Chapter Text
When Sweet Pea was 12, he hit his first major growth spurt.
“You're gonna be a very impressive Alpha one day,” the school nurse had told him, giving him a friendly pat on the shoulder, and Sweet Pea had beamed, knowing that he was gonna be the best Alpha ever, tall and strong and dependable. Like his dad, before he was shot down in Afghanistan.
He kept growing too, hitting 6.0 before he was even 14. There was the inevitable awkward phase where he was more a walking scarecrow than boy, but eventually he'd filled out, finally doing his large frame justice.
His first rut had yet to materialize though, and he had watched with impatience as his friends came into their alignments, one after another.
Sweet Pea was 15 when he had his first heat. He'd woken up in the middle of the night, feeling hot and ache-y all over, his stomach churning weirdly.
He figured the flu that was going around Southside High had finally caught up with him, and had staggered the few steps into his tiny bathroom to down some off-brand Tylenol with a glass of rust-colored water from the tap, hoping he'd be able to sleep it off.
In the morning, he'd woken up to blood stains in his underwear, and he'd been convinced he was dying.
He'd panicked a little at that point, and sent a group text to the other teen Serpents, asking if any of them could help him get to the free clinic.
Fangs had turned up only ten minutes later, practically ripping the door from its hinges in his hurry to get in.
He'd barreled inside, but then he'd come to a sudden stop, mouth falling open a little.
“Do you have an omega in here?” he'd asked, head swiveling around, as if it was even possible to hide someone away in Sweet Pea's tiny trailer.
“No,” Sweet Pea had bit back.
He'd stared at Fangs from his cocoon of blankets. “I'm bleeding internally and you think I have company?”
Fangs eyes had narrowed suspiciously, and he'd taken a few steps closer, sniffing at him.
“I think you're presenting, dude,” Fangs finally had told him, eyes wide and shocky. “You smell like an omega.”
“Can't be,” Sweet Pea had said, staring helplessly at Fangs, but, somehow, he'd already known that it was true. All the signs were there.
The fever, the stomach cramps, the blood; even the fact that omegas typically present later than Alphas, it all pointed in one very definite direction.
When he'd started to produce his own slick a couple of days later, the sudden gush of sweet-smelling fluid ruining his sheets, it was just adding insult to injury.
Somehow, Sweet Pea had turned out to be an omega.
***
Sweet Pea is a bit disappointed, but he tries to keep an open mind. It's not the 1950s anymore, and omegas are no longer delegated to just being nurses, teachers and home-makers. He can still be a Serpent even though he's an omega. He can still be strong and dependable.
And it's true that he's allowed to flourish in the Serpents, his large and intimidating body helping him to move up the ranks quickly, Fangs and Toni steadfast by his side, but it turns out that all those qualities that would have made him an appealing Alpha makes him a pretty crappy omega.
Omegas are supposed to be delicate creatures, pretty little helpless things that Alphas want to take care of and protect.
Sweet Pea is none of those things.
Most Alphas never even look at him as a sexual being, staring in dismay when the sweet omega scent Sweet Pea can't help but emit turns out to lead to... him. Those that do take an interest are violent and rough, chasing the power trip of breaking someone that's bigger and stronger than they are.
Sweet Pea never lets them, and he gains a reputation as the toughest, meanest guy around.
It's easier that way, but it still doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt. He might not look it, but inside he's still an omega. He hates to admit it, but he still craves to be held and cherished, and, in his weaker moments, to be filled.
He's always seen himself as a provider, but, he thinks, when he's riding out his heats all alone in his small and shabby trailer, desperately fucking himself on his fingers and hoping for a small measure of relief, sometimes it would be nice to be taken care of.
***
He's seen FP's boy around before, but he figured he was a fellow omega, or possibly a beta. He looked willowy and pretty, at least from a distance, and Sweet Pea idly wondered why he didn't seem to have an Alpha yet.
Then he actually meets him for real, and the spicy Alpha-scent surrounding him proves him wrong.
He still doesn't look much like an Alpha, not with that slender build and pretty face, and the other Alphas at school seem to share Sweet Pea's skepticism.
He gets pushed around a lot, and it makes Sweet Pea sneer in disgust seeing him just take it, the way he prefers to fight back with words rather than fists.
One day, he walks by as Jughead is being hassled by a group of asshole Alphas in the hall, and it makes something inside him boil over with rage.
He ends up punching the leader out, practically growling at the others, and they retreat, shouting insults about Jughead's prowess as an Alpha as they leave.
“You didn't have to do that,” Jughead says, voice low and resigned. He's carefully prodding at his cheek, where a bruise is starting to bloom.
“Someone had to do something,” Sweet Pea says.
Jughead watches him, something cynical in his gaze. “You know you've just made things worse for me now, right? They're going to want revenge.”
“Guess I'll have to stick around then,” Sweet Pea says, surprising even himself.
Jughead looks surprised too, like that's more than anyone's ever offered him before.
Toni and Fangs are quick to accept Jughead into the group. They're as wary around new Alphas as everyone else, but Jughead's lack of posturing and machismo makes him easy to let down your guard around.
Sweet Pea learns that what he doesn't have in physical strength, he makes up for in intelligence.
Jughead and Toni spend hours resurrecting the school newspaper, reading and critiquing each other's contributions, challenging each other to be better.
Fangs is struggling in biology class, and Jughead actually takes the time to sit down with him and explain the concept of mitosis in a way that makes sense to him.
It's more than any of their so-called teachers have ever done, and Sweet Pea tells him that.
“Lucky for Fangs that a teacher's pet from Riverdale High moved here,” he teases him, and Jughead gives a self-conscious smile.
“I really wasn't,” he says. “My grades were slipping pretty badly there, at the end.”
“But you're so smart,” Sweet Pea blurts out, hating himself a little for it.
Jughead ducks his head, embarrassed but pleased with the compliment.
“I guess I just wasn't feeling very motivated,” he says. “Not like grades mattered anyway.”
Sweet Pea gets that.
“Why do you care now?” he asks, because Southside High is enough to beat the will to learn out of anyone.
Jughead lifts his chin. “I want to prove to them that we're better than this shit-heap,” he says.
It's weirdly inspiring, and it makes Sweet Pea want to be part of that too. He isn't a baby journalist, like Jughead and Toni, and he lacks the patience to be a good tutor, but he decides to join the struggling basketball team instead.
“It's not like any college would want me anyway, even with the extra-curricular,” he haltingly explains to Jughead, “but, fuck it.”
Jughead gives him a searching look. “I think you'd be surprised,” he says.
It's not unheard of for omegas to join mixed sport teams, but it's still rate. At a place like Southside High, it's even rarer.
There's a lot of taunts in the shower, dropped soaps, that kind of thing. Some asshole even puts a knotting dildo in his locker.
Sweet Pea just grins at them, showing his teeth. He knows they're scared of him. Even without a knot he's twice the man they'll ever be.
Twice the basketball player too, so fuck them.
He is better than this shit-heap.
The coach looks at him like Sweet Pea's his own personal Jesus, practically begging him to take the captain position, and Sweet Pea accepts, knowing he just painted a huge target on his back and not really caring.
“I actually don't think they'll retaliate,” Toni tells him.
She's interviewing him for the Red&Black, doing an article on the new omega captain of the basketball team. Her beat-up camera is slung around her neck, and she's got her cellphone on the table between them, recording their conversation for later.
“I've already talked with some of the guys on the team,” she explains, “and some of them are pissed, but most of them are just happy that they're winning again.”
She smirks at him. “If any of the assholes start any shit, I'm pretty sure the rest of the team will have your back.”
It turns out that Toni is right. One of the more prominent Alphas does try to go after him, but the other players rally around Sweet Pea, putting up a unified front.
It's almost enough to make him forget he's an omega.
Almost, because when his heat breaks in the middle of what's otherwise a completely normal, lack-luster, chemistry class, it's hard to forget.