Chapter Text
It’s a dreary day, the kind that covers the abandoned warehouses of Greenpoint in fog and makes him feel lethargic. Ben runs a hand through his hair and considers going back inside. He’s just finished disrupting a street fair with his daily run, and he can just feel the rain coming.
He’s about to start walking home when he hears it: the whine of an animal in pain, high-pitched and broken. He freezes. Something—some quality about it—sounds so familiar. Ben wracks his brain to remember where he’s heard the sound before. He comes up blank. He looks around, semi-frantic, but sees only oblivious shoppers.
Did no one else hear that?
Ben wants to beat the thunderstorm home, but he just can’t let it go. Hearing the noise awakened something in him; he doesn’t know why, but he needs to find its source. His blood feels hotter in his veins somehow. His heart beats faster and his eyes narrow. He stalks down the sidewalk, guessing the direction of the noise.
He’s halfway to crossing a narrow street when he hears it again. It’s closer this time, a long, desperate cry that makes his heart hurt. Suddenly, he knows where he’s heard that sound before: as a young alpha in health class.
It’s the sound of an omega crying her way through a particularly painful heat.
Ben feels a little guilty that the realization shoots straight to his cock, but he can’t help it. He puffs up, ready to challenge any alpha he encounters. He needs that omega in his arms—now—at any cost.
Turning, he rushes down the alleyway the cries come from. He rounds the corner of a large dumpster that obscures his view and—
and—
Where his heart used to heart, it now absolutely breaks. This is no alleyway tryst; there’s no alpha to confront or fight for dominance. Instead he finds a small omega, curled up and mewling, all alone. Her hands clutch at her belly and shiny slick coats the entirety of her lower half, making the thin shorts she wears cling to her skin. She rests on a thin stack of broken-down cardboard boxes, sides torn to tiny shreds in what he’s sure was a desperate attempt to make some semblance of a warm, downy nest.
He remembers being taught how to make a nesting kit. In ninth grade, a teacher assigned it as homework for the alpha section. Ben had filled his box with every soft, fluffy thing he could find; he even slept without his own blanket for a week. He wanted, more than anything, to be a good alpha—to provide.
It’s clear that no one’s ever provided for this omega—not if she ended up here, seeing out her heat alone, next to trash, like she herself is garbage.
It makes him furious.
“Where’s your alpha?”
He very much resents that it comes out rough and gravelly instead of kind and gentle.
The little omega jumps, apparently in too much pain to have scented him. Her eyes, brown and beautiful, blow wide. She scurries backwards against a grimy brick wall, fear etched in her features.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs, stepping forward slowly, offering out his hand. “It’s okay, I won’t hurt you. What’s your name?”
She doesn’t respond, and he can understand why. Most of the world is populated with betas, and omegas are far rarer than even alphas. It’s not as uncommon as it should be for an alpha to become aggressive—or even violent—in pursuit of a mate. He can hardly blame her for worrying, even if he wouldn’t dream of it.
“It’s okay, I’m a friend.”
She looks between him and his outstretched hand. She’s a mousy little thing, lithe frame slightly tanned. Her brunette locks are dirty and tousled and fall to just below her shoulders.
“You’re very beautiful. I’d like to help you through your heat.”
She doesn’t respond, only whimpers fearfully, and Ben feels his resolve waning. He can smell her—he can smell her slick—and he needs it more than anything else. He takes another step forward, eager to prove that he’s not a threat—
She hisses, louder and fiercer than he knew such a small creature could.
Fuck.
It’s the sign of an omega in extreme distress—of feeling completely cornered. Guilt weighs heavily on him.
“Please,” Ben hums like he knows omegas like, “I only want to help. Are you hungry? Thirsty?”
It’s a little bit unfair: he knows she is. He can see it in the way her cheeks are lightly hollowed, suspects it’s part of why her heat cramps are particularly bad. She must be exhausted.
“Please—let me help you.”
Something in her eyes shift. He takes a chance.
“Can I pick you up?”
She stares at him for a long while. She nods—only a little bit, almost imperceptibly.
He doesn’t need to be told twice.
He scoops her up in his arms and wastes no time in hurrying home, showering her in whatever praise he can. He tells her she’s pretty, she’s sweet, that she’s a good omega. He reassures her that he won’t hurt her, that he’s going to help her. Ben does his best to purr all the way home.
Truthfully, he doesn’t think she believes him—and the fact that he’s at full attention in his jeans isn’t helping his mood any. Still, he’s thrilled for the opportunity to prove it.
It’s pandemonium when they get into his apartment. He’s fetched a bottled water and a quick snack faster than he knew was possible, carrying her into the bathroom with the items still in her lap.
She sits, gingerly, like she’s afraid to take up too much space, on his counter. The water and protein bar are gone in a blink.
Ben adjusts the temperature of the shower—not too hot to overheat an already-feverish omega, not too cold to make him shiver—and tosses his shirt aside before shirking his pants and boxers in one go.
She stares, first at the expanse of his chest, then between his legs. She draws her knees up to her chest; little pinpricks of obvious fear fill her eyes.
“It’ll fit.”
She shakes her head. His rut has risen to meet her heat, and he’s larger than normal now—which, as an alpha, is large to begin with. His cock juts upwards, nearly purple with need and shiny with pre-cum.
“I promise. It won’t hurt.”
If she believes him, she doesn’t show it.
He approaches, slowly, careful not to make any sudden moves, and hooks his thumb into the waistband of her shorts. She stretches out her legs slowly, cautiously, allowing him to pull them off. Her shirt—a camisole, a size or two too small for her—goes next. She whimpers when nude and covers herself with her arms.
It’s cute, really. He can’t help but smile, even with all the tension filling the room. He goes to raise a hand to stroke the side of her face, but she flinches.
A pang of sadness worms its way into his belly; he’d love to give a piece of his mind to whoever made her so afraid.
“You’re okay,” he promises, inching closer and bending at the waist. His lips find her gland; he licks a long stripe, ecstatic to taste her, and she finally relaxes in his grip. Ben’s hand snakes down to his cock. He strokes once, twice, trying to take the edge off as his hormones mix with hers and comfort her.
You’re safe. You’re protected. Alpha is here.
He grows heavier in his hand. He speeds up, slicking the head of his cock in the fluid leaking from the tip until he can’t take it anymore. He grips the base of his shaft firmly and reaches to tug on his balls.
Not yet.
“Good omega,” he coos, lifting the pheromone-drunk little creature to his chest. He supports her with one arm, using the other to bat aside the shower curtain. “Such a good omega.”
She lets out a tiny chirp when the warm water hits her back. It’s not quite the happy warble that he wants desperately to hear, but it makes him puff with pride nonetheless.
Ben knows they don’t have time for the heavy petting he wants to warm up with. She needs a knot, and she needed it yesterday. He huffs, suckling hard on her gland so she doesn’t panic. He strokes his cock once through her folds, which are as soft and wet as he imagined, earning a needy little moan from the omega. He lines himself up with her entrance, thrusts, and allows gravity to help him sink her body down onto his length.
His vision blurs, celestial bodies align—all of it. He would think he’d gone to heaven if he believed in it. She’s impossibly hot around him, so wet with slick that she takes him easily. He thanks his rut for preventing immediate orgasm.
It is, by far, the best thing he’s ever felt.
“Fuck, you’re so tight. So perfect and so tight.”
Ben tries to hold still for a moment. She wiggles and whines in his arms, needing time to adjust. It’s torture to hold steady; he braces himself against the shower wall with his other arm.
He waits as patiently as he can for her, pressure building painfully in his spine. “You’re so good for me,” he pants against her neck, licking her gland over and over so her scent lingers heavy in his mouth. She’s perfect, he thinks, light and sweet like a mix of lily of the valley and jasmine.
“I have to move.” She vocalizes her complaints in the forms of little whimpers, but he can’t help it any longer. “I know, I’m sorry, but I have to move.”
He thrusts into her, harder than he means to but completely blinded by need.
“Fuck,” he pants, “you have a perfect little pussy. Did you know that?”
She squirms again, no doubt growing anxious without his mouth on her. He holds her tight; some omegas try to bolt during sex, compelled by a self-preservation instinct to avoid being mated.
He thinks he might die if she ever left him.
“Such a sweet little omega.”
He finds his rhythm after a few more hard thrusts, working his way inside her tight opening inch by inch. Ben pushes her against the wall, drenching himself in the process, and runs his free hand up and down her sides.
“Good omega,” he murmurs, delivering a particularly hard thrust that allows him to bury himself to the hilt. “Shhhh, good omega. There you go. Right where you belong.”
The sound of wet skin slapping wet skin reverberates throughout the bathroom as he drives into her, but he’s long gone deaf to it. His focus is entirely on her—of holding her, of possessing her, making her his—and the sensations of being inside.
He laves her gland until she becomes docile and limp in his arms, content to take everything he gives. Her slick coats his thighs and gets washed away by the stream of water, only to coat them again a second later. It’s a perfect moment, the kind he wishes he could experience forever.
Ben feels the event horizon of his orgasm approaching. Something tingles at the base of his spine; his balls tighten close to his body. He knows he’s close.
“Fuck.” He plants a kiss on her neck. “I’m gonna knot you,” he promises, voice thick with lust, “right now. Popping a big knot just for you.”
The fleshy bulb at the base of his cock swells with blood, the sensitivity too much. He swells inside of her, easily fighting her feeble, instinctual attempts to avoid the knot. He keeps her flush to his base, entire length sheathed inside her, until they’re locked.
“Good omega.”
He knows it will almost assuredly result in a pregnancy, but he doesn’t mind. He’s willing to do whatever he needs to—get a new job, work longer hours, join the mafia, anything at all. He allows himself to fantasize, just for a moment, of coming home to a happy wife and healthy pups.
Family.
He can’t make it a reality fast enough.
Ben clutches the warbling omega to his chest and comes.