by Aiden Bates
The rules held. The method just had to be different.
"Does the name Eric Tracey ring a bell?" Nick stepped forward. He was trying to loom, assert his authority. It probably worked well on suspects. His scent was powerful right now, and even Ryan's rage wasn't enough to block a tiny hint of arousal from peeking through.
Fortunately, the mention of Eric's name was enough to make sure that any arousal he felt was short lived. "Seriously? You've decided to justify your anti-omega bias by bringing up a fratricidal jackass from almost ten years ago?"
"It's not anti-omega bias." Nick stepped even closer. "You need to recuse yourself from this case. You're too damn close to it. The similarity between this case and your own is too significant, and honestly your judgment should be called into question if you didn't step aside from it before. I get that you thought you were in love or whatever, but you can't go bringing a personal crusade for vengeance onto a job like this."
White-hot rage blinded Ryan for a second. "You listen to me, you sanctimonious, self-righteous prick." Ryan stepped right into Nick's personal space now, close enough to feel the heat radiating off of his body. "First of all, do you really think that this is the first bias crime that I've investigated since my alpha got murdered? Hmm? Ten. Ten, you asshole, and all of them went without a hitch. Of course I wasn't stuck on a case with some wart of an alpha who thinks he's too good to work with a dirty little omega like me. So there's that. Every one of those cases was a solid conviction. What've you got? You've got pocket lint, punk.
"Second, how'd you even find out about me and Dan anyway? Oh, you decided to go digging through my personal history. Would you have gone digging through that dick's history?" He pointed to Nenci. "How about Little Boy Blue over there?" He pointed to another detective, dressed in varying shades of blue. "Nah. They're alphas, they're good solid guys, right? You want them working with you. You went digging through my personal history looking for a reason to get me thrown off the case, because you didn't want to work with a nasty omega who'd been in foster care."
Nick grabbed his arm. "It's not like that and you know it."
Ryan broke his grip. It was easy enough to do. He shoved Nick hard enough that he flew back and landed on the ground. "You don't get to put your hands on me. And it's exactly like that. You found out about me and Dan, and I bet you did a little dance right there in the middle of the squad room. You were so happy to finally have an excuse to get rid of that gross little omega, that dirty foster kid.
"It's deeper than that, though, isn't it?" Ryan stood over Nick and sneered. He could see the other alphas staggering to attention, ready to intervene. Had they never seen an omega fight back before? Seriously? "You'd have dug into my background anyway, because you can't stand to see an omega succeed, but once you saw that I did have love with someone you lost your little, closed, narrow mind. You hated the fact that I'd had love once, because you're completely incapable of any kind of emotional connection. That's why you're alone. That's why no omega will even consider you, that's why you'll die alone, and why you'll deserve it. You can go to hell."
Ryan turned on his heel and strode toward the door. He didn't feel comfortable leaving these hostile alphas behind him, but there wasn't any other way for him to get to the exit. He could hear a bunch of movement behind him, but he had to operate under the assumption that they were going to keep their hands to themselves.
He got out of the squad room and marched himself right down to the Personnel office. The generalist responsible for his case was available right away, and willing to see him. She heard him out, and then she called his real commanding officer down. He repeated his story for Lt. Frisk, who cringed. "That's terrible," she said, her tone flat. "I'm livid that one of my officers was treated that way, either today or through this entire circus. You're off the case. You're not going back to that awful department, and I'm going to make sure that every single person in the top brass knows about this."
The generalist, a pretty woman around Ryan's own age by the name of Crystal, drummed her fingertips on the table. "I'm not saying that you're wrong." She glanced at the door. "Don't you think that this might make the whole agency look bad, though? I mean the complaints of bias?"
Ryan fixed her with a steely gaze. "If you're concerned about bias complaints making the agency look bad, maybe the actual bias inside the agency should get addressed. Starting with that department. You can't just hope that throwing some token into a nest like that, and telling them to smile and suck it up for a while, is going to make everything turn out well."
Crystal slouched down and looked at her empty desk. "You're right. I'm sorry. I'm just… I'm upset. We're supposed to be better than that." She looked back up at him. "The brass will be upset. They were very concerned that this partnership work."
"Then they need to direct their anger in the appropriate direction." Lt. Frisk crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow in challenge. You just send them to me and let me worry about it, okay? I've got this." Frisk smiled an icy, dangerous smile and then she turned to Ryan. "You can have the rest of the day off. You come back tomorrow and you'll be right back on abuse cases. It's going to be fine."
Ryan stood up and shook her hand. "Thank you, ma'am." He shook Crystal's hand, too. "Thank you, Crystal. I appreciate your help."
Crystal looked troubled, but she managed a little grin. "You're welcome, Ryan. I hope we can put all of this behind us soon."
Ryan headed out to his car and headed back out to his condo. The twenty-minute drive, mostly along Rt. 9, was pretty enough, but most of it was lost on him. He just couldn't make himself care. What kind of a world was he living in that allowed a man to sit there and treat him like that, in public no less, while he was just expected to sit there and take it?
He let himself into his condo. The place felt cold and empty. He thought about baking himself a cake for his birthday, but decided to just go back to bed. Right now, he didn't feel much like celebrating. He felt like hiding, and he figured he was perfectly justified in doing so.
He shucked his suit and threw it over a chair. It would wrinkle, but he'd hang it up in the bathroom later and it would all be fine. He didn't care anymore. He just wanted to pull up the covers, throw on Gosford Park, and forget the world for a little while.
He couldn't focus on the movie. He was too upset. He was angry with everyone, except Lt. Frisk. Even she got splashed by some of his ire, because she'd sent him into that cesspit to begin with. Of course, she'd probably only done it because she'd been ordered to, but still. She should have sent a woman in; the alphas probably would have treated Jones or Sobol better than they treated him.
He shifted his position and watched Clive Owen swagger across the screen. He was angry, but he was also hurt. He'd thought that he was actually getting somewhere with Nick. Not romantically—oh God no, even if he was hot—but definitely on a professional level. They'd gotten more comfortable, they'd come up with a plan, and they’d even pursued a lead. Then Nick had gone and dug into Ryan's background like Ryan himself was the suspect and tried to shame and humiliate him in front of the rest of the crew.
And the rest of the crew let him.
Once upon a time, omegas hadn't been allowed to become cops at all. It had taken years, and a lot of fighting, for them to be allowed a badge and a gun. There had been dozens of little glass ceilings in between then and now, but there had been omega detectives for at least a generation. Ryan had been lucky so far and had been treated with respect by his colleagues. He'd been foolish to expect that state of affairs would continue.
There was still a world of difference between expecting that his colleagues would respect him, and his colleagues ganging up on him with the intention of shaming and humiliating him for having been the victim of a hate crime. It wasn't bad enough that he'd been stabbed, and lost the love of his life. They had to sit there and tell him that having survived that, against his will though it might have been, made him incapable of doing his job.
&
nbsp; As though that was the only reason why they were coming together to attack him. He ran his finger over the bruise that Nick had left on his arm. No, his past had just given them an excuse. He knew why they were really after him.
He finally drifted off just as the big discovery scene in the library started. He didn't care; he'd seen Gosford Park a thousand times before. It had been his and Dan's favorite movie to watch together, whenever they were feeling down or anxious. If he couldn't have Dan, or anything of him, he could have the familiar sound of that dialogue as he drifted off to sleep.
He woke sometime later to a loud buzzing sound. He sat bolt upright in bed, pulse hammering in his ears. Was it an alarm? Had something caught fire? Was the carbon monoxide thing warning him of something? The light on his smoke alarm was green, so he didn't think that was it.
After a second, he realized that he had no reason to panic. Well, probably no reason to panic. The loud, annoying buzzer was his door buzzer. He forced his muscles to unclench and grabbed a pair of sleep pants from the edge of the bed. It didn't matter who it was; most folks objected when you answered the door naked.
He'd been sleeping for a good while. It had only been around eleven o'clock in the morning when he'd drifted off, and now it was dark out. He could go back to bed right now and fall right back to sleep; he was that exhausted. Dealing with hateful alphas did that to a person, he guessed. He turned on lights as he moved down the stairs toward the front door.
Was it wrong of him to hope that whoever his visitor was got bored with waiting and took off before he got there?
No. Ryan wasn't antisocial by any means. He was friendly with plenty of people, but not on such terms that any of them would feel comfortable just showing up at his house. He couldn't think of who would have stopped by.
He threw the door open, and blinked in blank surprise.
***
"Ryan." Nick stared openly at Ryan's bare chest. He'd known that Ryan was slender; he couldn't miss that. What he had missed, in the way that his suit hung from his thin shoulders, was just how well defined his muscles were on his slim frame. It was like looking at some kind of sculpture, if a sculpture had been defaced somewhere around the side by a box cutter. "I was hoping we could talk."
Ryan's eyes narrowed. "I'm pretty sure that we don't have a damn thing to talk about."
Nick tore his eyes from Ryan's beautiful body and looked at his face. "Come on, man. Don't be like that."
"Don't be like what?" Ryan bit down on the inside of his cheek. "Don't be angry that you decided to try to shame me for having survived a hate crime? Or should I just not be upset that you took it upon yourself to go digging into my history behind my back, instead of doing something adult like asking me about it?" Nick curled in on himself a little; that accusation hit him like a punch to the stomach. Lt. Devlin had pointed that same issue out when he'd gotten back from meeting with Ryan's boss, and their bosses.
Ryan wasn't done yet, though. "Maybe it's just the fact that you decided to have that little confrontation in front of all your colleagues that's not supposed to make me 'like this.'" He used air quotes for emphasis, dark eyes blazing. "Can you maybe narrow it down, Nick? What exactly am I not supposed to be like?"
Nick sighed. "Well, maybe you could not be so angry that you make me have this conversation while I stand outside and you hold the door open? You're going to wind up heating all of Marlborough."
"Screw you." Ryan glowered at him, and for a second Nick thought that Ryan might put him on his ass again. Then he moved aside. "Since you're apparently not just going to leave, and calling the cops will do me exactly nothing."
"You wouldn't actually call the cops on me?" Nick walked over to the tan leather couch.
"No." Ryan glowered. "Like I said, it's not like they'd do anything. You're a cop."
"So are you."
"Doesn't matter. Apparently, the fact that I'm an omega is what comes first." Ryan didn't sit down on the couch next to Nick. Instead, he perched on the edge of the Stickley chair nearby.
"It's not like that, Ryan." Nick held his head in his hands.
"It's exactly like that, Nick." Ryan tapped his foot up and down. Nick would have guessed that he probably didn't know he was even doing it. "You wouldn't have pulled that stunt on any of those other men in there, or on the women. No, you pulled it on me. And you've made it very clear, from the moment that Devlin announced that we were going to be working together, that you wanted me gone. You didn't know me, you didn't know anything about me, and you didn't care. You just dug and dug, until you thought you found something you could use.
"Well, you found something all right. Lt. Frisk is pulling me off the project, but not because I can't be objective. I'm being pulled off the project because your department, and you specifically, can't be unbiased enough to work with an Asian omega." He stood up and paced over to the front window. "That's the end of it. You can go ahead and leave. There's no more left to talk about."
Nick licked his lips. This was a difficult enough conversation to have without having to look at the long, lithe lines of Ryan's scarred back. "Did you really come back here and go to bed?"
Ryan turned around and spread his arms out. "What the hell do you care, anyway?" He dropped them to his sides. "It's literally not anything that has anything to do with you. Frisk gave me the rest of the day off, I took the rest of the day off, end of story." He glared. "And yeah. I came home, got into bed, put on Netflix and watched the things that I like to watch. What did you think I was going to do, waste gas by driving around in circles? Go to a bar and drown my sorrows?"
Nick looked away. He wanted to do things to that body. "Work the case, maybe?"
"Not my case." He shook his head. "Not working any cases with you people, not ever again."
Nick stood up and walked over to Ryan. "Don't you think you're being a little dramatic?" he tried.
"Wow. When someone deliberately tries to humiliate you in front of an entire squad, especially when that squad already hates you, you come back to me and tell me I'm being dramatic. I'm just… I don't think that there's anything to be gained by talking about it further. You wouldn't have pulled that stunt on any of those guys." Ryan walked away from Nick, over toward the kitchen.
Nick followed him. "I wouldn't have had to! They would have trusted me with something like that!"
"Really? You know every little detail of those guys' lives?" Ryan turned around and rolled his shoulders. "So you know exactly why that Nenci guy is such a prick?"
Nick bristled. "He's not a prick. He's just been on the job a long time."
"Or, he's pissed off because he didn't get promoted into the top job. Went for it a couple of times, or so I've heard." Ryan tapped his head. "Maybe he's an ass because he's in his late forties and still alone. Maybe he just doesn't like omegas much, or maybe he's just suffering from terrible gas. You don't know. You didn't go digging into his background. You didn't drag his ass out onto the carpet, because you respect him. You don't respect me. You're not capable of respecting me."
Nick opened his mouth. He closed it again. "Is that really what you think of me?"
Ryan's jaw fell open. "You've been pretty goddamn clear." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Just go, man. There's no point to this. You're going to stand there and make excuses and I'm going to stand here and hate you for it."
Nick's stomach turned. "You hate me? How can you hate me?"
"Have you listened to a word that I've said?" Ryan waved his arms. "Oh my God, I never disliked alphas in general before but I'm ready to believe what people have been saying for years. My lips are moving, I know I'm speaking English, but it's like I might as well keep my mouth shut."
Nick sat back down on the couch. "I thought we were making a connection."
"Yeah well, then you went ahead and decided to humiliate me for surviving a murder attempt." Ryan's lips curled. "You seriously think I could ever trust you after that?"
Nick leaned back and closed his eyes. "I ho
nestly didn't think about it that way. I was just thinking about the case, man. I was just thinking about how your experience would affect the case."
"That's crap." Ryan leaned against the wall. "You went looking for some dirt, and you thought you'd finally found it. You didn't want me there in the first place."
Nick closed his eyes. "You're right." He opened them again to look over at Ryan, who was still leaning against the wall. He seemed to be determined to show the long, beautiful planes of his torso to advantage. "I didn't want you there. And you're right in that no one was open to having you there, except maybe Langer. That's the guy who likes to wear blue, for the record."
"So fine. You go and do your thing in your isolated little bubble and I'll go back to doing something that I actually want to do. You know, I didn't exactly ask for that assignment either. They didn't give me any choice." Ryan looked away. "I'm proud of who I am. I'm proud of where I came from—all of it. I don't need a bunch of guys who think they're superior to sit there and pretend that I'm a junior member of the force just because I can get pregnant and my hormones are different."