Chapter Text
The kettle whistles, and it takes you a minute to finish typing out your email and clicking send before you are scrambling to turn it off and pick it up. Steam rises in big puffs as you pour the water into a cup. The scent of spearmint invades your nostrils pleasantly, making you breathe deeper. You would’ve loved to buy loose tea so you can steep it properly, but sometimes you’re too lazy, so teabags it is.
You return to your laptop with a now full mug in hand, settling into your office chair and eyeing your few unread emails. It’s nearing noon, but you just woke up, the joys of being a freelance artist, so you were just getting around to answering any emails you have unanswered. You catch the word “omega” in one of them as your eyes skim over them, and that catches your attention. You click on the email, eyebrows furrowing more and more as you continue to read through it. By the time you’re done, you are a mix of confusion and surprise. You pick up your phone and immediately call Minji, your direct supervisor at the service you had signed up for a few months ago.
It had been your omega friends who convinced you to sign up for it. You were okay with doing art commissions for a living, but it was getting bland, and you wondered if you should get a job just for the hell of it. The thought of working fixed hours in an office was enough to make you want to vomit, so when you heard about Omega Services from a friend who had been doing them for a while, it piqued your interest.
Alpha Services had been around for a while, even since you were a young kid, as a way of protecting unmated omegas who might resort to drastic measures during heats and end up putting themselves in dangerous situations. Vetted and screened alphas were provided to help in those times. As society moved forward, it was becoming more and more common for Omegas to sign up as well, in order to help unmated Alphas through ruts. You were on the fence about it, but research told you that it was well organized and taken care of. All the Alpha clients are put through a rigorous screening process, both by government and private agencies. A lot of your friends were doing it, so you said fuck it, and then signed up too.
Over the course of the last few months, you had helped a handful of Alphas through their ruts. Just as Alpha services fulfill the need of omegas. Every experience had been different in its own way, but not weird. To you, it was purely transactional. They have a need, you fulfil it. And as someone who had horrendously painful heats, you felt good about helping someone else through such a trying, and often embarrassing time. No one likes having scrambled eggs for brains, clouded with lust and the need to breed. In today’s world, heats and ruts are more nuisances than anything else, disrupting people’s lives, reducing them down to their base urges. Those animal needs have no place in today’s fast paced and logic driven society. So dealing with them quickly and efficiently is the best way to move forward without making them a big deal. That’s where services like yours come into play. If the presence of an omega can reduce a rut from a painful week down to maybe three days, who wouldn’t jump at that chance?
Minji doesn’t answer the phone when you call, and you huff in annoyance, staring at the email once more, contemplating. You have gotten the hang of Omega Services by now, you even enjoyed it, but this is unprecedented for you. Eight Alphas, two Betas and three Omegas. A total of thirteen. And this service is not a one time thing, they need you for six months. Apparently it’s a team of professional volleyball players, V-league rookies, and their first season is about to start. You know how common it is for professional teams to hire omegas. Athletes can’t take risks on spending heats or ruts alone. There’s too much uncertainty on what kind of toll that takes on the body. You’ve seen many of them in news articles or just online in general. There’s even omega influencers making ‘Day in My Life’ videos about it. You just never considered doing something like this yourself.
Your phone screen lights up with Minji’s name, and you immediately answer it.
“You can’t be serious.” You deadpan in place of a greeting, referencing the email, and she sighs over the phone.
“Look, I know you haven’t done this before, but it’s a great opportunity.” She says. “The paycheck is fat as hell, and pro players are vetted more aggressively than any other Alphas who sign up for the service.”
“They are?” You frown. “I didn’t know that.”
“Mmhm.” Minji confirms. “Plus, won’t it be more comfortable to do it this way than being around a random Alpha every month?”
“There’s thirteen of them.” You shoot back.
“Eight, technically.” She replies. “You can’t do a whole lot for the betas and omegas. From the details I got, the alphas on the team take care of the omegas, but they can’t risk the omegas taking care of the alphas during game season. Something about messing up their form or whatever. That’s why they need an omega. Someone to help with ruts exclusively.”
You sigh, mulling Minji’s words over. You still aren’t sure.
“I have more details.” Minji offers when you go silent over the line. “If you come down to the office, you can look over the whole contract. It’s huge. There’s a lot to go through.”
Well, just reading it through wouldn’t hurt. You don’t have to commit to anything yet. You glance at the clock.
“I’ll be there in about an hour.”
………………………….
Minji is right. The contract is like a whole separate booklet, and you skim over it as best as you can, trying to get the gist of it. Traveling around the country, all travel, food and accommodation paid. It’s an alluring idea. It would get you out of the house for half a year. You can still do your commissions. And it would break this monotony you often find yourself in, the thing that made you sign up for the service in the first place. Plus, they are all very handsome men, if the pictures attached to the booklet are any indication. You make a mental note to look them up when you get back home. You aren’t very interested in watching sports, but you have some rudimentary knowledge of volleyball. In any case, you aren’t expected to know anything about it.
They are provided procedures and medication to make sure their ruts don’t overlap, so you don’t have to worry about helping two alphas at once. The presence of betas is comforting to you too. They act as buffers between the two extremes of alpha and omega, and you make a mental note to try hard and get along with them.
But you have some concerns too.
Six months is a long time to live with people, and you worry about how your dynamics with the team will play out, especially considering the fact that these alphas help the omegas on their team through their heats. This feels more like a pack and less like just a casual volleyball team. Do they have a pack leader? You look at the file again, eyeing the captain of the team. Is it him? You wonder if you should ask. If it is even your place to. Packs are extremely personal, and while they aren’t very common nowadays, people who coexist often tend to form packs. It’s instinctual and comforting for them, and that makes you hesitate. Invading a pack is taboo. If they are indeed a pack, like you suspect, then fitting in will be exceptionally difficult.
Then again, they must know they are getting an Omega Service. Which means they must be on board.
Not the omegas. The voice in your head warns. You shake it away.
“I’ll do it.” You stand up, booklet still in hand. “But I need to go through all of this in detail. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
Minji is elated, nodding enthusiastically. You walk out of the office.