Chapter Text
It was a beautiful spring day, the branches of trees coming alive with buds of leaves and the yellow grass standing up slowly against warming beams of sunlight. Though the air was saturated with exhaust fumes from the millions of cars in the city, it was easy to pretend here in the middle of the park that that was not the case. Dawn could almost tune out the honking of cars and the scratch of tires if she listened really hard to the birds. She'd come to the park to read, hoping to get a feel for the city she now lived in, but it was proving difficult to focus. There was just so much going on.
Not only did the cars make noise but so did the people. Shocker. She hadn't quite realized just how quiet her hometown was before coming here. There was a couple on the bench next to her, sitting with their arms around each other and knees touching, breathing the same air as they talked. Throngs of people walked past, all engaged in conversation in one way or another, some on the phone and others with those they were walking with. There were dogs, some barking and some panting, making dog noises. A bunch of college students were having an early picnic in the shade of a tree not too far from her, music playing from a loudspeaker and textbooks strewn all around that they seemed to be arguing over. Dawn had always had good hearing, one of her only good traits according to her mother, but it was beginning to feel more like a curse than a blessing.
Becoming aware of herself, how her hands moved and how loud she was breathing, she put the bookmark where she'd left off and untucked her hair from behind her ears. She fidgeted nervously with the hem of her skirt, eyes darting around to make sure nobody was staring at her. She didn't meet anybody's gaze. Maybe she should put on her headphones to tune out all this noise. It was getting overwhelming. But would that draw attention to her? A lot of the people here had headphones. Why would they care if she put hers on? The nagging voice of her mother echoed in her ears: "It makes you look unapproachable, Dawn. God knows you don't need any help keeping people away from you."
Objectively, that was a mean thing to say. But Dawn's mom was different. For one thing, she was right. In a big city, a public park, she should strive to look sociable and nice. Not closed off and rude. No matter how the noise was bothering her or how she wanted to hide her big ears, it wouldn't be right. So, she kept the headphones in her bag and tilted her head down to look at her book. It was one of her favourites, part of a long series of detective novels she'd been a fan of since she was a kid. This was maybe her seventh time rereading it. She could probably recite it from memory at this point.
There were a few others on the benches around also reading. An older person with stylish grey hair was sitting with a thick tome on their lap, glasses perched low on their nose. Dawn wished she could see what they were reading. A man who was wearing an obscene amount of rings was reading by holding the book up to his face, the cover proudly on display. Dawn had read the same one in college for a gender studies course. It was a popular feminist think piece that she had found dull, frankly. It was very surface level and written in that wordy way that said very little.
Dawn sighed. She was being too judgemental. "Gosh, Dawn, you're so opinionated." The man was trying to learn and here she was, critiquing his book choice like it was a reflection of him. She'd read the same book, she had no room to judge. The man's eyes left the pages and scanned the crowd. He had pretty eyes, she couldn't see what colour from this far away, but they were lined with black and he had long lashes. His attention moved to her left and a smile lit up his face. He had dimples.
Even with a dysfunctional nose like Dawn's, the scent coming off the person he must've seen was obvious. Fragrant like a flower, honeyed by a sweetening perfume, the omega walked the path beside her bench and as they went by, Dawn fought the urge to frown. A male omega. He had on a long jean skirt that he wore low at his hips, a brown leather jacket that bared his midriff, and there was a beaten up tote bag on his shoulder. As he sat beside the man with the book, she spied the graphic tee he had cinched at his waist. It bared his belly, where the omega scent patch stood out proudly.
This was another thing that was totally new to her in this city. The obvious and open presence of male omegas and female alphas. All her life, she had understood that those were contradicting ideas. Alphas were men and omegas were female. Since college, that understanding had wavered. Still, because her college was small and that she'd lived at home the entire time, she hadn't had much reason to believe otherwise. Now, it was inescapable.
"Well, Dawn, everybody has the right to look how they want to look. They can choose whichever lifestyle suits them and there's nothing we can do about that." She tore her eyes away from the couple that was clearly on a first date, not wanting to be creepy. She opened her book on the page she left off and tried to read. Detective Sawyer, a rugged father-figure to the main character, had just taken a bullet to the shoulder after his undercover identity had been compromised. He wouldn't make it out, Dawn knew, and after this book the main character, Sadie Lowe, would never be the same.
Like Sadie Lowe, Dawn was a beta. For Sadie this meant she was especially suited for detective work, considering her even temper, mild scent and generic facial features. Dawn was not even-tempered, did not have a particularly mild scent, and had a distinct face, for better or worse. She got upset easily, worked up about the stupidest things. Her scent, from what little her mother had divulged and her few friends across her life had mentioned, had notes akin to a bar of soap. It was artificial, recognizable, and too clean to feel real. Her face was long and down-turned, sharp in places it shouldn't be and soft where it was ill-fit. She had her mother's eyes, hazel that seemed to change with the light, and a stranger's nose, chin and lips.
The duality of betas. Another new thing in the big city were the many micro labels she'd bumped into. Gammas, deltas, epsilons, zetas, and so on. At first, she'd assumed people were really about Greek life here but then one of her neighbours, an older man that lived across the hall, had introduced himself as a theta and Dawn figured he could not be part of a fraternity. Surely. A couple of Google searches later, she'd been enlightened. Some of it made her uncomfortable, she didn't need to or really even want to know the particulars of someone else's reproductive system, but she could also recognize that the umbrella of beta left a lot unsaid.
Sadie Lowe was the archetypical beta character, a somewhat androgynous woman that had relations with alphas and omegas alike during the course of the books but eventually ended up with the parallel of her own identity, a male beta. The medical definition of a beta was loose enough that most people were assigned as such at birth, since it was rarer for people to be born with one wholly complete set of reproductive organs, alpha or omega, than several or varied forms of them, beta. In books like the River Hollows Detectives -series, what kind of gametes the beta main characters had were almost never discussed. There was a lot of discourse about it online, not so much about River Hollows Detectives specifically since it was a pretty small series, on whether or not it was erasure or meant to encompass all betas.
Dawn had long ago decided not to examine her favourite book series with a critical lens. She loved the books too much to ruin them for herself. She refrained because she knew she'd find more flaws than virtues. She truly had no room to judge the guy with the rings for reading entry-level feminist literature when she read such vapid crime novels. A total of eight times, nonetheless. She snapped the book closed and stood up. She couldn't focus and now she was feeling sad. If not for the thick, gelatinous scent compressors she wore at her neck and wrists, she would surely be broadcasting the odour of Epsom salts and chemical eucalyptus strong enough to bring tears to the eyes. "Stop crying, Dawn, I can't tell if this is basil or oregano with you in the kitchen. Shoo!"
The walk to the bus stop wasn't long. She put her headphones on now that she was going somewhere, so she could justify being a little unapproachable. Still, she slid one cover to sit behind her ear so she'd hear if someone asked for directions or something. She was walking behind two women with strollers, both in trendy windbreakers and white sneakers, thick headbands that covered their ears but left the top open for their swinging pony tails. They were walking briskly but since Dawn was taller than them, her pace was naturally faster. The flow of people to the other direction blocked her from passing. She didn't want to shove between them. What if she tripped on the stroller wheels? She couldn't risk humiliating herself like that.
"Oh, y'know, Dylan's struggling with it, but what can you do?" One of the women, the one with darker hair, said. Dawn was inadvertently listening in on their conversation. She looked off to the side, observing the people on the grass. Some boys were playing with a frisbee.
"Poor baby," The other woman cooed, her voice warbling in the way that denoted she was an omega. "How've you been feeling? I used to get these awful hot flashes!"
"I know," The darker haired one warbled back. "I don't know yet, honestly, I just feel... Down, I guess. I don't smell like myself."
"When I was taking it I was asking Winn to scent me all the time, 'cause that felt better than smelling like a stranger."
"You know how Richard's with scenting, God, it's like I'm asking for a miracle!"
"Ugh, I totally get that, my ex used to look at me like I was crazy when I asked,"
"Like, I don't get it. What's so hard about it? Sometimes it's, like, why don't you wanna smell like me?"
"Right! He's been so possessive lately you'd think he would want nothing more,"
"Did I tell you about what happened when we had Cindy and Trevor over?"
"No, oh my God, what?"
Dawn assumed they were talking about patch supplements, which she was unfortunately very familiar with. Typically people only had to take the supplement after pregnancy or during menopause, both of which cause fluctuations in hormone levels and thus affect pheromone output. Dawn had taken the supplement since she was seven years old. Before puberty, all children smelled very similar. Only parents or those very close to them could pick out personal scent notes, even so they were subtle, which meant that in order to distinguish kids by scent, parents had a responsibility to regularly and thoroughly scent their kids. This was also vital to the psychological development of the child. Dawn's mom had to work for most of her childhood, which left her to spend time either with her grandmother, her mom's boyfriend of the week, or be alone.
She could vividly remember that doctor's visit, which had been scheduled for an entirely different reason, and how the white-coated man had looked at her with pitying eyes. He'd taken one look at the scent patches on her neck and shoulders and written the order to get her on the supplement. Social workers came to the house a week later and Chris, her longest-standing step dad, had had to answer invasive questions about their home when he'd been around for maybe a month at the time. They didn't take any of what she said seriously, that her mom did it whenever she had time, that she actually preferred not to be scented, that it was her fault because she hadn't washed up properly.
Now, almost twenty years later, she knew that it was neglect. If she thought about it too hard, she'd make herself cry. Mom couldn't help it, she didn't have the time, Dawn could've asked instead of expecting it. "Use your words, Dawn. You want a hug? Mommy's gotta go to her shift, okay, go hug grandma instead."
Dawn's scent patches had been underdeveloped due to, essentially, lack of contact, and were not reaching the standardized pheromone output levels for her age group. She'd been put on the supplement to accelerate the growth. Back then, she'd had a prescription for them since she had needed stronger stuff than the ones they sold over the counter. There were a bunch of known side-effects, principal among which was changes to scent profile. In terms of long-term use, there was not much research. As it turned out, Dawn was practically patient zero.
If she were to attribute all her ailments to the supplement, the review would be scathing. Of course, there was only one subject so that study would never get off the ground. It was possible the supplement had affected her nasal glands in a way that made it hard for her to pick out scents, commit them to memory, and unable to smell herself. Or that was just her. It was possible the supplement had changed her pheromonal output, her scent, permanently. Or she just smelled this way anyway. It was possible that the supplement had made her infertile. Or not.
Looking at the two women, now gossiping about Cindy and Trevor, whoever those people were, pushing strollers where two babies slept soundly, Dawn felt profoundly hollow. This was a bad day. She was in the city, away from mom, away from where grandma lied in the ground, all those men that lived in her home but pretended not to know her now, away from all that she knew. She was on her own, had a new phone and an address she hadn't shared with anybody, and she was alone. And that's how she would be from now on.
It'd been an impulsive decision. She just couldn't take it anymore. Being alone in the apartment unsettled her down to the bone. It was too big, yawning empty with the lack of furniture, the absence of life, chatter, company. Too new and too old at the same time, too fresh to feel lived in and too aged to seem full of potential. The walls were closing in and Dawn had to make a change: acquire a roommate.
It wasn't easy coming to that conclusion. She didn't want to admit it. The whole plan had been to stay alone, isolated, and be content with that. But getting a roommate didn't equate to forging a connection. She didn't live in a fantasy world, it was likely that whoever ended up her roommate, if she even found someone she was willing to live with, would just be another thing in her home. Flashes of girly sleepovers, pillow forts, doing face masks and sharing secrets played in her mind. Then, shifting to a more realistic perspective, the sound of doors closing, people talking without her in the living room, plans made that had nothing to do with her, somewhat pleasant conversations about leftovers in the fridge.
She sighed. Roommate didn't mean friend. And that was fine.
"Hi, are you Dawn?" Someone asked from behind her. Dawn looked up from her book to whoever had said her name. There stood a man of about six feet wearing a flannel and jeans. He seemed to be a little older than her, she couldn't tell exactly with the beard. She made the guess he was a beta since the hair on his cheeks was rougher than that which grew on scent patches. She couldn't really tell, though, since some alphas liked keeping their patch hair short. She couldn't really smell him either in this busy café. Everything smelled like coffee.
"Hello, yes, I'm Dawn. You must be Brendan," She nodded at him and gestured at the chair in front of her. She would've offered to shake his hand, that would've been the polite thing to do, but she didn't want him to see the compressors on her wrists. If he seemed like a good roommate, then she'd tell him.
"Awesome, great," Brendan shuffled over to the seat she'd pointed at and put his stuff down on it. "Do you mind if I get a coffee?"
"No, go for it," She smiled and put the book back in her bag. She'd prefer another woman as her roommate but she wouldn't brush Brendan off yet.
Once Brendan came back, now with coffee in hand, they got to talking. He was working on his PhD and doing some editorial work for a media company at the same time to make ends meet. He had student loans but received some support from his home pack from time to time. He'd had to move out of his old apartment due to some complications with his old roommates.
"Well, y'know, it's totally cool that they mated, I just... I guess I thought we were closer than that." He said forlornly.
"Like pack?" She asked because she was curious but also because what a person thought about packs could be very telling. She figured he wouldn't be one of those people that turned their noses up at the concept, considering he'd been raised in one.
"Not that close, though I wouldn't have minded. Or, I would've liked for us to be pack but clearly we weren't on the same page." He paused. "They were alpha and omega, so not nearly as pack-minded as me, so I guess that's where the disconnect was. I'm a gamma, by the way, and use he/him pronouns."
Gamma was the type of beta that closely resembled alphas in all but patches, physically. Socially and psychologically, however, there were many differences. Where alphas had prominent ramus patches, colloquially called side burns, gammas did not. Alphas also had a scent gland in their penis that gammas lacked. Dawn had no desire to know about Brendan's penis and what glands it had and didn't.
"Okay," Dawn said flatly. "I'm... A kappa. She/her." She preferred to not reveal so much of herself to strangers, but since Brendan had been honest with her she felt the need to meet him where he was. She met the technical requirements for that label, so that's what she must be. A beta that resembles an omega.
They moved on. Apparently, talk of identity inspired no dread in Brendan and he was off talking about this and that in no time. He grew up further North but not too far away from the city, he used to stay here with his uncles during summer when he was a teen, and he should really visit them soon, according to him. They could come help him move. One of them was a plumber and could set up a washer and dryer if Dawn didn't already have one. She didn't.
As their conversation went on and began to approach an organic end, Brendan got a far-off look in his eye. "Is it- um- if this is too forward, I get that and I don't mean to offend, but uh, are you looking for a pack?"
Dawn considered that. The thought of a pack, a group of people that chose to share their lives with one another and even raise kids together, was beautiful. A part of her yearned for it. Mom used to call it unethical, confusing for children. "It's just not how you raise kids, Dawn. Mom and dad, that's how it goes." Brendan didn't seem unbalanced or traumatized. He spoke kindly about his family, with equal affection for all five of his parents, and from what she could tell he was a good person.
"No, I'm not looking for that." She said. It wasn't untrue. There was no point in saying out loud how she'd like to look for one but wasn't going to. She just wasn't suited for a pack. If she found just one friend, that'd be more than she could ever hope for.
"Alright, good," Brendan seemed relieved.
Dawn stood at the front entry to the apartment complex, fidgeting with her ring of keys. It had more keychains than actual keys, a collection of precious moments from throughout her life. There was a 3D printed shark an acquaintance in college had gifted her. A rabbit's foot from her grandma. A sparkly stuffed frog she won at a fair. A string of faded wooden beads she'd made at summer camp. She stopped playing with the frog, not wanting to seem nervous if Brendan saw her.
He'd texted her a couple of minutes ago that he was near. She hoped near to him wasn't more than a block. She'd just put on slippers, which left her bare toes vulnerable to the chilly gales of early spring. She had already been wearing a cardigan but granny squares didn't insulate well.
"Hey!" She heard from the right. Looking where the exclamation came, she spotted Brendan walking her way. He had on the same kind of get up as last time, flannel and jeans, this time sporting a beanie in addition. He'd shaved, also. His locs were poking out of the beanie near his ears and his glasses were foggy. Before Dawn could note anything more about his appearance, she noticed the other person walking with him.
She should've shouted something back. Wave, maybe. But she was frozen. The person walking with Brendan was very tall and clad in exclusively blacks and greys. She looked tough, not only because of the lack of colour in her clothes, but because of the way she was looking at Dawn. Dark eyes, piercing, locked onto her and seemed to look into her very soul. Dawn suddenly felt very aware of her cozy attire, the way her hair was bunched in a messy knot at her neck, how she must look like a total dweeb to this cool, untouchable female alpha.
The two had similar skin colour, though Brendan was a deeper shade of brown. Their faces didn't look very similar to each other. Brendan had a flat nose and plump lips, soft except when he smiled, deep divots in his cheeks. The female alpha was angular, armed with cutting cheekbones and a hooked nose. Dawn was trying to figure out the connection between them, friends or family, but she couldn't really tell.
"Wow, that was farther from the stop than I was expecting," Brendan said as he came up to the steps. "Hi, Dawn!" He went in for a hug. Dawn, very not-subtly, stepped out from the enclosing of his arms.
"Hi, Brendan, sorry, not a hugger, and- uh," She looked at the stranger who was standing at the bottom of the steps. Her ramus patches were immaculate, black like her hair, styled outwards in that spiky way Dawn had only seen the bad guys in movies do.
"Oh, yeah, this is Jesse, my pack sister. Jesse, meet Dawn, my new roomie," He recovered quickly from the not-hug, jovial and kind. Dawn had picked him exactly because of this.
"Nice to meet you, Jesse," Dawn squeaked out, trying her best to be polite in the face of someone cooler than herself. She had the awful feeling her face was redder than a tomato. "Um, is she gonna join us for the tour?"
"If you don't mind? I'm just going with her after this and we were both free earlier than we thought so I figured it'd be easier if we just met up,"
"It's okay," Dawn reassured quickly, trying to not show how bothered she was. Brendan bringing his sister along was perfectly fine with her, she just wished that sister wasn't so devastatingly cool. She was just standing there and somehow even that gave off an aura.
"I can wait here." Jesse said, voice all gruff and low. Dawn fought the shiver trying to crawl up her arms.
"No, no, it's cold, let's go inside," She turned on her heels and jammed the key into the door. "The, uh, code isn't working right now, but Tim said he'd called somebody to come fix it soon,"
"And when did Tim say that?" Jesse asked while Brendan just nodded his head. He elbowed his sister and gave her a look. She didn't acknowledge him one bit.
Dawn swallowed. "A few weeks ago."
"Which door is Tim's?" Jesse asked as they went inside, observing the apartment numbers like she was committing each wreath and welcome mat to memory.
"Don't answer that, Dawn," Luckily, Brendan piped up. "You are not menacing my brand new neighbours, Jess. This isn't that kind of neighbourhood. Oh, and by the way, Dawn, how come you're asking for so little? This is a pretty snazzy part of town,"
"Maybe for you, hobo," Jesse mumbled.
"Shut up," Brendan shoved her hard, probably not meaning to, and almost sent her plummeting down the stairs. Dawn flinched to catch her, slow the fall, anything, but by the time she had a grasp on Jesse's jacket she was nearly upright, balance regained. They stood still for a second, a moment heavy with tension Dawn couldn't name, until Jesse's eyes flicked to the compressor Dawn had on her wrist. Her expression grew severe, not angry exactly, but there was an edge to her Dawn hadn't picked up on before. With just the three of them there and two of them being betas, Jesse's strong scent was flooding the stairwell. It tinged with something dangerous. Dawn wished she hadn't noticed that. She mumbled a sorry and turned around to continue walking up the stairs. Pretend it never happened, she resolved.
"You can be so clumsy sometimes, Jesse, get a grip," Brendan poked.
"I'll show you clumsy, fucker," Her voice was almost all growl, affirming that she was an alpha as if it wasn't clear already.
"So, anyway, the rent is so low. What's the catch?" Brendan asked, voice getting breathy with exertion. The stairs had been rough for Dawn as well.
"No catch," She laughed. "I own it, so your rent is just a portion of the mortgage, water and electricity bill, and insurance. It's all in the agreement, did you read it?" Dawn's palms sweated at the mere thought he hadn't gone over the very detailed document.
"Oh, yeah, I scanned it." Brendan said, blasé like it wasn't legally binding.
"I read it," Jesse said. Her voice echoed and Dawn desperately tried to stop being so pathetic about it. "I have the papers you requested."
"Oh, okay," At least someone had them. Unfortunately, the fact that Jesse knew so much about Brendan's affairs meant their lives were probably pretty entwined. Did that mean Jesse was going to be at their place every now and then? Or often? Dawn wasn't sure how she'd handle that.
"Awe, I knew I could rely on you, Jess." They paused at the landing. "I do remember you mentioning there was no elevator, which floor was it again?"
"The highest, so the sixth."
"And how high are we now?"
"Just the second floor."
"Oh, fuck me,"
They eventually made it up the steps. Dawn had gotten used to it in the month she'd already lived here but even she was a little out of breath. Jesse, however, seemed wholly unaffected. It ought to be a crime to be that athletic. Dawn left her shoes in the foyer and watched as Brendan followed her example. Jesse seemed to hesitate a little but eventually bent down to untie her boots. Dawn hadn't grown up in a shoeless house but ever since moving here, she'd taken up the habit. She hated cleaning the floors.
Jesse was a couple inches shorter once she stepped out of her boots and Dawn noted that she had on socks with little cats on them. She wanted to ask about them, wonder if Jesse was a cat person, why did she pick these socks this morning, but it felt much too intimate to ask upon first-meeting.
The apartment wasn't all that impressive but with how much Brendan was oohing and aahing it might've as well have been a luxury penthouse. It was certainly better digs than what the average fresh college graduate would have, that much Dawn could acknowledge. Jesse seemed to pick up on this detail with keen interest. She kept her eyes on Dawn like a hawk, assessing her at almost all times. It was hard to get through the tour with the alpha staring her down. Dawn tried her best. She stammered only a couple of times.
"So, yeah, this is it." She clasped her hands together. "This last door is just my room. Let's go to the kitchen and talk about what you guys think."
"We can't see your room?" Jesse asked, eyes narrowed and a slight furrow between her brows. If her scent betrayed any of the emotion she was now feeling, Dawn couldn't tell. She cursed her crappy nose.
"She has every right to protect her privacy, Jesse." Brendan said, tone not quite as light as before. "To the kitchen," He pushed Jesse by the shoulders away from the hallway. Dawn took a deep, calming breath. Everything was fine. She needed a roommate. Brendan was a good guy. It was totally normal to want to see someone's room. They weren't being invasive, they were just curious. "There you go again, Dawn, not everybody's your enemy!"
"I think I'm gonna make some coffee, would you guys like some?" Dawn reached into the cupboard above the microwave and pulled out the packet of coffee grounds.
"Sounds good," Brendan answered shortly, texting on his phone. "Devon's freaking out, I'm gonna call him. Be nice to Dawn, Jesse, my living situation depends on it," With that he disappeared into his room. And then it was just the two of them, Jesse and Dawn. Dawn and Jesse. The alpha was standing by the counter, leaning her hip against it with her arms crossed. She could've been in a magazine, looking just like that. Brooding eyes boring into the camera, hooded and dark, like she knew all your secrets and would squeeze out even more with no effort whatsoever.
"It doesn't smell like you've been living here," Jesse said. Dawn blinked slowly, recovering, then turned back to the coffee machine.
"I do live here." She responded, albeit weakly.
"I didn't say you didn't. I said it doesn't smell like it."
"Okay," Dawn didn't have a way to refute that. Having a roommate meant having shared spaces and a responsibility to maintain those spaces. As in smelling nice, kept neat, and left organized. With how offensive Dawn's natural scent was, she'd never get anyone willing to stay unless she compressed heavily. The only space she would take the compressors off was her room and its en suite bathroom. Though the absence of her scent was the goal, that also meant that the home didn't smell like anything. Every home was supposed to have its own smell.
"You're not gonna explain that?" Jesse asked. Dawn pressed the ON button on the coffee machine and listened as it started to churn.
What was she supposed to explain? I smell bad, Jesse. Sorry. She decided to just be plain.
"I have a medical condition that affects my patches." She said. Hearing no response from Jesse, she turned and saw the alpha looking at her dubiously. "That's all you need to know."
"What, so you wear compressors when you're alone? How do you even feel at home here? It's sterile," Jesse scoffed. Dawn's expression hardened. The glamorous air about Jesse faded and Dawn saw her for who she was; a person she did not like.
"You don't have to be here." She said, reaching into another cabinet to get out some cookies.
Jesse didn't respond to that right away. Dawn glanced her way. She was still leaning in that attractive way but her face was more open. She didn't seem happy. Dawn wished she could just breathe a little deeper and get a hint for how she was feeling. Tension sizzled between them. Jesse pushed off the counter and started walking towards Dawn. Alarmed, she put her hands up as if in surrender, but as Jesse closed in on her, her muscular arms trapping Dawn against the counter, her nose went to Dawn's hair.
Jesse inhaled hard. Dawn's hands, which had landed on Jesse's shoulders, gripped onto the leather of her jacket in mortification as she was sniffed. This was extremely inappropriate. Trying to glean someone's scent profile this way, without even asking first, was a huge invasion of privacy. Bristling, Dawn pushed Jesse away by the shoulders.
"What the heck do you think you're doing?" She hissed, holding her hands protectively over her scalp.
"Trying to tell what you're hiding," Jesse said. She took a step toward Dawn.
Dawn stepped back. "No. You do not have my permission."
"Oh? And you suppose I need that?" Jesse pushed, taking another step.
"Yes! I don't want you to sniff me, that's my business," Dawn continued stepping backwards as Jesse kept advancing.
"Scents are everybody's business, sunshine, I just wanna know what you're using,"
"What?" Dawn stopped, Jesse didn't. They stood in the dining room that didn't have a dining table yet. Well, it wasn't really a dining room, but a slightly larger space between the kitchen and living room. Either way, they stood there. Dawn was perplexed. Jesse was staring down at her with accusatory eyes. She had to look up to meet the alpha's gaze, even without the boots. Close up, she could see the pores on her fawn coloured skin, hear her breathing, smell the intimidation attempt pouring out of her patches. It was working.
Brendan's door opened.
"Phew, okay, Devon's good for now. He missed the station he was supposed to get off at but we found a way for him. Hooray!" Brendan walked into the kitchen. "Oh, where'd you guys go? Hey- oh, hi, um... What's going on?"
"What do you think, Danny, is it crack? Or maybe heroin?" Jesse took a small step away from Dawn, no longer within sniffing distance.
"Woah, dude, you can't make accusations like that about my new roomie!" Brendan rounded the counter and strode to their side. "This is my shot, man,"
"Excuse me, what am I being accused of?" Dawn asked, almost confused enough to forget Jesse's earlier actions. Almost.
"Jesse's a little sensitive about, uh, scent dampening-"
"She doesn't smell like anything, Danny, you can tell, I can tell. What I'm wondering is what she's taking."
"You're coming on way too strong, Jesse," Brendan's easy expression had shuttered. "You just met."
"Yeah, whatever, you are not rooming with her."
"Oh, and what kind of say do you have in who I choose to live with?"
"Don't make me call dad."
"You wouldn't."
"I would."
"What is going on!" Dawn interrupted their argument, gesturing wildly with her arms. "I am not a drug addict!"
A silence fell. Neither Jesse nor Brendan spoke. Dawn looked between them.
"You seriously think I'm on drugs." She said, disbelieving. "Really?"
"I'm sorry, Dawn, this isn't how I wanted this to go." Brendan sighed, rubbing at his forehead. "Look, I don't really care what's going on with you and it's really none of our business." He spared a hard look at Jesse when she went to interject. "And Jesse has no right to make bold statements like that."
"Why?" There was something here she wasn't getting.
Brendan let out a put-upon sigh while Jesse eyed her suspiciously. "The scent compressors. The ones on your neck and wrist patches. Usually, when a person wears them they're either near the peak of their cycle or... Hiding something."
"Like drug-use. It's almost always drug-use." Jesse added with snark.
"I assumed, when we first met, that you were near a heat or something, but you're still wearing them and it smells like nothing in here. So, I guess Jesse here decided it was a good idea to just, I dunno, attack you instead of talking like a civilized person." Brendan shifted his weight and stared reproachfully at Jesse. The alpha did not direct her gaze elsewhere, still looking at Dawn like she was a criminal.
"I have a medical condition." Dawn said, feeling like a broken telephone.
"A substance-abuse condition."
"I smell bad!" Dawn burst out. "Is that what you want me to say? I wear compressors because I smell bad without them and I didn't want my roommate to be subjected to that in their own home. It's not a big deal, I've been doing this since high school, and I've never used any drugs,"
"Convenient," Jesse scoffed.
"For the love of God, get off my dick!" Dawn snapped.
"Woah, woah, let's all calm down," Brendan took a step between them, hands held aloft like he was prepared to stop them from pouncing on each other. "Deep breaths. We should sit."
The tour hadn't gone well. It'd started off okay, with the exception of Jesse's suffocating presence, but had quickly devolved into Dawn being accused of being a drug addict. She had never had to refute that kind of statement. Nobody in her past would have ever made that kind of conclusion. She was as far from a drug-user as could be. Then again, city life was different. It seemed that anybody, regardless of their wealth or lack thereof, their general disposition, or their outward appearance could be a drug addict. The access to that sort of thing was much freer here, she'd come to understand as Brendan had tried to explain their assumption.
Though Dawn could understand caution, that did not mean she appreciated Jesse's way of bringing it forward. Taking a sniff at her hair, an action that was deeply intimate, was unacceptable.
Brendan still wanted to go through with it. That was a relief. She'd been worried that she'd have to go back to looking. It'd been lucky they'd found each other so soon, who knew when the next good candidate would appear. Then again, it wasn't like she couldn't afford to live alone. There was still a good portion left of grandma's inheritance, which she'd put to good use acquiring the apartment in the first place. She'd found work that paid well in a local IT franchise that didn't require her to be in the office most days. She had a side hustle repairing and building computers that she ran off a website she'd set up. The only real reason she felt she even needed a roommate was because she'd never lived alone. Despite spending her childhood in relative solitude, there had almost always been another person in the house. Grandma, a step dad or two, or even mom. The one month she had spent living alone thus far had been torturous.
Sleepless nights spent locked in her room, convinced there was a burglar in the home, just because someone upstairs made a noise. Coming home from wherever she'd been and being swallowed by all-consuming silence. Making too much dinner and having to throw leftovers away. She was good at entertaining herself but not that good.
She was a woman in her mid-twenties living in an apartment she would officially own in the next 15 years, which was a very short time for a mortgage, which in turn meant she had a disproportionate amount of wealth for her age. Her home smelled like nothing, she herself had no scent to speak of most of the time, and she lacked a lot of essential furniture. She was pale and gaunt, dark under her eyes like she hadn't slept for days. Maybe arriving to the conclusion she was involved in some shady business wasn't that unfounded.
Still, she was offended by it. Had Jesse had more tact, she could've explained herself with more clarity. Instead, once they sat down, they continued right from where they left off. At one point, they got so heated they were screaming in each other's faces, Brendan helplessly trying to separate them. It was this close to trading blows. "Listen to yourself, Dawn, you're hysterical," Looking back, it was embarrassing. Dawn didn't lose her cool like that. She could count in one hand the times she'd been angry enough to scream about it. Her usual rote of expressing upset feelings was to cry about it secretly. Something about Jesse got to her, though, in a way she hadn't experienced before.
It had been a few weeks since Brendan moved in. Dawn’s initial fear that Jesse would be around turned out to be warranted. She was in their home more often than she was not, which led to Brendan telling her to go home for once. Now, it’d been about three days since her last visit. And still, the alpha was heavy on Dawn’s mind.
Just thinking about her had her mood souring. Brendan was good, he was sensible, he listened, he was reasonable. Jesse was stubborn as a mule, sarcastic and dismissive, nice to look at but that's where her virtues ended. Had Dawn been a forgiving person, a little more charitable, she could have attributed Jesse's brashness to her being naturally protective of her pack brother. Dawn wasn't, though. There were ways to be protective without being downright rude, in her honest opinion.
She couldn't even focus on her book. The room probably stunk right about now, her upset causing her pheromone output to go crazy, so she'd have to change clothes when she got out. The laundry was piling up. As Brendan had promised, he'd gotten his plumber uncle, Jeremiah, to install a washer and dryer combo in the apartment. Much more convenient than going to the ground floor to use the complex's communal one. She'd finished the book where Detective Sawyer died and was now in the middle of the one where his son, Detective Junior, transferred to Sadie's department. It wasn't one of her favourites, mainly because it focused more on Sadie's love life and dating plights rather than the crimes at hand. There was a serial killer in town and she was more concerned with the love triangle she had all but created between her current alpha partner and her passed-on mentor's beta son. Obviously, because they were doomed by the narrative, the alpha partner would fall victim to the serial killer and Detective Junior would be there to pick up the pieces.
"There you go again, Dawn, nose in a book when there's chores to be done," With that, Dawn put a bookmark to the page she left off at and climbed out of bed. She smoothed out the sheets and walked to her closet. She stripped to her underwear and chucked the clothes into the hamper. With practiced movements, she grabbed a packet of the scent compression stickers, size L, that she kept in a small compartment in the closet. She ripped it open and applied it directly over her left shoulder patch, which was located on the trapezius muscle where the shoulder met neck. Because she used compressors so often, she kept her patch hair shaved. It was unorthodox to do so, patch hair was very present in beauty standards across the globe, but she didn't want to be ripping her hair out every time she took the compressors off. Patch hair was fine and wispy with short follicles, so in essence she would be waxing herself daily regardless of how gentle the adhesive claimed to be.
With the compressors applied to both shoulder and wrist patches, she took out an oversized hoodie and some shorts. She decided to forgo applying compressors to the gracilis patches, located on the inner thighs, because it felt like overkill. It was such a pain, literally, taking them off since the skin there was so tender. The plan was just to put the laundry on, grab something from the fridge, and go back to her room to wait for the cycle to finish spinning. That's all.
The hoodie was a relic she'd stolen from one of her bygone step-dads, Mike was his name if she remembered correctly, and he'd been a huge, broad man. It reached her upper thighs, just under her butt. The shorts were a little small, she didn't remember where she'd gotten them, but she didn't have the heart to throw them away. They were a little too tight to be worn out in public.
With the hamper on her hip, she unlocked her door and stepped out. She closed it behind her, checking the insulation as she went. She'd installed the special door herself, which had been a pain due to her inexperience with home improvement, but a few video tutorials later she'd managed to get it right. That way, she could keep her scent isolated to one space, ensuring it wouldn't taint the hallway she and Brendan shared.
Walking to the little closet space between the bathroom and kitchen, she slid the divider to the side and knelt on the floor to be at level with the machine door. With that, she began to shove her dirty laundry in. It wasn't until she was reaching into the hamper and found nothing when she swore she had more stuff, that she looked up. Sock clad feet, frog patterns this time, stood by her hamper. Her eyes trailed up denim clad legs, clearly strong even through the thick blue fabric, to hips where a belt with a silver buckle shone in the early-evening sun, to a black tee-shirt that hugged at Jesse's figure, and finally to her face that was pressed into the fabric of one of Dawn's sleep shirts.
Jesse's eyes, her stupid brown eyes that shone amber in the sun, were fixed on her. Her brows were furrowed, a concentrated look on her face as she took deep inhales of the soft cotton that was surely saturated, drenched, in Dawn's unfiltered scent.
"You freaking perv!" She surged up and tried to grab the shirt from the alpha.
"Have you noticed that you don't curse?" Jesse asked, back turned and hunched over the tee-shirt protectively. Her voice was muffled by Dawn's shirt. How she was holding the article of clothing so close to her nose without retching was a mystery to Dawn.
"Have you noticed you're infuriating?" Dawn said back, trying to reach around Jesse. Throwing caution into the wind, she jumped on the alphas back and tried to rip the shirt out of her hands from both sides.
Jesse laughed, bending down further so Dawn's legs left the ground. She yelped as her full weight went onto Jesse.
"Put me down, you brute! And give me my shirt back!" She tried kicking the alpha and when that didn't work, she punched at her stomach. "Now!"
"You hit like a girl," Jesse taunted and began to walk. Dawn clutched onto her to not fall.
"You suck," Dawn hissed, digging her nails into Jesse's stomach.
"Why'd you smell like detergent?" Jesse continued walking, headed towards the living room. Had Dawn known she was here she wouldn't have come out of her room. Brendan had probably texted her about it but she was bad at checking her phone. One hour of screen-time per day her entire childhood had instilled an aversion to the device. Going into computer science in college had been ironic.
"That is really none of your business, Jesse. Put me down and give me my shirt back." Dawn sighed in defeat, settling against Jesse's back reluctantly. She could slide off. She could stop entertaining this bullshit. A person like Jesse lived for the reaction she got out of people and Dawn was giving her exactly what she wanted. Some secret part of her, something Dawn had shoved under all her baggage, not to be seen ever again, raised its head. It was nice to touch someone.
"Nah," Jesse said, simple as can be. She took another sniff at the shirt. "It's kinda nice,"
Dawn simultaneously bristled and preened. Because what do you mean kinda nice? But also, she said she smelled nice. Dawn had never received a compliment on her scent.
"Gee, thanks," She huffed. "Now that you're done profiling me, do you mind returning my property?"
"If you answer why you smell like detergent,"
"I don't want to negotiate."
"Too bad, I guess the shirt's mine now,"
It was really despicable how Dawn's tummy did a little flip at the thought that Jesse would claim something that belonged to her.
"Whatever, actually," With that, she pushed off Jesse's back and turned her back, going back to the laundry machine. "I'm gonna do my laundry. I don't care."
"Mmh," Jesse hummed. Dawn sat back on the floor in front of the machine, closed the door, and measured out the appropriate amounts of detergent and fabric softener. As Jesse didn't say anything more, Dawn turned to look at her. The alpha was facing where she was sat, those offensive eyes trained on her, the bottom half of her face still pressed to Dawn's shirt.
"Can you smell the cocaine on it?" She asked, unable to resist.
"I didn't know cocaine smelled like lavender," Jesse said. Dawn furrowed her brows.
"Lavender?" She asked, knowing she didn't smell like lavender.
"I have a good nose," Dawn narrowed her eyes at that. "You don't, clearly,"
"Hey," She admonished.
"I mean, it's mostly something... Chemical, like medicine. Too strong and faint at the same time. But under, somewhere, it's lavender." Jesse said. "So, y'know, if you let up on the substances you'd probably smell pretty good,"
"Has anybody ever told you that you're incredibly irritating?" Dawn asked insincerely.
"Plenty of times," Jesse smirked like she was a goddamn movie star, the dazzling new person in town the main girl wasn't supposed to fall for but did so anyway, helpless to the charm. Dawn closed her eyes for a moment, breathing deeply to keep herself calm.
"Fine, yeah, whatever, keep it," She said, getting up from the floor. She put up the hamper basket to lean on the wall and went to the kitchen. She wanted a sandwich.
Jesse, because she was annoying beyond measure, followed her. Leaning on the counter, shirt held under her nose, she watched all too closely as Dawn gathered stuff from the fridge. There were some deli meats Dawn hadn't bought. She held the packet of sliced capicola, wondering if it was meant to be shared or if Brendan had just forgotten to put his name on it. They had the ingredients to make an olive spread to go with it.
"That sure is meat you're looking at," Jesse spoke right by her ear. Dawn jumped.
"Gosh, don't do that," Hand on her chest, she elbowed Jesse away from her. "Did you buy this?"
"Yep. There's a good deli near here." As usual, despite being physically pushed away, Jesse didn't go far.
"Did Brendan ask you?"
"Nope."
Dawn waited for her to elaborate. She didn't. "Did you buy this for Brendan?"
"You,"
"I'm gonna need more than one word answers here, Jesse."
"You, as in the collective one."
"Great," Dawn decided not to rhetorically ask 'that wasn't hard, was it,' knowing Jesse would respond with something stupid. Then, pausing as she realized something, Dawn pursed her lips. Could she do it? Did she have to do it? All the good manners that'd been sown into her protested the very notion of not.
"Thank you, Jesse." She said, smiling in a way that surely looked more like a grimace.
"Don't say it like it'll kill you, sunshine," Jesse said breezily. She seemed to think for a moment, eyes going back and forth between Dawn and the shirt. Then, brazenly, she started rubbing the fabric against her ramus patches. Openly and without reservation, she scented Dawn's shirt. And as if the scent coming off the side burns wasn't enough, she pulled aside the neck of her tee-shirt and rubbed at her trapezius patches.
Dawn watched, mouth agape. Jesse's grin was malicious, a show of teeth more than anything, and only once the shirt stunk strongly enough of her that Dawn could smell it from where she was standing, did she stop.
"You-" Dawn stammered. "You scented my shirt- why- why would you do something like that?"
"Make you actually smell like something, at last," Jesse held the shirt with two fingers. "Wear it tonight, yeah?"
"You... I hate you,"
"You know you don't, sunshine, but keep lying to yourself. Eventually, you'll believe it."
"Get out." Dawn snatched the shirt from Jesse and pointed toward the door with it. "Now."
"Enjoy the deli meats!" With that, having disrupted Dawn's life successfully once more, Jesse strolled out of the kitchen. Dawn trailed behind and watched as the alpha stepped into her boots, tied them with efficiency, and finally opened the door. She looked back over her shoulder at Dawn, smirking. Dawn hated it. The door closed behind her. Dawn went and locked it. She even did the deadbolt.
Even after all that, Dawn was left thinking about one thing only. Lavender.
The scented shirt went back into the hamper. It haunted Dawn, the smell of Jesse wafting off it in waves at the most inconvenient times. Because of her condition, the source of which sat on her desk, a taunting blister pack of the supplement, she was unable to pick out individual notes. Nevertheless, its constant presence didn't allow her to forget, the periodical resetting of her scent memory to occur. It became the one other scent in her room aside from her own, which she couldn't sense anyway, and it was driving her crazy.
How come she failed to recall what Brendan, her roommate, smelled like but that of his infuriating sister was branded to her sinuses? The answer to that question would not present itself. And to make matters worse, she was in heat. Peaks of cycles were different for all types of beta, some could be accredited to a heat or rut but most landed in an undefined territory between the two. People tended to refer to their peaks as either heats or ruts to denote their social identity, communicate this aspect of themselves to those it mattered to, for example sexual partners. Sometimes, a beta might refer to their peak as a rut even though symptomatically it more resembles a heat, because as far as Dawn had understood, identity overruled biology. For Dawn, or kappas but that name still didn't feel right, it meant suffering in bed, abdomen and groin feeling as it they were tearing themselves apart, bleeding a little bit from the vagina, and enduring a sickening fever. And also unbearable arousal, all the time.
Most betas didn't experience the peak at such intensity that they needed to take off from work. Unfortunately for Dawn, she wasn't among that group. Every three months or so, she'd have to file for heat leave. No work. Commissions had been slow lately. Nothing to tinker with. Meaning, she had nothing to do for the next five days but sweat. Concentrating on a book was impossible and it didn't help that the next iteration of River Hollows Detectives sucked.
It was about Sadie Lowe's leave of absence and was also the worst book in the whole series. It split the perspective between Sadie and Detective Junior. His name was Jason and he was impossibly dull. What made the titular main character, the intelligent, ambitious, and complicated Sadie Lowe become charmed by a cardboard cut-out of a man was incomprehensible to Dawn. The book was basically just Sadie rotting in bed, depressed beyond recognition, and Detective Junior doing all the work chasing the serial killer that killed her ex. The one good thing about the book was that Detective Junior could not solve the case without her. Only Sadie Lowe could catch the killer and put them behind bars. This would then restore her will to live and in the next book she would continue working.
Dawn rested the open book on her face. If she frowned hard enough, maybe Detective Junior would not fall for the obvious red herring this time around. It was futile, the ink on the pages wouldn't change, but she could wish. Her tummy twisted painfully and the pad she was wearing was uncomfortable. She turned her head to look at her desk. The blister pack was on the edge of it, calling to her.
Another side-effect of the supplement was that it could affect one's cycle. Dawn had no idea what her heats were like without it since she'd started taking it before puberty. She had noticed that if she took four or more pills at the peak, the symptoms would dull. It couldn't be good for her but it'd come in handy during exams.
She hadn't taken the supplement in days. There was no need to keep taking it, that had been determined at her last doctor's visit back in college, almost three years ago now, but she hadn't quit. When she was living at home, it was her one way to have control. It'd been a way to ensure safety as well. Her scent, off-putting and chemical, kept away not only peers but the strange men in her home. There had been many step-dads that were interested in more than just her mother. Once they'd gotten a sniff of her, though, they usually laid off.
There were exceptions. It had never gone further than unsettling staring, touches that could be signed off as totally normal if not for the way the men tended to linger, and unsolicited 'fatherly' praise. Heats spent locked in her room, listening for footsteps outside her door before going to the kitchen or bathroom, being caught unaware on those short trips and refusing the so-called help they'd offer. She'd heard horror stories, grooming and assault and violence, so it felt like she'd gotten away pretty unscathed. Even so, her mother's constantly shifting roster of men was top three in the reasons she felt she had to leave as soon as possible.
She stood at her desk and picked up the pack of pills. Split capsules of light green and white, encased in foil and plastic. One had been popped all too long ago. She pulled the trash bin from under the desk hastily and chucked the pills in there. Then, she went to her nightstand and pulled open the cabinet, retrieving the rest of the packs, and threw those away too.
The city was large and dangerous. There was no guarantee she'd be any safer here than in her small hometown. But here she had a secure home. One place she could run to.
Looking into the open cabinet of her nightstand, now empty save for the tiny pink sex toy, she rubbed at her aching stomach. She'd gotten the toy on a whim when she moved in, thinking she'd finally get to masturbate now that there was no looming threat of the smell of arousal calling to an unwanted person. She closed the cabinet and went back to bed. She'd sleep it off. The smell of alpha, Jesse, swirled around, tempting her.
She would've liked to say she didn't relent. That she didn't succumb to the siren call coming from the hamper. That it didn't affect her at all. All of that would've been a lie, however. Somehow, by the time evening rolled around, the shirt was in her mess of sheets, the scent of Jesse dulled by her own. It was pressed between her stomach and the bed as she rutted her hips down onto her hand. She brushed the vibrator gently against her clitoris, over underwear and the pad, only to yank it away before the sensation got to thrum through her. It was on the lowest setting and still it felt like too much. She was biting the pillow to muffle the involuntary whimpers she was letting out. She was sweating, the sheets were too rough on her skin, and something nice buzzing on her tender flesh didn't feel remotely enough.
Her mind, treacherous and cruel, played sick films of big hands on her hips, guiding her to grind on the bed, a domineering voice telling her to put the vibrator in her underwear and let it bring her to to the brink, lips on her neck and shoulders, licking her patches until they leaked scent in response, eager to please. Before she could think to stop herself, she pulled the scented shirt up to her face. She inhaled, clinging onto the vestiges of alpha still lingering on the fibres, and dared to press the toy harder against her sex. Her clit pulsed and throbbed, desperate for stimulation, trying to show off from under its hood like the pearl could make itself pretty enough to be kissed.
When she put the toy into her panties, like the imaginary voice commanded her to, she couldn't hold back the whine she let out. It was muffled against the shirt and her pillow but there was nothing stopping it from reaching her ears. It echoed in her skull loudly, resonating with the chords of shame she couldn't tune out. Whining like a bitch, in heat to add, she ground down hard. She felt so pathetic, so good, so sad, just so good. It felt like relief. Her mouth was open and drooling, her hands gripping the bedding, her back arched lewdly.
She mouthed words as her body clenched, begging the person in her mind to fuck her, take her, bite her, but they wouldn't. The vibration wasn't enough. She whined again, this time in frustration. Changing the angle of her hips, she found a pillow and wedged it between her legs. She thrusted like she was fucking something, someone, though she could never do such a thing with her anatomy. She ached to put her clit in something, fuck it somewhere soft and warm and cloying, feel another person want it as badly as she did.
Lifting herself so that she was mostly upright, leaning on her hands for leverage, she rolled and swiveled her hips. If someone were to see her like this, she'd be mortified. She had never felt this desperate, been debased, and it couldn't be better. Changing angles caused the vibrator to move away from her clit but she didn't want to reach in and readjust it. She kept grinding, hoping to nudge it back in place, when it slid even further down. It pressed directly against her vagina, the entrance to her very soul.
She gasped, shuddering, and sat down hard. She dreaded it going in, she didn't want anything more, she couldn't let that happen. Her hips didn't stop, her body shook, she quivered around the tiny breach like it was a monumental thing. She wanted it. No, she couldn't. Shouldn't.
Masturbation wasn't new to Dawn. Her first few heats had been so intolerable that she'd had to. She had never penetrated herself, though. There was something about it she found violating, even though she'd be doing it to herself. Now, when it happened half on accident, that notion didn't quite reach her. She wanted it. She wanted to be full.
It wouldn't go in. She could feel her stupid, wanton hole suck on the damn thing, but it wouldn't give. The vibration on the ring of muscles was teasing, taunting her with how good it was. Maybe she'd made herself into this by denying it for so long, maybe if she'd fingered herself like a normal person it wouldn't be so sensitive, so achingly empty.
A knock sounded on her door. Like cold water was thrown on her, she sprung up and turned to the door like she was caught. It was locked, nobody could come in, and it was insulated so they couldn't smell her. Her heart beat hard in her chest, pounding in the cage of her ribs like an imprisoned beast, and the drool on her chin dried. The vibrator kept on with its steady buzz. She got up from the bed, knees faltering as the toy pressed a bit harder against her. Her eyes rolled and she let out a small moan.
They knocked again and the muffled voice of Jesse rung out: "C'mon, Dawn, I'm not leaving the food at your door like your servant."
"I-" Her voice cracked. "I don't need food,"
"Yes, you do, you've been in there for twelve hours straight." Had it been that long? Surely not. She checked the clock on her bedside. Jesse was right.
"Where's Brendan?" She asked, walking to the door. She leaned on it with all her weight, biting her lip to keep from whining when her clit twitched.
"Out. I dunno. Just open the door." Jesse sounded frustrated, the suggestion of a growl there, and Dawn had the inexplicable urge to make her do that between her legs. No. That was the heat talking. She didn't want Jesse.
The shirt on the bed would've protested if it had a voice.
"I can't," Her voice came out breathy. "You know I can't."
"Sunshine, I might not like you, but I'm not that kind of alpha." Jesse's tone softened. Dawn missed the growl. "You can open the door. Nothing will happen."
Dawn thought about it. She shouldn't open it. Her scent would be infinitely more powerful in heat, broadcasting her willingness to mate to all available and compatible partners, and therefore probably a hundred times worse. From vaguely pleasant detergent to industrial-grade cleaning products strong enough to strip paint. And still, she wanted Jesse to see. She wanted Jesse to want her.
She undid the lock, heart in her throat. Only then did removing the toy from her panties cross her mind. She couldn't do it now. What if Jesse saw her unlocking the door as an invitation. She turned the handle and pushed out. There was some shuffling, probably Jesse moving to let the door swing, and Dawn poked her head out.
Jesse stood there, a tray of food balanced on her forearm while the other was on her hip. Her hair was up in a bun, her ramus patches lacking the usual styling but still long and tantalizing, and she was in just a tank top and sweats. Her broad shoulders looked especially good, her muscular arms on full display, and the silver chain around her neck seemed like the perfect thing to pull. Though Dawn didn't want to be so crude, Jesse's tits looked amazing. Alphas had a small patch on their sternum and Dawn could see a bit of the silky smooth black hair that grew on Jesse's. The sweats sat low at her hips, revealing the waistband of her boxers, and Dawn wanted to roll it down until whatever lied down there rose to greet her.
"The food, Dawn," Jesse's voice came out strained, like she was grinding her teeth. Dawn's eyes snapped up from the alpha's groin. She was looking intently at Dawn's face. Her hand that wasn't occupied with the tray was clenched in a fist.
Dawn stepped out of the room, opening the door more as she did, and Jesse's eyes flicked behind her and stayed there. "Is that the shirt?"
What to say? Dawn chose nothing, embarrassment eating her words. "Just give me the tray, Jesse," Her voice had gone light, fragile. Jesse's gaze snapped to her. She looked so tense. Maybe Dawn could make her relax. Bad thoughts.
"Answer the question," Jesse growled beyond the words, the sound carrying all the way to Dawn's bones, to the object buzzing between her legs. Her knees pressed together and she keeled forward. Jesse reached to stabilize her, hand on her upper arm. Human contact, small as it was, had Dawn keening.
"Fuck," Jesse cursed, the growl still in her voice. Dawn was so close to cumming just from this. Half of her wanted it more than anything while the other half had long ago covered its eyes and ears so it wouldn't have to witness Dawn humiliate herself.
"You said- you said nothing would happen," Dawn said. "Do you promise?"
"I..." Jesse hesitated. "What do you mean?"
"Do you promise?" Dawn repeated, looking up at Jesse. "Please?"
Jesse's face went tense, like she was hiding pain, and then very serious. "I promise."
"Okay. Good." With that, Dawn took one big step forward and pressed her nose to Jesse's shoulder patch. The hair there was well-maintained, thick and luscious in a way that spoke of good grooming habits, and it smelled luxurious. Dawn had never gotten this close to a person to smell them. Woodsy, cozy like a campfire sans the smoke, something spicy and citrusy. That's what Jesse smelled like. The fact that other people got to enjoy the smell without having their nose pressed to the very source inspired a sense of bitterness in Dawn. She kept inhaling, hands going to Jesse's sides to keep herself upright. Jesse made no motion to move away but Dawn could see the tendons in her neck straining.
Unable to stop herself, she pressed her lips to the patch. Jesse groaned. She pressed harder, wanting to hear more of that sound.
"Dawn," Jesse trailed off. She was shaking.
"I'm sorry," Dawn mumbled against the patch. She wanted to lick it. That would be a deeply intimate, romantic gesture. "I promise I'm done soon,"
"No, it's-" Jesse cut herself off, a frustrated sound escaping them. "Did you stop taking the drugs?"
"Hmm?" She was momentarily confused. "I've told you I'm not an addict-"
"Fine, you're not, fine, what changed?"
The change couldn't have happened that fast. The supplement should still be in her system. It would take about a week to pass, unless she'd managed to sweat all of it out in the twelve hours since the onset of her heat. It wasn't usually this intense. Dawn kissed Jesse's patch, hands enclosing around the alpha as she lost all self-control. Cedar, fire, cinnamon, orange zest.
"Oh no," She sighed against Jesse's shoulder. Her hips rocked against the alpha, the vibrator buzzing in just the right place. It just barely pressed in, not enough to even count as penetration, but it was more than Dawn had ever dared to do. The furthest she'd gone was gingerly brush her fingers against it, stopping when her body responded by trying to draw her in.
"What?" The dishes on the tray clattered as Jesse's grip wavered. "What do you mean 'oh no'? Dawn?"
"I'm-" She whined, leg raising and wrapping around Jesse's thigh. "I'm cumming," Sighing, her body shuddered, sucking on the vibrator desperately as it set her off, mouth open on Jesse's shoulder. Mindlessly, she swept her tongue over the patch, moaning at the taste of the scent-rich oils, and again, and again. Then, she sucked. With each pull, her belly quivered with waves of ecstasy, the orgasm prolonging.
"Dawn," Jesse moaned, sounding anguished. "Fuck, sunshine, you-" She inhaled, leaning down towards Dawn's neck.
As Jesse's nose made contact with the skin, the shaved surface of her patch, Dawn wrenched herself away. The vibration was beginning to feel overstimulating. The taste of Jesse in her mouth turned sour as she realized what she'd just done. She yanked the tray away from Jesse's lax grip, sending the glass of juice sloshing over the rim, and flitted back to the safety of her room. She pulled the door closed before Jesse could say anything to stop her. Dawn wasn't sure she would have, anyway.