Mate of Mine

When Beth initially meets Sean, she thinks she’s cracked.

Maybe she skipped a dose of her suppressants without realizing it, or maybe he hasn’t taken his. Anything is possible. At any rate, she certainly doesn’t expect him, when she presets his costume.

“Did you get the sub list for tonight?” From his seat by the tech desk, the audio guy, Josh, lowers the phone from his ear. “Cosmo’s calling from downstairs.”

“Yeah,” Beth says, as the green room door swings shut behind her. “It’s just Sean B. The girls are good to go.”

“Thanks, babe.” He relays the message to the cosmetology team, and then hangs the phone up. “Nice to only have one sub, for a change.”

“You’re telling me.” With a grunt, she hoists Sean B’s overstuffed garment bag higher onto her shoulder. “I don’t think I’ve ever met Sean.”

Josh shrugs. “He’s your run of the mill, attractive male lead. Typical theater Alpha.”

“Great, just what I need,” Beth says dryly. “Another Alpha riling all of the girls up with his obnoxious scent.” It’s been so long since he’s been here, though, that his garment bag only smells of cleaning chemicals and the musty, stale air of the costume trailer.

“At least you’re not one of the performers,” Josh shouts into the dressing room.

“Yet,” she shouts back tersely. Not that she’s getting anywhere with her auditions so far, but that’s beside the point.

When she sits on the green room couch with her sketchpad, she doesn’t expect to catch his scent before he even reaches the door. She doesn’t expect to look up at the sound of a rich, deep voice, and feel the world recede around her.

In hindsight, maybe she should have had some suspicions. His costumes are made for someone downright enormous. Which, as it turns out, Sean is. Enormous, in an Alpha way, all broad shoulders and muscles, sharp angles and smooth skin, and—

God, his scent. Musky and a little spicy. Like autumn, like something she would gladly live in.

Beth’s pencil creaks in her hand.

You, her brain says when she sees him. And then— Oh, no.

It isn’t like she hasn’t worked with Alphas before. Performers run the gamut; it’s like a catch-all for everyone who isn’t comfortable in their designation, plus all the people who are so comfortable with their designations that they use them to get type-cast, and— well, it really is just a catch-all. Which means she has certainly smelled other Alphas who have pleasant, even attractive scents.

Then again, her suppressants are so high, she shouldn’t be able to smell anyone this much at all.

Fascinating. And terrifying.

Sean smiles at her when he comes in, and Beth returns it on autopilot, while trying to backtrack through her morning routine. She remembers taking her pill. She remembers the little green circle leaving her hand and going into her mouth.

Minutes later, Sean walks through the green room in just jeans and a deeply V-necked tee, cut so low that Beth can see… basically every inch of his torso.

Her pencil snaps in half.

“You good?” Josh turns his head toward her, frowning.

“Yeah,” she says, already pulling another pencil from her bag. “Just… may need to up my suppressants.”

“Ah.” Josh nods his head in understanding. “I have to, around some of the Crew Chiefs. No biggie.”

Kind of a biggie, Beth thinks, since she’s on the highest dosage of her current suppressants. Even Josh, an Omega like her, smells bland. Clearly, she’s starting to slip into madness.

Beth can’t stand Alphas. She can’t bear their aggression and power plays, and that tone they get, that push that makes her want to give in and be obedient and submissive and good. Stupid Omega lizard hindbrain.

Watching the show from backstage that night is torture. Being in the green room with him is worse. Beth curls in on herself during intermission with her sketchbook, her circles and spirals rapidly taking shape into something she doesn’t want to recognize. Sean’s scent is somehow everywhere, and if she focuses on it for too long, all she can think of is—

“Whatcha drawing?”

“No idea,” Beth shrugs without looking up at Sean, already covering the vaguely humanoid shapes with more spirals, until it clouds out. “Just warming up right now.”

“Ah.” Sean smiled at her again, and then vanished into the men’s dressing room.

When Beth left that night, she felt like she could breathe again.

***

The second time she sees Sean, she knows she’s cracked.

She’s not sure what happened, honestly. She went to the local combo arcade and bar for their annual Halloween party, and caught his scent instantly. Moments later, he was handing her ass to her at MarioKart, then Brawl, despite her valiantly putting up a fight for each game. They both had… probably a little more alcohol than they should have, and somewhere in the darkness of the bar and the drunken haze, he catches her scent.

Or maybe he just forgets to filter it out. Hard to say.

It doesn’t matter now, really. One thing led to another, and, well. Here she is.

In his apartment.

Naked.

Her suppressants may as well have taken a vacation. Sean’s scent soaks into her, pulling her deeper into that Omega sub-space she detests, and she honestly can’t be bothered to care. It’s been years since she’s slept with an Alpha; a decade, almost. It’s been months since she’s even had sex. Her inner Omega is begging for attention.

Sean’s more than happy to give it to her. He gets bored with the movie he turned on (probably to relax her), and he shifts beside her, a rolling of Alpha muscles that has her immediate attention. His lips meet hers from out of nowhere, and has her naked and over his shoulder moments later. Beth laughs, her mind fuzzy from the alcohol still lingering in her system.

They tumble onto his bed as a unit, Sean kissing down her throat in a hot, wet blaze. Beth arches up to meet his lips, keening. She must seem embarrassingly eager, and yet, she’s already so far gone, she can’t care enough to stop.