Chapter Text
Jeremy
This is perfect, Jeremy thought, as he bolted to the bathroom of the Los Angeles Titans’ locker room. A few of his teammates were being checked out by Nurse Estrada, but they called out to him when they saw him rush by.
“Cap?” the Titan’s starting dealer, Finn Miller, asked, raising his voice. “What—”
Jeremy couldn’t stop and chat, not when he was precious seconds away from hurling all the contents of his rolling stomach onto the floor.
He skidded into the bathroom and crouched down by the toilet just in time to save the custodians from an unfortunately messy clean-up job.
Fantastic, Jeremy thought again a few minutes later, as his eyes watered and his heart beat an unsteady rhythm in his chest. He wiped his clammy, shaky hands on his shorts as he waited for the next wave of nausea.
Jeremy had spent most of his teenage and college years on edge, anxiety and guilt his everlasting companions, but he didn’t think he’d ever felt this scared before, not even when his parents had finally kicked him out. He scrubbed an unsteady hand across his burning eyes, but his stomach spiked with nausea once again and he lowered his head inside the toilet so he could throw up the rest of his lunch and the entirety of his breakfast too.
Being an omega sucks, he thought angrily.
Jeremy had learned to accept his secondary gender, on account of a lot of tough counselling throughout the years, counseling he’d been loathed to admit he’d needed in a much bigger capacity than what he’d been getting at the time. Therapy, and his friends’ gentle bullying and their equally gentle care-taking had drilled into him that being an omega wasn’t something he’d ever needed to hate or regret. That, and of course Jean: his alpha had helped Jeremy rein in the rest of his self-loathing. It was impossible to hate yourself too cruelly when your partner was the kind of man Jean was.
In that moment though, Jeremy hated himself with such an unexpected vehemence he was sorely tempted to claw out his mating gland —and his uterus.
On the tail end of that rage was soul-crushing sadness and yeah— surprise, surprise: guilt. His everlasting companion, back from the dead, clawing itself out of the grave Jeremy had thought long buried.
Through the shrill, discordant ringing in his ears and his own loud retching, Jeremy heard the door to the bathroom being opened. His shoulders tensed in anticipation, but he recognized the intruder’s scent almost immediately, and his body deflated just a little. Relief brought about a wave of bone-deep exhaustion.
"Jeremy, what's the matter?" Laila asked, wariness in her tone as she took in the state Jeremy was in.
Jeremy turned his head to look at her, but the movement brought his nausea roaring back. He shoved his head inside the toilet seat just in time.
Laila’s scent spiked with sudden alarm and she crouched down on the bathroom floor next to him, stroking back his hair as Jeremy hurled up more bile, the stinging acid rushing up his throat and nose and making a mess of his face.
Ugh, charming, Jeremy thought as he tried to steady his churning stomach. He took deep breath, but his eyes were stinging —either from the bile or from a slowly gathering slew of frustrated tears— and he knew his scent was probably all over the place, a mixture of anger and sadness and distress. He was probably stinking up the whole locker room, too.
Jeremy had gotten better at allowing the people around him to help. At 28, Jeremy could recognize just how much he'd improved in letting the people who cared about him in, beyond the thick walls he'd erected around his heart. But he still had trouble with feeling —being— vulnerable, and the idea that his teammates and his coaches would immediately guess that he was upset and scared, made his skin feel so tight he had the sudden, unbearable urge to scratch himself raw.
Laila caught his hand before he started digging unforgiving fingers in his forearms, and she squeezed reassuringly as she waited for Jeremy’s dry-heaving to cease.
"Jeremy," Laila muttered an eternity later, when he'd gotten himself back under control. The omega handed him a damp towel so he could wipe his face. "Are you sick? Do I need to get Nurse Estrada?”
"I—” Jeremy closed his eyes. He didn’t want to lie, not when he’d spent years trying to get better at being more truthful, but he knew that what he was about to reveal would complicate everything. He knew it would complicate his standing with his team, and he knew it would complicate —or shatter, a traitorous, unforgiving voice in his head suggested— his relationship with Jean.
He finally settled on: “You can’t say anything, Laila. Nobody can know— yet.”
Laila furrowed her eyebrows, and her scent spiked again, anxiety and caution almost overriding a tinge of the very familiar frustration she'd sported throughout most of their college years. Jeremy shook his head, trying to dislodge the memories of all the times he’d made her feel exactly like her scent was suggesting.
She nodded slowly as Jeremy prompted her with another quick squeeze of his fingers.
Here goes nothing, he thought as he geared himself up to admit a truth he didn’t think he’d ever feel ready to voice out loud.
“My heat is late," Jeremy confessed, voice wobbly and thin even to his own ears.
That was an understatement.
His heat was very, very late.
"What?" Laila exclaimed, as her eyes lowered to Jeremy's stomach. "Do you mean—"
"Yeah."
“How? Jean—” Laila closed her eyes and winced. “Jean doesn’t know?” she asked flatly, knowing full well what answer she’d be getting from Jeremy.
He still grimaced, guilt sitting heavier and heavier in his stomach as more startled seconds passed by.
Just when Jeremy was about to break that unbearable silence, Laila asked, “How? How can he not know? You live together.”
“I’m just a few weeks along, and— okay, maybe not a few weeks, more like— yes, Laila, I’ve been using blockers.”
“Jeremy Alan,” she said, incredulously. “You are not that stupid.”
That’s a blast from the past, Jeremy thought, recalling how many times he’d made his friends despair in college.
This particular brand of blockers he’d been using allowed his emotions to bleed through but suppressed all other scents related to heats and pregnancies. So basically, they were more for an alpha’s benefit than the omega’s. He’d been using them off and on since his teenage years, ever since he’d first presented as an omega and Mathilda had told him, “You smell disgraceful. Warren can’t afford to be distracted right now.”
The sting of that conversation still hadn’t faded from his memory. Jeremy doubted it ever would.
“I know, Laila.” His eyes were burning much more strongly now. He felt a few stray tears escape from the corner of his eyes as he screwed them shut.
“I don’t think you do, Jeremy,” Laila said flatly, but the hand she carded through his hair was gentle. She stroked his scalp, like she’d done a million times before, and then she settled on the floor and brought his head towards her chest. “Blockers are dangerous to pregnant omegas. You know this, right?”
“Yes, I know, Laila!” Jeremy snapped and then winced. “They're dangerous after the two-month mark, and I’m not there yet,” Jeremy added pointedly as Laila raised his eyebrows at him sardonically.
After a moment of stilted silence, she finally asked, “You don’t want to keep it?”
“I— I don’t know.”
That was a lie. Jeremy did want to keep it. He desperately wanted to have Jean’s baby, and he wanted to be a dad, and he wanted to be a dad with Jean —with his partner, with his alpha. But Jeremy didn’t know what Jean thought of it, at all.
Jean’s life was already so complicated: his deal with the Moriyamas, his love and hate relationship with Exy, his brutally unfair past. He was already saddled with far too many burdens. Jeremy didn’t want to be a burden to him any more than he already was. He didn't want to steal more of Jean's life away. But—
That was exactly what Jeremy did, wasn’t it? He took and took and took, selfishly and greedily and endlessly, from every single person around him, and to hell with all the consequences. His parents had realized, and no wonder they didn’t want him around anymore, right? No wonder Trent hadn’t wanted to get to know him, not even after Jeremy had fallen to pieces his final senior year. No wonder he hadn’t been able to save Noah—
Jeremy cut off that line of thinking so fast he felt dizzy.
No, stop it, he thought firmly.
I didn’t deserve what they did to me, he added sternly. Noah’s death wasn’t my fault.
The truth of those statements felt a little too shaky, despite him being so far away from his parents’ claws, but Jeremy decided he’d give himself some slack. He was pregnant; he deserved a little self-pity party, didn’t he?
He tried to suppress the hysterical laugh building up in his throat, but he must have not been successful because Laila took hold of his shoulders so she could search his face.
“Jere?” Laila asked, sounding and smelling a little scared herself now.
“No. I— I would like to keep— it. My baby,” he said, the words feeling as alien on his tongue as the Arabic Laila spoke. “But Jean—”
“Stop that. I know what you’re thinking. He loves you, Jeremy. He loves you to fucking pieces. Most importantly, he deserves to know this. You can’t keep it from him.”
“I know,” Jeremy said quietly. “I wouldn’t do that to him, not with his past— but I guess… I thought this conversation could wait a few more years, at least. We haven’t ever talked about kids, and— what if he doesn’t want one? Or—” Jeremy’s mind went blank for half a second, before overflowing with sudden, gut-wrenching fear. Laila must have scented his dip in mood, because she squeezed his shoulders a little tighter as he continued. “What if he’s not okay with having a kid, but he sticks with it for my sake, and then I’m yet another person in his life chaining him up and forcing him to be something he isn’t, and he’ll resent me forever, and he'll start hating me and— it would kill me. Laila, it would kill me.” Jeremy was too powerless to stop the tears building up behind his eyes from falling, and then he was sobbing into her arms.
He realized he also couldn’t breathe when he tried filling his screaming lungs with oxygen. His insides clenched so hard he felt faint and then he was choking, and he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe, he’d never been able to breath, and maybe this was what dying felt like because he knew it, he knew it as much as he knew his own scent, that he was dying, he was dying, he was—
“Jeremy, breathe,” Laila muttered as he tried in vain to get him to follow her slow, deep inhales and exhales. When that didn’t work, Laila wound her arms around him and brought him in towards her chest, shushing him and stroking his hair, like she’d done so many times before. Her arms were a comforting weight around him, and her scent smelled —felt— like home, like safety, like family.
After what felt like an eternity, Jeremy finally managed to inhale a deep enough breath to quiet the rattling in his chest. He took another one, just in case.
And another one.
“All good?” Laila asked, still stroking his hair absent-mindedly.
“Yeah,” he lied when he trusted himself enough to speak without his voice cracking. “What should I do, Laila?”
“You should tell him. He deserves to know,” Laila repeated, firmly. She took hold of his shoulders in a silent bid for him to lift his head. Laila studied him, the intensity in her gaze disquieting. “You know how much he loves you, Jeremy. Why don’t you trust him yet? You’ve been together for five years. I get—"
“You know full well, Laila. Leo—” Jeremy started, but the rock lodged in his throat was far too big for him to finish that sentence. He didn’t need to, because Laila’s face darkened in anger, as her scent became a whirlpool of rage.
“Jean's not Leo," Laila answered, her tone flat and forbidding.
“I know that. God, of course he’s not. Jean’s the furthest thing from—” Jeremy swallowed and closed his eyes in preparation for what he was about to say. The pain of Leo’s betrayal was so fresh and cutting it felt like it could drown him, even ten years later. He barreled on and spoke through the ice in his throat, “I never told him about Leo, Laila. What happened.”
“What, Jeremy? No, he definitely knows. I was there when he met Leo—”
“Yeah, he knows about Leo. But he doesn’t— he knows that Leo accepted a car from Warren. He knows that it hurt me so badly I didn’t think I’d ever trust another man again. He knows about that. I just— I never told him about the miscarriage.”
“What?” Laila exclaimed, shock briefly overtaking the anger.
“I was too ashamed, Laila,” Jeremy whispered. “If I told him about the miscarriage, I’d have to tell him that I’m a defective omega too.”
“Jeremy,” Laila said. “You’re not.”
“I am, Laila, though, aren’t I?” Jeremy asked, a little sharply. “The doctors told me they doubted I’d ever carry a baby to term.”
“No, Jeremy,” Laila said, in a cutting tone far sharper than his own. “First of all, your worth as an omega has nothing to do with your ability to carry children. Second— that dinosaur of a so-called doctor Mathilda hand-picked for you told you this. The real doctor we went to afterwards told you you’d be at high risk, but that bringing a baby to term was possible if you were careful and took all the necessary precautions. That’s a whole different thing, and I know this because I was there with you.”
Despite her harsh tone and words, her dark eyes were gentle, and her scent still tinged with faint sadness. Jeremy knew she was right; the second —and third and fourth— opinion he’d gotten after his disastrous freshman year had confirmed that, yes, Jeremy had fertility issues and that yes, he was at high risk for miscarriages, but he could, in theory, have a baby.
He just needed to be extra vigilant.
Unfortunately, Jeremy was still very bad at taking care of himself, much to Jean and Laila’s ongoing despair. He’d finally gotten help with his insomnia and the lingering vestiges of self-harm after leaving his house for the final time, and a new therapist had done wonders for his mental health, but he still had a tendency to run himself ragged into the ground, especially if the guilt he’d carried around for most of his life came roaring back.
And this? This was a prime example of it.
He sighed deeply and dislodged Laila’s hands to rub at his blood-shot, burning eyes. “Yeah, but Laila— it’s not fair to even ask Jean to—deal with this. With me. What happens if he’s—” Jeremy swallowed at the thought. “If he’s happy about it? About having a baby, and then— and then I miscarry.”
“Jeremy, he wouldn’t blame you for it. You know that, right?”
“No, but he’d know— he’d know I’m a failure. He’d know that Mom and Warren and Bryson and Joshua were right about me. He’d know that Leo was right to leave me and—”
“Jeremy,” Laila said, sadly. “Come here.” She hugged him close, squeezing him for an endless minute. “You know that’s not true. Leo left because he was a coward and a dickhead, a sorry excuse of an alpha and an even sorrier excuse of a man.” After a second, she added: “I’m sorry he hurt you. I’m sorry he’s still hurting you.”
Jeremy nodded against her shoulder.
“But Jeremy— you can’t keep this from Jean. If something happens,” she said quietly, as if afraid to speak it into existence, her voice gentle and tentative. “It would kill him. He’d blame himself for it, and it would kill him. You need to give him the chance to take care of you. Please.”
Laila’s words came crashing down onto his heart like an anvil. Jeremy closed his eyes, mind churning, feeling sick and miserable and guilty. But any way he looked at it, Laila was right.
Jean would be devastated to learn that something had happened to Jeremy’s —their— baby without him knowing about it beforehand. And it wasn’t like Jeremy could keep a pregnancy from him, right? Yet alone a miscarriage. They lived in the same house. They shared a bathroom. They shared a bed. Jean had learned to read Jeremy —and his scent— like a book. There was no way he’d remain clueless, and if he realized what had happened to Jeremy after the fact? He’d be devastated. He’d feel betrayed, but he’d also blame himself.
Jean had always been protective of his friends, ever since joining the Trojans. That protective streak of his, an alpha attribute Jean had learned to suppress in the Nest but had bloomed under the Trojans’ care, had only gotten more intense with Jeremy, even before they’d started dating. Jean was extraordinarily protective of Jeremy, and Jeremy knew this; he loved it too. He loved being taken care of, despite how many months it had taken him to admit it. Accepting help was still an ongoing battle, but the pleasure that flooded his body every time Jean took care of him —protected him— was too sweet and far too addicting to ever let go of.
Jeremy couldn’t keep this from him. And if that meant telling him the truth about what had happened with Leo, so be it.
And if he leaves you for it? the deeply insecure, self-loathing part of Jeremy’s brain that still reared its ugly head when he least expected it, whispered. Jeremy tried ignoring that voice, but he was far too panicked and afraid to silence it completely.
If he leaves me, so be it.
Jeremy wasn’t in the habit of keeping people chained to him, and if Jean ultimately decided he couldn’t deal with this, with Jeremy, with a baby who might not even survive— well, Jean would leave, and Jeremy would nod in acceptance and tell him, I understand. He’d smile at Jean with all the grace he could muster. He’d give Jean the way out, even though it might kill him.
“You okay, baby?” Laila whispered against his hair.
“Never been better,” Jeremy whispered back. Laila pulled one of his locks in retaliation for the blatant lie, but her scent was still threaded with sadness.
He straightened up after an endless minute, and told her, a little more serious, a little more honest. “Yeah. You’re right, Laila. I’ll tell him tonight.”
“Good,” she said, smiling at him softly. “You’ll see. Everything will be alright.”
“I hope so,” Jeremy said, rubbing his face with a trembling hand.
Laila got to her feet, and she held out a hand to him. “Come on, let’s get you back to Court before Jean sends in a search squad. Or god forbid, Matt.”
Jeremy laughed out loud while Laila hauled him to his feet —a whole lot gentler than usual, he thought— amused despite the anxiety tearing his stomach to shreds. “You’re right. He would, wouldn’t he?”
Matt Boyd didn’t have any rank on their team —yet— but the alpha didn’t need it to act like a worried mother hen. He and Jeremy had become immediate friends when Matt had transferred to the Titans at the start of last season. Jeremy had met him briefly in passing before, during their games in college and then in their pro careers, and he’d always seemed like a decent guy. His height had been a challenge Jeremy as a player couldn’t help but feel exited for, and the man had always been unflappably kind to him.
Then, one year and a half ago, Matt signed a contract with the Titans, and it had taken the two of them half an hour to become friends.
“We can’t be best friends, though! I can’t betray Neil,” Matt had muttered to him when they’d exchanged phone numbers, a sparkle in his dark brown eyes.
“No worries. Laila would kill me if I she knew I was replacing her,” Jeremy had replied.
He’d laughed in delight when Matt had said, “Yeah, I can’t help you there. She’s scary, man. I’ve already survived a dangerous goalie once before; I can’t do it again.”
Matt didn’t have any rank on the team yet, but rumor was it that Gabriel Dubois, their vice-captain, was leaving after this season —thankfully. The backliner was good, but he had a mean streak to him that Jeremy’s Trojan heart couldn’t bear. Jeremy would be the first one in line pushing for Matt to be his replacement.
He shook his head, dislodging thoughts of the future. Who knew if Jeremy would be around by the time Gabriel finally left? Even if —if— everything went well, he’d have to take paternity leave and then who knew if—
Okay, enough, he thought firmly.
Laila must have smelled the sudden spike of fear in him, because she wound an arm around his waist and squeezed, steering him outside the bathroom.
Nurse Estrada cut them off before they reached the doors leading into inner Court, a worried frown on her face. “Jeremy, were you sick? Do you want to step inside the examination room?” the beta asked, tilting her head to study him more closely.
“No, Nurse. I think it was something I ate,” Jeremy lied swiftly, earning himself a faint warning pinch to the ribs by Laila. Estrada didn’t look convinced, but she let him go with a pointed warning to step off Court immediately if he started feeling unwell.
“Jeremy,” Laila whispered to him, when they settled down in inner Court to wait for one of their coaches to notice their return. “You’ll have to tell the staff too. Management needs to know.”
“I know.” Jeremy groaned. “I’m going to book a scan and a blood test. I’ll tell them when— if the doctor confirms it.”
Laila didn’t reply, but she kissed his shoulder in comfort. She let go of him when Coach Zahra Hussein, the Titans’ head coach, banged at the window separating inner Court from Court proper in a bid to get their asses in gear.
“Here we go,” Jeremy said, plastering a smile on his face.
Laila rolled her eyes at him, but she still managed to whisper, quiet with an undercurrent of anxiety in her voice, “Don’t run yourself ragged, okay? We’ll tell them you’re sick.”
“Yes,” Jeremy said back. “I wouldn’t endanger— it, okay? Trust me.”
“That’s what you told me our fifth year in college, and then you crashed your car and cracked your skull in two places.”
“I thought we weren’t talking about that unfortunate incident, Laila.”
“Well, suck it up. I’m your best friend, Jeremy. I’m allowed to be worried,” Laila said. She’d put her helmet back on, but Jeremy could still hear the wobble in her voice.
“I know, Laila. I’m sorry,” he said, putting his own helmet on and gathering his racquet from where he’d haphazardly thrown it in his rush to the bathroom. “I’ll be careful, okay? It’s not just me now.”
“You better remember that,” Laila warned him, raising her racquet on her shoulder. “Ready?”
As soon as they stepped foot on Court, Hussein whistled the other Titans to a stop. A few of the closest players called out to him, their scents threaded with confusion and curiosity.
“Hey, you good man?” Matt asked, walking over to him. Jeremy had been his partner for this particular scrimmage, so he must have been wondering what had set Jeremy off.
Jeremy opened his mouth, ready to spout out a breezy reassurance, when a familiar scent, mouthwatering and delicious to Jeremy’s omega body despite the cloying worry interwoven into it, made him sway on his feet, his anxiety melting away beneath bone-shattering relief.
Alpha, alpha, my alpha, his body sang.
He turned towards Jean like a flower searching out the sun.
His relief was short-lived though, because the nausea he hadn’t been able to shake since this morning made a reappearance. He swallowed convulsively, closing his eyes in a desperate bid to keep his stomach steady.
Please, not now, he thought, groaning softly in frustration.
A gloved hand wrapping around his bicep had him reopening his eyes. Jean stood in front of him, face unreadable except for the frown lines between his eyebrows. “Jeremy?” Jean asked. “Are you well?”
Jeremy nodded, a little too winded to reply.
Jean hummed in thought, before looking over Jeremy’s shoulder. “Laila? What happened?”
Laila was quiet for long enough Jeremy had to resist the urge to look over his shoulder and silently beg. Jeremy didn’t want Jean to start worrying now, not when Jeremy still wasn’t sure how to tell him the truth.
In the end, Laila muttered, “Everything is fine, Jean.” She squeezed Jeremy’s shoulder, before striding over to goal.
Jean sent Jeremy a quizzical look, the frown lines marring his face deepening. He sniffed the air around Jeremy and his eyes shadowed in uncertainty at whatever he must have gotten from Jeremy’s scent.
Please, Jeremy thought silently. Not now.
Thankfully, Coach Hussein whistled for their scrimmages to start again and the sudden, jarring noise broke the tension between them. She called loudly, “Get moving! We’ve got a game to win next Friday.”
Jeremy tangled his fingers through the ones Jean still had curled around his bicep and tugged them away, squeezing in reassurance. “I’m okay. I’ll tell you later,” Jeremy promised in French, heart beating a hole through his chest.
Jean studied his face for an endless minute. He nodded at long last, letting Jeremy go with a quiet, “Okay, chéri.”
Jeremy watched him stride towards his own scrimmage partner, his heart heavy with anxiety. Matt, who’d stood in silence next to him for the whole brief conversation, asked him quietly, “Are you sure you’re good? You don't smell— okay.”
“Yeah, Matt. I’ll tell you too, okay? Just— not now.”
“Sure, Jere. I’ll go easy on you though, eh?” Matt said, knocking on Jeremy’s helmet playfully.
“Oh, I see,” Jeremy said, laughing out loud, feeling the weight lift off his chest for a brief, glorious moment. “You’ll go easy on me? I don’t think so, my friend.” He sent Matt a halfhearted grin and a wink, before jogging to catch up to his teammates.
Jeremy managed to bury the dread his looming conversation with Jean had kindled deep in his gut for the rest of the day, but by the time their coaches let the team off in the early evening, it came roaring back with sudden, startling intensity.
Jeremy had been showering off the sweat of their practice, nodding along to Gabriel’s suggestions about their upcoming game when his gaze had lowered and fallen to his flat stomach.
He swallowed and closed his eyes, blocking out the sight of his body. Jeremy knew it was far too early for his pregnancy to show —Jean had knocked him up during Jeremy’s last heat, and that had been about seven weeks ago— but Jeremy couldn’t help the instinctive fear that chocked him when he thought about the fact that his body might never show signs of a baby growing.
“Knox?” Gabriel said in a hard voice as his hand clamped down on Jeremy’s bare shoulder. “Are you even listening?”
“Yeah,” Jeremy said, shrugging off the alpha’s hand before his skin started crawling. “You were saying?”
His unease must have bled through his voice, because Gabriel studied him shrewdly for an endless, uncomfortable minute before taking a step towards him and scenting the air around him so brazenly Jeremy couldn’t help but recoil into the cold, damp shower tiles.
The impact knocked the breath out of him —or maybe that was Gabriel crowding him against the tiles— and he scowled up at the backliner. “That’s not—”
“Freak,” Gabriel muttered, interrupting Jeremy’s attempted rebuke. “Why is your scent so— You don’t even smell like an omega anymore. It’s all Moreau’s bullshit pheromones.”
“That’s not your business,” Jeremy told him pointedly. “Please, could you—” he trailed off meaningfully, gesturing to the space between them.
Gabriel curled his lips up in disgust, but he huffed and turned around, exiting the showers altogether.
Jeremy let out a quiet sigh of relief. He searched the empty shower, grateful no one had been around for that conversation with Gabriel.
Jeremy raised his arm towards his nose and sniffed at his wrist. He frowned as he considered what had happened.
It was true that Jean tended to scent-mark him quite thoroughly. The apartment they shared together was soaked in Jean’s alpha pheromones, just like Jeremy’s clothes, his car, their furniture and all their belongings. Every single inch of Jeremy’s skin was seeped in his scent. He tried not to shove what they’d been up to in his teammates’ faces but Jeremy wasn’t ever going to police Jean’s need to mark him up for the world to see.
Not that Jeremy minded it. The opposite, actually.
After so many years being and smelling packless, his own parents treating scent-marking as a reward when Jeremy was deemed good enough or withholding it until he’d behaved, a weapon and a warning all in one, it was reminder that he finally belonged to someone. After so many years of feeling unmoored and lost, having Jean’s scent to ground him, anchor him to the earth when his body and mind needed it the most, was something he’d always crave. He’d gladly spend the rest of his years basking in Jean’s delicious scent.
It helped that Jeremy’s own scent had always been a little more subdued —years spent making himself smaller and more appealing to his very alpha family had left him with a scar or two, and his body still hadn’t managed to let go of that shield. When the bad days, with their snarling, nightmarish memories, came knocking on the doors of his mind, it was nearly impossible to let go of that instinctive need to protect himself. Sometimes it got so bad that even Jean, who’d learned to read Jeremy’s body language and scent like a book, struggled to parse through the walls Jeremy’s body erected to keep himself safe.
His blockers should have kept him safe too, but the sudden, encroaching fear that Gabriel had sensed something different about Jeremy was impossible to shake. The thought that he’d been paying this much attention to Jeremy’s scent in general, was— unsettling.
I have to tell Jean, Jeremy thought, shaking his head forcefully. Before Gabriel mentioned something to him and ruined everything. Besides, Laila was right. Blockers of any kind started to become toxic to pregnant omegas right around the two-month mark, and Jeremy was running out of time.
He sighed heavily, trying not to think about how he’d be giving up on yet another shield between himself and the world, and quickly rinsed off in the shower.
Back in the locker room, Jeremy dressed and went in search of Jean, Laila and Cat, calling out goodbyes to his fellow teammates. A few notable things had changed since their college years, but Jeremy still couldn’t take a short shower to save his life. It wasn’t totally his fault— his captain’s duties had included, and still included, checking in with his teammates, and showers were a prime time for that.
He finally found his friends leaning against the door leading to the parking lot. The three of them must have been gossiping about their teammates, because Jeremy walked in on Cat’s cackling laughter and Jean sporting a vaguely alarmed face. Laila caught sight of him, and waved him over with a muttered, “Finally. We were about to send in search and rescue.”
Jeremy smiled at her in exasperation. “Captain duties, Laila.”
“I think—” Jean said, latching onto Jeremy’s hand as soon as Jeremy was in grabbing distance, “—our teammates should learn to bother you outside of the shower.”
“Yeah, when he’s not naked, am I right?” Cat said, with a conspiring smirk. “Nabil told me Gabriel kept you in there for ages.”
Jeremy rolled his eyes. “He’s my vice-captain, Cat. If he has suggestions—”
“Not for long, hopefully,” Jean growled, interrupting him. “The Titans should have never promoted that half-witted clown. He does not play this game the right way. He doesn’t belong on this team. I can’t wait for him to go and sully some other unfortunate lineup.”
“I know,” Jeremy said quietly, earning a startled glance from Laila and slanted eyebrows from Jean for that uncharacteristic display of disloyalty. Jeremy ignored them both and added, “I’ve heard rumors the Seattle Sharks are poaching him, so fingers crossed, yeah? Hopefully Matt will take his place next season.”
“God, let’s hope so,” Cat said fervently, picking up the pace once they reached the parking lot. “Oh, by the way, what happened—”
“Come on, babe,” Laila interrupted Cat, pulling her towards where their car was parked. “I’m starving. We’ll drop you off at home, okay? I need to give our little baby a million smooches.”
“Yes,” Cat exclaimed excitedly, too distracted by the idea of seeing Jabberwocky to realize that Laila had subtly changed the subject. “I’ve got a new toy for him in the trunk! Jean, he is going to love it—”
“I think not,” Jean said. “The pest has way too many toys as it is.”
Cat let out a string of exasperated Spanish, before dragging the backliner towards the trunk. “Look—”
Jeremy tuned out their bickering and turned a grateful look on Laila for the save. “I’ll tell her after I tell Jean, okay?”
“Of course,” Laila said quietly, as she got the car unlocked and the both of them climbed in. She turned towards him and added, “She’s gonna spoil your baby like you wouldn’t believe, you know that right?”
Jeremy laughed, a new burst of anxiety sitting heavy in his stomach. He rubbed a hand across his abdomen, swallowing. “I hope so, Laila.”
Laila opened her mouth, but whatever she was about to say was drowned out by Cat’s words as she climbed into the passenger seat. “Jeremy, you need to tell your pigheaded alpha not to be such a stingy sourpuss.”
Jean muttered out a string of French curses while he got in the backseat next to Jeremy, rolling his eyes in visible exasperation. “I am not stingy. Nor a ‘sourpuss’ or whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean.”
“If you look it up, you’ll find your picture. Jean!” Cat whined. “Jabberwocky deserves to be spoiled rotten. Besides, he just turned ten. Ten! That’s a milestone we need to celebrate.”
“He turned ten four months ago. We had two parties and a gift registry and Cody forced him into a ridiculously ugly hat. You do remember that Catalina, don’t you?” Jean asked, poking her in the shoulder.
Jeremy laughed out loud. “We did. I still agree with Cat though. Jabberwocky loves his toys.”
Jean turned a betrayed look on him, but Cat whooped and turned to high-five him. “See! I knew you were the fun dad.”
“He—” Jean started.
“And you’re the mean, stingy dad.”
“I’m not—”
“When you two have kids, I’m just going to go to Jere—”
“Catalina,” Jean said, shaking his head, as Jeremy’s heart skipped a beat. Laila had been quietly chuckling until then, but Jeremy could see how still she’d gotten and how tightly she was clutching the steering wheel.
Jeremy opened his mouth —to say what, he didn’t know, and never would because Jean added, “We are not that pest’s ‘dads’. I never signed up for fatherhood—”
Jeremy tuned out the rest of his words. Memories were snarling at his heels, and he was suddenly ten years younger, standing secluded in the Foster’s back garden, while Leo, face pinched with something that was either embarrassment or plain irritation, told him about the deal Warren had offered him. “I’m sorry,” he’d said flatly, not meaning the apology at all. “You’re a great lay, but I never signed up for this, you know? I really can’t be bothered to deal with it.”
It. The baby.
It. The relationship Jeremy had thought they’d built together; the love Jeremy had recklessly thrown at Leo’s feet.
It. Jeremy himself.
It was funny how the feeling of betrayal never really went away. It kept you ensnared, a rabbit stuck in a trap, wires that dug painfully sharp and painfully tight, breath catching and stilling as your throat and lungs worked against the inevitable heading your way. Jeremy was still that rabbit, stuck and struck, foolishly and naively hoping for a different outcome. The reminder cut him to pieces, as if Leo’s betrayal had happened yesterday instead of ten years ago.
Jeremy startled back to the present when he felt a hand on his knee. Jeremy flinched back into the seat, and turned a wild look on Leo— no, Jean.
“Jeremy?” Jean asked, tilting his head to the side. “Are you still feeling unwell?”
“I—” Jeremy turned a look towards Laila, but he didn’t want to risk catching sight of the sympathy in her gaze. He closed his eyes, willing the burning tears he could feel gathering away.
Jean touched his chin, the pressure of his fingers as familiar as Jeremy's own, branded into his skin after so many years of casual touches. He reopened his eyes but fixed his stare somewhere south of Jean’s questioning gaze.
Jeremy inhaled softly and tried to rein in his scent.
His body was an impenetrable tower; it was a fortress; it was walls keeping his soft-bellied self contained. It was an underground vault. It was a cage, keeping his toxic scent away —far away— from the people at risk of exposure.
You smell disgraceful, Mathilda's voice whispered disdainfully in his ear. Have you no shame?
Jeremy exhaled and felt something inside of him lock. A door slamming closed.
“Yes, I’m—” He coughed to clear his throat from the rock lodged into it. “I think I’m just tired. I need an early night.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Cat assured him, turning around in her seat to squeeze his leg. “We’ll drop off Jab’s gift and leave you be.”
“Sure,” Jeremy said, miles and years away from this conversation.
Back at their apartment —Laila and Cat had found their own place a while ago, so it was just Jeremy and Jean and Jabberwocky in the Lofts—and Jean’s plants, of course— Cat and Laila fell to their knees to cuddle their dog.
“Can you guess what it is?” Cat asked Jabberwocky in a high-pitched baby voice, as Jean rolled his eyes.
“He is not going to answer you,” Jean said, but a smile tugged at his lips as Cat presented Jabberwocky with a horse-shaped toy and flung it towards the living room. Jabberwocky barked and skidded over to it, his tail wagging a mile a minute.
As the girls and Jean chuckled, Jeremy tried to fix his face into the mask he’d worn for so many years. It shouldn’t have been so difficult to conjure it up, not when by the time Jeremy’s final year in college rolled around it had felt like a second skin, but Jean’s gentle loving and Cat and Laila’s stubborn care had corrupted the mask beyond repair.
It was no surprise then when Jean came over to him, and asked him in low French, “Are you sure you are well? You look—"
“Yes,” Jeremy replied in the same language. “I’m fine, Jean. A little tired, is all.”
Jean didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t try to keep Laila and Cat around for dinner, even though he’d preprepared enough food for the four of them. Jeremy felt the familiar weight of guilt settle over him—of course, the mask he’d worn for years didn’t fit anymore, but that familiar armor of guilt came on as easily as a well-worn T-shirt.
He looked away, swallowing. Laila must have seen him struggle, because she walked over as Jean and Cat said their goodbyes and tugged him in for a brief hug. “We’ll leave you be, okay?” She smiled at him in encouragement, but that smile turned into a frown a split second later. She narrowed her eyes at him when he looked away guiltily. He wasn’t going to tell Jean tonight, and she knew it. “Jeremy—”
“Laila,” Jeremy warned her. Laila shook her head and turned to study Jean and Cat. “He didn’t mean it like that,” she murmured.
“I know,” —Jeremy didn’t— “Just— I need some time to figure out how to tell him. Soon though, okay? Tomorrow. Sunday? I swear.”
Laila clenched her jaw but only nodded. “Text me, okay? Anything you need. Anything.”
“Yes, thank you. I’ll be okay,” Jeremy promised.
“Ready?” Cat asked Laila before diving in to give Jeremy a brief hug. Her hands tightened a fraction on his hips, but she let go of him with a frown, as if she didn’t know what had triggered her touchy alpha protectiveness.
Jeremy smiled at her weakly, knowing full well Cat was going to figure it out sooner than he wanted.
Once the two of them left, Jean brought Jeremy in for a hug, burying his head into Jeremy’s neck and nosing at his scent gland. He frowned when he came up empty. “Are you sure you’re okay, chéri? Your scent—”
“Yes, baby,” Jeremy promised. “I must have picked something up. A bug maybe? I should probably sleep on the couch—”
“Don’t you dare,” Jean growled. “Go and sit down. I will get dinner warmed up.”
“Thank you, Jean,” Jeremy said, quiet and fond, despite the heaviness in his gut.
You don’t deserve him, a part of his brain whispered meanly. You tricked him into staying with you, and once he knows about the baby, he’ll be stuck with you. He’ll resent you forever. You will ruin his life. You will ruin him, like you ruined your family, like you destroyed Noah, like—
Jeremy screwed his eyes shut in a desperate bid to silence the voice in his head.
All through dinner and then later, as Jean relegated him to the couch while he washed up, Jeremy kept repeating the words he’d said so many times in therapy. He tried remembering Laila’s reassurances from before. He recalled Jean’s own words when he’d first realized how deep Jeremy’s self-loathing ran: “I get to decide what and who I deserve, not you. I choose you, Jeremy. I want you.”
Jeremy almost succeeded in convincing himself, especially when Jean murmured “I love you" against his bare shoulder later in bed, before tucking him against his hard chest.
Almost.
Every time he thought about opening his mouth, Jeremy remembered Leo. He remembered what Jean had said in the car, and the voices in his head got louder and louder, drowning out every rational thought.
He spent the night staring at the walls, his heart beating uncomfortably against his chest and his skin clammy. By the time dawn rolled around, Jeremy got himself untangled from Jean’s arms, gathered his running clothes and tip-toed to the bathroom.
This is so stupid, Jeremy thought as he dressed in a loose pair of running shorts and his USC T-shirt. He rummaged in the cabinet and found the blockers he’d been using. He stared at the small nondescript bottle, his throat painfully dry, but put it back on the shelf before he was tempted into swallowing one.
Slippery slope, he thought, before looking down at his flat stomach. He sighed heavily, knowing full well it would kill him to put his baby in danger more than he’d already done.
He gathered his keys, and left their apartment for a long, meandering run before Jean noticed the missing body in their bed.
Saturday was mostly a repeat of Friday, except for the questioning frowns Jean kept throwing Jeremy and the bland, reassuring smiles Jeremy kept tossing back.
That night Jeremy didn’t sleep at all, of course. He got up around three and stole the couch from Jabberwocky, who nestled against his hip with an annoyed huff.
Sunday was an exact repeat of Saturday, except Jeremy had to leave their apartment to throw up behind the bushes outside the Lofts and Jean’s frowns turned worried. He also had at least fifty unread texts on his phone from Laila; he was too afraid to even look at them, so he powered down his phone.
Jeremy knew he couldn’t avoid her any longer, considering they had practice on Monday. He also knew that Jean’s frowns would turn frantic if he kept up his strange behavior any longer, and that the space he always gifted Jeremy so that he could work through his feelings wouldn’t last much longer. Besides, the effect of the last blocker Jeremy had ingested would have started dissipating by now —one pill could last up to 72 hours— and then Jean would know he was pregnant by scent alone.
The thought of Jean smelling the truth on him had Jeremy leaving their bed at four in the morning. He left Jean a note and then got dressed and toed into his running shoes. His nausea seemed to have granted him a reprieve for now, but Jeremy felt unease slither down his spine as he left the apartment.
This is stupid, Jeremy thought again as he started jogging down the side of the road in the gray light of early dawn.
An hour later, sweat dripping into his eyes, strangely winded by a run that should have been a walk in the park for an athlete, Jeremy paused just as his phone started ringing with the tone he’d set for Jean.
This is very stupid, Jeremy thought again as he thought about what to do.
The call fell through before he could decide.
Jeremy was halfway through typing out a perfectly reassuring reply —“All good! Went for a run. Meet you at the stadium <3"— when his vision doubled.
Jeremy swayed on his feet, scrambling for the nearest surface to keep himself upright. He grabbed onto a bench as his stomach rolled and then something yanked at his insides and a sharp, nauseating pain had him bending over in a desperate attempt to soothe his burning insides.
Another sharp bolt of pain had his vision graying at the edges.
Or maybe that was the sudden, startling wave of tears of pain and despair because the sharpness tearing up his abdomen was sickeningly familiar.
Ten years ago, when he’d miscarried Leo’s —his— baby on his way home from school, he’d felt something similar.
Please, please, not this, Jeremy thought desperately.
He clutched his lower abdomen, wrapping his arms around his body as if he could keep his —Jean’s— baby safe. He would have fallen to the ground when another sharp bolt of pain pierced through him, except someone grabbed hold of his arms, grip gentle and careful.
Jeremy recognized the alpha’s scent immediately. “Matt?” Jeremy mumbled when the sharp crest of pain passed. “What are you doing here?”
“What am I— I live around here, and I was up early because Dan— yeah, unimportant. Jeremy— whoa,” Matt exclaimed as Jeremy stumbled into him. He tightened his grip on Jeremy’s biceps and asked, “Are you okay, man? Should—” Matt paused for an endless heartbeat, but he must have smelled whatever was going on in Jeremy’s body because he exclaimed, startled, “You’re pregnant.”
“Matt—”
“No, fuck. You don’t smell right. Are you—” Matt’s words were drowned out by the deafening rush of blood in Jeremy’s ears. He swallowed convulsively, trying to keep his nausea restrained, trying to keep his scent from breaking free, trying to keep his body from breaking down.
It was no use, though. Jeremy felt his tenuous control slip and stumble and slide, as everything that made up who he was unraveled, one frayed piece at a time.
“Matt, please, I need—” Jeremy tried to say. “Please, I need—” Jean, a hospital, this baby to stay alive, a better body, Jean, this baby, to be a better omega, Jean, their baby to be alive—
Matt shushed his mumbling. He let go of Jeremy's biceps and wrapped an arm around his waist, instead. “Okay, my car’s parked nearby. Let’s get you to a hospital.”
Matt guided him towards an old truck Jeremy could barely see through the tears gathering in his eyes, and then helped him in, muttering under his breath. “Should I put your seat belt on? Oh fuck. I don’t—”
“Matt,” Jeremy panted. “I need you to hurry.”
“Okay, okay,” Matt exclaimed, rushing towards the driver’s seat. He buckled in, and then after a moment of hesitation, he reached behind them for an old, obscenely bright orange jersey. “Here, this helped when— Neil.”
“Oh,” Jeremy mumbled, while Matt threw his jersey over Jeremy’s body and then got them on the road. “He miscarried too?”
He didn’t know what his newly unraveled scent gave off just then, but Matt said, “Shut up, man. Yeah, he did, but this isn’t— we’ll get you there in time, okay?”
Jeremy nodded, his heart heavy with premature grief. He shouldered into Matt’s jersey, his alpha scent not as good as Jean’s but it still made him feel slightly steadier as Matt drove them to the nearest hospital.
Please, Jeremy thought again as they finally reached the hospital parking lot.
Please, he begged as Matt carried him towards the doors, already shouting for help.
Please, please, please.