1. Fen
Everything was a mess.
His life, his apartment, the lines of code blurring before his eyes. All of it. Fen knew he should stop and clean up a little before the others got home, but he just…couldn’t. After thirteen months and endless hours, he’d finally broken through eleven of twelve layers of encryption. He only had one layer left, and he was almost positive this was going to be the final trick to cracking it. Tonight.
He popped the top on another energy drink, downing half of it in one go, ignoring his rapidly skipping heartbeat. He wished there was a way to inject caffeine straight into his veins like heroin. He just needed to push himself a little more. He was already high off a lack of sleep, artificial sugar driven energy, and the thrill of knowing he was going to finally—finally—learn what was so important his brother had died to protect it.
A sudden jolt of sadness shot through him, piercing his overworked heart like an arrow, sharp and unprovoked. He never knew when it would hit him anymore. When Josh had first died, Fen had fallen into a black hole so deep he wasn’t sure he would make it back out. There had been times he wasn’t sure he’d even wanted to.
Everything had been so hard back then. Things he’d taken for granted, like showering and brushing his teeth, had seemed pointless. Sometimes, just opening his eyes was the only task he had managed for a whole day. Even once he’d gone back to work, he existed on auto-pilot, just going through the motions.
But then he’d cracked the code. Then he’d met Seth…then San. And everything changed. Everyday, things had gotten better and better until the good days had started to outweigh the bad.
Fen hadn’t had much hope of things working out when he’d accepted Seth’s offer to go to dinner, but Seth had been right. San wasn’t a typical alpha, not in looks and certainly not in behavior. San was sweet and quiet and sensitive, a deep thinker who only cared about making things more beautiful.
But even then, Fen hadn’t been sold on moving in with the two of them that night. So, they’d started a campaign to woo him into being their roommate. San cooked Fen dinner every single night, even nights when he didn’t stay over. Seth brought snacks and energy drinks to him in his department every single day, dazzling the alphas in Fen’s department. He was there so often, they started to suspect Fen and Seth were dating. That didn’t stop them from asking Fen if Seth was looking for an alpha.
The door to the apartment opened and shut, the soft, barely-there scent of apples wafting into the room a moment before Seth did. Fen watched from the corner of his eye as the other omega fell onto the sofa, fully clothed, his arms hugging his abdomen. “Fucking kill me,” he wailed dramatically.
Fen snorted. “That bad, huh?”
Seth narrowed his eyes at Fen. “Have you ever had a heat after five years on suppressants? It feels like an army of tiny ninjas are hacking their way through my stomach. Look how bloated I am.” Seth yanked up his hoodie, revealing a perfectly flat belly. “I swear it’s worse than my presentation heat.”
Seth, like most omegas—Fen included—often chose to stay on suppressants year round to keep from having to deal with incapacitating heats. Many a heat had derailed an omega’s career before suppressants were widely available. Bosses had often used heats as a reason to fire omegas or write them up. Even now, they just brought attention to the obvious imbalance that still existed between secondary genders, despite some articles claiming they were now all equal in the eyes of the law.
It was all bullshit. Omegas had fought so hard to be considered equal, to put protections in place. Yet every heat just seemed to remind others that omegas were the ‘weaker’ gender. How were they the weaker gender? Fen didn’t know. alphas were just as incapacitated by their ruts as omegas with their heats, yet that was not only accepted but celebrated. Getting pregnant, bad. Getting someone pregnant, good. Make it make sense?
The bonus side effect of suppressants was it also served as birth control, something still very much needed to protect omegas from alphas knocking them up then using it to trap them into mating bites.
“You could just find someone to spend your heat with,” Fen suggested.
Seth gasped as if Fen had suggested an alpha orgy, his hazel eyes accusatory. “I can’t believe you would even suggest that. I haven’t had a heat in five years. There’s no way I’m trusting some rando to knot me for a week straight.” He shivered as if to drive home the point. “Besides, when was the last time you had a heat partner? Oh, right. Never.”
Fen stopped his typing to turn and face his friend. “I am still on suppressants. If I wasn’t, I would most definitely find someone to help me out,” he lied smoothly.
“Lies,” Seth cried, then moaned.
Fen sighed and stopped what he was doing, going into his bathroom and grabbing the heating pad, plugging it in and setting it to the highest setting before placing it on Seth’s lower abdomen. Seth beamed at him. Fen shook his head but smiled.
Once he was back at his computer, he said, “You could ask San? He’s an alpha and not a douche.”
Seth sighed. “A. I’m not having sex with the guy who mocks the way I eat my Cheerios every morning.” There was the sound of a key in their lock and the hinges of the door protesting. “2. I don’t know how to be sexually attracted to someone I once saw puke in his own backpack on a seventh grade field trip.”
The door closed, San entering and looking down his perfect nose at Seth. “I was sick that day, you insensitive dick. I don’t know how they thought bringing a bunch of kids to a museum that reenacted all the inhumane treatment of omegas throughout history was a good idea. Excuse me for not being a heartless monster.”
“That’s fair,” Seth muttered. “But I still don’t want to fuck you.”
San paused, narrowing his gaze at Seth. “Did I offer?”
Seth gave him a hurt look. “Hello? Heat happening right here in front of you. Your best friend is here, writhing in pain. Are you telling me you’d let me suffer?”
“You just said you didn’t want to fuck me? Remember?” San said, exasperated.
Seth sniffed, indignant. “Well, no, but still. If the tables were turned and you had a rut and, like, absolutely nobody else to ask, I’d take one for the team.”
“That’s… I feel so special. Thank you,” San said, his tone dripping with sarcasm.
Seth propped himself up on his elbow, narrowing his eyes at San, who still stood there with his keys in his hand. “Are you saying you wouldn’t fuck me if I asked?”
San gave him a thorough once-over. “Yes.”
“Wow,” Seth muttered, dragging out the word before flopping onto his back and making an exaggerated sexy pose with his body. “Your loss. Look at me. Who wouldn’t want to hit this?”
San scoffed. “You have spaghetti sauce on your chin.”
Seth’s expression was comical as he began to scrub blindly over his very clean face. “Come on,” he wailed. “I’m dying here. Can’t you just stick your dick in me for the greater good?”
San gaped at him then looked at Fen as if to ask if he was hearing this, too. “Two minutes ago, you said you didn’t want to fuck me ‘cause I once threw up, like, twelve years ago. Stop acting like I’m hurting your feelings.”
Seth gave another pitiful mewl like a wounded animal. “The least you can do is come lie on top of me and scent me, fuck face.”
San rolled his eyes. “Well, when you ask so nicely.”
Seth grunted as San laid on top of him, then rolled the two of them onto their sides. Seth slotted his one leg between San’s thighs. He combed fingers through Seth’s hair as he tucked his nose into San’s neck, sucking in deep breaths like he was huffing paint and not his best friend’s alpha pheromones.
Fen snickered at his roommates’ antics, then went back to setting up the final run on this sequence, half listening as their conversation continued.
As he worked, the two bickered about who was hotter and who would be luckier to have whom. But soon, the two grew tired of fighting. “I need to start getting my room ready,” Seth grumbled. “My heat is going to really kick off in a few hours and then I’ll be climbing the walls.” He looked at San. “Are you sure you’ll be able to handle an omega in heat? We haven’t had to deal with this before.”
San nodded. “Fen said I could sleep in his bed tonight. “I’m hoping his smell might cancel out yours.”
“Oh, okay. That’s good,” Seth said, tugging at the collar of his sweatshirt. He was starting to sweat. It would only get worse as his heat built.
“You want some help building your nest?” San offered, continuing to pet Seth like a cat.
Seth sighed, then nodded. “Yes, please.”
San stood, taking Seth’s hand and dragging him to his feet.
“I already put my dirty clothes hamper in your room so you can find the smelliest pieces,” Fen said. “Just shove the losers back out and I’ll throw them in the wash. If you have stuff that needs to go in, I can do yours, too.”
Seth stopped looking back and forth between the two before stalking up to Fen. “Take off your shirt.”
Fen rolled his eyes, but peeled his t-shirt over his head, heart squeezing as Seth buried his face in it, inhaling deeply. “Mm.” He turned to San. “Now you.”
San snorted, slipping his shirt over his head. “A please wouldn’t kill you.”
Seth eyed him imperiously. “You don’t know that.”
Before San could fire a comeback, Seth snagged the shirt and made a run for it. Fen and San exchanged exasperated looks before San gave chase. Fen heard an oof, then a loud cackle. He shook his head again.
With one final deep breath, he hit enter and stood up. He didn’t know how long it would take for this to work. It could take ten minutes, ten hours, or ten days. It was impossible for him to know. If it even worked at all.
He had to be right. He had to be. He was finally so close. He forced himself to walk away from the computer, instead heading to the kitchen to grab whatever non-perishable items Seth would need to hunker down in his room for the duration of his heat. Without a heat partner, he could be in there for an entire week, maybe longer. Heats spent alone sucked. Heats spent alone after coming off years of suppressants? Pure hell.
San would cook his meals and leave them at the door for him. Luckily, Seth had an en suite bathroom so wouldn’t need to open the door very often. No matter how much San and Seth protested that they had no interest in each other, biology was biology and an omega in heat was hard for any alpha to ignore. Not impossible, of course. They weren’t animals. San would never force himself on Seth, but in his heat state, he would be…quite persuasive. But he still couldn’t consent. His omega brain wouldn’t understand that, though, and would see San’s refusal as rejection. So better not to risk it.
Fen gathered the water, some snacks Seth liked, and the secret stash of sour gummies Fen had put aside knowing Seth’s heat was imminent now that the doctor had taken him off his suppressants. He brought it all to Seth’s room, not bothering to knock before he swung the door open. Seth sat criss-cross applesauce on the floor, nose buried in Fen’s hoodie, a look of concentration on his face. After a minute, he shook his head, then tossed it onto the non-keeper pile.
After twenty minutes, Seth had finally acquired the items he’d deemed optimal for his nest, fussing over where to place each and every item. Fen and San watched, both smiling. Fen hadn’t had to build a nest in years, not since he presented. His stomach twisted as memories of his father flooded in. He’d been so disgusted having an omega for a son. Any reminder of his secondary gender had tended to end in violence, especially after Josh left for basic training. His father had never hit him, but his words were almost worse.
But now, with Seth and San, the nest looked cozy. For the first time Fen could remember, the idea of a heat didn’t send him into a cold sweat, especially if he had someone to share it with. Despite what he’d told Seth, Fen had never even entertained the idea of heat sex. He’d never experienced a knot, never dated an alpha. Never even fucked an alpha out of heat. He hadn’t dared when his father was alive and by the time he’d died, Fen was on suppressants and had pretty much determined all alphas sucked. All his past boyfriends had been betas.
A strange sensation jolted through him. Nerves, maybe. No, not nerves…anticipation. Everything was about to change. He just knew it. He would crack that file and he would get vengeance for his brother. After that, he’d make sure to take all of Cerberus down, too. No matter the cost.
Fen gasped as his computer chimed, indicating that the sequence had finished. Already? No. There was no way it would have finished that quickly if he’d executed the command correctly. Fuck. He left his friends to put the finishing touches on Seth’s nest and walked back to the computer, expecting to see the glaring red access denied flashing on the screen yet again. Instead, there was a new window open, one with hundreds of files.
He stared in disbelief for far too long, then whispered, “Holy fuck. I did it.”