by Willa Okati
He half expected Coby not to follow him. But Coby did.
Then, he mostly expected Coby to shake off his arm once they were outside. Coby didn’t.
He fully expected Coby to explode all over him.
Coby didn’t.
Coby kept his mouth shut, though his expression was so haunted it hurt to look at, and somehow Darian couldn’t find the right words to ask him what was wrong. He did say, in case Coby needed to hear it, “I won’t hurt you. You know that.”
Coby nodded once, only once, but Darian would take what he could get.
“Okay then.” He tugged Coby again, guiding him left, letting the big man set the pace, however fast or slow he wanted. “Let’s go home. We’ve got some things that need talking out, you and me.”
* * *
They made it almost two-thirds of the way back to their dorm in that uncertain state of truce and with Darian’s arm settled around Coby’s waist before Coby fidgeted for the first time and gave him a quick, sideways glance. “I…”
“You?” Darian asked, not looking back. It was kinder. He didn’t need the pressure of being looked at when he was trying that hard.
Coby shook his head and took a few more steps in silence. Darian noticed for the first time how Coby had slowed his steps to match Darian’s so that Darian didn’t have to skip-run to keep up with those stork legs of his.
Huh. Way to prove his point.
“I… I think that’s the first time since we’ve met you’ve gone five minutes without swearing. Or talking. It’s kind of unsettling.” Coby’s throat worked as he swallowed around whatever he was feeling. “I don’t… Look, you’re not a freak.”
Of all the things Darian had been expecting him to say, that wasn’t one. “I know I’m not.”
“But you said --”
“To Zit Face? Yeah, I did, because that’s the language he understood. I could’ve balls-out lectured him on gender bullshit for days, but it would’ve gone in one ear, through the gaping hole where his brain ought to be, and out the other side.” Darian scrubbed at the back of his neck with his free hand. “There, I cussed. Happy?”
“I think I am. You’re not you without a hair trigger and a filthy mouth.”
Darian snorted quietly. “I am what I am. And that’s not a freak. Neither are you, by the way. We’re different. So the fuck what? Who gets to say what normal is anyhow? Anyone who tries can come have a word with me.”
“I don’t know who’d dare.” Coby freed himself, ever so carefully -- or was it gently? -- from Darian’s arm, but he didn’t go far. He clutched the food boxes tight to his body and carried on walking side by side with him, though he kept looking forward instead of at Darian. “I was trying to be like you.”
Son of a bitch. Oscar had called that one. “Why?”
“Why do you think?” Coby gave him a mildly dirty sideways look that transitioned to an eyeroll before he let out a long exhale. “I wanted to fight too. Not with you. I mean, mostly not with you. I -- my family, when they figured it out -- I tried to hide it, but you really can’t --”
Darian held up one hand to stop him. “You don’t need to tell me any of this.”
“But I want to.” Coby’s jaw went hard, and he took the next few steps at a stomping stalk before swinging around to face Darian. “You know what it’s like. You’re the only one I ever knew who did, and that was before. Now? I’m not sure if I hate you for being what I can’t, or if I want to be like you used to, or if I --” He stopped himself. “Either way, I don’t know what to do, or even how. When I try to act like you, I’m not me, even if I don’t understand me anymore. It’s all so different, and I never thought I’d need to know so I didn’t learn. What do I even do with this me that I am, now?”
Darian rocked on his heels, frowning at Coby. “All you should be is you. Fuck the rest. Let everyone else figure out how to deal with it; it’s their problem, not yours.”
“You’re missing the point.” Coby came closer, bending at the waist to get their faces closer together. “I can’t do what you’re telling me to, I -- I’ve been alone in all this. I’m still alone, and I don’t know how.”
Ahhh. Now things started to make sense. Darian touched his thumb to his lip, thinking fast.
Before he could speak, Coby had one more surprise for him. He stood up soldier-stiff and said, equally stiffly, “So I’m sorry. All right?”
“I beg your pardon, but what the fuck?” Darian blurted in surprise, and it hadn’t been on purpose but there was this little flash of warmth inside when that made Coby almost-laugh. “No. Back up. Why are you apologizing to me?”
“For being a -- what did you call it back then -- an Alphahole?”
Sweet pitchforking hell. That he’d think he needed to apologize… Well, might as well take him off balance too. Keep ‘em even. “And I’m sorry too.” Darian could be the bigger man. So to speak. “For last night, and you know exactly what for, last night. You want to talk Alphahole behavior? There’s your ground zero.”
Coby almost laughed again, and even that made him light up from the inside. Made Darian’s heart twinge in empathy, so much so that he sighed out loud. God, this Omega needed help, and Darian wasn’t usually the one in this position, but he wasn’t a monster. Usually. Except to people who deserved it, and Coby didn’t.
He held out his hand, folded in a loose fist. Took Coby a second to get it, but when he did, he grinned and tapped an equally non-combat-ready fist against Darian’s.
Felt good. Made the air seem clearer. Cleaner. Easier to breathe.
Darian took a deep draft of it and nodded at the takeout containers Coby had somehow managed to hang onto. Grease had leaked out, staining their sides, and if it’d smelled like the wrong kind of ass in there, age hadn’t improved it. He gestured at it, wrinkling his nose. “Do you really want to eat that?”
“Oh God no.”
“Good. Get rid of it, would you?” They’d reached the front door of their housing, propped open with the trash can that should have been sitting to one side. Darian watched Coby drop the boxes inside and grimaced at the splat they made. “Well, that’s good riddance to bad rubbish.”
“I guess. What do we do for dinner, though?” Coby’s stomach rumbled right on cue, and he rubbed it.
Darian looked away, fast, because the spark of heat that inspired came from a place that wasn’t anywhere his brain needed to go. No thank you, and also fuck you, sir. Or not, as the case might be, because they’d just finished tidying away all the Alphahole bullshit and --
“You like pizza?” he asked abruptly, leading the way inside. “I’m going to order pizza. It’s supposed to be shitty and greasy and if we’re going to share a dorm room on a fucking college campus we might as well embrace the cliché. All the meats, all the veggies, and extra sauce and cheese. The kind of pizza you need a shovel and a stack of napkins to take the first bite out of. Sound good?”
If Coby’s stomach had rumbled before, now it roared. “Sounds amazing,” he said fervently. He rummaged in his pocket for his keys and had their room open in a flash. With the windows left open all day, the only thing the place smelled of now was the things that got ingrained from years of being lived in: dust, old sweat, dirty sneakers. Coby loped across the small space, easier in his movements than Darian had seen him so far as an adult and opened the closet Darian had chucked all his things in the night before.
Darian grimaced. “About that.”
“I’m the one who left his shit tossed everywhere.” Coby looked at him in a way that was as different as his walk. A lot less angry, a little more shy, a fraction hopeful, and a bushel more genuine. And warmer, even if it was a candle’s flame and not the sunshine somebody like him should fucking well have radiated. “It’s okay. I’m not mad.”
Talking to each other like human beings and not a weird Alpha and a don’t-wannabe-an-Omega kept getting easier. So weird. “What are you looking for?” Darian asked instead of saying thanks.
And be
cause Coby understood how to speak his language, if not his own native tongue yet, he grinned back as he unearthed a bottle of -- oh, hot damn. Tequila, the good stuff, with a worm floating in the bottom and everything. “I like a good cliché too. Got anything to drink it out of?”
“The bottle itself works for me.” Darian took it when Coby passed it over and deftly unscrewed the cap. He took one gulp, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and the bottle’s mouth on his sleeve. Passing it back over, he said, “You’re not alone now, and you’re not going to be again if I can help it. Deal?”
There went that smile again as Coby took the tequila back and gulped a mouthful for himself. “Deal.”
He passed the bottle back.
He wasn’t the only one who shivered, entirely without meaning to, when their fingers brushed.
Chapter Three
“Are you done?” Coby asked.
Darian glanced over, if not up, at Coby. They’d given up sitting on the edges of their beds pretty soon after the pizza arrived, mostly since they didn’t want their sheets to look like a murder in a marinara factory. So they’d shifted from the bed to the floor, cross-legged in front of Coby’s laptop loaded with every Call of Duty and a few weird-ass alien shoot ‘em up games, beating the electronic shit out of each other between bites. Then, one bite past one too many, they’d slid to the floor and sprawled out like starfish who’d completely failed an attempt to sixty-nine.
Probably looked like idiots, but what the hell. Darian’s pride could take the hit this once. Coby’s cheeks were pink, the tension he carried in his shoulders had mostly melted away, and with all the calories a body like his needed to run packed in there doing their thing, he was damn near content enough to purr.
Looked good on him.
Fuck. Darian looked away, pretending to be fascinated with the pizza box resting on his chest. “Done with this? I’m wearing more than I’ve eaten at this point, so I’d better be.” He flipped the lid closed. He made a disgusted face at the mess on his hands -- when he’d told the shop they wanted a train wreck of everything bad and good and delicious and filling on a crust, they’d taken him seriously. “Take this away before either of us hurts ourselves.”
He tossed the box frisbee-style at Coby, who groaned but laughed as he caught it and sent it skidding bumpily across the floor toward the kitchen. “There. Away.”
“Out of sight, but not mind.”
“I know how to fix that.” Coby flailed an arm around until he found the bottle of tequila, carefully capped when the pizza came and set aside for later and waved it at Darian. “Think you can fit some of this in there?”
“You think you want to watch me do a technicolor yawn?”
“A what, now?” Coby laughed harder, then rolled on his side and groaned through the laughter. “Oh God, don’t, you’re going to make me hurl now.”
“Then lie down like a sane person and digest already, dipshit.” Darian crooked his fingers. “And pass that bottle over here. I’ll fucking well make room.”
Coby shook his head, but his arms were long enough to stretch across the distance between them and shove the tequila at him. He dropped bonelessly to the floor afterward, stretching luxuriously and contentedly. “Don’t say you didn’t warn yourself.”
“Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind.” Darian crossed his arms behind his head and kept his gaze tilted Coby’s direction, sizing him up while the Omega was distracted. And that was fucked up right there. Coby wasn’t just a gender, Goddamn it. Darian scowled at himself and that Alpha hindbrain of his that kept on beating its chest regardless.
But Coby did look better now. Less ragged, less raw, more like -- hell, like someone was looking out for him, taking care of him. Wasn’t as hard as Darian had thought, on the very few occasions he’d idled the maybe someday I might want to with someone idea around. A little pizza, a little shooting the shit, a little booze.
Kind of fun. No, actually fun.
Weird as hell.
He liked it.
Darian eyed the tequila bottle thoughtfully. On a night like this with anyone else -- Oscar, say -- he’d have figured the hell with it and poured a shot. Or two. Or three. But that had been excellent pizza, messy or not, and he didn’t want to bring it up for a second look, and who knew if Coby was a sympathetic puker? Then he’d have to start from scratch with getting some calories into the guy, and one carb banquet had already stretched his credit card to its breaking point.
But there were other options.
Putting the bottle aside, Darian patted his pockets until he found the vape pen he’d lifted from Oscar earlier, clicked it on, and took an analytical drag that he let out with a satisfied sound. Yup. So that was why Oscar was wearing his wiser-than-thou philosopher’s hat earlier: boy had been baked like a cookie. What he had in there was so not tobacco based.
He could hear Coby sniffing. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Probably. Try it and find out.” Darian figured out a way to eel himself around where he and Coby were mostly at the same head level, about one of his arm’s lengths apart, and offered him the pen. “You ever had some of the good stuff before?”
“No. Is that what this is?” Coby took the pen between two fingers, looking dubious and wrinkling his nose. “It kind of smells like… it smells bad. Almost like boiling broccoli or skunk spray.”
Darian snorted. “You haven’t smoked much, have you? That’s not skunky weed. That’s the good shit, or at least it’s the best a guy can find on short notice. Or steal.”
“Huh.” Coby had to figure out how the pen worked, but once he had it down he took a thoughtful drag and only coughed a couple of times. His eyes went wide and dazed. “Holy shit.”
“Hell yeah.” Darian stretched out his legs, pointing his toes. They’d lost their boots and sneakers, and while the floor was cold it felt good on his bare feet. “Smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em, boys. Good life tip.”
“Preach.”
“And pass it back.”
Coby made a sure, if you want gesture and handed the pen over. Once again, his fingers brushed Darian’s. Darian was ready for it this time and held himself still, but he couldn’t miss what that little bit of contact did for Coby: he shivered, curled briefly in on himself, and his muscles quaked on the exhale.
Goddamn, that poor guy. How long had it been since anyone had touched him without him having to get all tense about what they wanted? Darian doubted his family would’ve gone near him after he presented Omega -- probably thought it was catching or some such stupid shit -- and anyone else would have been on the prowl, looking to get their dicks deep and wet.
Someone in the room was growling under their breath -- wait. Damn. It was him, and Coby had heard it too and was giving him the oddest look.
Way to prove he wasn’t like other boys. Darian shrugged it off with an irritated jerk. C’mon, be better than this. “Why teaching?” he asked, grabbing a topic partly purely out of the blue and partly because he’d been curious. “I know why I wanted to be a teacher. I like showing people they don’t know as much as they think, and how things actually are. But you?”
“You mean, since teachers are mostly Omegas, why did I want to go into this when I thought I was going to be an Alpha?” Coby asked frankly.
Darian raised one shoulder. Since you put it that way…
He watched Coby take the question seriously, lifting himself to rest his elbow on the floor and his chin in one hand, thinking. A comma of dark blond hair flipped down over his forehead, making Darian’s fingertips itch to nudge it back into place.
He didn’t. Last thing Coby needed was another horndog Alpha fixated as fuck on his ass even though -- fuck it, fine, Darian wasn’t into lying to himself and he wanted his cock as deep in Coby as he could go, but that wasn’t what Coby needed. He needed a friend, damn it, so all that gotta-fuck-gotta-fuck-gotta-fuck could go ahead and piss off, mkay?
Not that it’d be easy.
“I want to be a teac
her now because I know, in my head, I’m not the only one like me,” Coby said slowly. “Even if I feel that way most of the time. Not this minute, but…” He glanced almost shyly at Darian, quick-and-gone. “I wanted to teach Alphas they don’t have to be animals and say ‘oh, we were born this way, can’t help it.’”
“You can do that either way. Walk into a room, and you’re your own best example.”
“Yeah. That’s the hard part.” Coby looked down, mouth twisted. “I still can’t wrap my brain around most of it, and I’ve tried, Darian, I swear to you I’ve tried. It’s nothing like… what was it like for you?” He cocked his head. “When you, uh…”
“Grew a few extra inches of dick overnight and my voice dropped about as many octaves?”
Coby chuckled. “I always liked the way you put things. No sugarcoating.” His fingertips strayed slowly toward Darian until they touched the edge of his sleeve and stayed there, idly playing with the fabric. From there he drifted downward, tracing a pattern on the back of Darian’s hand. “Tell me?”
Darian wasn’t entirely sure he knew he was doing it. Problem was, whether he knew it or not, having him so close, his scent pooling in the shared air between them, was going to make the issue hard to avoid pretty soon.
Hard. Ha. Like that wasn’t an issue already. Whatever happened to whiskey dick when you needed it? Did tequila not do the same thing?
“I think…” He looked up at the ceiling, gathering his words. “I think it wasn’t much like what you went through. I woke up, took a deep breath, and thought oh. Okay, now it makes sense. Then I went apeshit for a while, had the sense to find a friend who was willing to fuck me blind and stupid and back into my right mind, got my shit together, and then I was still the same old me again. Only now I knew why I’d always been like that.”