Jason yawns loudly, stretches as he does, and mumbles, "Are you going to tell me why we're having pack bonding at midnight?" He looks from Elias, whose gaze is downcast and smells a bit like sadness and regret, to Malik who is currently stuck in his phone, thumbs moving quickly as he texts. "No? No one? Nobody at all?" He clicks his tongue against his teeth, shaking his head, and stands, jerking his thumb towards Malik's front door. "I'm leaving. Unlike Elias who can come into work whenever he wants, and you Malik, I have an early morning—,."

Malik doesn't lift his eyes from his phone as he speaks over Jason, "Delaney told Elias he was a dominant alpha and needed to behave like one."

"Who needs sleep?" He sat down on the carpet, sighing gently. "I don't want to be a dick here—,"

"Which means you're going to be," Malik points out.

With an eye roll Jason continues, "—But what's wrong with behaving like you're an alpha?"

Finally Malik looks up from his phone. "That's actually a valid question."

Elias scrubs a hand down his face and back up into his hair, pulling the loose curls out of his face. His heart aches and Jason and Malik couldn't begin to understand why. When he tells them as much, Malik simply responds,

"I wasn't aware of the need to understand before empathizing, Eli."

"Yeah," Jason chimes in, "You rarely share anything bad with us. Remember when he broke up with that one alpha from the liberal arts department in the middle of freshman year? No matter how badly you stunk, you denied anything was going on. Let us be here for you. Or at least have the common decency to wear your scent blockers." Malik levels a smoldering glare at Jason. The beta shrugs. "I'm saying what we're both thinking."

"All of my life," Elias begins, largely in part to shut Jason up, but also...he wants to unburden himself. He's tired of carrying around the mantle of his genetics. If they want to understand, he'll make them. He continues, "I've been told that I'm only valuable because of what I am. Not who I am. People find out I'm a Bordeaux and they cling to me, ask about my family, my relationship status, if I'd consider having multiple mates? Which I didn't know was possible but it's possible for me?" He stares at his hands, wringing them in his lap as a distraction. "I've never wanted multiple mates. I've never cared about lineage or family status. But everyone forces that on to me. I've never been able to be myself. When they find out I'm dominant, it's all about my scent, sex, how big my knot is, whether or not I can show them my other pair of fangs. They push when I say I'm not aggressive, because believe it or not, a lot of omegas like aggression. I never have. Only when it's necessary and rarely am I in a situation that requires me to be aggressive."

Jason's shoulders droop. He reaches out to pat Elias' knee. "I can understand. Being a beta isn't easy either. But being a beta that wants to be with another beta is scandalous."

"As is alpha/alpha relationships," Malik points out.

Jason gently challenges, "Being generalized and stereotyped is shitty, Elias, but aren't you doing something similar to Delaney?"

"No," Elias is adamant, "He did that to me. And I thought he never would. He hasn't, but maybe omegas are all the same."

Malik's scent fills the room quickly, causing both Jason and Elias to whip their heads in his direction. Maliki rarely lets his scent get away from him so the pair is shocked. "Bullshit," he says in a soft voice. "You know he's not like other omegas. You know he's his own person. Just like you are. Both of you want the impossible and you're willing to not only hurt yourselves in the long run, but you're willing to tear down your relationship. You run at the first sign of trouble. He does too."

"What if he just wants me for my genetics?"

Malik snaps, "Grow up, Elias. You're not fifteen anymore. It's been a decade since. You've made a name for yourself, without your family's help. You've finally stood up to your family and let them know you're living your life on your terms because you don't need them. Why are you allowing the past, their fuck ups, to continue to dictate your present and destroy your future? You know Delaney. Probably better than anyone has ever known him. And he knows you. He knows how badly he's messed up, but leaving isn't going to fix that."

Elias blinks slowly, his reply breaks the tension, "This is the most I've heard you speak in seven years." Jason covers his snort with a cough and Malik rolls his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitches. "You're right, Malik. But I had to leave." A swift blush colors his cheeks.

"You just said you weren't aggressive."

"And I'm not," Elias argues with Jason. "I'm hurt, angry, feeling a little betrayed but also..."

Malik and Jason simultaneously urge him to continue, "Also..."

He doesn't want to, but he has to. Malik is right. He needs to grow up and a large part of that is radically accepting who he is; not who his parents want him to be or who society says he is, but who he truly is at his core. And what he is, his genetic makeup, is a part of that. Delaney has shown him it doesn't need to be his identity. "I—kinda really wanted to give in to my alpha?" His voice becomes softer as he admits, "I've never wanted to do that before and it scared me. What if I hurt him? What if he drops and he hurts me? What if we try—,"

Jason's brows scrunch together. "For what?"

"To win the lottery," Malik deadpans.

"—and it doesn't work and he...he doesn't want me anymore?"

Malik's front door closes and the three look up to see Tristin standing in the entrance, hand over his mouth and eyes watering. He steps to the side and pushes a quiet Delaney forward, hissing, "I told you."

"And I told you I didn't want to come over here."

"Tough shit. I'm not allowing you to wallow in self pity again. Granted, the last time forced Malik and I together."

Malik corrected in a lighthearted voice, "You forced us together."

"Be that as it may, we're both happy and we both do not want to deal with our children being miserable for the next 7-10 business days because you refuse to communicate like adults until tragedy strikes. So," he shoves Delaney forward again just as Malik was helping Jason up, "Talk. No one is leaving until you two either tell us you're breaking up for good, tell us you're going home to make up, or we hear you climaxing from Malik's room."

Jason looks at Delaney, eyes wide. "Is he serious?"

"Unfortunately."

"Please choose the second option."

Tristin throws his arm over Jason's shoulder and grabs Malik's hand, loudly proclaiming, "They make no promises."

Elias and Delaney state, "It won't be the third option."

Tristin loudly calls out from down the hall, "THEY MAKE NO PROMISES!" before closing the door.

"Pretty sure he just really wants to hear us fuck," Elias lightly laughs. When Delaney doesn't reply and doesn't move from the front doorway, Elias asks, "How much of it did you hear?"

"Why does it scare you to want to give in to your alpha?"

Elias sits down on the couch, shrugging. "I don't know."

"Not good enough."

"Can it be?"

"Do you really want to take ten steps back and start keeping secrets again?"

Elias fires back, "Did you mean what you said?"

Delaney finally moves and sits beside Elias. "Honestly? A small part of me did. I can't deny my biology. Even though I wish I were able to. For the better part of a year, I have been trying so hard to deny who I am and what I want. And it's exhausting. I can only imagine how exhausting it's been to do that for ten years, hospital alpha."

Elias stares at a distant spot on the rug, avoiding Delaney's knowing gaze as he voices, "Wouldn't that make me a hypocrite? For years I've said I hate that part of me. I didn't want to give in to baser instincts. I didn't want to be who everyone told me I was before I even knew for myself who I was." When Delaney takes his hand and intertwines their fingers, whatever dam had been holding back a decade worth of emotions breaks and tears streak down his cheeks too quickly for him to bother to stop.

"No more than it does me when I sneak and take pregnancy tests then tell myself it doesn't matter because I don't want kids anyway. Then I go off the deep end and push my mate away by saying something stupid because, lo and behold, it does matter." Delaney shifts, turning his body towards Elias. He gently cups his face and uses the pads of his thumbs to wipe away tears. "We're mates, remember? Maybe that explains why you suddenly feel the urge to give in to your instincts."

Tristin yells from the bedroom, "IT DOES," and is immediately, playfully berated by Jason before the door closes again.

Elias can't help but laugh through his tears. "According to Wikipedia back there, it does."

"Then, can you trust me enough to let go? To accept who and what you are? And allow me, much like you've asked me, to make any decision I need to for myself?"

Elias meets golden eyes—eyes that remind him of the sunsets in Tuscany. Ones that sparkle when he's happy, even if he's insistent that he isn't. Ones that crinkle in the corner when he laughs, really laughs. The same ones that he's caught looking at him with a sense of awe and adoration so deep that even if Delaney never voices his feelings again, it would be okay because Elias knows without a shadow of doubt. The very ones he's been lost in from the moment Delaney accepted his lighter. Now, they look at Elias with so much hope, so much love, that the familiar glimmer of doubt and uncertainty is long gone. This moment feels like they're turning a corner. It feels... final.

No. "Final" is the wrong word.

As Elias replies with an assuring, and very scary, "yes", it dawns on him.

For ten years, he's felt empty. He's filled that void with all of the things he believed he needed—overworking himself, sex, avoiding relationships, more sex, traveling—and somehow Delaney has managed to fill that void in less time than it took for his parents to carve it out of him.

"Final" is the wrong word because "complete" is the right one.

Elias leans in to kiss Delaney. "Let's go home."

"Okay, let me go tell Tristin," Delaney says as he stands, but Elias grabs his wrist, stopping him.

"Or.. or.. we can not and let the three of them figure it out for themselves. I wonder how long it will take them to realize we're gone?"

Delaney's giggle is music to Elias' ears. "Okay. But let's hurry." As they're putting on their shoes and sneaking out of the house, Delaney points out, "I never gave you the space to share your news. I apologize."

Elias opens the passenger door and closes it once Delaney is inside. He slides into the driver's seat and asks, "How do you feel about Italy?"

"In general or...."

"For about 3 years?"

Delaney is quiet for a while, but when he responds, Elias' heart nearly bursts with joy. "You're my home, Eli. Where we are in the world doesn't matter as long as I'm with you."