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Alex rocked back and forth nervously as he waited for someone to answer the door. He shifted the gift that he was holding in his hands a little bit over. He could feel his heart beating a million miles a minute in his chest as he thought about the omega that he was here to see. He turned around to look at the neighborhood that his pack lived in for just a moment. He had been admitted to the pack very recently, back when he and Izzie were still trying to figure out courting. He hadn't had the chance to move in yet, but he knew that he would have to soon. Meredith was very insistent that they would all live under the same roof and take care of each other.
His attention was snapped back to the present as he heard the door beginning to open. The smile that had crept onto his face at the idea of being able to see his boyfriend earlier than expected immediately dropped when he saw a head full of blond hair instead.
"Alex. What are you doing here?" Izzie asked. She refused to open the screen door to give him a chance to enter the pack house.
"I'm here to see George," he replied blandly. "Are you going to let me in?"
"No," she replied as she moved to shut the door.
Behind her, Meredith called, "Iz? Who's at the door?"
Her nose wrinkled as she pushed the screen door out into him. "I guess the pack leader knows you're here, which means I have to let you in."
"Suck it," he snarled at her as he walked past her and into the house. He removed his shoes and jacket like he always did when he came to visit his pack. George and Izzie had already been living with Meredith for a while, so they didn't have to worry about moving in with the rest of the pack. It didn't take much for Cristina to move in as well if it got the alpha that she was courting to stop bothering her about moving in with him.
For Alex it was a lot harder. The last time he had lived with someone else he had been taking care of them, and those were a lot of memories he didn't really want bothering him all the time. There was also a small part of him that was paranoid that he was going to get kicked out of the pack at any time. He was the only other alpha member and he was nowhere near being the leader or the second since he was bad with other people and volatile when he was emotionally distressed. All three of those things made him worried that the rest of the pack would decide that they didn't want him around and that he would have to leave. The idea that he would move in just to be told to leave the first time he had one of his violent outbursts or a night terror made him resist the offers Meredith, and now George, kept extending to him. He was eternally grateful that they had brought him into the pack and were now acting like he was their family, as all healthy packs did, but he was worried that one wrong step would mean it all came crashing down around him.
When he saw the familiar head of brunette hair that hung into the omega's eyes in the most adorable way possible, a lot of those worries and concerns washed away from him. "Hey Bambi," he grinned as he walked further into the living room.
"Alex!" he grinned as he nearly burst out of the chair and rushed to his boyfriend. He flung his arms around the alpha and rubbed their necks together while purring.
"That's new," Cristina commented from the chair that she was sitting in. She looked back down at the book in her lap without a second thought.
The two of them quickly separated from each other, George blushing like mad. "Sorry, I shouldn't have jumped on you like that."
"Do you think that I didn't like it? Because I did," Alex reached out and grabbed the other man's hand so that the tips of their fingers were threaded together. "You can jump on me anytime you want, baby."
"Okay! This is weird, you two need to explain what's going on right now," Izzie said as she walked into the living room and stood behind them.
Meredith looked up from the paperwork that she had been doing at the kitchen table. "I want to know what's going on with my pack too. Izzie's been upset all week and you haven't come to lunch with us the whole time she's had her panties in a twist."
"Hey!" the omega squawked indignantly.
They stood there for a moment in complete silence, not sure how to deal with the onslaught from the pack when things were still so new to them. "I don't really feel like explaining," the alpha shrugged.
"Come on," George mumbled as he walked around the alpha, their hands still connected together, around Izzie and down the hall
"Don't have sex too loudly!" the other alpha in the pack called after them.
Izzie's voice is the next to ring down the hall, but she condemns Cristina first. "Oh, gross. Not all of us want to think about that!" She then made sure that they heard her before they disappeared into George's room, "Don't think that this is done! We're going to talk about what's going on before you leave, Alex!"
When the new couple were finally safe behind the door to the omega's room, they let out a sigh of relief. George giggled and flopped down onto his bed. It was a bit of a mess, with the top sheet pushed around into a half crescent shape that met with the extra blanket he had grabbed the night before. "Is this a nest?" Alex asked as he crossed the space between the two of them and sat down next to the other.
"Not really. Sometimes when I'm really tired after a long shift in the hospital I sleep better when I have something like a nest around me but it's not an actual one so you can come and sit with me," he said, rambling cutely.
The alpha leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips. "You're really cute."
"Alex," George whispered as a flush covered his nose and the tops of his ears and cheeks. "You can't just say things like that."
"Why not?" he asked as he sat down on the bed next to the omega.
"I dunno. You just can't," he whined as he rolled over and curled against the other's side.
"Well until you give me a reason I'm going to keep complimenting you and saying nice things to you. I like doing it and I love seeing the cute little blush you get," he grinned as he kissed the top of the omega's head.
"Jerk," George whispered, though there was absolutely no venom to his voice.
They laid like that for a little while before Alex remembered the entire reason that he had come. He sat up, and the other doctor quickly followed his lead so that he was sitting criss-cross while facing the alpha. "Bambi, I have something for you," he reached down to the bag he had brought with him into the house. He pulled the item from it and then passed it over to the other. "I know it's not much and you probably have plenty of other nesting materials, what with you living with another omega in a pack and all, but I thought that it might be nice to have something," the alpha paused when he realized that he was rambling. His courting gift was a fuzzy blanket that he had heavily scented so that it smelled almost exactly like him.
A slow smile spread over the omega's face as he ran his hand over the edge of the blanket. He then brought the middle up to his nose and breathed in the scent of his now official courting partner. "Alex, this is amazing. I love it so much," he grinned. He placed it carefully next to his pillow at the head of his bed and then almost jumped on the alpha.
Alex responded immediately by wrapping his arms around the omega's hips and kissing him back just as passionately. He couldn't stop the growl-like purr that erupted from his chest as he smelled the happy ground cloves scent that the omega was emitting. "I got you a courting gift too. I was going to give it to you when we saw each other at work again since I didn't think that you would want to come over since Izzie is all grumpy, but now that you're here I can give it to you early," he got off of the alpha's lap and then began to rummage through one of the drawers in his night stand. He then crawled over the bed again and handed the item over.
The alpha couldn't stop staring at the omega but eventually tore his gaze away to look down at the gift in his hands. The item in question was a copy of Lord of the Rings. "You mentioned that you hadn't ever read the book before and I thought that maybe we could read them together when we have free time in between shifts or when we're on call together," George flushed again.
"That's really sweet," he whispered. "Is it too early to say that I think I'm in love with you?" he joked as he leaned in for another kiss.
"Not really, because I think I'm in love with you too," George whispered as he closed the distance and kissed the other back just as hard.
They didn't get much more time to be alone before the rest of their pack was coming into the room. "Alright, time for an explanation," Izzie demanded as she stood in the doorway with her arms crossed.
"We're courting," Alex shrugged easily. "George and I are interested in each other and we just exchanged courting gifts."
"What about us?" Izzie demanded as she threw her arms out to the side in exasperation.
"Oh, this is about to get ugly," Cristina muttered from where she was watching the entire situation unfold from the hall.
Alex stood up from the bed and looked at her for a moment. "What about us? I should be the one asking you that! I waited for hours for you to come and see me for the date that I was going to take you on. I don't know if you've noticed but we don't have a lot of time to sleep and I wasted four hours of that time waiting outside of the hospital for you to get off of your shift and come and go on a date with me so I could ask you to court me and I found you flirting with a patient instead! There is no more us. There is George and I because he prefers me over his patients."
"You… you saw that?" Izzie asked as she took a step back and right into Meredith who had chosen to come and investigate what her pack was doing when she smelled the angry alpha scent coming from Alex.
"Of course I saw that. I thought that maybe you were in surgery or you had gotten pulled into the care of a couple of patients and needed help so I went to try and find you so that I could help but you got dressed up all nice and pretty for him instead of me. We've both moved on, Iz. You're more interested in that patient than you are me. I was into both you and George but after seeing you with Denny when you were supposed to be on a date with me I decided I would rather take my chances being knocked down by someone I could actually attain than chasing after you for the rest of my life when you're interested in everyone but me." When the alpha finished talking he turned his head to the side and blinked furiously to try and calm himself down. "I just wanted to be with someone who actually wanted to be with me and it's pretty clear that you don't."
George stood up from the bed and threaded his fingers together with Alex's to try and help soothe the alpha. "Izzie, I know that the two of you were talking about courting but… you did leave him. I know it's a totally asshole thing of me to do without asking or talking to you-"
"No, it's okay," the other omega shook her head. "I need some time to think but I'll be okay with this eventually. I'm sorry that I interrupted you and yelled at you both." She turned on her heel and walked down the hall while wiping the tears that were running down her cheeks off with one hand.
Cristina pushed herself off of the wall and walked back to the living room to return to her other task now that the drama had ended. "I'm going to go check on Izzie and make sure she doesn't bake us out of house and home," Meredith said, closing the door to the omega's room before she left the courting pair alone.
"That went well," George whispered as he rubbed the back of his head.
"I should leave, right?" Alex asked, his worries and concerns from earlier coming back full force.
The omega whined as he sat down on the bed and pulled the blanket the alpha had just given him around his shoulder. "Can you stay?" he asked, his voice small and nervous.
"You want me to stay?" the alpha asked as he turned to properly look at his courting partner. "I'm not going to get kicked out of the pack or anything?"
"No, of course not. I mean, that's really Meredith's thing to say but you're just courting me. Izzie said she needed a little while to process this and she's been going through a lot so I think that's valid. Our pack is a lot stronger than the ones on TV shows. We're not going to totally fall apart or make you leave because we made a tiny mistake in not talking to the rest of the pack first," George shook his head.
The alpha felt the tension drain from his shoulders. He got properly onto the bed so that his head was on the pillows and then pulled his courting partner down next to him. The omega began to purr as he tucked his head underneath his lover's chin. Alex wrapped his arms around the smaller doctor and returned the purr.