by Aiden Bates
Ben stared at him, not a single muscle on his face moving. "Excuse me?"
Ty chuckled. Ben really hadn't known? He found that hard to believe, but maybe that was just his own lingering resentment talking. "They hadn't planned on feeding an omega child for any longer than they already had. When I couldn't attract your interest, they sure as hell weren't interested in keeping me around." He looked away, facing out the window so he didn't have to see anything in Ben's face. "They let me get dressed first, and then they dropped me off at the bus station with the cash they were going to give us to get settled. It was enough to get me here."
A low growl reached Ty's ears. After a second, he realized that it was coming from Ben. "That's crap. I told them that it wasn't right, what they were doing. You were too young." He shook his dark head. "I mean we were both too young, I couldn't support the two of us in anything but a cardboard box, you know? But I was just too young to support you, take care of you. You weren't — you couldn't. I mean physically. You weren't even giving off a scent yet! I told them that! It was wrong, what they were doing to you!"
"Wrong or right." Ty shrugged. "That's what they believed, how they interpreted tradition." He forced himself to meet Ben's blue eyes. "I mean now, as an adult who works with abuse and neglect all the time, I know that they were wrong. At the time, all that I knew was that maybe I was the first of my omega friends to go through an arranged claim, but it was something everyone had to go through eventually, you know? Emphasis on that had to. It was a normal part of life, and someone had to be first."
Ben scoffed, taking another mouth full of chips. "Don't you think you're maybe remembering things differently? You wanted to be there about as much as you'd want to be in a trench in World War One, man. I was there. You were huddled in a corner. You were terrified."
"Yeah. I was." Ty let out his breath slowly. "I think, under the circumstances, that's a reasonable response. I didn't have the chance to talk to you, or defend myself, or even try to make you care for me."
Ben opened his mouth, and then he closed it again. "Are you saying that you wanted me to claim you?"
"At the time? I didn't see any other option." Ty looked away.
"Dude. No. You couldn't have enjoyed it. You weren't ready." Ben physically recoiled from the table.
"I said at the time." Ty chuckled. "I don't know what the answer would have been, to stop what happened from happening." He drank a little more deeply from his margarita. "I don't think that there's anything either one of us could have done to change the outcome. We were both kids, still in high school. Still dependent on the people who put us in that position in the first place, you know?"
"Amen." Ben lifted his margarita in a kind of salute. "So you don't hate me?"
Ty hesitated, his own drink halfway to his lips. "I did. I did for a long time. I think finding out that you didn't know my parents got rid of me goes some way toward driving that away." He shifted in his seat. He'd nursed that hate for a long time, but he couldn't in good conscience blame Ben. He'd been a victim too, although not to the same extent. "It still hurts, but it's not like flipping a switch, you know? Those feelings don't just go away because someone says, I didn't know. But I can't logically say, Oh, it's Ben's fault." He made a face. "So how did your folks deal with it, anyway? I mean mine were obviously pissed, but you're the one that gave the giant middle finger to tradition. Speaking of taking strength."
Ben huffed out a little laugh. "I didn't even think of it that way at the time. I just thought, Christ, I can't do this. I figured maybe they'd be supportive. Maybe they'd say, Okay, well, we can try again when his voice changes, or, Hey, this really is wrong! Who knew? But no. They let me stick around until graduation, and then I was on my own. I still talk to my mom sometimes." He made a face. "That's what you get for doing the right thing, I guess."
Ty couldn't deny that. "So. Dumb luck that you wound up in my building, huh?"
"Right?" Ben chuckled. "I just got the address and everything from the relocation service; I didn't even come out to look at places or anything." He looked up as the waiter approached with their food. "It's hard to believe, but it's the truth. I know it's bizarre."
Ty managed a weak grin. Bizarre might be one word for it.
He wanted to resent Ben, at least. He represented so much negativity for Ty that it was hard not to resent him, but the thing was that Ben had suffered too. He hadn't been in as much danger as Ty, but he'd suffered. He'd defended Ty in the only way he had available to him at the time, and while it would have been better for Ty's mental state if he'd explained himself to Ty, it wouldn't have changed the way anything shook out. He'd behaved as a perfect alpha should: defending an omega, looking out for the omega's interests over his own.
It was almost romantic, if he looked at it the right way.
Ty didn't want it to be romantic. He just wanted his nice San Diego life. He wanted to finish his degree, graduate, maybe buy a little house someday. He didn't want any part of his old life to come dancing back into his world now, and he sure as hell didn't need for the alpha who'd turned him away all those years ago (even if it had been the right thing to do) to show up again as an attractive, mouthwatering adult while Ty himself was still single.
Still, none of that was Ben's fault. Ty needed to remember that Ben was just as much a victim as Ty was, and try to be neighborly.
"So what are you doing with yourself out here?" Ben asked. "You make no noise at all, and I know you run."
Ty did a double take at that. "You know I run?"
"I saw you, out the window." Ben looked down. "I mean I didn't know it was you, but you kind of stood out."
Ty felt his cheeks get hot. "Uh, thanks? I think?" He bit his lip. He knew he wasn't hard on the eyes, and the tattoos did stand out. He'd never thought about getting attention when he ran, though; just thought about getting an even tan and some exercise. Now he'd have to be more careful.
Or not. Maybe he didn't need to worry so much about what Ben was looking at. He was an adult, damn it, and he didn't have anything to be ashamed of. "Um. Well, yeah. I run. I've done a couple of marathons, ran track in undergrad. That was part of my scholarship, actually. But right now I'm going for my Master’s in social work. I'm working at Gray House, which is the organization that helped me when I got to San Diego. They got me back into school and kept me away from pimps and drug dealers." He smiled, calm now that he was talking about Gray House. "They're a great org, and I'm glad to be able to help out."
"Not too bad." Ben nodded, impressed. "I didn't even know omegas could go to college."
"Back in Sandusky, I don't think a lot of them do." Ty sipped at the dregs of his margarita.
"To San Diego." Ben lifted his glass in a toast, and Ty had no problem joining in.
***
Ben was happier about the Ty situation now that he knew what had happened. He felt terrible about how everything had gone down, of course, but he stood by his decision. Maybe he could have done something — taken Ty and run, who knew? It would have been better than leaving him alone to face his parents. Then again, Ben had no way of knowing that Ty's parents would be so colossally bad. Maybe Ben's parents had known, but Ben himself hadn't had any more information going into it than Ty had.
And it sounded like Ty had landed on his feet, eventually. He'd gone to college, after all. He was the only omega Ben knew who had done that. He was pretty sure that omegas needed an alpha for their own physical and mental health, but Ben had learned that from the same people who had told him that the morally right thing to do was to claim a pre-pubescent boy, so maybe he wasn't going to put a lot of stock into that "fact." Ty certainly seemed to be in excellent physical health, if that body of his was anything to go by.
They finished their dinner at the touristy taco place, which turned out to be pretty good. Ty still seemed a little tense around Ben. That didn't stop him from taking Ben for a little walk around the Embarcadero Marina Park North, which was somehow different from the Embarcader
o Marina Park. They passed people hanging out on blankets watching boats go by on the bay, which seemed to be a popular hobby for both couples and families. They made way for people zooming by on skateboards or on roller blades, and Ben hadn't realized roller blades were even still a thing. Some groups played soccer on the grass, and some played Frisbee.
Ty knew some of the people. A lot of the people were younger and called him "Mr. Ty." Some of them were around his age, and greeted him more like an equal or even like a brother. Ben met all kinds of people, introduced simply as "Ben, from Sandusky." Some folks gave Ben speculative looks, but there was nothing in Ty's body language to suggest anything was going on so people left it alone. Ben wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that, and he wasn't sure that he had the right to feel one way or another about it at all.
Of course, the way he felt about Ty had nothing to do with rights, and everything to do with instinct.
Once their walk was done, they went back to their buildings and settled into their respective apartments for the night. The encounter seemed to have cleared the air between them, because when Ben dropped by the next night to invite Ty to grab dinner with him there was no resistance or overt hostility, and on Sunday night Ty was already ready to go.
Ben just chuckled at that.
Monday was Ben's first day at work. He drove to the company compound up north of the city, too far east of La Jolla to take advantage of the town's beauty but close enough to get stuck in traffic, and filled out enough paperwork to deforest the entire Pacific Northwest. Then they handed him a stack of coveralls, showed him to the locker room, and he got to work.
His first project was pretty simple. They had an excavator that needed its regular service, something that Ben could do in his sleep and had done in his sleep at least once. He handled the routine maintenance and performed a detailed inspection on the aging giant, because something like this dying in the field could be a huge and expensive hassle or it could be fatal. He found two areas of concern, both of which would keep the machine out of service for another couple of days but would ultimately save the company money in the long run. When he ran his findings by his supervisor, Bob, Bob praised his work and told him to go ahead and order the parts.
Ty didn't get home until eight that night, and he looked exhausted when he got there. "What happened to you?" Ben asked him.
Ty glared and opened his mouth, but then he closed it again. "Sorry. Not your fault. The school system is trying to hold back one of my clients because he's missed fifteen days of school without a legal excuse. The thing is, his excuse is actually a really good one, but if the school keeps showing him that he doesn't matter to them he's going to wind up dropping out and that would be a shame. I'm frustrated." He rubbed at his temples. "He's such a smart kid, Ben. He could get a full ride someplace awesome. He could go to Caltech, or Harvard, or MIT. He could go to any of those places. His grades are fine, but every time there's a —" Ty stopped himself. "It doesn't matter."
Ben took the key out of Ty's hand and unlocked his door for him. He ushered his frustrated omega into the apartment, designed to be a mirror to his own, and guided him to the futon that stood in for a couch. He tried not to pay attention to the way Ty seemed to unconsciously lean into his touch. He knew that Ty didn't mean anything by it. He was an omega. They needed physical affection, and if he was having a bad day he needed it more than he would on other days.
Ty straightened up when he found himself on the futon. "What's going on?"
"We're getting take-out. What's the best place around here that delivers? The realtor gave me like fifty menus but I don't trust her, they probably bribed her to give them to me."
"Pho 80, since you're asking. There's a menu in the middle drawer on the coffee table." He rubbed his face. "You don't have to hang out, Ben. It's not your issue, and besides. I got them to put him in summer school, as long as he doesn't have any more absences."
"So what's the big deal?" Ben dug through the drawer and found the menu. There wasn't a lot on it, but the menu looked well used and the prices were more than reasonable.
"The kid's mother is keeping him out of school because she's scared. The school doesn't care. The mom cares, but she cares more about getting deported and either losing her kids or having them get sent to a country they've never seen and forced to go back to her abusive family." He shrugged. "If there's another raid, she'll pull him out again. Summer school is a temporary solution and I'm trying to find one that will stick."
"Yikes." Ben squirmed. He wasn't necessarily opposed to immigration, although he knew that a lot of employers hired undocumented workers in construction because they could get away with skirting OSHA rules and didn't have to worry about union workers that way. He wasn't a fan of that, but he wasn't a fan of rounding up people who were just trying to live their lives either. "Here, I'll call. You put your feet up and relax, it's been a long day for you."
Ty gave him a weird look, but he told Ben what to order and sat back. Ben ran next door and grabbed a six-pack for them, and brought the bottles over to the futon to drink while they waited. He looked around. "Your place is a little sparse, don't you think?"
Ty chuckled, glancing around too. "I never really noticed. I just never had a lot of stuff, I guess. I never needed it." He ducked his head and blushed a bit. "I mean, I was basically living in an institution until I got out of undergrad. There wasn't a lot of space, you know? First I was at Gray House and then I was in a dorm. I just never got a lot of stuff." He grinned. "I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, you know? I'm not judging people who have a lot of stuff. I just never got into the habit."
"Probably makes moving easier." Ben grimaced when he remembered how long it had taken to unpack all of his junk.
"So tell me about your first day at work." Ty turned his electric eyes over to Ben, and Ben's heart almost caught in his chest.
"It wasn't bad, for a first day." He talked a bit about the people he met and the machine he worked on. When the food arrived he went to get it, and even got bowls and forks and spoons for both of them from the kitchen. After theyate, they hung around and watched TV for a little while, Ty being generous enough to let Ben watch his while Ben's cable was still in limbo.
Ben couldn't help but feel just how close they were sitting to one another. Ty's body heat radiated through his clothes right into Ben's skin, which would have gotten to him even if he didn't have that strawberry scent tormenting him the whole time. They watched a few innings of the local team losing, bodies so close that a piece of paper might not fit between them but still not touching, before Ben turned his head to look at Ty.
God, the guy was beautiful. He was beautiful, and he was an incredible man. He'd been through a lot in his short life, and he still cared so much for people. Ben didn't think about it, he just leaned in and touched his lips to Ty's.
He pulled back, hands over his mouth and pulse racing in his ears. "Crap. I'm sorry, Ty."
Ty stroked his cheek. "I'm not."
Ben bit the inside of his cheek. Did Ty mean what Ben thought he meant? He stared into those amazing eyes and tried to find any ambiguity, but all he saw was clarity and affection. He turned his whole body to face Ty, put a hand behind that long, strong neck of his and brought him in for a deeper, longer kiss.
Ty kissed like a drowning man finding air. Who knew how long it had been for him? It didn't matter. His mouth opened right up to receive Ben's demanding tongue, and his arms wrapped around Ben's waist like they'd always been there. His fit body molded itself to Ben, not willing to separate from him for a second.
Ben wallowed in just kissing him for a while. Ty seemed to enjoy it, if his little moans were anything to go by, and Ben certainly wasn't going to complain about it. He couldn't help it, though, if the hand that wasn't holding the back of Ty's neck started to wander and paw at Ty's firm chest.
Apparently that was the right thing to do, because Ty groaned out loud, and Ben felt himself getting harder against the zipper of hi
s jeans. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been with such a responsive omega. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been with someone that responsive, at all. He slid his hand up under Ty's shirt and stroked the smooth, solid muscles. Was that a little ring in Ty's nipple? Yes, it definitely was. Ben hadn't seen that from the window.
He pulled back. Ty chased after his mouth for a moment and then blinked himself back into clarity. "What's wrong?"
"We should back off for tonight." Ben kissed his forehead. "We're, ah, getting awfully excited. And as much as I want to see where this goes, I don't want either of us to have any regrets. We basically just met."
Ty looked down and away for a second, and Ben couldn't help but notice the bulge in his pants. "Yeah. You're right. I'm sorry. I got carried away." He blushed.
Ben touched his cheek. "Hey. None of that. We both wanted that. I think we both wanted more. I just… with everything that came before, I don't want us to screw anything up between us, you know? Both eyes open and all that."
