Chapter Text
Misty Flip, (n.) A front flip done in freestyle sports (such as skateboarding or inline skating) that is performed sideways or off axis. The skater may land backwards or frontwards, depending on the rotation amount.
Nathaniel was gasping under him, his head pressed back into the bedding, his pale white neck arched and exposed. No one could teach him a move like that, Cliff thought. It was pure Omegan submissive instinct and desire. “Please,” Nathaniel panted and groaned, “please, Alpha, don’t stop. I—I want you, Alpha. Let me make you happy, Alpha. Please, keep—oh god, please.”
Cliff licked a path from the Omega’s collar bone to his jaw, and Nathaniel groaned louder. Cliff’s saliva had a slightly bitter tinge as his biology responded to Nathaniel’s position and pleas, his body readying to give a claiming bite. His mind, however, knew better. He couldn’t bite Nathaniel—the pale stretch of the Omega’s neck was already marked by a scarred over half-moon of puncture wounds. He was already claimed as someone else’s mate.
“What do you want me to do, Alpha?” Nathaniel practically begged in his ear. Even when pleading, his voice was breathy and soft. “I’ll do anything for you. I’ll make you happy. I’d go with you anywhere, Alpha. You know I’d lie for you—I’d say the mark is yours, Alpha. Just—love me, keep me, and please don’t stop— please, Alpha, I—”
Cliff silenced Nathaniel’s beautiful pleading with the firm press of his mouth. The kiss was open, desperate, and sweet. Nathaniel smelled and tasted like strawberries, Cliff thought.
Suddenly, the kiss turned rougher. Cliff felt a bite on his lip and a hand pulling almost painfully on his hair. He smelled freshly churned cream, bright with the slightest hint of vanilla. He pulled back to stare at the Omega beneath him, who was grinning back with sharp, hazel eyes.
“You want me to submit?” Tanner laughed. “Then make me, asshole. I’m not going to tilt my head and call you Alpha unless you make me. So, get to it.”
Cliff felt a growl growing in his throat, but Tanner just smirked at the Alpha’s frustration. The lean Omega ran his hands playfully along Cliff’s back and neck. Cliff grabbed Tanner’s hands and pressed them firmly against the mattress, trapping him there. Tanner chuckled in response and rolled his hips, teasing Cliff and trying to get him too riled up to be focused on Tanner’s lack of submission. It wasn’t going to work, Cliff vowed. He was going to win their little game—he always won in the end. Well, he mostly won.
“Please, Alpha,” Nathaniel was whispering.
“Oh, fuck you,” Tanner was laughing.
“I’ll do whatever you want, Alpha,” Nathaniel was gasping.
“You can’t make me do anything I don’t want to,” Tanner was taunting.
“Love me,” Nathaniel was pleading.
“Bite me,” Tanner was snapping.
And Cliff did. He felt his teeth sink into the Omega’s neck, felt the skin break, tasted blood and the bitter tang of claiming toxin mixed in his saliva. Underneath him, the Omega arched and screamed.
Cliff bolted up in bed with a gasp. He felt hot and soaked with sweat, and his pajama pants were tented by his erection, pre-cum soaking the fabric around the tip. Even though there weren’t actually any Omega hormones in the air, the dream apparently felt real enough to his body that Cliff felt the swell of a tight knot at the base of his cock, throbbing and painful.
He moaned and carefully peeled off his flannel pants, taking his erection in his hand and pumping desperately. He tried to focus on sensation and not on the lingering half-dream images and half-memories still swirling in his head. He used his right hand to pump faster as he used his left to press firmly against his knot, tightening his fingers as best he could to simulate the squeeze of an Omega’s lock. It was clumsy and imperfect, but it was enough. He rutted into his hands animalistically, trying to keep his mind blank. It almost worked—but at the last minute his mind summoned an unbidden image of an arched Omegan throat. Cliff wasn’t actually sure which of his dream partners the throat belonged to, but he tasted blood in his mouth as he came with a groan.
Fuck. What a shitty way to start his day. He had thought he was done with these dreams—after all, he hadn’t had them for several months—but apparently that had been wishful thinking. He sighed, loathing the idea of reporting this to Aubrey.
Cliff wiped himself off with Kleenex, then washed his hands and began the ritual of preparing his morning coffee. The process of grinding the beans, boiling the water to an ideal temperature, letting the mixture of coarse grinds and water steep, and then slowly pressing the plunger of his French press down was calming and centering. It was part of the reason he always made coffee at home rather than purchasing a cup at the café near his shared office. The ritual of making coffee took up time and space, just like cooking dinner did in the evening. Cliff appreciated the easy focus, the time to just think about the straightforward tasks of scooping, mixing, chopping, boiling, sautéing, and braising. It was simple… far simpler than the mysteries of either his own mind or other people’s.
This morning, he made a simple breakfast of an over-hard egg and whole wheat toast. On morning workout days, he’d also have added a protein shake, but today he had his clients all before lunch, so he wouldn’t get in a workout until the afternoon—likely after his appointment with Aubrey.
Cliff clicked on his scheduling app and sighed, scanning the calendar to confirm. Right, tomorrow was a visit with his mother. That was also something he’d want to process with Aubrey ahead of time. His mother hadn’t been listening to his last set boundary, kept subtly and not-so-subtly trying to matchmake Cliff with nearly any socially acceptable unclaimed Omega she heard about. He was running out of deflecting techniques. As he sipped his coffee, he hoped Audrey would have some useful feedback that afternoon.
. . .
“Have you thought about getting the hell over yourself and just accepting her offer?”
Cliff blinked for a moment. “What?”
Dr. Aubrey Parham sighed and shook her head. “You’re almost thirty, and you’ve been coming to me with the same worries for years, Cliff. You clearly want to be mated, but you’re so terrified of getting it wrong that you keep coming up with excuses. Just get out of your own damn way and let your mother introduce you to some Omegas. Or go to a mating house. Or sign up for a match service. I really don’t care which you choose, but this is getting ridiculous.”
Cliff raised his eyebrows. “Do you suddenly talk to all of your clients like this?”
Aubrey snorted. “Of course not. But what’s the benefit of having a former student and current colleague as a client if I don’t get to say what I really think occasionally? God knows I’d like to have said something this blunt in the session before you.”
Cliff hummed. “Difficult case? Want to process it at all?”
Aubrey glared at Cliff, her dark brown eyes sharp and assessing. “Oh no you don’t. You don’t get to deflect to work as a safe topic. We’re staying firmly on the topic of you avoiding the commitment of a mate.”
“Lots of Alphas wait to mate,” Cliff replied flatly.
“Lots of Alphas aren’t having claiming dreams and waking up in a near rut like a teenager.”
Cliff winced. “I still have things to process, Aubrey. I need to make sure I understand what I want and am ready to be a good Alpha for my mate. Besides, you waited to find your mate until you were almost forty, didn’t you?”
Aubrey shook her head, her short silver hair shining slightly in the dim office light. “I was dealing with very complicated family trauma, as you well know. You’re just dealing with internalized insecurity, anxiety, and a generous heaping of father issues—relatively mundane, really.”
Cliff chuckled softly. “Gee, tell me what you actually think. Was the client before me that much of a nightmare?”
Aubrey snorted. “The worst,” she agreed. “That doesn’t make my points untrue. What are you afraid of? Really. Explain again—out loud—why you won’t even look for a mate.”
Cliff sighed. He knew that Aubrey didn’t necessarily need to hear it again personally, as she was well-aware of his years of struggle over his conflicting issues. She wanted him to explain it so that he heard it again, so that they could interrogate his internalized messages together and so Cliff could hear his insecurities aloud. This was naturally the problem with a trained therapist seeking therapy—Cliff could see Aubrey’s strategies from a mile away. Of course, sometimes those strategies were still useful.
“It’s a number of factors,” he began. “The first is that I like my life how it is. It’s not like I need a mate right now.”
“Right,” Aubrey snorted. “You don’t need a mate when you’re literally dreaming about it, when you live alone, and when have no friends other than colleagues left in the state. Do you want me to read over my notes to repeat back to you how many times you’ve mentioned that you’re the last member of your college pack friends to be un-mated?”
Ouch. Cliff glared at his colleague and therapist a moment before continuing. “Secondly, even if my life would benefit from an Omega mate, that doesn’t mean the Omega would benefit. You and I both know how often Alphas and Omegas who think they’re doing what’s best for each other actually end up hurting each other. It’s too large of a decision with too many significant consequences to take on lightly.”
“True,” Aubrey said flatly. “And you’re an Alpha who literally helps other Alphas realize when they’ve hurt their mate and how to atone. You have a doctorate in behavioral psychology. Don’t you think that any Omega would be lucky to end up with someone with that level of knowledge and ability to understand and care? You’re the last person who would be careless about your behavior.”
“But I might not realize my behavior is less than ideal, or we might both end up unhappy anyway. I still don’t know what the dreams mean really or what I even want from a mate, Aubrey! The fact that my subconscious is obsessed with two polar-opposite Omegas I met in college seems completely contradictory and more than a little fucked up.”
“Or,” Aubrey interjected, “maybe the fact that you made intense connections to two Omegas at a time of critical growth, a time when you were individuating yourself and shaping your values, makes sense. Maybe you don’t have to beat yourself up over having a bit of a hang-up on your very first important sexual and emotional experiences.”
Cliff felt the barest hint of a blush touch his cheeks. Perhaps Aubrey was right, but it felt like more than that.
Nathaniel had been the first Omega that Cliff had an ongoing sexual relationship with, and it had turned emotional and intense very quickly. Even though Nathaniel was already bonded and mated to Nick, Cliff’s friend and the leader of their small college-pack, Cliff and Nathaniel had fallen into an emotional and physical relationship that was far more intense than just usual pack-members. Nathaniel had been everything Cliff thought he wanted in a mate—sweet and submissive, beautiful and docile. It didn’t help that Nathaniel eagerly assured Cliff that he was the kind of Alpha that he would have chosen as a mate too, if he’d had a choice before he was claimed during his presentation heat and forcibly bitten by Nick.
As an older adult, Cliff now looked back with mortification on the college-era memories of Nathaniel arching his throat eagerly against Cliff’s mouth, of their late-night whispered confessions and illicit fantasies. Together, they spun imagined futures where Cliff would issue a challenge to Nick as Nathaniel’s mate and then Cliff and Nathaniel would run away together and live happily as mates. These were the vivid fantasies of idiot children, of course—it hadn’t happened that way at all. Instead, Nick had punched Cliff in the face for his trespasses and insubordination, grabbed him by the neck and drove him to the ground, forced him to submit and to yield. Cliff had only a vague, haunting memory of the look on Nathaniel’s face when Cliff fell. The Omega’s soft, beautiful expression of horror and worry had morphed into a look that was strangely serene, placid, and calm. Nathaniel had simply smiled at Nick, his victorious Alpha mate, and breathily congratulated him on his win, exposing his throat to let his Alpha scent him and mouth against his bite mark. After that, Cliff and Nathaniel barely spoke, and Nick moved himself and Nathaniel across the country—away from Cliff—within a year.
The following year, Cliff met Tanner. Tanner was also the bonded mate of a good friend, and Cliff did his best to keep his distance given the recent experience with Nathaniel and Nick. Sure, Cliff still fucked Tanner occasionally—it was his right as a pack Alpha with Tanner as the college pack’s Omega. It was also his pleasure to do so, as Tanner was slim, gorgeous, and physically very much Cliff’s type. Still, Cliff had vowed that he was not going to make the same mistake with Tanner that he had with Nathaniel—he was going to stay emotionally disconnected from this Omega and keep the relationship purely sexual, not at all friendly or emotive. It should have been easy—after all, Tanner was an absolute brat of an Omega sometimes, stubborn, rude, foul-mouthed, and obstinate. He was exactly the opposite kind of Omega that Cliff would have wanted to claim. Or so he thought. After a time, Cliff’s fondness for Tanner grew like wild ivy, and he found himself daydreaming about what his life would be like with such a non-traditional and wild-spirited mate. Throughout the year they lived in the pack together, Cliff found himself feeling more and more connected to Tanner, not just as an Omega but as a person. He found himself angry on Tanner’s behalf when Tanner ran head-first into the social and legal barriers for an Omega, found himself offering emotional support and comfort when Tanner was nervous, found himself wanting to take care of the spirited Omega and make his life sweeter and easier.
The dreams had started around this time. As had the increasingly chilly silences between Cliff and his father.
“It’s just…” Cliff sighed now and shook his head as if to clear away the memories, “I feel like I should know what I’m looking for in a mate, and I have no idea. Clearly, I found aspects of both Nathaniel and Tanner attractive, but if I found an Omega exactly like either of them, I don’t actually think we’d be compatible or happy.”
“Language check: you would never find an Omega ‘exactly’ like either of them,” Aubrey reminded Cliff, “because Omegas are people, not products.”
Cliff winced. He had asked Aubrey to specifically point out whenever he slipped into dehumanizing and demeaning language related to Omegas. Cliff’s father had done an amazing job of drilling traditional ideas about gender roles into Cliff, as well as the belief that Omegas belonged to their Alphas by right and by biological determination. One doctorate in behavioral psychology and years of therapy later, Cliff felt he had unlearned a great deal of those lessons… but he was still more likely to slip into them again when discussing a potential mate of his own.
That was what scared him the most—the idea that he wanted someone more traditional, wanted that perfect surrender, even while he felt like the old expectations of training newly presenting Omegas and forcing submission were both immoral and psychologically damaging to many. He wanted an Omega who was able to be a complicated, wild, and free person of their own, but he also had a completely contradictory craving for deference, sweetness, docility, and submission.
“I just… I just don’t think I’d make an Omega happy right now,” Cliff sighed. “Not if I don’t know what I want. As a responsible Alpha, I’d need to be confident and clear. If I’m stumbling around in the dark, I’m likely to hurt both of us. And I’m not willing to put myself in a position to cause harm, Aubrey.”
Aubrey gave Cliff one of her best empathetic half-smiles. She was so good at that, Cliff thought enviously. “I know you want things to be perfect, Cliff. You like to have all the answers and control everything. You like to know the exact temperature to steep your coffee, the best plan of action to help a client, and the perfect correct answer for what makes a good Alpha.” Aubrey just shook her head slowly. “Not all of those have exact or correct answers though. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut.”
Cliff hated that idea and recoiled from it immediately. He didn’t need his gut or Alpha instincts—he needed reason, information, and answers. “I think our session time is about up,” Cliff stated flatly.
Aubrey snorted. “When I’m on this side of the table, that’s my line. I hope you know that you’re using an avoidance tactic.”
“Of course I am,” Cliff agreed. “It was either that or get into a battle of wills with the only other Alpha I’ve met who is as stubborn as me.”
Aubrey grinned. “And now you’re using flattery as both distraction and conflict avoidance. I’ll take it, though, since you’re right—both about my stubbornness and that our session time is ending.” Her expression softened again and she sighed, “But I do hope you’ll think about what you actually want before you casually brush off your mother again.”
Cliff grumbled an acquiescence under his breath. Aubrey was probably right, even if he hated to admit it. He still wasn’t ready to rush out to find a mate, but perhaps he should be at least somewhat sympathetic to both his mother and his various peers’ desires to see him coupled and happy. After all, it was true that he was the last Alpha in his circle living entirely alone and unmated. Perhaps it was worth considering that he was overreacting to his fears and insecurities slightly—only ever so slightly though.
As they closed their session, Cliff took out his cellphone to take it off of silent-mode and frowned. “I have five missed calls from Edward over the last hour,” he reported to Aubrey.
Aubrey removed her phone from her bag and raised an eyebrow. “I have one as well. Strange. I thought he was supposed to be on vacation for another week.”
Dr. Edward Wagner, a kind and unassuming middle-aged Beta, was the third psychologist in their office-share. Edward and Aubrey had been working together for almost a decade, sharing an office between themselves and a third doctor to off-set private practice costs. When that doctor had retired around two years ago, Aubrey had invited Cliff into the office share as well, after checking that it didn’t feel like a conflict of interest for them to shift occasionally between their roles of colleagues, officemates, and patient-and-client. Cliff had assured her it was fine and jumped at the chance—he respected both Aubrey and Edward as doctors, and the location and space of the homey office had been a near dream. It also worked out well since all three of them had drastically different schedules and specialties.
If Edward was trying to contact one of them so frantically, however, it wasn’t a great sign. “He is supposed to be vacationing,” Cliff agreed. “With this many missed calls, I’d normally assume it was about an emergency at the office, but we’re in the office and everything is fine.” Cliff frowned, “Client, you think?”
Aubrey nodded. “If you have more missed calls, it’s probably one outside of my specialty. Give him a call.”
Cliff nodded and stepped out of the office and into the adjoined waiting room. Edward picked up on the second ring. “Oh thank god,” he practically yelled. “I was trying to get ahold of you. Or Aubrey, if necessary, but mostly you.”
“I saw,” Cliff said into the phone. “What’s wrong, Ed? I thought you were supposed to be in Hawaii, getting away from it all with the wife and the kids.”
Ed groaned in agreement. “I was. But I got a call this morning—my one client is in the hospital again. Suicide attempt. I swear, Cliff, this kid is going to be the death of me if he keeps doing this. I seriously made him sign a pledge that he wouldn’t try anything like this when I was gone on vacation, but here we are anyway.”
Cliff frowned. “Sorry to hear. What do you need from me? Does the hospital require an evaluation before he’s transferred to a psych ward?”
“No, no ward and no out-patient programs,” Edward sighed into the phone. “Everything with him is supposed to be very private, very one-on-one. His mate insists on it.”
“Oh. Your client is an Omega,” Cliff said. It was a statement more than a question, but Edward responded with an affirmative grunt.
“It’s a complicated situation, Cliff. His parents oversee his care, but all the confidentiality wavers and release forms go through his mate. I haven’t been able to get his Alpha on the phone today, so I can’t give you much info professionally. If you’re able to go check in, though, the Omega’s parents will offer what information they can—his mother was especially relieved that I was trying to find someone to come by the hospital. I think what she really wanted was for me to fly back myself, but Martha would kill me.”
Cliff chuckled, “Definitely no need to piss off your wife, Ed. I’m happy to help but… you and I both know most Omegas don’t respond well to Alpha therapists. Are you sure there’s no one else you want to call?”
“It’s just temporary, just to make sure there’s someone checking in. I’ll be back in a week. But honestly—I’m not sure he’ll respond any worse to you than he does to me, and maybe your insights from supporting Alphas through bonding issues could help. To be frank, I’m kind of at a loss with this Omega. Anything you can do to support the family and the kid while I’m gone would be appreciated.”
Cliff hummed in agreement and took his small notepad from his pocket. Omega, mated, young, multiple suicide attempts, difficult, he jotted down. “Anything else you can tell me without breaking confidentiality?” he asked.
Ed gave him the name of the hospital and the ward where he should check in. “You’ll be meeting the Thompson family in the waiting room,” he added. “Like I said, his mother should give you a decent amount of information. I just can’t tell you much more because—”
“Right. His mate. I’ve got it,” Cliff agreed. The lack of Omegas’ rights over their own medical information made them tricky clients to take on. An Omega’s Alpha mate typically directed all medical choices and was the only one allowed to give any kind of medical release or waver. Cliff wondered absently why in this case the Omega’s parents were his main point of contact rather than the mate—most likely, he posited, the Alpha in question was a dumb college student who made an unwise claiming bite and had no idea how to proceed now that his Omega was depressed and acting out. College matings rarely worked out well; honestly, some of the only success stories Cliff knew about were his friends Jackson and Tanner, and Cliff was sure it was almost pure luck that those two were so suited for one another. Most of the time, though, college Alphas would bite the first Omega in heat they found without knowing a thing about their compatibility, and that was a recipe for disaster. Cliff had counseled many Alphas through that idiocy over the years, helping them relate to their mate, to learn about and set appropriate boundaries.
He didn’t usually interact with Omegas professionally, but if Edward thought he could be of help and needed Cliff to come to his aid, Cliff was contented to agree. “I’ll head right over there now,” Cliff assured his colleague. “Don’t worry about a thing.”
Edward snorted. “Oh, I’m sure I’ll keep worrying, but I appreciate it. Thank you. Good luck dealing with, well, all of it. Just—yeah, good luck. I will definitely owe you one.”
The call disconnected without another word, and Cliff felt a creeping sense of unease as he considered why exactly Edward felt the need to wish him such emphatic good luck. After all, he was only dealing with a depressed and distressed young Omega—what could be so difficult about that?