JAX

"Ha. Ha. Very funny." I deadpanned in my typical, sarcastic tone, crossing my arms in an effort to make my typically spastic exterior look a little bit more serious. "Alright cotton candy, can you cut the crap and tell me the truth this time?"

Benji's expression conveyed that he was searching for words before he finally replied.

"Jax... It is not a joke. It must have been some sort of genetic mutation en uter -"

A loud, uncontrollable guffaw broke through the air before I could stop it, and I had to physically clutch my stomach in order to force my abdominal muscles to keep me upright as I doubled over.

"Alright, alright, seriously, you can stop it now. I already figured you guys out!" I forced out between breaths of laughter, "That little yellow haired alien is finally getting me back for calling him a mutant! Damn, I thought the only undercover smart person was Tyrus but I gotta admit, that lil' yellow dwarf did pretty good with this one." I finished, chuckling a few more times and shaking my head at the ground before I was finally able to slowly pull myself upright.

What I expected to see when I looked back up was Benji smiling at me, some laughter and maybe even the tiniest bit of frustration in his eyes due to the fact that I figured out his little ruse. But what I saw instead made my heart drop into my goddamn stomach.

Benji held out a piece of paper, bent in the middle like it had been folded up and shoved in someone's back pocket for a few hours. At the top was a big, black logo that read 'Gene Corp.', and underneath was my name along with a shit ton of tiny lettering which my brain didn't even attempt to comprehend.

...Couldn't comprehend.

Because it was stuck on one spot.

'Results: ABNORMAL SECONDARY GENDER. Beta / Omega Dominant'

A heavy breath escaped my chest in shaky pumps as I tried to find a way to reason through this.

Nah, man.

No way.

This could not be happening.

"O-okay, I-I'm serious now... Stop it. This i-isn't funny, Benji." My body recoiled and I stumbled a few steps backward with a humorless laugh and an accusatory finger pointed at the half-Fae. My limbic system was reacting to that stupid ass piece of paper as if it were tainted by a deadly virus.

"Jax... Listen, I -"

"I SAID STOP IT! SHUT UP!" I screamed out, stumbling back about one foot further. The final, unexpected sensation of my back hitting the firm wall of Corey's chest finally triggered the avalanche.

'You dumb, worthless, little shit!'

'You will never be half the Beta I am'

"SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!"

My head was an egg in a microwave, heated up entirely too fast and threatening to burst at any second as it was flooded with every single emotion known to man in an earth-shattering second. I didn't know who I was yelling at or even why, but my skull was thundering with everything, everywhere, all at once and I was completely powerless to its control.

The room warped around my periphery, turning a mottled black as the pain in my skull increased. It was only when trembling hands came down to reveal a handful of crumpled hair strands that I realized what I had been doing - pulling it out at the root.

'If you submit to something as powerless as a damn kitten, you will never amount to anything more than a fucking Omega.'

It couldn't be true.

'I do not allow Omegas in my family. Kill it.'

"I can't... I can't breathe. I can't breathe." I rasped, backing up in the opposite direction of the rest of the people in the room. People who I was barely aware of but knew I had to get away from. I had to get away from them before they could hurt me.

I had to get out of this room. It was too large, too small, too familiar, too foreign. Everything was wrong.

I had to get out.

I had to get out.

Sprinting at full speed down the hallway did nothing to help my hyperoxygenated state, lungs burning up inside my rib cage as they struggled to stretch to the capacity of which I demanded.

My entire body slammed against my bedroom door with a thud, momentarily forgetting the very basics of daily life like doorknobs as I focused every single brain cell on just getting inside, to the place where I could breathe.

The place where I would be safe.

My clammy palms slipped a few times in my attempt to open the door, my tachypneic breaths like sonic booms as they bounced off of the heavy, wooden barrier that blocked my only path to freedom.

In a flash I was inside, the door slamming shut behind me as I ran to my bed.

'Need it'

I could only think the most basic of thoughts as I yanked blanket after blanket off of my bed, gathering them into my arms until I could carry no more. Once there were finally enough, my head whipped around to find the right place for them.

'Safe'

In less than a blink I scurried underneath my desk, packing blankets around me in the tight space like they could hide me from the world - or better yet, hide me from myself.

The blankets were sedating as they weighed me down, hugging my body in a way that I never had the opportunity to experience from anyone else growing up. However, scent that clung to them was what really did the trick, gradually working the tension out of my shoulders as I rocked back and forth in the tight grip of my own embrace.

But it wasn't enough. It would never be enough.

The creaky sound of my door opening reversed all semblance of progress, an uncharacteristic whimper released from somewhere deep inside of me as Luka reared his head. The wall behind me was hard and painful against my spine as I pressed into it, hands scraping against the floor in a fruitless attempt to push myself further back into a space that just wasn't there.

He couldn't be here.

I wasn't ready.

But before I could scream at him to get out, he was already there.

"Stop it, leave me alone!" I croaked from ragged vocal cords, whatever part of them that were still intact struggling to work properly after a lifetime of overuse.

My mate was silent and completely unreactive to my outburst as he contorted his bulky form, making himself as small as possible so that he could fit his upper body into the space that I occupied.

" I can't, I can't... Don't TOUCH ME!" I screamed once more, the sound more akin to a broken whisper in a last desperate attempt to push him away.

He couldn't see me. Not now. Not like this.

"Jax, you are hurting yourself. Let me help. Please."

Strong, calloused palms encircled my wrists and pulled them away from me, thick fingers gently working out the tight knot of a fist that I had unconsciously tangled my own into. My freckled hands looked unfamiliar, as if I were not in my own body as my mate lowered them to rest on the top of my drawn-up knees. They trembled uncontrollably as he held them in a secure grip, strands of my own, dark curls once again tangled up in between the gaps.

"Corey..." I croaked once more, Luka crying out for comfort as I stared down at the little strands of failure between my fingers. Among all of the pandemonium going on between my temples, I couldn't seem to remember... I couldn't recall anything that Corey taught me about how to emotionally regulate and calm myself down. "I can't breathe. Please, it - it won't stop. I don't know what to do. Help."

I was immediately taken - along with a few of my emotional support blankets - into his arms, a therapeutic pressure surrounded me at all sides, and my bristled, hypersensitive nerves immediately relaxed in his protective but gentle hold. One arm went out to wrap around the thick base of Corey's neck as if he were an anchor and I a ship, the other still held in his grip as he pressed it flat against his chest.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart. I know it hurts." His voice was ever so deep as always, but this time the vibrations ricocheted through me as well, generating a pacifying warmth that prompted me to snuggle even closer. I tucked my face into his throat and pressed in, desperate for more of him, "If you can find it in you to trust in anything right now, know that you can trust me. Breathe with me, gift."

Closing my eyes and focusing on the task of synchronizing my breathing with that of my soulmate, my mind slowly began to slow down.

'Gift... Where do I remember that from?' I frowned against Corey's skin, the word familiar to my ears but still dangling off of the very tip of my brain.

And then, it clicked.

'Jax, you are the gift that I have prayed for every night since the day that I learned what prayer was.'

Yet another involuntary whine bubbled up from my sore throat at the memory, my arms tightening around the neck of the man before me so tightly that I sent up a quick prayer to the God/dess that he would not burst.

"Why..." I trailed off once I'd finally gotten my breathing to a manageable level, unable to figure out exactly how to articulate myself. "...Why do you keep coming back when I always end up like this?" I finally whispered. My voice was barely audible, but with the combination of his extensive warrior training and observant character traits, I was sure that Corey heard every single syllable.

His grip shifted slightly at my words, one hand coming up to drag a line up and down my arched spine and the other coming up to rest against the back of my head. His arms were a nest of comfort, his fresh smell overwhelming my willing sinuses as he gently rubbed his cheek against my hair to scent me like other mates would often do to their omegas.

"You could never, never, drive me away from you, Jax. " He began, an emotional strain in his bass voice that I could not accurately place in my current state of emotional wreckage. "...I don't always know what to say, and sometimes I wonder if I am doing you more harm than good. There is no wound for me to lick shut, no one for me to fight off, no way to physically protect you against whatever it is that is hurting you." I felt him turn his neck to press a firm, lingering kiss to my temple,

"But one thing I can do is stay. You will never be alone, I won't allow it." There was a low, rumbling growl in his last few words, and I felt his arms twitch as he likely fought against the instinct to tighten them even more, to reassure himself that I was still under his protection.

Holding onto him - onto my mate - felt just as important as my next breath as I finally allowed myself to slip into the sweetest surrender against the supportive structure of his body.

I had never been a particularly spiritual person, but this man... my Corey... he made me want to believe in miracles. What other way was there to explain how someone like me got lucky enough to call him mine?

It was amazing - bewildering, even - how he always seemed to know exactly what I needed, at the exact moment that I needed it.

No one could ever fix every single crack in the broken parts inside of me, that was my burden to hold. But that's not what I really needed from him anyway.

Corey didn't pry, didn't try to erase the pain or solve my problems for me. Instead, he loved me, and guided me through it with that love. He taught me so many things, things that I was too busy just surviving to even begin to think about on my own.

Like the desire to live for myself, for no other reason than because I was worthy of it.

"Could it really be true, Corey?" I whispered, fingers gripping handfuls of his shirt for something to keep me grounded. "Am I really also an... an Omega?" I whispered the last word like a solemn prayer as it rolled through my disbelieving lips.

"I don't know, baby." He whispered back, fingers dragging a trail of sparks down the right side of my spine. It felt as if we spoke too loudly within this precious moment, the world would collapse in on itself again. "... But what I do know is that you are the only one who can decide who you are. Your biological gender will make no difference to anyone that matters."

I nodded against his neck, taking a moment for my brain to decompress even further in the comfort of the silence between us. That seemed to do the trick, finally allowing my brain cells to work somewhat correctly. I released a shaky breath of realization at the exact moment that it all clicked.

In that fraction of a second, it all made sense.

'You will never amount to anything more than a fucking Omega.'

"He knew." I whispered incredulously, more to myself than anything. "He fucking knew."

Corey did not comment on my statement, but rather simply continued holding me like a substitute weighted blanket. And for that, I was grateful.

"Corey."

"Mmm?" He hummed responsively, the vibration once again shooting sparkes to every inch of my oversensitive extremities.

"I need you." I begged, the desire to be pressed into the mattress underneath his weight overwhelming every synapse of my being. "Please... Dominate me."

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