Work Text:
Callahan opened the apartment door, calling out, "I'm home!"
He looked around the living room; it was small but neat, an elegant little couch with end tables facing a TV that was too large for the room, although he'd never admit that. Most importantly, though, it smelled of home, of...
From the door to the spare bedroom, his husband's voice called, "I'm in here, just doing some writing."
Smiling, he tossed his keys and wallet into the drawer of the end table closest to him, kicked off his shoes, and hung his jacket on the pegs by the door. Leaning into the spare bedroom, he asked, "And? Making good progress?"
Anthony turned and smiled at him, resting a hand on his swollen belly as he sat back from the laptop on the desk, and Callahan felt his heart lurch. The two had been bonded ever since Anthony had had an unexpected heat overcome him at, of all places, an Omega Rights Movement rally; Callahan had been passing by and been unable to resist the scent, and Anthony had followed him home where they'd spent several pleasant hours joined together, cementing the bond between them.
Callahan still felt a little guilty about that sometimes; he knew that, as an Alpha, he shouldn't, but he couldn't help it. Anthony had been working on improving Omega rights, and now here he was, two months shy of childbirth, his willpower sapped by the bond between them. Sometimes Callahan could see it in his eyes, the feeling of loss for the freedoms he'd given up because he'd missed a dose of suppressants on just the wrong day. He'd gone from writing Omega-rights manifestos to writing a novel; he couldn't focus on the politics any more, especially not while pregnant.
Anthony shrugged. "Nothing on the novel. It's just not gelling. So I'm writing a bit of fanfic, for fun, and to keep myself writing."
"Oh? Anything interesting?" Callahan walked over and looked at the screen. There was an alphabet soup of tags at the top, and he read them quietly. "Extraordinary RPF, ABO, C2, Beta Charles, Beta Christopher. What's that mean?"
Anthony blushed. "It's real-person fic about the actors who play the leads on Extraordinary, Charles and Chris."
Callahan looked puzzled. "Okay. What's ABO mean? And why are they marked as Betas? Everyone knows Charles is an Alpha and Chris is an Omega."
"Alterniverse, Beta-Only. Some folks in the fandom came up with it, and it's this really weird idea. It's a world where everyone is a Beta."
Callahan laughed out loud. "That's the silliest thing I've ever heard. I mean, without Alphas and Omegas..."
Anthony bristled a bit. "Without Alphas and Omegas, there's gender equality. No marking anyone as Beta, they're just men and women. No reason to discriminate, since they're all alike. If somebody doesn't feel like they're really the gender they were assigned at birth, changing it isn't a problem, because it's just male-to-female or vice-versa and not trying to deal with transitioning from Omega to Beta, or even Alpha."
Callahan saw the old pain in Anthony's eyes again, and could feel his desire for such a world through their bond. He could see where that would appeal to his husband. "So what else does it mean that there's no Alphas or Omegas?"
"Nobody has long-term relationships. Without the example of bonding, they get together for a few years, have a kid or two, and then move on. Without the need for heat-suppressant drugs, there was no research into birth control for Betas, so they just keep having kids."
"Weird. What else?"
"It's a very sexually conservative world. Without heat and pheremones and the arousing effects they cause on bystanders, everybody dresses very conservatively. There's no PDA at all."
"Obviously. So this story has them in a relationship? As Beta males?"
"Yep. I know, it's weird, but in an odd way, it really works. Sometimes people play with it a bit - Omega males get re-envisioned as Beta females, or Alpha females as Beta males, to make the parenting work right."
Callahan shook his head. "Whatever floats your boat, Anthony. You want to work on that some more while I go make dinner?"
Anthony grinned at him. "Deal."