Chapter Text
"Jacob showed early signs of a dominate personality and was often described by his adolescent peers as "aggressive" and "possessive". This, coupled with the Alphas enhanced strength, is the reason why many societies view them with fear. Uncharacteristically of the Alpha, Jacob never showed any interest in physical pursuits, such as sports or martial arts. In fact, he always asserted that he never needed to exert any physical dominance. Jacob took great pride in his intellectual prowess. "When I want something, I will always get it. Always." He was never shy about boosting about his many, as he´d later call it, "Machiavellian accomplishments." This behavior is atypical of the dominate, aggressive Alpha, prone to physical confrontation." (Fenway, G. M.D Case-study of an Alpha. A/O/B Press: 2000. 4th edition).
Chapter 1.
His father is hiding behind the latest issue of the Journal and Press while his mother carefully stirs one spoon of sugar into her tea, two fingers pressed against her temple and heavy bags under her dark eyes. It´s the telltale signs of a another sleepless night and she knows it will be by followed another a day of headaches and vertigo. She wonders for a moment if there is something wrong with her prescription and how she can go about seeing the doctor without her husband or children finding out.
John Watson is busy carefully spooning milk over his Weetabix while Harriet licks strawberry jam off her knife and the back of her hand. She makes small snuffling noises around her toast as she mumbles scratches away on a belated homework.
While John waits for his cereal to properly soak, he fishes up his math-homework and a pencil. It is mostly done, but he makes sure to shield his paper from the dangers of Harriet´s volatile eating habits, while he painstakingly double-checks that he has written the correct sums. Ms. Crawford had hinted that there might be a test today, and John always wants to do well on his tests, because it will make his father proud. Unlike the majority of his classmates, John quite likes math, he likes the order and logic of it and how it always pleases his mum when he brings home stickers and stamps on his homework.
"It´s utter madness it is" his father comments, shaking the newspaper. John has long learned to recognize this as a sign of an adult conversation that is likely to be utterly boring and is already pondering question 5a. This set of divisions does´t look quite right.
"What, dear?" his mother replies absently, her brow creases in grimace as she takes her first sip of her tea. Had she mistaken the sugar for salt? She checks the writing on the plastic bowl, but "sugar" is written in big, scratchy, letters.
"This whole Alpha-Omega business" his father replies darkly, "there´s this newspaper article about an Alpha attacking a young man and scarring him for life."
"I heard he took an actual bite out of the man´s neck", his mother frowns and sips her tea, "and all that poor man did was looking at his fiancé."
"Experts says he can´t help it, that it´s in his nature to protect his Mate," he quotes from the newspaper. " These Alpha and Omegas, if they cannot behave like normal people they should not be permitted to walk the streets."
John mashes his Weetabix into an indistinguishable, mush. He´ll not outgrow this way of eating his breakfast until secondary school. Harriet glances at him and wrinkles her nose in disgust and John hastily shuffles his breakfast into his mouth and gapes wide to show Harriet the brown lump of food. Harriet scoffs and kicks his leg under the table. John is about to defend himself against the violent display of sibling rivalry, when Harriet suddenly asks.
"What´s an Alpha, dad?"
"It´s somebody who thinks he´s better than the rest of us it is, thinks he´s got the right to attack people just for looking at his Mate. They are violent, unstable, uncivilized, people and they should be locked up the lot of them."
John is only half-listening to their conversation, caught up trying to remember the correct way to calculate the length of a triangle, but the scorn in his dad´s voice makes him abandoned his sums.
"What is an Omega?" John asks.
"You´ll probably never meet one, son, they are very rare. They are weak-willed, helpless people who lives to serve the Alpha. What it really wants is to bend over backwards to-" he takes a sip of his tea and grits out "basically, it´s a bi-"
"George!" his mother shrieks and quickly covering her hands over son´s ears. "Watch the language at the breakfast table, George!"
George rolls his eyes and folds the newspaper away. He regards his two children, fourteen- year-old Harriet smirking over her toast and ten-year-old John, blinking owlishly at his mother, skinny fingers wrapped around his pencil. He finds himself wishing that Harriet would take her schoolwork as seriously as John does. His daughter always seems more concerned with social pursuits, running off to spend time at her friend´s house or hanging at the shopping center. They can always tell when she is home by the sound of Madonna being blasted on her stereo and the phone being monopolized. He wonders if it is normal for a fourteen-year-old to have a busier social life than him.
John, however, is studious and cautious. His clothes are always well kept and clean. When other boys are getting into scuffles, climbing trees, cashing each other around and doing sports, John prefers to sit quietly on his own, his nose stuck in a book. George hopes that his Lisa will cease coddling him and perhaps allow John to grow out his introvert mien. Perhaps he should encourage him to try out for some sports before. Boys his age should´t be so quiet and sensible.
"Just-" Lisa sighs and carefully strokes an errant lock of hair behind John´s ear. "They are too young to hear about this," she places a kiss on top of his head.
"Mum" John cries and wrings away from her embrace and rearranged his hair to his satisfaction. Only two years later he will regret thinking he was too old to be cuddled by his mother. He will regret a lot of things.
"We hear far worse at school," Harriet chirps, earning a worried frown from their mother and a puzzled glance from John. He certainly never hears anything.
"The point is" George says, and draws a deep breath. Best to put the book down on this Alpha and Omega nonsense and lay it down straight. "These people, Alphas and Omegas- they are an abnormality. They aren´t…..normal. They are people controlled by their hormones and by unnatural urges. A violent, dangerous bunch the lot of them. You should stay well away from them and if you ever hear anyone telling you their parents or siblings are Alphas or Omegas, you tell me straight away. Honestly, a man giving birth?" he scoffs at the absurdity.
"Boys can get pregnant?" Harriet boggles, as this goes against everything she´s ever learned when they had The Talk at school.
"Only male Omegas, dear. And those are very rare."
"That´s just really weird."
"Be that as it may" their mother replies, "they are people too and should be treated with respect."
John´s homeroom teacher has always stressed that everybody should be treated with respect and that they all had to share this planet together. John looks between his father and mother, clearly they are at odds on the subject and John does´t really want to come between them.
George snorts as if this is the most preposterous suggestion in the history of the universe ever. "They are freaks and I´m glad there´s none in our family" he says with a certain finality in his voice that brokers no further discussion on the topic. Lisa smiles thinly and forces a nod of acknowledgement. She returns to her cup of salty tea, glad that the table hides the nervous tremor in her right foot.
The topic is never discussed again in the Watson household.
Come winter, George Watson realizes that it was one of the last family breakfasts and he wished they had spent the time talking about something more cheerful.
Trailing behind Harriet and her current best friend,( Harriet always seemed to have them on some sort of rotating schedule known only to her) Fatima, on his way to school, John´s careful recital of his English homework is continuously interrupted by the two girls giggling into their uniform sleeves.
"It´s true, I swear," Harriet insists in a whispered hiss "my dad said so, boys can have babies."
Fatima´s long, dark, braids shakes with barely suppressed mirth.
“That´s just so weird!"
"I know. I wonder- I wonder where they….." Harriet lowers her voice again and brings her lips closer to Fatima´s ears. A few seconds later the two girls howl with laughter. Shoulders still shaking, they look back at John and this only spurs another fit of sniggers.
"I dare you to ask Ms. Smith about it!"
"Oooh, I totally will!"
The two girls continue their whispered conspiracy on Alphas and Omegas until the middle of next week, when John catches Fatima kissing Harriet´s cheek. Both Harriet and John blushes, and then Harriet throws her hairbrush on John and slams her bedroom door in his face. The following days Madonna is played more loudly than ever before.
John does´t really think more about the topic, too wrapped up in worrying about his math homework and the tests they might have and how he really hopes to do well on it, perhaps earn another sticker, and maybe asking his dad if he can join the soccer team. He´s has a feeling he´d dad would be pleased if John started playing soccer.
It´s almost seven years until he really thinks about the Alphas and Omegas again, when the famous "Alpha Murderer" case is plastered all over the newspaper and televisions.