Will and his parents come back through. Then maybe Will will smile at him again and—well, Mack doesn’t know. It would just be nice to be back in the same room with that scent again. But Will and his parents still aren’t back by the time another woman shows up for Mack, this one in a trim little pencil skirt.

“Oh, that’s all right,” she says when Mack tells her he hasn’t finished the forms. “They’re just a starting point anyway. I want to get a sense of you from our conversation.”

Great. The thing Mack is maybe worst at, at least from the perspective of talking like an omega. He follows her back to her office, in the opposite direction from Will.

The woman’s name is Olivia, and they spend the next two hours with her. By the time they’re done, Mack feels like she knows as much about him as his parents do, and also like maybe nothing he said made any sense.

“I just want to end with some reassurances,” she says, when Mack is starting to think longingly of the sandwiches for sale in the coffee shops below. “I know this process can be fraught for omegas and their families. Especially when an omega presents late, there can be a lot of fear that maybe it will take a while to find the right alpha, that an omega will be ready to leave the nest and not have a safe place to land.”

Mack’s dad takes his mom’s hand. Olivia smiles at them with bright white teeth. Mack wonders if she has veneers.

“I want to reassure you that if you follow our program and keep yourself open to the process, our success rate is very, very high. I can’t promise that the road will be smooth, but I can promise that if you work with me, we’ll get you where you want to be by the end.” She turns that smile on Mack. “Do we have a deal?”

“Uh, sure,” Mack says. He doesn’t know what she thinks he’s gonna do—drop out, or something? It’s not like he’s gonna meet an alpha who wants him any other way. And that’s if his parents would even let him drop out in the first place, which they wouldn’t. So.

They spend some time talking about next steps: the appointments they’re going to have to sample various alpha scents; the scent aids Mack should make sure to preserve from his next heat. It’s all Mack can do not to let his heel tap on the ground.

The thing is, Will is almost definitely gone by now. He went in for his appointment before Mack did, and Mack can’t imagine anyone’s appointment could take longer than his has so far. So Will is gonna be gone.

Mack tries to really make himself believe it, so that he won’t be disappointed when it happens. But he still feels his heart plummet when he comes out of Olivia’s office and the office down the hall where Will was sitting is empty.

He holds out a scrap of hope for the waiting room—but no, it’s empty, too. What did he think, Will was gonna wait for him there? Stupid. He can’t even catch his scent anymore, so probably it’s been a while. No—there it is, just a trace of it, near where they were sitting before. It would be weird if Mack wanted to go smell those chairs, right? Yeah, super weird.

He smiles at the receptionist instead, polite like his parents are always telling him to be. She smiles back. “Mack, right?”

“Uh, yeah.” They don’t need him to stay back and do more stuff, do they? Though if they do, maybe Will is still—

“Someone left a note for you.” She passes over a little envelope, square and white.

Mack takes it, adrenaline spiking. He hears his mom asking who it’s from, but he doesn’t need to wait for the answer. He knows: can tell from the scent that’s all over it. He has to fight not to put it under his nose as they walk out of the office.

He has it to himself until they reach the elevators. Then: “Well?” his mom says. “Aren’t you going to open it?”

He doesn’t really want to, not with them standing right there. But he doesn’t have any reason not to. “Uh, sure,” he says, putting his finger under the flap.

It’s nice paper, thick. He has to tear it a little to get the envelope open, which feels like a loss. Then he thinks about how it was sealed, how Will probably put his tongue on it to get it wet, and he feels all funny about it, hot and fluttery. Which is a weird way to feel. Is he being weird? Can his parents see?

They’re staring at him, waiting for him to tell them what it says. “Uh, it’s a card,” he says, fishing it out of the envelope. It’s nice, too: just a single square of heavy cardstock, thick enough not to be super bendy, with a little silver W embossed on the front of it. “It’s, uh, he said I might want to meet up and talk about bonding stuff with him. He gave me his number.”

“What a nice offer,” his mom says.

“You must have made a good impression on him,” his dad says. “Make sure you reach out. You don’t want to be impolite.”

“I will,” Mack says, and then the elevator arrives, and he can step in, the hide the burning in his cheeks in the low lighting. He tucks the card back into the envelope and curls his hand around it in his pocket: the little square of writing with the phone number on it, spidery and italic. If you ever want to meet up to talk about all this bonding stuff, shoot me a message. We can probably both use a buddy for it, and it would be nice to see you again.

Trevor’s in the elevator up to the apartment he shares with Jamie when he realizes what’s happening. The last half-hour—full hour? Longer? He can never tell, when this happens—is fuzzy around the edges, not a total black hole, but more a collection of sensations and images than anything with a trajectory. The green of a traffic light illuminating the hood of his car, his knuckles turning white against the steering wheel. Phantom whiffs of cigar smoke. The tight pull of the skin across his upper back and shoulder blades.

The elevator dings for their floor, and Trevor blinks, trying to push it all away. God, he was really hoping this wouldn’t happen tonight—Jamie’s home, and it’s still early enough that he won’t be in bed. Trevor won’t be able to sleep it off and hope he’s normal by morning. Jamie’s going to see.

Maybe Jamie’s busy, though. Maybe Trevor will be able to sneak in, at least get in the shower before seeing him. He should have stopped at the drive-thru for something to eat, his stomach feels like it’s gnawing itself into nothing but bile.

He opens the door and hangs his keys on the hook. Banging in the kitchen tells Trevor there’s no way he’s sneaking past. His best bet is to try to sound normal.

“I’m back, Jimmer.” There. Not bad. Only a half-crack on one word.

“Hey,” Jamie calls, voice warm, mid-pitched and softly-scratchy like always in that way that tickles up Trevor’s spine. “In here.”

Trevor stumbles out of his shoes, bracing himself on the wall. Dammit. He just needs to be normal for a few minutes. Long enough to get to his room. He straightens his posture, ignoring the way his knees wobble, and rounds the corner into the kitchen.

Jamie’s at the sink, washing up some dishes. He’s so funny, handwashing even though they have a dishwasher—he told Trevor once that the repetitive motion soothes him.

“How was—oh my god, Z, what—”

Trevor blinks and Jamie’s in front of him, wiping soapy hands on a dishtowel and settling them firm over Trevor’s shoulders. A blink of peace rockets through him at the pressure, the room coming further into focus—track lights glowing soft above the island, the grounding scent of the candle Trevor’s mom sent last month, AC blasting through the vents that doesn’t seem to touch him anymore. And Jamie, eyes big and raking over Trevor like a searchlight, hands spiraling warmth all through him, jaw tight and throat clicking.

“Z,” Jamie says. He probably doesn’t realize he’s really using his dom voice. He’s so careful not to use his dynamic on Trevor, so polite, but sometimes it comes out, even a single syllable enough to make Trevor want to fall to his knees. “Tell me what happened.”

Trevor manages a smile; it takes effort, but not nearly as much as it would have before Jamie touched him. “You wanna know the dirty details?” And fuck, his voice still sounds kinda shaky, which is not ideal, which might make Jamie think—

“I want to know what you need right now. If you need me to—”

“I don’t need anything,” Trevor spits, shaking away from Jamie’s grasp. The world instantly fogs as Jamie lets him, and something in the deepest pit of Trevor’s heart wishes he wouldn’t have, wishes Jamie would fight to hold onto him, grip tight enough that Trevor can’t move, that he’d wear finger-shaped bruises tomorrow at practice.

He’s instantly disgusted with himself. He already got what he needed earlier, from the dom at the club. Jamie would never hurt him like that guy had. Never mark him. Never let him show how tough he is; never take frustration out on Trevor and let him prove how much he can take. Prove that he’s better than the kind of sub who safewords, who bitches out just because it hurts or makes him feel bad.

Trevor’s not that kind of sub. He’s different. He has to be.

“Okay,” Jamie says, backing away. Trevor can’t feel the warmth of his body anymore, and is left with the chill of the AC worming under his t-shirt, but at least his legs feel steadier than they did before. “Well, I was just washing up, but the ribs are still on the counter if you’re hungry.”

Trevor’s stomach rumbles. Right—Jamie grilled tonight. Asshole always seems to cook the best stuff on nights when Trevor’s going out. 

He makes himself a plate and downs the water glass Jamie filled and placed on the island without a word. It’s cool on his throat, perks him up like a flower after spring rain. He could probably avoid this shit entirely if he just kept a water bottle in the car.

He takes his plate and water to the living, plops down on the floor so he can eat at the coffee table. 

It’s nice to sit. Even nicer when Jamie comes over and sits on the couch, flicks through channels on the TV before landing on some sitcom.

Jamie’s not, like, close or anything. He’s on the far end of the couch. Nothing about it could be mistaken as Trevor, like, kneeling for Jamie or anything like that.

It still feels incredible. Still makes his brain go all soupy as Jamie murmurs commentary about the show, voice soft and soothing. 

Trevor knows it’s kind of cheating. He shouldn’t let Jamie sit above him, even from a few feet away. Shouldn’t eat food he prepared, even if it’s just leftovers. Shouldn’t let himself want more, even for just a second.

Leon's not sure what it is about Connor that makes him start noticing it.

How pale he is, maybe, and how it makes the damage stand out. There are lots of pasty guys in hockey, but there's something about Connor's complexion, the way you can see the veins through his skin, the way you can see the bruises just as clearly, spiraling blue and black. Or it could be how good Connor is: how unusual and shocking it is to see someone nail him like that, all that power and speed stopped in its tracks. So strong on the ice and so vulnerable off it, curling into himself in front of the media, bruises like weak spots he can't hide.

Whatever it is, all of that or something else, Leon can't stop his eyes from snagging on the mottled darkness on Connor's skin in a way he promised himself he'd never let happen in a locker room. He thinks about it a lot that first year, before Lauren's in the picture, before there are girlfriend-shaped reasons not to. Thinks about spreading Connor out, bruises on display, and pressing on them. Thinks about the sounds Connor might make if he did, high and sharp and wounded. Thinks about those galaxies of marks spreading out further under his touch, the way Connor would squirm, the way he'd get hard, maybe, cock filling helplessly against his thigh. Leon thinks about it, and puts his hand on his own cock, and comes before the sick guilt can crawl back in.

Then Connor comes back from the summer with a girlfriend Leon hadn't realized was in the picture, a slim athletic blonde just like Connor was always meant to find, and Leon folds the fantasies up and puts them back where they belong. Think of Lauren, he tells himself when his eyes want to catch on a fresh hit on Connor's thigh. Lauren, who Leon quite likes, who he's becoming friends with a little bit. Who Connor has a good, normal relationship with, where they have good, normal sex instead of the twisted things Leon's fantasized about. Leon holds her up like a talisman, a handhold to keep from sliding back down into the depths.

That's one reason he says yes when Lauren and Connor offer to set him up with Celeste. He wants that handhold further cemented in his life. That, and Celeste is hot as fuck. Leon takes her home the first night, and she tells him immediately when he grips her hips too hard during sex, and he holds her afterwards and feels like he might cry from gratitude. Someone to keep his head above water.

And that's how it is for the next six years, until a different kind of bruise starts showing up on Connor.

***

Leon recognizes it as soon as he sees it. He's watched enough porn over the years, porn he had to wipe from his history after, stomach churning with guilt at having done it again. He doesn't look at Connor's hockey bruises anymore, but he's always aware of them, the way you're aware of a girl in the room with an awesome rack even if you're not staring at her tits. Leon indexes: eyes skating over—yup there's a bruise—the one on his ribs from the game Tuesday—yellower now, not so dark—eyes back where they're supposed to be. All done. He doesn't think about them beyond that, except for what helps him be a good teammate, aware when his best friend and captain is hurt and not letting him hide anything serious.

Today, though. Today, that's not a hockey bruise poking its way above Connor's briefs.

Leon turns his eyes away, face and neck flashing hot. He can't see the bruise now, but he doesn't need to. It's burned into his mind's eye: the long stripe of it, arcing above Connor's waistband, thin and unbroken. A dark angry purple. Like someone hit him with a strap.

Leon feels his cock thicken at the image, the shameful arousal pulling at his balls. He doesn't know that's what caused it. Connor probably fell against the edge of a piece of furniture; that's more likely than someone putting it there deliberately. Lauren wouldn't—Connor wouldn't—

He lets himself look over again. The stripe curves around Connor's hip, just barely visible where Connor's waistband has slipped down. It looks like a bruise from something straight-edged and flexible. A belt, maybe, curling around Connor's hip. Making him cry out with pain. Making him beg for it to stop.

Leon looks down at his knees and tries to breathe out the arousal that's lighting him up. Fire is licking at him, a painful burn. He wants to put his hand on his cock almost as bad as he wants to touch that bruise.

It's not real, he reminds himself. There's no way Connor and Lauren have been getting up to what Leon's imagining. It's just part of what's wrong with him, seeing this places it isn't. He thought he was doing so much better—he hasn't watched that kind of porn in months, hasn't so much as thought about it for more than a moment while getting off—but he must have been kidding himself. He's halfway to busting a nut un the fucking locker room over what's probably just a shadow.

"Hey." Connor's standing over him, looking normal. His bruises, if there are any, are covered by a shirt and pants. "Lauren's trying some new cookbook recipes tonight. You guys want to come over?"