Chapter Text
When Naim presented for the first time, he stayed in bed for four days. He told his mother he had caught something at school, a bug all his classmates had been afflicted with. The “Senior Sickness.” She didn’t believe him. It was clear on her face, the disappointment, the way her nose turned up in disgust. They both knew exactly what was wrong with him – he was the right age, he had been under more stress with final exams and university acceptances coming up. Still, his mother had nodded and left him to his devices, where he writhed in bed, pleading and begging for it to be over. His skin was boiling to the touch, his lips chapped and cracking in several places, slick dripping down his mattress and puddling on the floor below him.
His mother was a beta. His father was too. There was no lineage that made sense in his family for him to present as an omega. A male omega at that. Naim was just embarrassed by it as his mother was – and he did everything in his power to make sure it didn’t have to be a topic of conversation. He wore patches, took blockers every morning. During his heat, he shut himself away in his room and suffered in silence. Nobody would ever know that Naim Reid was an omega; that was the way he wanted it.
It wasn’t that difficult to keep a secret either. He drifted through the halls at school, practically invisible, one friend who he ate lunch with and didn’t see for the rest of the day was the only socialization he had. It was better this way. High school was almost over and Naim was waiting on acceptances from three different universities in some of the most progressive cities in the world. When he went off to school he would make friends. He wouldn’t have to hide his identity, he would be free to be himself and away from the oppressive clutches of the biblical town he had grown up in.
Still, despite acting like his…anatomy wasn’t there. It very much was.
His brain would remind him dozens of times a day, usually at the worst times too. Whenever he stood around an alpha for too long, his body would start to react. He could feel the waves of fumes leaving his body, filling the air with coconut and lime and announcing to everyone in the room that either some girl had just sprayed perfume or that there was a bitch leaking slick here. There was never the time for that distinction, as Naim had become pretty good at slipping out of rooms undetected.
The brand of patches he used were flimsy. He couldn’t afford anything higher quality, which meant his scent frequently broke through and permeated anywhere he had decided to stand for too long. Naim had done a fair share of research on his omega – nights spent locked away in his room with a big book covering the slick spot on his lap – desperately looking for any answers to stop this. To reverse it. To change the inner workings of his body and rewire his brain chemistry to be an alpha.
A big, strong, powerful alpha. Like the boys at his school, with their bulging biceps and powerful voices that boomed down the hall and filled him with arousal at the sound.
Oh yeah. If being a male omega wasn’t bad enough, Naim was also gay.
Being the only gay male omega in his town was a lonely existence. His friend, a soft spoken girl named Izzie, wasn’t even someone he could go to about his urges. She was a beta – and he wasn’t even 100% sure she was into men. It wasn’t something he was ever going to outright ask her, but considering their conversations consisted mostly of schoolwork and locker room hierarchy, it probably wasn’t important anyway.
They were sitting outside in the blistering heat. Naim didn’t want to, but he’s pretty sure his patch stopped working two hours ago. Anything to keep from raising alarm bells to his scent, and he figured sitting out here would cover him in a layer of sweat that would suppress any fruity smells.
“Look.” Izzie says, her mouth full of peanut butter and jelly. “He’s back.”
Without even turning to look, Naim already knew who she was talking about. It was Ryan. His face immediately flushed red at the sight of him in his uniform, a crisp white button down with seams struggling to keep hold around his muscular figure. Ryan was by far the hottest guy Naim had ever seen in his life. He was a typical alpha, loud and strong and rowdy and big, both in presence and in stature. But in the small glimpses Naim was able to catch of him in places where nobody was looking, he was soft. Gentle. Inquisitive. Bright even, judging by the marks on his tests that Naim would sneak off the teacher’s desk when her back was turned.
Izzie didn’t know of Naim’s crush on Ryan. Her brother, Hunter, was good friends with him, and often brought him over after school to hang out in the yard. That’s one of the reasons Naim believed that Izzie didn’t like men – she had never shown interest in Ryan.
Which, if you asked Naim, was fucking insane.
“Apparently he and his parents went out of town for a few days without telling anyone. It was weird. He won’t tell Hunter where he went.” She shoves another bite of her sandwich in her mouth. “The pastor says they went to a cleanse camp.
Naim raised a brow at her. “Cleanse camp?”
“Yeah. One of those camps where you stay for a few days and they cleanse your soul of animalistic urges? I don’t know, it’s something for alphas. I think omegas have one too, just a few miles outside of town.” She said this as if it was the most casual thing in the world.
“Oh.”
“I think those things are a bunch of horeshit anyway. You have nothing to worry about.”
Naim darts his eyes away from her piercing gaze almost instantly. The way she said it sounded like a joke, but she could tell from the look on her face it was more of a question. They had never spoken about what Naim was. Izzie had offered the information up almost without a second thought when they first met, figuring he would do the same. He hadn’t. To everyone else, Naim hadn’t presented yet. He was a late bloomer. Which was embarrassing in its own right, yes, but way less than being a male omega. Naim looks back at her now. She was waiting for confirmation. Denial. Something. The patch burned where it sat below Naim’s collar.
“My mom will probably take me to a de-cleanse camp at this rate if I don’t present soon.”
She laughs, melting back into her seat and moving on with the conversation. He lets the smile from his “joke” linger a little longer than what is probably normal. Naim enjoyed Izzie’s company as much as he could considering the circumstances, but he wished he had a dollar for every time he thought about the world beyond this one that he would be fleeing to in a few months.
As the patch on his neck starts to cool down, no longer under the scrutinizing eyes of his friend, he risks a peek over at Ryan. He’s on the basketball court with the sleeves of his uniform rolled up, dribbling a ball between his legs and laughing at something someone said to him. Suddenly, his face changes and he darts with the ball over that person and launches it up to the basket, dunking it into the net and hanging off the rim for a few seconds. He shoots a smirk over at the rest of the team, then jumps back to the ground with the agility of a cat.
Naim shifts uncomfortably in his seat as slick pours out of him and undoubtedly stains his underwear. He tries to act like nothing happened, quickly pulling his eyes from the object of his affection and bringing his knees up to his chest. Izzie has gone quiet too, following Naim’s eyes and watching the boys play on the court. They sit in a peaceful silence for a bit, which he’s thankful for. He’s trying to see if he can smell himself.
When the bell rings, he says a quick goodbye to her and shuffles over to the bathroom after stopping by his locker and shoving his change of pants in his backpack. He leaks through his clothes almost everyday, it’s become customary for him to just pack extras for his own sanity. Naim has a routine at this point – he knows what bathroom will be empty between lunches and makes a beeline for it – down the hall and behind the stairwell.
Unfortunately, today it’s not empty. Naim swings open the door and almost smacks someone in the face with it. The figure jumps back at the last second, throwing their hands up and laughing loudly.
“Woah! Easy, man!” The words are playful. His stomach sinks when he realizes it’s Ryan, shirtless. He’s standing in front of the sinks with the faucet on, his uniform shirt curled in his fists while he runs the water over a spot on the sleeve. Ryan smiles wryly at Naim, who’s still standing by the door with his mouth open in shock.
Naim clears his throat. “Sorry! Sorry – I didn't think anyone was in here.”
Again, Ryan laughs. “You keep opening doors like that, mate, you’re gonna catch a charge!”
It takes Naim a moment to realize he’s kidding. His smile isn’t malicious in the slightest; more like he told the world’s funniest joke and is waiting for everyone else to get it. Naim has to manually plaster a smile on his face that he hopes doesn’t look too weird. He has no idea how to function when he’s standing in front of Ryan like this. His chest is smooth, pecs perfectly outlined under pale skin, leading down to a tuft of hair that disappears under the belt he has looped through his uniform trousers.
It’s incredibly distracting. He forces his eyes back up to Ryan’s, who has definitely noticed him staring.
Fuck.
“I’ll – uh – I’ll be more careful next time!” Naim darts into the nearest stall and firmly locks it behind him. Another rush of slick falls down his thighs, staining his already ruined pants even more. He starts fiddling with the zipper on his backpack, desperately searching for the pair of pants from earlier, when the faucet turns off and Ryan stands completely still. Naim watches under the stall. His feet, which were turned towards the sink, are now turned towards him.
He freezes and watches as the feet walk across the bathroom and stand in front of his toilet. His backpack journey forgotten, he swallows thickly as Ryan just stands there. He wracks his brain trying to think if maybe he said something to Naim before he locked himself in the toilet.
Why else would Ryan just be standing there like that?
Fear starts to radiate from his body in waves. There’s nothing he can do now – his scent overwhelms his nostrils and starts filling the bathroom up. He tries to put a palm over his patch, begging it in his mind to provide some kind of cover, but no such luck. Naim knows he’s fucked. He thinks of Ryan’s parents taking him to cleanse camp, how animalistic must his urges be if they had to do that? And now he’s standing there, not saying anything or moving, while Naim is essentially trapped.
The air, already brimming with coconut and lime, seems to turn thicker at the prolonged silence between the two. Naim’s backpack has slipped through his grasp and to the floor, his attention no longer on it. He hears Ryan’s breathing, heavy and slow, through the door. His heart pounds loudly in his chest. His palms turn wet with sweat. Then, a new scent fills the air. It’s dark, musky, manly.
It mixes with his fresh scent. It smells so fucking good. Like leather and amber and freshly cut apples. Naim starts to drool, saliva gathering on the bottom of his tongue and threatening to drip down his lips. He’s suddenly so hungry. He wants to lick and taste Ryan, put his nose in the crevices of his body where sweat gathers and just lap it with his tongue. An overwhelming urge to slink closer to the door rises up and he listens to it. Naim sets his hand on the door, sniffing the air and enjoying the delicious mix of their scents together as one.
“Ryan?” He whispers, fingers twitching and reaching for the lock. All the alarm bells in his brain start to go off – to open the door right now and invite the alpha in when their scents are so strong is not a good idea. He doesn’t know Ryan, doesn’t know what he’s capable of. But still, his omega wins out. He starts to pull the latch, the click of it echoing through the bathroom. Ryan’s feet are still there, unmoving. As if he’s waiting for the door to open too.
Once the latch is undone and the door starts to open, the feet leave. They leave fast; Naim watches as Ryan practically runs out the bathroom, taking his delicious scent with him and leaving the omega there to rot in it. He whimpers out loud, hand sliding down the door until he falls to his knees. His heart hurts. Like physically, achingly, pounds in his chest. Naim has never felt this way before, not even during his heat. The gutwrenching feeling of being left alone here while he leaks is almost too much.
Fat, heavy tears start to roll down his cheeks. He doesn’t even know why he’s crying – but once he starts, he can’t stop. He feels disgusting, dirty, horny, hungry. If he tries hard enough, his nose still picks up hints of the alpha in the air. The warm amber, the stark leather and sweet, juicyness of an open apple. Head thudding back against the door, Naim lets himself get lost in it, sniffling through sobs and trying to ignore the puddle of slick forming under him.
He wants. He needs. He craves.
Fuck.
Naim goes to school the next day with red eyes and sore fingers. He had stayed up most of the night plunging them in and out of himself, sobbing into his mattress and begging for Ryan. Despite his multiple attempts to satisfy himself, it didn’t work. He had never felt this way before. Naim had gone through his whole life thinking this was enough for the time being. He would leave soon, he would be gone and creating a better life for himself. The few months he had to wait were nothing; he’d been doing it for so long it didn’t matter. But now that he got a glimpse of what could be, how good he could feel, how much he needed another person, he could never go back.
While he drops off today’s spare pants in his locker (the need had gone up from one to two or three pairs at this point) he feels someone looking at him. Not looking, staring. He lets his eyes drift as naturally as he can muster to the left. Sure enough, Ryan stands a few feet down from him at his own locker. The door is open, his big hand perched on the metal holding it open. But he’s looking at Naim, his teeth sunk into his bottom lip. Per usual, he looks beautiful. Naim notes his tired eyes and curls that hang limply against his forehead. As if he didn’t bother to do his hair this morning.
The second their eyes meet, Ryan looks away and busies himself with taking a few books out of his locker, shutting the door, and stalking away. Naim watches him go before doing the same and heading in the opposite direction, towards his class. It was weird; he usually never saw Ryan at this time of day. He’d known his locker was there – he also knew his schedule and what days he had practice – but he had never seen him there before school. The thought settles like a thorn in the back of his mind, but not enough for him to pay attention to it.
Class is boring. Lunch is painful. Izzie talks the entire time about an exam she has coming up that is the last one before university acceptances come out. It is a very important exam, apparently. He is focused on cutting up his apple into very small pieces, wondering if he can smell it from an appropriate distance without lowering his face and drawing attention to it. He decides he can’t. When he gets up to begrudgingly throw it away, he spots Ryan looking at him. Again. This time, they’re eating inside. Ryan is a good distance away with the rest of his alpha friends, leering over the corner table and looking like a hungry pack of wolves. Conversation swirls on around him, but he’s staring at Naim.
Naim can’t figure out what he’s looking at for a second. He glances around him, then looks back to see Ryan still looking. His blue eyes are dark, his hands fidgeting at his side. His nose twitches. His cheeks redden. Then he looks away, and Naim snaps out of his trance to dump the apple pieces into the trash and scurry back over to Izzie.
Today, she is eating a ham and cheese sandwich. She watches him plop back into his seat. “That took long. What were you looking at?”
“What do you mean?” Naim raises an eyebrow at her. She could not be this observant.
“I saw you stop and stare at something. Couldn’t see what it was from here.” The final bite of her sandwich is swallowed. She brushes her hands on her pants and picks up her water bottle while her eyes stay on Naim, waiting for a response.
“Oh. I don’t know – got lost in thought.”
Izzie says nothing for a moment. Just another one of the million things Naim can’t tell her. He almost feels bad about it. It might be nice to have a real friend now and not force himself to wait. Technically, why did he have to wait? He opens his mouth to tell her – what exactly he’s not sure yet – but she cuts him off before he gets the chance.
“Hunter thinks cleanse camp really fucked Ryan up.”
Naim waits for her to continue.
She does. “He didn’t come over yesterday. Hunter went over and knocked on his window but he didn’t answer. Shut the curtains in his face.”
Unfortunately, Naim does not know Ryan well enough to know if this is normal for him. He wishes he could know everything about Ryan, down to the brand of deodorant he wears and whether or not he prefers crew cut socks.
“It’s weird. Him and Ryan are like… best friends. I have no idea why he wouldn’t say anything to him yesterday about it.” She glances over at the table where Ryan was staring at him from earlier. Everyone’s sitting there looking normal enough. Whatever the issue was, it clearly isn't affecting them anymore. Hunter and Ryan seem to be engaged in a very serious arm wrestling match. Naim watches his biceps flex as he easily beats Hunter without an ounce of effort spared. He looks away.
He and Izzie finish lunch in a docile state. Sometimes they don’t speak, just watch each other eat and talk with their eyes. Before they leave, Naim gives her a hug. It’s weird for him. It’s weird for her. But she embraces him with a small smile nonetheless and leaves him to walk to his next class. The buzzing energy he was carrying with him this morning has subsided now that he’s out of Ryan’s view, and he urges himself to focus on the class he’s in. It’s truly the only way he can keep himself from going crazy.
After thirty miserable minutes, he excuses himself to go to the restroom. The class he’s in is closest to the one he was in yesterday, and even though it’s the last place he wants to go, he really doesn’t have to walk halfway across campus to venture to another one. It’s empty when he goes in. He sighs in relief, glad he won’t have to face another identity crisis when he just needs to pee.
The door opens while he’s washing his hands. He barely looks up, keeping his hands under the warm stream and trying to avoid his reflection in the mirror. Before he can see who’s walked in, someone grabs his waist and shoves him against the porcelain sink.
“What the hell?” He cries, whipping his head back to meet his assailant's eyes. To his horror, it’s Ryan. His piercing blue eyes meet Naim’s in the mirror. His fingers dig painfully into Naim’s hips, leaving crescent moons in their wake. The breath has been knocked out of him entirely. Ryan’s body pressed up against his sends him into overdrive – he can barely breathe. He can barely move, barely think. Everything is just RyanRyanRyanRyan, Ryan’s hips slotted perfectly against his ass and chin resting on his shoulder, daring Naim to look at him.
The scent of apples that Naim was desperately searching for earlier stirs deliciously in the air and he turns his head to capture as much of it as he possibly can. Ryan sucks Naim’s earlobe between sharp teeth and bites. He pushes his hips back against the hot bulge crowding his space, throwing his head back on Ryan’s shoulder and letting out a high-pitched whimper. He would be embarrassed if he didn’t feel so right in Ryan’s arms. Something about them fits perfectly together, even their scents complimenting each other.
Ever since Naim smelled him in the bathroom yesterday he knew there was something undeniable about Ryan’s alpha. It called to him in the corners of his mind, desperate to reach through and take control. Take ownership of Naim’s omega, scent him and mate him and leave him limping through the halls so everyone knew he was someone else’s property.
“Naim,” Ryan groans against his ear, pushing his hips back to meet Naim’s and start a steady rhythm, right there against the sink in the boys’ bathroom.
Ryan knows his name?
He bends his body as Ryan’s hand on the small of his back guides him lower, leaving him eye to eye with the faucet and his ass spread for Ryan to rut against.
And rut he does. Naim sees stars when Ryan starts to thrust up against him, angling it perfectly so every brush of his bulge hits right against his hole, which is steadily oozing slick and clenching around cold air, desperate to be filled. His omega was purring at the feeling of Ryan’s hands roaming his body, squeezing any flesh he could dig into and pulling at the short hairs on the back of Naim’s neck.
Ryan feels big. He’s hard and hot against Naim’s ass, his unswelled knot catching obscenely against the rim every time their hips are angled just right.
Knot. Oh my God, his knot.
Their moans are too loud. Naim knows that they are, echoing through the bathroom, which is only a few doors down from his class. But he doesn’t think anything in his life will ever be as important as this right now, even if his face is damp from snot and drool and tears as he tries to hold himself back from ripping Ryan’s jeans off and pleading for his knot.
He cries out again, hiding his face in his forearms in embarrassment. Ryan seems to find this extremely amusing, and he pulls at the nape of Naim’s neck to get him to look back up.
“You feel so good, Omega.”
At this point, it’s clear that Ryan knows his anatomy. Especially from the bathroom yesterday. But he still can’t help but tense up in shock, his jaw dropping at the word coming from Ryan’s lips. It sounds so good coming out of his mouth.
“Thought you could hide from me like everybody else? I could smell you –” As if to punctuate this point, he leans down and buries his face in Naim’s neck, sniffing loudly and licking his lips, pressing a kiss to the area he just put his nose in.
“ – A mile away. You smell fucking incredible.” His voice cracks at the last word, the clear want oozing viscerally through his words. Naim feels Ryan’s fingers slip under the waistband of his black slacks and pull, almost like he was actually going to take him, right here, right now. Naim pushes his hips up into his grasp, letting the fabric slide easier down his ass. He feels a breeze down below, mind foggy with the thoughts that it’s finally going to happen, he’s going to be filled, he’s going to be complete.
The warmth from the pads of Ryan’s fingertips brushes over his skin, touching every inch of smoothness that is revealed to him the more he’s able to tug Naim’s slacks down. Unfortunately, his belt gets in the way of going any lower – and Naim could cry in frustration. Ryan reaches around to unclasp it, but it’s too late. The anticipation is too much for him. The friction of the sink against his cock and Ryan’s voice in his ear sends him over the edge. He comes right in his boxers, painting the fabric with his humiliation and sheer inexperience.
Ryan follows shortly after. It’s clear by the way he melts onto Naim, wrapping his arms around him and holding him close so every inch of them is trapped in a wordless embrace. It’s comforting for a moment, but then the realization of what just happened floods through him and he pushes Ryan away from him with a sharp inhale.
“What the hell, Ryan? What was that?”
Ryan looks just as surprised as he does. His own slacks are unzipped, the proof of their endeavor clear from the wet spot on his underwear. He spots Naim looking, so he quickly puts himself away and buckles his belt back up. “What do you think it was, Naim?”
He shivers. He’ll never get tired of the way his name sounds coming out of Ryan’s mouth. But that’s not important right now. “I think it was you coming here and using me as some kind of omega doll or something!”
“Are you serious?” Ryan scoffs, “You know that’s not true.”
Obviously. Naim knew the second that it came out of his mouth that he was wrong, but he was so overwhelmed with what had just happened that he wasn’t thinking straight. His secret was out, his crush was touching him. Ryan was looking at him with those bright blue eyes and God – was he always this distracting?
Nervous hands run through his hair, searching for comfort in the repeated motions as he chews his lip and tries to think what to say next.
“You can’t tell anyone.”
Ryan’s face softens. “I won’t. Of course I won’t. When I…” He takes a step back, putting a good few feet of distance between them. “... Smelled you yesterday. I – I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I had to go straight home and lock myself in my room because the thoughts were just so loud. All I could think about last night was you, Naim.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Something about your scent just made my alpha go crazy. I didn’t even know you were… one. My friend told me you hadn’t presented yet.”
Hunter. Izzie.
“I haven’t told anyone. I think they would crucify me if they found out.” Naim didn’t bother clarifying what he meant; it was clear to both of them they were talking about the backwards population of their small town. With the pastor having such a deep reach in everyone’s lives, it was only a matter of time before word spread about Naim. That is, of course, unless he kept it to himself.
After months of research and understanding more about his anatomy, Naim knew being an omega wasn’t necessarily a bad thing despite what the hierarchy of the world led him to believe. He knew that just like alphas, they had their own innate place in the world. There were things they could provide to society that alphas couldn’t – they were equally as important. But it was no use telling anyone that. They lived in a conservative town, in the middle of one of the most conservative cities. Naim being a man didn’t matter. He was at the bottom of the barrel. He was gum on the bottom of somebody’s shoe. Without an alpha, he was worthless.
“Your secret is safe with me.” Ryan is back in his space now. His hand slowly reaches between them to grab Naim’s, pulls him by his wrist into a shaky hold. Their fingers tangle, their heartbeats thumping through the thin skin. It looks like Ryan is going to kiss him for a second. He doesn’t. He gives Naim a small smile and walks over to the sink to fix his hair, almost like he’s stalling for time. His hair doesn’t need fixing. It’s already perfect.
“Will I – will we?” Naim hadn’t thought out what he was going to say yet, so when the words burst from his throat he’s not really sure where he’s going with his question. Words never came particularly easy to him, but with Ryan around, it was practically impossible. He had spent so long watching him from afar that being this close to him without the mental cover of arousal left him floundering for courage.
“Yeah. We will.” The scent of leather floods the bathroom at his words, letting Naim know he means it.