Chapter Text
Jackson. Joel had mixed feelings about living out the rest of his days here at first. Of course, it was the best place he could bring Ellie after the hospital, and there was Tommy. He wasn’t leaving his little brother or Tommy’s new family ever again. But there was still the sense that he didn’t belong here for at least the first year. That he’s bad news and he should leave all of these people alone, go live out the rest of his days on a farm in the middle of nowhere.
But Ellie felt the same way as him, and Joel knew that definitely wasn’t right. So when she started to feel better about it all, he did too.
And now it’s been three years and he’s sitting on his goddamn porch whittling a bird like the old man he is.
“See ya later Joel!” Ellie shouts over her shoulder as she runs around the side of the house. Presumably, she’s going to Dina’s or Jesse’s, but he’s not exactly supposed to pester her about it anymore, so he bites his tongue. Since she’s almost an adult and has started going on patrols, they both agree she can have a lot more freedom.
But still…
“You gonna be back for dinner? Everyone’s comin’ over!”
Ellie slows her roll and thinks about it for a second. “Yeah, I should be. Okay see you later gotta go!”
Joel sits in idle silence on the porch for most of the afternoon since it’s his day off, making chit chat with almost everyone who passes by. For whatever reason, he seems to be a mildly popular person in Jackson, despite his best attempts.
And despite the alphaness of it all.
It’s stupid really. If there’s one thing he misses from before the outbreak, it’s his damn blockers.
It doesn’t affect life in Jackson very much. Besides Joel and Tommy, there’s only one other alpha in the entire commune. In the QZ or on the road there’s a good chance Joel and Tommy would absolutely fucking hate the other guy, but here, when they aren’t starving or competing for survival at all, they mostly avoid each other.
The QZ was the worst for alpha’s fighting, especially in the beginning when everyone ran out of meds and started going through withdrawals. Joel, like most people who present, had never dealt with any symptoms of it in his life. He presented as a teenager, had an outburst in class, and was put on medication so he’d never even have to think about it again.
But it came naturally to him anyway. All the fighting, and Joel came out on top. His scent is marked with the blood of other alpha’s, the ones who tried to fuck him up and failed. It’s what keeps Ellie safe, it’s what kept Tess safe for a long time, and it’s part of what keeps Jackson safe too. So over 23 years, he’s grown to nurture it. Nurture who he is underneath it all.
But something feels off today.
His baby niece is one of the most precious things in the world to him. She looks just like Sarah did when she was a baby, so he savours every moment he gets with her.
Currently, the two year old is trying to teeth on the buttons of his shirt while she sits in his lap.
“Sorry about that, I can take her if you want,” Maria offers as Joel attempts to redirect her.
“No no, that’s okay, just don’t want a button to pop out in her mouth is all,” Joel explains as baby Maeve fusses in his arms. “Oh, but if you want-” he starts, lifting her off of his lap.
“That’s alright Joel, I’ll just be in the kitchen,” Maria says warmly. Her opinion on Joel has changed greatly since she first met him, and even more so after she had the baby. It seemed to soften her where she was once rough around the edges.
Joel can attest to that. Having another child after losing one isn’t easy, but over time it makes life feel like it’s worth living again.
Speaking of the devil, Ellie barrels through the door as if it’s her own house, immediately shucking off her shoes and flopping down on the couch next to Tommy. “Hey Ellie girl,” Tommy greets fondly, ruffling her hair.
“Sorry I missed dinner, I ate at the mess hall.”
Joel doesn’t mind at all. When they first got to Jackson they had a weekly dinner with Tommy and Maria, but that was more so that Ellie could slowly dip her toes into socializing with others. Now it’s just a habit, but she still makes sure to come over for at least some part of the evening. As long as she’s eating, god knows how long it took her to get comfortable with that again.
“And hi Maeve,” Ellie adds with a huge grin that makes Maeve giggle.
“How was dinner?” Joel asks.
“It was good. They had mashed potatoes.”
Joel smirks recalling how obsessed Ellie was with mashed potatoes, then grew to get sick of them, and is now back to loving them. He’ll have to remember she likes them again when he makes her dinner next.
“Who were you with?”
“Jesse, Dina, Cat,” Ellie starts with a twinge of what Joel thinks might be annoyance at Cat’s name. “Y’know, just a few people from school.”
“Nice, did you guys have fun?”
Ellie shrugs, suddenly avoiding eye contact. “It was fine, but I think something weird’s going on with that guy… the other, uh, alpha.”
Joel and Tommy both immediately sit up straight and lean in towards Ellie as Maria quickly re-enters the room. Joel barely notices when she takes Maeve off of his lap.
“What happened, baby?”
Ellie sighs and rolls her eyes, which calms Joel down a little bit. If anything serious had happened, she would have told him right away. “You guys can calm down, okay? I mean, he didn’t hurt anyone, he was just like… pacing around or something. And he kept talking to Sherry about something kind of aggressively I guess, but like… I dunno, I don’t think it was anything serious.”
Joel leans back in his chair and considers what Ellie’s told him.
It could be some unrelated issue that’s causing the other alpha, Spencer, to behave erratically. Joel doesn’t know much about him. Still, him being an alpha elevates this problem. He’s a pretty young guy, maybe 30, who would have had to present after the breakout. He’s never had to keep himself in check, not in the way Joel and Tommy have.
And Sherry. Sherry, the 60 year old woman who works in the kitchen at the mess hall, and is a beta. What would he want with her?
They all sit there quietly pondering it for a second before suddenly, Maria’s face drops. “Jesus Christ, Sherry. Sherry lives with…”
You.
You’re around 20, but you were found just outside of Jackson alone as a child, so nobody really knows. You were still in school when Joel arrived in Jackson, and he hasn’t talked to you very much. He knows Sherry, the woman who’s looked after you since you were a kid, better than he knows you. But he knows that you’ve always been jumpy around him, and you can’t hold eye contact. You act strange. He’s always thought you were an odd girl, but he’s never judged you for it. He wouldn’t judge a child raised in this.
“Was Sherry’s daughter at dinner?”
Ellie thinks about it for a second.
“No, I didn’t see her. She usually sits somewhere around us, she’s friends with that girl Naomi. But I didn’t see her today.”
Maria sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose as Joel and Tommy sit there in struck silence. Somehow, they both just know. Joel can feel it on the tips of his fingers. He’s been feeling it all day, he thinks.
“I have to go and see what’s happening. This could be… fuck, just wait here with Maeve, Tommy. Joel, stay inside,” Maria orders, the harshest he’s seen the woman in a very long time. He knows it’s needed in this situation. Maria pulls on her shoes and rushes out the door, leaving the rest of them sitting there.
“What the fuck is going on?” Ellie questions.
Joel and Tommy hold eye contact, and he can feel the angry scent roiling off of Tommy like a landmine.
“An omega.”
Despite Ellie being a beta, she seems to be able to tell that something is deeply upsetting Joel and Tommy, so she takes Maeve to her bedroom to play. Not that Joel and Tommy would ever hurt either of them, but they need some time to calm down.
“Could you tell too?”
Joel isn’t shocked by what Tommy says to break the silence. Yeah, you’ve always been a strange figure in Jackson to him, but normal to everyone else. Tommy and Joel never discussed you, because why would they? You were a kid to them.
“Even before…” Joel says with a deep sigh. “She’s always been different.”
Today there was something odd about the air in Jackson. Something Joel couldn’t quite put his finger on, likely because it was rare to meet an omega, especially after the outbreak. They were all killed by alphas or Fedra, or killed themselves to escape their fate.
“Suppose I wasn’t used to it. Used to an omega. I mean, they were always so heavily medicated before, you couldn’t tell. And then…” Tommy’s seen it firsthand too. He’s seen what happened to all the omega’s, and why they’re basically gone now.
Except those born in the outbreak who have only just started to really present and go into their first heat.
Joel doesn’t need Maria to come and confirm to know that that’s what’s happening to you. And from the sounds of it, Spencer’s for sure known all day. Joel and Tommy live across town from you and Sherry, but Spencer lives a few houses down.
After a long beat, Joel finds his anger again at the thought of what some alphas can do in the presence of an omega. Apparently, what Spencer is trying to do. He’d rip you apart.
“That fucker. He better not be sniffing around her. He’s too fuckin’ old for her, and he’s tryna talk to Sherry? Jesus,” Joel says with an angry shiver.
“...Yeah but, Joel, I think someone’ll need to take care of her. She must be in serious pain.”
Joel thinks about it for a second. Tommy’s off the table, but who knows what each of their reactions will be as her heat progresses? This side of themselves, this dark and biological side of society hasn’t ever been a problem for them until now, when they’re old and settled down. Tommy has Maria, a beta, and Maeve. You run in the same circles as Ellie, maybe she even considers you a friend, and he can’t just go and do that to you.
But Spencer can’t either. Joel’s sure that the guys' bad news.
“There’s gotta be another way, Tommy. She’s a kid. Barely even 20.”
Tommy doesn’t seem to know how to respond, and they both sit there in silence until Maria comes back. They know if they sat up at all, it’d be to do something. Whether it be go take care of the Spencer problem and keep a little omega safe, or go and do… something else.
When Maria comes back, she looks slightly more relaxed than Joel would have expected.
“Sherry’s girl is in heat. She woke up this morning and it had already started,” Maria explains as Ellie comes down the stairs with Maeve in tow.
“So why was Spencer bugging Sherry?” Ellie questions.
“I went to go talk with him too, and he’s trying to get in there, but Sherry and her girl don’t want him. They already tried giving her a shirt of his, and I guess she didn’t like the scent,” Maria explains dejectedly. Joel doesn’t know exactly how Spencer smells, but he imagines it’s aggressive and needy. Not exactly calming for an omega’s first time.
Maria looks between Joel and Tommy with her lip between her teeth. “Sherry wants to try one of your shirts, Joel. Or anything that has your scent I guess.”
Joel immediately looks to Ellie for her reaction at the idea of him knotting a girl who’s around her age, because he wants to validate that the idea is insane and disgusting, but instead she looks hopeful, as if Maria presented a good idea.
“I… Maria, if she likes it then what happens after that? I can’t…”
“Joel, this is not about you, okay?” Maria snaps, scooping her baby out of Ellie’s arms. “If she doesn’t like yours, then we’re gonna try Tommy.” Tommy does a double take at being whored out by his wife, and rightly so. “Maria-”
“Both of you stop. Obviously I don’t want my husband to be the one doing it, so Joel, please do this for me, okay? We can’t just leave her like that. I went to visit her.”
Joel’s curiosity perks up at that, and he can see Tommy resisting the urge to question Maria too. Maria is right and Joel knows it. He can’t let his little brother or Spencer go, and deep down, Tommy is just as excited at the idea of an omega in her first heat as Joel is.
“How was she?” Joel asks carefully.
“In a lot of pain, and only getting worse. Something needs to be done.”
Joel hangs his head in his hands, and not for the first time, wishes that this wasn’t his reality.
“Joel,” Ellie pipes up. “This is awkward, but, uh, I don’t think you should let Spencer do it. I think you have to nip this in the bud before something bad happens to her. He seemed really angry at dinner, but you’re not angry at all.”
Joel doesn’t want to hear it, but in a way, her words absolve him of a lot of his guilt. “But she’s your friend, Ellie, only a few years older than you. If it was you…” Joel feels queasy at the thought.
“Hey man, it’s not me. And if it was, wouldn’t you want it to be a nice person who’d take care of me, no matter how old they are?”
He’s known the answer since he put together that you were going into heat, but he’s still scared. Scared because he’s never done anything like this before, and scared of the taboo nature of this all. But with his entire family supporting him, and the blessing of your adoptive mother, he thinks he might be able to try.
It doesn’t mean he’s happy about it. He’s never knotted an omega, nevermind a girl who’s still essentially a child in his eyes. He doesn’t know you well, but even though you’ve started going on patrols and spending nights at the tipsy bison, you’re still in the ‘kid’ category in his mind. A category to be protected from predators.
“Christ. I’ll… go get a shirt from my place.”
Maria stops him before he can get up. “No, I’ll just grab something from your closet. I can’t have you or Tommy leaving this house yet,” she insists.
“I think I’ll make it across the street and back without incident,” Joel says with an eye roll. Now that he knows Spencer isn’t getting to you, he doesn’t feel so emotional.
“I trust you and Tommy, you know that, but I won’t have anything bad happen to that girl. And I won’t have you do something you’ll regret… something you can’t control,” Maria says flatly, knocking him on his ass with the implication. Maria saw what happened to the omegas too. Joel never did anything bad to them, but that was because he fucking avoided them at all costs. After Sarah, after the medication stopped, he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t trust himself. Couldn’t trust himself to handle the biological urges he felt.
“Alright,” he murmurs, slumping back down in his chair uselessly.
Maria doesn’t come back until after the sun sets. In the meantime, Joel, Tommy, and Ellie discuss anything other than the problem at hand. Tommy discourages Joel from drinking, which he’s right to do, but Joel still feels resentful of it.
When she does come back, she’s out of breath with a sheen of sweat covering her skin, as if she’d been running around the whole time.
“Joel, you have to go now. Your closet’s empty by the way. She made a nest… and Spencer… you gotta go,” Maria pants.
The part about Spencer kicks him off his ass, and he immediately heads for the door, completely forgetting to say goodbye. All of his focus is on getting to your nest, a nest made from his clothing.
As he jogs through the desolate streets of Jackson, he understands why Maria wanted him to stay inside until you were ready for him. He can smell you so fucking potently it’s unbearable, and he can also smell the scent of an angry alpha who didn’t get his way.
When he gets to your house, he has half a mind to barge in, but he’s still in control. He’s still himself. With the way some depraved alphas acted around omegas in the beginning, he thought it may have been uncontrollable, and that’s what scared him. He’s a different man now than he was back then, but he’s never been a rapist.
He does, however, pound on the door like an insane person, which isn’t needed because Sherry answers within seconds as if she was waiting for him by the door.
“Joel,” she greets, immediately stepping onto her front porch and holding the door closed. “Just a word before you go in there, alright?”
Fair enough. He’d definitely want a word with the alpha who was doing this to Ellie if the roles were reversed.
“Listen, I know you’re probably itchin’ to get in there, so I’ll keep it brief. She’s a sweet, sensitive girl. Ain’t never been with no boy before. You understandin’ me? I don’t know how all this works, but… you hear what I’m sayin’? That’s my baby. Be as nice to her as you can.”
It takes him a second to process her words. He can feel the heat emanating from the house, and he knows exactly where you are within it, and how you’re feeling. You can smell him too, and you're a little scared. Your scent mixed with Sherry’s words pull him back down to earth and make him understand the gravity of the situation again.
“You know I have a daughter? I’ll… take care of yours,” he stutters after a beat.
“Better than that Spencer kid who was lurkin’ outside my house, anyway,” Sherry scoffs as she opens the door to let him in.
Joel follows Sherry closely to your bedroom, a soft light emanating underneath the door. His senses haven’t felt so activated since the beginning of the outbreak.
“Honey, Mr. Miller’s here,” Sherry calls quietly into your room. Joel can already feel his protective senses kicking in. As irrational as he knows it is, he wants to get Sherry far away from where you’re nesting and vulnerable.
And naked, apparently. Fuck.
He barely registers it when Sherry closes the door behind her, but he does hear her slam the front door shut behind her as she leaves, leaving him standing quietly at your door. You’re burrowed deep into a mixture of blankets and his clothes, faced completely away from him. He’d think you were asleep if he couldn’t smell you so potently.
You two don’t need to talk at first. It’s a competition of scents. You’re trying to disguise yourself in his scent, trying to make your heat invisible and hide from him. Because you’re intimidated, and he’s probably coming on too strong. Shit, he’s already ruining this without even trying.
He decides to start by calming down and taking a few steps towards you, which you immediately whimper at. “It’s okay,” is the first thing he whispers. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
His words seem to calm you down, so he keeps talking, despite his undying urge to climb on top of you and knot you immediately. He needs to ease you into it, he knows that. “I’m here to help you, baby. It’s okay,” he continues, placing a hesitant hand on the pile of your hair. You jerk away at first, before slowly turning your head to peek over the covers at him.
“Mr. Miller?”
You’re so much younger than he remembers you being. This whole evening, since he’s known that you’re in heat, he’s been picturing you as yourself but much more adult. Here, you’re still young, still someone’s baby. Your room is decorated very similarly to Ellie’s, with posters covering each wall and string lights softly illuminating the room. He’s an intruder here.
Everything in his rational brain is screaming for him to leave and let you get through this heat on your own, no matter how painful it might be for you. But he’s more weak to his senses in this moment than he ever has been.
“Joel,” is all he can choke out. Ellie’s peers all call him Mr. Miller, and he’s trying desperately to move his mind away from that right now.
“Will you make me smell like you? I feel so strange. The clothes aren’t working anymore.”
You’re feverish and delirious at this stage. Not thinking clearly at all. There’s only one thing that will make you feel better and prevent you from getting sicker. And when the fever dies down, if you’re disgusted by what he’s done to you, then he’ll make it his goddamn life's mission to find you the last suppressants left in the world.
“I will,” Joel says as he sinks onto the bed. You shoot up onto your elbows, stopping him in his tracks as your thin blanket threatens to reveal your chest.
“You smell like outside,” you say, beginning to tug his jacket off for him. Right. He was just with Tommy, and his scent must be lingering to your strong omega nose.
“Joel, take them off, put them outside the door,” you whine when he doesn’t move fast enough. With a sigh he begins to undress himself by your bedroom door, carefully inspecting all of the trinkets on your shelf as he does so. A wooden carving of a cat lives there, but he thinks you found it somewhere rather than made it yourself or had it made in Jackson.
“I’ll have to give you a bird to go with him,” Joel comments absently about the cat, making chit chat as he strips naked. You have a small smile on your face, but you mostly seem focused on him. Sherry said you had never been with a boy before, and you seem to be scanning his body with curiosity. Strangely, he doesn’t feel at all self conscious being completely naked at this moment, despite the fact that he hasn’t been with a woman since Tess. And even with Tess, it was always lights off. Nevermind a young omega. He suspects it has something to do with your comforting scent.
Once he’s finished he crawls into your nest without protest from you, and you immediately cuddle up to him, nuzzling into his neck. Right at that pulse point, the point where-
“Ah, not yet, little girl.” He doesn’t know where the pet name came from. It’s definitely fitting though, and you seem to gleam at it. It all feels wrong, yes, but it’s starting to feel right.
You whine as you begin peppering gentle little kisses along his face trying to worm your way on top of him as you do so. He hasn’t been touched so tenderly in a very long time. The air feels thicker as you slowly make your way across his scratchy facial hair down to his lips. He can’t believe how soft yours are against his.
“Please,” you moan, finally straddling him and reaching between the two of you for his cock.
Despite the sweetness of this moment, you’re still an omega, and he’s still an alpha. Everything in his brain is screaming for him to cover you completely with his body.
He grabs you firmly by the hips and flips you over onto your back without warning. You don’t mind as much as he feared you might, especially since now your sweet baby face gets to be on the receiving end of his kisses.
“Honey, I’m gonna knot you,” he thinks he means to ask your permission, but that’s the most he can muster out. He still waits until you let him.
“Please,” you say again breathily.
“I’ve never…” you seem to break through the fever for a second, the real you, and his heart aches with how this is going for you. Quick, in your first heat, and with a man more than old enough to be your father. This can’t be how you imagined it would go. It’s not how he imagined his day would go either. At least you’re in this together in some twisted way.
“I know baby, I know,” he murmurs against your lips and you nod quickly. Neither of you can wait any longer.
You’re soaking wet already. You probably have been since this heat started, tiny little pussy getting ready for his knot this whole time.
He starts off as slowly as he can. At first you just gasp at the sensation, but as he pushes himself in more, your face contorts and you wrap your arms around his shoulders for support. It should hurt less than sex between betas. That’s what they say, anyways. He wishes he knew more about omegas so he would know how to take care of you better.
“Sweetheart,” he groans against your ear, face buried in your hair as you cry out over his shoulder. He’s covering your body with his, making you his in this moment. The other alphas will know now that you’re not up for grabs.
“Baby, is it hurting?” he questions through his own deliriousness. The feeling is intoxicating. He’s lost in your heat, lost in your scent, lost in you.
“No,” you whimper against his skin. “Please do it to me.” You can’t seem to remember your vocabulary in this moment, but he thinks he knows what you mean. No, it isn’t hurting, please just knot me.
He has so much he’d like to be doing with his hands. He wants to play with your sweet little nipples and supple tits, wants to trace your lips with his fingers and slowly dip them into your mouth, and wants to rub your clit until you’re crying. But he can’t seem to focus on that at all, and somehow, he knows your orgasm is building anyway. He can feel it when he rocks into your body.
Instead of doing those things, he forces his arms under you to pull you closer to him, and now you’re chest to chest.. His brain is telling him to hold onto you tightly as if you might squirm away before he can finish. You don’t seem to want to leave at all. Actually, you’re encouraging his thrusts with small hands at his ass.
“Do you like it? Are you gonna cum?” Suddenly he’s cocky, beckoning you for a reply.
You nod eagerly, holding strong eye contact with him as your walls stutter around his cock. He’s glad you got to do it before he knotted you. “Didn’t even have to touch you, baby. So needy,” he says into your ear as you orgasm with a loud cry.
“Yes,” you moan, moving your hands to hold his face between them. You’re much more gentle than he thinks he’s being, carefully brushing all of his hair out of his face with a small smile. “I need you, alpha.”
Fuck. He’s never been an alpha to an omega before, just an alpha in competition with other alphas. But you trust him so much, and you have more compassion and tenderness for him than he’s ever deserved. Tears start to form in his eyes, and he presses his forehead against yours to hide them.
He starts to pound you into the bed. His brain can tell that his knot is forming, and it makes his hips snap in and out of you faster than he’s fucked anyone before. Your wire bed frame thrashes against the wall, and he thinks he might have made an indent in the green paint. You don’t seem to mind one bit, clutching to his shoulders for dear life as he finally swells inside of you. It’s the most incredible orgasm he’s ever had, and his legs feel weak from it. He’s sure he bottoms out for minutes straight, and it feels so fucking primal, doing it while going slack over your tiny body. As he slowly starts to come back to himself, he only then realizes how much smaller you are than him. How easy it would have been to break you during all of this.
His mind is filled with thoughts of biting your pulse point and mating you, of permanently making you his. It’s the chemicals in his brain, he knows that, but it still makes him shudder at how much you’re trusting him right now.
You. He realizes you’ve gone quiet.
Your hands are still intertwined, something he did while he was cumming. He half wonders if you fell asleep until you give him a gentle tap on the arm.
“Can we flip over?” you ask softly. Fuck, how much weight has he been putting on you?
“Shit,” he curses, quickly wrapping an arm around your midsection and doing as you asked. It pulls on the knot a bit, and you both wince at the sensation.
He’s not sure what he was expecting, what with you two being stuck together for a while, but he still feels shocked when you make yourself comfortable on his chest. After a beat of silence, you even begin tracing gentle patterns on his outstretched arm. He figures he should be the one giving you comforting touches, so he smooths your hair down from its messy state.
He wants nothing more than to peer inside your brain at this very moment.
“Ellie…” you whisper, pausing your ministrations on his arm.
So you’re in a clearer headspace now. And, like he feared, you regret fucking your friends dad.
“She knows,” Joel decides to say, probably not helping ease your worries. He would honestly rather not talk about Ellie at this particular moment, but it’s understandable that you want to.
“She mad at me? I… fuck.”
Joel can’t bring himself to stop playing with your hair, and luckily for him you don’t seem to mind. “Not at all. Nobody’s mad at you,” he reassures. If anyone gives you any shit for this, there will be hell to pay. Ellie would never, but some of the more conservative folks in this town…
Omega’s have always been hated. Even after they medicate, they’re seen as weak and useless. Or harlots who want to take the alphas away from the betas who they're married to. Joel wouldn’t be shocked if that happened to you at some point.
“I’m sorry. I probably should have just picked Spencer,” you say sadly, curling more into his chest as if you’re trying to burrow into his ribs. He doesn’t like thinking about you and Spencer one bit. He doesn’t care that Spencer would have been more age appropriate than him, or the safer and less taboo choice.
“No, it’s okay. It’s not… really your choice anyhow. But uh, I definitely don’t wanna think about you and Spencer…”
You giggle a little at that, finally looking up at him for the first time since your fever broke. God, you’re beautiful. He never would have even thought about you before this, because it would have been crazy. He’s always dated women around the same age as him, and why start doing something different when he’s in his 50s and has a 17-year-old girl of his own to look after? But you have a timeless beauty that he’s attracted to, omega or no omega.
Suddenly, you try to move around a bit, pulling on the knot as you go. He quickly presses on your back so that you lay back where you were, hissing as he does so. “You have somewhere to be?”
“Sorry, I was just… testing it,” you explain with a little shrug, shamelessly moving his hand back to where it was playing with your hair. “I never had sex before this,” you say with a little sigh. Either you want to discuss it more, or you completely forgot that you already told him.
“Oh,” he says with a gulp. “And was it… I didn’t hurt you or anything, did I? Was I too rough?”
“No,” you quickly say, rubbing your cheek against his chest. “It was exactly how it was supposed to be I think. And hey, why are the smells so different? I really like yours. Like, really. But Spencer… ugh. I mean, I could even smell Tommy on your clothes and it wasn’t… no offense or anything.” You’re just a pup, and it’s his job to teach you about these things. It’s not like anyone really thinks about omega’s anymore, until they’re in this situation, he supposes.
“Just means we’re more suitable for each other. Maybe mine makes you feel safer or happier,” he explains gently. One thing that’s different about you is that you seem to have gotten a burst of energy after something that usually exhausts young omegas.
“Mmm. Yeah, I think that’s it. I think I could feel it before I even went into heat, like when I first met you,” you tell him contentedly. That makes him feel warm, knowing you feel safe with him. He figured as much, but it’s nice to hear you say it. He can only hum in acknowledgment, feeling himself start to drift off a bit despite wanting to answer any of your questions or talk about how you’re feeling. It can be emotional, but this is the most bubbly he’s ever seen you.
“...Joel?” you ask after a few minutes.
“Hmm?”
“Will I be pregnant now?”
Fuck. All of this time, and he had barely thought about that side of things. He wonders if this is where you start crying, where you get scared of having a baby with him and being trapped in that way. He knows he should feel scared, being so old and having a baby, but he can’t bring himself to be. All of his instincts tonight were built upon getting you pregnant.
“I… I don’t know, maybe… I’m so sorry-”
“No, it’s okay. I think you’re a great dad. I always wished I had a dad like you.”
It’s an odd thing to say after you’ve just had sex, no doubt, but he knows kids born after the outbreak, especially ones raised out there, don’t have the same set of social cues that he has. So he takes it for what it is. You’re saying you’re not scared to have a baby with him, and it’s another acknowledgement that he makes you feel safe, protected, and happy. It’s very sweet.
“Thank you, baby. Now get some rest, alright?” he says gently, pulling the covers over you. He doesn’t stop touching the soft skin on your back for one second, and you go back to tracing patterns on his arm.
“Will you stay even after you stop knotting me?”
It’s the most vulnerable you’ve sounded since your fever broke, like you’re asking something big of him.
“Of course. I’ll be with you your whole heat. I won’t let you hurt again.” He knows he should be asking rather than telling, but it seems to reassure you enough to put you to sleep almost instantly after that. You rise and fall with his chest as he breathes, ear pressed against him, likely able to hear his heartbeat clear as day.
You seemed calm after your fever broke, but he knows there are insane hormones running through you right now. You’re still not yourself, and you won’t be until your heat is done. Joel hopes you’ll still feel safe with him after that, and maybe even happy. Happy enough to stick around.