![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akainagiTitle: Submit, Fight, Fail, Fall (or why you can't fight the blood that's in you)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
akainagi
Rating/Warnings/Spoilers: NC-17 / warning for references to past non/dubcon / Spoilers for XI
Fandom/Pairing/Prompt: Star Trek AOS AU, Kirk/McCoy
Disclaimer: Alas, I do not own Star Trek.
Summary: Spawned by Word Wars over at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
jim_and_bones. Jim Kirk is an omega with a chip on his shoulder. He's convinced all alphas are assholes. Then he meets one that isn't.
Author's Note: This fic features the alpha/beta/omega trope. For a background on this trope check out the fanlore wiki HERE.
[CHAPTER 30]
“His name was Gary,” Jim offered, his voice small and strained. “And he was the dumbest thing I ever did.”
Leonard placed a hand against Jim’s back, feeling the tension in the muscles there. He was practically vibrating with it. It was hard, listening to the pain in Jim’s voice and not being able to look him in the eyes. But he had a feeling that the omega needed the illusion of privacy to get this out. Leonard sidled a little closer to Jim in the bed, hopefully not so close as to be oppressive, but enough to let Jim know he wasn’t alone. Leonard felt the hand on Jim’s back rise and fall with a particularly deep breath.
“I met him when I was sixteen. I had just manifested a few months before,” Jim continued. “I was a pretty fucked-up kid. You know about my dad. My mom was never around, and my stepfather and I didn’t have the best relationship,” Jim laughed humorlessly. “He was an abusive dick, actually.”
Leonard listened quietly, his thumb tracing small circles across Jim’s spine.
“I had no idea what I was doing,” Jim’s voice cracked slightly on the last word. “My first few heats had been humiliating disasters. And then suddenly there was Gary. He was 19, and I thought he knew everything, had seen and done everything. He told me so much about what omegas should be like, about what was expected of them.” Jim’s voice turned bitter. “And like a fucking sap, I never stopped to realize that he was just turning me into what he wanted me to be.”
“It wasn’t that bad at first. He treated me as something other than my father’s son or the town fuck-up. He was better than any other alpha I’d had. He wasn’t too rough, he didn’t hurt me, didn’t humiliate me just for the hell of it. Not in the beginning.”
Leonard wondered what Jim’s definition of ‘too rough’ was. Then he remembered the way Jim had tensed with fear under his hands their first night together.
Jim sighed tiredly. “I guess it happened so gradually I didn’t notice it at first. The things he would say, the way he would treat me. The things he started doing to me when we were-" Jim faltered over the words. "Everything started changing and I was too wrapped up in it to really see it for what it was.”
There was a significant pause, the silence stretching out between them. Leonard waited it out, knowing how much it was taking for Jim to get this out after five years of silence.
“I was with him for two years. By the time those two years were over I didn’t recognize myself. And I couldn’t stand the person that he had turned me into. The things that I would put up with, the way I let him treat me, the things I let him do to me.” Jim’s voice had lost some of its cool impartiality, rising in pitch and volume.
Leonard made a soothing noise, giving up his distance and moving flush up against Jim’s back, draping an arm over him, hand splayed on the omega’s chest, anchoring him.
“You were in love with him.” It was half statement, half question, and Leonard cursed himself for wanting to know the answer so badly.
If the question bothered Jim, he didn’t let on. “I don’t know. I think maybe I was. Or I think maybe I just needed him. So then when he finally hurt me bad enough I decided I was never going to need anyone that much again.”
“What happened?” Leonard asked, injecting all of the quiet support that he could into those two words.
This time the silence stretched out so long that Leonard wondered if Jim was going to answer, or whether he was just going to shut down under the weight of those memories.
“It happened right after I turned 18. Gary had been more … inventive lately. I think part of me knew he was planning something, but I didn’t want to believe it would be that bad.” Jim shuddered slightly, and Leonard tightened his grip around the omega. “I was heavy into my heat, waiting for him to come home. He liked to keep me waiting, liked it better when I was desperate and begging. Because he knew that when I was that way that I’d do whatever he asked.”
Jim’s voice had gone cold again, almost clinical in its dispassion. “He came home late, and he had someone with him. I figured he was just having someone watch us. He’d done it before. I didn’t like it, but I wasn’t a prude, and I wasn’t in much of a position to complain. There are parts of it I don’t remember very well. I mostly just remember Gary telling me over and over how good I was doing, how proud he was of me.”
Leonard felt a sick feeling taking residence in his gut.
“He gave me to someone else. He sat there and told me what a good omega I was while he let someone else fuck me. I remember hating it, hating every second of it, feeling sick from it, but I couldn’t stop because he was my alpha and he fucking gave me away.” Jim hissed the last few words out like they were physically painful to say.
Leonard’s head reeled. He felt simultaneously murderous and abjectly ill. The very idea was an anathema to Leonard; the idea that an alpha could watch someone take his mate, to abuse him as he was helpless in his heat. His grip tightened involuntarily. Jim reached up and placed a hand over Leonard’s own. “You were mated to him, weren’t you? You were claimed?” Leonard asked hoarsely.
“Yeah. More fool me, I guess.”
“Don’t say that,” Leonard returned passionately. “What he did to you was not your fault. Jesus, Jim. He was mated to you. Do you have any idea what that means to an alpha? He should have taken care of you. He should have protected you.” Leonard choked on the words. “What he did to you was sickening. It was literally criminal. He fucking had you raped, Jim.”
Jim didn’t reply for the longest time, so long that Leonard wondered whether he’d spoken out of turn, had compounded the other man’s upset. But he couldn’t help it. He had a belly full of righteous anger, and the idea that there was someone walking on the earth who had done that to Jim made his vision blur and his chest fill with impotent fury.
Jim’s hand gripped his own tightly, tight enough to be painful. “He’s here. He’s on this campus.”
All the fire inside Leonard turned to ice. “What?” he asked in disbelief.
“He’s on this campus. I saw him for the first time today,” Jim let out a humorless bark of laughter. It resounded in the small room. “I thought I was gonna piss myself when I saw him.”
“What the fuck is that piece of shit doing here? You saw him?”
Leonard felt Jim shrug against him. “He goes to the academy. I knew he was here. I just thought that on a campus with a couple thousand people and him being fourth year that I would never have to actually deal with him.”
“You saw him?” Leonard repeated, unable to get past the fact that Jim had been exposed to Gary after such an experience. “What happened? He didn’t do anything to you, did he?”
“No. I saw him from across the quad. He just stared at me and smiled. Besides, he wouldn’t dare touch me. The last time we saw each other I threatened to kill him if he laid a hand on me again. And I broke his jaw.”
Leonard smiled for the first time since this whole horrible revelation; it was a hard, vindictive expression. “Good,” he spat. For a man who could be so submissive in his heat, Jim was fierce in a fight. Leonard had seen him in action.
Jim sighed shakily. It was a slightly watery sound, and Leonard wondered if he was crying again. The alpha was filled with so many emotions he felt like he might explode from it. The anger still burned under the surface, but foremost was pain for what Jim had gone through and an aching sort of tenderness that had taken residence in his chest. He placed his lips against the back of Jim’s neck, murmuring into his skin. “I wish I had been there. I wish I had been there to protect you.”
“It was five years ago, Bones. And I’m not your responsibility,” Jim answered gently. Leonard knew that Jim had not meant it that way, but the statement hurt just the same.
He wanted to argue Jim’s words. He wished he had been there today when Jim had been forced to face down the worst memory of his life. He wished he could do far worse to this Gary than break his jaw. He wished it had been him who had gotten to Jim first. Wished it had been him who had claimed him when he was vulnerable and scared and new to the world, wished he could erase the whole horrible affair from Jim’s life. He wished it was his right to protect Jim from bastards like Gary. He wouldn’t abuse his trust like that miserable fucker had.
He wished Jim was his.
There should have been some kind of revelation in this. Some kind of shock. Instead there was a strange sort of relief in finally admitting it to himself. “Jim,” he said hoarsely, trying out the name with his mouth. Despite its familiarity, right now it felt new, changed somehow.
“It’s okay, Bones,” Jim replied sadly, exhaustion clear in his voice.
Leonard’s timing was terrible. He knew this. Knew he should wait until Jim was less vulnerable, less raw and exposed. But he also knew that this was the most open Jim had ever been with him. And he also wondered whether his courage would dry up in the harsh light of day. And he wanted this with everything in him.
“Jim. When your next heat comes, I want to claim you.”
He could feel the sharply indrawn breath. Jim’s voice was choked when he answered. “You don’t want to do that, Bones. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Don’t tell me what I know and what I don’t know,” Leonard countered calmly. He had expected resistance. Had expected some walls to come up. But he had the patience to scale them.
Jim twisted in his arms, moving to lay on his back, looking at Leonard with sad, red-rimmed eyes. “You’re just saying this because of what I told you. You’re being all alpha and protective, and I appreciate that. But you don’t want me. Trust me, Bones, I’m too fucked-up. You don’t want to be stuck with me for the rest of your life.”
“Let me be the judge of who I want and who I don’t want.”
Jim sighed in frustration. “And in two more years when we graduate, will you feel the same? I’m headed out into the black. Deep space. You don’t want to come with me.”
Leonard frowned, divots appearing in his brow. “You seem to be awfully sure of what I want. What do you want?”
“It doesn’t matter what I want, Bones.”
“Tell me you don’t want it, and I’ll let it go. Tell me that some part of you doesn’t want it.” Leonard’s thumb rubbed circles where it rested on Jim’s chest, trying to soothe the conflicted expression on the omega’s face.
Jim’s gaze was so open in that moment, that Leonard could see the battle playing out in his eyes. He could also see the moment when the battle was lost, and Jim’s face closed down. He opened his mouth to answer and Leonard brought his fingers to Jim’s lips, silencing him.
Leonard was taking the coward’s way out, he knew. But he couldn’t bear to hear that Jim didn’t want him, not when he felt all the way down in his bones that Jim did. The omega just didn’t think he had the right to want this for himself. “Don’t answer now. We have time. I’ll wait as long as I have to. Think about it.”
Jim studied him long and hard, and for a moment Leonard thought he was going to go ahead with his refusal. Leonard’s breath stopped in his chest and he felt like his whole life was waiting on the next moment. Which pretty much it was.
Jim slowly nodded, and Leonard let out the breath that he was holding. He tried not to let the disappointment overwhelm him as Jim turned his back on Leonard again. But the younger man didn’t resist when the alpha again wrapped an arm around him and pulled him close.
Leonard didn’t think he was going to sleep at all that night, between the lingering shock at Jim’s confession and the omega’s near-rejection. But Jim was warm and soft against him, and his breathing was steady. No matter what Jim decided, Leonard had this now. His grip on Jim slackened as he dropped into sleep. His last thought was how good it felt to fall asleep entwined with Jim, and the wish that it would always be like this.
[CHAPTER 31]
Jim felt the moment when Bones’ breathing evened out. He envied the doctor. Jim wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight.
He felt like he had aged about ten years today. Between running into Gary and reliving two years of tortured memories and Bones’ bombshell, he was reeling. So many thought swirled through his head that he had trouble grasping at any one of them. Foremost among them was the idea that Bones wanted him. Him. And not just for a night or a few heats, but wanted him for a mate. Wanted to claim him, to put his mark on him and keep him. The permanent kind of want.
When Jim had mated with Gary, he was seventeen and had no idea the meaning of a lifetime commitment. What kid did at seventeen? He had, as he had in so many other things, gone along with Gary. He had trusted the man to do right by him, even though he knew, in the back of his mind, that his trust was being abused.
He knew Bones would never do that to him. He trusted the alpha all the way down. He trusted Bones not to hurt him, not to use him, not to betray him. But he didn’t trust Bones not to make a mistake out of some misguided protective alpha instinct. And Jim was a lot of things, but he didn’t thing he could stand being a mistake.
And despite all the trust there was still fear. Jim had not just been trying to dissuade Bones when he had brought up where they would be at the end of the next two years. They were bound for different destinations, wanted different things, had careers of their own to pursue.
When Jim had broken things off with Gary, the withdrawals had been like dying, even on the suppressants. Breaking a mating bond was a painful thing for an omega. Each heat his body had raged, demanding that he submit to his chosen partner, even though that partner was no longer there. The only thing that got him through it was his lingering fury at the way Gary had betrayed him, and the hope that life would be better on the suppressants.
He couldn’t go through that again. He wouldn’t survive it. And when Bones realized how fucked-up Jim really was and left him, Jim would go through it all again, this time without the help of the suppressants. And what would their relationship be like, in the wake of a broken mating bond? He would lose his mate and his best friend.
He would lose everything. He stood to lose everything that kept him going.
He should have persisted. He should have told Bones no, rather than drawing this out into something more painful for the other man. But the alpha had been so honest and nakedly yearning about it. And Jim had been weak. Had let himself believe for a moment in something he would never be allowed to have.
Bones made a soft noise in his sleep, his grip on Jim tightening. Jim’s traitorous mind and body felt a trickle of comfort at the contact. He reached an arm up, placing his hand over Bones’, prompting another sleepy murmur out of the other man. They lay for the rest of the night, entwined and separated by dreams and private agonies, until the sky began to lighten, and another day began.
[CHAPTER 32]
Author:
akainagiRating/Warnings/Spoilers: NC-17 / warning for references to past non/dubcon / Spoilers for XI
Fandom/Pairing/Prompt: Star Trek AOS AU, Kirk/McCoy
Disclaimer: Alas, I do not own Star Trek.
Summary: Spawned by Word Wars over at
jim_and_bones. Jim Kirk is an omega with a chip on his shoulder. He's convinced all alphas are assholes. Then he meets one that isn't.Author's Note: This fic features the alpha/beta/omega trope. For a background on this trope check out the fanlore wiki HERE.
“His name was Gary,” Jim offered, his voice small and strained. “And he was the dumbest thing I ever did.”
Leonard placed a hand against Jim’s back, feeling the tension in the muscles there. He was practically vibrating with it. It was hard, listening to the pain in Jim’s voice and not being able to look him in the eyes. But he had a feeling that the omega needed the illusion of privacy to get this out. Leonard sidled a little closer to Jim in the bed, hopefully not so close as to be oppressive, but enough to let Jim know he wasn’t alone. Leonard felt the hand on Jim’s back rise and fall with a particularly deep breath.
“I met him when I was sixteen. I had just manifested a few months before,” Jim continued. “I was a pretty fucked-up kid. You know about my dad. My mom was never around, and my stepfather and I didn’t have the best relationship,” Jim laughed humorlessly. “He was an abusive dick, actually.”
Leonard listened quietly, his thumb tracing small circles across Jim’s spine.
“I had no idea what I was doing,” Jim’s voice cracked slightly on the last word. “My first few heats had been humiliating disasters. And then suddenly there was Gary. He was 19, and I thought he knew everything, had seen and done everything. He told me so much about what omegas should be like, about what was expected of them.” Jim’s voice turned bitter. “And like a fucking sap, I never stopped to realize that he was just turning me into what he wanted me to be.”
“It wasn’t that bad at first. He treated me as something other than my father’s son or the town fuck-up. He was better than any other alpha I’d had. He wasn’t too rough, he didn’t hurt me, didn’t humiliate me just for the hell of it. Not in the beginning.”
Leonard wondered what Jim’s definition of ‘too rough’ was. Then he remembered the way Jim had tensed with fear under his hands their first night together.
Jim sighed tiredly. “I guess it happened so gradually I didn’t notice it at first. The things he would say, the way he would treat me. The things he started doing to me when we were-" Jim faltered over the words. "Everything started changing and I was too wrapped up in it to really see it for what it was.”
There was a significant pause, the silence stretching out between them. Leonard waited it out, knowing how much it was taking for Jim to get this out after five years of silence.
“I was with him for two years. By the time those two years were over I didn’t recognize myself. And I couldn’t stand the person that he had turned me into. The things that I would put up with, the way I let him treat me, the things I let him do to me.” Jim’s voice had lost some of its cool impartiality, rising in pitch and volume.
Leonard made a soothing noise, giving up his distance and moving flush up against Jim’s back, draping an arm over him, hand splayed on the omega’s chest, anchoring him.
“You were in love with him.” It was half statement, half question, and Leonard cursed himself for wanting to know the answer so badly.
If the question bothered Jim, he didn’t let on. “I don’t know. I think maybe I was. Or I think maybe I just needed him. So then when he finally hurt me bad enough I decided I was never going to need anyone that much again.”
“What happened?” Leonard asked, injecting all of the quiet support that he could into those two words.
This time the silence stretched out so long that Leonard wondered if Jim was going to answer, or whether he was just going to shut down under the weight of those memories.
“It happened right after I turned 18. Gary had been more … inventive lately. I think part of me knew he was planning something, but I didn’t want to believe it would be that bad.” Jim shuddered slightly, and Leonard tightened his grip around the omega. “I was heavy into my heat, waiting for him to come home. He liked to keep me waiting, liked it better when I was desperate and begging. Because he knew that when I was that way that I’d do whatever he asked.”
Jim’s voice had gone cold again, almost clinical in its dispassion. “He came home late, and he had someone with him. I figured he was just having someone watch us. He’d done it before. I didn’t like it, but I wasn’t a prude, and I wasn’t in much of a position to complain. There are parts of it I don’t remember very well. I mostly just remember Gary telling me over and over how good I was doing, how proud he was of me.”
Leonard felt a sick feeling taking residence in his gut.
“He gave me to someone else. He sat there and told me what a good omega I was while he let someone else fuck me. I remember hating it, hating every second of it, feeling sick from it, but I couldn’t stop because he was my alpha and he fucking gave me away.” Jim hissed the last few words out like they were physically painful to say.
Leonard’s head reeled. He felt simultaneously murderous and abjectly ill. The very idea was an anathema to Leonard; the idea that an alpha could watch someone take his mate, to abuse him as he was helpless in his heat. His grip tightened involuntarily. Jim reached up and placed a hand over Leonard’s own. “You were mated to him, weren’t you? You were claimed?” Leonard asked hoarsely.
“Yeah. More fool me, I guess.”
“Don’t say that,” Leonard returned passionately. “What he did to you was not your fault. Jesus, Jim. He was mated to you. Do you have any idea what that means to an alpha? He should have taken care of you. He should have protected you.” Leonard choked on the words. “What he did to you was sickening. It was literally criminal. He fucking had you raped, Jim.”
Jim didn’t reply for the longest time, so long that Leonard wondered whether he’d spoken out of turn, had compounded the other man’s upset. But he couldn’t help it. He had a belly full of righteous anger, and the idea that there was someone walking on the earth who had done that to Jim made his vision blur and his chest fill with impotent fury.
Jim’s hand gripped his own tightly, tight enough to be painful. “He’s here. He’s on this campus.”
All the fire inside Leonard turned to ice. “What?” he asked in disbelief.
“He’s on this campus. I saw him for the first time today,” Jim let out a humorless bark of laughter. It resounded in the small room. “I thought I was gonna piss myself when I saw him.”
“What the fuck is that piece of shit doing here? You saw him?”
Leonard felt Jim shrug against him. “He goes to the academy. I knew he was here. I just thought that on a campus with a couple thousand people and him being fourth year that I would never have to actually deal with him.”
“You saw him?” Leonard repeated, unable to get past the fact that Jim had been exposed to Gary after such an experience. “What happened? He didn’t do anything to you, did he?”
“No. I saw him from across the quad. He just stared at me and smiled. Besides, he wouldn’t dare touch me. The last time we saw each other I threatened to kill him if he laid a hand on me again. And I broke his jaw.”
Leonard smiled for the first time since this whole horrible revelation; it was a hard, vindictive expression. “Good,” he spat. For a man who could be so submissive in his heat, Jim was fierce in a fight. Leonard had seen him in action.
Jim sighed shakily. It was a slightly watery sound, and Leonard wondered if he was crying again. The alpha was filled with so many emotions he felt like he might explode from it. The anger still burned under the surface, but foremost was pain for what Jim had gone through and an aching sort of tenderness that had taken residence in his chest. He placed his lips against the back of Jim’s neck, murmuring into his skin. “I wish I had been there. I wish I had been there to protect you.”
“It was five years ago, Bones. And I’m not your responsibility,” Jim answered gently. Leonard knew that Jim had not meant it that way, but the statement hurt just the same.
He wanted to argue Jim’s words. He wished he had been there today when Jim had been forced to face down the worst memory of his life. He wished he could do far worse to this Gary than break his jaw. He wished it had been him who had gotten to Jim first. Wished it had been him who had claimed him when he was vulnerable and scared and new to the world, wished he could erase the whole horrible affair from Jim’s life. He wished it was his right to protect Jim from bastards like Gary. He wouldn’t abuse his trust like that miserable fucker had.
He wished Jim was his.
There should have been some kind of revelation in this. Some kind of shock. Instead there was a strange sort of relief in finally admitting it to himself. “Jim,” he said hoarsely, trying out the name with his mouth. Despite its familiarity, right now it felt new, changed somehow.
“It’s okay, Bones,” Jim replied sadly, exhaustion clear in his voice.
Leonard’s timing was terrible. He knew this. Knew he should wait until Jim was less vulnerable, less raw and exposed. But he also knew that this was the most open Jim had ever been with him. And he also wondered whether his courage would dry up in the harsh light of day. And he wanted this with everything in him.
“Jim. When your next heat comes, I want to claim you.”
He could feel the sharply indrawn breath. Jim’s voice was choked when he answered. “You don’t want to do that, Bones. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Don’t tell me what I know and what I don’t know,” Leonard countered calmly. He had expected resistance. Had expected some walls to come up. But he had the patience to scale them.
Jim twisted in his arms, moving to lay on his back, looking at Leonard with sad, red-rimmed eyes. “You’re just saying this because of what I told you. You’re being all alpha and protective, and I appreciate that. But you don’t want me. Trust me, Bones, I’m too fucked-up. You don’t want to be stuck with me for the rest of your life.”
“Let me be the judge of who I want and who I don’t want.”
Jim sighed in frustration. “And in two more years when we graduate, will you feel the same? I’m headed out into the black. Deep space. You don’t want to come with me.”
Leonard frowned, divots appearing in his brow. “You seem to be awfully sure of what I want. What do you want?”
“It doesn’t matter what I want, Bones.”
“Tell me you don’t want it, and I’ll let it go. Tell me that some part of you doesn’t want it.” Leonard’s thumb rubbed circles where it rested on Jim’s chest, trying to soothe the conflicted expression on the omega’s face.
Jim’s gaze was so open in that moment, that Leonard could see the battle playing out in his eyes. He could also see the moment when the battle was lost, and Jim’s face closed down. He opened his mouth to answer and Leonard brought his fingers to Jim’s lips, silencing him.
Leonard was taking the coward’s way out, he knew. But he couldn’t bear to hear that Jim didn’t want him, not when he felt all the way down in his bones that Jim did. The omega just didn’t think he had the right to want this for himself. “Don’t answer now. We have time. I’ll wait as long as I have to. Think about it.”
Jim studied him long and hard, and for a moment Leonard thought he was going to go ahead with his refusal. Leonard’s breath stopped in his chest and he felt like his whole life was waiting on the next moment. Which pretty much it was.
Jim slowly nodded, and Leonard let out the breath that he was holding. He tried not to let the disappointment overwhelm him as Jim turned his back on Leonard again. But the younger man didn’t resist when the alpha again wrapped an arm around him and pulled him close.
Leonard didn’t think he was going to sleep at all that night, between the lingering shock at Jim’s confession and the omega’s near-rejection. But Jim was warm and soft against him, and his breathing was steady. No matter what Jim decided, Leonard had this now. His grip on Jim slackened as he dropped into sleep. His last thought was how good it felt to fall asleep entwined with Jim, and the wish that it would always be like this.
Jim felt the moment when Bones’ breathing evened out. He envied the doctor. Jim wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight.
He felt like he had aged about ten years today. Between running into Gary and reliving two years of tortured memories and Bones’ bombshell, he was reeling. So many thought swirled through his head that he had trouble grasping at any one of them. Foremost among them was the idea that Bones wanted him. Him. And not just for a night or a few heats, but wanted him for a mate. Wanted to claim him, to put his mark on him and keep him. The permanent kind of want.
When Jim had mated with Gary, he was seventeen and had no idea the meaning of a lifetime commitment. What kid did at seventeen? He had, as he had in so many other things, gone along with Gary. He had trusted the man to do right by him, even though he knew, in the back of his mind, that his trust was being abused.
He knew Bones would never do that to him. He trusted the alpha all the way down. He trusted Bones not to hurt him, not to use him, not to betray him. But he didn’t trust Bones not to make a mistake out of some misguided protective alpha instinct. And Jim was a lot of things, but he didn’t thing he could stand being a mistake.
And despite all the trust there was still fear. Jim had not just been trying to dissuade Bones when he had brought up where they would be at the end of the next two years. They were bound for different destinations, wanted different things, had careers of their own to pursue.
When Jim had broken things off with Gary, the withdrawals had been like dying, even on the suppressants. Breaking a mating bond was a painful thing for an omega. Each heat his body had raged, demanding that he submit to his chosen partner, even though that partner was no longer there. The only thing that got him through it was his lingering fury at the way Gary had betrayed him, and the hope that life would be better on the suppressants.
He couldn’t go through that again. He wouldn’t survive it. And when Bones realized how fucked-up Jim really was and left him, Jim would go through it all again, this time without the help of the suppressants. And what would their relationship be like, in the wake of a broken mating bond? He would lose his mate and his best friend.
He would lose everything. He stood to lose everything that kept him going.
He should have persisted. He should have told Bones no, rather than drawing this out into something more painful for the other man. But the alpha had been so honest and nakedly yearning about it. And Jim had been weak. Had let himself believe for a moment in something he would never be allowed to have.
Bones made a soft noise in his sleep, his grip on Jim tightening. Jim’s traitorous mind and body felt a trickle of comfort at the contact. He reached an arm up, placing his hand over Bones’, prompting another sleepy murmur out of the other man. They lay for the rest of the night, entwined and separated by dreams and private agonies, until the sky began to lighten, and another day began.
