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Travis was fifteen years old when he had his first heat as a newly presented Omega. It had been just as bad as they said it would be, just as bad as he had imagined. Three days of never ending burning beneath his skin, making him hyper aware of the itchy coarse fibres of his clothes, the discomfort of the slippery cotton sheets of his bed beneath him. A buzzing restless energy overtook him, like he would literally vibrate out of his very skin, his concentration shattering into a thousand pieces, his thoughts nothing more than a litany of want need want want want -
When the burning heat pooled low in his stomach, when his blood quickened and he felt himself grow painfully aroused, that even one touch of his own hand around himself would cause him to cry out and spill in his underwear, that was when he felt the tell-tale wetness at his ass, dampening the material until it stuck to him uncomfortably, his slick glands gearing up for the most mindless three days of his life.
The longest three days of his life.
It had been utter torture to endure. He was locked away in his bedroom with plenty of water and food to get him through it. He had made himself climax time and time again with a hand wrapped around himself until he was so overstimulated that it hurt to even touch his cock. By that point, he resorted to fingering himself. It had been clumsy, inexperienced, he had no real idea of what he was supposed to do, but instinct had driven himself to thrust his fingers inside of himself, an attempt to make him feel full, stuffed, his whole body arching up and aching, but it still wasn’t enough.
It would never be enough, not without an Alpha’s touch. Not without their cock inside of him, hitting that spot deep inside that sent fireworks dancing up and down his spine, his legs spreading apart until his thighs quivered with the strain. Not without an Alpha’s knot stretching him open until he couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t do anything but feel every part of it.
Three days. Seventy two hours of nothing but stark sensation and that awful emptiness that had no relief.
The next heat had been even worse, if that could be possible.
Things only got worse from there. After his body stopped aching like he had run a marathon without stopping, Travis returned to school and a completely different environment for him. He tried keeping to himself, but the attention from the Alpha’s at school had reached an obnoxious level. Before he had presented as an Omega, Travis had practically gone unnoticed by the student population. Just another teenager trying to get through their studies with some semblance of sanity. He had been a skinny runt of a kid with large glasses, a pale complexion from spending too much time in the library and a penchant for playing Pokemon go.
He had a couple of friends he would hang out with on a regular basis and he wasn’t bullied outright, not like some other people in his class, but he was a student that tended to blend in with the masses. The girls didn’t draw his name in pink love hearts on their exercise books like they did with the football stars and the guys didn’t tumble him into the grass to roughhouse with him just so they could press close without mentioning the word ‘feelings’ out loud.
But all that changed when he was fifteen and he presented. Suddenly he had everyone wanting to sit next to him in class, to spend time with him at lunch, to be in his space after school had kicked out and he walked the fifteen minute walk home. Alphas and Betas alike would flare their nostrils as they took his scent in, they would brush their shoulders against his in an ‘accidental’ touch, their hands reaching out to touch his arm, the back of his neck, scenting him without his express permission. Like it was their right to do so, that his discomfort meant nothing to them other than some Omega squeamishness or false modesty. That’s If his discomfort went noticed at all, of course.
Omega’s feelings meant nothing, not to any of those who wanted a piece of him, not to the school teachers who looked on with indifference, not to anyone who could have put a stop to it. An Omega was what everyone wanted as a mate, was the ultimate dream to all, while at the same time an Omega’s wants and opinions were seen as inconsequential. Their personhood was a non-entity, their bodies were simply a vessel for the wants and needs of their counterpart.
They were nothing more than property.
“It’s biology,” his mum said as she tried to soothe him one night, after he had come home with bruises blossoming on his fine-bone wrists like a macabre bracelet of blue and purple. They were from a persistent Alpha who had grabbed him in anger when Travis had rebuked his unwanted advances. Travis had screamed a high pitch yell, making the Alpha flinch from the sound and his tight hold had loosened enough for Travis to pull free and run the rest of the way home. “They can’t help themselves, you understand. It’s our scent that gets them riled up, our biology that encourages their mating instinct. It overrides their common sense, makes them act in a way they wouldn’t normally act.” She smiled fondly at him, running her hands through his unruly brown curls. “You shouldn’t get upset over it. It’s a compliment, really. It’s only natural that they will be interested in you, you’re such a sweet beautiful boy.”
It’s victim blaming , Travis thought without having the heart to voice it aloud to his mother. It’s putting the responsibility onto the Omega for an Alpha’s complete lack of understanding the word ‘no’ and stopping . But he doesn’t say anything of his thoughts. It would only make her frown and bite her lip fretfully, like Travis’s liberal way of thinking was a real concern for the family. That she should be seeking the advice of a Doctor on what to do to stop such thoughts in their tracks.
So he stayed quiet at the kitchen table and let her put one of her numbing salves on the darkening bruises before putting a plate of her home baked chocolate chip cookies in front of him like a bribe, a glass of milk at his elbow to wash it down.
Milk and cookies weren't going to help his situation in the long run but it went a little towards making him feel marginally better in that moment. His adrenaline had worn off and he had been left shaking.
His mum hugged him to her and said, “You just have to stick it out until you mate with the right Alpha. Once that happens, you won’t be bothered by them anymore. Your scent will be mingled with your Alpha and they won’t dare put a finger on you.”
Travis shuddered at the thought of that happening. If, when , that happened, Travis won’t ever be able to say no ever again. The idea was something Travis didn’t want to dwell on.
For Omegas, heats came once every three to four months and after Travis’s sixth heat (an absolutely miserable affair that, after he had recovered, he had guiltily surfed the internet in the hopes of buying a sex toy that the website promised that it felt like a real Alpha’s knot, but he had balked at the last second when he thought of his parents finding out about it), his father was the one who put a stop to it.
Travis’s father was a deeply conservative man whose whole world seemed to revolve around his reputation in the community and what others thought of him, and by extension, what others thought about his wife and son. He was high in social standing, a local businessman who was seen to give to those in need and, in turn, had a lot of people who looked to him for serious decisions in regards to the community as a whole. Travis strongly believed it stroked the Alpha ego, that he was able to control those around him while at the same time dominating them psychologically. It was the whole rank and file thing that society loved so much, and his father was at the very top of it.
And what Alpha didn’t enjoy dominating everyone in their lives?
To Travis’s father, having an Omega son that every unattached Alpha was panting after was not part of the image he wanted to portray to the world. It gave the wrong impression of a pure, innocent Omega that was the son of such upstanding parents such as them. Some people may start to think that Travis actively encouraged the attention. Some may even go so far as to think (and put about to others) that Travis was one of those desperate loose Omegas that would spread their legs for any Alpha who so much as looked in their general direction.
Well, he couldn’t have that. The family name of Danvers was at stake and Benjamin Danvers couldn’t have an Omega son who could jeopardize everything he had built with his own two hands, even if it meant that a deeply conservative Alpha had to resort to liberal means to not allow that to happen.
That liberal thinking was the use of heat suppressants.
Heat suppressants were tiny oval white pills coated in a clear gelatine casing, perhaps half the size of a normal over the counter ibuprofen tablet. One pill was to be taken everyday with a meal, preferably in the morning, and could only be prescribed by the family Doctor. An Omega could take them so long as they had the express permission of either their Alpha mate or an Alpha parent. Without that permission, there were Omegas who were desperate enough to resort to taking illegal pills that were found on the black market by shady dealers. Pills that could make an Omega seriously ill, or on rare occasions resulting in death (if the press could be believed, that is). The media loved to splash any unfortunate omega’s demise by illegal suppressants all over the six o’clock news, a dire warning to any who were thinking of doing the same thing.
Travis had seen those breaking stories and it made him shudder to even think about it.
“These things are not to be taken lightly,” Dr Browning said, his eyebrows pinched together in a distasteful frown, and Travis got the distinct impression that if his Dad wasn’t sat right next to him in the Doctor’s office, he would be trying to put him off from taking them in the first place with all of his lectures. But he couldn’t, not when an Alpha had given his consent. Not if he didn’t want to start a fight that consisted of a lot of posturing and growling until the other backed down. “They come with a hefty list of side effects.”
Travis’s mother sat on the other side of Travis and she shifted in her seat, clearly discomfited by that. Her hands were bunched into fists in the fabric of her floral skirt. “What are the side effects?”
Dr Browning peered at her over his spectacles. “Taking heat suppressants can cause the taker to have moderate to severe headaches, loss of touch and taste senses, nausea and vomiting, acute shaking and fatigue. For long term use of the heat suppressants, they can cause infertility and impotence.”
He said it was such brusqueness that it was like he was reading off a list of groceries. His mum was back to biting her lip again, her worry tangible in the room like another presence. While the side effects were a little daunting, to Travis the benefits far outweigh the downsides.
No more heats. No more clawing at his skin like an animal, no more writhing on his bedsheets until he sobbed out his desperation into the empty air around him. No more Alphas and Betas scenting and touching him at all hours of the school day as his scent will be masked until he smelt like nothing more than his normal self to those around him. He would go back to being entirely unnoticed, completely unremarkable, definitely not worth the attention. His life would be his own again, to do as he wished, to be where he wished.
It would be like erasing his status with one tiny pill each morning.
“That sounds awful,” His mum murmured fretfully. “Ben, are we sure we are doing the right thing?”
He turned to his Dad, widening his eyes and making a pleading face. “Please, Dad. We could at least try it. Anything would be better than what is happening right now.”
His Dad was powerless against the doe like eyes, every Alpha was. He nodded his head in ascension, even as the Doctor sighed quietly, and within minutes the prescription was filled out and thirty pills were finally in Travis’s possession.
After the third day of taking them, Travis had experienced the vomiting and the small spasms in his hands and he had spent the day in bed, trying to sleep it off. On the fourth day, he started to shake uncontrollably. It was like he had a sudden drop in his sugar levels and he became weak, shivery, unable to control his body heat so that he felt cold all the time.
It was the complete opposite to the fire that his heat gave out and he welcomed it with open arms. After the sixth day, the side effects wore off until he was well again. There was no more sickness and shaking and his temperature was back to normal levels. His Omega scent was no more and when he passed Alphas in the school hallways, they gave him a curious look, but otherwise he passed by without any problems. His own sense of smell was stunted in turn and an Alpha’s scent barely registered on his radar anymore.
It was pure heaven.
There was a whole world of possibilities that was now his for the taking and it wouldn’t be inhibited by his very nature, or the wants of another.
He could do as he pleased.
“What are these?”
Travis glanced up from the papers he was grading to see his pupil, Colton Haynes, holding up the white plastic bottle that had his Heat suppressants in. He experienced that awful plunging feeling in the pit of his stomach when he realised what Colton was holding aloft and Travis had to stifle the urge to throw himself across his office desk and make a desperate grab to get it back.
But he didn’t want to seem desperate to get them back so he cleared his throat awkwardly. “It’s my medication, they were prescribed to me by my Doctor.”
Colton was sprawled across the chair opposite his desk, his long legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. His arm was thrown across the back of the chair carelessly, the position allowing him to show off the muscle definition in his upper arms, the breadth of his chest in a fitted white v neck shirt to the best advantage. He looked the epitome of Alpha virility at ease.
Travis didn’t take the showing off personally, it wasn’t for Travis’s benefit. It was just in an Alpha’s nature. Colton couldn’t help himself, probably wasn’t even aware he was even doing it to begin with. It was like second nature to them, and as Colton was now nineteen years old, an age where his testosterone would be going crazy, it was to be expected.
Travis thought it best not to mention it and embarrass him. The kid seemed to have something of a low self esteem issue, if he would prefer to hang out with a stuffy professor in his office instead of hanging out with other like minded students his own age. It wasn’t like he was lacking the attention either, Travis had seen Colton around the university campus surrounded by very smitten men and women who fluttered their eyelashes and laughed coyly at whatever Colton was saying to them, but to no avail it would seem.
Colton raised his eyebrows and turned the bottle to read the label for himself. Travis felt a pang of annoyance, but kept his face neutral to cover it. Was there nothing sacred from an Alpha’s attention?
Travis held his hand out for it, palm up and waiting. “If you’d be so kind as to give it to me. I thought I put it away in my bag.”
Which, come to think of it, he was sure it had been in his bag. He brought it with him wherever he went, tucked discreetly into the zipped inner pocket of his work bag. He glanced down at said bag that he had left on the floor by the legs of his desk. The bag was open, not unusual as he often carried numerous A4 folders with his lecture notes and research papers on European migration of the Dark Ages, and his bag often didn’t close with all of it stuffed in.
What was unusual was that the inner pocket was unzipped, the material gaping and glaringly empty. His mind raced back to when he came into work earlier that morning when he took a pill with the cup of tea and a bacon sandwich that he had bought from the local cafe on his way into work. He had popped the bottle back into his bag like he always did and zipped the pocket up before he had taken out the second year’s essays on Witch hysteria of the sixteenth century to tear apart with his red marker.
Hadn’t he? He mustn't have done it or else why would it be open? A stupid careless mistake on his part, clearly. He blamed it on lack of sleep the previous night.
Colton ignored him in favour of pursuing the label on the bottle. Travis watched in real time as the long unpronounceable name of the suppressant made sense to his student and he realized what he had in his hands. Those blue eyes widened slightly, strong jaw clenching tightly before the pressure eased and he turned to look at Travis with an unreadable expression. “Heat suppressants? You’re on heat suppressants?”
Travis blinked at the low flat voice, the suddenly tense posture. “Well, yes,” he said, nonplussed by Colton’s reaction. “Unattached Omegas in the University’s faculty are required to be on them if they want to teach. It helps us to get on with interacting with you all without any distractions on my part. That, and the University doesn’t have to find others to cover lessons when we take the time off for the Heats. The University board of Directors feel it would be a frivolous expenditure.”
Colton looked like he was going to break the bottle with how tight he was holding it in his fist. “You started them to be a lecturer?”
Travis was fighting down a blush. The subject of heat suppressant tended to be avoided as there were many awkward pauses and stilted replies. He wasn’t used to being questioned so intensely about them. “Well, no. I started them when I was a teenager. They were too uncomfortable to endure,” Travis replied and held his hand out further for emphasis. “Can I have them back now please?”
Colton again ignored him and kept watching him with those dark eyes. Travis would have paid to know what was going on through his head at that moment. The intensity was slowly giving way to a more thoughtful expression. Travis didn't know if that was any better. “Too uncomfortable to endure? You mean because you didn’t share them with an Alpha?”
Travis shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The conversation was veering off into private territory that he didn’t feel was appropriate to be having with a pupil. “Among other things,” he said evasively, wishing for the line of questioning to be over with already.
Travis must have said the right thing, as those broad shoulders suddenly relaxed again and that odd expression lifted like it hadn’t been there in the first place. He sat up straight and leaned forward, arm outstretched with the pill bottle for Travis to take back. Travis did so and immediately dropped it into the pocket where it belonged, zipping it up and dragging the bag further under the table. Away from Colton.
Colton watched him the whole time, back to sprawling himself in the chair. “What happens if you find an Alpha you like? Would you come off of them then?”
Travis shrugged, not feeling in the mood for airing all of his reasons as to why he wouldn’t want that to happen. “I suppose,” he said instead, fumbling with the red marker and searching for where he left off in the essay he had been grading. “If that happens in my future. I doubt it, though. Most omegas bond in their late teens or early twenties. I’m pushing thirty now.”
“Of course you’ll bond,” Colton said, and he sounded so sure of it that Travis looked up at him sharply, checking to see if he was being laughed at. Colton’s serious face assured Travis of the Alpha's sincerity.
“We’ll see,” he replied for want of a better reply and thought nothing more of the awkward conversation until he was forced to do so.
Colton Haynes hadn’t initially started his University degree as one of Travis’s first year history students. He had been majoring in business and marketing, something that his father greatly encouraged so Colton could join the great Presscot family business as soon as he finished up his education, like his two older brothers had done so before him.
Travis didn’t know what brought on Colton’s change of heart, but within three weeks into the first term, Travis had noticed a new student at the back of the lecture hall, eyes trained on Travis like he was imparting the secrets to the world around them. It had been refreshing to have someone so enthusiastic about the subject of European history in his lessons. A two hour lecture at 9am on a Friday morning didn’t exactly excite the students into participating anymore than they had to. They were all itching to get out of the hall and get home and start their weekend in style with drinks, parties and the subsequent nursing of a hangover the next day.
Whatever it had been to change the Alpha’s mind, Travis had been grateful for it. Colton was an excellent student, he listened during the lectures and kept careful detailed notes in his folder. He was one of the few who took advantage of office hours to go over the course material and ask probing questions on the areas he wasn’t so sure about. He was clearly interested in the subject and didn’t seem to mind when Travis talked on and on, sometimes going off on tangents that led to other areas of History that had no connection to what was being studied.
It was often Travis’s assistant that would have to knock on his door to remind them of the time, well past the appointed hours. Colton seemed just as reluctant to tear himself away from their discussions as Travis was. Whenever this happened, Colton would casually offer to buy Travis a drink so they could finish their discussion on the way. Travis would pause in packing his book bag to look up at Colton to gauge the intentions in his expression.
It wasn’t uncommon for some professors to join their students for a drink or two at the student union, but there was also a double standard when it comes to the small number of Omega professors accepting the same invite. Unattached Omega professors had to conduct themselves like they were the innocent heroine in a regency novel at all times, so having drinks with an Alpha student would be considered inappropriate by most of his peers.
But Colton’s face was open and friendly, and Travis couldn’t detect any nefarious intentions that would cause the sudden disquiet he felt, like he had skipped several pages ahead in a book and he struggled to catch up with the plot. Travis couldn’t smell Colton’s scent, he couldn’t tell if his scent had changed with interest thanks to the heat suppressants, but judging by his relaxed body language, it couldn’t be that.
It was just a friendly drink between a Professor and his pupil. No way would Colton be interested in an Omega who was nine years older, not when he could have his pick of any of the Omegas on campus.
Still, he had to be careful in rejecting such an offer. Alpha’s didn’t take kindly to rejection in any form.
“I, uh, I was actually going to get an early night tonight. I spent most of last night going over third year dissertations and didn’t get much sleep because of it,” He said, shrugging his shoulders in a ‘what can you do’ gesture. “Sorry Colton. Perhaps another time.”
Travis was gearing up for the flash of annoyance in those blue eyes, the hardening of those lips and the tightening of his shoulders with his ire of being told no. But it didn’t happen. Colton took it with an easy grin, clearly not put out with the brush off. “A professor’s work is never done, I get it,” he said with a laugh. “Another time then.”
That small knot of discomfort in the pit of his stomach loosened and he wandered at himself for his paranoia. Colton had never given the impression of being anything other than friendly and certainly not interested in that way, so he doesn’t know why he had reacted in that manner. His fight or flight mode had been triggered over the smallest of questions.
He really needed to get home and sleep. It was clearly messing with his brain.
Five days later...
Something was off.
Travis had felt a little out of it all day at the university, like a brain fog had descended over him, and he had gone home to his bed and immediately crashed, sleeping for a solid twelve hours before waking up and feeling like he wanted to climb out of his own skin. His eyes opened to the sunlight bathing the room in its warm orange glow - he hadn’t even had the thought to close the curtains before he went straight to bed - and peeled his tongue from the roof of his mouth.
God, he was so thirsty. More than thirsty, parched. He got out of bed on wobbly legs and headed for the kitchen, filling a tall glass with water. He drank three full glasses before he felt suitably hydrated, that pressing headache pounding at his temples and behind his eyes began to ease its grip. Now that the pressing need to drink had faded, he thought he felt warm to the touch, skin a little flushed across his cheeks and chest.
That’s just great , he thought with a frustrated sigh. He was coming down with a cold and at the worst of times too, what with the end of term fast approaching and the deadlines for essays coming to an end mere days away. He was going to need all of his available brain power to get through reading hundreds of essays if he was going to survive with his sanity intact.
After taking a cold shower to cool himself off, he downed anti-inflammatory painkillers along with his heat suppressant and some dry toast. Unfortunately, work didn’t stop for a high temperature so he went into work like any other day before it.
As the day progressed he felt that warmth spread from his cheeks and chest to the rest of his body. All the windows in the lecture hall were cracked open as wide as they would go, but still Travis felt overly warm in his clothes. By the end of his second lecture, he had shucked off his usual dark blue suit cut jacket and the green jumper vest underneath until he only wore his short sleeved shirt. It gave a little relief, but not by much.
His skin prickled with the sheen of sweat at his hairline, itchy, coarse. His thoughts grew fuzzy around the edges and there was more than one occasion where he lost the train of thought entirely and his speech trailed off into uncertainty and silence. Students watched him with frowns of concern and he waved them away with forced cheer, telling them that he even bore himself into insensibility at times. It was enough to appease his audience and he quickened to get back on track with the lecture.
He just needed to make it to the end of the day and then he could go home and sleep it off. One more lecture, and he would withdraw to safety where he could take all of his clothes off so the fibres didn’t make his skin itch like he had suddenly developed an allergy to his fabric softener.
A flash of a half forgotten memory flickered in Travis’s mind before it skittered away fast enough for him to make any sense of it. He’s experienced this feeling before, he’s sure of it, but when that could have been-
“Sir,” a voice dragged him out of his reverie and he turned to see Colton standing next to him in the lecture hall, hovering. “Travis,” he said, like he had been saying it for a while now. “Are you alright?”
Travis blinked rapidly, taking in the last of his class filing out of the hall doors until it was just the two of them left. Had he finished his lecture already? Christ, how long had he stood there like a zombie, staring off into blank space? Did anyone else notice how out of it he was?
He sincerely hoped not, but couldn’t dismiss the fact that he may have made a complete fool of himself in front of his students.
Travis wanted to play Colton’s concerns off as unnecessary, but he didn’t have the energy for it. He didn’t have the energy to lie either. He shook his head in the negative, attempted a smile, but the muscles in the face didn’t want to obey the commands of his brain. “I, no, I don't think so. I think I'm coming down with something.”
He took a step towards his desk to collect his bag, but his legs gave out, like the strings of a puppet being suddenly cut, and he would have fallen to the floor in a graceless heap if it wasn’t for Colton’s Alpha instincts as his arms reached out and yanked Travis against his chest.
Travis was suddenly overcome with Colton’s scent, a heady mix of Alpha, safe and strong filling his head until there was nothing else in it . He was overcome with it, his nostrils flaring as he took a deep breath in, filling his lungs with it and a feeling of bliss swept over him. His hands reached up and clutched at Colton’s arms, fingers tightening in the material, and he buried his face in Colton’s neck, searching out more of that wonderful scent.
Nuzzling.
Colton stilled against him, then from heartbeat to another, his arms tightened around him to hold him close. His whole body shuddered around Travis, one of his hands cupping the back of his head, his fingers threading through Travis’s hair to keep his face pressed against the skin of his neck. He tilted his head back, offering more skin for Travis to stroke his cheek against.
I shouldn’t be able to smell him like this. Why can I smell him? The heat suppressant should be blocking it, how can I-
Something was terribly wrong. It was on the very tip of his tongue, catching at his awareness like a loose thread, just out of reach of his comprehension. If only he could think clearly, if only that intolerable heat in his limbs would burn itself out and leave him blessedly cool and lucid, he would be able to figure out what was happening to him.
He tried to voice these thoughts out loud, but no sound would pass his lips save a low trembling moan that ended in a high whine as he tightened his grip on the Alpha.
Colton shuddered again, an answering rumble reverberating in his chest like a cat’s purr. Travis could feel it against his own chest and the Omega inside him preened at the thought of making an Alpha pleased.
Colton finally pulled back, the gesture looking like it hurt him when Travis was able to see his face clearly for the first time since his legs had buckled beneath him. This close, Travis could see the pupils of Colton’s eyes eclipsing the blue entirely as they blew wide. His own nostrils were flaring, his breaths quick and deep. He licked his lips, his voice deeper than Travis had ever heard it. “We need to get you home.”
Home. Yes, home was a very good idea. He needed to get home, he needed Colton to take him home.
To take him there, to take him-
Travis lost time after that. One minute they were still in the lecture hall, the next they were outside and Colton was fumbling with Travis’s car keys from his jacket pocket, an arm still firmly wrapped around Travis’s waist to keep him upright and heading straight for Travis’s car. Did he tell Colton where his car was parked or did he somehow just know? He must have told him, as Colton was swiftly bundling Travis into the front passenger seat of his blue Honda civic and closing the door before sitting himself behind the steering wheel.
Travis was lucid enough to say in halting tones, “My address. My address is…”
Colton started up the car and pulled out of the faculty parking spot with more speed than Travis was used to with his own driving. “Don’t worry about that,” he said soothingly, keeping his eyes on the road with more determination than Travis had ever seen on his face before. “I’m taking you to my home. It’s better this way, trust me.”
Better this way? What did that mean?
“I want to go home,” he said, a high whine in his voice that would have embarrassed him in any other moment. He needed to be in familiar surroundings, he needed to be where he felt the most safe.
Colton reached out and gripped his knee, squeezing it in a gesture of reassurance. “You are going home, Travis. My home.”
Travis didn’t answer that, distracted by that pressure on his knee. It sent tingles running up and down his spine, heat curling impatiently in his abdomen. He squirmed uneasily in his seat, the instinct to arch up into that hand like a cat demanding to be petted riding him hard. He was acting like a cat in heat. Like- Oh.
Oh.
Like a heat. He was experiencing a heat. After eleven years of going without, he had completely misunderstood the signs he was experiencing and had thought he was coming down with an illness. Nothing more than a seasonal cold that would write itself after taking ibuprofen and to sleep well for a couple of days. Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.
But how? How could this have happened? He diligently took his pill every morning without fail, there had never been a time where he had experienced a half-heat even when he had been sick and the pill hadn’t been as effective as it usually was.
Travis’s head rolled against the headrest like a drunk. “Colton, I. My heat.” He tried to communicate. Tried to warn the young Alpha.
“I know, It’ll be fine,” Colton said calmly, that hand leaving Travis’s knee to return to the steering wheel as he turned the car into another road that didn’t look at all familiar to Travis. Travis immediately missed that warmth at his knee. “Do you want to know about the first time that I saw you? What the first sight of you did to me?”
Travis didn’t know what that had to do with him having his heat in eleven years so he merely grunted.
Colton took this as an ascent and carried on driving, eyes still on the road ahead of them but Travis had this unshakable feeling that his attention was entirely on him. “It was about a week after I had started at the university and I was utterly miserable. Business and marketing wasn’t what I wanted to study, I didn’t even want to be there in the first place. But my father told me I had to for the sake of the family and I did it for nothing better to do with my time. And then I saw you.”
The weight of that last sentence was heavy in the air with meaning. “I was on campus grounds, you should know the place. That bench tucked into the side of the park, by the path between Sherwell place and the Cookson building. I was sitting there by myself, considering how I was going to break the news to my family that I was planning on dropping out, when you walked out of Sherwell Place. I couldn’t stop staring. You wore that green jumper, the one that matches the colour of your eyes. Your hair was in disarray, like you had been running your hands through it. I’ve never wanted to know someone so badly as I did when i saw you.”
Travis frowned, trying to battle through the brain fog and understand the words Colton was saying to him. “I - I don’t understand. What are you trying to say?”
Colton smiled humourlessly. “Isn’t it obvious? I asked around, I went onto the University’s faculty board page to find out who you were. Once I found out what course you taught, I sat in on your lecture and was interested in higher learning for the first time, because of you. I transferred my major to history because of you. You were all I could think about, all I wanted to think about.
“And when I got up the courage to ask you a question after a lecture, I thought this is it. This is when I finally breathe in your scent. But when I was near you, I couldn't smell anything. You were a complete nonentity to me and I couldn’t figure out why that was. With scent suppressant shampoos and body sprays, there was at least a chemical scent left behind. It took me a while to figure it out, heat suppressants aren’t exactly common with the Omega population and I hadn’t run into anyone who was using them. There could only be one reason for an unmated omega to smell of nothing.”
It was a struggle but Travis was able to follow along and understand what he was now saying, despite his body fighting for control of his senses. And it was all coming to some sort of sickening sense. That day in his office when Colton had his pill bottle in his possession, Travis trying to figure out how it had gotten out of the zipped up pocket of his bag.
“What did you do to my pills?” Travis demanded weakly, feeling suddenly ill.
Colton took his eyes off the road to glance at Travis for a moment, before turning back. “I swapped them with placebos.”
Travis closed his eyes, turning away from the truth. “How could you do something so stupid?”
“I had to,” Colton answered, not even sounding remotely apologetic about what he did. “How else was I supposed to know what you smelt like? How else was I supposed to make you see I could be your Alpha?”
“My alpha,” Travis echoed, but couldn’t finish that sentence as he was overcome with an overwhelming wave of need and he hunched over, gasping out. In the small confines of the car, all he could smell was Colton as he took him in with every deep pull of breath, filling his lungs with the Alpha pheromone.
There was a sudden trickle of dampness on the seat of his boxer shorts, the bone deep ache of needing to be filled that swallowed up his entire being. Travis couldn’t help the low whine in his throat, his breathing coming in short sharp pants that were loud in small confines of the car. His cock grew hard, tenting the material of his trousers and he desperately wanted to spread his legs wide and have Colton’s large hand between them, working him so well that he came with his name on Travis’s lips.
The sound of Colton’s sharp inhalation knocked Travis out of his fantasy, and his eyes snapped to Colton’s face. His eyes were impossibly dark, hot and hungry as they flick across Travis’s flushed face, the exposed skin of his neck, down his body and dipping to the evidence of Travis’s arousal and lingering there.
There was no force on this earth that could have stopped Travis from spreading his legs to present himself to the eyes of the Alpha, that dampness at his hole now flooded with slick, the ring of muscle clenching again and again with want. “Please,” Travis said and he didn’t recognise his own voice. It sounded utterly wrecked to his own ears, but he couldn’t muster up any shame over it. He was long past the point to feel any shame.
Colton’s hands that were on the steering wheel tightened until it creaked ominously under the pressure, his knuckles turning bone white with it. “Jesus,” he breathed, turning back to the road with new determination. “You smell incredible right now. I knew you would.”
Travis squirmed happily at the praise, his brain’s protestations of he’s your student, he swapped you pills out with placebos, stop what you’re doing - washed away by his pheromones, the reservations were nothing more than a distant memory.
The car ride to Colton’s home was roughly a five minute drive, but it felt like the agony of eternity. He pulled into a driveway and quickly vacated the car, striding around the front to yank open Travis’s door and pulled Travis from the seat into his arms. It was good thinking on Colton’s part as Travis seemed to have lost the use of his legs.
One minute they were outside, the next they had passed over the threshold and the door firmly shut behind them with a slam and locked with that distinctive click. Colton didn’t waste any time, marching through a narrow hallway, past a dimly lit open planned living room and kitchen before turning into a room where Colton’s scent deepened.
This must be the Alpha’s bedroom. A large unmade bed with dark blue covers took up most of the floor space, with a messy desk and matching chair by the window and what looked like several posters of metal bands on the walls. Travis didn’t get to observe anymore as Colton got to the bed and deposited Travis on top of it.
Travis bounced on the mattress with the impact and his surroundings were able to clear the cloud of arousal blanketing him and he felt a spike of unease. Things were going at rocket speed, he needed to get his head around the fact that a student had swapped his heat suppressants with placebos, that this shouldn’t even be happening.
But, again, the Alpha didn’t give him a chance for such clear thinking. He followed Travis down on the bed, blanketing the Omega with his larger body and captured Travis’s lips in a heated kiss. Travis gasped, his mouth opening under the onslaught, and Colton took the opportunity to slide his tongue in and flickering over his own in a playful gesture.
Travis was surrounded by Colton; the Alpha’s knees were on either side of Travis’s thighs, Colton’s arm curled around his head, caging him in. Travis had one hand clutching at the fabric of Colton’s jacket in a tight grip - whether to keep him close or to keep him at bay, Travis couldn’t say with complete confidence.
Travis was rapidly running out of air and he turned his face away, their lips separating with a slick noise. Colton didn’t pause his onslaught, he turned his attention to the vulnerable skin of Travis’s neck. He used lips and teeth and tongue on the sensitive flesh just under his ear, causing Travis to pant loudly, his moan thready in the air between them.
He’s trying to leave a mark there. A mark, his mark, on my skin for all the people to see that Travis belonged to someone. The thought burned though his body with renewed fire, his muscles growing weak with the thought.
Colton pulled away just long enough to say, “You’ve never had anyone touch you like this before, have you?”
Travis could only shake his head in answer, gulping the air like a dying man.
Colton’s mouth rounded into an ‘ oh ’ of sound, as if the confirmation had just punched him in the gut. His face then split into a smirk, obviously self satisfied at this turn of events. “Of course you haven’t. It's why you’re so responsive to my touch.”
Colton didn’t wait for a reply, if he had even expected one at all. He leant down again and kissed Travis with renewed passion. His hands were all over Travis’s body, touching him wherever they could reach, over his cheeks, his neck, his chest, his hips. He explored the shape of him, marking Travis with his own scent. He slid his hand up underneath Travis’s shirt, cool skin on his bare heated skin, skimming over all the sensitive parts until Travis arched up to feel more, get him to apply more pressure just like he wanted.
“So responsive,” Colton whispered again in reverent tones. He was greedy for Travis and his unrepentant reactions, all consuming. He couldn’t seem to get enough of it. That hand slid out from under his shirt and brushed down the front of Travis’s tented trousers, the pressure making his cock jump and leak precum into his underwear.
Travis made a sound of panic, catching Colton’s wrist in his own and stilling the movement. “Wait,” he panted, “Colton, wait. We shouldn’t be doing this-”
“Shhh,” Colton said, placing gentle kisses along Travis’s cheekbones like they were placations to Travis’s distress. “Don’t worry. Don’t think. I just want to make you feel good. Let me make you feel good.”
Colton kissed him, lulling him back into a mindless state. The hand Travis had on Colton’s wrist loosened before falling away entirely. It was easy, then, to forget his protests, to give up those words of wait and shouldn’t over in favour of yes and please .
In the end, it was Travis’s body that decided for him, as if there were any doubt of that outcome. Colton pulled back so that he was towering over Travis, his weight on his knees. He shed his own jacket and t-shirt, the muscles in his arms and chest flexing with the movement. His hands went to the buckle of his belt, fingers deftly flicking it open to gape at the front, and pulled the jeans and his boxer shorts down in one move, kicking the material off to land somewhere over the side of the bed, entirely forgotten.
Travis couldn’t help but stare blatantly at him, Colton’s cock was large and flushed a deep red and wet at the head where his foreskin was pulled back. His heady, musky scent only grew stronger now that he was fully bared. Its girth was impressive and Colton was beset with the sudden want of sitting up and reaching out for it, to draw Colton forward by the hips and getting his mouth on it.
“God,” Travis whimpered. He had to swallow as saliva gathered in his mouth. Colton preened at the attention, gripping himself with a firm hand and jerking himself slowly a few times, spreading the precum that gathered at the tip of his cock, working it from root to crown, and Travis squirmed at the sight.
Colton reached for him, making short work of stripping Travis of his shirt and trousers, his clothes following the same route as his own had done. Cool air touched Travis’s heated skin and he shivered with it. There was no hiding his arousal now, his own cock slapping his belly and his slick glistening on his inner thighs.
The Alpha’s hands smoothed down his sides until they stopped at his hips, encouraging Travis to turn over onto his belly. Travis did so without complaint and they slid a pillow under his hips so that his ass was angled up in the air, his cock trapped against the material of the pillow and giving him something to rut against.
Travis’s mouth fell open without a sound as fingers slipped between his cheeks to circle the hot ring of muscle, testing how wet he was. The Alpha’s other hand gripped his hip and Travis was dimly aware that it would surely leave possessive bruises by the morning.
Colton leant over him and he hummed, clearly pleased with what he found there. His fingers slid easily inside, slick easing the way, and Travis’s breath hitched at the alien intrusion. He couldn’t help but squirm back onto those fingers and Colton let him until he was knuckle deep in his ass. Travis shuddered at the feeling of rightness of being filled finally , even if it didn’t feel nearly enough to be satisfying.
Travis’s head fell forward until his forehead touched the mattress beneath him, his back arched so that he kept his hips angled for easy access for those fingers. Sparks were beginning to shoot up his spine as Colton played with the swollen rim of his hole, building a languid rhythm with each thrust of his fingers.
“Yeah, you like that?” Colton breathed as he slipped in another finger, grinding them in a downward motion. “How could you not? You were made for this. Made for me.”
If Travis was in his right frame of mind, he would have winced at those words. They were delivered with such confidence, such possessiveness, that they left no room for how much Colton had been wanting this.
As if to prove his point, Colton twisted his fingers and pressed deeper, searching for that special spot inside of Travis. And he nailed it. With a loud keen Travis’s fingers scrabbled at the bedsheets, almost tearing at the mattress cover with how hard he gripped it. He was caught between shying away from the overwhelming sensation and thrusting back onto it.
Colton pinned his hips down and grazed his fingers over his prostate again and again, unerring hitting that spot with every thrust of those long digits and Travis wailed.
He felt himself clamp down around Colton’s fingers before he came spectacularly, the orgasm ripping through him until he saw stars in front of his sightless eyes. He stripped the pillow beneath him with white, his slick gushing until there was a wet slick sound as Colton kept moving his fingers in and out of Travis, chasing the aftershocks and pushing Travis through it until he was very sensitive and thrusting forward to get away from it.
Colton finally pulled his fingers out and Travis grunted with the loss. The feeling of emptiness was almost too much to bear but he didn’t have to endure it for long as Colton positioned himself at Travis’s entrance and slid home in one slow thrust.
Travis cried out in ecstasy, overwhelmed by the perfect feeling of Colton fully seated inside of him. He was painfully hard again, or perhaps he never softened in the first place, the brutal drive to fuck shortening his refractory time to less than minutes. It felt like there wasn’t enough air in the room to fill his lungs; it was heady with their combined scents, even more now that they were joined together.
Colton draped himself over Travis’s back, his weight keeping Travis in place as he began to thrust in earnest. The Heat drives at them, urging them on to move faster, harder, deeper. The sound of Colton’s headboard slapping against the wall drowned out their heavy panting, the rhythmic banging a sharp counterpoint to their moans. Colton’s face buried itself in Travis’s neck and he mouthed at the skin there, right over the place where a mating bite would go.
It should have scared Travis, should have sent a spike of fear through him that Colton could lose his mind and bite down and mate them, but fear was the last thing that Travis felt when Colton licked at it like a cat. Travis simply moaned, mouth open as his breathing hitched.
His whole body sung with the feeling of being, finally , filled to the brim by a worthy Alpha - at being pinned down and taken so thoroughly. The Omega in him purred with satisfaction as the head of Colton’s cock pounded on his prostate with every thrust, Travis’s toes curling at the pleasure building inside of him to a fever pitch.
He was close, God, he was so close to the precipice that he could practically taste it on his tongue. His hand snaked between his stomach and the pillow to take himself in hand and stroke himself, but Colton snarled and pulled his hand away, pinning it to the mattress so he couldn’t move it. His head lifted until his lips were by Travis’s ear, whispering fiercely, “Not, not like that. You either come on my cock alone, or not at all.”
Travis whined in frustration but did as he was told, relaxing his hand under the fierce hold and gripping at the mattress for dear life as Colton picked up his speed. The sound of skin slapping skin could be heard over the sound of the headboard now and Travis’s mouth remained open as he moaned and whimpered his pleasure with abandon. It didn’t take long before Travis was coming the second time, his body trembling under the onslaught.
“Fuck,” Colton hissed and his thrusting began to lose its rhythm, his own orgasm taking hold of him. When he thrusted into Travis again, he bottomed out with a slick noise, the base of his swelling knot slipping inside past the tight ring of muscle. It swelled to the point that Travis felt like he was being split in two, until Colton could only make small abortive movements of his hips as he could no longer pull out. Travis felt wetness inside him as Colton filled him with his come, marking him from the inside out.
They were now tied together until his knot went down and Travis revelled in that thought. He tilted his head to the side, offering his neck up to the Alpha, his Alpha , on sheer instinct. Colton didn’t need to be offered to twice. He opened his mouth on a growl over the mating mark site and bit down forcefully.
The pleasure of the bite was incandescent. It seemed to go on and on, a never ending stream of sensation that looped between them until Travis didn’t know where he ended and Colton began. It was like nothing he had ever felt before, and knew that nothing else could come close to it again.
Travis must have blacked out at some point after that. He came back to himself with them still locked together but on their sides in the bed, Colton’s body pressed along his back with his arm wrapped around his waist with hardly any room between them. Travis’s heat had abated for the time being, but he still felt that heat beneath his skin, a low simmer in every limb, biding its time for the next round.
Colton pressed his nose to the sweat at Travis’s hairline, taking even breaths and humming with the scent he found there. “I’m never going to get tired of what you smell like,” he said dreamily. “You shouldn’t have hidden it away with those pills of yours. I wouldn’t have had to go to the lengths that I did to get you here.”
Travis should never have had them in his bag so casually like that, for someone to come along and mess with them. But he had felt better having them to hand at all times and he doubted he would have done anything different. Hindsight was a beautiful thing. “I couldn’t endure the heats alone, or the constant manhandling from strangers who thought they had a right to do so. I didn’t want any part of it. I still don’t.”
Colton’s arm tightened around him possessively. “And you won’t be. You won’t have to take those pills anymore, or endure a heat alone and others touching you ever again. We are mates now and you’re mine. So just let me take care of you.”
The pure satisfaction in that tone was unmistakable. He had what he wanted and as far as society was concerned it was legal of him to claim a Omega, regardless of how it had happened. The bite had taken on the first attempt, after all. The University would even congratulate Travis on the change in his status, even if it had been a student that had done the claiming. His mother would be overcome with joy at him being mated and his father would be proud that Colton came from such a rich prestigious family. It would be a real feather in his cap.
After all, it isn’t natural for an omega to while away his life as a bachelor on heat suppressants.
Travis closed his eyes, shutting out those thoughts for the time being and letting sleep claim him. He was going to need his strength for the next round.