Work Text:
Marks
The blood had been cleaned off of Will's hands and his nose had been cleared with an analgesic but he could still smell it.
He could still smell her.
She had been beautiful, the most beautiful omega he had ever seen. The family photos of her were sweet and tender, she'd had a tiny round face, a small upturned nose. She'd been almost elf-like with slim limbs and a tiny, tucked in waist. In all the bright, perfect family photos her blond hair glittered as it caught the sun, her face bright with a demure smile. The kind people wore when they knew they were beautiful but were shy about it. There were pictures of her volunteering in Brazil, signed by her friends as a fond memento. Cards on the mantel had congratulated her on graduating nursing school. They called her nurturing, kind and lovely. The most picture perfect omega woman that ever was. But all of these things hid a fault she couldn't bear to live with and the strain of trying had turned her head inside out.
“The suspect's name is Cheryl White,” Jack had said, “I need you to confirm at the scene if an omega is capable of doing this.”
Will had stared him down, “are you seriously asking me that?”
Jack had offered a mild rebuttal, “omegas have a sensitivity to death through the hormonal membrane in the nose -”
“Yes,” Will said, irritated, “but it's possible to control that response with training.”
“-not always. She needed an accomplice or an assistant. We had her three months ago but she walked under a technicality. If she is in fact the killer and evidence still points to yes, I need to know for sure,” Jack finished.
Will had glared at him, “vapour rub up the nose does the trick for most, others use scent blockers, over the counter drugs if she complained of a sinus infection, she could get a stronger than normal dose on a regular basis. Not every omega is entirely ruled by their hormones, or how the hell could I work?”
“You work with people who are already dead, not alphas in heat dying,” Jack reminded him, “I suspect even with chemical assistance it would be damn near impossible for her to do this. Omegas don't kill their sexual partners during the act, it's a near impossibility.”
It had come together for Will, then. All of the rotten pieces of the puzzle, the desperate need to help. The nursing and the volunteering and the need burning away inside because something else was missing.
“She's infertile,” said Will, “possibly an intersexed beta. Low omega hormones. Enough to smell right, not nearly enough to conceive. She can kill them because she's not under their thrall, the need to protect a mate isn't present.”
Jack had been impressed but Will had begun to feel hollow. His gut instincts were usually right, he knew it wouldn't be pretty he just wasn't sure in which direction the ugliness would come.
When the scene had been cleared, Will remembered Cheryl the most in a way he'd rather forget. He could still feel the sun pouring in from the French doors that lead outside in a beautiful, near palatial mansion. Her hair had glittered then too, like fine spun gold. His good sense had led him to this place just a tiny bit earlier than the rest of the team. He had expected to find an alpha hopelessly enthralled to her to question, instead he had found one dying at her feet.
“I'm not here to hurt you,” Will had said.
He'd had his gun but his hand had felt leaden in the face of her despair. The dead alpha smell snapped and quaked in the air and it mixed with a distressed omega (nature's cruelest act had been to give her strong enough omega hormones to trick everyone but herself). Will wanted to help even when he knew that was unwise and there was something about her, that elucidation that the truly desperate feel right before what they surmise is their final moment. She laughed, it was high pitched and unhinged.
“You understand,” she had said tearfully, in a sibilant whisper,“you're alone too.”
The smell had been overwhelming. Will couldn't move from the spot. Could only look at her face as their eyes met and they both understood. Cheryl had lifted the gun. The shot went off behind him before he could react. He smashed the barrel of his gun across the officer's face and had to be dragged physically into open air before he calmed enough to be restrained with an injection.
It had taken two officers to drag him into the van so they could begin processing the scene. They had called Alana Bloom because she was a beta and less likely to aggravate his condition. When the injection had worn off, she had permitted a mild sedative that had made him feel more spaced out than anything resembling calm.
“No one can blame you. It was the smell,” Alana's voice had shaken him from his sedative induced torpor, “false heat to lure her victims. Omegas have difficulty harming other omegas when exposed to heat hormones, even when they're synthetics. It's not a sign that you're imbalanced, Will.”
The police car was cramped, cloying. Will wished he were anywhere but there, inside a small metal box steeped in rotten death smells.
“I couldn't do anything,” said Will, “She could have killed anyone who entered the room. I wouldn't have stopped her.”
“It's a natural response,” Alana said, “some people are more susceptible than others, particularly if they've been under stress. At worst Jack will want you checked out at the hospital before returning to duty, to be sure you're all right.”
Will had closed his eyes, “I'm not as delicate as he thinks, I don't need to be okay.”
Alana had rested her hand on his shoulder, her warm, comforting beta smell washed over him. His eyes had snapped open. He could still hear Cheryl's laughter when he closed them, it wasn't kind but cruel.
“Some of us would like you to be okay,” she said, her expression concerned.
It hadn't been difficult to understand his problem intellectually. There were whole courses offered at the FBI concerning the omega hormone bond and its effects. Under the right circumstances, the smell became a warning. It said, listen to me, it's dangerous.
But what her smell had said to Will that day was, we'd be much more dangerous, together.
She might have given him the gun instead of trying to shoot if they had been alone a little longer.
Worse than lingering guilt was the dogged sense he had been denied a connection. Will had never felt like that before. He wasn't interested in bonding with another omega to start breeding with casually kept alphas, he made do with plastic during the appropriate times and discretion with the company he kept. He was unbound predominantly because he wasn't attracted to alphas and their hostile personalities. He took birth control to regulate his cycle. He didn't worry too much about how people perceived him because he looked beta enough to pass. Not quite the delicate, waifish figure people expected from male omegas. He worked hard to gain enough respect so his gender was at worst, a minor inconvenience. There was no reason to become so emotionally invested, even compensating for the empathy he felt.
But for a brief second, he had felt the pull. The want. She had wanted to give him everything because omegas without alphas were so rare.
It gnawed at him for weeks. The smell, faint and tinged with death, refused to go away.
“She was desperately lonely,” Will said later, a mumbled confession in Hannibal's office, “and afraid she would die alone, unloved and childless.”
The fear that had lanced through Will's stomach was very familiar, an echo of her own lingering inside of him.
“Do you feel you know her,” Hannibal suggested, “better than the rest?”
Will shook the images in his head away. She had been flat on her back, arms outstretched, a grin on her dying face as she vomited blood in a last, monstrous gasp. An image to replay endlessly in his head while he laid in bed at night.
“No,” Will said, “Not particularly.”
This had been a bold faced lie. Whatever it was, the combination of hormones or his own pathos, Will was losing control.
Hannibal could likely tell but he said nothing, not to Will and certainly not to Jack Crawford. Will wasn't sure if he was ready to feel thankful for that yet.
Despite all indications he was losing his mind, Will tried to be normal. At least, what passed as normal for him. Days and weeks went by uneventfully, until finally it was close to his heat. Will found himself distracted, restless and laying in bed with an unbearable hard on he was unable to satisfy, which wasn't uncommon during insomniac periods before his heats. It would have been nothing to worry about if it weren't for the things that were going through his head. Unstoppable, relentless.
A week ago, Will had seen Hannibal as he took Abigail's hand and it had sent a ricochet of electricity through his body like nothing he had ever felt. Now the effect in his memory was magnified, accentuated. Abigail was an omega, like him. Like the beautiful killer he had come to know. If he had been in heat, Abigail would have been affected by him. Since she was young, she would have been drawn to him, drawn into danger. Possibly thrown into a heat herself. Together, the three of them could have been something.
I bet Hannibal would be a good father, Will thought, to both of us.
He rubbed at his face. His own imagination was revolting him, he wasn't like that. Buying into the stereotypes so easily of an omega never satisfied unless they had litters, friends, society. Alphas didn't marry omegas, the saying went, they married their family. Hannibal didn't appear to have betas or close familial ties, just like him. Just like Abigail. And he couldn't stand imagining them together any longer because it was driving him out of his mind.
“She's a proxy,” he whispered to himself, under the warm furry bodies and comforting dog smell.
A proxy for what he wanted, for what his beautiful killer had craved so much that she had killed for it over and over and-
He could still think like her so easily.
“Stop it,” he hissed, “I'm not like you.”
His hands pressed over his eyes, he could still see the bodies of her dead lovers. Their faces contorted from both pleasure and pain, since she had strangled them while riding their knots. She had been so controlled when she had killed them, so righteous. They had failed her and she was justified in meeting out vengeance. If only she'd had someone who could understand her pain.
Abigail was in his head now instead of his killer, she was laughing naked, her small breasts covered in blood. The omega smell was cloying in his nose. He was the one giving the gun to himself before he was shot. He was the one riding the alpha's useless knots, hissing his anger, his rage his loneliness in their ears as they died. He was the one lusting after her beautiful blond hair, wanting her, until he realized she couldn't do what every other omega promised they could do. He was the lonely beta waiting at home for their alpha to return, but they never did. He was the omega desperate and in heat, wanting to be filled with an alpha's child and crying in shame and fear when it didn't happen no matter how hard he tried. He was alone. Alone. Alone. In an endless sea of fog, a starless sky that stretched into an endless darkness.
He screamed and screamed, as his voice startled the dogs and startled himself awake. He felt sick, nauseated. He also felt strangely slick.
“Shit,” he said, confused, “I'm in heat.”
He felt delirious. Different than he had ever felt. He had no idea how to explain the sudden onset when he wasn't due for weeks or the irrational actions he wanted to take to alleviate it. Perhaps he had been too close and he had reacted badly to the hormones released when Cheryl White had died, he wasn't a doctor. He didn't know. But if he was going to act half as irrational as he felt, he was a very probable danger to himself and others.
Without having any other option available, he called the only person he could trust.
Hannibal appeared neat and collected in an impeccable suit. He seemed concerned. Will couldn't stand having anything against his skin in his state but he had wrapped a thick, threadbare robe around himself for decency. The dogs had scattered but lurked in the hall by his living room as they watched their owner stagger around the house in a daze. He probably looked insane, unshaven, rough around the edges. His hair was likely in a state of revolt. He would have been more embarrassed about it, if he had any energy left in him.
“I didn't know who to call,” he admitted.
Hannibal stood in his hallways and watched him carefully. Will wondered if it meant something that he hadn't called Alana and had reached for his unconventional psychiatrist instead. He couldn't separate Cheryl's feelings from his own like this. He was getting blurry. Will rubbed at his eyes.
“How do you feel?” Hannibal asked.
“Like crap,” Will said, then laughed at himself, “out of my head.”
“Disturbed,” Hannibal suggested, “is perhaps more accurate.”
“I feel insane,” Will confessed, barely above a whisper.
Hannibal had taken off his suit jacket and set it on a chair. He had rolled up his sleeves. It wasn't like the movies, alphas weren't animals that would rape any omega that made themselves available in a heat. They might be tempted by the appealing odour but they could exercise immense self-control. It was the first lesson in all the sexual harassment videos Will had been subjected to when he had joined the force. Of course, police work in the field showed an uglier side of human nature.
“It's sometimes therapeutic for men like yourself to be touched before their time,” Hannibal suggested.
“I'm a bit beyond 'before',” Will said, through gritted teeth.
“It must feel worse than it is,” Hannibal said, “otherwise you would never have been able to call me.”
Will stared at him for a long moment, then nodded his consent. Hannibal approached Will carefully, led him to the chesterfield and gently guided him to sit. Will was uncomfortable but he wrapped the robe tighter around himself, glad he was only slightly moist and wasn't experiencing the revolting gush that appeared later in his heat. Hannibal had moved a chair directly in front of him, polite deference to make him feel more comfortable. That was something Cheryl would have enjoyed, playing her role until the alpha was disarmed against her. His breath shuddered and he felt a cramp low in his stomach.
Hannibal's hand brushed through Will's hair and the feeling was electric. He might have let out a pained sound, much like a whimper.
“The chemical smells aren't helping,” Hannibal said, “it may help to focus your mind on some other scent.”
“I tried that,” Will said, as he leaned into the hand tugging through his hair, “it didn't work.”
They were blurring lines here, between patient and doctor. Sometimes in the past, Will had wondered what Hannibal really thought of him, an omega working in such a high profile job as an FBI agent. Will was hardly the only one, but it was rare. Usually not something omegas did until after they had litters of children behind them.
“Omegas have a particular response to alphas,” Hannibal reminded him, “focus on my hands. You'll feel better after.”
His nose wanted to chase after the pulse point on Hannibal's wrists, the natural pheromones stronger there but he resisted. It felt good, being petted. Normally Will balked at what he called 'omega crap'. He was a person, not a breeding machine and it had taken a long time to get people to look at his face first and not his hips, to see if he'd given birth in the past. But he was strong, stronger than most and really, wasn't that the issue? No middling alpha was going to fill him up with kids. It was a powerful instinct engrained deep in biological need. Cheryl White had thought the same thing while she murdered her lesser suitors.
She's riding his knot viciously until she's burying a knife in his chest instead, he was a lesser. Useless. A no good infertile alpha-
The woman under her wasn't enough, she was fucking the alpha's brother too, they're both dead under her hands-
Test after test in the bathroom, none of them reading positive. She had tried so hard-
It was their fault she was suffering, not hers. What kind of alpha couldn't get his mate pregnant?
Kill them. He'd kill them all. As punishment for failing their duty.
“Will.”
“Will!”
The table had been knocked over, the chair had been brutally shoved aside. Will blinked and looked down and noticed his hands were wrapped around Hannibal's neck. They were both on the floor. Will could smell his own cloying heat scent emanating from his skin, the robe had fallen away, he was absolutely nude and didn't care. Hannibal's skin was flushed, his shirt dishevelled. The realisation came to him slowly, he had tried to strangle his friend to death. His fingers clenched around soft skin and Will let out a distressed sound. He was definitely in heat. A bad one.
“Look at me, Will,” Hannibal's voice brought him back, “What do you want?”
Hannibal had grasped his arm tightly, the strength in his grip pressed into his skin. Will shook all over, as the sweat trickled down his neck. He was in pain, he was in need, he didn't know what to do. He was dangerous.
“Please,” Will said, falling forward until his head rested against Hannibal's chest, “please.”
He could inhale the spicy alpha smell emanating off of him. Hannibal smelled like a predator, the very top of the food chain. A superior alpha, with superior sperm. It made a fresh sluice of wetness slid down Will's leg.
“What is it,” Hannibal said, his calm voice an anchor to Will's turmoil, “anything at all.”
Don't make me say it, please don't.
But he knew Hannibal would never give him what he wanted without his consent.
“Please,” he whispered, “I want you inside me.”
The hand on his arm slid higher and gently cupped his face. Will nipped at the wrist, the scent almost overwhelming. He was surely in full heat now, there was no stopping it.
“Have you ever,” Hannibal asked, “had anyone inside you?”
Will shook his head and gritted his teeth, his body shuddered. He ached inside, it was familiar but more intense. He had an alpha right there, why wasn't he...
“I'll be your first,” Hannibal said, “Tell me again what you want and I'll give it to you.”
Will's hands clenched around Hannibal's throat. He tried to focus on anything but her, so he could hear his own voice instead. Through his own trembling and sweat soaked misery, he did find something.
“I want you,” Will said, “please, get me pregnant.”
Hannibals' grip was strong and Will wasn't a weak man but he was still surprised when Hannibal flipped them over so his face loomed over Will's and the weight of his body fell across Will's thighs. Hannibal pressed his nose to the pulse point on Will's neck.
He's scenting me, Will thought, a pleasant shiver travelling through his whole body.
The bite on his neck was sudden and strong, Will arched his back and gasped like a dying man. That was what he wanted, to be marked and bred and it was just beginning. His whole body seized as an electric current passed through his limbs. Everything was dissolving, he couldn't think about anything but the alpha that was about to mount him. He didn't want to think about anything else.
Hannibal directed him onto all fours and he gasped as his spine arched high of its own volition, he had presented himself for the first time to an alpha. He could feel the wetness sticky between his legs. His back arched again and he groaned. This was nothing like ordinary heat, it was painful because Hannibal was right there pumping out pheromones and there was nothing Will wanted more inside of him...
“Fuck me,” Will moaned, “please, fuck me. I need it, please, please..”
“Slowly,” Hannibal intoned, “hold very still.”
Will didn't want to hold still but he tried, even when he felt the touch of hot heat against his hole. His back arched, he struggled to mount himself on Hannibal's cock but Hannibal had gripped his hips to keep him from slamming backwards. He couldn't even see anything at all, just the turned over chairs and disarray in his living room and he didn't give a damn about any of it. Only the sound of heavy breaths that Hannibal let out and the feeling of a warm, hard cock as it slid into him.
“Almost there,” hissed Hannibal, as he slid all the way in agonizing slowness.
Will wondered if he was making a slimy mess of Hannibal's impeccable suit with his musk, he hoped so. It felt so good, he groaned and stretched his back straight, his hand still pressed hard on Hannibal's pant clad thigh. The bastard hadn't even taken his clothes off all the way. Will was determined to have him pounding him naked and dishevelled before his heat was over. He would screw up Hannibal's control and make sure it was as screwed up as Will had felt these last few weeks watching other, lesser omegas faun all over his alpha.
He had nothing to worry about now, his alpha's cock was deep inside him, Will began to feel a vicious need he wasn't sure was entirely his own.
“Breed me,” he groaned, his body felt so stretched out, “I want your kid in me.”
“Will,” he heard his name whispered harshly in his ear, “you're wonderful. So strong. I'm going to breed you for hours.”
Another bite, hard in the same spot. Instead of seizing his body melted. Hannibal was all the way in, he could feel the knot growing as it stretched Will to his limit. It was almost painful.
Will was being fucked so properly it was almost heartbreaking. The slow slide in and out, the stretch when Hannibal's knot passed through his sphincter. Will snapped his hips back on each stroke, he was a creature of pure sensation now. He was moaning and biting any flesh that came near his mouth, nipping at fingers and the inside of Hannibal's arm when he adjusted them, so he could dive into Will deeper.
“Omegas are more likely to get pregnant like this,” Hannibal panted in Will's ear, “take it all into you.”
Will groaned and he did, achingly fucking himself on Hannibal's cock as hard as his meeting thrusts. Will delighted in knowing was being opened up, he was being primed for the sperm that would shoot inside him and get him knocked up with Hannibal's baby. The smell of their joined scents would take over Will's body, anyone would be able to scent his pregnancy after a mere two months and know without question who was the one that put the baby in his stomach.
The agonized groan Hannibal made was almost shocking, Will panted and arched his back being sure to slam backwards soon enough, so he could accept the knot. Will cried out, it felt so strange when everything moved and shifted inside of him, Hannibal's cock finally touching his cervix as they were locked together. The gasps in his ears sounded like a desperate man, and Will felt every second as Hannibal poured his sperm inside him with harsh, stuttering jerks. His hips could barely move against Will's. They would be locked together for at least seven to ten minutes, Will would be doused in sperm at least four times before the knot would soften enough to let him go. Then they would fuck again, over and over, every few hours until they fell into exhaustion. Will's insemination was assured, his insides would become a mess of alpha sperm all battling for the right to fertilize his egg. Only the strongest would survive.
Hours later, after panting, moaning kisses and Will taking his alpha's cock in many creative ways (Hannibal had taught him how to accept a knot in him on his back, on his side, all the ways the sperm would reach deep inside, the way his body craved) it came to Will's attention that he had actually been on birth control. While laying in his own bed with Hannibal's heavy body resting nearly on top of him (alphas got weird about protecting their mates or so he'd been told, he'd never experienced it until now), he wondered what the hell had happened.
The memories came back to him in a swirl of confused, pheromone induced bliss. He hadn't taken his pills in two months, not since the case had begun. He had sabotaged himself, from the moment he had been overtaken by the intense urge to breed.
Without a doubt, he was definitely going to be pregnant when his senses came back. He wondered if Hannibal actually knew that this was the case. Later later later...don't worry about anything now.
His treacherous mind wasn't concerned with the fall out, it was more concerned with how many more rounds of sperm he could take into himself. How many times he could induce Hannibal to fuck him. And how many more marks he could make on Hannibal's pale chest with his teeth. Hannibal had done a number on Will's neck which would undoubtedly spark all sorts of awkward conversations when he was back at work, it was only fair. Will would make his mark on Hannibal, too.
He very likely, already had.