10 still alive
still alive
I send the text to Gray in the morning when I wake up, feeling a little more like a human being for once.
It hits me with a pang to find him gone, but I know there’s no way to explain to Dad that his friend needs to sit in my room and hold my hand until I get better.
Especially considering no one will ever be allowed to know why I’m “sick” in the first place.
I’ll be fine. I already feel better, so hopefully the suppressants are evening out.
Gray heart reacts my text like a fucking nerd, but doesn’t say anything in return, which I appreciate.
Twelve hours later, I eat the whole meal that Dad leaves me, keep my pills down, and send Gray the same text again as soon as I’m alone.
I get another heart react, and it makes me smile more than I’m willing to admit.
That goes on for three more days, and I still feel like ass, but it seems like being on death’s door is behind me. My head is clear-ish, at least, even if my body is still weak.
On the fourth day, Dad knocks on my door before letting himself in.
We haven’t had a single conversation since the doctor’s visit.
Just a few muttered words here and there.
I’m sure I look like a rabbit in his headlights as he casts his eyes around the room before giving me a hard stare up and down my body.
He takes a long, deliberate scent of the room before he speaks.
“You smell better. You smell like you need to shower, but still better. And you don’t look like the undead anymore.”
The fact that he noticed how bad I looked but didn’t say anything hurts more than I’m willing to admit, so I nod at him and wait for the rest.
“I have a job today that I can’t back out of. I’ll be gone for two weeks. Can I trust you to behave like an adult? Take your pills, eat your dinner, and stay the fuck in the house?”
I nod, but the idea of a little freedom has my heart fucking singing. Even if I’m not going to leave the house for obvious reasons. At least I’ll be alone.
“Good.” His voice is gruff, but he seems genuinely pleased.
“I’ve asked Jax to check in on you from time to time. I didn’t tell him the details, just that you were sick and he needs to make sure you’ve been taking your meds. If you are, he shouldn’t smell anything suspicious on you. If you aren’t, you and I are going to have a problem. I’m trusting you,
Tanner. When I get home, we’ll go back to Doc and see what he recommends next. Got it?”
I nod again, but I can tell he wants more.
“Yes, sir. I’ll behave. I won’t leave the house.”
Dad looks at me for an uncomfortably long time without saying anything else, but it feels like this conversation is done. In the end, he just raps his knuckles against my doorframe with an air of finality and turns to head back downstairs.
He doesn’t come back before he leaves an hour later, and I don’t care because I finally feel like I can breathe.
Fuck the pills. I’ve been staring at them for over an hour, trying to figure out if I’m really going to keep taking them or not.
On the one hand, they made me feel worse than presenting did. But on the other hand, if Dad finds out I’ve stopped, he’ll be furious, and probably make me go through the whole process again.
It’s easier to keep taking them. But even though the worst of the physical symptoms have eased, I can’t stand the gnawing kind of numbness that is only getting stronger.
And even though I’ve barely experienced having an omega sense of smell for a few days before it was gone, this doesn’t feel like going back to my normal beta nose.
Instead, it’s a there-but-not-there sensation of something being just out of reach.
The frustration that comes with it is a real fucking drag.
I don’t realize how much time has passed under my indecision until my phone screen suddenly lights up.
Still alive?
Gray. I didn’t text him on time; I was so sucked into the puzzle sitting in front of me.
I’m about to text back, but instead, I heart react his question. It’s stupid, but it still makes me smile. Gray types an answer for a very long time, but when it finally comes through, it’s just a heart on its own.
I could tell him that Dad left town. I could also ask him for help deciding about the pills, although I know what he’d say. It’s weird to want to do those things even though I still barely know him, and officially, he isn’t a part of my life.
The whole things pinballs around in my mind until I’m exhausted and collapsing back into bed. I want to text Gray, but I stop myself.
In the end, I leave the pills on the nightstand.
One day can’t hurt. Just to see how it feels.
still alive
I send my morning text and leave the pills where they are, untouched, when I wake up in the morning. I feel good, almost. Still messy, but human, at least.
Just being able to cook breakfast downstairs without walking on eggshells is incredible.
I swear they’re the best eggs I’ve ever eaten.
My sense of smell is already coming back, and I find myself wandering slowly around the house, scenting everything to see what complexities I can find there that I never sensed before.
After a while, I decide I should go to the basement and work out, but it’s immediately exhausting, forcing me to abandon the idea. I can’t bring myself to go back to bed, though. I’ve spent too much time in that goddamn bed.
Existing in the in-between of being too tired to do anything but not tired enough to sleep, my only option is to wander around some more. I put my sheets on to wash. I make a sandwich. I should probably be bored, but the raw freedom of my new solitude is still enough to keep me content.
Of course, this turns out to be a bad idea when my unoccupied mind goes right back to thinking about Gray. I’m not thinking about anything constructive. I won’t let myself. But images of his kind face and phantom hints of his scent are all around me, impossible to ignore.
And thoughts of his cock. I never let myself look closely at an alpha cock before, and I didn’t get a good look at Gray’s before he put it inside me.
It’s not something that was ever going to be a part of my life, apart from maybe having one of my own one day.
But now that I’m here, in the in-between, I’m more curious than I should be.
What would it look like up close? Does it really look as big as it feels? How would it taste, if I kissed him there, and what noises would he make in response?
I want to hate myself for every single one of these thoughts, but it’s difficult when my body starts singing with a kind of rightness I’ve never experienced before. I’m so caught up in the mental exploration that I don’t notice myself getting hard until it’s too late.
The sweet smell of slick filters into my awareness, and when I look down, there’s a tent in my sweatpants that shouldn’t be there.
I don’t think I realized how absent my libido has been until it came racing back.
I was distracted by other things, and I’ve never had the most active sex drive to begin with.
But now I’m experiencing a quieter version of that whole-body, all-consuming need and want that I first had at Gray’s last week.
Was it really only a week ago? It feels like my entire life has changed in less time than a decent vacation. It shouldn’t be possible.
I lean over the kitchen counter, taking a few deep breaths to try to steady myself. I can either ignore it and hope the desperation passes, or I can let myself indulge and jerk off.
Fuck it. Dad’s not here and jerking off isn’t something that’s technically against his rules.
He can’t see what’s in my head while I do it.
Thinking about something for a few minutes isn’t the same thing as seriously considering doing it again.
It’s not like I’m ever going to actually fuck Gray deliberately; that one night was an emergency that I couldn’t have predicted.
Without letting myself overthink it, I slip my hand under my waistband and wrap it around my hard length. I don’t know if I’m ready to pull my pants down and look, though. The motion of my hand brings me immediate relief, but still. I don’t want to see how I look hard, yet.
The same way that alpha cocks get bigger and fully form their knots when they present, omega cocks get smaller.
Not like… microscopic. But small. A handful.
I wasn’t exactly packing before and it was always a sore spot for me in a house full of competitive knot-swinging alpha brothers, so even though I technically understand the reason for it, I’m not ready to see the damage.
It’s just reinforcing the same things Dad hates so much. I don’t need a cock now, because I’m not meant to fuck. I’m meant to be fucked. Be filled. Be bent over and service my alpha. Relinquish control of my life and my senses.
All the things that stand contrary to everything Dad thinks a man should be, which is what makes me and every other male omega an abomination in his eyes.
I still don’t understand how I can be an abomination when this is just another part of nature.
I didn’t choose this; the fucking genes he gave me did.
And I don’t feel any difference in my personality, although that was also always kind of a disappointment to him.
How can I be “unnatural” if I naturally exist?
It’s not like I was cooked up in a lab specifically to piss the man off. I just am.
It doesn’t make any sense, but that doesn’t mean the shame is any easier to dispel. I don’t want to feel this way, but I keep picturing his disgusted face every time I get close to some kind of acceptance.
No. No more of that right now. I am going to jerk myself off and enjoy a goddamn orgasm for the first time in a week. I can deal with the emotional fallout later.
I lean further over the counter, still stroking myself slowly. In a moment of boldness, I decide to shove down my sweats and briefs and tuck the band up under my balls. I can have my dick out for this. It doesn’t mean I have to look.
It’s time to get this over with. I speed up my hand, trying to grab the pleasure and hang on to it. My waistband is digging into my skin right under the curve of my ass, and I let myself pretend it’s someone’s fingers pressing there. Someone so desperate to be close to me that they hold me in place.
“Fuck,” I mutter, starting to breathe harder.
For the first time, I don’t fight the images my brain wants to show me.
I imagine what Gray would look like naked.
The perfect alpha specimen, with thick muscles, soft, dark hair covering his chest—or maybe he’s going gray there too, and why the fuck does that thought turn me on so much?
—and a throbbing erection he wants me to service.
I bet you can see the veins on it from space. I imagine the way the tip must flare, and picture what it looked like stretching me open that night, pushing inside me for the first time as my slick dripped down his shaft like teardrops.
What would it be like to have the whole thing inside me? To feel so full that I can’t move, because my entire body is anchored on his length while he pours his seed into me?
I whimper a little as I stroke myself with a tight, quick motion.
I’m weeping precum, slicking the way, and I can feel the wetness dripping down my thighs that’s going to be a bitch to clean up.
More than anything, I want something inside me.
Something thick and warm and hard, instead of my neglected hole clenching around nothing.
But I won’t do anything about it. I’m not ready to cross that line.
I’m right on the edge, anyway. One more mental image, this time of a flushed knot pushing inside me before it finally pops, and I spill cum all over myself with a hoarse noise.
What a mess. My sweats are wet, my skin is sticky, and there’s a bit of cum on the floor. But I’m struggling to care because that flood of endorphins has made me feel better than I have all week, and I could probably go again right away.
Maybe I should, I think. Maybe I just need to get it out of my system, then start taking the suppressants again before Dad gets back or Jax finally comes over. Yeah, that could work.
I’m palming my cock lightly, tingling with oversensitivity but ready to push through, when something stops me cold. It truly hits me what I must look like right now, but there’s no time to do anything about it before a knock on the door splits through the air and pushes my heart into my throat.
I have no idea who it could be, but nothing about this is good.