by N. J. Lysk
“And you?” Ray dared to ask. It was an unforgivably stupid question to ask an alpha. Josh couldn’t help...
But Josh wasn’t just an alpha: he was Ray’s best friend. “And all I wanted was to get you out of there. Away from…” He met Ray’s eyes and Ray thought there were tears lurking in his beautiful hazel eyes. “I was glad you made a run for it.”
“But you made me come back,” Ray said. “Why didn’t you… You could have told me then.”
Josh winced, but then, as if bracing himself, he met Ray’s eyes again. “I… I thought about it, but… Would you have believed me then? Right after you had presented? Right after I’d seen you as an omega for the first time? You were so angry I had offered, you punched me, Ray.”
“Of course I was angry!” Ray snapped, stepping away from Josh because he wanted to step closer. He remember how it'd felt to hit him, how right it'd been. But he also remembered that Josh couldn't hit him back. “How else was I supposed to feel? Doesn’t mean I couldn’t have listened to you.”
Josh closed his eyes, then admitted in a gutted voice. “I thought if I told you what I felt, if you knew I really wanted you… It was selfish, but I thought you’d send me away. I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t even think about you leaving you with them.”
“So you lied to me.”
“I…” Josh started. “I didn’t tell you the truth. I thought it was the right thing to do, if it meant I got to keep you safe that way.”
“I see,” Ray bit out with all the bitter disappointment of someone who expect little and gets even less. “Good thing me being an omega didn’t change how you felt about me, right? It took you about five seconds to decide I didn’t get to make my own decisions anymore.”
Josh flinched. “I didn’t think… I didn’t think about you being an omega. I just thought about you being in a shitty situation and how proud you are. I was afraid you’d refuse my help—”
“It was my right to refuse!”
Josh met his eyes, looking like he was walking on burning coals as he did. “Yes.”
“So you just—”
“I was selfish,” Josh said, facing him, “because I love you.”
But the words couldn’t heal all wounds—no matter how long had been wanting to hear them. Josh had admitted his selfishness and excused it away in the same breath.
“Because you love me or because you couldn’t bear for another alpha to fuck me instead of you?” Ray demanded, so bitterly furious his voice was like a blow.
Josh gasped and took a step back, flinching when his elbow hit the corner of the dresser. They’d always spoken plainly to each other before, but they’d never talked about having sex with each other without generalising. They’d never talked about the fact that Josh fucked him on a regular basis, or about how that made Ray feel. It’d seemed safer that way, but now Ray saw that it was actually completely crazy. He’d been sleeping with the man for a year and he hadn’t ever talked to him about it, never tried to negotiate or balance it out. They’d probably talked more about the rules of wrestling when they were ten than about what was okay to do with each other’s bodies in bed.
Of course Josh had assumed Ray would prefer it if he bedded him as infrequently as possible.
“I was jealous,” Josh admitted, voice growing darker with pain. “I couldn’t help it. You were my… my best friend, and I was the one who’d wanted you forever, and I thought maybe you... And then it turned out maybe we could be together. But not really because your uncle insisted you were going to be the first omega of a new pack.”
“But you still didn’t fucking ask me what I wanted!” Ray snapped, so incensed he thought he might hit him. Except that wasn’t possible any longer, not now that Josh wasn’t just an alpha but Ray’s alpha. He shouldn’t have done it anyway, it wasn’t okay to hit people just because you were angry and Ray had never been prone to losing control—but the fact that he couldn’t...
“No!” Josh screamed back. “I fucking didn’t. I’m sorry, okay? I should have! But it happened so fast. I was trying to calm you down, and then the others were explaining and you agreed to it and, I don’t know, Ray. If you had asked me that day, I’d have gone with you anywhere you wanted.”
But it hadn’t even occurred to Ray to ask. There was no reason an omega needed more than one alpha. It was just a convention that male omegas were mated and bred by several since they were able to carry more pups. They could have gone, he realised with dawning horror. He stared at Josh, swallowing compulsively as his heart started to race. The overlooked possibility felt like a betrayal he could never forgive, but not from Josh—from himself.
“No,” his friend said, taking a hesitant step closer. “I’m sorry, don’t…” He took hold of Ray’s forearm, just loose enough that Ray could shake him off if he wanted. “Don’t freak out. It’s okay.” He rubbed Ray’s arm and brought him closer, taking hold of his elbows to support his weight as Ray’s balance faltered. “Think about it: you’d have never been able to see your family again. You wouldn’t have really wanted that, would you?”
Ray shook his head weakly, suddenly so weary his knees bent a little. Josh caught his weigh more firmly and Ray leaned into him—took his strength as it was offered. He’d only glimpsed the possibility of freedom for an instant, but giving it up again was unbearable.
He let Josh lead him to the bed and fell on his back. His shirt felt scratchy against his sensitive nipples. He should probably just throw it away. Just get rid of everything that wasn’t pure cotton and stop pretending he’d ever go back to normal. That there was a normal to go back to.
“Ray,” Josh said with so much despair colouring his voice that Ray turned his head towards him. He was sitting on the bed by his side, staring at Ray with worried eyes, body tense with his repressed need to touch Ray.
Ray didn’t want Josh to be sad, but it was all abstract to him: an idea only. He felt numb, not unaware of the pain but separated from it.
He was about to tell Josh he was fine when his friend reached out and thumbed at his cheek. It was wet. He blinked, feeling the heaviness on his eyelashes. He was crying, he understood. His breathing was laboured too, a little too fast. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried, but that only made it more real. His body telling his mind what he’d been incapable of seeing on his own. It was like breathing in after holding your breath too long—if you breathed in inside a volcano. It hurt, choking him with emotion too strong to be held in any longer and he curled up on his side, trembling and sobbing into the bedding.
He knew when he’d last cried, of course: it had been the day his dad had died.
And now… now Ray was dead. The person he’d been, the person he’d dreamed of becoming. He was gone forever.
Josh lay back next to him and put his arm around Ray’s middle, uncaring of the tears and probably the snot as he brought Ray’s face to his own chest to cradle. Ray let him. Ray needed him. It was nothing to be ashamed of; Josh needed him too.
They stayed like that for a while, until Ray felt like he truly couldn’t breathe properly and tried to reach for a tissue. Josh held on for a moment longer before he made himself let go and passed them to Ray.
He was sitting up on the bed when Ray turned around, eyes irritated like he’d cried himself, even though his face was dry.
“It wouldn’t have worked,” he told Ray. “I’m sorry I said anything. It was just a fantasy, not…”
“No, it’s…” Ray swallowed. “It’s fine. I… you just made me see something I’ve been trying not to see. Because some part of me… I guess I still thought there was a way back. No, not thought, exactly, but I felt like there had to be. But it’s gone, and I’m fine now. I’ve seen it and I accept it. I’m fine.”
“You don’t have to be.”
Ray pushed up onto his elbows to look at him and shook his head. It simply wasn’t true. He sat up fully. “Yeah, I do,” he said, "I thought I could just pretend and it’d be enough, but it’s not. I need to
let it all go. Being an alpha and going away to explore the world, and the world where you and me were together and we lived in the city in a shitty flat with smelly roommates.”
Josh gave him a weak smile. “Isn’t that the world we live in?”
Ray shook his head. “Please, Alec makes me a five course meal for breakfast every day, and nothing can break without Gabriel making sure it’s fixed on the same day.”
“You deserve it,” Josh said, leaning in and touching Ray’s face gently again. “And you deserved better from me. I should have asked you, even if it meant you got angry at me. Even if meant you asked me to go,” he added, and even though an omega could never take it back once he’d given himself to an alpha, Josh sounded like the possibility of Ray telling him to go was still real and too painful to speak of.
That was all that Ray had needed to hear. It didn’t erase his pain—nothing could do that—but it acknowledged it. There was no way for Josh to fix his past mistakes or the pain they’d caused Ray, much less fix Ray’s own missteps, but he could admit that he’d been wrong. It was all it took, you admitted you had been wrong and then you had a chance in hell of not being wrong again, but most people had too much pride to take the easy way out. “It wasn’t… I wasn’t angry at you, not really. I shouldn’t have hit you,” he said, trying the high road himself.
Josh frowned at him, hands clenching in his lap to keep himself from touching Ray while he wasn’t sure the touch would be welcome. “What do you mean?”
Ray shot him an incredulous look. “Can you imagine there was anyone else in the universe I wanted to see me as an omega less than you?” he asked, turning away to throw the tissue into the bin across the room. Supernatural reflexes and all, gravity wasn't on his side.
“Oh, you really…” Josh stopped and Ray couldn’t resist looking at his face. He was watching Ray right back.
He realised Josh’s pulse was speeding only a moment after feeling his own thudding in his chest. It was odd, because he’d told Josh already and Josh had said it back. But something had changed now. The past was gone, but they were here.
Josh reached out so slowly enough that the slowest of humans could have pulled away and put his hand on top of Ray’s on his lap. His palm was rough from work, but his expression was all tenderness and for a long moment Ray watched him back. He’d kissed Josh hundreds of times, but in that moment, he wanted to lean in more than anything. And he knew he couldn’t.
Not after what they’d told each other. But he couldn’t move away, either, not when for the first time since he’d become Josh’s omega, he felt like they were okay. He pulled on Josh’s hand until it was around his waist and leaned close for an embrace—as chaste as could be with the way they were sitting. But it didn’t seem to matter: Josh held him back almost desperately, breathing heavily.
“You can do whatever you want,” he promised. “We’ll help you, make it work. You could go back to college or paint all day or… anything.”
“I don’t really know what I want,” Ray admitted. How did you even begin to dream again after not just your future but your present disappeared from one day to the next?
“That’s okay,” Josh said, rubbing his back through his shirt. “You have time to figure it out.”
&
Sergi was sound asleep on their shared bed, and Iesu was curled up on the armchair next to the window. Right next to the easel Ray had set up to sketch their lover. His eyes were on the man on the bed, but Iesu had his ear as soon as he decided to speak.
“Something’s different about you. Since you talked to Josh, I think.”
Ray pulled the pencil away from the drawing and turned to glare at his alpha. Iesu might have overheard some of their conversation—he was well-aware that they’d both raised their voices enough to be heard with human hearing—but that didn’t mean he knew what Ray was thinking. Iesu kept watching Sergi, though, pretending not to notice.
“Didn’t realise you were my shrink now,” Ray said, doing his best to keep his voice even.
“So you admit you need one.”
“Do I?” he asked, hoping against hope that his alpha would take the hint and let it be. He carefully put the pencil to the paper again, glanced at Sergi and traced a line that he immediately had to rub out.
And Iesu was undeterred. "I’m just saying you’ve had a rough year, Ray. You could talk to someone about it, it’s all."
"I did talk to someone,” Ray said, sighing. “Wasn’t that what you wanted?"
"True," Iesu admitted raising his hands in defeat. "You figured it out with Josh. I’m glad, I just... I wondered if I could ask about it. I know I’m not Josh, but I care about you."
He hadn’t figured out a thing with Josh, if anything, they’d tangled things up even further. But he was glad they’d talked anyway, at least now he didn’t have to worry that Josh would notice how he felt. At least now when Josh kissed him too softly, he wouldn’t have to pull back because he couldn’t bear to be touched like that without knowing if it was an expression of real feeling. It was real.
It wasn’t the only thing that was real, though, and maybe that was the only thing that Ray was sure about: he was an omega and his life had changed forever. He didn't want to talk about Josh, but he could tell Iesu that much, and maybe it'd be enough to get him to back off the rest.
He hesitated, then deliberately turned to the drawing and added a line to Sergi’s elbow.
“I just realised there’s no going back,” he told Iesu. “It’s obvious, but a part of me thought there would be a normal somewhere, that…” He trailed off, unsure of how to explain the wild, impossible hope he’d kept alive for so long.
“There is a normal,” Iesu offered, “just not the one from before. It won’t always be crazy, we’ll settle. The betas will get here and we’ll get hot meals on the table more often than not, and stop washing clothes twice because we never hung them up.”
“I know.”
“And football, and time to draw hot naked guys,” Iesu added with his usual optimism.
Ray snorted, eyes flickering between the two men. “You’re really gone on him, aren’t you?”
Iesu met his eyes head-on. “Jealous?” he asked with a smirk.
“Obviously,” Ray agreed, and extended a palm towards the sleeping man—tanned skin sprawled on white sheets like something out of a dream.
Iesu barely muffled his laughter on time, but he knew there was nothing for Ray to be jealous of when it came to Sergi’s body, naturally. His eyes were serious when he met Ray’s. “Did you tell him?”
Ray looked away, biting his lip against the wolf’s need to answer its alpha. He was okay with telling Iesu what he’d realised about himself, but not about Josh. He couldn’t think of anything he wanted to discuss less than what he felt for Josh, or Josh for him. It was between them alone, and it was as fragile as a new-born hope. He wasn’t sure it’d live to see another day or what it’d become of it—but like an overzealous parent, he wanted nothing on its way, not even his own thoughts.
“Ray? What’s wrong?”
“Direct question,” Ray got out, willing to answer that.
“What? Really? But—” He bit down on the objection and said quickly. “You don’t have to answer. Just if you want to.”
Ray exhaled, shaky and tired all of sudden. “Please don’t bring it up again,” he asked. He managed to put the pencil down on the table instead of dropping, but then he had to leave. He wasn’t angry, exactly, but being given a direct order by one of his alphas always left him feeling unbalanced, like they’d suddenly yanked the floor from under feet. It was even worse when they’d done it without even noticing. For them, it was an accident; for Ray...
Iesu didn’t try to stop him, or follow, at least, so Ray had somewhere to go for a little quiet.
Chapter 8
Ray had called his uncle’s wife, the first omega of Lakeside Pack, and she’d assured him he was welcome to stop by with all of his alphas. But it was just Iesu
and Josh who’d ended up going with him. Someone had to stay with the kids while Ray fetched the betas that had been meant to be supporting his newly formed back since its beginnings. And most of them still had to go to work—Josh was the only one doing mostly night-shifts. They’d taken the Jeep in case someone decided to drive back with them, but Ray didn't expect anybody to be that enthusiastic. For a beta to join a pack, its first omega or alpha had to approve and personally invite them, so it'd be very short notice indeed. And in any case, they didn't even have a room ready for them yet. Iesu had moved in with Sergi easily enough—their rooms had been next door to each other and Iesu was happy to live with only a suitcase worth of clothing—but they hadn't purchased the bunk beds or bedding.
Ray looked out the window, feeling his breath catch as they crossed over, and Josh glanced at him from the driver’s seat. “You okay?” he asked. He’d become much more vocal about his concern since their conversation—it reminded Ray of how things had been before.
“Yeah, it’s just… I can feel it. I can feel I’m in someone else’s territory, it’s…” He shrugged. He didn’t mention that he had stopped feeling Alec and the pups back home when they’d crossed over, or that the wolf was already impatient to get back to them. “Weird.”
“What does it feel like?” Iesu asked from the backseat.
“It’s… I guess there’s this pressure, like when someone’s staring at you,” Ray explained.
“Huh, well, I guess you can feel their first omega watching you,” Iesu deduced. “That makes sense.”
