Chapter Text
2. the clinic
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He wakes up groggy and sore.
He’s got – there are wires attached to him. He’s strapped down to a hard bed, white lights blaring overhead, rhythmic beeping somewhere in the room. A clinic, then. Peter’s been taken to a clinic only a couple other times when he might have died otherwise. Owners drop omegas off at clinics when they’ve been too rough with them, but they aren’t free. Omega clinics aren’t covered by any sort of health insurance. Every time he’s been sent to one, he’s paid a steep price afterward, body passed around at parties, loaned out to his owner’s friends. It’s never anything new, just more of the same, but the abuse always ramps up after a clinic visit, as though Peter needs to pay back whatever the treatments cost with his body and his service and his obedience. But his owner is gone, he remembers suddenly. He left him in that alley with that sign on his back. So how is Peter here, how is he going to pay –
The alpha.
There was – Peter’s heartrate kicks up. He jostles the restraints tying him to the bed, pulling at them. It’s useless, of course, and he stops trying after a few panicked breaths, chest heaving, lets his body go limp on the bed and turns his face toward the wall. He squeezes his eyes shut, bright lights hurting his head. His throat’s still sore, and oh God his ass feels like it’s on fire, shooting bursts of agony every time he moves even an inch. He was supposed to have died in that alley and now – now he’s here. With wires coming out of him, strapped to an unforgiving table in a disorienting, bright room. It’s cold, unbearably cold, and he’s naked and uncovered, goosebumps trailing along his arms, teeth chattering. That alpha brought him to a clinic, but… why? He can’t remember if he even got a good look at the alpha, can remember only the way that he smelled, the alpha-sour scent of anger and bitter stress in the air, the undercurrent of smoked meat and campfires. But even as he remembers the scent of anger, he remembers that the alpha’s voice was soft. Gentle? That can’t be right. Peter was too out of it, can’t trust his own memory, as broken and choppy as it is.
But he’s in a clinic. The alpha brought him to a clinic.
He must be – he must intend on being Peter’s new owner.
An alpha owner.
Please, please no, please –
The door opens. Peter turns his face toward it and blinks his eyes open, watching the beta nurse approach. She checks his vitals, fiddles with the I.V. drip, writes something down on a clipboard. She sees him watching and frowns at him, her stern, disapproving face enough to make Peter flinch and turn his head back toward the wall. He stares at the white wall while she fiddles with something around his leg, a bag crinkling, some of the wires jostling. Her hands will touch him without warning and his heart lurches every time, whole body flinching away. She snaps at him to stay still and he tries, but everything hurts and he apparently isn’t supposed to look at her, so he can’t tell when she’s going to touch and where, and he can’t control the flinches, can’t –
“The alpha can stop loitering outside now,” she says suddenly, her voice cutting through the rhythmic background beeps and making Peter flinch all over again. And then a hand slaps him across the face and she snaps at him to stop moving again, her voice angry and strained. Peter screws his eyes shut and tries to breathe, tries to block out her movements and her voice. If he doesn’t, he’ll just keep flinching. But it’s hard to block out her voice, because she’s on an intercom system or talking on a walkie talkie or something and she’s talking about an alpha, which must be his alpha, the alpha who plans to own him, and he can’t not hear –
“He’s been out there scaring customers all night,” a different voice is saying, static crackling.
A cabinet is opened, some rustling. The nurse snorts, says, “This one’s stable enough now, if he wants to keep waiting he can do it in here. Let me leave first, though, I don’t wanna run into the beast –”
“We’re going to let him stay in the omega’s room?”
“Where else?” the nurse says. “At least in here we won’t have to look at him anymore.”
Peter bites his lip and tries not to speak, tries not to whimper, tries not to panic.
“What if he – will the omega survive?”
“We did our part,” the nurse sounds annoyed. A cabinet door slams. Peter does whimper, then, curls up on the table as much as he can while restrained, cringing away from the nurse who sees him moving again and whaps him over the head. All along, she keeps talking, “If that idiot alpha decides to use him in here, that’s on him. We’ll inform him of the risks, get him to sign a liability waver –”
She’s apparently done with whatever she was doing, because her voice gets further away as she leaves, the door clicking shut behind her. Peter takes a deep breath as soon as he’s alone, but he can’t calm his racing heart. They’re letting that alpha into his room. They’re – he’s never had an owner come to his room in a clinic before. They’re supposed to drop omegas off here and come back when they’re healed. He won’t heal if the alpha can just – can just come into the room. He won’t get better, and then what’s even the point of being in a clinic if he’s just going to be used some more while he’s here, this isn’t –
He doesn’t even have time to panic about it properly.
Because before he knows it, his door is opening again. Peter isn’t looking, but he smells him.
That campfire, cooked meat smell. The alpha.
The door opens slowly, though, creaking on its hinges. Shuffling steps, then the door’s clicking shut. The alpha is moving things around, sets something down. The chair in the room slides across the floor and then the alpha is sitting in it right beside Peter’s bed. Peter’s face is turned toward the wall, but he can feel the alpha’s presence, can feel him there right beside him.
Then there’s quiet.
Peter holds his breath, but nothing happens.
There’s just – quiet.
And then, quietly, the alpha starts to – to sing.
A soft little melody, slightly off pitch. Something about a flying machine. Peter keeps trying to hold his breath, keeps trying to stay braced for whatever’s coming, but the little tune in that rich, soft voice relaxes him despite himself. His body just – unbraces. The longer they sit there with the alpha doing nothing except singing, the more he can feel himself relaxing into the table, the calmer his heart gets. But it’s – he knows something is coming. This can’t be it. He tries to stay focused because any minute now there will be hands on him. He’ll flinch like he did with the nurse and then there will be hell to pay, okay, this quiet, relaxing little song can’t last and he’s got to stay ready, got to –
The song does taper off, finally. Peter, near dozing at that point, jerks awake at the silence, his whole body tensing all over again because he moved when he wasn’t supposed to in front of an alpha who owns him now, and –
The alpha starts talking.
“I got that song from Titanic. There’s probably a ton more words to it, but Rose sang it in the middle of the ocean while her lover boy was freezing to death right in front of her, and I promise I’m not gonna start ranting about how they should have kept trying to get Jack on that fucking door, he could have fit, damn it, screw that whole mythbusters episode that claims he couldn’t – but I promise not to go there because once I go there I can talk for hours and nobody wants that. Anyway, Titanic. I like that movie because they didn’t cast a single alpha. They could have made that asshole that Rose was supposed to marry an alpha, he was all angry and mean and terrible, but no, he was a beta! That was super progressive of them back then. Only alphas were ever supposed to be angry and mean and terrible, right? But not in Titanic. The dudes who made that movie gave the world the middle finger and said you know what, betas can be assholes too.” The alpha pauses here, like maybe he’s waiting on an answer?
Peter doesn’t know what to say.
Peter doesn’t know what to say.
This feels like a test he’s not passing. He can’t possibly pass it. Should he agree? He does agree, but he can’t say he agrees, because then he’s saying that betas are assholes, and that’s – that’s not something Peter’s allowed to say or think or believe. He isn’t allowed opinions, anyway. He isn’t allowed to speak. Betas don’t like it when he speaks, he can’t imagine how an alpha would react if he tried it in front of him, this is a test he can’t pass –
He says nothing.
But he’s tense all over, again, wondering what will happen next. Now that he’s ignoring an alpha, an alpha who owns him now. It’s got to be something truly horrible –
The alpha keeps talking.
“You’re gonna be in here a few more days, at least. They did some kind of surgery on you last night for internal bleeding. I’ve been told that went well. You’ve got an STD, but it’s one of the lame ones. Antibiotics will clear it up fast. Um, they had to get you set up with a catheter, but in my opinion that’s pretty cool, you don’t have to get up to go to the bathroom. Sometimes I pee where I’m sitting, too, only there’s no cool bag to catch it so all my clothes get soaked. So. I’m jealous of your pee bag! Hmm, what else, what else… they had to stitch up your ass, some kind of lateral-whatever surgery, which, yikes. Are you in pain right now?”
The abrupt question makes Peter freeze up.
What’s the right answer, he needs to answer, what’s the right answer –
“Aw, honey, you’re okay.” The alpha’s voice is soft again. Is he – is he talking to Peter? “I want to know if you’re in pain.”
Peter tries to swallow. His throat still hurts. He keeps his eyes closed.
“Nothing’s gonna happen to you,” the alpha says, still with the soft, soft tone.
“Y-yes,” Peter manages, just barely, hoarse and braced.
But again, nothing happens to him. No slaps, no hands, no touches at all. The alpha thanks him for telling him, then the chair squeaks as the alpha moves away. Peter hears footsteps, the door opening, the alpha retreating. In the quiet of the empty room, Peter wills himself to breathe, in and out, in and out, slow intentional breaths. He’s not sure what he’s just done, talking with his voice, talking to an alpha, admitting he’s in pain. And he – he is. Everything’s sore. Laying on this table is painful. But he feels like maybe he shouldn’t have admitted it. Maybe he should have said he was fine. Because pain can always get worse, and he should be grateful instead of saying he’s in pain. He should have said he’s much better, he should have thanked the alpha for the clinic, for bringing him here, for letting him live. Admitting he’s in pain is dangerously close to claiming the clinic isn’t helping, that the clinic isn’t good enough. Oh, God, he should have said no, this was another test and he couldn’t pass it –
The door opens. Peter flinches as though that sound were a gun.
He can’t stop himself from looking, now, eyes wide and wild as he jerks his head to see what’s happening. The nurse from before stomps inside the room, grumbling to herself, her face pinched and frowning. She grabs his hand and, when he whines and flinches away, fingers curling away from her rough grip, the nurse uses her other hand to slap him again. He cuts off another whine and lets his head stay turned back to the wall, tries to breathe, breathe, breathe. The I.V. twists uncomfortably before she finally lets go, and his hand curls into a fist, jagged nails digging into his palm. She stomps away, door clicking shut behind her.
Quiet, again.
And – oh. Oh. Whatever she gave him works fast, sharp edges of pain smoothing out all over. His head feels full, eyes drooping. He sucks in a breath and suddenly it doesn’t hurt to breathe, doesn’t hurt when he wiggles. His body feels boneless and he hardly even feels the hard table underneath him anymore. It’s – it’s good. He feels – feels good.
He feels… good?
The door opens again, that slow creak.
He rolls his head over and sees the alpha creeping back into the room. He’s big and broad-shouldered, as big as any alpha he’d ever seen, but he’s hunching his shoulders and he’s got his hands stuffed in oversized pockets on his hoodie. His face is shadowed under the hood, pulled low, but it’s so unbearably bright in this room that Peter can see that he’s – scarred. A lot. His whole face is red and pockmarked, scabbed. He sees Peter looking and freezes in the doorway, eyes wide. Peter feels good, still, for the first time in years he can’t feel anything but good, his head floating on a cloud, his body so light and airy he can’t feel it.
The alpha lets the door close behind him. He edges toward the bed, Peter’s eyes following him to the chair, which is closer than Peter expected it to be, right next to Peter’s head.
“Feel any better?” the alpha says.
Peter blinks. He can feel his own eyelids blinking in slow motion.
The alpha looks – nervous?
“Y-yes,” Peter says. It occurs to him that maybe he feels good because the alpha told them to give him pain meds. It occurs to him that maybe he feels good because he admitted to the alpha that he didn’t feel good. The alpha – fixed it?
“You sure?” the alpha says. He keeps wiggling on the chair, this way and that. He takes his hands out of his pockets and wrings his hands together, but he’s wearing gloves that squeak, so he stops. Sets his hands in his lap instead, fingers drumming on his leg. He looks so stiff and uncomfortable on that chair that Peter isn’t sure why he’s even sitting here. Why is this alpha in the room with him? Talking to him? Singing? What can all this mean? Why hasn’t he touched him?
The alpha said something. Peter didn’t hear it. He whines, suddenly upset not to have heard, not to have listened.
The alpha’s face looks – soft, eyes wide and brown. He shushes Peter like he had in that alley, cooing. A hand comes up to Peter’s head, petting his hair, but Peter sees the hand coming and flinches away from it. He screws his eyes shut again, confused, painless but scared, terrified of what this all means, terrified of that gloved hand coming toward him, of this alpha who smells like fire. Alphas aren’t good. No, betas aren’t good. Alphas are worse. They’re vicious. They hurt, and hurt, and hurt, and – but this one hasn’t hurt. Not yet. This one doesn’t even slap him like the nurse did when he flinches. He just – that hand lands on his head, featherlight and soft, and he starts petting his head, petting through his matted, gross hair until Peter’s face relaxes, until he turns his head back and slow-blinks heavy eyes to stare at this alpha who’s doing everything wrong. The alpha starts talking again, quiet and soft, words that Peter can’t focus on through the pain meds working through him. The words must not matter because the alpha doesn’t punish him for not listening, doesn’t do anything at all except keep petting his head.
Peter never thought in a million years he’d be able to fall asleep in a room with an alpha.
Must be the pain meds, he thinks.
And then he’s out.
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Deadpool’s never been in the omega’s room in the clinic before.
If he had, there would have been hell to pay much, much sooner. The omega is laying restrained to a table, hooked up to I.V.s and monitors and all sorts of wires. Everybody knows that hospitals are fucking cold, kept cold on purpose to kill germs or whatever, but they didn’t cover the omega at all, not even with a sheet, and he’s still dirty and cum-crusted all over. They cleaned off his stomach for the surgery but nothing else, and he’s laying here on a hard table with nothing but wires. Restrained. When he leaves to find someone to give the boy painkillers, furious that they didn’t do it in the first place, his eyes are red again and he’s almost arrested. Almost. He keeps himself very, very still when he speaks, though, and when the nurses still look terrified he gives them money. Money makes most things go away. This time is no different. They accept it and agree to give the omega painkillers, tell him to wait while they administer them.
He asks about the restraints.
“It’s so he doesn’t pull on any of the wires,” the lady says. “Omegas spook easy."
“I wonder why that is?” Deadpool asks, sarcastic.
The lady shrugs, clearly uncomfortable talking to him.
Later, after the omega falls asleep, he bugs them again for wash cloths and warm water, spends half an hour cleaning the dirt and cum off him. They were going to do that later, they’d claimed. Assholes. But the omega sleeps through him running wash cloths over him, over all the places that aren’t already covered by bandages. Deadpool washes the kid’s face off and still he sleeps. He removes the restraints on his arms to clean under them and still he sleeps. Geez those pain meds must work like magic. Omegas never sleep around Deadpool. Nobody sleeps around Deadpool. Deadpool hardly even sleeps around himself. He’s kicking himself for not buying a blanket, because it’s fucking cold in here and they didn’t give him anything at all. They’d give him something if he asked, he’s sure. But he’s even more sure that if he talks to any of them again right now, someone’s going to end up dead and he’s going to end up in jail, so. Instead, Deadpool covers the omega’s feet with socks he’d bought and drapes the fluffy blue sweater he’d bought over the kid’s torso, trying to cover as much of him as possible. He’d dress him, except all the wires are in the way, so he drapes two more long-sleeved shirts over his legs, wraps him up like a pitiful little burrito.
He leaves the restraints off because fuck them all.
Hesitates for a second, then grabs the omega’s hand. Holds it.
[You are so screwed.]
[[You saw how scared he is, right? Of you? You’re kinda repulsive.]]
[You’re an alpha. He’s gonna wake up and kill himself on these wires trying to get away from you.]
[[Should probably restrain him again if you really wanna hold his hand.]]
[I mean, true. That’s the only way he’d let you do it.]
[[And did you notice that nurse’s bad attitude? I think she’s evil.]]
[Kill her!]
[[Kill them all.]]
For someone who’s got voices in his head constantly telling him to kill people, Deadpool can control himself surprisingly well. It’s because of his parents, probably. Those assholes. They only ever talked to him when they were yelling about how out of control he was, about how alphas aren’t good for anything. So now even when he kills people, he does it in control. He killed them the same way. Calm, collected. Slow, but always in control. Omegas aren’t what people tell them they are, and Deadpool likes to think he’s not what everyone tells him he is. Deadpool can totally be smart.
[You didn’t graduate, brah.]
[[Last week you stuck your finger in an electric socket.]]
“I did that on purpose,” Deadpool protests, whispering. The omega’s soft breaths remain even, steady. Okay so, sometimes he’s an idiot. It’s not because he’s an alpha, okay? It’s because he’s him. The distinction is important. And sure, he hasn’t met any intelligent alphas before, but for fairness’ sake, the only alphas he’s met were ones sent to kill him. Surely other alphas exist out there who get high school diplomas and know how to prepare their own taxes. They can’t all be idiots. Omegas aren’t just holes and alphas aren’t just violent lunatics.
And that’s that.
[Keep telling yourself that.]
[[Idiot.]]
[Violent lunatic who kills people.]
Deadpool groans. He plops his head onto the end of the table, still holding the omega’s hand in his gloved one, and starts counting backwards from 800. It usually quiets the boxes for a little while because they can’t count. And they call him an idiot. But because he hasn’t slept in a few days, and last night was spent sitting on the sidewalk hugging a bear and trying not to murder people, as soon as his head hits the table he can feel the exhaustion creeping up on him, can feel it dragging him under. The omega is safe, now. He can sleep.
He closes his eyes and does.
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When Peter wakes up this time, everything hurts again. He feels like he needs to move but he’s too sore, ass on fire all over again, that painless cloud nothing more than a weird fever dream. He’s thirsty, God, his throat aches. Reflexively, he tries to bring his hand up to rub at his eyes, realizes he still can’t. Restrained, he thinks at first. But no, it’s – his hand is clutched by another, that alpha holding on for dear life. He’s – he seems to be sleeping, his head splayed out on the table beside Peter’s arm, the alpha half-hanging out of the chair and bent into a slumped position that looks too uncomfortable to contemplate. He’s been covered, too, by… shirts? His feet feel warm. But Peter’s other hand is free, the restraint hanging off the table, discarded. He rubs at his eyes and feels like crying.
He does cry, is crying, can’t stop the tears if he wanted to –
It’s just all too much. He can move his hand, can rub his own eye, the alpha is holding his hand and sleeping in the room with him, he’s covered, Peter fell asleep in the room with an unknown alpha, and now everything hurts again and he’s – he’s –
He’s broken, isn’t he?
It took a few years. But he’s – he’s broken.
He’s good at crying silently. He doesn’t cry often, but sometimes it’s all too much, and – but he’s good at doing it without anybody noticing. The alpha should have been none the wiser, too, but something wakes him up. Maybe Peter moved too much trying to get his hand free. Maybe he can smell the bitter salt in the air from his tears. Whatever the case, the alpha wakes, groans, lifts himself out of his slouch with a wince and a huge, back cracking stretch, all the while with his hand clamped onto Peter’s. Peter freezes, tries to stop his sniveling. Sniffs, rubs at his eyes, but it’s impossible. The big alpha sees him crying anyway. He freezes himself for a heartbeat, two, then drops Peter’s hand like a hot potato and scoots the chair away from the bed with loud, grating screeches against the floor. Peter turns his face away, tries to hide his crying, mumbling an apology because he’s pretty sure he’s not supposed to cry, pretty sure the alpha would rather see him grateful and thankful and not crying like a weak omega bitch who doesn’t know how good he’s got it –
“’M sorry, shh, ‘m sorry,” the alpha’s saying.
Peter sniffles again, convinced he didn’t hear that right.
“I’m not gonna hurt you, baby boy,” the alpha says. He sounds remarkably earnest, but – but that can’t be right. “The nurses probably need to come check on you, it’s – I dunno how long we’ve been sleeping. Let me just – I’ll go check. Um. Brb!”
The chair screeches again as the alpha throws himself out of it, stumbles from the room. Peter isn’t given time to wonder about the strange behavior, because a nurse is coming through that door, followed closely by the alpha, who hovers awkwardly in the background while the lady works. She checks his I.V. drip before her eyes fall on the restraints or lack thereof, and then she’s rounding on the alpha and complaining, “I knew alphas were stupid, but you can’t just come in here and do whatever you want, there are rules –”
“Excuse me,” the alphas interrupts. Peter’s never heard his voice sound so – rumbly. Dark. He flinches at the sound, sure that whatever’s about to happen, it’s not going to be good, heartrate kicking up because this is all his fault, please no, please – “But I’m paying you asshats a lot of fucking money right now, and you didn’t even give him a blanket! Or a sheet!”
“There are rules –”
“Rules against blankets?” The alpha sounds aghast, utterly repulsed, his voice going up an octave as he throws his hands up and growls. Peter doesn’t even know what’s going on, now, what they’re even talking about anymore. Blankets? Why would they have given him a – but the alpha looks mad, his eyes sparking red. Peter cringes on the table and might whimper, his omega quaking at the sight, at the tension in the room, at the undeniable truth that he’s about to feel pain, this is all his fault, this is –
“Shh, no, shh, sweetie, you’re okay.” The alpha is suddenly there, a hand petting his head.
Peter isn’t restrained, but he lays there and can’t make himself move anyway.
He’s just – frozen. In fear. In dread. Just – frozen.
He’s never seen alpha-red eyes before.
“Do what you need to do, doc,” the alpha murmurs, his voice whisper soft again. “He needs more pain meds, too. See the furrow?” And ridiculously enough, the alpha presses a finger to the furrow between Peter’s eyes, smoothing it out and letting out a giggled, “Boop!”
Peter blinks up at him, cross-eyed.
“I can’t work when you’re in here,” she complains.
“You can for thousands of dollars,” the alpha singsongs. His eyes aren’t red anymore.
The nurse must think thousands of dollars sounds reasonable, because she approaches the bed and gets to work. For the most part, Peter’s too busy focusing on the alpha standing over his head to pay attention to what she’s doing. His face is close at this angle, albeit upside down, but Peter can very clearly see how damaged he is, the scars seeming to ripple and move over his skin. A scab on his chin is kind of just hanging there, ready to fall off. It should scare him. What could have happened to cause so much damage? Something gruesome. Something, maybe, like what Peter’s been dealing with for – for a long time. He must look bad, too, right now. Alphas don’t go through what Peter’s been dealing with, though. It had to have been something else. Something recent, if the open sores are anything to go by. But they do ripple. Peter focuses on one scar on the alpha’s cheek to be sure, watching it, and before his very eyes it moves like something’s crawling underneath.
He must have zoned out watching it, watching those scars, because next thing he knows he’s being shifted, pushed onto his side. He cries out in pain and fights against the nurse’s hands, whose grips are hard and rough against his back and thigh as she keeps trying to get him to roll over.
“You don’t want to do that.”
Peter freezes, chokes off a pained whimper.
But the nurse responds. The alpha must have been – must have been talking to the nurse.
Not him?
“He’s making this difficult when he fights,” the nurse says. She sounds as annoyed as ever.
“Okay,” the alpha drawls the word out ever so slowly. His hand is still on Peter’s head, one of them anyway. Soft pets, still. That low, growled tone must not have been directed at him. Still, Peter’s heart thunders in his chest. He feels like he can’t breathe. “So you were going to, what? Hit him? You think that’ll make it any easier for him to not be in pain? Because in case you hadn’t noticed, that’s the end game, here. No pain. Have you hit him before?”
Now she sounds flustered. “Omegas need correction –”
“You’ve hit him before.”
“I’ve corrected him when he needs correcting. Your omega is useless.”
“I’m giving you to the count of three to leave before I literally murder you.”
Her hands fall away from his back and Peter’s back and ass hit the table hard. But while he’s crying, the lady’s retreating, saying, “This is why alphas should be locked up!”
“Oh, get over yourself!” the alpha yells back. “I’m still paying! Get me somebody who doesn’t hit half-dead people and tell them he still needs more pain meds! And a blanket! Damn, fuck, shit – shh, you’re gonna be okay, baby boy, ‘m sorry, I won’t hurt you. I really wanna murder that bitch but literally anybody else would want to do that, too, I swear I’m not – oh, c’mere, I gotcha, it’s okay. It’s okay.”
Peter is – so fucking broken, okay. He’s in too much pain to protest when the alpha scoots onto the table, scooches in and wraps an arm around him, hangs half off the table because they both can’t fit. Peter hides his face in that hoodie and scrambles to grab hold of it, still unrestrained, crying, white-hot pain from his ass falling on the table sparking behind closed eyelids. It hurts, oh, God, it’s worse than when he was raped one time after another, worse than those two betas entering him at the same time, worse than – worse than – please, no, please –
“Shh, little omega, shh,” the alpha’s whispering, over and over. “Someone better’s gonna come help you, shh.”
But there is no one better, he wants to say. They’re all like that. They’re all –
He’s shivering. The alpha is warm against his side, but he’s – he’s cold. He’s so cold. His head feels heavy. Still the alpha whispers to him, his campfire-sharp scent overpowering all the betas that have been in here. He thinks the door might be opening, thinks he might hear that telltale creak.
He can’t be sure, though.
Peter passes out.