Who Will Love You (Who Will Fight) Part 1
Oct. 1st, 2014 10:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dime_lioraIf he’d ever actively thought about it, and Jared can’t say he has, he probably assumed that the first time he saw someone die it would be a relative and the cause would be old age. Or illness. The movies depict it as somewhat sad, a little bittersweet, and ultimately cathartic. Family members gathered around a bed, holding hands and remembering the good times, and the loved one in question slipping peacefully into death.
That’s not how it happens though, and Jared doubts there will ever be a Sarah McLachlan montage in his memories that bittersweetly reminds him of this moment. Instead Jared is walking outside with one of his coworkers, one of his less-liked coworkers granted, but a man he knows fairly well, and the guy is in the middle of a story about a strip club and an omega performer he was apparently able to talk into extra services.
And then he was silent, and Jared was covered in specks of blood and worse. It was really impressive actually, how silent everything suddenly went. No more traffic noise, birds stopped chirping, the wind itself quit blowing. All that was left was the falling body and Jared staring at where his acquaintance’s head used to be.
Jared blinked several times, trying to take it in, and then the noises rushed back, the sounds of screams, and Jared realized someone was shooting towards him. He hit the ground so hard he was fairly sure he broke something, and then covered his head with his arms. Jared didn’t know much about guns, just the prerequisite information any Texan child is given when it comes to shotguns and hunting, but he figured if the bullet was powerful enough to rip Mikhail’s head apart it was probably too powerful for his arms to stop it.
Still, covering his head seemed like a good idea.
He stayed there until the cops told him he could get up, and the EMTs looked him over and disinfected the places where gravel had torn through his knees and hands when he fell and bandaged them up, and then he drove himself home.
For hours Jared simply sat on his couch staring at the slightly peeled piece of wallpaper over his window, until exhaustion took him down into sleep, and when he woke up the world seemed both infinitely larger and scarier, and not changed at all. Mikhail was already replaced before he came in.
That was how Jared was introduced to the spectacle of death, and in retrospect he should have taken it as a sign. His job wasn’t terribly great. His apartment was small and lonely, and he had no real friends. Watching Mikhail’s head explode should have been the moment Jared decided it was finally time to really change something.
But he went back to work the next day, and that was how the rest of it came about. How Jared’s introduction to death became the catalyst for the rest of his life.
He’d never been good at changing things. Stubborn and set in his ways, Jared had spent his entire life picking one path and sticking to it. Aggressive, self-righteous, antagonistic Jared, his ex-girlfriend had said about him. Always willing to start a fight if he felt he was in the right. Always willing to join an argument even if it meant angering an alpha. It had driven Sandy away so quickly that he wasn’t even sure it could be called a relationship.
And back then he’d regretted it a little, bought self-help tapes on how to be more complacent and never listened to them, but now…
Now Jared thinks of that mindset, of that time, and he wonders if maybe that wasn’t what spelled out his doom. Everyone had told him he was making a mistake. An omega in an alpha’s world. Trying to carve out a little niche for himself, make a place that wouldn’t be forgotten. If he had stayed in Texas, settled down, and simply joined local activism groups would he still be the boy his parents were so proud to have raised?
Because what he is now, well, it scares him a little.
----
Jared loves and hates his job. The number of customers he sees in a week that want something new and original he can count on one hand with fingers left over, but when they do come in he’s always ready for the challenge.
Mostly he does nautical stars, Eastern orthodox buildings with towering spires, cats and spiders, and religious icons galore. Jared can draw the Madonna and Child in his sleep, and while it certainly requires attention to detail and skill, the repetition is a little maddening. But, the shop he’s working in has an incredible reputation and they were willing to hire an unmated omega. The experience is invaluable.
The customer base, and his coworkers, could use a little work.
He is one of five artists, and the only one that’s not Russian. Jared briefly flirted with the idea of getting some language tapes so he could understand what they’re saying when they speak in their mother tongue, but ultimately dismissed it as not the best of ideas. From the way they look at him sometimes Jared gets the sense that he doesn’t really want to know what’s going on in their heads.
More importantly, if Jared is totally honest, he doesn’t want to know them. His coworkers aren’t exactly friendly to him, he expected that, and they’ve made it clear that he’s there as a novelty act. His rebellion seems childish in the face of the condescension he gets from the alphas he works with.
But no other shop was willing to even give him a chance as a joke. When Vitaly agreed to take him on with no professional experience and half an art degree Jared had been incredibly excited. He’d honestly believed that he would prove himself as an artist and shove it in the faces of all the other alpha shop owners that had mocked him. Now he just makes it through the day as alpha after alpha rolls through his little booth waiting for Jared to finish the subscribed designs and taking none too subtle sniffs of him in the process.
And he’s good. It’s the most insulting part really. Jared is good. But they only seem to want to comment on the fact that he’s sassy or a spitfire. They press vodka on him in the hopes that he’ll make the same mistake he made his first week there and get drunk enough that they can talk him into flirting and stripping a little. They chart his heat cycles on the wall calendar and whistle and howl when he comes into work close to the start of one.
Jared refuses to quit though. Not even the day after Mikhail dies when he’s spent the whole night sitting up and remembering the sight of his coworker’s head exploding does Jared consider the possibility of giving up. Because he’s doing something here. He has a small group of clients that are willing to come in, all omegas, that want nothing but Jared’s personal touch on their skin.
When he was growing up he used to spend all his time in the one tattoo parlor run by an omega in San Antonio. The proprietor, and main artist, was named Mark and he came from England where the relations between the genders weren’t quite so antiquated. His accent only helped the way he delivered the driest of sarcasm to anyone who dared question him and his position.
And Mark earned his place in San Antonio. He started in alpha-run parlors and learned from the roughest and meanest people in Texas. His anecdotes about his time tattooing for a bike club still haunt Jared, because there were just too many times he barely escaped some alpha just grabbing him and making him into someone else. Someone that had no dreams and no independence. No drive to do something better or bigger with his life than warm an alpha’s bed.
Some omegas were pushing their way through political positions, making waves in the media, but Jared had seen how Mark affected a community. Anyone who wanted the best ink in San Antonio had to see Mark Sheppard. He was in a position to influence them subtly. It started with them having to watch their mouths around him, and ended with his talent and humor gaining their respect. Word spread, and Jared would accept no one else to do his first tattoo. Or his next three.
From the first vintage postcard-style rendering of the Death card across the right side of Jared’s chest, to the scratchy lined ink crow crouching on a skull that graced his thigh, Mark had drawn every permanent line on his body. He had agonized over Jared with the message he had wanted to convey, the theme that would best bring it out, and what would grow with Jared over time.
Jared wasn’t the willowy little kid that had started following Mark around back then, but Jared’s hero worship hadn’t diminished a bit. And when he saw the shop that would finally take him he hadn’t missed that the majority of his clientele would be the rough sort that Mark had talked about once upon a time. That there was a good chance more than a few of them were convicts, and that Jared wasn’t being fantastical or prejudiced due to their Russian accents.
Vitaly barks from across the shop, and Jared scrambles to get into position for his next customer. The alpha is huge, reeks of strange tobacco and booze, and he stares blearily at Jared through eyes full of veins before practically crashing into the chair. Vitaly tells Jared, as he always does, what the tattoo will be and how Jared should handle it. And Jared nods and then gathers the needle clusters and ink he’ll use to properly mark the big alpha.
He starts with the dagger on the alpha’s neck, carefully marking out the blade and hilt ratio before filling in the lines. This one is simpler not just because of how many times he’s done it, but because he doesn’t have to alter anyone else’s work to get it done. The next one is a little tougher, but he has a fair amount of experience.
Jared is in the middle of expanding the church on the alpha’s back and adding a new steeple. This one takes a more detailed eye, and it’s why Vitaly has given him the job. Jared’s good about figuring out proportions, taking the original work and expanding upon it naturally, and making it so that the new steeple doesn’t throw off the balance of the older ones.
The big alpha grumbles his way through the process, words that Jared can’t understand fired off to Vitaly through bad breath until Jared is pretty sure he’s both drunk and nauseated simply from smelling it. And then he hears Mikhail’s name in the middle of it.
Jared licks his lips as Vitaly’s response comes, still in undecipherable Russian, but the tone is clear as day. Vitaly is angry. Really, really angry, and that’s weird because Vitaly always hated Mikhail. As far as Jared understood Mikhail was a family hire, someone that Vitaly was forced to take on and gave the shit work to in response.
But Vitaly’s rage is evident. He spits when he talks, hands flying angrily, and Jared figures that maybe the bonds of family are strong no matter how annoying said family is. Jared’s never had that problem. His family doesn’t understand him, or particularly care for his decisions, but they’ve never been assholes about it. He misses them sometimes, but his lifestyle hasn’t allowed him to visit much. And his nature keeps him from calling regularly to hear about how he’s wasting his life.
And Vitaly’s voice drops to a hush, and the anger is totally gone. He says something, and the big sleepy alpha looks up with suddenly clear and piercing eyes. He licks his lips, and then very quietly says two word.
“Santa Muerte.”
It’s odd to hear it for so many reasons. Jared grew up around Spanish speakers, knows enough of it to get by and get along with a fair number of people, and in the Russian alpha’s rough accent it comes out much less fluid and melodic than he’s used to hearing. He knows without having to consider what it means, would even without his slight conversational understanding of the language due to the pop culture aspects of it, but he’s never expected to hear it here or from this group of people.
Jared can’t put his finger on why it bothers him so much. It’s not the term itself, but the fact that the Russian alpha has used the Spanish language to describe something that is a proper noun. There’s no reason for it. There are certainly Russian analogues for Saint and Death, and whatever he’s trying to say should be covered by that. But instead the alpha used the Spanish for it. And that suggests that it’s something named specially. It could be any number of things, Jared knows that Vitaly is not the cleanest of citizens, but the look on his boss’s face when it’s hanging in the air and practically echoing in the small tattoo space suggests that it’s not something Vitaly has control over.
That it is, instead, something Vitaly seriously fears. And that makes Jared pause in his work because he’s never seen Vitaly afraid of anything. Not when the cops raided the place two months after Jared started working here, and Jared knew for a fact that Vitaly was in possession of some seriously illegal drugs that day. Not when that little Italian group of assholes showed up waving bats and claiming they were here for protection and if Vitaly didn’t cooperate he’d have to pay in blood.
Not even when the tweaker that Mikhail had been working on had lost his shit in the middle of the shop and started waving a gun around and screaming about the feds and aliens. Never. But now Vitaly looks scared. The color has gone out of his face, and the man stands perfectly still with his tongue locked in position to swipe across his lips and his eyes wide.
And then the moment shatters as Timur comes crashing around the corner with a huge grin on his face and an armful of ink boxes that are seconds away from crashing to the floor and scattering wildly. Vitaly spins on one foot and slaps the younger alpha’s head none too gently before disappearing into the stockroom with him.
Jared’s client falls back into silent contemplation as Jared works, and is snoring by the time he finishes his tattoo.
----
The shop is closed on Sundays and Mondays. This means that Jared can go out on Saturday night to get his kicks, and then come home and crash all of Sunday night and Monday morning before doing his weekly shopping and finishing off his laundry.
Los Angeles is awash in bars that market themselves as omega friendly, but the majority of them seem to be for tiny little things who want an alpha to sweep them up off their feet and show them that partying is inferior to the joy of being truly mated. Of course, Jared would be willing to bet that the omegas that buy into this cinematic ideal don’t ever consider the fact that meeting and recognizing your mate in a club oversaturated in scent and sound is almost impossible. Being “fated,” if the myths are true, doesn’t overcome having all of your senses hampered by the environment.
Jared would, of course, remind anyone he told this to that he didn’t chose a much quieter and simpler bar because he wanted to find his mate. Quite the opposite actually. The alphas and omegas that met at Jared’s favorite establishment were really only interested in casual hookups. It was understood that it was on the omega’s terms, and when they called it quits that was the end of it. Which made the number of alphas there pretty slim, but that was another bonus for Jared.
Every week he would park himself at the bar and survey the territory before deciding if there was anyone worth his time. Jared wasn’t too keen on considering how few he’d found, and of that number how many he had actually managed to hook up with. He had, on the other hand, gone home with a beta once or twice.
Considering the level of heat suppressants he was currently on Jared was capable of being choosy. The doctors had warned him if he ever met his true mate then the drugs wouldn’t work at all, but Jared considers that a pretty safe bet. If it means that he’ll never go into a surprise heat around his coworkers Jared is willing to take the headaches and risk the infertility.
It’s not like he wants kids in the first place.
Jared orders his usual from the bartender and smiles flirtatiously as he takes the drink. He’d never hook up with the alpha, is pretty sure the guy is mated actually, but it never hurts to add a smile. And a huge tip. He settles back in his bar seat and stretches out his long legs.
The crowd is thin tonight for some reason, probably events at the other clubs that Jared doesn’t know about, and as a result he recognizes almost everyone in the room around him. He makes eye contact with a few, smiling and nodding, and figures he’ll finish a few more drinks and dance before heading home. Until a soft voice to the left of him orders a Jameson and Ginger ale, and Jared casually turns to glance at the owner of the voice and loses his breath.
He can smell him over the fainter scents of his fellow patrons. Woodsy, the scent of the long-needled pines in Texas, and the breeze on an autumn day carrying the distant promise of bonfires. Jared takes a long deep breath, unable to even attempt subtlety. The alpha stops in the middle of lifting his glass, looks over at Jared, and their eyes lock.
A little shorter than Jared, but wider in the chest and definitely more solid. His lips are pink, perfect, and surrounded by light stubble. A perfectly carved nose sits between two eyes a mixture of green and gold shades that match the pine in his scent, and Jared can’t remember what the fuck he’s supposed to be doing right now because those eyes are settled on him with an intensity and surety that Jared is vaguely concerned will light him on fire.
Or maybe it already has, because every inch of skin on his body seems to be alive with sensation, and Jared’s hands spasm once before reaching out and grabbing the alpha’s jacket. Jared is wet, embarrassingly so, and he pulls the alpha in and takes a deep breath somewhere in the realm of his sternum. Then he lets out a moan and pulls again, but the alpha is already pressed so close to him that Jared is practically trying to push through his clothes to what must be glorious and smooth skin underneath.
Thousands of light-years away the bartender laughs before saying something, but it gets lost in the haze that has descended on Jared. All he knows is that he needs the alpha inside of him, and right now. That he needs him there forever.
Distantly, Jared--the Jared who packed all his belongings into two duffel bags and hitchhiked his way out to Los Angeles with seven hundred bucks and a dream to defy all expectations--begins to scream. Because this is it. This is what he’s spent so much time avoiding. This is why he didn’t pick one of the major cities in Texas that was so much closer to home and also lacking an omega tattoo artist.
He honestly believed that if he surrounded himself with people who would think his accent was just a bit too shitkicker for their tastes, who would laugh at the silly country boy, or not understand his occasional bone-deep need for good barbeque, he could put this off.
But here it is. Here is the one. And Jared knows it with every fiber of his being. Can’t rebel against it or push through it. Instead Jared is already letting himself be lifted, pulled away from the bar and outside before being manhandled into a sleek black car. He hits the leather too forcefully, is separated from his mate too fast, and then the alpha is back in his reach and settling behind the wheel.
Jared can’t stop touching, knows it’s dangerous and that it’s hindering their ability to get somewhere away from the bar, but fuck he needs. He pushes harder at the clothes that keep him from his goal, and hears a dark growl come out of his mate before the car echoes it and they’re moving through the night. Jared can’t believe himself, but he’s sliding down on the bench seat and unzipping the alpha’s pants to get a deep whiff of that scent. It’s concentrated, pure, and Jared moans before burying his face in his mate’s crotch and pressing his nose against the already hard cock trapped under a layer of cotton.
Above him the alpha is making noises that aren’t even human, hips shifting slightly to move Jared’s nose against the line of his dick and to get them closer. The car roars with him when Jared slides his tongue out and presses it against the material and the cock underneath, their bodies shifting with the increase in speed, and then Jared slides away when the car takes a sharp turn, and he’s pulled back seconds later and lifted bodily out of the seat.
The ground is eaten by the alpha’s stride, and Jared hears the slide of a keycard before they’re using what he thinks is a guest entrance into a hotel. Except the line of doors is hard to focus on in the overwhelming presence of his mate, and when they go through another door all Jared can see is the big bed in the center of the room.
He bounces once on the mattress before the alpha, his mate, lands on top of him. Jared rips at the man’s shirt, and takes a deep breath when he sees a gorgeous rendition of the Tower that mirrors the placement of his own Death card tattoo. The alpha isn’t talking, still mixing growls with moans, and Jared’s own shirt comes off in a flurry of movement. Lips brush against his neck, down over his collarbone, and then settle on his right nipple while deft hands remove his wet pants and boxers and strip his shoes without any sort of pause.
Jared is naked, spread out over an incredibly soft bedspread, and he arches his hips up in invitation and laughs darkly when the alpha curses at the sight and struggles with his own pants. And then the man is naked, and his hands are stroking Jared’s calves once gently before they grip his ankles and pull to flip Jared over. He lands on his stomach, slides his knees up to so he can push his ass into the air, and a warm tongue slips along the back of his thighs and across one ass cheek before the alpha finds his mark and starts lapping up Jared’s slick at the source.
He’s pretty sure he’s going mad.
It’s not like no one has ever licked Jared out before, taken their time with it and gone slow, but Jared has never needed it this bad before. This is heat, the way he vaguely remembers it before he got put on the suppressants, and while it should horrify him instead it only turns him on more. To think that this man was made for him and him alone.
And how fucking lucky that the guy is not only super-hot, but more talented with his tongue than any partner Jared has ever been with before. His mate is licking and sucking at him like he wants every last drop, and one callused and strong hand caresses Jared’s balls before gripping Jared’s hard dick and starting to jerk. Jared comes seconds later, not even a little embarrassed at how fast he was, and the alpha continues to lick him through it until Jared actually mewls and tries to pull away, too sensitive to continue.
Then the alpha’s mouth is gone, and Jared misses it for a second before the blunt head of the alpha’s dick is pressing against his hole and then sliding smoothly into him. From the feel of it, Jared’s mate is almost as well-endowed as Jared himself is. Which is pretty impressive.
Rational thought flees him when the alpha is fully sheathed, and then Jared rocks back into the big, strong hands gripping his hips in a punishing hold before the alpha begins to jackhammer into him. The big cock spearing him, hitting his prostate randomly and spreading him wide and full, makes Jared’s own dick stir back to attention. He’s barely able to stay on his knees as the alpha drives him forward with the force of his thrusts, and then Jared feels the beginning of the alpha’s knot swelling.
Distantly he considers that this whole thing is happening fast. That even if this is the way they portray it in movies and books this is still all too fast. He knows absolutely nothing about the man inside of him, they aren’t even using protection, and there’s nothing that Jared can do about any of that once he’s knotted.
But that’s distant, because Jared’s mouth is spewing a torrent of filth, demanding that the alpha knot him right now. He feels the brush of skin against his back, and then lips brush his ear.
“Pushy.”
It may be the first thing his mate has actually said to him, and it makes Jared’s blood boil in a different way. He pushes back slamming himself onto the alpha’s knot and grins viciously when he hears a hissing intake of breath and a sharp curse.
“You have no idea.”
His mate’s knot swells the last little bit, locking them together, and Jared comes untouched as the alpha starts to empty into him. They’re tied together, and Jared shifts just a little before he’s grabbed around the waist and maneuvered onto his side. Warm lips press against his neck, and Jared revels in the sensation of the firm body wrapped around him and the comfortable sense of being filled and sated. His heart is slowing down, limbs becoming lethargic and eyes heavy, and sleepily Jared pushes hair out of his face and turns his head as much as he can.
“Jared.”
His mate grins once, looking just as tired as Jared feels, and settles a little closer into Jared.
“Jensen.”
And that, Jared thinks as he drifts off, is the name of my mate.
----
When Jared wakes up he knows three things.
He’s sore, in a good way, the way he associates with an intense and powerful workout. It feels good to stretch his limbs and revel in the pull and burn of muscles that got a better workout than he had expected.
And that leads to the second bit of knowledge. Jared has found his mate. Which changes everything. He knows nothing about the alpha. He doesn’t know Jensen’s last name, what he does for a living, or how traditional he is. For all Jared knows, when his mate wakes up he’ll already be planning how long he can keep Jared barefoot and pregnant before he gets tired of spawning or Jared’s body gives out.
Which leads to the last revelation. Jared is not in heat anymore. The typical mate meeting spawns a full heat cycle, three days of neediness and desperation, because mates need the time to properly bond. But Jared just went into heat last night. And that means Jared is already pregnant. Both his suppressants and his birth control failed him last night.
Also, if he’s keeping score, his common sense.
Jared looks around the hotel room for the first time. It’s lavish, well-appointed, and that means that his mate is either really good at finding vacation deals or fairly well off. He slips carefully out of the bed and crosses quietly to the haphazard pile of clothes before finding Jensen’s pants. The wallet tucked in the back pocket is thick, well-worn rich leather , and it contains a plethora of cards that Jared ignores in favor of reading the ID card in the front. Jensen Merriman.
Merriman.
He doesn’t want to be a Merriman. He certainly doesn’t feel very merry. There are no pictures in the wallet, nothing personal at all, and according to his driver’s license Jensen is from Colorado and four years older than Jared.
What happens next isn’t exactly the classiest or smoothest thing Jared has ever done, but he doesn’t feel he has much choice in the matter. Jared slips his clothes on as quietly as he can, looks back to the bed one more time to see the relaxed and handsome face of the sleeping alpha that he’s destined to be with, and then slips out of the room and down the hall. He puts his shoes on outside on the sidewalk, ignoring the knowing and ugly look from the concierge waiting outside, and then asks the man to get him a taxi.
And Jared goes home.
Everything is where he left it. His shitty little apartment is in perfect disorder, all his sketches spread out over the card table he eats on, his game system still in place and waiting for him to turn Call of Duty back on and finish the last mission he started, and the glass of milk he drank yesterday morning before work is sitting on the table developing a skin just like it’s supposed to.
This is his life. This is what he fought for. What he’s been fighting for. The independence, the ability to control his own destiny and choose his own path, and he wants it. He wants it so bad it hurts. His hand lands on his flat stomach, pauses there, and he wonders how long he has until something begins to noticeably grow underneath the skin. How long until he starts to swell, until there’s a fluttering and kicking, until there’s life inside of him.
Jared has never been very good about this sort of stuff. He was able to make the decision to leave everything he knew and throw himself into chaos because he always knew he could change his mind. Go back home and curl up on his parent’s couch with his family and forget he ever left.
But not now. Whatever Jared decides to do next is permanent, the same way for the rest of his life no other sexual partner will ever quite do it for him like Jensen will. He will pine. It has nothing to do with the alpha’s personality, because Jared doesn’t know what that is. He doesn’t know anything about him, isn’t in love with him, but biology demands that Jared be with him anyway.
Everything in him is already starting to scream that he’s supposed to be curled up in bed beside that warm, sleepy body and soaking in the smell of Jensen as he acclimates to being mated. But instead he is here. He’s home looking at his stuff and wondering if he’ll get to keep it. If he can afford to pay for his little loft and a baby. If he can handle the stress of raising a kid alone while still trying to fulfill his dream.
There are options. Jared’s always been open-minded about that sort of thing. Never joined the camp that omegas have no other choice than to carry and bear their children, raise them, and love them. He could go that route, terminate the pregnancy, or look into adoption possibilities.
But the thought of heading down to one of the family clinics and facing the picketers is overwhelming. If he’s lucky, and his recent track record makes that laughable, then he’ll get there during one of the rare times when there’s no protest group and no one to throw rocks at him or belittle him for the insane belief that he has some control over his body.
Jared’s dealt with enough conflict simply from his choice to use suppressants and birth control. He knows the culture of traditionalism, the hatred and spite that is so often turned on people like him, and it’s too much right now. Too much to even consider bearing. He has time to make a decision. He has time to figure out where he wants his life to go.
He has time.
With that rationalization in place Jared heads to the bathroom, turns the shower on full blast and high heat, and settles under the spray of hot water before he begins to cry.
There’s time to make a choice, and Jared will make it. But first he’ll get clean, get the scent of Jensen off of him, and then he’ll go out into the kitchen and microwave a few Hot Pockets, settle into his couch, and play some video games until he passes out. He’ll spend his day relaxing and make a choice later, and when he does it’ll be the right one and he’ll be fine.
Jared will be fine.
Next Part
Masterpost
That’s not how it happens though, and Jared doubts there will ever be a Sarah McLachlan montage in his memories that bittersweetly reminds him of this moment. Instead Jared is walking outside with one of his coworkers, one of his less-liked coworkers granted, but a man he knows fairly well, and the guy is in the middle of a story about a strip club and an omega performer he was apparently able to talk into extra services.
And then he was silent, and Jared was covered in specks of blood and worse. It was really impressive actually, how silent everything suddenly went. No more traffic noise, birds stopped chirping, the wind itself quit blowing. All that was left was the falling body and Jared staring at where his acquaintance’s head used to be.
Jared blinked several times, trying to take it in, and then the noises rushed back, the sounds of screams, and Jared realized someone was shooting towards him. He hit the ground so hard he was fairly sure he broke something, and then covered his head with his arms. Jared didn’t know much about guns, just the prerequisite information any Texan child is given when it comes to shotguns and hunting, but he figured if the bullet was powerful enough to rip Mikhail’s head apart it was probably too powerful for his arms to stop it.
Still, covering his head seemed like a good idea.
He stayed there until the cops told him he could get up, and the EMTs looked him over and disinfected the places where gravel had torn through his knees and hands when he fell and bandaged them up, and then he drove himself home.
For hours Jared simply sat on his couch staring at the slightly peeled piece of wallpaper over his window, until exhaustion took him down into sleep, and when he woke up the world seemed both infinitely larger and scarier, and not changed at all. Mikhail was already replaced before he came in.
That was how Jared was introduced to the spectacle of death, and in retrospect he should have taken it as a sign. His job wasn’t terribly great. His apartment was small and lonely, and he had no real friends. Watching Mikhail’s head explode should have been the moment Jared decided it was finally time to really change something.
But he went back to work the next day, and that was how the rest of it came about. How Jared’s introduction to death became the catalyst for the rest of his life.
He’d never been good at changing things. Stubborn and set in his ways, Jared had spent his entire life picking one path and sticking to it. Aggressive, self-righteous, antagonistic Jared, his ex-girlfriend had said about him. Always willing to start a fight if he felt he was in the right. Always willing to join an argument even if it meant angering an alpha. It had driven Sandy away so quickly that he wasn’t even sure it could be called a relationship.
And back then he’d regretted it a little, bought self-help tapes on how to be more complacent and never listened to them, but now…
Now Jared thinks of that mindset, of that time, and he wonders if maybe that wasn’t what spelled out his doom. Everyone had told him he was making a mistake. An omega in an alpha’s world. Trying to carve out a little niche for himself, make a place that wouldn’t be forgotten. If he had stayed in Texas, settled down, and simply joined local activism groups would he still be the boy his parents were so proud to have raised?
Because what he is now, well, it scares him a little.
----
Jared loves and hates his job. The number of customers he sees in a week that want something new and original he can count on one hand with fingers left over, but when they do come in he’s always ready for the challenge.
Mostly he does nautical stars, Eastern orthodox buildings with towering spires, cats and spiders, and religious icons galore. Jared can draw the Madonna and Child in his sleep, and while it certainly requires attention to detail and skill, the repetition is a little maddening. But, the shop he’s working in has an incredible reputation and they were willing to hire an unmated omega. The experience is invaluable.
The customer base, and his coworkers, could use a little work.
He is one of five artists, and the only one that’s not Russian. Jared briefly flirted with the idea of getting some language tapes so he could understand what they’re saying when they speak in their mother tongue, but ultimately dismissed it as not the best of ideas. From the way they look at him sometimes Jared gets the sense that he doesn’t really want to know what’s going on in their heads.
More importantly, if Jared is totally honest, he doesn’t want to know them. His coworkers aren’t exactly friendly to him, he expected that, and they’ve made it clear that he’s there as a novelty act. His rebellion seems childish in the face of the condescension he gets from the alphas he works with.
But no other shop was willing to even give him a chance as a joke. When Vitaly agreed to take him on with no professional experience and half an art degree Jared had been incredibly excited. He’d honestly believed that he would prove himself as an artist and shove it in the faces of all the other alpha shop owners that had mocked him. Now he just makes it through the day as alpha after alpha rolls through his little booth waiting for Jared to finish the subscribed designs and taking none too subtle sniffs of him in the process.
And he’s good. It’s the most insulting part really. Jared is good. But they only seem to want to comment on the fact that he’s sassy or a spitfire. They press vodka on him in the hopes that he’ll make the same mistake he made his first week there and get drunk enough that they can talk him into flirting and stripping a little. They chart his heat cycles on the wall calendar and whistle and howl when he comes into work close to the start of one.
Jared refuses to quit though. Not even the day after Mikhail dies when he’s spent the whole night sitting up and remembering the sight of his coworker’s head exploding does Jared consider the possibility of giving up. Because he’s doing something here. He has a small group of clients that are willing to come in, all omegas, that want nothing but Jared’s personal touch on their skin.
When he was growing up he used to spend all his time in the one tattoo parlor run by an omega in San Antonio. The proprietor, and main artist, was named Mark and he came from England where the relations between the genders weren’t quite so antiquated. His accent only helped the way he delivered the driest of sarcasm to anyone who dared question him and his position.
And Mark earned his place in San Antonio. He started in alpha-run parlors and learned from the roughest and meanest people in Texas. His anecdotes about his time tattooing for a bike club still haunt Jared, because there were just too many times he barely escaped some alpha just grabbing him and making him into someone else. Someone that had no dreams and no independence. No drive to do something better or bigger with his life than warm an alpha’s bed.
Some omegas were pushing their way through political positions, making waves in the media, but Jared had seen how Mark affected a community. Anyone who wanted the best ink in San Antonio had to see Mark Sheppard. He was in a position to influence them subtly. It started with them having to watch their mouths around him, and ended with his talent and humor gaining their respect. Word spread, and Jared would accept no one else to do his first tattoo. Or his next three.
From the first vintage postcard-style rendering of the Death card across the right side of Jared’s chest, to the scratchy lined ink crow crouching on a skull that graced his thigh, Mark had drawn every permanent line on his body. He had agonized over Jared with the message he had wanted to convey, the theme that would best bring it out, and what would grow with Jared over time.
Jared wasn’t the willowy little kid that had started following Mark around back then, but Jared’s hero worship hadn’t diminished a bit. And when he saw the shop that would finally take him he hadn’t missed that the majority of his clientele would be the rough sort that Mark had talked about once upon a time. That there was a good chance more than a few of them were convicts, and that Jared wasn’t being fantastical or prejudiced due to their Russian accents.
Vitaly barks from across the shop, and Jared scrambles to get into position for his next customer. The alpha is huge, reeks of strange tobacco and booze, and he stares blearily at Jared through eyes full of veins before practically crashing into the chair. Vitaly tells Jared, as he always does, what the tattoo will be and how Jared should handle it. And Jared nods and then gathers the needle clusters and ink he’ll use to properly mark the big alpha.
He starts with the dagger on the alpha’s neck, carefully marking out the blade and hilt ratio before filling in the lines. This one is simpler not just because of how many times he’s done it, but because he doesn’t have to alter anyone else’s work to get it done. The next one is a little tougher, but he has a fair amount of experience.
Jared is in the middle of expanding the church on the alpha’s back and adding a new steeple. This one takes a more detailed eye, and it’s why Vitaly has given him the job. Jared’s good about figuring out proportions, taking the original work and expanding upon it naturally, and making it so that the new steeple doesn’t throw off the balance of the older ones.
The big alpha grumbles his way through the process, words that Jared can’t understand fired off to Vitaly through bad breath until Jared is pretty sure he’s both drunk and nauseated simply from smelling it. And then he hears Mikhail’s name in the middle of it.
Jared licks his lips as Vitaly’s response comes, still in undecipherable Russian, but the tone is clear as day. Vitaly is angry. Really, really angry, and that’s weird because Vitaly always hated Mikhail. As far as Jared understood Mikhail was a family hire, someone that Vitaly was forced to take on and gave the shit work to in response.
But Vitaly’s rage is evident. He spits when he talks, hands flying angrily, and Jared figures that maybe the bonds of family are strong no matter how annoying said family is. Jared’s never had that problem. His family doesn’t understand him, or particularly care for his decisions, but they’ve never been assholes about it. He misses them sometimes, but his lifestyle hasn’t allowed him to visit much. And his nature keeps him from calling regularly to hear about how he’s wasting his life.
And Vitaly’s voice drops to a hush, and the anger is totally gone. He says something, and the big sleepy alpha looks up with suddenly clear and piercing eyes. He licks his lips, and then very quietly says two word.
“Santa Muerte.”
It’s odd to hear it for so many reasons. Jared grew up around Spanish speakers, knows enough of it to get by and get along with a fair number of people, and in the Russian alpha’s rough accent it comes out much less fluid and melodic than he’s used to hearing. He knows without having to consider what it means, would even without his slight conversational understanding of the language due to the pop culture aspects of it, but he’s never expected to hear it here or from this group of people.
Jared can’t put his finger on why it bothers him so much. It’s not the term itself, but the fact that the Russian alpha has used the Spanish language to describe something that is a proper noun. There’s no reason for it. There are certainly Russian analogues for Saint and Death, and whatever he’s trying to say should be covered by that. But instead the alpha used the Spanish for it. And that suggests that it’s something named specially. It could be any number of things, Jared knows that Vitaly is not the cleanest of citizens, but the look on his boss’s face when it’s hanging in the air and practically echoing in the small tattoo space suggests that it’s not something Vitaly has control over.
That it is, instead, something Vitaly seriously fears. And that makes Jared pause in his work because he’s never seen Vitaly afraid of anything. Not when the cops raided the place two months after Jared started working here, and Jared knew for a fact that Vitaly was in possession of some seriously illegal drugs that day. Not when that little Italian group of assholes showed up waving bats and claiming they were here for protection and if Vitaly didn’t cooperate he’d have to pay in blood.
Not even when the tweaker that Mikhail had been working on had lost his shit in the middle of the shop and started waving a gun around and screaming about the feds and aliens. Never. But now Vitaly looks scared. The color has gone out of his face, and the man stands perfectly still with his tongue locked in position to swipe across his lips and his eyes wide.
And then the moment shatters as Timur comes crashing around the corner with a huge grin on his face and an armful of ink boxes that are seconds away from crashing to the floor and scattering wildly. Vitaly spins on one foot and slaps the younger alpha’s head none too gently before disappearing into the stockroom with him.
Jared’s client falls back into silent contemplation as Jared works, and is snoring by the time he finishes his tattoo.
----
The shop is closed on Sundays and Mondays. This means that Jared can go out on Saturday night to get his kicks, and then come home and crash all of Sunday night and Monday morning before doing his weekly shopping and finishing off his laundry.
Los Angeles is awash in bars that market themselves as omega friendly, but the majority of them seem to be for tiny little things who want an alpha to sweep them up off their feet and show them that partying is inferior to the joy of being truly mated. Of course, Jared would be willing to bet that the omegas that buy into this cinematic ideal don’t ever consider the fact that meeting and recognizing your mate in a club oversaturated in scent and sound is almost impossible. Being “fated,” if the myths are true, doesn’t overcome having all of your senses hampered by the environment.
Jared would, of course, remind anyone he told this to that he didn’t chose a much quieter and simpler bar because he wanted to find his mate. Quite the opposite actually. The alphas and omegas that met at Jared’s favorite establishment were really only interested in casual hookups. It was understood that it was on the omega’s terms, and when they called it quits that was the end of it. Which made the number of alphas there pretty slim, but that was another bonus for Jared.
Every week he would park himself at the bar and survey the territory before deciding if there was anyone worth his time. Jared wasn’t too keen on considering how few he’d found, and of that number how many he had actually managed to hook up with. He had, on the other hand, gone home with a beta once or twice.
Considering the level of heat suppressants he was currently on Jared was capable of being choosy. The doctors had warned him if he ever met his true mate then the drugs wouldn’t work at all, but Jared considers that a pretty safe bet. If it means that he’ll never go into a surprise heat around his coworkers Jared is willing to take the headaches and risk the infertility.
It’s not like he wants kids in the first place.
Jared orders his usual from the bartender and smiles flirtatiously as he takes the drink. He’d never hook up with the alpha, is pretty sure the guy is mated actually, but it never hurts to add a smile. And a huge tip. He settles back in his bar seat and stretches out his long legs.
The crowd is thin tonight for some reason, probably events at the other clubs that Jared doesn’t know about, and as a result he recognizes almost everyone in the room around him. He makes eye contact with a few, smiling and nodding, and figures he’ll finish a few more drinks and dance before heading home. Until a soft voice to the left of him orders a Jameson and Ginger ale, and Jared casually turns to glance at the owner of the voice and loses his breath.
He can smell him over the fainter scents of his fellow patrons. Woodsy, the scent of the long-needled pines in Texas, and the breeze on an autumn day carrying the distant promise of bonfires. Jared takes a long deep breath, unable to even attempt subtlety. The alpha stops in the middle of lifting his glass, looks over at Jared, and their eyes lock.
A little shorter than Jared, but wider in the chest and definitely more solid. His lips are pink, perfect, and surrounded by light stubble. A perfectly carved nose sits between two eyes a mixture of green and gold shades that match the pine in his scent, and Jared can’t remember what the fuck he’s supposed to be doing right now because those eyes are settled on him with an intensity and surety that Jared is vaguely concerned will light him on fire.
Or maybe it already has, because every inch of skin on his body seems to be alive with sensation, and Jared’s hands spasm once before reaching out and grabbing the alpha’s jacket. Jared is wet, embarrassingly so, and he pulls the alpha in and takes a deep breath somewhere in the realm of his sternum. Then he lets out a moan and pulls again, but the alpha is already pressed so close to him that Jared is practically trying to push through his clothes to what must be glorious and smooth skin underneath.
Thousands of light-years away the bartender laughs before saying something, but it gets lost in the haze that has descended on Jared. All he knows is that he needs the alpha inside of him, and right now. That he needs him there forever.
Distantly, Jared--the Jared who packed all his belongings into two duffel bags and hitchhiked his way out to Los Angeles with seven hundred bucks and a dream to defy all expectations--begins to scream. Because this is it. This is what he’s spent so much time avoiding. This is why he didn’t pick one of the major cities in Texas that was so much closer to home and also lacking an omega tattoo artist.
He honestly believed that if he surrounded himself with people who would think his accent was just a bit too shitkicker for their tastes, who would laugh at the silly country boy, or not understand his occasional bone-deep need for good barbeque, he could put this off.
But here it is. Here is the one. And Jared knows it with every fiber of his being. Can’t rebel against it or push through it. Instead Jared is already letting himself be lifted, pulled away from the bar and outside before being manhandled into a sleek black car. He hits the leather too forcefully, is separated from his mate too fast, and then the alpha is back in his reach and settling behind the wheel.
Jared can’t stop touching, knows it’s dangerous and that it’s hindering their ability to get somewhere away from the bar, but fuck he needs. He pushes harder at the clothes that keep him from his goal, and hears a dark growl come out of his mate before the car echoes it and they’re moving through the night. Jared can’t believe himself, but he’s sliding down on the bench seat and unzipping the alpha’s pants to get a deep whiff of that scent. It’s concentrated, pure, and Jared moans before burying his face in his mate’s crotch and pressing his nose against the already hard cock trapped under a layer of cotton.
Above him the alpha is making noises that aren’t even human, hips shifting slightly to move Jared’s nose against the line of his dick and to get them closer. The car roars with him when Jared slides his tongue out and presses it against the material and the cock underneath, their bodies shifting with the increase in speed, and then Jared slides away when the car takes a sharp turn, and he’s pulled back seconds later and lifted bodily out of the seat.
The ground is eaten by the alpha’s stride, and Jared hears the slide of a keycard before they’re using what he thinks is a guest entrance into a hotel. Except the line of doors is hard to focus on in the overwhelming presence of his mate, and when they go through another door all Jared can see is the big bed in the center of the room.
He bounces once on the mattress before the alpha, his mate, lands on top of him. Jared rips at the man’s shirt, and takes a deep breath when he sees a gorgeous rendition of the Tower that mirrors the placement of his own Death card tattoo. The alpha isn’t talking, still mixing growls with moans, and Jared’s own shirt comes off in a flurry of movement. Lips brush against his neck, down over his collarbone, and then settle on his right nipple while deft hands remove his wet pants and boxers and strip his shoes without any sort of pause.
Jared is naked, spread out over an incredibly soft bedspread, and he arches his hips up in invitation and laughs darkly when the alpha curses at the sight and struggles with his own pants. And then the man is naked, and his hands are stroking Jared’s calves once gently before they grip his ankles and pull to flip Jared over. He lands on his stomach, slides his knees up to so he can push his ass into the air, and a warm tongue slips along the back of his thighs and across one ass cheek before the alpha finds his mark and starts lapping up Jared’s slick at the source.
He’s pretty sure he’s going mad.
It’s not like no one has ever licked Jared out before, taken their time with it and gone slow, but Jared has never needed it this bad before. This is heat, the way he vaguely remembers it before he got put on the suppressants, and while it should horrify him instead it only turns him on more. To think that this man was made for him and him alone.
And how fucking lucky that the guy is not only super-hot, but more talented with his tongue than any partner Jared has ever been with before. His mate is licking and sucking at him like he wants every last drop, and one callused and strong hand caresses Jared’s balls before gripping Jared’s hard dick and starting to jerk. Jared comes seconds later, not even a little embarrassed at how fast he was, and the alpha continues to lick him through it until Jared actually mewls and tries to pull away, too sensitive to continue.
Then the alpha’s mouth is gone, and Jared misses it for a second before the blunt head of the alpha’s dick is pressing against his hole and then sliding smoothly into him. From the feel of it, Jared’s mate is almost as well-endowed as Jared himself is. Which is pretty impressive.
Rational thought flees him when the alpha is fully sheathed, and then Jared rocks back into the big, strong hands gripping his hips in a punishing hold before the alpha begins to jackhammer into him. The big cock spearing him, hitting his prostate randomly and spreading him wide and full, makes Jared’s own dick stir back to attention. He’s barely able to stay on his knees as the alpha drives him forward with the force of his thrusts, and then Jared feels the beginning of the alpha’s knot swelling.
Distantly he considers that this whole thing is happening fast. That even if this is the way they portray it in movies and books this is still all too fast. He knows absolutely nothing about the man inside of him, they aren’t even using protection, and there’s nothing that Jared can do about any of that once he’s knotted.
But that’s distant, because Jared’s mouth is spewing a torrent of filth, demanding that the alpha knot him right now. He feels the brush of skin against his back, and then lips brush his ear.
“Pushy.”
It may be the first thing his mate has actually said to him, and it makes Jared’s blood boil in a different way. He pushes back slamming himself onto the alpha’s knot and grins viciously when he hears a hissing intake of breath and a sharp curse.
“You have no idea.”
His mate’s knot swells the last little bit, locking them together, and Jared comes untouched as the alpha starts to empty into him. They’re tied together, and Jared shifts just a little before he’s grabbed around the waist and maneuvered onto his side. Warm lips press against his neck, and Jared revels in the sensation of the firm body wrapped around him and the comfortable sense of being filled and sated. His heart is slowing down, limbs becoming lethargic and eyes heavy, and sleepily Jared pushes hair out of his face and turns his head as much as he can.
“Jared.”
His mate grins once, looking just as tired as Jared feels, and settles a little closer into Jared.
“Jensen.”
And that, Jared thinks as he drifts off, is the name of my mate.
----
When Jared wakes up he knows three things.
He’s sore, in a good way, the way he associates with an intense and powerful workout. It feels good to stretch his limbs and revel in the pull and burn of muscles that got a better workout than he had expected.
And that leads to the second bit of knowledge. Jared has found his mate. Which changes everything. He knows nothing about the alpha. He doesn’t know Jensen’s last name, what he does for a living, or how traditional he is. For all Jared knows, when his mate wakes up he’ll already be planning how long he can keep Jared barefoot and pregnant before he gets tired of spawning or Jared’s body gives out.
Which leads to the last revelation. Jared is not in heat anymore. The typical mate meeting spawns a full heat cycle, three days of neediness and desperation, because mates need the time to properly bond. But Jared just went into heat last night. And that means Jared is already pregnant. Both his suppressants and his birth control failed him last night.
Also, if he’s keeping score, his common sense.
Jared looks around the hotel room for the first time. It’s lavish, well-appointed, and that means that his mate is either really good at finding vacation deals or fairly well off. He slips carefully out of the bed and crosses quietly to the haphazard pile of clothes before finding Jensen’s pants. The wallet tucked in the back pocket is thick, well-worn rich leather , and it contains a plethora of cards that Jared ignores in favor of reading the ID card in the front. Jensen Merriman.
Merriman.
He doesn’t want to be a Merriman. He certainly doesn’t feel very merry. There are no pictures in the wallet, nothing personal at all, and according to his driver’s license Jensen is from Colorado and four years older than Jared.
What happens next isn’t exactly the classiest or smoothest thing Jared has ever done, but he doesn’t feel he has much choice in the matter. Jared slips his clothes on as quietly as he can, looks back to the bed one more time to see the relaxed and handsome face of the sleeping alpha that he’s destined to be with, and then slips out of the room and down the hall. He puts his shoes on outside on the sidewalk, ignoring the knowing and ugly look from the concierge waiting outside, and then asks the man to get him a taxi.
And Jared goes home.
Everything is where he left it. His shitty little apartment is in perfect disorder, all his sketches spread out over the card table he eats on, his game system still in place and waiting for him to turn Call of Duty back on and finish the last mission he started, and the glass of milk he drank yesterday morning before work is sitting on the table developing a skin just like it’s supposed to.
This is his life. This is what he fought for. What he’s been fighting for. The independence, the ability to control his own destiny and choose his own path, and he wants it. He wants it so bad it hurts. His hand lands on his flat stomach, pauses there, and he wonders how long he has until something begins to noticeably grow underneath the skin. How long until he starts to swell, until there’s a fluttering and kicking, until there’s life inside of him.
Jared has never been very good about this sort of stuff. He was able to make the decision to leave everything he knew and throw himself into chaos because he always knew he could change his mind. Go back home and curl up on his parent’s couch with his family and forget he ever left.
But not now. Whatever Jared decides to do next is permanent, the same way for the rest of his life no other sexual partner will ever quite do it for him like Jensen will. He will pine. It has nothing to do with the alpha’s personality, because Jared doesn’t know what that is. He doesn’t know anything about him, isn’t in love with him, but biology demands that Jared be with him anyway.
Everything in him is already starting to scream that he’s supposed to be curled up in bed beside that warm, sleepy body and soaking in the smell of Jensen as he acclimates to being mated. But instead he is here. He’s home looking at his stuff and wondering if he’ll get to keep it. If he can afford to pay for his little loft and a baby. If he can handle the stress of raising a kid alone while still trying to fulfill his dream.
There are options. Jared’s always been open-minded about that sort of thing. Never joined the camp that omegas have no other choice than to carry and bear their children, raise them, and love them. He could go that route, terminate the pregnancy, or look into adoption possibilities.
But the thought of heading down to one of the family clinics and facing the picketers is overwhelming. If he’s lucky, and his recent track record makes that laughable, then he’ll get there during one of the rare times when there’s no protest group and no one to throw rocks at him or belittle him for the insane belief that he has some control over his body.
Jared’s dealt with enough conflict simply from his choice to use suppressants and birth control. He knows the culture of traditionalism, the hatred and spite that is so often turned on people like him, and it’s too much right now. Too much to even consider bearing. He has time to make a decision. He has time to figure out where he wants his life to go.
He has time.
With that rationalization in place Jared heads to the bathroom, turns the shower on full blast and high heat, and settles under the spray of hot water before he begins to cry.
There’s time to make a choice, and Jared will make it. But first he’ll get clean, get the scent of Jensen off of him, and then he’ll go out into the kitchen and microwave a few Hot Pockets, settle into his couch, and play some video games until he passes out. He’ll spend his day relaxing and make a choice later, and when he does it’ll be the right one and he’ll be fine.
Jared will be fine.
Next Part
Masterpost
