Work Text:
Jeremy
"Jeremy, you need to come off your suppressants now, or else—" are the words that mark the beginning of the end for Jeremy Knox, first omega captain of NCAA Exy, and all-around failure.
He doesn't mean to be dramatic, not when there is far worse happening in the world—and in his life—right now, but it feels like it: the end of the world. The end of himself, too.
Jeremy hasn't had a heat in over ten years. He can't even remember how they're supposed to feel. And it's not like he expected to be on heat suppressants forever, really. He doesn't need the medication now, not anymore.
It's only that thought of being without them fills him with fear.
To be honest, he's never needed them, but years under his alpha mother's thumb—years where only the reminder of his sordid designation would put their whole household in a mood that would shred his nerves to pieces and send his omega cowering—could trick just about anyone into believing that heat suppressants are a necessity, instead of what they really are: drugs that shouldn't be abused.
Jeremy doesn't need suppressants anymore, not when he's been so thoroughly disowned by his family, but he's gotten used to them. He doesn't need the drugs, but they do make his life easier to bear.
Déjà vu, he thinks bitterly as Nguyen sits him down for additional bloodwork. Jeremy had been sure that the good ol' days of being reliant on substances to survive were over but look at him now.
The sorry scene unfolding around him drives a bolt of shame through his system. It has led settling heavily in his stomach like an unfriendly reminder of all his mistakes; it has disgust at himself settling over his skin too, like a well-worn coat, a patchwork of every shameful thing he's ever done. He doesn't want to think he's addicted to heat suppressants like he is to cocaine, but he knows the fear will keep him up at night, gnawing at his insides like hungry mice, until the medication is cleared from his blood and he can know for sure.
Still, he can't help but ask. "What would happen if—"
"If you kept it up as is? Jeremy, your endocrine system can't take more," Nguyen interrupts, settling his clipboard aside so he can catch Jeremy's hand. He studies the stubborn line of Jeremy's mouth and sighs. Jeremy needs the truth—and a better explanation—but Nguyen squeezes his hand gently, as if he knows full well that Jeremy won't like what he's about to say. "Suppressant abuse can lead to liver dysfunction and an increased risk of blood clots and catastrophic cardiac events. Bone density can be affected. Weight loss and increased anxiety and paranoia have been reported too. Your reproductive organs won't be spared, either."
"What does that mean?" Jeremy gnaws on his lip, thinking through Nguyen's words. His mind snags on the last item of Nguyen's list even though the likelihood of Jeremy finding an alpha to settle down with long enough to start a family is slim. "I won't be able to have pups?"
"If you keep it up, yes. Heat suppressants are a temporary solution: they're not meant to be used for years like you've been doing." Nguyen squeezes his hand again, his gentle hold at odds with the way his scent sours, as if remembering the exact moment Jeremy had confessed that his mother had put him on suppressants the second he'd presented. "We can avoid long-term health issues only if you stop using them, Jeremy. Immediately."
Jeremy closes his eyes and nods, defeated.
He doesn't know if he wants pups—not with this blood of his, that he carries in his veins like a curse—but he doesn't want to die of liver failure or a heart attack, right? Not now that he's taken the first step towards the rest of his life; towards a future where he won't have his blood family by his side, but the one he's chosen and has chosen him back instead. Laila and Cat and Jean and the sweet dog they share custody of, the five of them underneath the same roof. A future where Jeremy is allowed to play Exy until his legs give out. A shot at happiness that still feels undeserved, but it's a shot he's taking.
He won't be having any of that if he keeps taking suppressants though.
The thought of experiencing a heat for the first time in over ten years scares the life out of him, but Jeremy is going to have to suck it up. Bear the uncertainty and embrace the lack of control, as his therapist is always telling him to do.
It won't be that bad, he tells himself, trying desperately to reassure himself. Omegas love heats, don't they? Patrick and Laila are always telling him how amazing theirs are; how good heats spent with the right alpha are.
Heats with the right alpha.
Jeremy grimaces when his mind immediately conjures up the face and scent of one particular alpha, an alpha that makes his heart race and his knees shake with the need to bend. He doesn't want to imagine spending a heat with Jean, but he knows—he knows it, like he knows every inch of his failing body—that a heat with Jean would be life-changing.
The closest thing to paradise on earth, probably.
Jeremy shakes his head, trying to dislodge inappropriate thoughts of how Jean would feel on top of him—in him—in the throes of a heat; Jeremy safe and whole surrounded by the scent and touch of the alpha his omega has grown dangerously attached to. It's an impossible, foolish delusion, and Jeremy ought to remember that.
He'll have to make do with his knot dildo, or one of the alphas that are always blowing up his phone. It won't be that bad, right?
Decision made, he forces a smile on his face and says, "Okay. I'll come off them."
"Good." Nguyen smiles at him, but his expression grows more serious as he drums his fingers against the clipboard. "Jeremy, there's something else you need to know. Your heats are going to be erratic for a while. You might experience discomfort during them too."
"I can deal with that," Jeremy assures, waving the nurse off. He doesn't voice it, but he thinks he might be relieved by the news. He's always been better at dealing with discomfort than undeserved pleasure.
Nguyen isn't done though. "It would be best if you chose a compatible alpha for them. These types of heats can be—harrowing, if spent with the wrong type of person."
Jeremy's stomach bottoms out. "A compatible alpha?"
Jeremy doesn't think there's a compatible alpha out there for him. He doesn't think one will ever exist.
Nguyen studies him, as if he's read the dip in his mood via his scent. He purses his lips and then sighs. "Omegas in heat have sensitive noses, right?" He waits for Jeremy's slow nod, before explaining. "So—if you choose to spend your next heat with an alpha, you should probably choose someone whose scent doesn't feel offensive or grating. Someone your omega trusts instinctively, you know? Someone he feels safe with."
Jeremy bites back the panicked laugh building up in his throat.
An alpha he feels safe with? Right. Easier said than done, he thinks irrationally upset. The only alpha he can think of is off-limits. He doesn't voice his bitter doubts though, knowing full well Nguyen is only trying to help him.
"Okay," Jeremy says instead, not wanting to disclose the full, sorry story of how none of the alphas he's slept with—minus Leo, once upon a time—have ever made him feel safe. "I'll try. Thank you."
Nguyen sends him back to his teammates with a bag packed with extra painkillers and heating pads and the promise that Jeremy will call if he has any more questions or if he starts experiencing any worrying symptoms.
Jeremy doesn't know what a worrying symptom is—not really—not when it comes to his omega body—but he'll probably know soon enough. Nguyen told him he should expect his first heat in the following two weeks.
He'll be fine, right? He's dealt with far worse.
"Nurse, are you sure—" Laila's voice reaches Jeremy from far away.
Post-heat exhaustion weighs his body down, and there's a thick, gray fog where his thoughts used to reside. His muscles shake, minute spasms that he knows Cat and Jean can see, from their perch on the sofa, one on either side of his prone body. They watch him like twin hawks, unblinking and tense. Neither one of them has looked away from him since he's stepped foot outside of his room with the stench of post-heat pheromones still clinging to his skin, for the third time in less than a week.
Jeremy has spent over ten years without a heat, and now he's had three in quick succession, each one of them worse than the last.
Jeremy's pain tolerance is high, thanks to years of Exy-related injuries, but these three heats have put that tolerance to the test. He's had to skip out on most of the Trojans' practices this week, his scent an erratic mess of pre and post-heat pheromones that would have sent his team into disarray, while his heats have been obeying a schedule that Jeremy can't make sense of. Everything seems to set them off: a sharp word, an unusual smell, an unexpected touch.
The sound of Laila's phone snapping closed distracts him from his troubling thoughts.
"What did he say?" Jeremy's voice comes out wrong, weak and scratchy, like he's screamed himself hoarse. He feels the weight of Jean's gaze, but he doesn't turn to look at him.
Laila settles on her heels in front of the sofa and cards a hand through his hair. The gentle scratch of her fingers on his scalp has his muscles unwinding, while the comforting scent of pack briefly overshadows the anxiety that hasn't left him since his suppressants have stopped working.
"Nguyen's talked to the omega specialist at the hospital he used to work in. They said that in critical cases of suppressant abuse, the only solution to these trigger-hair heats is—" Laila's voice takes on an edge that tells him she doesn't like this solution at all. "—spending them with an alpha."
"Ah," Jeremy murmurs. Immediately his gaze goes to Jean, but Jean's staring at the far wall, a belligerent frown on his face that speaks of displeasure. His scent is strangled into submission before Jeremy can read the complicated emotions bleeding through.
Oh well.
It's not like Jean would ever want to spend Jeremy's heats with him, right? Even if—somehow—Jeremy's feelings are reciprocated, Jeremy knows better. He knows about the injustices committed against Jean in the Nest; he knows the position of power he holds over Jean too. It isn't right to even think of putting Jean in such an uncomfortable position, yet alone ask him. Just the thought of Jean feeling obligated to say yes has the honey-sweet chamomile tea he's barely managed to swallow down crawling up his esophagus.
Jeremy can't ask him. Not now, not ever.
He turns away from Jean and meets Laila's gaze, nodding at her in a silent bid to go on.
"Something about real-life alpha pheromones tricking your body into a more regular schedule? It's like you've been starved of alpha pheromones your whole life, so now your omega keeps wanting you to make up for lost time by triggering your heats one after the other," Laila concludes.
"I see."
Laila's mouth is a firm line, but she doesn't voice the disapproval he can read in her scent. His best friend has never liked any of the alphas Jeremy drags to bed. She'll like him dragging them to bed for his painful heats even less, but what else is Jeremy supposed to do?
He can't keep missing practice because of his erratic heat schedule. They have a game next week, and Jeremy doesn't want to be benched for it.
"Sure, easy enough," Jeremy says lightly. His breezy confidence doesn't elicit the innuendos and smirks Cat always throws at him whenever Jeremy jokes about his list of conquests. Instead, her face is marred by the same frown Jean sports, and her scent is all protective worry.
"It's going to be fine," Jeremy adds after a moment of uncomfortable silence.
Laila looks away from him, the hand in his hair stilling as Cat bites back something that Jeremy can probably guess at. The edge in her alpha scent speaks for her.
"I will bring you some soup," Jean says, neatly ignoring the tension in the air and the subject of Jeremy's next heat. "You have hardly eaten in days."
He rushes off to the kitchen before Jeremy can thank him.
"I'll be fine," Jeremy says to the girls while Jean tinkers in the kitchen. This time the word "fine" is lacking a bit of his usual dogged, cheerful optimism. He changes the subject before Laila can call him out on his lie, though. "So, what have I missed?"
Cat's stony silence lasts until Jeremy turns hopeful eyes on her. Her sigh is loud and exasperated, but she gives in quickly enough.
As Cat recounts the prank Derrick played on Sebastian during morning practice, when Jeremy was laid out in bed, locked in his room as he chased a high that never came—not from his useless, silicone dildo—Jeremy's thoughts run in circles.
He's usually very good at reassuring himself, but there's a niggling fear at the back of his mind that what is coming will be far worse. Jeremy can't think that way though. His heats are bound to get better soon, aren't they?
Jeremy can endure a few more weeks of heats spent with alphas he knows aren't the ones his omega truly wants.
He can do it, because there's no other choice, and asking Jean is out of the question.
He can do this.
You can't keep doing this, is the thought that echoes in his mind a month later, as he drags himself out of Sheldon's shoddy apartment, exhausted and aching to his very marrow.
It's the third heat he's tried spending with an alpha, and each attempt has been worse than the last, a car crash turned into a train wreck, each one an exercise in torture.
Jeremy sniffs at his collar, and grimaces. Post-heat pheromones still cling to him, because Sheldon had him thrown out without offering a shower first.
Of course, Jeremy breaking down in tears as soon as the heat pheromones had cleared might be to blame for that quick dismissal. To be fair, an especially excruciating heat and the mortifying ordeal of having to deal with the aftermath of it will break just about anyone, but Jeremy should have expected that his distress would trigger Sheldon's wounded pride, just like it had with the two alphas before him.
It still hurts worse than the nauseating ache in his lower abdomen, the twitching cramps in his muscles, the migraine that has built behind his eyes.
Jeremy's omega has been licking his wounds ever since his first attempt at spending a heat with an alpha, and another quick, rude dismissal smarts, making his insides ache with wounded pride. Mortified rejection sits heavily in his gut, for the third time in a row.
Jeremy doesn't want to think about that first heat—spent with an older alpha, a journalist Jeremy had met last season and another one of his off-and-on hook-ups—but the reminders of it are still pressed into his skin, slow fading bruises around his hips, and in his aching heart, shame and disgust warring forces against his grief.
His second attempt hadn't left him with bruises, but Elias' scent had been so offensive to Jeremy's omega that he'd immediately been sick in the bushes outside his apartment. He'd been doubled over for almost an hour after that one, dry-heaving and panting, while his omega howled and begged for a touch that wasn't the one Jeremy kept forcing on himself. He'd almost clawed his skin off in the shower afterwards too. Only Laila's quick thinking had saved him from breaking skin, because she'd smelled his distress and ran into the bathroom to stop his claws from shredding deeper.
For his third heat Jeremy's omega had been strangely subdued—silent, like he'd already been grieving another loss of Jeremy's dignity—but the absence of any fighting instincts had made the pain even worse. Each slow drag of Sheldon's dick had been excruciating, and scent-marking had only made his skin burn. He'd come—because not even pain could detract from the forced arousal of heats, it seems—but every orgasm had felt like it was stripping something from himself, something Jeremy couldn't afford to lose.
Jeremy still feels like crying now, lost and bereft and aching, as he leans against the wall outside Sheldon's apartment. He could walk back to campus, but Jeremy isn't reckless enough to attempt it when he can feel the vestiges of heat still clinging. He doesn't have his car, because his parents had an officer seize it from the Lofts' parking lot an hour after he'd walked out of his house for the last time, and he doesn't have money for a taxi either.
His phone is almost dead too. He has enough charge for a text though, so he types in Sheldon's address with trembling fingers and hits "Send" before the battery gives out on him completely.
It's only when he flips his phone closed that he realizes he's sent it to Jean.
Jeremy groans out loud.
Fantastic, he thinks.
His knees give out then, his body's post-heat exhaustion too great to stay standing any longer, as humiliation eats its way through his heart. Jeremy falls on his sore ass—he barely has enough breath left to complain—and then tucks his knees up to his chin, as he waits for Jean to arrive—because he knows Jean will be coming to get him.
He knows it, his aching heart knows it, his dejected omega knows it: there isn't an inch of him that has any doubt about this. Jean is too far too kind-hearted.
Jeremy knows that even beyond the partnership system compelling the alpha into looking after him, Jean cares about him. As a friend, most of all. He won't leave Jeremy in a lurch, anymore that he would leave any of his friends, because that's the kind of man—of alpha—Jean is: protective and caring to a fault.
He's going to make an omega very happy one day, he thinks.
Grief settles over him like a second skin. It takes his breath away, the agonizing thought of Jean with someone else. Jean, mated and content, with someone else, an omega who isn't Jeremy—an omega who will never be Jeremy—proudly wearing his scent and bite like a badge of honor, certain of their place because Jean Moreau has chosen them as his.
Jeremy squeezes his eyes shut against his gathering tears. Keeping the waterworks contained makes his migraine worse, and by the time the slow rumble of a bike reaches his ears, he's fighting frustrated tears of pain as well.
"Jeremy?"
Jean's accent is a soothing balm. It immediately quietens the frantic pounding in Jeremy's skull, and that frightens him more than anything that has ever been done to him. He doesn't raise his eyes from his knees, but he feels Jean crouching down on the grass next to him. He feels the cool touch of his hand on his cheek a second later—his calloused fingers familiar after so many months of Jean grabbing his face to get his attention—and then Jean is pulling his head up, gentle and inexorable.
"Jeremy," he murmurs again, nostrils flaring as he takes in the wreck of Jeremy's scent.
Jeremy sees the way Jean's jaw flexes, working against disapproving words that Jeremy can probably guess at. He can't deal with Jean's disappointment—not now—so he whispers, in a hoarse voice that makes him wince: "Can you take me home? Please."
Jean's gaze strips him bare as he studies him for an endless minute.
"Let's go" are the only words that come out of his mouth in the end. He's silent as he helps Jeremy put on an extra helmet and he's silent when Jeremy winces as he settles on the hard seat of the bike. His face darkens like a storm cloud, and although Jeremy can smell enraged disapproval in his scent, Jean doesn't say anything to alleviate the tension between them.
Dinner at home is a somber affair. Not even Cat—his cheerful, joyful friend—can conjure up a smile for him, far too worried about his health to joke about these disastrous attempts at speeding along his body's healing.
Laila is quiet too, her face as much as a storm cloud as Jean's is, but she takes him aside after they finish clearing the plates off the table. "Isn't there anyone else who could make this easier on you?" Laila asks. "An alpha who—"
"There's no one else," Jeremy says shortly. "All the good ones are taken, aren't they? And it's not like I deser—" Jeremy cuts the rest of his words off, but Laila hears them loud and clear, judging by her sharp inhale.
It's not like I deserve better.
Still, she doesn't chide him like she usually does when Jeremy indulges in his bouts of self-loathing. She brings him in for a long hug, and the fierce hold she has on his body does more to settle his omega than any of the alphas he's slept with ever did. "I'm sorry you're going through this," she whispers against his hair.
"Yeah." Jeremy shrugs his shoulders. "I won't lie, it sucks a whole hecking lot. I'll get through it though."
"You will," Laila concurs, but her scent holds a kindling of doubt that keeps Jeremy awake that night, despite his bone-deep exhaustion.
It stays with him, hand in hand with his unease, until his next heat hits. He takes it with him—the what-if, the gnawing fear that Jeremy is now stuck with a defective body until it finally gives out on him—as he drags himself to Leo's new apartment in the city, a few miles away from USC's campus.
Jeremy knows it's a bad idea even before Leo opens the door. Pre-heat pheromones must have muddled his mind: it's the only explanation. He's lost it completely if he thinks that going to the first alpha who broke his heart will somehow make his heat less painful.
A reckless, delusional part of himself must have thought that Leo's scent and embrace would be soothing for his omega, like donning an old, worn sweater, ill-fitted but still comfortable in its familiarity.
Instead, the first whiff of Leo's scent so close to his heat has nausea crawling up his throat.
Jeremy resists the urge to flinch back from his hungry smirk, and steps foot inside. The door closing behind him feels final: a casket lid slamming closed.
There's no going back now. Not until this is over.
He takes one more step, and immediately Leo is up in Jeremy's space, nuzzling and touching and gripping. He's got Jeremy's t-shirt rucked up to his chest before Jeremy can even blink. He blinks again, and Leo is pulling him to his bedroom. His familiar scent settles around him, dense and thick, packed with hunger and arousal, just like he remembers from when they were together, but instead of soothing his frazzled nerves, it has him omega howling.
Leo's wrist at his throat, pressing his scent into Jeremy's scent glands, triggers his heat. One second Jeremy is clear-headed and the furthest thing from aroused he can imagine. A mere second later, he feels slick rush out of him as his mind tumbles into a haze.
Leo undresses him hurriedly. He flings Jeremy's sodden underwear over his head, and the loud, wet slap of them mortifies him, even past the fog of arousal that has taken over his thoughts.
"Too bad we weren't doing this back then, huh?" Leo says, a second before he shoves Jeremy down on the bed. He immediately divests himself of his shorts, flinging them over his head with a feral little smirk.
Jeremy can smell the edge in Leo's scent. He can hear the edge in his tone too—he's enjoying having Jeremy at his mercy, unraveled at long last. Leo's smug satisfaction doesn't matter though. It can't matter, not when mind-splitting arousal has him rocking against the hard body above him.
He needs an alpha inside of him. He needs it. There's a void in him that needs filling, and this alpha can do it. Jeremy knows he can.
It will work this time, he thinks over and over again.
Jeremy ignores his omega's howling. The tears falling from his eyes, soaking his hair, mixing in with his sweat, are inconsequential as he opens his legs, inviting Leo in.
The first push of alpha cock is so painful it momentarily clears the haze from his brain: one minute Jeremy's nudging Leo closer, wrapping his legs around lean hips in a desperate demand for closeness, the next he's frozen still, as pain takes his breath away.
Jeremy's producing enough slick it shouldn't be this painful, but it's as if his body has locked down.
Leo forces himself inside, an inch at a time, and Jeremy feels sick. His skin burns and crawls and itches, the need to shove him off too great to ignore. Every one of Leo's insistent touches feels like the alpha is taking something from him, stripping him of something important, something vital.
The slow drag out is so excruciating it has more tears rushing out of his closed eyes.
It kills his arousal too.
Jeremy doesn't need an alpha knot; he needs to claw his insides free; he needs to shred his skin to pieces; he needs to get out from underneath the suffocating weight of this alpha who will never be Jeremy's alpha—who will never be Jean.
He's shoving Leo off and away before he realizes what he's done. Leo's loud yelp and irritated swearing reach his roaring ears, but Jeremy doesn't stop to explain. He shoves his underwear back on, he finds his shorts and t-shirt, and then he's running out of Leo's place before the alpha can pick himself off the floor.
Jeremy doesn't know how he arrives home. He doesn't know if he's caught a taxi or if he's ran back to the Lofts, but he comes back to himself, shaking and feverish, when he registers the cold press of a key in his hand and the familiar door in front of him. He's soaking wet with sweat, his sodden clothes heavy on his body, chilling his skin despite the fever lighting him up from the very depths of himself, and he's hurting so bad he thinks he's dying.
He knows he'll die here, unless Jean—his alpha, his mate, his alpha, his alpha, his alpha—comes and saves him from himself.
He needs Jean. He wants Jean. He needs Jean, he needs his alpha, he needs his mate, or he'll die. He'll die, if he's not already dying.
He needs Jean, but—
What if he doesn't want you?
Jeremy is going to die then.
His shaky inhales aren't deep enough anymore, and his gasping exhales shred his lungs. Panic clouds his vision and he can barely see the hole as he tries to fit his key in.
His hands are shaking so badly he ends up dropping the key.
Jeremy can't see where it's landed, not through the sudden wave of tears. He bangs his head on the door—hard—but not even the pain now radiating through his skull clears his panic.
I'll die here, he thinks, and he breaks down completely.
Jean is on the other side of the door, and Jeremy can't even fit a key in. He's mere feet from the safety he knows is waiting on the other side, but he can't get his body to obey. He can't get his tears to dry. He can't get his mind to stop churning out reckless, foolish thoughts. He can't stop his omega from howling, desperate and bereft, for the alpha he's recklessly, foolishly chosen.
I'll die here, he thinks, again and again and again.
And again.
Until the door disappears from underneath him.
Jeremy loses his footing, suddenly off balance without the door holding his weight up, but instead of slamming to the ground, he slams into a chest that's as familiar as the scent that envelopes him.
Oh, he thinks.
He's not dying anymore.
Jean's arms go around him, like they always should have been.
He's finally home.
"Jeremy?"
Jean
Jean has barely opened the door before a warm weight falls into his arms. His alpha recognizes who it is by scent alone, even before his eyes do: Jeremy.
Jeremy mid-heat, if his nose isn't betraying him, and it rarely does.
Jean has a second to wonder—to hope, that Jeremy has finally decided to ask the question Jean has been silently begging for for weeks now—but then the undertone of pain and distress in Jeremy's heat pheromones register.
Oh, he thinks, as anger surges. His vision dims and crackles, red hot rage clouding his senses, overcome with the need to hunt down whichever alpha has reduced his omega—his, his, his, no matter how many times Jean wills himself not to think of Jeremy as his own—to this broken state. He indulges in the fantasy of violent murder for a second, and then he strangles his rage—and jealousy—before it can upset Jeremy further.
Jean's arms go around him without his own volition, instinctively, as if Jeremy's place is between his arms, as if Jeremy's home is between his arms. His familiar weight settles Jean's anger, but it does nothing to assuage his deep-seated worry.
"Jeremy?" There's alarm in his tone, clear as day. "What happened?"
"Hold me," Jeremy begs, raising his head from Jean's chest. His eyes—red-rimmed, as if he's spent hours crying, bright with fever and pain both—send Jean's heart knocking into his chest, a frantic rhythm. "Please. Hold me. I—please, can you hold me?"
Jean doesn't need to be told twice.
He picks Jeremy up, in a bridal carry that Jean would have loved to use for the first time in less sickening circumstances. His arms underneath Jeremy's legs and back secure the omega against Jean's chest, while Jeremy himself tucks his head. His breathing is frantic, panicked, and he's crying still, soft gasps that soak Jean's shirt in seconds.
Underneath the smell of distress and pain and heat, Jean can smell an alpha scent that has anger reemerging. He remembers Leonard Foster's offensive stench from the brief encounter they'd had, months ago, back when Jeremy was still living with his dreadful excuse of a family. He remembers the smirk he'd sent Jeremy even better, especially after Laila had told him what had happened between them. That smirk—lascivious and a little mocking, as if he knew full well the effect he had on Jeremy's suddenly dampened mood—has haunted Jean's waking hours more than he cares to admit.
To think that Foster had Jeremy as his own, and threw him away so carelessly, so stupidly.
Jean refuses to dwell on that wretched fool now though.
Not when Jeremy is still whimpering in his arms, trying to fuse their bodies together, and the biting press of his fingers in Jean's back speak of desperation and pain both.
Only when Jean settles Jeremy on his blue comforter, does he realize that he's brought Jeremy to his own bedroom—his territory. He has a second to feel ashamed of himself—of his alpha's need to claim—but then Jeremy is reaching out for him, as if he can't bear to be parted from Jean's touch. "I need—please, I need you to hold me, I need—"
He's pulling off his sodden clothes before Jean can think about stopping him. The loud slap of his underwear makes Jean's nose twitch, but before he can dwell on that, Jeremy is crawling further onto the bed, still mumbling nonsense. He shoves his nose into Jean's pillow, but the scent he finds there—Jean's scent, he realizes with a start as hope soars once again—must not be enough for his omega, because he cries out, "Jean—alpha, Jean. Jean, I need—please, alpha, hold me. Please, please—"
"I'm here, mon cœur," Jean assures, crawling onto the bed and catching Jeremy's face between his palms.
His alpha must know what the omega in front of him needs, because Jean doesn't fight his instincts this time. He drags a wrist down Jeremy's throat, and immediately Jeremy's scent softens into something that is still slightly too painful to bear, but that, at the very least, doesn't send his heart into a panicked overdrive.
Jeremy's breath catches.
The breaths that follow his startled gasp come easier and easier, as Jean slowly scent-marks him. He drags his wrist down his throat, over and over again, until Jeremy's no longer crying.
Jeremy sniffles as Jean lets go of him, but he's started shivering and Jean doesn't need him catching a cold on top of everything else wrecking havoc on his slowly-healing system. He finds a haphazardly thrown t-shirt on the ottoman underneath his window and after a moment of debate, he offers it to Jeremy.
"Here," he says gruffly. "You will be cold without clothes. Wear this." His arm is shaking minutely as he waits for Jeremy to either accept his offering or reject it.
Jeremy stills as he studies the t-shirt clutched in Jean's hand. It takes him a couple of rough swallows to ground out, "Yours?"
"Yes," Jean says in a rush. "My shirt. If you want it. It has my scent, but I do not know if it will make—"
Jeremy doesn't wait for him to finish. He snatches the shirt out of Jean's hold and tugs it over his head. Desperation makes him clumsy and he whines—frustration in his scent and tone—when he can't find the right openings, so Jean helps him out with the sleeves.
The shirt is too big for Jeremy. Jean has never fully realized how different their builds are until now, but the neckline of the oversized shirt gapes, exposing Jeremy's collarbone to Jean's eyes. It reaches past his thighs, but Jean can't look down for too long, can't afford to see how much of Jeremy's muscled thighs are left exposed to his hungry gaze. He swallows down saliva as he tracks the freckled expanse of Jeremy's neck and collarbone instead.
Enough, he thinks, ashamed of his body's reaction. He wills his hunger away, but his scent must be blaring his alpha's satisfaction at seeing Jeremy wrapped in something of his, because Jeremy looks up from smoothing down the shirt.
"You—does it please you?" Jeremy asks. "Me wrapped in your—scent? Yours?" Jean doesn't think he's imagining the tentativeness in his question, the way his body is tense, bracing for a rejection.
"Yes. It pleases me greatly." Jean swallows and asks, voice rough: "Does it please you?"
Jeremy's smile peeking through is answer enough, but the sheer contentedness in his next words has Jean's alpha preening. "Yes. I've been—" Jeremy closes his eyes, and sniffs at the collar, inhaling a desperate mouthful of Jean's leftover scent. "It's all I dream about. Me—in your scent. In your arms. Always."
Oh.
Jean knows Jeremy's candor is mostly heat-induced, and that he's going to try and talk Jean out of this when his head is clear of pheromones, but Jean isn't planning on forgetting this conversation anytime soon. He isn't planning on letting Jeremy go either, not when hope is finally soaring after months of desperate longing. After months of being forced to watch Jeremy jump into beds of alphas who aren't even fit to breathe the same air of him, yet alone share a heat with him.
"I dreamed of this too," he says instead of giving voice to his real thought, a "Will you be mine?" that Jean bites back for another time, one where Jeremy isn't mid-heat. A time when Jeremy isn't curling in on himself in pain too.
Jean swallows around the rock lodged in his throat and climbs on the bed again, gathering Jeremy close. Jeremy whimpers, as another cramp rocks his body. Another time, Jean will also rage against the injustice committed against a man who has always only deserved joy and unbridled acceptance—not the cruel consequences of hateful biases and a wretched family's inability to look past them.
Another time, Jean will hunt down the alphas that have left bruises on his hips and shame in his scent. Another time, Jean will show them what happens when his Jeremy—his mate, his mate, his mate—is hurt.
This time, though? This time the only thing Jean can do is silently vow to himself that he'll never let the man he loves suffer another injustice again.
Jean knows he can't promise Jeremy a pain-free life, but he'll make damn sure the omega curled in his arms doesn't suffer another needlessly painful heat ever again. If Jean's scent helps—if Jean's alpha helps—then Jean will gladly spend the rest of his life holding Jeremy through every heat, for as long as he'd like.
Jean winds a hand through Jeremy's hair, stroking back his sweat-soaked curls. He presses a lingering kiss to his temple, inhaling Jeremy's rich, sweet scent. Jasmine fills his nostrils, comforting in a way that brings back summers spent running after Elodie, her ringing laughter as loud as the waves crashing against the rocky coves that dot the French coastline.
It seems fitting that Jeremy's scent reminds him of the brightest, sunniest memories of his childhood. It seems fitting that this man is also the reason why Jean can now hope for brighter, sunnier memories. It seems fitting that Jeremy has also starred in so many of these bright, sunny memories already; that Jeremy himself is as bright as the sun that Jean has gone so long without, and twice as radiant; that holding him warms him straight through, unfreezing vital parts of himself he'd thought long-dead; that holding him makes Jean feel alive.
Happy.
"Je suis à toi," he whispers against Jeremy's ear, before pressing his lips to his temple for another lingering kiss.
Jeremy stirs in his arms and mumbles something that to Jean's hopeful ears sounds like, "Et moi à toi."
He will have to test that theory again when Jeremy is more coherent, but for now, the fact that Jeremy snuggles into his chest with a loud, relief-tinged sigh, and that he immediately starts purring, is answer enough. His scent is still a wreck of pain, but Jean can smell the contentedness peeking through, timid rays that speak for themselves.
Jeremy feels safe with Jean.
And Jean will do anything to keep him feeling like this for the rest of their lives.