Work Text:
When Whitaker goes into heat in the supply room suddenly, he is horrified to see Abbot walk through the door.
He’s been hiding in the back corner for 30 minutes, panicked out of his mind. Cold sweat has drenched his scrubs and his phone keeps slipping from his hands. Trinity’s off today and not picking up the phone. He can’t think of who else to call. Whoever answers his calls is just doomed to fend off crazed alphas for god knows how long anyway. He honestly doesn’t want to put that burden on anyone.
Though Alphas are uncommon, Omegas are even rarer. One going into heat suddenly in public always causes great commotion. This can’t have come at a worst time. He just graduated and got matched to PTMC for his residency. Is he really going into a sudden heat in his first month? And out of all the alphas, Dr Abbot?
In his heat-addled haze, he distantly remembers that when daily suppressant medication fails, the resulting heat comes on twice as strong.
Abbot walks past the last shelf and Whitaker curls in on himself. He can smell it, a strong alpha scent getting more voracious each second. He pushes himself into the corner as the alpha approaches.
Why does it have to be this alpha? Abbot’s physical strength has to be in the top percentile in PTMC. Plus, he’s night shift, so Whitaker doesn’t know him very well at all, never worked with him during his rotation. Horror stories about omegas in accidental heat being assaulted by alphas flash across his mind.
Omegas are wired to want Alphas during their heat, and Whitaker feels it. But even more pressingly, he feels fear. He thinks heat has been greatly misrepresented in romance novels. Even as slick pools between his thighs as he breathes in Abbot’s firewood scent, he’s got enough presence of mind to know even if Abbot takes him right here, right now and it relieves his heat, he won’t want it, not really.
He doesn’t want to have sex with this alpha he doesn’t know.
A box of emergency heat suppressant is waved across his face, but it’s pulled from his grasp when he tries to take it. Even through gloved hands, the alpha’s touch is searing, but nice in an instinctive way. What’s even nicer is the injection of suppressant straight into his veins.
Abbot carries him out of the room and growls at those who have gathered outside the door. Whitaker vaguely hears Mel, McKay, and Samira, all betas, try to coax Abbot into letting him go and let them take care of him. But Abbot tells them harshly to fuck off and stalks towards the elevator.
Everyone knows it’s useless to pry an omega in heat from an alpha’s hands. Whitaker knows his fate is sealed. It’s so unfair how their biology works, is he just some trophy to be won by the first alpha to get to him? His body and mind feel conflicted as he curls himself against Abbot’s body, wanting the alpha’s scent and presence, but hating himself for it at the same time. His nose is next to the alpha’s neck and his mouth waters at the pheromones pumping out of Abbot’s scent gland.
As Abbot drives, his alpha scent filling up the car drives Whitaker crazy. His pussy is clenching down on nothing as slick leaks steadily out of him. He rubs his legs together and makes a choked off sound of desperate need.
When the car stops and Trinity opens the door, Whitaker is too confused to think. Trinity is talking a mile a minute, apologising to him for missing his calls and thanking Abbot for the bag of injectable suppressants. Whitaker looks down at his lap and realises he hasn’t even noticed it was there the whole ride over.
“Leave.”
Abbot says with such finality that Trinity clicks her mouth shut. Whitaker is pulled away from the passenger seat and stumbles into their apartment building.
-
When he goes back to work the next week, everyone is still talking about how crazy it was that Abbot was trapped in a room with an omega in heat and dropped him off at home like it was no big deal. People say it must be because his long term mate passed away, so his alpha instincts and sensitivity to scents are dulled, muddled. Some of them say it like Abbot is a defective alpha, not strong and dominant like real alphas are supposed to be.
Whitaker watches Abbot give him a polite nod and head into one of the trauma bays. He’s been wearing long sleeves since Whitaker returned.
People like to talk, but only Whitaker knows how Abbot bit into his own arm until he bled, the muffled pained howls inside the car as they waited for the lights to turn. How Abbot told him he was sorry in that gentle trembling voice, that they would be there soon. Only that back then, Whitaker didn’t know where ‘there’ was.
When Whitaker starts pursuing the alpha, Abbot keeps saying he’s too old for him, that there are better suited alphas in and outside the hospital. Whitaker lies that he’s imprinted on the older man after that day. But Abbot only looks more horrified and says then it’s even more important for Whitaker to find someone he actually likes, not some alpha 20 years his senior that he is bound to due to a purely biological mechanism.
Whitaker is frustrated. He thought one of the perks of being an omega is that he can have any alpha he wanted. Evidently not this one.
Whitaker asks Abbot if he thinks he’s unattractive, or if there are other omegas in his life he prefers over him. Abbot denies it and says Whitaker is very handsome, and that he is very much desired. Abbot just thinks there are better alphas out there.
Whitaker steps aggressively into his space, takes his wrist and pushes up the sleeve, revealing the teeth-marked scars on Abbot’s arm. “Better than this?”
Abbot winces and sighs, “It’s what any Alpha should do.”
“Should, but do they? Can they?” Whitaker crowds the Alpha against the wall.
“You taught me an alpha’s greatest asset is their restraint. I won’t be with anyone who’ll do any less than this for me.” He shakes Abbot’s arm for emphasis. “So you tell me, you want me or you don’t? Cause I’m not settling for anyone else.”
Abbot slumps against the wall for a few moments, then nods. “Yeah,” he says weakly, as if ashamed, “I do want you.”
Whitaker grabs his chin to force him to look up, maintain eye contact.
“Say it like you actually do.”
Abbot takes his hand away gently and presses a soft kiss on his knuckle. “You’re the most beautiful omega I’ve seen, and I think about you every day.”
He looks Whitaker in the eyes, his breath close enough to graze his cheeks. “Okay?”
“Okay.” Whitaker smiles, finally satisfied, and goes in for a kiss.