19 atlas shrugged, probably
A distant part of my brain is worried about how it must smell in here, but I’m too distracted to really care.
Atlas. That’s definitely Atlas’s voice; I’d know it anywhere. For 90% of my childhood, that’s been the voice of the only person who didn’t treat me with persistent disdain.
I grab my shorts and t-shirt from where I tossed them on the floor, rush to put them on so much that I almost trip over myself, and then throw the door open just in time to see Atlas opening his mouth to yell.
“Ta—” he cuts himself off when he sees me. “Oh.”
I freeze, because I really don’t know where we go from here.
He looks fucking huge. It hasn’t been that long since he left, but he already looks so different.
When we were younger, people thought we were twins.
There’s only a two-year age gap between us, Atlas has always been a little big for his age, and we both look a lot like our mom. Jax and Karl both take after Dad.
Of course, once Atlas presented, he started to bulk up naturally, like they all do. He also threw himself into training before he signed up, so I’m used to him looking a little different from me now.
But this is something else. He got fucking swole. Between that and the crew cut, the difference between us is stark. He’s even got a light tan going, which I basically never get. The only thing that is still nearly identical between us is our face.
“So that’s what I’d look like if I started lifting seriously,” I say, making a show of eying him up and down.
He has the good grace to blush, and smoothes one hand down his shirt, which is an old t-shirt of dad’s that he cut the sleeves off of—as well as a significant amount of the sides—so his super-defined obliques are on display. Even though it’s starting to get colder out.
“We get it, you’re hot, you could have at least put on a real shirt before you burst into my apartment, yelling and posturing like an animal.”
Well, not my apartment, but I’m trying to be pithy. Alyssa is standing off to the side, her gaze ping-ponging between us and her expression caught between worry and amusement.
I can practically see Atlas raising his hackles, his entire body seeming to grow in front of me as the stench of his anger and fear fills the room, but after a few seconds, he stops.
My little brother deflates before my eyes, and looks at me with a contrite, hangdog sort of expression that I know he only shows to me because I’m the only one he doesn’t have to posture for.
“Sorry,” he grumbles, before turning to Alyssa. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have burst in. I was worried.”
The tension in the room settles, but that frees up my brain to worry about everything else, like what Atlas knows about me and how he’s about to react. I can’t keep it a secret, now that he’s here. He’ll smell it any second.
Just as the thought crosses my mind, I see Atlas subtly scenting the air.
His forehead creases as he looks between me and Alyssa, trying to math out what’s going on.
“Did you present?” Sniff, sniff. “Is this your girlfriend?” He pauses, still looking confused. “Tanner, what the fuck is going on and why haven’t you been answering my calls?”
Oh. That explains it.
I was surprised by how persistently Dad had been calling me from the landline, but now that I know Atlas is home, that makes a lot more sense.
“I would’ve answered if I knew it was you. Where’s your phone? I haven’t heard from you in fucking months, I was beginning to think you’d been assigned to some top secret, SEAL-team-six-black-ops bullshit and we’d never hear from you again.”
He sighs, casting his eyes to the ground.
“It’s a long story. I just—I lost my phone. I didn’t get around to grabbing a new one because I was so worried about you and Dad is being all cagey and shit, so I finally got in the car and drove the fuck up here. I picked up a new one on the way. Now is someone gonna tell me what’s going on?”
His voice starts to rise again, and I see Alyssa bristle, standing a little taller and taking a tiny step in my direction like she’s wondering if she needs to protect me.
Which is surreal, but kind of touching.
“Fuck me, how about everybody takes a deep breath and we all go sit down,” I say, my own hackles beginning to rise. I don’t like that he’s deflecting from answering my question, but we’ll get to that later.
Atlas gives me a hard look, then shrugs and turns to follow me to the living room. Alyssa also moves toward the couch but then turns and puts a hand on my chest.
“Actually, Tanner, not to be that guy, but how about you take a quick shower first. I can deal with a lot, but I don’t think all of this—” she waves at me, “is helping the situation. I will get your brother a beer; everyone can chill.”
It’s mortifying to have to have this conversation, and Atlas furrows his eyebrows at me over Alyssa’s shoulder, but after a second, I nod. She’s right. There’s plenty of time to tell Atlas the whole story and I don’t need to stink of slick and cum while I do it.
I hustle to the bathroom and work through rinsing off as quickly as possible.
I cringe a little as I realize just how much slick really was covering my legs and apply a scent-neutralizing soap as liberally as possible.
My hole twinges as a reminder of what I was doing to myself a minute ago, but I ignore it.
Five minutes later, I’m dressed in clean clothes and absolutely doused with scent-blockers.
Atlas and Alyssa are sitting on opposite ends of the L-shaped sofa, both holding their barely touched beers, and there’s a measurable tension between them.
Atlas won’t look at her directly, and for a second, he won’t look at me.
He knows. Once the scents became less muddled, he must have figured it out. And by the guilty-but-not expression on Alyssa’s face, she probably confirmed it for him.
I know there’s no way I could have hidden this from him. Not realistically. It still hurts, though, to wonder if this will be the last moment of my life where my brother doesn’t hate me.
Or worse, pity me.
It’s hypocritical to think, considering how much I’ve been pitying myself recently, but still.
“So,” I say, without any real follow up.
“Sit down, Tanner,” Alyssa says gently, handing me an open beer when I do.
I take a seat on the armchair facing Atlas and lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees. Part of me wants to stare at him until I can read his expression, while the rest of me wants to stare at the floor and hide.
After a few seconds, I take a deep breath and meet his gaze.
“Why are you here, instead of the Army?” I ask.
“We can talk about that later. Why have you been here since weeks before school started? And why are you here—” he looks around the living room, “—instead of in the dorm? And why is Dad barely able to say your name with a straight face, let alone answer any of my questions?”
I sigh heavily and rub my hand over my face, trying to find the right words. He’s right. I do owe him the truth, him if no one else, but it’s so hard to get it out.
“Actually,” Atlas interrupts the crushing silence to turn to Alyssa. “Do you think you could give us a minute?”
She arches an eyebrow at him but doesn’t move otherwise.
“You want me to leave my own apartment?”
“Or maybe just the fucking room. I don’t know. I don’t know you!” Atlas blusters.
“Yeah, and I don’t know you, but if you’re anything like your asshat dad and the other brothers, I’m not exactly going to leave?—”
“It’s fine, Alyssa,” I interrupt. “I told you, Atlas isn’t like the rest of them.”
She sniffs delicately and makes a show of eying him up and down. He’s dressed just like every other alphahole, he smells like every other alphahole, and he’s currently bristling with unwarranted indignation, so I understand her skepticism.
“Seriously, it’s cool. Thank you, though. I’ll be fine.”
When she looks at me, something in my face must make her believe me because she eventually relents and stands up to head to her room.
“Okay. But I’ll be right down the hall. Tanner, feel free to yell if you need help castrating this one.”
She’s gone before I can say anything, but the look of shock on Atlas’s face says enough.
“Yeah, she’s… different,” I say lamely.
“Has she met Dad?” Atlas asks, and after another flicker of tension, we both break into something only slightly more masculine than a giggle.
“Can you imagine? She’d eat his balls for breakfast. He wouldn’t know what hit him.”
I know we’re both picturing Alyssa trying to blend in with our community, where all the women—omega or not—are encouraged explicitly to be as unobtrusive as possible. Blend in. Serve the community. Serve your alpha. Obey.
Not to like, weird religious cult levels of subservience, but still.
It was a shock to see the diversity of personalities available when I first came to Last Ditch.
I’m sure Atlas has had similar experiences since leaving home.
I’m not sure if my older brothers have, mostly because they’ve made a concerted effort never to leave home.
Why would they? They fit in there and have all the assets to be automatically granted the authority they crave.
“She saved my life, I think. Not to sound dramatic, but things at home were not good when Dad figured out that I was…”
I trail off, because after all this time, I still can’t fucking say it.
“An omega.”
Atlas’s gaze is unwavering. His eyes are the same shade of green as mine, but they look dark now, too intense for comfort as he keeps me pinned.
I nod. “An omega.”
Without realizing it, I start to chew on my lower lip, and eventually my eyeline finds the floor while the silence drags on.
There’s a rustling sound, and then the familiar scent of Atlas fills my nose. He grabs my arms, drags me up from my chair, and envelopes me in a hug before I even know what’s happening.
Atlas and I are close, but we still come from a very not-hugging family, so this doesn’t happen a lot. It’s not a back-slapping bro hug, either, he’s fucking holding me. I tense up at first, on guard for some kind of trick, but it only takes a few seconds for me to relax and hug him back.