by N. J. Lysk
"Nah, I wasn't big back then. The coaches always try everyone out in different positions; it doesn't matter if you stick with it, it's good to know what the other person is seeing from there, you know? That's why I made defence and offence switch places."
Jamil made a thoughtful noise. "Makes sense."
"Glad you agreed," Thomas told her cheekily.
AFTER THE KIDS HAD eaten their share—Kyeran limiting himself to half a chocolate torsade and getting a Tupperware to save the other half for latter—Thomas started to feel a bit guilty about the mess they'd made of the dining room.
But the two caretakers who came to take over waved him and Uri away when they tried to help. "Go!" the pretty, dark-skinned one ordered. "We actually get paid for this, and we just got caught up on a lot of paperwork while you babysat."
"And hopefully they'll be tired enough to agree to go to bed on time without making a fuss," the older one added with a rueful smile.
Thomas knew when not to argue with experience, so he followed Uri the way they'd come, picking up his coat on the way out. "That—"
"You—" Uri said at the same time. Thomas turned to him, already grinning, and raised his chin in invitation. The man's lips were upturned, but he had to swallow before speaking. "You were great with them."
"Was I?" Thomas licked his lips, unlatching the gate before turning to face him again. "Tell me more."
Uri rolled his eyes at him, but his voice was serious when he responded, “Well, last time, you said that thing about inborn ability and how we hone our skills, how only the things we teach ourselves don't have any downsides..."
Thomas grinned. "That was good, wasn't it?"
“Yeah, I heard Jamil reminding Sira of it earlier,” Uri explained. His smile Thomas’s heart swell. "Not completely true," Uri added, turning left towards the train station. Thomas wasn’t sure why he was getting escorted back and forth, but it wasn’t like he was going to complain about the chance to spend time together without their tiny chaperones.
"What?"
"Well, once you learn to see something, you can't stop seeing it.” He adjusted his carrier bag. “And that's a disadvantage sometimes."
"Ignorance is bliss? Really?" He frowned, unexpectedly annoyed. It wasn't like Thomas was a scholar, but he didn't like lies and pretence—the truth hurt, but at least it hurt for a reason.
"No, but knowledge has a price," Uriel countered, casually putting a hand on Thomas's side to get him out of the way of a wheelchair. Thomas let himself be guided closer to the gutter. "So it has a downside, like everything else."
"I guess this is why I didn't take philosophy for my A Levels," he joked, looking down. The hand on his hip tightened, forcing him to stop walking. He looked up.
Uriel shook his head. "Don't do that, it was a lovely speech, and it was true, just... not completely. And... it was more than true, it was good. It...It was like a story, made-up, but saying something real they could use."
Thomas stared at him, the yearning to be closer so intense it felt like need. "How do you feel about PDA?"
"What?"
"I'm going to kiss you now," Thomas clarified, and when Uriel didn't move away, he put his hands on the man's shoulders and leaned down to press their mouths together. It'd only been a few days, but he still groaned with relief. He felt hands around his waist, pressing them together and turning as his tongue was sucked into Uri’s mouth with a sound Thomas never wanted to leave his ears.
“How dare you indulge in your ridiculous games in a public street?!” The voice was furious enough to penetrate the fog of lust in his mind. He didn’t quite let go, turning his head to see the speaker. He was actually more concerned with the way Uri had gone rigid under him. “It’s just a kiss,” he told the old woman—for once he was making assumptions. “What—?”
“Just a kiss?!” she spat, looking as disgusted as if he’d been speaking of cannibalism.
“Thomas,” Uri said gently, and he turned to look at him. He looked... pale. Upset. Not that Thomas wasn’t, but it didn’t make any sense. He didn’t— “Can we go?”
He couldn’t refuse him that, not when he so clearly needed it, so he hurried down the street, not touching anymore and feeling every inch between them.
Chapter Twelve: Uriel
Thomas was obviously confused, but he acceded to his request at once anyway. “Sure,” he said, and dragged Uri down the street at a trot. At the station, he went to one of the drink dispensers at once. “What do you like that has some sugar in it? Caffeine would be good too.”
“Cold tea,” Uri replied quietly. Thomas got him a carton, put the straw in for him and handed it over before heading back to get himself a ginger ale.
They drank in silence, ignoring the people pressing their IDs to the meter-reader to get into the trains and those coming out in a rush to get to work or, most likely on a Saturday, to a date or a party.
“You okay?” Thomas asked when Uri crushed his carton and popped it right back into the machine to be recycled. The beta was still nursing his own drink, and there was something careful about the way he was leaning against the wall, posture open and height not as obvious.
Uri inhaled. This was it, he’d have to tell him, and then... “I just—”
“I’d never met a racist,” Thomas blurted out. “It’s just— It’s 5888!”
“You think that’s—?” he started to ask, but Thomas had a lot more energy than him.
“Well, I don’t know,” he continued. He was glancing around the station as if he suspected any other random passer-by could unexpectedly react outrageously. “But whatever it was, she was nuts,” he declared, looking at Uri only to roll his eyes. “It’s always the same, isn’t it? Thinking you can decide who other people can love, or date,” he added a little too quickly. “It’s all the same prejudice. It’s pretty shitty even when you’re a kid, but at least you know that’s gonna be over eventually; and it’s your parents who get to choose for you, which is not... well, it’s not a perfect system, but somebody’s gotta look out for you when you’re a horny thirteen year old, I guess.”
Uri swallowed. He could see the opening so clearly here: he just had to tell Thomas the truth and Thomas would say... Except that just because Thomas could accept alphas and betas dating—and that was just extrapolation—that didn’t mean it’d be his first choice for himself. He’d already got shouted at by a stranger for it, which was why Uri normally didn’t do PDA. His beta partners had accepted the necessity because they’d known, but with Thomas... He didn’t want to be just an alpha, a guy for a fun time, at most a companion on the road—like Sun had called him—when what he was looking for...
Thomas stepped up to him and traced his stubbled jaw. “Pretty wild choice for a fourth date,” he told him, eyes smiling but lips pressed a little too tight for true relaxation.
“Fourth?” Uri asked, feeling like he couldn’t quite align his words and his thoughts.
“Sure, we went to that concert and then hoverboarding on our first,” Thomas reminded him with a little squeeze on his arm. He looked down at Uri’s mouth and added in a rough voice, “And then you blew my mind.” Then he licked his lips and raised his eyes right to Uri’s again. “And then our second was kind of a group date, but I had a great time. And then I took you to a new level of ecstasy... with the sushi.”
Uri clenched his fists and exhaled loudly, trying to get the scent of him out of his nose and mouth—a little sweaty, and sweet from some cream he used, and just... Thomas. If he didn’t control himself, they were going to end up right where they’d been a few minutes before, and then... He gently took hold of Thomas’s upper arms and pushed him back a step. “I don’t... Not a fan of PDA, actually,” he offered apologetically.
“Oh.” Thomas took a further step back at once. “I’m sorry, I’m— I guess I was joking, most— No, I’m sorry. No PDA.”
The apology sat like lead in Uri’s stomach. Because he was lying, of course, it wasn’t the affection he had an objection to. H
e waved it off, swallowing in a vain effort to dispel the tightness in his throat. “I got caught up, too.”
Thomas’s smile at that was blinding. “I get that a lot,” he said with perfect honesty, then burst out laughing at whatever he saw in Uri’s face. “So... food?"
EATING WAS AT LEAST safer territory, and they got talking about which kids worked well together and which really needed to get over themselves—T’Jean and Blendi. They were so entranced Uri reached for another piece of pizza only to realise it was all gone.
Thomas snorted, giving him a toothy grin around the chunk he’d taken off the last piece.
“What? You not gonna share?” Uri asked him, lowering his chin and watching him from under his eyelashes. Maybe it was a little too much, but...
It worked. Thomas stopped chewing for a second, then rolled his eyes at him and put the rest of the slice back.
“Um, sorry,” Uri said at once. “I didn’t mean...”
“You don’t want it?” Thomas asked, obviously confused.
“Well, yeah, only I didn’t...” he trailed off, unable to explain. Had he used his alpha will to make Thomas give up the food? He couldn’t tell, it was—
“I’m getting us another one, obviously,” Thomas cut in. “But if you want this one with my germs and all...”
Uri glanced up, incredulous, before he burst out laughing loud enough he had to cover his mouth. “Your germs?” he hissed. “Like I haven’t...” he trailed off, grinning too hard, then snatched the pizza and took two huge bites.
Thomas laughed at his impression of a chipmunk before getting to his feet. “Be right back.”
CLAUDETTE WAS DRUMMING her fingers on the table top when Uri caught sight of her. Through the closed glass door, she didn’t notice him approaching and jumped a little when he knocked. For only a second, before her conscious mind took over, her strong figure curled over.
{Can I come in?} Uri signed.
She waved her response like a queen hurrying a maid along. It was rude, but Uriel didn’t even need to open the glass door and get a faceful of the lemony scent in the room to know she was just covering up her discomfort.
No. Her fear.
Uri had given her no reason to be afraid, but she knew she couldn’t trust alphas—not even the one who’d sworn to protect her at all costs.
So certain was she that she was willing to submit herself to an irreversible medical procedure.
Bonds couldn’t be broken—and Mengele had tried that plenty of times—so he had come up with the idea of creating a stronger repelling force. As far as Uri understood, it was created with a blood sample from the opposite bonded partner and injected by both the alpha and the omega. Afterwards, the same genetic compatibility that had drawn them to each other would simultaneously cause them the opposite effect: a combination of pain, disgust, and sheer horror.
The first exposure to this new sensation seemed to be enough to most keep ex-partners from approaching each other again, but a few succumbed to the call of the bond often enough to kill one or both of them from the shock.
Every lawyer Uriel had ever come across speaking about the procedure strongly advised against it from both a legal and moral perspective. And yet, here was this woman, proud and put together, a professional pianist of the first order, and she’d signed the forms Mx Yave had left for her already.
{You are finished with that.} Uri stayed by the doorway and signed again. It wasn’t completely impossible for an alpha to put his will behind sign language, of course, but Uri had never done it by accident that way.
If she’d been a little younger, she’d probably have rolled her eyes at him. She didn’t bother with an answer, just raised an eyebrow.
{I don’t want to overstep,} he made himself explain. {But we can use the fact that I’m an alpha. It’ll rattle your... her. And I can draw her attention,} he added. She was still watching him, dark-eyed and silent. {If you want me to.}
{Is this why Mx Yave suddenly has a meeting?}
{No! He does have a meeting, it’s— can’t tell you, but it’s real. I swear.} Her face remained impassive, but he waited her out, knowing she had to catch in his scent that he was honest.
{Okay. I’ll let you know if I need your services.}
It was condescending as fuck, of course, but Uri didn’t really care. His job was to help her, and even if she was a bit cold, she did deserve help. Maybe she was cold because the world and her body had stuck her in a situation where she was powerless. In her place, he’d have wanted to hide how easily he could be hurt too.
He glanced at the desk. {I’ll take this to our intern.} She shrugged her permission, and he stepped forward and checked all the copies were there before piling them up. He turned for the door, then looked at her one more time. He didn’t speak. He couldn’t; he didn’t know what to say.
Claudette sighed, eyes sad, proud posture slipping a little. {It’s the only way.}
He nodded. She knew how terrible what she meant to do would be, and here she was telling him she was sure there was no other choice but to make it unbearable for both herself and her alpha to be in the same room ever again.
Chapter Thirteen: Thomas
Thomas didn’t get sick. It was just one of those things he knew about himself. He got injured, of course, because he skated very fast around other people skating very fast in the opposite direction. But that was the price you paid for hockey, and he’d never met a player who thought it was too costly for the joy of it.
Being sick, though, like his dad got as a consequence of his bad back so that there were days when he couldn’t handle getting out of bed... Well, that wasn’t a thing that happened to Thomas. So he drank some hot tea and ignored the burning in his throat and then went to training and took it a little slow because his chest hurt too, but so what? It meant he needed to work a little more on his stamina. Slow and steady, that was all.
“You okay, Thomas?” his captain asked when he caught him drinking his electrolytes like a good boy.
Thomas waved him away. “Yeah, just winded.”
“Ok, you look a little peaky. Maybe stop by the infirmary when we’re done.”
“Sure,” Thomas said and promptly forgot.
He hadn’t meant to, but he was having trouble concentrating already—he felt groggy for some reason and it was harder than usual to catch his breath after skating for a while.
He must have looked tired because Carry insisted on them going home together. They did that often enough, what with living in the same building, but Carry didn’t normally hover the way he was doing now, barely looking at his reader on the train and frowning when he met Thomas’s eyes.
“I’m fine,” Thomas told him firmly.
Carry rolled his eyes at him. “You’re eating and going straight to bed.”
Thomas laughed, incredulous and touched both. It was just what Colleen would say.
His linemate accepted his amusement without question, at least until he laughed again when Carry asked him to promise to call him if he felt worse. The left-winger came closer and actually put his palm on Thomas’s forehead.
“No fever,” he declared, pulling back. He went and got him two glasses of water anyway. “This better be gone when I come pick you up in the morning,” he warned.
HE FELT BETTER IN THE morning, though it wasn’t Carry who called but Coach, and Thomas wasn’t stupid enough to lie when asked specific questions about his energy levels—not with only a couple days before a game.
“Good, just rest up today, Kiau, we need you for the Whales game.”
“Sure thing, Coach.”
So he stayed at home and slept, and remembered to drink and drink and drink until he thought his internal organs had to be floating.
And it didn’t work. He knew it at once when the pain woke him in the middle of the night, coughing so hard he had to hold onto the covers not to fall off the bed altogether. He managed to stop long enough to sip some water and get his phone.
WHEN HE WOKE A
GAIN, Colleen was on her screenreader, little lines between her brows she got when she was concentrating—the very same lines Thomas saw on his own face when he bothered to put on eyeliner.
“Oh, finally!” She squinted at him from behind her glasses. “I’ve been here for hours but they said you needed to rest. You’re fine,” she added quickly. “Just need some antibiotics.”
“Antibiotics?” he echoed, his voice coming out raspy and thin.
“Yes,” Colleen confirmed as she came forward to offer him a sippy cup. He tried and failed to take a good drink, then resigned himself to getting drops instead. It took him a good minute to wet his tongue enough to feel up to speaking again. By then, he’d already figured out he was in hospital.
“Why... What happened?”
“You fainted,” his sister told him reproachfully. “Because apparently you’ve had pneumonia for a week and you didn’t go see a bloody doctor.”
“What? I didn’t... I was fine,” he insisted. “And I called...”
“The emergency number,” she reminded him. “Thank the gods you did, they went to pick you up and you didn’t open the door. They had to open your door remotely.”
He put the cup down by his side, letting his head fall back against the pillows. “I never get sick.”
Colleen huffed and came closer to crush his hand in her own. “Everyone gets sick, you idiot.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Just don’t scare me like this again,” she demanded, voice tight.
He reached for her with his free hand and cupped her wrist in a gentle grip, squeezing just once. “Sorry, Col.”
HE DIDN’T REMEMBER falling asleep, but it was his phone that woke him up. It took his brain a few seconds to realise it was ringing, a few seconds longer than whoever was calling was willing to wait apparently. He almost closed his eyes again and went back to sleep. He was thirsty, but Colleen wasn’t there, although she couldn’t be far because she’d left her neon green backpack on the chair. But then the phone pinged with a text.
