Archive of Our Own ^beta

Vicki is Misha's first girlfriend and his first sexual partner, because they're in high school and they make sense together. Not because they both end up being freaks—Vicki, a female Alpha, and Misha, a male Omega who doesn't have any impulse to take a knot—but because everybody's dating and they don't really fit with anybody else at school. Their whole clique is a bunch of loosely affiliated loners, and the two of them just kind of work.

They don't even know about the complementary designations issue when they start going out in junior year. They're friends before they're anything else. They run with the same clique of loners and outsiders. They have fun together, just sitting by themselves, sequestered over on one of the far edges of the cafeteria, making comments about which cheerleader's tits reek of desperation as they spill out of her top, and which meathead jock looks like he's overcompensating for something special today.

No one else snickers with Misha when he guesses that football team Chris is probably being so aggressive because he hit his first heat cycle and found out he's an Omega after all, which throws every last bit of his posturing about being bigger and butcher than thou out the window. No one else lets Misha borrow their skirts or their lipstick outside of Halloween, no questions asked. No one else makes him feel totally comfortable with how he's kind of a dick sometimes, not the way Vicki does—but almost everybody else is dating someone, so they both guess it wouldn't hurt to try.

Besides that, Vicki understands him, sort of. It feels like she does, anyway, which is huge because at this point, Misha has no idea what's going on with him, why he's never felt the same urges to do things, sexual things, as everybody else. For all he's found several people beautiful, he hasn't felt anything like that for anybody. He figures that maybe it'll come, eventually. Maybe it's a situation where he really, legitimately hasn't found the right person yet. Maybe that right person's going to be Vicki, and all Misha needs is time. All he needs is to keep making out with her and sooner or later, something's going to click for him.

Until that happens, though, Misha says he's bisexual. Because he's appreciated male bodies as well as female bodies, so that's gotta mean he's bisexual. It's where he and Vicki find their common ground about this. Misha's looked at other guys before and Vicki's looked at other girls, but neither of them makes any moves in those directions. She knows what it's like, having some desire or another or a lack thereof that doesn't fit with what she's supposed to feel. She knows how it feels, not having any leave to act on it.

The way Vicki puts it, she could act on her desires, if she wanted. She just doesn't see a point in risking her neck for some crappy pizza and a date to the movies when she doesn't even like most of their classmates all that much. None of them are even remotely worth the shit she'll catch at home or in classes over asking out another girl.

Which seems reasonable enough for Misha to borrow the explanation. So he nods and says that yeah, he gets that feeling too, because sure, they don't look like they belong on the football team? But most of the guys Misha looks at end up being meat-heads just like the hulking, muscle-bound dicks he tries to avoid. They look kind of sensitive, artistic, intelligent, and otherwise desirable, but then end up being the sort of jack-offs who take bets on which guys in which boy bands will end up being fags.

Which pretty much entirely overshadows their pretty faces or nice bodies, and since Misha doesn't have to fight off wanting to fuck them or get fucked, it's easy enough not to get caught up in the conflict of, God, he's so hot, I really want to like him, why does he have to be such a douche beyond all the sex appeal.

Whatever. Misha couldn't even say for sure whether or not any of the people he's ogled have sex appeal in the first place. He's so much more preoccupied with the fact that he doesn't have those kinds of problems, and that health class leads him to believe this is weird.

***

It's not like Misha's missed out on everything health class calls normal, though. He's had wet dreams. He's gotten hard in awkward situations for no discernible reason—like in church on Christmas Eve, just for instance. He's jerked off before, but there's almost never any feeling in it. It's just Misha, all alone with his hand and his dick and some kleenex.

Sometimes, he fantasizes, imagines being powerless. Sometimes, he thinks it might be nice for someone to control him, overpower him, reduce him to a quivering mess. Trusting someone so much, even just imagining that he could? That's usually what gets Misha to come… but he never thinks about anybody in particular. Putting a name and a face on his undefined person almost always makes him go limp.

Masturbation's never anything huge or special or important. It's just Misha working himself over, feeling good for a little while as the orgasm washes over him, and then wondering what all the fuss about it is, finding no conclusive answers. It's just the disparate parts and no sum that's bigger than the lot of them.

And Vicki's fine with it, or fine enough. At least it's not a huge deal that they don't get much further than making out on the sofa in her basement. That she's always the one initiating things, or taking them beyond his arm around her shoulder. That he usually takes a while to get in the swing of kissing her, and time and time again needs to be told that it's okay to touch her, and mostly only finds their rhythm by slavishly following her lead. That she can be straddling his hips and ready to go and Misha only rarely gets hard.

It's cool, though. It's whatever. It's not a big deal. She isn't sure if she's ready to go all the way or not yet, anyway. At least, that's how she puts it every time he has to ask if they can stop for now. When he asks if she's alright, she plays things similarly cool, all shrugging and supposing that tonight's a bad night for sexually sleeping together, anyway. And most of the time, she means what she says, but that doesn't make the whole situation suck any less. It doesn't take away this feeling that, somehow, he's letting her down.

Misha's weird, not stupid. He can hear the notes of disappointment underneath her earnestness. It doesn't take a magnifying glass to read between the lines. Vicki wants him. She wants to have sex with him. It's more than obvious enough, even when she's not digging her teeth into his lip, clenching her thighs around his hips, and growling, I think about doing so many things to you.

And Misha wants to want her, too. He wants to want her in the same way she wants him. He wants to get hard from seeing her in a bikini top and denim shorts, and he wants to think about fucking her when he watches her lick an ice cream cone… He just doesn't.

Which doesn't make any sense, because everything else comes together so well. It's the perfect set-up for wanting someone, and Misha can't even get hung-up on not knowing her or rushing into things. He knows Vicki.

He likes Vicki and spending time with her. They can talk for hours without getting bored and enjoy their silences just as easily, which Misha can't say about most other people.

He really likes it when they snuggle, whether they do so with her holds him, pressing up into his back and curling one arm around his waist, breath warm and heavy on the back of his neck, ghosting through his hair; or whether they do so face-to-face, tangled in each other and sporadically kissing, to various degrees.

He really, really likes it when she takes control, when she jerks it out of his hands, even if it's just by yanking on his hair while they make out. Sometimes during the summer that they spend together, Misha thinks that he could love Vicki. All things considered, he doesn't trust his perception of love, not really. He doesn't trust the definition that he has, he doesn't trust himself to judge his own feelings, and he definitely doesn't trust himself to pick Love out of a line-up.

But even if he's not in love with her, he still gets these hot, pink pools of something worming around his chest over her, which is pretty much the whole love-type experience… thing. Whatever the fuck it's called and even though he can't describe it right, Misha gets it from Vicki. Words are stupid, anyway, and the ones Misha has available to him are not even nearly the whole truth.

And these feelings always come dropping on him like a nuclear warhead when she does something like tugging him into an unexpected kiss and holding onto his mouth until his lungs are catching fire from the fuck, shit, fuck, fuck, Vicki, please, I need to fucking BREATHE.

Or like ever-so-casually rolling over on top of Misha while they lie back on a picnic blanket, grinding her hips down into his and clenching her thighs into his sides, telling him in a velvety snarl just how pretty he looks when he's off his guard and she's got him pinned by the shoulders.

Or like snarling in this primal, bestial, back of her throat kind of way, gnawing at a kiss, and shoving him so he crashes down to the sofa; swooping down to kiss him harder and deeper, twisting one hand up in his t-shirt until her nails rip through the fabric, and digging her other hand's fingers into his hip.

It might not even be that he loves her, he supposes only because he wants to account for how can't be sure. Maybe he just loves having someone else call the shots, give him orders, and otherwise take charge.

Maybe he's less into Vicki properly and more into knowing that she's stronger than he is; that she has a power over him but only because he gives it to her; that he could throw her off when she pins his wrists above his head but there's some chill that jolts up his spine and a twisting in his stomach when he struggles and she still keeps him in place, and he wants to feel more of that.

Maybe she's what he's needed all along but couldn't predict just from cursory glances. Someone who's kind enough to him most of the time, who's nice and sweet when it counts, and who's on Misha's level, without them needing to say anything, on every count that really matters—but who'll still hiss at him and say things like, don't squirm. I mean it: move too much and I'll make you regret it, Pretty Boy, while she bites and sucks her way up and down his neck, leaving behind a trail of dark, tender hickeys.

Shouldn't that mean that he wants her, though? Is it objectification that he only gets shivers running up his neck over what she does, or that he never gets that sticky, warm sensation pooling in his belly from just thinking about her body? Is he out-of-bounds for even thinking about asking Vicki how she feels?

Misha doesn't know. But every day he stays stuck in this uncertainty feels like one day closer to the possibility of just sleeping with her already. The thought's not good, but it's not bad, either. As long as Vicki takes charge the way she tends to do, Misha can probably (he hopes) get through it, but this might be easier if he actively didn't want to have sex with her. He'd have some kind of proper stance, if that were the case.

Instead, he's got this. He's got feelings that don't seem to fit together, that he doesn't understand and has no words for. He has an attitude that's too blasé for him to really call it ambivalent. Misha wants to care more. He wants to want Vicki, and he wants to want sex, but even so much as thinking about it leaves him cold. Underwhelmed.

***

In retrospect, the whole Vicki turns out to be an Alpha thing shouldn't surprise either of them. She wouldn't need to be, in order to be as cool with dominating Misha as she is, but for all the domineering Alpha idea is a stereotype, it's one that has statistics behind it. And a bunch of jackasses reinforcing it because they think it'll make them more unique, in Vicki's words.

In more practical terms, they could've paid better attention to the week leading up to the fight, to how on-edge she was, to how she snapped about the smallest things and, even though she felt bad for that, took hours to calm down and apologize. To how, out of nowhere, her routine got less, it's cool, it's fine, whatever, I might not be ready anyway, and more, I know you don't want to, Misha, so I'm going to get as much mileage out of making out as I possibly can, hey why is your lip bleeding, did I really bite you that hard.

At the very least, they could've guessed something about the scent hanging around her. But Vicki didn't bring it up and Misha didn't know if he was allowed to say anything. Besides, he doesn't trust his sense of smell not to make a big deal out of something that might not even really phase anybody else. It's been hypersensitive since he can remember.

So, maybe Vicki's an Alpha still isn't a possibility that they consider until the night in mid-July when they're loitering around the 7-11 parking lot, sitting on the trunk of her parents' car with their drinks and stargazing as much as suburbia allows. They only change their perspective because Vicki gets in a fight. A pretty bloody one.

Not just any pretty bloody fight, either. In a torrent of gnashing her teeth, spitting and barking for him to back the fuck off, she takes on Tom Welling. All because he gets too close to Misha and looks at Vicki the wrong way.

As in: Tom Welling, the tallest Alpha from Ashman High's class of 2002, the class ahead of Misha and Vicki's. Tom Welling, whose father is the richest member of their city's Council and who was nearly deemed too serious about the wrestling team to stay on it. Tom Welling, who has a football scholarship to U-Michigan in Ann Arbor, and whose dominance of his classmates went unchallenged because he talked big and had the size to back it up.

Big doesn't really go far enough or describe him properly. Tom's not just big; he's huge. Enormous. Some towering behemoth of steely, stacked up, jock muscle and snarling aggression, all dressed up in pouty lips and baby blues. His dark, permanently mussed up hair flops around his pretty boy face like a wiped-out puppy, and he has an easy smile like he wants to be your friend, but it's all a lie. One that generally falls away when he decides that someone needs to be put in their place or when he's unsatisfied with the deference paid to him.

Tonight, it falls away when he gets out of his car and pauses. Sniffs at the air with a more pensive expression than Misha would've guessed he had in him. And he turns on Vicki. Edges out of his parking space and toward her. He shoves past Misha, shoulder-checks him and sends him crashing into the back windshield. Tom's girlfriend, Allison, stumbles after him and catches his arm, tries to tug him toward the store, tries to tell him that it's hot and she's thirsty and come on, Tom, can't they just go get their drinks.

But it's too late. He's already caught Vicki's scent and started telling her that she shouldn't be out of the house when she stinks like that, doesn't she know better or is she trying to drive every Omega in town crazy.

Vicki squints at him, gets a dark scowl that makes Misha's heart skip two beats and his breath catch in his throat. Even so, he gets that hot, sticky feeling pooling in his stomach. It doesn't help when she snaps that it's none of Tom's business, why can't he keep his overly large nose to himself, and gets to her feet. She rolls out her shoulders and works a knot out of her neck, and gives him one chance to back off.

He doesn't. He crowds into her personal space. He calls her a bitch with an over-inflated opinion of herself, so she calls him a pathetic, whining daddy's boy who peaked when he won Prom King and who's never going to be anything else. Tom slaps her with a sickening crack; the sound hacks through the humid stillness around them. And Vicki growls, huffs, knees him in the balls. Tosses her garbage-dump Slurpee aside and lunges after Tom, hellbent on taking him to the pavement.

It's all a rush after that. They hit the ground, keep going at each other. The noises they make don't sound human. Misha and Allison try to pull their respective significant others apart with limited success. Any time they get anywhere, Tom and Vicki double back into the fray. They keep going, keep thrashing each other until finally, Vicki pins Tom to the ground, gets him to cry, stop! You win! Stop!

When the dust's settled, all four of them wind up getting treated in the emergency room. Despite working themselves almost to unconsciousness, Tom and Vicki get sedatives right off the bat, just in case, and Tom gets a dose of his pills. As Allison explains later, he'd been skipping them for some time before the fight erupted for some reasons that Misha doesn't really listen to, but that have something or other to do with Tom's dad.

The final damage report: Tom's got a host of cuts and scrapes, a broken nose and a dislocated shoulder, a concussion, three bruised ribs, and two that are outright fractured but not quite as badly as his ego; Misha and Alison are a little banged up, but not much past the level of 'minor boo-boos,' so they end up waiting with each other for a while, waiting for Tom and Vicki to get cleaned up; and Vicki's got bruised knuckles, a severely sprained wrist and a concussion of her own, and a blood test that gets her nerves burning with anxiety that even a pregnancy test wouldn't raise out of her.

Misha stays with Vicki once the nurse takes the vial off to the lab, putting a rush on the results. He holds her good hand, lets her drop her head onto his shoulder, cards his fingers through her hair. He tries to tell her that it'll all be okay, but she just asks him to please shut up. And the anxiety's sensible, because the results are positive. Vicki's an Alpha and suddenly, a lot of things fall into place.

And the gross thing is that Misha's jealous. There's a word for what Vicki is. There are other people out there like her, while, for all he knows, he's the only person in the world who feels the way that he does. He thinks that he might love her—but he still doesn't want her, and he can't explain why to save his life.

Sure, it's unlikely that he's the only one, but as far as Misha knows, he's lonelier than the last fucking unicorn. Which kind of, sort of, really, really fucking sucks.

***

Fights like Vicki's with Tom a side-effect of heat, for Alphas. Part of a whole cluster of side-effects related to their designation and its respective heat-cycles—aggressiveness, tempers, loss of self-control; territorial, claiming behavior. It all comes out that much more when two of them get anywhere near each other and one or both forgot to take their pills. Or didn't know they needed to take them, like in Vicki's case.

Female Alphas and male Omegas aren't unheard of, for all they're not as common as the other way around. Neither Alphas nor Omegas are as common as Betas, regardless of sex, though, and heat is harder to notice in female Alphas. Depending on how bad the heat is for them, some female Alphas can even pass for Betas without trying that hard.

The presumptuousness of the whole system rubbed Misha and Vicki in about twenty kinds of wrong ways before her blood tests. But it all seems that much worse afterward.

Barely anyone notices that they think like this, and Misha wants to call that the worst part, but he's not sure it is. The unwritten rules are bad enough on their own. Everyone's a Beta until proven otherwise. Men who aren't are Alpha until proven Omega, and non-Beta women are Omega until proven Alpha. Female Alphas and male Omegas who pass as Betas don't have to deal with the same level of bullshit that the ones who can't pass get.

Of everyone who's not a Beta, Alpha males do the best. Everyone who's not a Beta has some kind of stereotype or prescribed behavior patterns, but Alpha males get respect. Everyone who's not a Beta exists as some kind of Other, but Alpha males decide how everybody else is valued. Alpha males get to run things and make rules and call the shots. History books praise Alpha males for constructing societies, while making note of exceptions to the rules of designations—like Marcus Aurelius, an outstanding and accomplished Beta, and President Lincoln, an Omega who overcame his natural deficiencies and made something out of himself.

Alpha males aren't the norm, but they're what people are supposed to aspire to. They're the pinnacles, the paragons. They're what fathers want their sons to be when they grow up (with a strong-willed Beta as a second choice), and they're what mothers want their daughters to marry.

But Omega males are spineless, cock-hungry fags, who absolutely must be gay by default because all Omegas want to be penetrated and obviously, no straight man could want that. Omega males are barely even men and probably don't deserve their dicks in the first place. After all, it's next to impossible for an Omega male to knock somebody up, and even if it were easier, almost no one wants them. Why would anyone want a man who can't fend for himself?

Likewise, Alpha females are dykes and cunts, spitfire hellions made out of spite and vitriol, always on the lookout for reasons to be angry. They probably just want to be men and don't appreciate how others know better for them. They're uppity and cranky and the incarnation of everything that's wrong with female empowerment. They need to learn their places. It's not uncommon for guys to talk about fucking that knowledge into them.

And Omega females are—depending on who's talking about them today and whether or not they enjoy having sex—needy, fucked out sluts, mewling cum-dumpsters who can't think for themselves, or the unappreciated perfect women. Because they're submissive and respectful and hard-wired for domesticity. They conceive easier and can breed healthy children faster. They have an easier time surviving childbirth because that's all they're built for, really. On an unconscious, biological level, they know a woman's place better than anybody—unless they enjoy the sex for some reason other than wanting to make babies. Or so the presumption goes.

And even less blatantly misogynistic shit abounds, with the people who say it acting like bastions of progress because sure, they assume that all Omega females are airheads or that it's better for them to avoid things like team sports or big cities or horror movies. Any kinds of intense situations. It might overwhelm them; they might not be able to handle it.

It's all bullshit, but that doesn't stop people from believing it. And then there are the pills.

There's the whole institution of pills and what it means or doesn't. On the one hand, pills take the edge off of heat cycles, make it easier to keep your head and act like yourself while your biology goes all wonky. As a bonus, they make standard birth-control methods more effective, for anyone who doesn't.

On the other hand—as Vicki puts it in the front seat of her parents' sedan, right after she picks up her prescription for the first time—it's not like personality, behavior, and biology are some pure and inseparable constructs. They play off of each other in complicated ways. Changing any part of one, even a small part, can have huge and unpredictable effects on all the others. And pills change a pretty significant part of someone's existence. Pretending otherwise is dangerous.

Acting like heat cycles will ever be completely controlled is dangerous enough, but it's worse to pretend that humans can change hormones and brain chemistry and always achieve the desired result. Action X does not always have Reaction Y with people—and not only do people act like pills are that predictable, they also have a whole cluster of personality traits they're looking to suppress. Traits that not every Alpha or Omega's going to have, and that might not even be all that destructive.

"So, really… Sure, they might be helpful," she guesses, turning one of the little orange capsules over in her fingers, thousand-yard-staring at it, pale and kind of trembling. "Sure, some parts of this aren't good to leave unchecked. But it's kind of like they're telling people, 'yeah, sorry, but your personality's just broken and we hate you for it.'"

***

By the time he finally hits his first heat cycle, it's early October in their senior year, midway through the week leading up to Homecoming, and Misha has no idea what's happening or why it's happening to him. Never mind why it has the gall to happen before the first dance he and Vicki are going to together.

Everything makes sense, but just like Vicki's designation, it only does so in retrospect. It only does so when Misha's entirely out of rationalizations that have nothing to do with going into heat.

And the thing is, he should know what's happening because all the symptoms are right there. They're not quite as evident as they might be for someone else—that is, someone who thinks about sex the way that they're supposed to, the way that Misha doesn't—but even so, they're pretty blatant. Monday morning, Misha wakes up and finds his sheets and boxers sticky from a wet dream that he can't remember.

On Tuesday, he jerks off twice during his morning shower and can't even think that hard about how he should not be able to do that because as he's getting dressed, all he can think about is letting Vicki take charge of things until Misha doesn't even want anything for himself, until he can't think and until the only thing he feels is what Vicki does to him—and that thought gets him so uncomfortably, sickeningly, painfully hard that he has to get himself off another time.

It's a small comfort that his dick and his libido go back to behaving normally for the rest of the day. That they let him get through school without much more trouble than a few inconveniently placed moments of fantasizing in class. They just get back at him later. After a night full of the most vivid sex dreams that he's ever had, Misha finds himself exhausted, feverish, and in a swamp of drying cum that just makes him glad he didn't change his sheets on Monday.

Misha's weak and lightheaded, on Wednesday morning. He sleepwalks through a shower, palming at his dick the whole time, and when he fakes sick to get out of school, he spends most of the day in bed, jacking off. Because orgasms seem like the best of all possible ideas right now. Chasing after them takes precedence over everything. The only thing that comes close enough to rival their importance? Is berating himself in lieu of having a Dom here to do it for him.

He can pick on himself better than a Dom could, anyway. Misha knows all his hang-ups and anxieties more intimately than a Dom could. And he knows that he doesn't really mean what he's telling himself. He feels guilty for not thinking about Vicki. Just not guilty enough to stop or turn himself off.

Thursday's better, and Friday's about the same as Thursday, but it's still not really a reprieve. Misha gets shudders of need-fuck-want and Jesus Christ, what is this in the middle of classes. Sometimes, he has to get a hall pass and get himself off in the bathroom. Other times, he doesn't quite get hard, so he can ignore everything and just hold off until later.

He can't smell the heat on himself—no one ever smells their own—but he notices the wide berth that everyone but Vicki gives him, all of a sudden. Even their other friends pull back, which leaves Misha wondering what he did wrong, and maybe this would all clear up if he'd say something? But he doesn't. And Vicki doesn't make him talk about it, either. All she says on the matter.

He's not even sure that this really is a heat. It outright can't be an Alpha's heat because he's not any more or less aggressive than normal. He still has no interest in dominating someone, or in topping since he guesses he could be submissive without wanting to get penetrated, and the most telling sign? Misha hasn't seen any changes in his dick, not even the half-knot that swells up when a heating Alpha can't find a hole.

But there are plenty of reasons why this might not be an Omega's heat. Omegas' heats aren't just about wanting orgasms, even taking into account Misha's suddenly increased interest in them. There's more to them; everybody's said so. Omegas' heats are supposed to involve wanting other people, wanting someone to fuck you, wanting to get so full of cum that it's dripping out of you and wanting to get pregnant even if you can't. The desire that defines a heat? Wanting to take a knot.

But Misha doesn't want any of that. He doesn't not-want it, either, but the whole business of it seems unnecessarily messy. He should be getting hard just from standing next to Vicki, right now. He should be begging her to take him apart with her fingers. Not comfortably non-libidinous in her presence until she snaps at football team Chris to come over here and call her boyfriend a slut to their faces, if he's such a tough, brute man.

Misha tries to chalk all of this—from the sudden influx of aimless sex drive to the confusion left in its wake—up to his repression biting him in the ass, but that theory has one big flaw. It would mean he'd been repressed before this. And Misha's fairly certain that it's impossible to repress urges that only exist sporadically in the first place. Never mind that he really doesn't deny himself, when he wants to get off. He just doesn't involve other people in the process or particularly want to involve them.

He tries this repression thesis and countless other explanations on for size, only to find them lacking. And he ignores the obvious one because it's not right. He knows it isn't. He's not an Omega. He can't be because he would've noticed by now, because the evidence does not fit that conclusion, because Misha's not an Omega.

Assuming that he is over vague and circumstantial evidence probably counts as some kind of offensive. There's still a chance that he's a Beta. Some Betas have pseudo-heats, which don't increase their fertility but give them all of the other symptoms of heating, from out-of-whack libidos (though not in the same way that Alphas' and Omega's heats play with theirs) and giving off a scent that screams, mate with me! mate with ME! Some Betas have hormone imbalances that create things like this. Things that sort of resemble heats but don't involve wanting to fuck other people.

Misha knows this because Vicki knows this, because Vicki's been reading more about heats and the science behind them, because Vicki's doing an independent study with Dr. Sheppard instead of focusing all her energies on studying for the AP exam. The thing she's investigating—inasmuch as she can without conducting her own experiments or observational studies, let alone the resources to dream of doing so—is whether or not there are any actual, biological differences between Alphas, Betas, and Omegas, aside from knotting and the capability for self-lubrication. Whether or not there's conclusive evidence to support all of the stereotypes and all of the bullshit surrounding designations that might be completely arbitrary. Whether or not the whole system might just be humans losing control of their capacity for being dicks to each other.

Her thesis, so far, is that the designations can't be so neatly separated as people like to believe, that the criteria for separating them is too arbitrary and too exclusive, that they should really be conceived of as a spectrum or as a cluster with plenty of wiggle room, and that letting things carry on the way that they have is detrimental to all of the people who fall into the grey areas, especially Omegas of all genders and Alpha females.

Misha's thesis is that he has enough problems without having to be an Omega, and since there's evidence enough for him that he isn't, he's going with that version of events.

Which, it occurs to him halfway through desperately jerking off when he should be back in English, talking about Jane Eyre, is probably way more disrespectful of Vicki than the way he never thinks about her in a sexual context. Not even when he's by himself, in a bathroom stall, dragging his thumb up the side of his cock and biting his lower lip so hard that he's afraid of breaking skin. Not even when he should be thinking about her, because she's his girlfriend and he's her boyfriend and, in this situation, most people just get over themselves and their nonsensical hang-ups and let themselves admit to having an interest in fucking someone.

But how can Misha admit to an interest that he doesn't have? And is not having it really worse than paying attention when she talks about her research, but mentally using it to justify doing one of the things that she objects to, that her whole paper is about dismantling?

Misha doesn't know. He digs his teeth into his lip that much harder, and he chokes back a moan (which slips out out as a whimper anyway, despite his best efforts), and he doesn't know.

He's certain that he's a Beta. Sure, he's a Beta who has some kind of hormone imbalance, a Beta who maybe experiences pseudo-heats, and a Beta who isn't perfectly stuck in that category, even with all the space between its upper and lower limits—but he's still certain that he's a Beta.

He can just admit, on the other hand, that certainty isn't the same as knowing. And that, in this case, it's really more like the opposite.

All he knows is that he feels like an awful person either way, that he feels guiltier about not wanting Vicki like she wants him, and that he's sick of cleaning cum up off his hands, his clothes, and his sheets, so really? Whatever this is can please hurry the fuck up and be done with. Because when it's done with, Misha can go back to his comfortable, complacent, average state of being, where nothing comes out of nowhere to challenge his assumption that his inexplicable sexuality is the only count on which he isn't normal.

Misha likes that place. It's nicer there. Not least because it means that Misha has one less thing to worry about, one less thing to obsess over, and one less thing to want to change so he can just fit in and stop feeling like such a goddamned freak.

***

For all Misha should know better and rethink things, he doesn't. He's already assumed that he must be a Beta. A Beta with a bent toward submissiveness, sure, but nevertheless a Beta. And he's sticking by this assessment of things, no matter what.

He makes it to Saturday night, feels the not-a-heat-because-he-says-it's-not get progressively worse, and he doesn't act out or lose his mind or jump on anyone, begging to get fucked—so maybe he's just overreacting. Maybe his anxiety is making an imaginary heat worse. Maybe he's worrying too much about nothing serious. He does that. It's a problem. So why can't he be doing it now. Despite the doubt nagging at the back of his neck, Misha will not let anything shake his conviction: he is a Beta.

He doesn't want to reconsider this explanation. Because it'd make sense, if he were a Beta. Too much sense for Misha to look for any alternate interpretations. It'd explain why he hasn't had a heat yet. Lasting until eighteen without going into heat only happens to Betas, and every other Alpha or Omega in his class has figured out their designation already. Late bloomers happen, but they're almost unheard of, so if he hasn't had a heat, then he must be one of the people who doesn't have to suffer through them.

It'd even explain why he's not that interested in sex. Some Betas are supposed to have reduced sex drives, which is the flip-side of some genes that, given the appropriate coding, can lead to hypersexuality in Betas.

Apparently, it's like genetic overcompensation for how Alphas and Omegas breed more often and with more efficiency. It's the Beta genes trying to combat the devious chemical machinations of some recessive alleles, fighting back against the Alphas' and Omegas' overactive drives to reproduce by hardwiring some Betas to fuck with the same frequency. And that can't exist without the potential for the opposite reaction, thus: hyposexual Betas.

And all of this makes sense because natural selection and organisms competing for resources. Because, on a genetic level, all life forms—from bacteria all the way up to human beings—are geared toward survival and it's a simple, biological impulse to want sex. To want anything that can make you seem like a more viable sexual partner, to want to pass on your genes, win procreation like it's fucking dodgeball. There's even some species of fruit fly where, if you don't have a certain gene, you die. On the most basic of unconscious levels, organisms want to survive, and on the same level, organisms that reproduce sexually want to fuck.

Or so says Misha's AP Bio textbook. He's not really sure if he trusts it, even though it's the most up-to-date textbook available. It came with an addendum about scientists cracking the human genome, because they haven't had enough time to put out a new edition yet but don't want to let students go without some knowledge about it. There are just a lot of holes in its logic, when applying it to humans.

It doesn't acknowledge homosexuality, not even to class it as an aberration on the grounds that it's fundamentally anti-reproduction (which Misha wouldn't put past a book that, for all it doesn't outright validate the theory of intelligent design, still brings it up without calling out its flaws). It talks about male Omegas like they don't even matter, like there's no reason for them to exist, since they can't get pregnant and most of them can't knock up someone else, and isn't their continued survival such an endearing little quick of nature. It assures the readers that, someday, scientists will be able to explain why Omega males are still around, but for now, it's best not to waste time worrying about it.

And for all his hyposexual Betas explanation fits to some degree, it doesn't completely work. Misha doesn't hate the idea of sex, and even before his week of seemingly going nuts, he isn't devoid of urges for it. He has sexual fantasies, just not about other people. He's not completely opposed to the idea of fucking someone or the idea of getting fucked instead; he just doesn't see what the big deal is or why he should bother when he can take care of himself just fine. Sure, he's still a virgin, but no one's successfully proven to him that sexual orgasms are any better than the ones he can give himself.

The book has the same problem for Misha as pills do for Vicki: it tries to reduce everything to some biological explanation, acts like biology is the only explanation that matters—which he'd understand, if not for the fact that the book gets so goddamn preachy when commenting on social issues.

It goes on and on and on about how important it is to be aware of the science underlying these complex, real-life issues, while treating the same issues as though the only way to make any sense of them is with the science, even though real life doesn't work that way. Real life's not that simple. It's visceral and messy and it makes him feel guilty for trying to solve his problems with self-diagnosis when his tool is kind of broken.

Misha's not even sure if he wants his hyposexual Betas explanation to be right. If it is, then okay, he could probably get it cured? But if that's the case, then he's spent all of this time worrying and defining himself by a medical condition, and that has so many unfortunate implications about everyone else whose sexual habits might not be completely "normal." And, for that matter, who even defines "normal" sexuality, anyway? The biology textbook wants to, but maybe everyone else who tries to do the same is as flawed and broken.

Anyway, since Misha can't prove anything either way, it's probably better to avoid thinking about it at all. Assume that he's a Beta who worries too much and that this whole past week has been his imagination playing tricks on him.

Besides, it's better to be submissive if you're a Beta. You don't have to live with the catcalls and the condescension, or the so-called logic used to victimize you, or the knowledge that you're upholding bullshit stereotypes about your designation like submissive Omegas do. You don't have to put up with how almost no one wants an Alpha who can't dom them into the mattress, doesn't want the responsibility of owning someone and having the power to take them apart. You don't have to justify yourself to anybody. You don't have to answer for anybody's tastes but yours, and no one holds any preconceptions over you like they know your identity and your kinks better than your do.

It's better to be submissive if you're a Beta. It's better to be underwhelmed by the idea of sex if you're a Beta. It's better to have no idea if you even understand attraction or love or anything else in the first place if you're a Beta.

It's better to be everything if you're a Beta, even if society doesn't like what you are for other reasons. It's easier to handles and easier to swallow and so undeniably better because you're just like the majority of the rest of the world. And, really? Misha's different enough already for so many reasons, not least of which is his outlook on sex. Handling being an Alpha or an Omega on top of that? No, thank you. Really. He'd rather not.

***

If Misha had a say in anything the universe threw at him, he'd just want Homecoming to go well. Maybe for his temporary insanity to clear up, but failing that? For him and Vicki to enjoy themselves anyway.

For a while, it looks like they're going to succeed in that. Vicki picks Misha up in her parents' car and a little black spaghetti-strap dress that barely passes the knuckle-test. She's already wearing a suit jacket and a tie over it, all topped off with pink-and-purple striped tights and her beat up sneakers. It takes Misha two stop signs and a red light to notice that he's ogled her since climbing into her passenger seat, and at that, he only notices because she asks if he'd like to take a picture or something.

"Because it'll last longer?" he asks, anticipating that joke, even if it's miles below her usual standard of humor.

"Well, there's that option, sure. Or the one where you use it as spank bank fodder later—which I give you full permission to do." She shrugs and gives him a teasing smile. "But I meant more as a means of commemorating this wonderful moment right here."

Misha blinks, then squints at her. "I don't—what's so special about this moment right here?" All they're doing is waiting for the left-hand turn signal and listening to the local alterna-rock station's weekly Eighties Throwback Night rotation.

"Well, it's the first time you've checked me out, for starters." Vicki snickers and musses his hair, and floors it when the green arrow light comes up.

Maybe it's that she smiles at him so earnestly. Maybe it's that Misha really wants to believe that Vicki's right. Maybe it's just that he's cowering, white-knuckled, in the corner of his seat and praying for deliverance from Vicki's less-than-fastidious observance of speed limits and traffic laws? But he doesn't have it in him to question her assertion. Especially not when she looks so pleased with it.

He should, though. He should question it because he still doesn't feel anything that he'd call any kind of attraction. At least, not sexual attraction, as though there's any other kind. He's just appreciating that she looks pretty without any intent or desire behind it. And the thinking about it makes his libido dial itself back.

Turns out, that's a pretty effective strategy: thinking. Over-thinking. Edging into the realm of navel-gazing like Misha tends to do whenever his sexuality makes an issue out of itself, which is whenever he puts more than a few moments into considering it. Sure, this method has its flaws. It's by no means infallible, but it works often enough for Misha. It's helped get him through the past two days, and it keeps up its decent enough track record through his and Vicki's dinner date and most of their haphazard attempts at dancing.

A cold shudder starting at his neck and rumbling down his spine. The sick, raucous tumult of hot and sticky and unwelcome want slithering around his stomach. Even just the reminder that nags at the back of his neck, like with fangs and four-inch talons, braying in his ear that the truth is so stupidly, inconveniently obvious and if he's not going to pay attention, then how would he like some wobbly knees and a thick haze of something kind of like lust slamming into his brain at two hundred miles an hour.

As soon as Misha feels anything, he turns his mind somewhere else. Tries to, anyway. He wonders how he can even experience anything like what his body's doing to him. How can he be so indifferent to other people but still have urges, much less urges that settle in so deep and twist him around as hard as these do.

How can he have any feelings of want or need when they're not connected to any other people, unless it's in some egocentric and kind of gross way. Unless he might as well just think, what can that other person do to help me push my own buttons, and would I really be better off with them? I could probably handle myself and it'd save me the effort of seeking someone out—because all the effort he puts into trying to consider someone else's feelings stinks like a lie.

Still, the urges hang around, nagging at the back of his neck, threatening that something might happen, and refusing to make any kind of proper sense. Making Misha shiver and making his skin crawl from he doesn't even know what. Despite them and trying to put his mind on anything else, he dances. Awkwardly, sure, but that's to be expected—he can't dance without it involving some herky-jerky nonsense and stumbling all over himself.

He dances with Vicki, which is somewhat less awkward, if mostly because she'll take the lead, and because she'll get closer to him than everybody else will. The sort of, kind of, maybe-heat-scent must still be hanging around, so he doesn't blame them—but that doesn't take the edge off of wishing that they'd treat him normally. Or that someone other than Vicki would talk to him.

They end up almost kissing on the dancefloor more times than Misha cares to count. And rubbing up on Vicki left and right should probably threaten to get him hard, but it still doesn't. He even rocks his hips toward hers, mostly following her example, taking for granted that this is something he's supposed to do, and hoping for the best. But no results. So Misha lets his guard down, and when he finally gets something out of his body, it's completely accidental.

He spins Vicki out, nearly tripping himself up in the process. He wraps an arm around her waist when she comes back. And with her pressed into his front, he wants to feel something—anything at all, even revulsion—but he doesn't feel anything until she yanks him down by his jacket's lapels and bites on his lower lip just because she can, and the next thing Misha knows? He's hard and whining piteously right up in Vicki's ear.

There's a jerk and the feeling of his heart and lungs trying to plummet out of him. His neck and face run freezing cold, even as his stomach flushes hot and twists itself up in knots. And Vicki snickers as she drops her free hand to his waist. As she trails her fingers down his front so goddamned slowly and comes to rub at him through his trousers. She lingers there and just like that, breathing on his mouth but not kissing him, resting the tips of her fingers over where his dick's straining at his fly.

She asks if he wants some help taking care of that as though this sort of thing happens all the time. He nods and she takes him by the wrist, drags him along and out of the hall. Everything's all a blur, beyond that—he shudders as he smacks into her backseat and forces a wobbling smile as she slams the door, lets one of his legs dangle off the seat and bends the other so it'll fit in the car—he tries to keep up with everything but it moves too quickly around him. Starts rushing as soon as she shoves him out of his jacket, pulls him up by his tie, and growls into a kiss to ask if he wants this, if he's sure.

He's not sure, and his thoughts are all about himself—push me around again… harder, Vicki, please… take me apart, can't you do that with your fingers or is that a stereotype… just use me and tell me what to do, I want you to do it… maybe I just don't know that I like sex because I keep getting cold feet… maybe I'll love it once we start—except for the one odd thought out. The one where he doesn't want her to get hurt or feel rejected. So he tells her that it's cool, it's fine, he wants this, can they please just…

She knocks him back again, pushing by both shoulders. He hears her fond chuckling, but in a vague, distant way that's mostly drowned out by his own whining. He fumbles, trying to help her get his belt and pants undone, but she smacks his hands away and tells him to hold still instead (something they've played with before, but never managed to get this far), which sets his head reeling, sends a shiver of fuck need want please please again fuck rushing down his spine, and he whines as she palms at him through his boxers. His head's just barely clear enough to watch while she wriggles out of her tights and panties.

They both have their pants around their knees, and Vicki tries to bunch her dress up around her hips, but she still doesn't fuck him. Not at first. Instead, she leans down. Worms around and stretches out, covering him up with her body—and she kisses him, gently but insistently, sucking and biting on his lips when he tries to pull back for air—she rocks her hips against his, then there's just this… sensation? a sudden feeling of something warm, and wet, and tight around his dick—and he still doesn't put it together, what's happening, until she lets a gaspy, breathless moan creak out of her mouth. And he bucks his hips up into hers just to feel her knocking them back into the seat, just to feel her dig her nails into his collarbone and hear her hiss against his skin that she thought she told him to hold still.

He doesn't last much longer, after that. But even climaxing gets lost in the tumult of everything else, and it's… underwhelming. His heart races, racketing against his chest. His eyes clench up, and he whites out. He doesn't hold back on groaning, because there's no one else in the parking lot and if he's wrong, he doesn't care—but it wasn't that much better than just getting himself off. It wasn't especially worse, either. But it wasn't special, or different, the earth's still in the same place that he left it, and for all he leans up into their next kiss, he still has a dead fish-frozen, iceberg feeling in his chest because he likes Vicki, but doesn't want her.

***

They lose track of time in the car, just lying there together without getting dressed again, kissing on and off without any concern for curfews or getting home in any kind of timely manner. His parents are out, and hers took a long weekend holiday, and her siblings are all older while his are younger but they aren't his problem tonight. So there's nobody else they need to care about, not really.

Which is just fine with Misha, because… he could get used to this part of things, even if he needs to have sex to get it. And he could probably get used to that, too—it wasn't mind-blowing, but that could be a first-time thing, and if it's not, then it'd be worth the extra effort. Because for all the sex wasn't anything Misha would go blabbing about to everybody, the afterglow is nice enough. Just the two of them, right here, close to and holding each other, with Vicki curled up and nestled on Misha's chest, occasionally being bossy or telling him to behave, but in a way that's so lazy and soft and contented, she could easily be joking.

He lets himself get comfortable here, and lulled into a cozy sense of security, and when she asks if she can do something else for him, something she read about in this book her brother had, even if it's maybe uncomfortable and if it is then he can tell her and she'll stop? Even with all of that out there, Misha's sure that this feeling's going to last. So he doesn't really pay much mind while Vicki fusses around, flops to her knees, takes a deep breath and brushes a hand down his bare thigh—then drags a finger over his ass. Slowly, slides it closer and closer to his hole.

He sighs, half-moaning, as she works that finger into him. Then gasps as she follows it with a second. It occurs to him that it shouldn't be this easy for her to finger him—or should it? he doesn't know, but this seems kind of off, to him; Betas aren't supposed to be so flexible or so open—but then he gasps. She finds something, rubs her fingers on this… thing inside him and he gasps as his cock snaps back to attention. With her free hand, she thwaps his fingers away and jerks him off herself, still massaging his insiders and dragging it out slowly, until he's begging her to let him cum.

And for as nice as everything's been, it all crashes down with a single word: "Misha…?"

Vicki's voice trembles, snapping him back around into reality. She doesn't sound uncertain, or shocked, or scared—just concerned. A little bit off-colour. Her hand shakes as she brings it up and her cheeks pale. All down her neck, the color drains away, and she asks if he's alright, if he's absolutely certain about that.

Misha's fine. He swears he is. He blinks up at her and shakes his head, wondering what the Hell she's on about because he's fine. Really. All that's different is that Vicki's got him worried, now—until he follows her eyes and finds himself looking at her fingers. At the shiny, dripping coat of something that they picked up.

Misha wants to look away from Vicki's hand, but his eyes stay locked there. He wants to reach out and brush his own hand down her arm, but his limbs feel too heavy and they won't move either. He wants to tell her that it's okay and everything's going to be alright, but his voice catches in his throat, then so does his breath, and his tongue feels swollen and sticky, like there's peanut butter all over his mouth.

"But I'm not…" he chokes out, and hates the wobbly, creaking notes of desperation. "But that doesn't… I'm a Beta…"

His vision slides in and out of focus. Shows him one hand, then three, then one, then two—but never lets him stop looking at her fingers, the vague shapes of them in the parking lot lights and that nauseating, undeniable sheen like they've just been polished. His stomach does flip-flops and a deep breath brings him back to reality with a crash and an even bigger lump in his throat.

Misha doesn't even need to properly see what's on Vicki's fingers. He doesn't need the thick, salty whiff he catches of it. He doesn't need an explanation or help putting this together with where Vicki's hand has been.

She found Misha's hole getting itself ready to be fucked. Only Omega males self-lubricate.

***

So, they find themselves in the emergency room again, waiting for the results of another blood test. The difference is that this is mostly a formality. In all the stories Misha's heard about guys who turned out to be Omegas, they wound up at a doctor's office way before they hit the self-lubricating point. Whether accidentally or because they recognized the symptoms of a heat cycle, they went through all of this sooner. They were lucky enough to have open-minded doctors who only reminded them of the stereotypes about male Omegas out of the goodness of their lab-coated hearts.

"Why can't they just get this shit put on the standard blood tests for school," Misha grouses, some ten, fifteen minutes after the nurse wanders off. He rocks back and forth on the exam table, itching with earnest anxiety for the first time in days, rather than the unrelenting drive to get off and the wriggling that Misha's nerves got up to when he had other things to do. He sighs. "Wouldn't it save everybody a lot of fucking time?"

"Well, maybe they will, if we ever get around to making genetic testing less expensive and more timely." Vicki doesn't look up from the pamphlet on STD prevention that she's thumbing through. "Until then? The only time we're going to catch this is when you're in a heat cycle because hormones are wonky and we're measuring their concentration in your bloodstream. We're kind of lucky that we have this much, and it'd a huge step forward from the older, bullshit diagnostics we used to use, so I wouldn't knock the tests just yet."

Which is when she excuses herself to go try calling Misha's parents again. Which, for a fourth time, doesn't pan out. They're having date night while his kid siblings are with one of their older cousins. They probably have their cellphones turned off because Dad's paranoid about the bill skyrocketing over some unforeseen, irrational some-fucking-thing-or-other. And, this time while she's away, Vicki calls Misha's house and tells Hannah what's going on, tries to get in touch with her parents, but it looks like Aunt Jeanne and Uncle Will are out of reach, too. Vicki shrugs as she settles back into her seat and picks up flipping through another pamphlet.

Because in terms of differences from the last time they were in this situation, there's also the part where they really don't have that much to say. Not even the hand-holding reassurance that Misha gave Vicki when she was in his spot. The results are sort of a moot point, since they already know what's coming, and on some level, Misha's just surprised Vicki hasn't tried to punch him yet. Maybe she's just waiting for him to be more stable, or not technically some doctor's patient, or in some other position where socking him would make her feel guilty.

Because it's probably got to suck. Wanting to sleep with someone, finally getting the chance, then finding out that it only happened in the first place because he's in heat and not himself. He's letting her down, on this front. Again.

Except that she doesn't say that, for the longest time. She says other things, but leaves him to sit on pins and needles about whether or not she's pissed off about how things went in the backseat. She tells him that he's an idiot, but that's over willfully ignoring the symptoms of a heat when he knows better, and Misha can't disagree. And she has an affectionate lilt in her voice as she does it that throws Misha through an even worse loop than the rest of this night has managed. It's like everything might actually get forgiven, even though Misha knows that this is really too much to hope for.

And, after the nurse comes in to tell them that the lab's a bit backed up so they might be waiting a while but it probably shouldn't be that long we hope so don't get worried because Misha's still got a priority rush spot, Vicki even reaches up to ruffle his hair and ask if he's okay. He sighs, and she sighs, and he supposes that he's as okay as he can be, all things considered, and she says that's good. Because she's sorry.

"Because I've been pretty harsh so far tonight," she says, giving Misha a pensive frown. "I think part of it's that you've kind of been a dick lately, even before the heat started up, so I've been impatient at you right back. But the other part was just that… It was so stupid and egocentric and gross of me, I swear to God…"

Misha can't help holding his breath when she trails off. He inhales sharply. Waits for her to finish that thought. And when she doesn't, he guesses, "Well, if you were upset about our first time happening during a heat cycle, I'd understand, though? Because it's kind of shitty of me? Only getting into it because I'm in heat and it's, like, a personal insult, especially when you're dating someone?"

Vicki furrows her brow and blinks up at Misha for a moment. "Actually, Sherlock? I was going to say that I felt gross for going along with it when you're in heat. Because you said it was cool, sure, but since I'm not heating and you are? Since you're basically intoxicated and I'm not? I'm supposed to know better—and making it all about me when I might've hurt you?"

Misha's not sure if they're really listening to each other anymore. "But I don't hold that against you or feel victimized or anything, and it's just natural to want to have sex, right—I mean, everybody does it and everybody wants it, so of course you'd—"

"Of course I'd nothing, Misha." Vicki half-groans, huffing and batting her hands at each other and kicking at the air with her crossed leg. "All I'm trying to say here is that we need to work out some guidelines about heat-cycles if this is ever going to happen again, and then we need to remember them, and if there's anything we're not telling each other about our sexual anythings? Then we need to clear that up now or else—"

"I think I'm broken because I don't really like sex!"

If Misha doesn't know where that came from, then Vicki's all the more clueless. She stares at him, and asks if he means sex with her or if it's something she did, and he just means to tell her that it's not about her. That he likes her—maybe feels something more than like, besides—and he likes what she does as long as they don't go too far…

But before Misha can stop himself, he's spilling everything. Even the things he thought he could never tell anyone. All of the confusion and anxiety and worrying that he's broken, or a freak, or that he'll never be right. How all of it's so much worse now because Omegas are supposed to want people and want sex, and like sex, and what the Hell kind of Omega doesn't like sex, does it mean that he's sick or something, because he's read that hyposexuality can be a symptom of some pretty nasty shit, and Jesus Christ, Vicki, he's way too young for his entire fucking life to fall apart like this.

Vicki goes quiet for a moment, but she doesn't stay that way. "Misha," she sighs, reaching over to grab his hand, lacing her fingers up with his. "If you thought you were asexual, then why didn't you just tell me?"

And now it's his turn to stare like she's the one who's speaking Klingonese. "But that's not… You can't apply that word to people, though, like… I'm not a bacterium, though, Vicki, right?"

"Nice try," she says. "But it's not that kind of asexual."

And as she starts to explain exactly what she means—starts telling him that it's actually a sexual orientation, and telling him what it means and what she's read about it and that he's not alone in feeling like he does—so, so many things start clicking into place. Start making sense for the first time in Misha's life.