Chapter Text
Filming for Dimension 20 feels like it takes forever today, but Murph thinks that he's doing a pretty good job of hiding how shitty he feels. He makes jokes and he laughs and he manages to mostly follow all the lore that Brennan's dropping, though he knows that he'll need to ask Emily for her notes later. It's hard to focus when his thoughts are so slow and fuzzy. Every time he blinks, he feels like he falls asleep for a split-second. It’s hard to pay attention, hard to keep his defences up. Before they started filming, Brennan came up behind him and grabbed his shoulders, giving him a little shake, and Murph felt an omegan purr rise in his chest before he managed to swallow it down.
His smile feels rigid, like his teeth might crack. His back, neck, and shoulders ache. His underwear is damp. Even with his industrial-grade scent blockers, he's sure that everyone at the table can smell him.
(They can't. He knows they can't. But it sure as hell feels like they can.)
But he doesn't say anything. He doesn't complain. Siobhan leans close at one point and, voice pitched low enough that her mic can't catch it, asks if he's okay. He nods, mutters that he's just tired. It's not a lie, really. He should have realised that he had a heat coming on based on how hard it’s been to wake up in the mornings, how he never feels like he’s gotten enough sleep. It's a bone-deep exhaustion that leaves him feeling jittery and on-edge. His teeth feel too sharp in his mouth; colours are too bright and sounds are too loud. Other omegas smell disgustingly sweet and Alphas fucking reek, and he's always so grateful to curl up with his nose buried in Emily's hair, her clean beta scent setting him at ease.
Luckily the Dropout cast and crew are familiar enough that they don’t register as threats to his jumpy omega. The familiar scents mingling together in the dome actually help ease his omega; he’s never named them as pack, but that’s what they are, he guesses. If he thinks about it too hard, he feels weirdly guilty about knowing their scents so well when none of them would recognise his. The blockers he uses kills it completely. It’s not the neutral scent of a beta; it’s a complete absence of any scent at all. If anyone really focused on it, they’d notice, but since no one’s being a weirdo and burying their nose in his neck and huffing, he passes as a beta pretty successfully.
(“You know no one would care,” Emily said one night, her head in Murph’s lap, a cat sleeping on her chest. “No one would treat you any different.”
“Yeah.” He hadn’t known what else to say. He’s not the kind of dick who says things like you just don’t understand to his wife, and he didn’t know how to explain the way people frowned when they learnt he was an omega, the way their voices changed, the way they either distanced themselves or touched him more.)
Anyway. Anyway. Even with his body trying to meltdown on him, he thinks he does a pretty fuckin' good job at pretending that everything's okay and he's not going to spend the next three days sweating uncontrollably and soaking the bed sheets and stretching himself out on plastic knots that aren't enough, will never be enough, and biting at his arms until Emily manages to coax a chew toy between his teeth. It's embarrassing, like he's a pup whose gums are itchy with their mating teeth coming in, but she looks so upset when he bites himself bloody that it’s enough for him to open his mouth and accept the toy.
He’s in his dressing room, sitting on an uncomfortable wooden chair and wondering if he can stand up without slick gushing out of him and soaking through his jeans. He grits his teeth and clenches, but before he can force himself to his feet, there’s a rap at the door and Emily steps into the room. “Ready to go?” she says.
He tries to smile at her. “Yeah,” he says. He can’t wait to be home, surrounded by familiar scents, able to crawl into their bed and hide. He’ll have to text their schedule coordinator, one of the few people at Dropout who knows his designation, but luckily Dropout is pretty good at working around heat schedules. “Let’s go.”
But she’s frowning. She steps forward and slides a cool hand over his forehead, pushing his sweaty hair back. "Baby, you're burning up."
She knows him too well. Even after all this time, he forgets that. (It's strange, having someone who looks at you and sees everything, even—especially—the things you're trying to hide. He likes it, he thinks, when he's not being a repressed asshole about it.)
He leans into her touch, eyes fluttering shut for a moment before he opens them to look at her. "I'm all right," he says. He rubs at the scent gland on his wrist. It's swollen and itchy; his glands always get irritable when he goes into heat. "Heat's coming on early."
"Fuck," she says. She gets both hands in his hair and scratches her long nails over his scalp. He shudders, pleased and overwhelmed all at once, and leans forward to rest his forehead on her chest. "Do we have time to get you home?"
"Yeah, 'course," he says. He has never had to use one of the emergency heat rooms at the Dropout studios and he never will. The last time he ever had to use an emergency heat room was when he was in high school, when his first heat had come out of nowhere and hit him like a truck. He spent three itchy, humiliating hours in a soundproof room that reeked of disinfectant that made his nose sting. He stared at the ceiling, one knee pulled to his chest, biting the inside of his cheeks raw and trying not to think about who else had used the medical-grade dildos he was shoving into himself. He cried his way through two orgasms before they decided it was safe enough for his dad to take him home.
It was bad enough being the nerdy Dungeons and Dragons kid with glasses. It was almost unbearable being the nerdy Dungeons and Dragons kid with glasses whose ass started leaking in class. He remembers feeling flushed and nauseous all day; remembers the sudden wetness pooling in his chair; remembers Mr. Trenton ignoring his raised hand until he stood up, said, "I don't feel good", and threw up all over the floor.
His heats still make him puke. He throws up until he gets something inside himself. His stupid body makes no sense because if it wants a knot that badly, maybe something like, oh, he doesn't know, a lack of puke might help that happen, but it is what it is.
(It's only a knot that helps. Emily has tried fisting him, easing her entire hand inside him while he sobbed into a pillow, and it takes the edge off, but it's not enough.)
"Okay, honey," Emily says. She allows him to stay there for a moment longer, leaning against her, before she pulls away. "Let's get you home, okay?"
"Yeah," he says. It'll all be okay once he's home. Well, no, it will be a damp sweaty hell, but at least he'll be in his own house, in his own nest, where no one but Emily can see or hear or smell him.
But when he stands, the room sways. He grits his teeth and waits for it to pass, but it doesn't. The swaying turns to spinning, and he sits back down heavily. "Fuck," he says.
"Murph," Emily says, careful and gentle, the way she always is when breaking news that he isn't going to want to hear. He squeezes his eyes shut, knowing what she's going to say. His stomach rolls. "You're not going to make it home. Let's get you to a—"
"No," he says. The thought of walking down the halls to a heat room, everyone seeing, everyone knowing, is unbearable. He shivers, armpits damp with sweat. He’s flushed and cold all at once, chills beginning to rack through him. He tugs his cardigan tighter around himself.
"I'm not driving you home like this," she says. "You're heat-sick and being stuck in the car for an hour won't help." She's stubborn, in the unmoving way that she only gets when it's about someone she loves. He wraps a hand around her leg, tugs her close again, hunches his back so he can rest his forehead against her hip.
"I just want to stay here," he says. "I don't—I can't."
That's a lie. He can. Sometimes, Murph says can't when he really means won't.
He feels the rise and fall of her belly as she takes a breath. "Hon," she says, fingers back in his hair, and he wishes that this was enough for his stupid body. She's his wife, she should be enough. She is enough, it’s him that’s the problem. "There aren't any toys in here."
If he was more prepared, if he'd actually paid attention this morning and thought about how shitty his body felt and what it might mean, he would have brought something with him. Even a single dildo would be enough to get him through the first phase of his heat, working himself through a knotted orgasm or two until he could stumble to the car and go home. He bites Emily's hip through her dress and she tugs at his hair, half affection, half warning. "Can you—" There's an omegan whine at the edge of his voice. He clears his throat until he's sure he can control it. "Can you fetch some for me?"
His skin crawls, sweaty and chilled. He hates asking it. He hates communal toys. Hates the thought of them, hates the rare occasion he's had to use them. He knows they're cleaned thoroughly, knows that omegas all over the world use them without issue, but it makes bile rise in his throat.
He can’t stop shivering. His glands itch and there’s a buzzing in his chest that feels like shortness of breath, like a whine that’s trying to flutter its way out of him. When Emily eases him away from her and cups his face in her hands, the world seems too bright. He would shut his eyes, but she's looking at him with so much concern that he forces himself to meet her gaze. Strong, steady. Everything he should be for her, everything he tries to be and mostly succeeds except for his fucking heats. He swallows and the click of his throat is loud and wet. His spit feels too thick. He really hopes he doesn't puke, but he knows that he probably will. He wishes he had a blanket to burrow into and hide.
"Can I get someone?" Emily says. She rubs her thumbs back and forth over his cheeks and he turns his head so he can nuzzle into the scent gland at her wrist. Some people say that betas don't smell like anything and those people are idiots. Emily smells like grass and running water and a cool breeze. He breathes a little easier, her scent enveloping him.
He tries to focus on her question. "Why?" he says. "Just—just text Sam so he knows I'm in here and he'll handle—"
"No," Emily says. "I mean." She presses her gland right under his nose, then drags it over his lips. "Can I get someone to help you through your heat?"
His stomach swoops. Anxiety, nausea, fear. He holds the fabric of her dress so that he doesn't bite at his fingers. He does his best to think through his gut saying no, no, no and his omega yelping yes, yes, yes, but he can't. It's too much, too loud, too bright. His eyes and sinuses burn. He doesn't trust himself with the decision.
But he trusts her.
"Do you think—think that's a good idea?"
"Yeah." She still has his face cupped in one hand. Her grip is almost too tight, fingers digging painfully into his cheeks and the hinge of his jaw, but it's a welcome reminder that she's here, that even if he’s about to go into heat in his dressing room, at least he’s not alone. "Baby, honey—Murph. I know this is important to you. I know you don’t want anyone to know. But." Another tug to his hair, forceful, grounding. “It will help. The sooner you get through this, the sooner I can take you home, and a knot will help, right?"
“Yeah.” It’s definitely a whine this time. Murph fastens his lips over her scent gland and sucks. "I don’t want—"
"I can get you some toys," she says. "I can find a store and buy some, but I’d have to leave you and—"
"No." He fists clench impossibly tighter, knuckles going white. "Don't leave. Stay. Please."
"I'm not leaving," she says. "Let me get someone. Someone who'll help."
He wishes he could curl up into a ball and pretend nothing is happening, pretend he can get through it all on his own. No need for an Alpha or toys. (He tried when he was a teenager. His heat lasted for nine days. He was sallow-skinned and hollow with hunger and dehydration by the end of it. The skin of his ass was chafed and raw from sitting in his own slick. His hole hurt for days afterwards, stretched impossibly wide from when he had finally snapped and stuffed himself full, stupid in his desperation, the toys too thick, his movements too rough.)
He lets go of her dress, grabs her wrist, squeezes it tight and feels her delicate bones beneath his fingers. She’s so small beside him. From a distance, people assume they’re Alpha and omega. She’s small and bright and quick; he’s tall and steady and strong. The perfect couple, the TV image of an Alpha and omega pair. He thinks about the disgust people would feel seeing him like this, sweaty and hunched up against her, relying on her protection.
(She’s so fierce. She burns with it.)
"Be quick," he says. "Don't—don't—" Don't bring someone scary, but he swallows the words down and spits pathetic pathetic pathetic at himself until he gets it together. "Don't be long."
She looks at him for too long, looks into him in the way that makes him feel naked and splayed open, belly-up, throat bared. "I won't," she says, and presses a hard kiss to his forehead before she turns and leaves the room, slipping out of the door quickly and shutting it firmly behind her so no one can see him.
The moment she's gone, Murph bites into his forearm. It helps muffle the noise he makes, a keen of hunger and fear, just like a pup left alone in his nest.