Work Text:
Xeno Houston Wingfield believes that the rhythm of the laboratory's machinery clanking with each other is more reassuring than the sound of any human voice. Currently, the room was covered with neatly arranged stainless steel benches that glittered dimly in the cold white light panels, and as he rearranged the glass vials in exact order, they reflected those sterile rays.
After that, Xeno walked towards his chair and sat down, and gently sweeping his hair back as a few strands fell on his face after a very stressful talk with one of his coworkers. He just wanted a place where he could work peacefully and uninterrupted. But in this kind of world, that kind of place is impossible, especially for someone like Xeno.
Xeno is the kind of person who tends to be mistaken as a beta because of how he smells, so most people tend to get close to him because he's way easier to approach than an Alpha. Xeno is the full package, he's smart, rich, and incredibly handsome, but he doesn't give off pheromones that indicate that he's an alpha or an omega, which makes him a perfect target to those betas who want to date an alpha but can't afford to do so.
But in reality, Xeno is not a beta either, he's one of those people, a rare anomaly, one in a million, an Enigma. A presence that could disrupt any rank, an existence that causes fascination and suspicion from other people. He always gets mistaken by anyone, by his coworker, his superior, and strangers, but he doesn't care anymore because it will only cause him more explanation if he corrects them, which is too bothersome for a busy person like him.
While looking at the papers on top of Xeno's table, the heavy double doors to his lab creaked open. Xeno exhaled slowly, steeling himself to tolerate them, because he already anticipated this moment, so he tried to turn his irritation into calmness, but the intrusion was still unwelcome.
Three officials entered, their suits pressed to stiff perfection, their faces carrying the authority of men who believed their decisions shaped the world. Xeno slowly stood up from his chair and put his gaze on them, with an unreadable expression as he pierced them with his obsidian eyes.
“Dr. Wingfield,” the eldest greeted, “Thank you for agreeing to meet us before your departure tomorrow.”
"Agreeing?" he thought to himself, inwardly amused. "As if I had a choice." But instead of saying anything, Xeno just slightly inclines his head, in a situation like this, it would be the best not to let out his irritation to avoid any problems.
Then the other man cleared his throat and continued. “Your attendance at the week long conference is very important. Our international counterparts will look to you for breakthroughs on your research on stabilizing pheromonal interactions could reshape the field.”
A ripple of pride stirred within Xeno, though he masked it beneath his usual poker face. His work was the only bridge between him and this world that could not categorize him, but before the feeling could settle, the official’s next words shattered it.
“However,” the man said, “given your… unique value to our nation, we cannot in good conscience allow you to travel without proper security.”
"Ah...There it was. The chain dressed in velvet." Xeno’s jaw tightened a fraction, though he appeared indifferent outside. “Security,” he repeated, his voice smooth unlike what he is feeling. “You mean a guard.”
The second official nodded. “Precisely. An Alpha, most likely. Someone who ca-”
“No.” The word cut through the air, short but absolute.
The men exchanged glances, even one shifted uncomfortably, as though offended by being interrupted by someone they assumed a mere Beta. The eldest softened his tone, mistaking Xeno’s refusal for fear rather than defiance.
“Dr. Wingfield, you underestimate the risks. There will be others... umm Alphas from across the globe, political powers, ambitious rivals. You cannot expect to navigate that environment alone. Without a high rank, you are very vulnerable.”
The words struck an old wound, though Xeno did not let it show. Vulnerable. That was the word they always used for him, as if his absence of scent rendered him blind, deaf, and powerless in a world governed by pheromonal tides. As if his mind, sharp enough to dismantle theories men had clung to for centuries, meant nothing compared to the swell of an Alpha’s chest.
His hands, resting lightly on the table’s edge, curled against the steel. “My rank does not make me defenseless,” he said evenly. “I have managed well enough without the leash of an Alpha shadowing my steps.”
It was not entirely untrue, but it was not entirely true, either. He remembered the way crowds sometimes closed in, the subtle sneers of Alphas whose instincts recoiled at what they could not classify. The way Betas dismissed him as one of their own, until they discovered the truth and pulled back with wary respect or disdain.
The officials pressed harder, sensing the fracture in his composure.
“Dr. Wingfield,” the third man said with diplomatic tone, “this is not a request. It is protocol, we’ve already arranged for a candidate to meet you.”
A surge of irritation sparked in Xeno’s chest, though his face remained impassive. His distrust of Alphas was not born merely of pride, it was memories of being cornered by those people whose pheromones flooded the air like poison, testing him, taunting him, frustrated that he would not react as they expected. Alphas could not stand anomalies, and he would not willingly chain himself to one now.
“I am not a child in need of supervision,” Xeno said, his voice soft, lethal. “Nor am I some prize to be guarded.”
The eldest sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We understand your frustration. But your safety is not yours alone to gamble with, you represent us. If anything were to happ-”
Xeno turned away, unwilling to hear the rest, his gaze fell on the neat rows of glass vials, the order he had crafted in this room. They shimmered faintly, catching the harsh light, useful yet so fragile. How easy it would be to shatter them all with a careless hand. Perhaps he was not so different from the vials, contained brilliance, only fragile in the eyes of those who misunderstood his design.
When he faced the officials again, his expression was unreadable, carved in obsidian calm. “I will attend the conference,” he said. “But I will not be babysat. If you insist on this… guard, understand that it is not my choice.”
The eldest nodded, relieved at the thin thread of concession. “Of course, that is all we ask.”
Xeno inclined his head once more, though inside his thoughts coiled darkly. Whoever they sent, whatever Alpha they thought could keep him safe, would find no pliant charge in him. He would tolerate the arrangement only as long as necessary, nothing more.
After that, they left, their departure as abrupt as their intrusion, and as the doors shut, silence to settle once more. Xeno exhaled, long and exhausted, and pressed his fingers to the cool surface of the metal table.
The officials had promised they would “introduce” the guard before departure. Xeno had hoped it might be delayed, perhaps until the last possible moment, an afterthought that could be brushed aside, but his hope only lasted for a while. The echo of footsteps carried down the corridor, steady, measured, unhurried, as if the man approaching owned the very ground he walked upon.
Xeno straightened from his bench, smoothing an invisible crease on his coat, his obsidian eyes slid toward the door just as it opened.
The Alpha entered.
Tall, lean but strong, with shoulders set in quiet confidence, the guard crossed the room with a soldier’s composure. His golden hair caught the light, the strands gleaming like threads of sunlight spun too fine to be natural. His face, almost delicate in its feminine shape and features, was tempered by a cold, disciplined expression that offered nothing. But what struck first was not his appearance... It was his scent.
Mint with a faint undercurrent of sweetness that softened its edges. Xeno’s nose twitched, though he kept his posture controlled. His heart gave no reaction, no instinctive submission that most would feel before an Alpha, only annoyance at the audacity of scent, flooding his sanctuary uninvited.
Just another Alpha. Another creature convinced the world bent beneath his pheromones.
“Dr. Wingfield.” Stanley’s voice was even, polite but firm, as he inclined his head. No arrogance dripped from the tone, no smirk showed in his poker face. “I am Stanley Snyder. I’ve been assigned as your security escort.”
Xeno let his gaze rake over him once, before turning back to his vials. He picked up a glass tube as if it demanded his entire attention, tilting it beneath the light, watching how the liquid within caught the glow. “Of course you have,” he murmured, voice smooth as a blade.
Stanley paused, faintly taken aback by the dismissal, he folded his hands neatly behind his back, waiting, as though he had been trained to endure silences without discomfort.
“You will find,” Xeno continued, placing the vial back into its rack with careful motion, “that I do not require a shadow. My work speaks for itself. My steps are my own.”
Stanley’s amber eyes flickered, catching on Xeno’s profile, the sharp line of his jaw, the cool distance in his gaze. “With respect, Doctor, I didn’t request this assignment any more than you did. But protocol stands. My orders are clear.”
Xeno turned then, finally meeting Stanley’s gaze, black against amber, night against fire.
“I don’t tolerate distractions,” Xeno said, voice soft, carrying an edge beneath the softness. “If you must follow, then follow silently. Don’t expect me to acknowledge you.”
Stanley’s lips parted as if to reply, then pressed together again, suppressing the instinct. “Acknowledgment isn’t necessary,” he answered evenly. “Protection doesn’t require distraction.”
That earned a faint lift of Xeno’s eyebrow, he had expected arrogance, perhaps even the suffocating confidence of an Alpha drunk on his own dominance. Instead, he found restraint and calmness, but still, restraint was only another mask. He stepped closer, just enough that the faint mint-sweet scent brushed more sharply against his nose, then his gaze bore into Stanley, as if looking for cracks beneath the polished veneer.
“Tell me,” Xeno murmured, voice low, “how do you plan to protect someone you know nothing about?”
Stanley held his stare without flinching, his eyes was steady. “Just simple things, by remaining close, being observant, and by stepping in if danger arises.”
“Ah.” Xeno’s lips curved in the faintest smile, sharp, mocking. “So, like any guard dog.”
A flicker, just the barest flicker of irritation flashed through Stanley’s eyes but his tone did not rise. “If that is the comparison you prefer, I won’t argue it. The metaphor doesn’t change the duty.”
Xeno turned away, dismissing him with the tilt of his shoulders, though the echo of the exchange lingered. He had wanted sparks of Alpha arrogance to confirm his distaste, but what he found instead was composure, deflection, patience, somehow, that unsettled him more.
The silence stretched as Xeno resumed arranging his materials, the faint clinks of glass filling the space. Stanley remained where he stood, posture straight, hands folded behind his back, every line of him controlled. His scent lingered around the room, it's not overbearing, yet inescapable.
Finally, Xeno spoke again, his voice calm but lace with something sharp. “Stay out of my way. Do not meddle with my work. And keep your scent from permeating my laboratory. It stinks of presumption.”
Stanley’s brows lifted, just slightly, though his tone remained level. “Noted.” A pause, and then, more quietly, “But scents can’t be shut off, Dr. Wingfield. They are what we are.”
Xeno’s hand froze above the papers, for a fleeting second, he felt the weight of the truth in those words, not about the Alpha’s intention, but the echo of his own existence, his lack of scent, his anomaly, the thing that isolated him. He set the papers down, perhaps more sharply than necessary. “Then keep yours muted. Or I’ll find a way to make you.”
Stanley inclined his head, accepting the rebuke without protest, yet his eyes lingered on Xeno for a moment longer, something unreadable flickering in their depths before he turned his gaze aside.
The tension hung between them, not loud, not volatile, but taut as a string drawn too tight. Xeno hated it. He hated that even in silence, the Alpha occupied space.
Stanley, for his part, remained quiet, not pressing further, not justifying himself and the faint mint-sweetness of his scent lingered in the sterile air despite Xeno’s order.
To Xeno, Stanley Snyder was just another Alpha, a leash in human form. And no matter how professional his facade, no matter how calmly he bore Xeno’s sharp edges, Xeno would not let him breach the walls he had built.
Not now
Not ever
The Next Day
The car drove along the road, its engine a low hum that blurred into the sound of tires over asphalt, meanwhile, inside, the atmosphere was thick, the silence so palpable it seemed to press against the glass windows.
Xeno sat with one leg crossed neatly over the other, a folder of notes open on his lap. His eyes scanned the pages with meticulous attention, pen tapping occasionally against the margin as he corrected a phrase or added a notation in his sharp, controlled hand. The passing scenery outside the window flickered by in muted greens and greys, but he hardly noticed it. His world narrowed to ink, paper, and the discipline of preparation.
Beside him, seated is Stanley who is currently observing, suddenly, "You’ve been working since we left. Don’t you think you should rest your eyes for a moment?”
Xeno didn’t look up, but his pen continue moving, underlining a word, and circling some phrase. “My eyes are perfectly fine.”
The dismissal was clean, clipped, Stanley’s lips pressed into a thin line. He tried again, adjusting his posture as though to ease the heaviness of the silence. “What exactly will you be presenting at the conference? I was told only that your research is… significant.”
Finally, Xeno glanced up, obsidian eyes cutting to him with an unreadable sharpness. “You were told more than you need to know.”
Stanley exhaled slowly, almost imperceptibly, he could have pressed, but there was something in Xeno’s tone, a wall, polished and unyielding, that made further attempts futile. The Alpha settled back into silence, amber eyes shifting to the passing world outside.
After that, the only sound was the turn of pages and the steady rumble of the car filled the whole ride.
The first disturbance that Xeno was talking about from yesterday came when they stopped in the city where the conference venue is set, reporters called out with bright voices, pedestrians pressed shoulder-to-shoulder, and the air was thick with a stew of scents, sweet, musky, acrid, clashing in waves that marked the blend of Betas, Omegas, and Alphas moving through the crowd.
The driver slowed, searching for a place to park, and Xeno, absorbed in his notes, seemed oblivious to how the press of bodies shifted closer as the car came to a stop.
Xeno finally stepped out, but a man carrying a stack of boxes stumbled sideways. The boxes wobbled dangerously, threatening to collide with Xeno’s chest.
Before the impact could happen, a firm hand shot out, steadying the boxes and nudging Xeno back with a subtle push to his shoulder, the touch was brief, careful, but unmistakably protective.
Xeno’s head snapped up, obsidian eyes flashing irritation. Stanley’s hand hovered in the air, the faint mint of his scent stronger now, cutting through the muddle of the crowd.
“I can handle myself,” Xeno said sharply, his voice low but edged with steel.
Stanley’s expression remained calm, “Perhaps, but why should you need to? Isn't that my purpose?"
Xeno bristled, his hand tightened around the folder, knuckles pale. He opened his mouth to retort, but the crowd pressed forward again, forcing them to move.
The venue loomed ahead, a grand structure of glass and steel, its towering facade gleaming beneath the sun light. Guards flanked the entrance, their uniforms crisp, their scents carefully muted by suppressants that made the air feel oddly sanitized.
Inside, the atmosphere shifted to a controlled hum, officials bustled about in tailored suits, their conversations hushed but tense, punctuated by the occasional sharp laugh or rustle of paper. The scent here was different, faint, restrained, carefully polished, like perfume diluted in water.
As Xeno entered, heads turned, the silver-haired young man, tall and lean with eyes dark as obsidian, drew subtle glances from those gathered. And as expected, whispers followed, some curious, some dismissive, some wary.
Stanley walked a step behind, posture impeccable, his cold presence radiating control. Some Alphas straightened instinctively, unconsciously bristling at the quiet authority he carried. Betas glanced away quickly, cautious of meeting his gaze, even Omegas passing through the hall shifted subtly, their instincts telling them to not cross the boundaries.
But Stanley’s eyes never wavered from the attention, his focus remained fixed on Xeno, who carried himself with the calm detachment of a man who had lived too long with the weight of stares.
The officials approached quickly, smiling too broadly, their voices pitched with relief. “Dr. Wingfield! We’re honored by your presence. The delegation is waiting eagerly for your insights.”
Xeno inclined his head with elegant grace, the faintest curve of polite smile on his lips. His obsidian eyes swept across the crowd, reading faces, reading intentions.
Inside the conference hall, light spilled across long tables and polished screens. Representatives from multiple sectors waited, their attention drawn as Xeno stepped forward.
He began to speak.
His voice was low, steady, each word measured yet carrying an undercurrent of conviction that demanded attention. He explained complex theories with ease, his lean fingers brushing across diagrams as he explained the intricacies of pheromonal stabilization, the implications for diplomacy, the breakthroughs possible in reducing instinct-driven conflict.
Stanley, though unversed in the language of science, found himself listening. The precision of Xeno’s words, the calm authority that emerged once he was in his zone, commanded a kind of respect that no title or scent could demand.
Amber eyes lingered on the silver-haired figure, and for the first time since the assignment, Stanley felt something other than duty stirring in his chest.
But brilliance, as always, attracted jealousy from other people.
One official leaned forward, his voice carrying a note of challenge. “Dr. Wingfield, your theories are… intriguing. But forgive me if I ask on what authority do you speak? You’re young. You’re unranked. Without the instincts that bind the rest of us, how can you claim to understand the systems you seek to change?”
The words hung heavy, sharpened by the subtle sneer beneath them. Xeno’s fingers paused on the page, his eyes lifted, it was cool and unreadable, though a faint tension traced along his jawline. He opened his mouth to respond but Stanley’s voice cut through first, quiet but resonant.
“Dr. Wingfield’s authority is his knowledge,” he said, amber eyes fixed on the official with calm precision. “And knowledge requires neither scent nor rank to be valid. His value is evident, which is why we are all here listening.”
The room shifted, the challenge faltered and ripple of murmurs moved through the hall, some nodding, some frowning, but the weight of confrontation had been deflected.
Xeno turned his head slightly, obsidian gaze landing on the Alpha at his side. Irritation flickered there, sharp and unmistakable, he did not need defending, hd had not asked for it. Yet beneath the irritation, a faint, reluctant awareness that Stanley’s presence had cut through doubt, the way his words had steadied the ground beneath Xeno’s feet without demanding anything in return.
Xeno smoothed the page before him, forcing his focus back to the discussion. “As I was saying,” he continued, his tone cool, composed, as though nothing had been interrupted.
But the echo of Stanley’s voice lingered in the back of his mind, unwanted yet undeniable.
As the conference continued, Stanley remained silent, watchful, he did not interrupt again, but every so often, when Xeno’s eyes flicked briefly to the side, he found amber eyes already looking at him, as if they saw more than he allowed. And though Xeno told himself he despised it, some part of him could not ignore the strange, unwelcome steadiness it brought inside him.
Late afternoon, Same day
The conference hall emptied slowly, as Xeno gathered his notes, stacking pages so neatly it bordered on aggression. His lean fingers tightened around the folder until the edges threatened to bend.
Behind him, Stanley stood, his amber eyes swept the space, he looked perfectly composed, as though the heated exchange earlier had not touched him at all.
Xeno’s jaw flexed.
The sharp clap of the folder shutting echoed louder than necessary. He turned, obsidian eyes dark with contained fury. “Was that your plan all along? To loom behind me like a silent statue until the moment my words are questioned, only to step in as though I required saving?”
Stanley didn’t flinch at the accusation, his hands rested loosely at his sides, posture straight, gaze calm. The faint mint-sweetness scent around him remained steady, unshaken by Xeno’s rising ire. “It wasn’t a plan, just instinct, he undermined you, I just corrected him.”
Xeno’s lips curved into a humorless smile, thin and cutting. “Instinct. Of course.” He let the word roll off his tongue as if it were venom. “That is all Alphas know, step in, claim space, prove dominance.”
“I wasn’t proving dominance.” Stanley’s voice remained level, quiet but firm. “I was doing my job.”
“That wasn’t your job.” Xeno’s hand clenched tighter around his notes, the paper edges biting into his palm. “My authority is mine to defend, not yours.”
For the first time, Stanley’s gaze softened, a flicker of something less guarded passing through the amber. His tone, too, shifted, no longer cold but almost gentle. “They should listen to you more, not me. You carried the entire room with your words, I simply cut down the unnecessary noises around.”
The words hit unexpectedly, stripping Xeno the ability to come up with a retort. He stared at Stanley, obsidian eyes sharp but wavering in their certainty. Compliments were not unfamiliar to him, he was praised often for his brilliance, his mind, but coming from an Alpha, spoken without condescension, without the sting of ulterior motive…
It was disarming.
Xeno’s throat tightened, and he looked away, pretending to study the papers in his hand though his focus had splintered. The silence that followed was not the thick wall it was between them, but something thinner, stretched, trembling as though it might snap into something else entirely.
“Your presence overshadows me” Xeno murmured at last, softer, as though speaking more to himself than to Stanley.
Stanley tilted his head slightly, the faintest crease forming between his brows but he didn’t press or say anything. He only inclined his head once, a gesture of quiet acknowledgement, and followed as Xeno steps toward the exit.
The driver pulled the car before the hotel, wear the speaker are supposed to stay for the week, inside, the scent of polished wood and faint florals greeted them, masking the inevitable undercurrent of pheromones that clung to any public space.
The administrator at the desk bowed hurriedly as they approached. “Dr. Wingfield, Mr. Snyder, my deepest apologies. There has been a lodging error. The reservation system failed to process the request for two separate rooms. At the moment, all other rooms are fully booked.”
Xeno’s eyes narrowed. “You’re telling me we should share?”
“Yes, sir. One room, but it has two beds,” the administrator added quickly, her nervous smile tightening. “We’ll correct this by tomorrow if cancellations arise. Please forgive the inconvenience.”
The obsidian of Xeno’s gaze burned cold, "This is unacceptable. I require privacy to work. And professionalism deman--”
“It’s fine.”
The interruption was quiet, almost casual, but it cut clean through Xeno’s tirade. He turned sharply to Stanley, pissed off.
The Alpha’s expression was unreadable, cold in its restraint but not angry or anything. “It’s just a room,” Stanley said evenly. “There are two beds. I’ll keep to my side, you won’t even notice me.”
Xeno’s mouth opened, closed again. Irritation flared hot in his chest, at the situation, at the administrator’s incompetence, at the Alpha’s calm composure that made his own frustration feel almost childish.
“You speak as if it’s nothing,” Xeno said tightly. “But it is, it’s unprofessional, it’s inconvenient. It’s --”
“- temporary.” Stanley’s amber gaze met his, steady, unwavering. “And harmless.”
The administrator looked between them anxiously, as though waiting for the explosion. Xeno exhaled sharply through his nose, pinching the bridge of it between two fingers. He could argue further, demand the impossible, but the hour was late, and exhaustion gnawed at the edges of his patience.
“Fine,” he said at last, clipped. “But understand, this arrangement is tolerated, not accepted.”
Stanley inclined his head, as if receiving an order. “Understood.”
The administrator nearly sagged with relief as she handed them their keys.
The hotel room door clicked shut behind them, the space they had been given was modest but tidy, 2 beds sat close together, divided by a narrow strip of carpet and a squat nightstand. The distance was enough to preserve propriety, but not quite enough to dull the sense of intrusion. Heavy curtains covered the wide window, muffling the hum of the city outside. A faint scent of detergent and polish clung to the air, too sterile to be welcoming.
Xeno stepped inside first, his stride brisk, sharp, every motion showing his tension. His silver hair caught the glow of the bedside lamp as he set his leather-bound folder on the desk, shoulders tight with irritation. The sharp, deliberate manner in which he began unpacking, pulling notes, journals, pens into precise rows, gave the impression of a man fortifying his walls, brick by brick.
“This is absurd,” he muttered, more to himself than to anyone else. “Completely unprofessional. Inconvenient. Distracting.” His hands moved with almost mechanical efficiency, lining up each paper with mathematical neatness. “One room, what do they think this is, a dormitory?”
Behind him, Stanley entered without comment, shutting the door with gentleness. The Alpha moved with a composure that contrasted sharply with Xeno’s clipped motions. He carried little, just a single, weathered bag that he set at the foot of the bed closest to the wall. He did not rattle through it or scatter belongings across the room. Instead, he unzipped it and pulled out a folded shirt, a neat bundle of toiletries, a slim notebook. Each item had its place, returned to order as soon as it was removed.
Xeno’s eyes flicked toward him, not openly but through the reflective surface of the darkened window. He had expected clutter, an Alpha making the space his own without thought. Instead, Stanley’s presence seemed to shrink rather than expand, as though he meant to disturb as little as possible.
That unsettled him more than arrogance would have.
And then there was the scent again, it was faint since yesterday, hardly noticeable under the chemical smells. Xeno ignored it because the sweetness of the smell is really faint, until the moment Stanley brushed past him to place his jacket neatly on the back of a rack. Xeno finally realized what the smell is, a touch of mint softened by something faintly sweet, almost like honey diluted in water. It wasn’t the cloying musk most Alphas carried with them like a banner. It didn’t suffocate or demand submission. It was mild.... Unexpectedly… tolerable.
Xeno frowned at the thought, his pen pausing mid-line as he scratched a note across the page. Tolerable? No. That wasn’t accurate. If he was honest with himself, it was not unpleasant at all. There was something interesting about it, like a breeze of cool air through a room that had been closed for too long.
But he immediately pushed the thought aside, his shoulders stiffening. Comfort was a dangerous indulgence. He thought to himself.
Stanley said nothing, only moved with that same disciplined grace, slipping into the bathroom with his toiletries and emerging some minutes later in a plain t-shirt and dark lounge pants. His blonde hair usually pulled back, was damp and softer now, falling over his forehead, making his features more delicate than it already is. He moved to his side of the room without saying anything, before picking up his notebook on the nightstand, then leaning back against the headboard to leaf through it.
The room fell into silence, punctuated only by the scratch of Xeno’s pen and the occasional quiet rustle of paper as Stanley turned a page.
Xeno buried himself in his work, or at least attempted to. He spread out his notes in neat stacks, scrawling equations and annotating the day’s discussions. Yet, despite his concentration, his awareness prickled toward the other presence in the room. A sigh from the Alpha as he adjusted his posture, the sound of his sleeve brushing against fabric, the faint shift of his breathing, all small things, but in a space so narrow, they grew louder. (A.N.Stanley wears a perfume to make his scent a little milder most of the time, so after he showers the sweetness underneath his scent is much more noticable now)
Once, as Xeno crossed to the bed to retrieve another folder from his case, their paths intersected in the narrow aisle. Stanley stood, and Xeno brushed past, their shoulders nearly touching. The faint minty sweetness lingered in the air, ghosting against his skin in a way that made Xeno's breath hitch, though his face remained composed. He murmured something sharp under his breath, more to ground himself than to be heard.
Stanley didn’t comment, simply stepped back to widen the space, as though he’d anticipated the tension and chose not to fan it.
Later, when Xeno leaned too far over his desk and a pen rolled from his hand, it was Stanley who bent first, retrieving it with an easy motion before Xeno even shifted. He held it out, fingers steady, expression unreadable.
Xeno accepted it with a curt nod, his obsidian eyes flicking to the Alpha’s face only for a second longer than necessary. “Thank you,” he said, the words clipped, reluctant, yet not without weight.
Stanley inclined his head, as if acknowledging not just the thanks but the effort it cost. “You’re welcome.”
Silence fell again, Xeno tried to bury himself in notes, but his mind wandered against his will. He stole glances, brief and unwanted, at the Alpha across the room. Stanley sat in his bed as his amber eyes flicked across the pages of his notebook. He looked... Xeno realized... that it was almost peaceful.
Gentle was not a word he associated with Alphas, they were force, and dominance. Yet here, the Alpha seemed to have his own definition of being an alpha.
As the night deepened, Xeno eventually closed his notes, stacking them once more into perfect order before going to the bathroom to wash up. After that, he sat at the edge of his bed, his silver hair falling loose around his face, obsidian eyes shadowed in the low light.
Stanley looked up briefly, then back to his own notes, he didn’t comment at all, and just lay down too.
Xeno lay back at last, staring at the ceiling with a scowl that wasn’t truly directed at anything. He muttered under his breath, half to convince himself, half to keep silence from swallowing him whole. “This arrangement is intolerable.”
From the other bed, Stanley’s quiet voice said . “You'll adjust to it.”
Xeno turned his head sharply toward him, but the Alpha had already closed his eyes, resting perfectly at ease.
For a long moment, Xeno stared at him, the words unspoken thickening in his chest. He hated the lack of distance, the breach in his solitude. He hated the way an Alpha’s scent clung so softly in the air.
And most of all, he hated that he didn’t truly hate it at all.
The lights clicked off, and darkness sank into the room like ink spilling across paper. Xeno lay on his side, eyes open, tracing faint outlines where moonlight slipped through a narrow crack in the drapes. He should have been asleep, the day had been long, political maneuvering, arguments thinly veiled as polite questions, the endless tug of being scrutinized. He had thought exhaustion would carry him swiftly under sleep but instead, wakefulness clung to him with claws.
He was too aware, not of the hotel’s bed, though it was softer than the narrow cot he was used to at his laboratory, or of the sheets that smelled faintly of starch.
No, it was the presence on the other bed.
An Alpha in the same room as him.
He had lived most of his life keeping a strict radius around them, tolerating them only in necessity, enduring their thick, suffocating scents and the unconscious authority with which they occupied a space. Their dominance was always there, pulsing under their skin, demanding recognition.
But here…
He inhaled cautiously, almost against his will.
It was… disarming. Xeno frowned into the dark, restless fingers curling against the sheet. He did not want to admit that the air felt lighter with the sweet smell, that his body, taut from habit, eased fractionally every time he drew in a breath.
Across the room, Stanley lay still, his breathing was already even, a sign that the latter was already asleep. Each exhale was measured, neither loud nor too silent, it was simply steady. It created a rhythm in the room, one Xeno found himself listening to despite himself.
He turned onto his back, staring up at the ceiling where moonlight etched faint silver shapes, the slowly, his obsidian eyes drifted toward the other bed.
At first, he told himself it was curiosity, a scientist’s instinct, nothing more, but his gaze lingered longer than a simple observation required.
Stanley lay on his side, facing Xeno's bed, his golden hair catching what little moonlight crept through the curtain. In the day, he was all pokerface, his amber gaze as controlled as his clipped words, but in sleep, something shifted.
His mouth softened, no longer pressed into its faintly disapproving line. His lashes are longer than Xeno would have guessed are currently rested lightly against his cheek. The faint glow limned his features with an almost delicate grace, he was more feminine than his commanding posture ever allowed to show while he's awake. The angles of his face gentled, as though the weight he carried during the day had been set aside for a time.
Xeno caught himself staring. Then he scowled at the ceiling, jerking his gaze away, jaw tightening. Ridiculous. What did it matter how the Alpha looked asleep? What did it matter if his breathing was even, his scent tolerable, his presence strangely unobtrusive? These were details. Irrelevant. A distraction from work, from purpose.
And yet, after a few seconds, his eyes slid back.
Stanley’s arm lay across his waist, his posture neat even in slumber, as if discipline had seeped into his bones. The rise and fall of his chest was unhurried, calm. His hair, loosened from its strict order, brushed against his brow, catching light like fine strands of gold thread.
Something tightened in Xeno’s throat, annoyance, surely, but threaded with something else. Something he refused to name.
He turned sharply, presenting his back to the other bed, burying half his face into the pillow as though the darkness could conceal thoughts from himself. His fingers drummed restlessly against the sheets before curling into fists.
This is foolish. You’re staring at an Alpha. Nothing more. They’re all the same, arrogant, claiming, overbearing.
But even as he told himself that, the memory of the scent lingered in his lungs. The softness of features in moonlight clung stubbornly to his mind’s eye.
He exhaled slowly, as if he could push the thoughts away with his breath. He should cling to those, to order, to work, to the carefully built solitude that had always shielded him.
And yet… the rhythm of another’s breathing continued to fill the silence.
For the first time in a long while, it didn’t feel suffocating.
It felt… calming.
That realization freak him most of all.
Xeno shut his eyes, forcing stillness into his body, though his mind would not quiet down. He lay there, hyperaware of the Alpha’s presence in the dark, caught between irritation at himself and a reluctant pull toward something he couldn’t yet name.
The night stretched on, moonlight inching across the floor, and Xeno, despite his best efforts, did not sleep easily.
As the morning sun finally rise, light crept into the small room through the thin curtains, brushing soft warm all over the furniture and the sleeping bodies resting within it. And it was quiet enough to hear the faint hum of the building’s pipes, the occasional shuffle of footsteps from the floor above, but here, in this cramped room, the silence stretched, thick and oddly delicate.
Stanley was the one to stirred first, he did so as though rising from rest were another drill to be performed with practiced precision, there's no grogginess, no muttering, not even the heavy sigh most people allowed themselves upon waking up in this early morning. His breathing shifted, then he rolled smoothly to sit up at the edge of his bed with his back straight, shoulders squared, the discipline of a soldier evident even in the fragile morning hour.
Meanwhile, Xeno had not slept deeply at all, his body refused it. With all of his effort to appear unmoved by the presence of an Alpha within arm’s reach, his nerves betrayed him in restless turns under the sheets. The image of Stanley asleep had lingered stubbornly in his thoughts, like the softened features under the shimmering light of the moon, the faint pout of his lips that gave him, for once, an almost vulnerable beauty. It was this contradiction, Stanley’s cold discipline contrasted by that unguarded repose, that haunted Xeno through the night.
Now, in the pale light of morning, Xeno lay with his back to the room, his eyes traced the wall’s pattern with interest, though his mind betrayed him, tugging toward every quiet movement Stanley made. The shift of fabric as the Alpha pulled on his jacket, the muted clink of belt and buckle... small, but very efficient motions.
A part of him wanted to scoff at such flawless composure, but the memory of last night silenced that impulse. That softened version of Stanley, still clung to him, and he could not reconcile it with the sharp, almost perfect figure now standing a few steps away.
When Xeno finally sat up, sweeping his silver hair back from his face as though he had only just risen, not endured hours of restless thought. He muttered a quiet “morning" his voice flat, carefully neutral.
Stanley glanced over, amber eyes steady but unreadable, and gave a small nod. “Morning.” His tone was smooth, clipped of unnecessary weight, as if this exchange were no more significant than the weather.
After that the following days unfolded with a lot of unpredictability in Xeno's side. The week-long meeting continued to the endless sessions filled with data, reports, negotiations that stretched into tedium, and at first, Xeno drowned himself in his notes and research, his pen scratching across paper with almost aggressive focus. Stanley on the other hand stand beside him, like some kind of shadow, he stayed close, yes, but never suffocating.
In that short time, Xeno began to notice the small things like Stanley’s restraint, his patience, the way he catch attention without demanding it. When they brushed past each other in the narrow quarters, Stanley always adjusted his path, as though aware of Xeno’s instinctive recoil from physical proximity. When Xeno sighed in frustration over a report, Stanley did not press, merely slid a coffee across like it was kind of an offering. Their conversations were brief, more about schedules, notes, the logistics of the meeting but each one carried a subtle ease that had not been there before.
It was… tolerable. More than that, perhaps. Begrudgingly, Xeno found himself less irritated, the silence between them was no longer heavy but companionable. The Alpha’s scent, the refreshing mint with that odd sweetness to it, no longer set his nerves on edge... instead, it float into the air like a balm, that help him calm down.
And one evening, Xeno caught himself staring at Stanley’s face again but he shook his head quickly, returning his attention to his notes with an irritation to his own actions.
One day within the week, the sessions had ended early, giving the participants an hour of free time before they go back to their hotels. Some stayed in the hall to talk, and some slipped away to the mess or their rooms. Xeno also intended to walk quietly, retreat into solitude, but voices carried from the courtyard, sharp and commanding.
Drawn by a mix of idle curiosity and the faint restlessness tugging at him, he stepped outside. The courtyard had been turned into a training range, dummies lined in a row, targets stacked in neat formations. A small group of soldiers stood gathered, guns gleaming under the sun. Among them was Stanley, he did indeed told Xeno that he wants to train within the week or else his skills will go rusty.
He moved with efficiency that caught Xeno off guard, as his gun lifted, grip tighten, stance measured, not a single motion was wasted in the action. His amber eyes were fixed ahead, cold in focus like he got no other things to think about then he fired. The sound cracked through the air, startling a flock of birds from the trees overhead, the shot landed clean, dead center of the target.
Again, and again, each round precise,the rhythm was steady, as if every breath, every heartbeat were aligned with the weapon in his hand. There was no arrogance in his bearing, no smugness in his perfect aim, only discipline, honed and sharpened into something formidable that will be useful someday.
Xeno stood in the doorway, watching, and something twisted within him, a recognition he could not quite place. This... this was what they meant by Alpha. The presence, the power, the steadiness, yet it was not domineering, nor brutish. On Stanley, it was something different, he was controlled, elegant, as if strength were not a weapon to be flaunted but a burden to be carried with grace.
For the first time, Xeno felt the words slip unbidden into his thoughts, "admirable and elegant"
He clenched his jaw, irritated with himself, his hand tightened around the folder he carried until the papers within crumpled. Still, he could not pull his gaze away from the figure in the courtyard, framed in sunlight, moving with lethal beauty.
When the exercise ended, the soldiers clapped one another on the back, voices carrying with camaraderie. Stanley said little, offered a brief nod to his fellows, then stepped aside to unload his weapon with the same calm precision he had shown in firing it.
Xeno retreated before he could be noticed, slipping back into the cool corridors of the building. His heart thudded harder than he would ever admit.
Why does it look so different on him?
The thought haunted him through the rest of the day, chasing him even into the quiet of their shared room. For all his control, Xeno found himself undone, not by dominance, not by power, but by the quiet revelation that perhaps strength could exist without cruelty, that perhaps an Alpha could be something other than the caricature he had always despised.
And worse, that it was Stanley, who had forced him to see it.
Xeno had always held his opinions of Alphas like sharpened glass, ready to cut through the illusions others seemed too willing to wrap themselves in. Arrogant, prideful, suffocating, that was what the word “Alpha” meant to him. He had seen it enough in classrooms, in crowded corridors, in the way they strutted through society as if instinct alone gave them the right to command. Loud voices, overbearing scents, postures designed to fill every corner of a room, he had despised it, and perhaps secretly, he had envy it.
But Stanley was a contradiction.
No sharp declaration of dominance clung to his presence, his minty sweet scent, while undeniably Alpha, carried no weight of suffocation. He never flaunted his rank or sought to make Xeno yield in the way so many others did without thought. Instead, he treated him with quiet respect, moving as though consideration were as natural to him as breathing.
It unsettled Xeno.
At first, he chalked it up to some calculated act of politeness, a facade crafted for diplomacy. But days turned to nights, and nights into the rhythm of a week, and the facade never cracked. The more he observed, the more the contradiction deepened. Stanley was strong, that there was no doubt, Xeno had seen it in the training yard, in the steady hands that never trembled, in the sharp precision of his movements. Yet he carried that strength with a softness that seemed almost out of place in an Alpha. His amber eyes were cool, disciplined, but his face… his face betrayed something else entirely.
Feminine. Beautiful, in a way that it was disarming rather than intimidating.
Xeno found himself watching too often, catching glimpses in the quiet moments, the way Stanley’s lashes lowered when he read, the curve of his jaw softened by the glow of lamplight, the faint rest in his expression when fatigue edged the corners of his disciplined posture. He cursed himself for it, irritation biting sharp whenever he realized he had gazed at the latter for too long.
"He’s perfect" Xeno thought once, catching sight of Stanley across the table, head bent over a stack of reports.
The thought startled him, left a bitter taste in his mouth as though he had swallowed something too sweet. Perfect and Alpha were not words he allowed to coexist, and yet, here was Stanley, shattering the belief Xeno had carried for years with nothing more than his steady presence.
Their conversations shifted almost without Xeno realizing it. At first, they spoke only of necessity, such as notes, schedules, the endless grind of research, and reports, but gradually, the words stretched beyond the bounds of duty.
It began with an idle remark, a half-muttered complaint Xeno let slip when the ink on his pen refused to flow smoothly. He expected silence, or worse, some smug observation, instead, Stanley had glanced over, lips curving in the faintest smile.
“You’re pressing too hard,” he said, voice quiet, “The ink won’t cooperate if you fight it.”
Xeno had scowled, muttered something sharp about being perfectly capable of handling a pen, but the comment lodged in his mind. Later, when he forced his grip to ease and the ink began to flow again, he caught himself glancing toward Stanley.
From there, the edges softened, their words trickled into moments between work, into short exchanges over meals or when walking side by side down the hall. Xeno found himself speaking of things he rarely voiced out, like small frustrations with his research, idle observations of the way the meeting dragged too long, even, once, a memory of the city he had left behind.
Stanley listened, not passively, not with the disinterest of one merely humoring him, but with his full attention. His amber eyes would lift from his papers, meeting Xeno’s, steady and unjudging, and when he did respond, his words were thoughtful, never dismissive.
Occasionally, he smiled, just a small curve at the corner of his mouth, so subtle it could almost be missed, but those smiles unsettled Xeno more than anything else. They were genuine, simple acknowledgments of something shared, and each time, Xeno felt the ground shift beneath him, unsteady in ways he doesn't want to name or acknowledge at all.
A routine formed between them, as natural as breathing. Meals were taken together at the long, drafty tables of the hall, walks through the corridors where their shoulders brushed in passing, though neither drew away, and late nights spent in the shared room. Xeno caught himself anticipating these moments, the familiar sound of Stanley’s footsteps at his side, the subtle minty sweetness that filled their shared room.
It was dangerous, how easily comfort had crept inside Xeno's walls.
One night, Xeno looked up from his notes and found Stanley dozing lightly in his chair, head tilted, golden hair falling across his brow. The lamp softened his features, stripped away the cool posture, and left behind something gentle, almost fragile, and Xeno’s chest tightened unexpectedly, an ache blooming that he quickly smothered. He forced his eyes back to his work, muttering under his breath about the idiocy of letting himself stare.
Stanley embodied everything the word Alpha should mean. It was intolerable, how much that truth unsettled him.
Maybe I was wrong about Alphas…
His throat tightened as the thought fully formed, a reluctant admission heavy in the silence of the room.
…Or at least about him.
When the weekends come, the meetings about the diplomacy finally come to an end, and the administrator said that they wanted to formally end the conference, and they wanted to hold a simple party for all of the participants. But in truth, it was little more than an excuse for officials to dress finely, sip wine, and parade themselves beneath chandeliers. The hall chosen for the occasion was grand, trimmed with velvet draperies and chandeliers heavy with crystal, their light spilling across polished floors where murmurs of music mingled with laughter and clinking glasses.
Xeno entered without eagerness, his tall frame cutting a distinct figure even in the crowd. He wore black as always, the clean lines of his suit sharper than most, as though he had no intention of softening his presence to look more approachable to others. Some turned to notice him, curiosity and wariness flickering in their gazes, though few dared linger long. Beside him, Stanley stood, his blonde hair caught the light like metal spun fine, his amber eyes steady as he scanned the people in the gathering, he looked every inch the Alpha those girls and men alike whispered about and flocked around.
Actually, it was also Xeno’s birthday, though he had spoken not a word of it, he had no habit of celebrating himself, in fact, he preferred to forget the date altogether. Yet a few colleagues, ones who had followed his work closely, who noted small things others missed, knew. They had pressed faint smiles upon him earlier, murmured greetings and wishes that left him irritated more than pleased. Birthdays, after all, only marked time passed, and time was never something Xeno liked to dwell upon.
The hall was filled with music and chatter, strings playing softly in the corner as waiters slipped through with trays of champagne. The crowd was alive with shifting groups, partnerships forming and breaking in the space of a conversation. Xeno felt himself an island among them, standing near the edge of the room where the light grew softer, cooler, away from the center’s heat.
Stanley hovered nearby, Xeno could sense it, it was a reassurance Xeno had not asked for, yet could not dismiss. But it didn’t take long before the first wave came.
A group of women, dressed in gowns of pale silk and satin, approached with the light laughter of those emboldened by wine. Their scents were sweet, floral, and heady, pressing into the air around them as they slowed near the two men.
“Sir Snyder, isn’t it?” one of them asked, her voice pitched high, eyes sliding up the length of Stanley’s frame. “You stand out too much to go unnoticed. Surely you won’t spend the evening brooding in the corner?”
The others giggled, the sound like glass bells shaken, and one tilted her head toward Xeno. “And Mr. Wingfield is also so striking. Silver hair like that is rare. You must let us keep you company.”
Xeno’s obsidian eyes flicked toward them once, sharp, dismissive. “No need,” he said coolly, the syllables clipped like a blade. “I prefer my privacy and space.”
Stanley, for his part, inclined his head slightly, polite but firm. “I’m here on duty,” he said evenly. “It wouldn’t be proper if I entertained other people.”
The girls faltered, their laughter dimming into uncertain smiles, one tried again, pressing a little closer, but the cold wall of Xeno’s silence and Stanley’s composed distance drove them back, they withdrew with soft mutters, scent trailing as they walked away..
Xeno exhaled quietly through his nose. “Predictable,” he muttered, low enough that only Stanley could hear.
Stanley glanced at him sidelong, his expression unreadable. “They meant no harm.”
“That doesn’t make it less tiresome.”
A faint hum of acknowledgment was all Stanley offered to him.
As the evening stretched, the advances continued, though always with the same result, a Beta official even tried to draw Xeno into conversation, praising his theories with oily enthusiasm that made his skin crawl. Then a pair of women returned to attempt again with Stanley, already clearly drunk, but only to be gently deflected once more.
Through it all, Xeno remained at the room’s edge, drinking a wine that the girls had given them earlier, watching the currents of society swirl without pulling him in. And always, at the periphery of his awareness, Stanley was composed, his mint-sweet scent was actually calming Xeno down.
At one point, a colleague approached with a small, almost sheepish smile. “Happy birthday, Wingfield,” he murmured before slipping back into the crowd.
Xeno stiffened, his fingers tightening on the glass. Stanley’s amber gaze slid toward him, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes, though he said nothing.
Xeno set the glass down, jaw taut. “It’s nothing,” he said curtly. “A meaningless date.”
When the party was on going, a sudden warmth hit Xeno's body. He had been leaning against the edge of the banquet hall, glass in hand, letting the chatter and clinking silverware wash over him like background static. A flicker of heat crawled up his neck, spreading across his skin like a fever, his vision blurred at the edges, forcing him to blink, steady, and blink again. His hand tightened around the cool glass, only to find that the glass itself no longer felt cool. His pulse thundered strangely, unsteady, as if something inside him were beating against a door he’d kept locked all his life.
Too warm. Too loud. Too much.
“I need… air” Xeno murmured, barely audible to himself, his words dry. Setting his empty drink aside, he turned quickly, ignoring the questioning glances of a few colleagues. His silver hair caught the light as he slipped through the crowd, a fleeting shadow swallowed by the hall’s gilded doors.
Behind him, amber eyes tracked him immediately, Stanley rose without hesitation.
The girls who had clustered earlier near him, batting lashes and reaching for his attention, left behind him with soft laughter, whispering among themselves. After whispering for a while, they decided to follow too, skirts rustling like shadows, but as they reached the hotel threshold, uniformed staff cut their path.
“Restricted access. VIP Guests only,” the guard said firmly, arms crossed.
They pouted, disappointed, but Stanley was already gone, his long strides echoing down the quieter marble corridor.
Inside the hotel lobby, the noise of the banquet dulled, replaced by the hush of silence of the empty halls. Stanley adjusted his breath, frowning faintly, there was a strange tightness in his chest, a heat coiling low in his body. He pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, grounding himself, perhaps it was the wine, though he hadn’t taken much.
The elevator doors gleamed ahead, catching the golden light, Xeno stood there in front of the doors, one hand braced against the wall, his lean frame poised yet trembling faintly as he waited for the elevator door to open, his eyes shadowed with something Stanley rarely saw this week, vulnerability.
“Xeno,” Stanley called softly, stepping closer, it was casual, but there was concern in it.
The latter glanced at him, sharp gaze momentarily dulled, as though focus itself had grown slippery. “Just… needed space,” he muttered. His tone was controlled, but even that control sounded like it was unraveling.
Stanley’s amber eyes narrowed, scanning him. “You don’t look fine.”
“I’m no-” Xeno stopped, his breath hitching as heat pulsed through his body again, unrelenting. His hand pressed harder into the wall, knuckles pale, and for a moment, he thought his knees might betray him, and that thought alone irritated him enough to force his spine straight. He despised weakness, he despised being seen faltering.
But Stanley was already beside him, his arm slipped around Xeno’s back in a gentle hold, the cool press of tailored fabric brushing against overheated skin. The scent hit then, mint yet so sweet, Stanley’s scent wrapped around him, not oppressive but insistent in a way Xeno’s mind couldn’t immediately parse. And beneath it, his own body responded in a way that made no sense.
Xeno exhaled through his teeth, forcing his expression neutral. “Perhaps… exhaustion,” he said at last, though the words rang hollow even to himself.
Stanley’s jaw tightened, his own heartbeat was wrong, it was too quick, too heavy in his veins. The warmth rolling in his chest was so foreign, he knew his own body well, this was not natural. Something gnawed beneath the surface of his composure, rising like a tide. He tightened his grip on Xeno’s shoulder subtly, steadying him as the elevator doors slid open. “Then we’ll get you upstairs,” he said simply. There was no room for protest in his tone, though it wasn’t forceful, it was the kind of quiet authority that made refusal unnecessary.
The two stepped inside, the doors closed, cutting them off from the hall, the lobby, the world. The mirrored walls reflected them back, Xeno’s reflection stared back at him, unreadable as ever, yet behind his own eyes, something flickered. The warmth beneath his skin was spreading, coiling, his thoughts running ragged for once, and every time his gaze slid to the side, caught by the reflection of Stanley’s face, the strange heat in him surged.
Xeno closed his eyes for a brief moment, the elevator’s hum vibrating faintly underfoot. He wanted to dismiss it, to assert control with words alone, but the truth pressed against him with every beat of his heart, his skin prickled with unnatural heat, his body uncooperative, as if some external hand had tuned his veins to fire.
And Stanley stood beside him, steady but taut, the scent of mint curling thicker, sharper, unlike its usual calmness. Neither of them voiced the possibility forming in the back of their minds, that something had been done to them. That what seeped through their bodies was not natural, not theirs to command.
The elevator dinged softly, doors opening, and Stanley guided Xeno out with a firm hand, his palm steady at the Enigma’s back. Xeno let him, though a part of him bristled at the necessity, then their footsteps echoed down the quiet hallway, carpet soft beneath leather soles, the air conditioned air doing nothing to cool the fire spreading within them.
Halfway down the corridor, Xeno stumbled, his hand caught the wall, fingers splayed against the wallpaper’s intricate pattern, his breath came shorter, sharper.
Stanley was there instantly, his hand closing around Xeno’s wrist, strong but not crushing. “Xeno.”
The Enigma’s eyes lifted to him, dark and sharp even through the haze. “It’s fine,” he said, voice low, strained. “I’m fine.”
And Stanley, feeling the fire in his own veins, the quickened pulse that wasn’t his own doing, knew better.
Something was wrong.
Terribly, deliberately wrong.
The door clicked shut behind them, muting the hum of the hallway and leaving only the sound of two uneven breaths filling the hotel room. The curtains were drawn, shielding them from the city night outside, trapping them inside a cocoon of still air that suddenly felt too thick to breathe.
Xeno paced around the room, his long strides cutting across the rug, silver hair slipping into his face as he moved like a caged creature. His obsidian eyes burned, narrowed beneath lashes dampened with the sheen of sweat. The controlled composure he prided himself on was crumbling, stripped raw by the inexplicable heat wracking his body, and his jacket had already been discarded, his shirt clinging faintly to his back, his collar tugged open as though even fabric was unbearable.
“It’s nothing,” he muttered, sharp words cracking the silence, though the bite in his tone felt more like desperation than authority. “Stress. Too much noise. The conference wa-” His breath caught; he forced it out again, harsh, unsatisfied. “I don’t need you hovering around me.”
Stanley stood near the desk, watching with narrowed amber eyes, his body felt wrong too, it was heavier, warmer, his blood hammering too fast, yet even in that haze, his focus clung to Xeno.
“You’re burning up,” Stanley said quietly, “This isn’t just stress.”
Xeno stop mid-step, turning on him with irritation flashing in his eyes. “And what would you know about me?” His voice rang sharper than he intended, laced with the kind of venom that came only when his control slipped. “You’ve known me days, Snyder. You think you can read me that easily?”
Stanley’s lips pressed into a line, but he didn’t flinch, he didn’t raise his voice. “No,” he said. “But I can see when someone is about to collapse.”
Xeno's breath hitched, the room seeming to tilt around him, his chest rose and fell with visible strain, and beneath his skin the restless energy coiled tighter, demanding release. He turned away sharply, resuming his pacing, as though motion alone could keep the sensation at bay. “You should keep your distance,” he ground out.
But Stanley didn’t move.
The air shifted, subtle at first, then thickening, pressing down as if the very atmosphere had grown heavier.
It was Xeno.
He hadn’t meant to, hadn’t even realized, but the walls of restraint inside him finally cracked. The strange fire consuming him burst outward, not in flames but in scent, not a Beta’s absence, not an Omega’s sweetness, not even an Alpha’s command.
Something else entirely.
An Enigma.
His pheromones flooded the room, thick and undeniable, rolling like a tide, it wasn’t sharp, wasn’t cloying, but it was vast, expansive, dominant, and absolute. A force that swallowed the senses whole, cutting through rank and instinct with something older, rarer, untamed.
Stanley stiffened, amber eyes widening, his lungs seized as if the air itself had turned to weight inside them. His Alpha instincts screamed in alarm, resist, fight, do not yield, but his body betrayed him. His shoulders drew taut, his knees ached with the inexplicable urge to bend, to fold under the weight pressing down on him.
Xeno’s back was turned, shoulders rising and falling, unaware at first of what he had done. His eyes flicked toward the window as though searching for some point of clarity, but clarity slipped further away, the room was drenched now, saturated in something primal.
And then a sweet, cooling, and familiar scent, Stanley’s pheromones flared in answer, sharp against the thick air, curling like ivy through the storm. It wasn’t enough to counter the overwhelming tide of Xeno’s pheromones, but it fights them.
Xeno froze, the refreshing clarity of that mint and sweetness scent hit him like water poured into fire, only to steam and blur his thoughts further. His heart stumbled against his ribs, his throat tightened, he turned, too fast, meeting Stanley’s gaze.
Stanley’s expression was tense, his usually calm features strained by something he fought to suppress, his breath came rougher, his shoulders tense as though every muscle in his body was resisting orders it no longer obeyed. His Alpha presence should have commanded the room, but under Xeno’s pheromones, it trembled.
Yet still, his scent fought back, refusing to be erased.
And Xeno… Xeno’s composure cracked entirely, his chest heaved, his mind fogged, his senses tugged two ways at once, the raw dominance flooding from himself, and the maddening, grounding sweetness of the Alpha standing too close.
The contradiction tore at him, his lips parted, but no words came.
Stanley’s hand pressed against the desk, his knuckles whitening, as if anchoring himself in place, then his voice was hoarse when it broke the silence, “What… are you?”
The question shattered the fragile air between them. Xeno’s hazy gaze locked on him, unblinking, caught between revelation and denial, his body trembled with heat, his pheromones thickening, the walls of the room straining beneath the pressure.
And Stanley, chest rising, jaw tight, amber eyes dark with resistance and something deeper, held his ground, even as every instinct screamed for him to submit.
And in that fragile, charged stillness, the world outside their door went silent.
Then suddenly, Stanley’s back hit the mattress with a muffled thud, the springs of the hotel bed grunting under the sudden force. Xeno moved without thought, instinct pushed him forward, his silver hair spilling like a veil as he pinned Stanley beneath him. His knees pressed into the mattress at either side of the Alpha’s hips, his lean frame caging him in, and his hands closed around Stanley’s wrists with unyielding strength.
Stanley’s body tensed, for a moment, his strength surged, the natural instinct of an Alpha unwilling to be subdued. Muscles strained, testing against the iron grip that held him down, his amber eyes flashed, sharp with defiance, lips parting as if to command his own freedom, but the resistance faltered almost instantly, his pulse stuttering under the crushing tide of pheromones that saturated the air.
The scent was unlike anything he’d ever known, it was overwhelming, intoxicating, strong enough to make an alpha like him weaken in the pheromones alone, it rolled through the room in heavy waves, seeping into his lungs, burrowing into his veins, grinding his instincts down until the urge to resist dulled into something far more dangerous, which is the urge to submit.
Stanley twisted once more, a token test of strength, but his limbs felt heavy, sluggish, his body unwilling to obey the Alpha pride roaring inside his chest, and his wrists burned where Xeno’s long fingers pinned them, not from pain but from the shocking realization that he couldn’t break free.
Xeno leaned closer.
The shadows bent around him, obsidian eyes narrowing to focus on the man trapped beneath him. Their foreheads nearly touched, breath mingling in short, heated bursts. Xeno’s face was unreadable as ever, but his body betrayed him, the tremor in his breath, the restless tension in his jaw, the fire that no logic could contain.
“Stop” Stanley’s voice was low, rough, but even as he spoke, his throat worked, but words lost to the haze that clogged his mind.
Xeno inhaled sharply, and in that breath, his own senses shattered. The minty sweet scent that clung to Stanley was usually mild, but flared under pressure. His grip tightened, his forehead pressed closer until his silver hair brushed against golden strands, his breath poured hot against Stanley’s cheek, and in the silence between them, the pounding of their hearts thundered louder than any words.
Stanley arched beneath him, his spine lifted off the mattress, hips shifting up against the weight that caged him. His hands, pinned to the sheets, curled into fists against the cotton, knuckles whitening, and a low sound built in his throat, strangled between defiance and something perilously close to surrender.
Xeno’s gaze dropped, his hand left Stanley’s wrist, fingers sliding up, hovering near his throat, and slowly, he pressed his palm against the strong column of Stanley’s neck, thumb skimming along the sharp line of his jaw. Not enough to choke, not enough to harm, just enough to remind him who held the ground.
Stanley shuddered, his pulse fluttered madly beneath Xeno’s palm, each beat betraying his restraint, his amber eyes widened, pupils dilating, heat crawling over his skin.
And Xeno... Xeno felt his own restraint snapping strand by strand.
The fog in his head thickened, his body moving not with calculation but with instinct. He lowered himself further, chest brushing abdomen, until his lips hovered at the juncture of Stanley’s neck. The scent there was stronger, mint curling sweet and sharp against his senses, and it made his head spin.
His lips parted, his breath washed over sensitive skin, then, without a warning, he buried his face into the curve of Stanley’s throat.
The reaction was immediate, Stanley gasped, body jolting, throat tilting instinctively to give space. His hands clutched at the sheets, tension pulling every line of his body taut, his pride screamed to resist, but the submission was wrenched out of him by something stranger than thought.
Xeno inhaled deeply, greedily, dragging in that maddening pheromones, his chest rose, trembled, fell. His mouth brushed against the warm skin of Stanley’s neck, the heat there drawing him closer. A low sound slipped from his throat, not quite a growl, not quite a sigh, but something caught between hunger and desperation.
Then Xeno's tongue flicked out, tentative, tasting the man under him.
Stanley froze, breath caught.
The tip of Xeno’s tongue teased the sensitive skin just over the gland, as if testing it. The taste was electric, sharp, sending sparks up his spine, he paused there, lips brushing lightly, tongue tracing, and then, sharper now, he dragged his teeth gently against the spot.
Stanley’s body betrayed him, his hips arched again, back bowing, and a strangled sound tearing from his throat. Xeno’s grip on his throat tightened slightly, thumb brushing the line of his jaw, steadying him, while his other hand still pinned Stanley’s wrist, but his fingers trembled, betraying the storm inside him.
Xeno's teeth closed lightly over the gland, a nip which made Stanley’s breath tear ragged from his lungs, chest heaving, amber eyes squeezing shut. His hands curled tighter into the sheets, his Alpha pride clawed at him to fight, but his body bowed beneath the pressure, trembling, undone.
Xeno lifted his head just enough to see his face. Stanley’s expression was a mess, caught between fury, confusion, and the rawest edge of something he could no longer hide, his lips parted, breath stuttering, eyes glazed.
Xeno’s obsidian gaze lingered, his own chest heaving, his own restraint at the breaking point, as his teeth hovered once more over the gland, Xeno realized that he didn’t know if he could stop himself once he started. His obsidian eyes glimmered feverishly, uncharacteristically wild, he’d spent his whole life believing in the strength of his mind, in discipline, in the precision of logic, but right now, logic was drowning in the flood of pleasure, pushed under by a tide of instinct he hadn’t chosen.
Beneath him, Stanley writhed against the mattress, not with the sharp resistance of an Alpha refusing to yield, but with the sluggish, shivering disarray of someone caught between denial and submission. His amber eyes, usually cool and calculating, burned with a thin sheen of panic... no, not panic. Hunger. His scent, that minty sweetness that once only brushed faintly against Xeno’s perception, had become a storm cloud in the enclosed space.
“Xen-” Stanley’s voice cracked, unsteady.
Xeno’s lips hovered by the warm slope of Stanley’s neck, just above the faint pulse fluttering beneath the skin. He could hear it, that rhythm, the rapid acceleration of Stanley’s heartbeat responding to him. The sound drew him closer, and then he lost the last shred of restraint. With a guttural sound that was more growl than breath, Xeno’s teeth sank into the tender curve of Stanley’s neck, right over the scent gland. It wasn’t a cautious nip this time, it was so hard that it could rip Stanley's skin.
Stanley gasped sharply, his back arching off the bed as instinct claimed him. The sting of teeth gave way to something deeper, a spreading heat that lanced through his nerves and left him trembling. His hands flew upward, not to tear Xeno away, but to anchor him closer, fingers clutching at his shoulders as if afraid he’d vanish if not held.
The mark pulsed between them, an unholy union of desire and dominance.
Xeno pulled back only slightly, his mouth slick with the taste of blood, his obsidian eyes burning with a feral gleam as he stared down at Stanley, chest heaving, trying to steady himself, but the tether had already snapped.
Something primal inside him had awoken.
Stanley shivered, lips parted as he tried to form words, but nothing coherent came. He’d never felt so powerless, so betrayed by the very nature that had always made him strong. And yet, when Xeno’s mouth dragged back to his neck, laving over the wound with a low, dangerous growl, his body arched again, and the mark he left felt like it was burning everything inside Stanley.
Xeno’s hands tightened, one pressing Stanley’s wrists above his head, the other gripping his jaw, thumb brushing the edge of his lips as though testing how far he could push. He was losing himself to this rhythm, to the heat between them, and then he realized, dimly, in a flicker of clarity beneath the haze, Stanley was no longer resisting.
The Alpha who should have pushed him off, who should have reclaimed control, lay trembling and pliant beneath him, his amber eyes glazed with something darker, breaths shallow and uneven.
For the first time, Xeno felt a stab of fear, not for himself, but for what he had just done. He had marked him, without a single thought, without choice, he bound them to each other in a way they neither could undo, but the fear drowned quickly under another surge of heat, a rush so consuming it stole the very air from his lungs. His rut had begun, triggered by the aphrodisiac he suspected that had been put in his drink earlier, sharpened by pheromones, and solidified by instinct.
He dragged in a breath, chest tight. “Stanley…” His voice was hoarse, ragged, not his own.
Stanley’s eyes fluttered open, unfocused but burning with something raw. “Don’t... stop.”
The words fractured what very little restraint Xeno still clung to, he crashed down, burying his face in Stanley’s neck again, inhaling that maddening minty sweetness until his vision blurred, and his hand slipped lower, gripping Stanley’s waist.
And just as Xeno’s lips brushed the mark again, hunger coiling tighter, and his hand lifted up Stanley's shirt, the door to their room rattled sharply.
Both froze.
Another knock, harder this time.
“Wingfield” A voice, muffled through the wood. “Are you there?”
Xeno’s head lifted slowly, eyes still wild, pupils blown wide, and Stanley’s amber gaze met his, dilated, fevered, neither of them moved.
And the knock came again.
The knock reverberated again, low and insistent, dragging Xeno out of the haze that had consumed him. His chest rose and fell too fast, each breath weighted with the cloying mix of pheromones that had saturated the room. The pull to stay pressed against Stanley’s fevered body was almost unbearable, but his rut had hollowed out what little patience he normally possessed. Every sound, every intrusion, scraped raw against his already frayed nerves.
Grinding his teeth, he pushed himself up and off the bed, his legs felt heavy, as if the air itself had thickened into resistance, but he forced himself toward the door. The handle was cool under his palm, a sharp contrast to the heat radiating through his skin then he pulled the door open in one fluid motion, dark eyes narrowing as they landed on the figure standing in the hall.
It was the older Beta from earlier that evening, the one who had clasped his hand and wished him a happy birthday with polite warmth. Now, the woman’s composure faltered the instant Xeno appeared.
The thick wave of Enigma pheromones poured into the hallway like a storm and the Beta’s expression shifted from surprise to something closer to dread; her eyes darted away almost immediately, shoulders bowing instinctively under the invisible weight.
“I-I’m sorry,” the woman stammered, voice trembling despite her attempt at professionalism. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, and Xeno could see the fine tremor in her hands where they clutched a folded paper she’d clearly meant to deliver.
Xeno’s pupils dilated further, the Beta, visibly paling, bowed her head quickly, pressing the paper into the doorframe without daring to look up again. “Forgive the intrusion. I’ll… return tomorrow.” Her voice cracked on the last word before she turned sharply, almost fleeing down the hallway, her footsteps uneven against the carpeted floor.
The moment she disappeared, the door slammed shut under Xeno’s hand, the sound echoing in the silence that followed.
His chest heaved as though he’d run miles, his palms tingled with the urge to grip, to claim, to hold. The taste of Stanley’s skin still lingered faintly on his tongue, metallic and hot, pulling him back to where he belonged.
Back inside the room. Back to the bed.
He turned around and Stanley was sitting upright against the headboard, one hand braced over his neck where Xeno had bitten him. Fingers splayed over the fresh mark, as if trying to contain the heat searing through his veins, which made Xeno freeze.
The sight was unlike anything he’d expected, an Alpha, now, his Alpha reduced to this state. Stanley’s lips were parted, breaths shallow, chest rising and falling as if he’d been running. A sheen of sweat clung to his temples, catching faint light, making his skin gleam, his other hand was fisted into the sheets beside him, nails digging so deeply that the fabric threatened to tear.
And his scent, the minty-sweet freshness, is erratic and desperate, it filled the room with a heady sharpness that only worsened Xeno’s rut, forcing his thoughts into fragments again, his mind felt wrecked, as though every edge had been blunted into instinct alone.
Stanley’s hand shifted from his neck to the sheets again, clutching them as though they might dock him. He tilted his head back against the wall, eyes slipping closed for a moment, his body betraying him with every line, every tremor, he looked… undone... like an Omega in heat, not an Alpha in control.
The sight struck Xeno with such force that he had to grip the wall to steady himself. The image burned into his skull, Stanley, who's always so disciplined, now unraveling, reduced to this need because of him. Because of the mark, because of what he was.
Heat surged through him as he staggered forward. Stanley’s eyes snapped open at the sound, pupils blown wide as they tracked him, his lips parted again, breath catching, and for one unguarded second his expression shifted, caught somewhere between fear and anticipation.
When Xeno reached the bed, he leaned forward, bracing his hands on the mattress at either side of Stanley’s legs, caging him in. Their scents collided again, violent and intoxicating. Xeno inhaled sharply, the mint sweetness coating his lungs until he felt drunk on it.
Stanley shivered, back pressing harder against the headboard, though he didn’t push Xeno away, his amber eyes held his, unwavering, even as his throat worked around another shaky breath, as his hand drifted back up to the mark on his neck, fingers ghosting over it almost unconsciously.
The gesture sent a wave of heat surging through Xeno so powerful he nearly growled out loud. Stanley’s body was burning, his Alpha pride was already in shambles, and Xeno who had already lost to his rut, couldn’t trust himself to stop.
He lowered his head slowly, breath ghosting over Stanley’s temple, his words barely more than a ragged whisper.
“You’re mine now.”
Stanley’s eyes widened, his chest tightening against the declaration, his lips parted to respond, but whatever words he might have spoken were swallowed by the weight of the air between them.
The air in the room was molten, thick with pheromones that seemed to vibrate against the walls. Xeno could taste it on his tongue, bitter-sweet and intoxicating, as if the oxygen itself had been steeped in heat and instinct. While Stanley sat beneath him, his amber eyes glassy, his chest rising and falling in quick bursts. The mark on his neck glowed red against his pale skin, a brand that throbbed with heat.
Xeno’s gaze tracked the movement with feral passion. His hands, once still, solely instruments of a scientist, were restless now, aching to touch, to map every inch of skin until he knew it as intimately as he knew his own.
He lowered himself, pressing Stanley into the mattress, one hand gripping the Alpha’s wrist and pinning it above his head, the other sliding down across his collarbone. Stanley gasped, his back arching involuntarily at the contact, as though even the lightest brush was too much.
“Xeno…” His voice cracked.
Xeno ignored it, or perhaps he couldn’t hear past the roar in his own veins. His palm flattened against Stanley’s chest, feeling the rapid hammer of his heart beneath. The steady rhythm should have grounded him, but instead it only stoked the hunger licking at his core. His fingers began to roam across the clavicle and shoulder, tracing the defined lines of muscle hidden beneath the formal shirt still clinging to Stanley’s body. He tugged at the fabric impatiently, the sound of buttons straining sharp in the charged silence.
When the first button snapped loose, Xeno’s breath hitched, the pale stretch of skin revealed beneath was luminous, flushed faintly pink from heat. He ran his knuckles down the plane of it, marveling at the contrast between his own cool touch and the fever radiating from Stanley’s body.
Stanley shuddered, his head tilting back against the pillows, lips parting as a low sound slipped free. It wasn’t the growl of defiance Xeno expected from an Alpha, it was way softer, helpless, a sound that sent a bolt of electricity straight through Xeno’s spine.
He wanted more, with a rough tug, Xeno pulled the shirt wider, fabric tearing slightly at the seams. Stanley sucked in a breath but didn’t protest, amber eyes flickering up to meet Xeno’s for one moment. Xeno’s hand moved lower, skimming over the dip of ribs, the tight muscle of stomach, the curve of waist, his fingertips explored as though memorizing terrain, every ridge and hollow catalogued with reverence and greed. Stanley writhed faintly beneath the touch, torn between pulling away and arching closer.
“Your body…” Xeno murmured, voice low, thickened by rut. His words were almost a growl, spoken against Stanley’s ear. “It reacts as if you were made for this.”
Stanley’s breath stuttered, his dignity warred visibly with his instincts, with the way his body burned and begged. He clenched his jaw, amber eyes hazy as his thighs shifted restlessly beneath Xeno’s straddling weight.
“You... don’t know what you’re doing,” he rasped.
Xeno’s lips curved into something dangerous, something hungry. He released Stanley’s wrist only to slide his hand down, intertwining their fingers and pressing them into the mattress by his head. The other hand trailed lower, teasing at the edge of trousers, tracing the waistband with infuriating slowness.
Stanley sucked in a sharp breath, every muscle tightening, which made Xeno's gaze darken further, hunger sharpening into a primal instinct to claim.
“Then tell me to stop,” Xeno whispered, lips brushing over Stanley’s throat, hot breath ghosting across the mark he’d left there.
Stanley’s fingers flexed against his, nails digging into Xeno’s hand. His throat worked, a dozen words struggling to form but dissolving before they reached his tongue. His pride said yes, but his body screamed no. But Stanley didn't push the latter away.
Xeno’s patience, already worn thin by rut, snapped, his hand slipped beneath fabric, palm flattening over the heat of Stanley’s hip. Stanley jolted, a shiver racking his body as his head thudded back against the bedframe with a stifled groan.
Xeno's mouth descended to Stanley’s neck, teeth grazing the gland once more, tongue sweeping over skin damp with sweat. Stanley cried out, hips jerking upward involuntarily, body betraying him completely now.
Xeno’s hand roamed higher again, splaying across his chest, thumb brushing a hardened nipple as if testing the sensitivity there. Stanley gasped, hips arching once more, the sound torn from him before he could stop it.
“Perfect,” Xeno murmured, reverence tangled with hunger. “Even the strongest Alpha, reduced to this.”
Stanley’s amber eyes shot open, fury and shame and desire all warring within them. “Sh-shut up…” he hissed, though the words lacked bite, his voice breaking mid-curse.
Xeno only smiled, dark and triumphant, his lips trailing down the column of Stanley’s throat, his touch searing paths across trembling skin. Clothes became obstacles, their rut driving them past hesitation, past reason, without hesitation, buttons clattered to the floor, and skin met skin in feverish contact that made both of them gasp aloud.
Stanley’s body arched into Xeno’s touch, sweat slick and trembling, every nerve ending alight. His hands, clenched tighter at Xeno's palm, and Xeno drank in it. Every shudder, every gasp, every flicker of weakness fed the fire consuming him. He touched everywhere, chest, ribs, hips, thighs, as if he couldn’t get enough, as if Stanley’s body was a precious treasure he wanted to mark.
And Xeno whispered, voice raw, “Tell me… if I should take you further or do you want me to stop, I'll stop if you don't want to continue anymore.”
And Stanley’s silence was deafening, the sheets beneath Stanley’s back were already damp with sweat, his breath shallow, his chest heaving as though he had just run miles. His amber eyes burned, unfocused, lashes trembling with each uneven inhale. Stanley’s thighs shifted against the mattress, restless, the Alpha in him resisted this place being beneath another man’s weight, pinned and trembling, but his body was no longer listening to reason. Xeno’s bite burned on his neck, a dull throb that seemed to pulse with every beat of his heart, each time his fingers grazed the tender spot, his body quaked with a sensation too foreign for him to process.
“Xeno…” He finally said, his voice cracked, low and hoarse, carrying both demand and plea. "D-don't stop.."
The Enigma didn’t answer right away. He had one hand pressed against Stanley’s hip, keeping him pinned, the other lingering near his jaw as though savoring the outline of his face. Then, slowly, Xeno shifted lower, his mouth ghosting over Stanley’s collarbone, breath damp against flushed skin. Xeno’s lips curled faintly against Stanley’s skin, and pulled away then, without warning, Xeno lifted his hand, brought two fingers to his lips, and let a slow strand of spit fall over them and smear it before he lowered it to Stanley's thighs.
Stanley jerked when he felt the first brush of wetness, the action was unhurried, carrying with it both care and a cruelty because it reminded him that Xeno could take his time.
“W-what are you-” Stanley’s words broke into a hiss when Xeno’s fingers moved, slicked by that makeshift lubrication. The touch pressed where his body had never known intrusion, not like this. He stiffened, muscles drawing tight, instinctual protest flaring up in the way his hands clawed at the sheets.
Xeno’s dark gaze lifted to look at the Alpha in the eyes. “Relax.”
The first push inside was a shock, a stretch sharp enough to make Stanley’s breath hitch. His nails bit into the bed sheet, jaw tightening as he forced himself not to recoil. The feeling was strange, invasive, his body resisting, yet beneath that, there was heat, building and coiling, pulling him deeper into submission.
“You’re too tense,” Xeno murmured, almost to himself. He drew back slightly, spit pooling again on his tongue before he leaned down, letting it fall wetly over his fingers. The crude sound made Stanley’s ears burn, humiliation flaring, an Alpha reduced to this, but the shame tangled with a darker thrill that only made his body more traitorous.
After a few minutes, the second finger came much smoother, fingers working him open with slow precision. Xeno wasn’t reckless despite the urgency crackling in the air. He touched him the way he approached everything, but with a hunger pressing through the seams. His thumb brushed along the inner curve of Stanley’s thigh as though testing tension, gauging how much resistance remained.
Stanley shuddered. “Why are you... so slow…” His voice was ragged, words breaking into a low groan as his hips shifted despite himself, searching for relief he hadn’t meant to seek. He hated the way his body betrayed him, hated the way every nerve seemed alive under Xeno’s touch.
Xeno leaned closer, his lips brushing against Stanley’s ear, his voice husky. “I don't want to hurt you”
Every push dulled the resistance, replaced by a strange fullness that made Stanley's toes curl. He couldn’t stop the small sounds slipping out of his throat, half-choked, desperate, and each one only seemed to fuel Xeno's desire further.
When the third finger pushed in, Stanley nearly bucked off the bed. “Ha-!” His cry was unguarded, raw. His body seized before slowly yielding, his thighs trembling under the strain. His mind told him he shouldn’t be responding like this, shouldn’t be trembling under another man’s touch, but his body… his body had long since stopped listening and surrendered to pleasure.
Xeno’s hand on his hip tightened, grounding him, keeping him from writhing away while his lips pressed against Stanley’s throat, not biting yet, just breathing him in, consuming that minty sweetness as if it were oxygen itself.
“Good,” Xeno whispered, more to himself than to Stanley. “You're taking it better than I think you would.”
Stanley’s amber eyes fluttered shut, teeth biting into his lower lip to stifle the noises clawing their way out, but no amount of willpower could hide the tremors shaking through him, the way his hips tilted despite himself, silently begging for more.
Xeno withdrew his fingers slowly, it was slick and shining. Stanley gasped at the sudden emptiness, muscles clenching around nothing, leaving him aching, he barely had a moment to catch his breath before he felt the hot press of something much thicker sliding against his rim, teasing, testing.
Stanley’s eyes snapped open, wild. “Xeno- wai-”
But Xeno only leaned down, capturing his mouth in a bruising kiss that stole the rest of his protest. The blunt head of Xeno's cock pressed harder, insistent, and Stanley’s hands shot up, clutching at Xeno’s shoulders as if grounding himself against the inevitable. His heart hammered so hard it drowned out thought, leaving only instinct, and that instinct told him to open, to yield, even as the Alpha in him howled against it.
The room spun, filled only with their mingling heat, the scent of sweat, the burn of touch. Xeno’s lips dragged away from his, trailing down to his jaw, his throat, lingering again at the mark that still throbbed from earlier. His tongue traced over it lazily, cruelly, making Stanley’s whole body jolt.
“You’re mine,” Xeno murmured against the bite.
And Stanley’s body, trembling and undone, couldn’t bring itself to deny it.
The pressure at his rim grew sharper, more insistent, until the force at Stanley’s rim sharpened. Xeno's cock is pushed deeper, demanding passage, which made his nails dig into Xeno’s shoulders. And then, with a slow, deep push, Xeno's cock was finally inside him.
Stanley’s breath ripped from his lungs in a broken gasp, chest arching off the mattress. The burn was sharp, burning, his body stretching around the intrusion in a way it never had before. His pride howled, I am Alpha, I don’t yield, but his body trembled, clutching tight around Xeno as if he’d been waiting for this.
Xeno’s hand pressed firmly against his hip, grounding him in place. His obsidian eyes never left Stanley’s face, watching every flicker of pain, every twitch of surrender. He leaned down, lips brushing his ear, voice hoarse but steady. “Breathe.”
The word sank into him, low and commanding, and Stanley forced air into his lungs, shallow at first, then steadier. The tension in his muscles eased just enough for Xeno to press deeper, inch by inch.
The fullness was overwhelming, Stanley’s eyes fluttered shut, a guttural sound escaping as his thighs quivered. It hurt, yes, but beneath the sharp pain was something hotter, but when Xeno finally bottomed out, his chest flush against Stanley’s back-arched form, they both froze. Their breaths tangled, ragged, the room thick with sweat and pheromones.
Stanley turned his face aside, gasping, his voice barely audible. “Too much…”
Xeno’s lips pressed to the damp curve of his jaw. “You’ll take it.”
And with that, he withdrew slowly his cock, with a drag almost unbearable before thrusting back in with more force. Stanley cried out, the sound torn raw, his hands clawing Xeno's back. The bed creaked beneath their weight, rhythm building as Xeno set a punishing pace, each thrust driving the air from Stanley’s lungs.
His body had no chance to resist, each sharp press broke down another wall, each shock of sensation eroded his Alpha pride. Soon the pain blurred with heat, the burn twisting into something sharper, sweeter, until every movement made his toes curl and his thighs quake.
Xeno’s patience had long burned away, his rut demanding, yet beneath that haze, he adjusted, angled, searched until he found the spot that made Stanley’s whole body jolt with a strangled cry.
“There.” Xeno’s voice was low, roughened by restraint he no longer held. He struck it again, harder, and Stanley nearly sobbed, back arching, his pride crumbling as his body begged for more.
“Xeno~ahh~!” Stanley’s voice broke as Xeno’s thrusts deepened, harder now, and kept hitting his sweet spot. He writhed beneath him, half resisting, half chasing each movement, his amber eyes getting wet with tears, his lips parted as if words might form, but nothing came except gasps and moans.
Xeno’s teeth grazed over the earlier mark, he didn’t bite down again and just gently kissed it, but Stanley shuddered violently, tilting his head to the side to expose his throat in instinctive submission.
The rhythm quickened, each thrust harsher, hungrier. Stanley’s body clutched tight around him, heat spiraling until he no longer knew where the pain ended and the pleasure began. While his legs tightened around Xeno’s waist without conscious thought, drawing him deeper, holding him there.
Xeno hissed against his skin, voice guttural. “You feel it, don’t you? How you’re made to take me.”
The words cut through Stanley’s pride like a blade. He wanted to snarl, to deny, but his body betrayed him with every quiver, every desperate sound he couldn’t silence.
“Say it,” Xeno growled, thrusts slamming harder, rougher, making the bed frame groan. “Say you’re mine.”
Stanley’s nails raked down his back, leaving sharp bruises, his last shred of defiance lashing out. But when Xeno shifted his angle, hitting that spot again with brutal thrust, his protest shattered into a strangled moan.
“I - ahh~ damn you”
Xeno bit his shoulder hard enough to bruise, his hips thrusting harder, and Stanley broke, the words spilling before he could stop them.
“I’m yours~!”
Those words tore through the room, raw and unwilling yet truer than anything else. His body shook with it, his scent flaring wildly, sweetness turning intoxicating in its surrender. Xeno groaned, the sight of the Alpha, undone beneath him, crying out his submission, sent a rush of satisfaction through his veins. He thrust deeper, rut-drunk, driven now by instinct as much as will.
Their bodies collided in frantic rhythm, sweat-slick and trembling. The sound of skin meeting skin echoed with every movement, every desperate cry swallowed by the heavy air. Stanley clung to him, arms wrapping around his back, nails biting into flesh as his body burned, stretched, and consumed, yet he couldn’t pull away. Every thrust forced him higher, his own arousal straining, aching, caught between humiliation and unbearable need.
Xeno’s lips found his again, swallowing his cries in a kiss that was all teeth and hunger, fully devouring the latter. Their breaths mingled, ragged, unsteady, and their pace grew frantic, rut boiling over. Xeno’s thrusts lost their earlier precision, driven now by sheer instinct, searing his mark deeper than teeth could.
Stanley’s vision blurred, body trembling violently, pleasure mounting until it was unbearable. And just as the tension reached its breaking point, Xeno groaned, buried deep inside, lips at Stanley’s throat. His teeth hovered at the mark he had already left, the pressure teasing, promising.
Xeno felt it swelling, the base of his cock thickening, the pressure building with each pounding thrust. His own breath grew harsh, animalistic, his hips rutting faster, seeking the lock that would seal them. Stanley felt it too, his body stiffened, “W-wait-” he stammered, though his voice was drowned by the sharp moan that tore through him when the knot pressed against his rim. His nails raked Xeno's shoulder, his thighs trembling violently.
Xeno gritted his teeth, sweat sliding down his temples as he forced his body deeper, harder. Each push brought the knot closer, and Stanley’s cries filled the room now, no longer restrained, his voice raw and edged with disbelief at the sensations consuming him.
The moment the knot finally breached, forcing past the last barrier, both of them broke.
Stanley’s body convulsed, a strangled sound wrenched from his throat as his walls clamped down violently around the Enigma's knot. Xeno growled against his neck, biting into the gland once more, sealing, and pushing himself as deep as Stanley's body would allow. The knot locked them together, pulsing with each harsh thrust until there was nowhere else to go.
Orgasm tore through Xeno like fire, his body bucked uncontrollably, rut reaching its climax as he spilled his thick cum inside Stanley. The Alpha shuddered, crying out at the sudden overflow, at the way his body was forced to take it, over and over. Each pulse of heat inside him dragged another helpless moan from his lips, his thighs clamping around Xeno’s hips, not wanting to let go.
The knot swelled tighter, sealing them fully, and there was no space between. Xeno’s release was fully drawn out, filling, overflowing, until it spilled from the edges of the knot, slicking their thighs. Stanley’s back arched again, his amber eyes blown wide, mouth falling open around broken sounds as overstimulation burned through him. His own release came suddenly and violently, coating their stomachs, his body jerking beneath Xeno’s weight. Stanley whimpered, his usual control obliterated, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes as every nerve screamed with too much sensation, yet his body wouldn’t let go, wouldn’t stop clenching, each ripple dragging more out of Xeno, squeezing him dry.
Xeno’s forehead pressed to Stanley’s, his breath ragged, almost a growl, obsidian eyes wild with rut and triumph. “Mine,” he whispered, low, hoarse, Stanley didn’t answer, couldn’t. His throat is wrecked, his lips parted on soft, broken breaths, his gaze unfocused.
Minutes stretched, Stanley squirmed weakly beneath him, whimpers escaping with each new wave of sensation. Xeno, though drained, couldn’t stop the instinctive rutting motions, his hips twitching forward, seeking friction even in the haze of orgasm. Eventually, exhaustion crashed over them like a tide. Stanley’s strength gave out first, his hands slipping from Xeno's back and clutching at Xeno’s arms instead with his trembling fingers as his eyes fluttered shut.
Xeno followed, his body finally sagging, the fever of rut dimming as the knot kept him buried, sealed. He collapsed onto Stanley’s chest, both of them slick with sweat, breath mingling in uneven gasps.
The last thought that drifted hazy through Xeno’s mind, before sleep pulled him under, was simple.
"My mate... I finally found you"
The next morning
Xeno was the first one to stir.
For a moment, disorientation gripped him, the kind that followed after rut, that hazy half-conscious state where body and mind drifted apart. His limbs were heavy with exhaustion, his throat parched, his skin coated in the faint stickiness of dried sweat. It took several seconds before the blur of his mind cleared and the shapes around him sharpened into recognition.
The sheets were a mess. His hair clung damply to his forehead. And beside him, Stanley lay sprawled, one arm half-curled beneath his head, golden hair mussed across the pillow. His chest rose and fell in the slow rhythm of sleep, but his expression was faintly pinched, as if even dreams couldn’t erase the strain of last night’s event.
Xeno’s gaze lingered longer than it should have, but then his eyes slid lower.
To the neck.
To the swollen, reddened mark resting right above the scent gland, stark against pale skin.
The sight jolted him like a blade of ice through his chest.
He sat up too quickly, the sheet sliding down his lean frame, exposing pale skin (Arms, shoulder, and back) scarred faintly by scratches, Stanley’s nails. His eyes locked on the mark as the full weight of it sank in. His breath hitched.
He had marked him.
Not just a bite, not just instinct gnawing unchecked in the haze of rut. No, the mark was fully done. His hand lifted before he could stop it, fingers brushing over his lips, remembering the bite, the heat, the claim he’d sunk into Stanley’s skin with unshaking instinct. It wasn’t supposed to happen. He had sworn to himself, long ago, that he would never bind another person, that he would never drag someone into the strange, isolating gravity of his enigmatic nature.
But instinct had consumed him, rut had swallowed his reason whole, and Stanley-
A soft groan broke his spiral.
Stanley stirred, shifting beneath the sheets. His lashes fluttered, amber eyes blinking sluggishly open to meet the soft morning light. He grimaced, one hand dragging up to rub at his temple before drifting lower, to his throat.
Fingers brushed the sore skin, pressing lightly at the bite. He froze.
Slowly, his hand pulled back, fingertips stained faintly with dried blood. His eyes widened, the amber burning sharper now, disbelief chasing sleep from his face in an instant. He sat up halfway, the sheet falling from his chest, revealing lean muscle streaked with faint marks of the night before.
He didn’t look at Xeno, his gaze stayed fixed on nothing.
Silence stretched.
Thick.
Suffocating.
Xeno, usually unreadable, found himself stripped bare in ways he hadn’t prepared for. His composure cracked at the edges, guilt threading through his chest, he forced himself to speak, though the words felt jagged in his throat.
“I-” His voice was hoarse, unfamiliar even to his own ears. He cleared it, tried again. “I…marked you.”
Stanley’s jaw tightened, he still wouldn’t look at him. His fingers returned to the wound, brushing it as though confirming it was real, not some fevered dream.
The silence pressed heavier, each second dragging like an eternity.
Finally, Stanley’s voice cut through, rough from overuse. “You did.”
Two words, but they carried the weight of disbelief, of tension so thick it almost vibrated in the air.
Xeno exhaled slowly, his eyes lowering to the sheets pooled around his lap. For once, the words he reached for didn’t come easily. He, who always spoke with pride, who dissected every moment with cool clarity, now found himself groping through fog.
“I acted on instinct,” he said at last, each syllable strained, his hands curled faintly against his knees, as if trying to tether himself. “I lost control. That’s the truth.”
He risked looking at Stanley then, the Alpha’s gaze had finally lifted, amber locking onto obsidian, sharp and searching.
“But,” Xeno continued, quieter now, the words dragged raw from somewhere deeper, “I don’t regret it.”
The admission shocked even him, but once spoken, it felt immovable, solid. He held Stanley’s gaze without flinching.
“I’ll take responsibility,” Xeno said, voice steadying, though a flicker of tension coiled in his throat. “For the bond. For everything that happened.” A pause, then softer, almost reluctant... “Only if you’re in the same boat.”
The words lingered, hanging between them like a blade.
Stanley’s lips parted, then closed again, his hands clenched faintly against the sheets, his nails digging into fabric as if bracing himself.
An Alpha being marked, by an Enigma, no less, was unthinkable. Against every order of instinct and status the world had drilled into him since birth. He should reject it, should rail against it, break the bond before it roots too deeply. His pride demanded it.
And yet...
The memory hit him in flashes, the heat of the night, the way his body had yielded without resistance, the way instinct hadn’t recoiled but instead had… welcomed, the bite hadn’t felt forced, it had felt inevitable. Natural, even.
He realized he wasn’t recoiling. He was… trembling with disbelief, with conflict... but not with anger or rejection.
Slowly, painfully, Stanley lifted a hand, he pressed his fingers once more against the mark at his neck, winced at the soreness, then lowered his hand and exhaled. His eyes found Xeno’s again, amber bright but no longer burning.
Then he let out a faint nod.
The smallest motion, but enough to shake the ground beneath them both.
Xeno’s shoulders eased, though his expression remained composed. Inside, something unnameable stirred, not relief exactly, but something dangerously close. The air between them shifted, it was still heavy, still awkward, but no longer suffocating. A subtle warmth seeped through, fragile and hesitant, as if testing the strength of this new bond between them.
Neither spoke again after that.
The mark on Stanley’s neck glowed faintly red in the soft light, a silent reminder that they were bound now, whether by mistake, or by instinct, but both of them knew that...
There was no going back.
The ride back home was too silent. Not uncomfortable, not exactly. Just silence, as if every word either of them might speak risked shattering something fragile and newly forged bond. Outside the windows, the city blurred past, neon signs half-faded against the morning gray, crowds thickening in the streets, but inside the car, the air still carried the faint trace of what had happened, lingering like smoke after a fire.
When the vehicle finally pulled up to the curb of the apartment where Stanley was staying, he unbuckled his seatbelt in one swift move. His movements were sharp, precise, a mask reassembled piece by piece after being cracked wide open the night before.
Xeno didn’t move, his eyes lowered, silver hair falling across his brow. Only when Stanley’s hand reached for the door handle did his voice cut quietly through the silence.
“Wait.”
Stanley froze, glancing back.
Xeno shifted, pulling his phone from his pocket with a smooth flick of his wrist, then he held it out, his gaze unreadable. “Your number.”
Stanley hesitated, not because he didn’t want to, but because of what it meant. Numbers were simple, practical, but exchanging them was also… acknowledgment that this wasn’t something they could pretend away once the week ended.
Still, after he took a deep breath, he took Xeno’s phone, and his fingers moved quickly over the screen, entering the digits and adding his name. When he passed it back, their fingertips brushed, and Stanley’s amber eyes flicked up, locking with Xeno’s dark gaze for the briefest second, a jolt ran through him, instinct tugging in places words couldn’t touch.
Then the moment snapped, he muttered a low, “See you,” and slipped out of the car, the door shutting with a muffled thud behind him.
Xeno watched him disappear through the revolving doors before finally leaning back against the seat, phone still warm in his palm.
The week stretched long.
They didn’t call.
Didn’t text.
The silence was deafening in its own way, but neither broke it. Stanley threw himself into his daily routine, burying the memory beneath training, paperwork, and the mechanical rhythm of his life. Yet at night, when exhaustion pressed down and the quiet of his apartment left too much space, his hand would stray unconsciously to his neck, where the mark had begun to heal, scabbing, fading, but it still pulsed faintly beneath his touch and started to leave a unique mark like a tattoo, as if it were alive.
He told himself it was instinct, just instinct, a chemical reaction, nothing more. But his body didn’t listen, his scent spiked faintly whenever he thought about it, minty sweetness laced with something new... a little more similar to Xeno's pheromone during his rut.
Xeno, on the other hand, slipped back into his own solitude. The Enigma rarely let himself linger on things he couldn’t explain, couldn’t master... but this was different. Every day, he caught himself pulling his phone out, staring at Stanley’s name, thumb hovering over the call button before snapping it off again.
It wasn’t fear, he told himself. It was a strategy where timing mattered and space mattered. If he pressed too soon, it would only drive Stanley further into conflict.
But by the seventh day, patience frayed.
The message came late in the evening.
Stanley was sitting on his couch, hair damp from a shower, a book open but unread on his lap. The vibration of his phone startled him, his chest tightening as soon as he saw the unknown number on the screen.
Unknown Number: Dinner. Tomorrow. Seven.
No warm-up, no question mark, just the bare statement, sharp and direct to the point.
Stanley stared at it for a long moment, thumb hovering. The alpha inside him screamed to delete it, to push it away before the ground beneath him shifted any further. But his body betrayed him, warmth prickling through his skin, a flutter beneath his ribs.
Finally, he typed back.
Stanley: Fine. See you
Dinner was not what Stanley expected.
He had anticipated something cold, formal, like a transactional meeting where they could lay terms, define what had happened, take back their words, and pretend it was logic rather than instinct pulling the strings.
Instead, Xeno had chosen a place tucked into the quiet streets near the river. The lanterns hung over the doorway, casting soft gold light, and inside the air was warm with the scent of spices and sizzling meat. It wasn’t crowded, but lively enough that their conversation wouldn’t echo in silence.
When Stanley arrived, Xeno was already there, seated by the window. His silver hair caught the glow of the lantern light, his posture impeccable, one hand resting idly on a glass of water.
“Stanley.” He turned around, his voice was even, but there was a subtle softness in the way he said his name, the slightest shift in tone that tugged at something inside Stsnley.
Stanley sat across from him, folding his hands together to keep them steady, and for a moment, neither spoke.
It was Xeno who broke the silence.
“I thought,” he said, obsidian eyes fixed on him, “it would be better if we didn’t ignore what happened.”
Stanley’s lips curved into something caught between a scoff and a laugh. “Better? That’s one way to put it.”
Xeno tilted his head slightly. “Do you regret it?”
The question was simple. Too simple. Stanley’s pulse leapt, and he had to look away, amber eyes tracing the flicker of a lantern on the wall. He thought of the night, the heat, the bite that had sealed into his skin. He thought of how wrong it should have been, how every rule of their world said he should be ashamed, furious.
But the truth rose like a tide. “No,” he admitted, voice low. “I don’t.” When he lifted his gaze, Xeno’s expression hadn’t shifted much, but his eyes… softer with a flicker of something more... he looked relieved.
“Then,” Xeno said quietly, “we move forward... Together”
The words were both a statement and an offer, laid bare between them.
Stanley’s throat tightened. His fingers curled against the tablecloth, knuckles pale. It should have been easy to refuse. To walk away.
But instead, he gave the smallest nod and smiled faintly.
From that night, things began to shift between them, not quickly because neither of them moved quickly, to avoid making things awkward. Their days passed in the ordinary rhythm of their own lives, but threads began to weave between them. A message here, a call there, Xeno’s sharp, concise words matched by Stanley’s wry retorts. It wasn’t romance, not yet, but something, like a bridge cautiously being built.
When they met again, they spoke of things like the books they’d read, of places they wanted to see, to get to know each other more.
And with every meeting, the weight between them lightened, replaced by something else.
Closeness
and...
Romance
A month later
The autumn air had shifted since the last time Xeno stood outside Stanley’s apartment, a faint chill clung to the breeze. He adjusted the collar of his coat, balancing the small paper bag of groceries in his hand. He’d told himself he was only dropping by to share dinner, another excuse to bridge the distance that had settled between them after the chaos of their first weeks.
But as he raised his hand to knock, a sound from inside froze him. A muffled curse. Then another wave, violent enough that even through the door Xeno could hear it. His blood ran cold.
He set the bag down and knocked harder. “Stanley?”
A pause, then the shuffle of footsteps, weak and dragging. The door opened a crack, revealing Stanley’s pale face, strands of golden hair plastered damply to his temple, his amber eyes, usually sharp and cold, were dulled by exhaustion.
“You look terrible,” Xeno said before he could stop himself.
Stanley gave a breathless laugh that dissolved into another cough. “Thanks. Exactly what I needed to hear.” He swayed, and Xeno slipped inside quickly, catching his arm before he could stumble.
Xeno guided him toward the couch. “How long has this been happening?”
“A couple of days.” Stanley pressed the heel of his hand against his stomach. “Thought it was something I ate, but it won’t stop. Morning, night, it doesn’t matter when.”
A twisting unease knotted in Xeno’s chest, he tried to force logic into the situation, food poisoning, a stomach flu, anything ordinary. But a scrap of memory surfaced,an obscure article he’d stumbled across weeks ago, tucked away in a medical archive. "Enigma and their ability to sire any rank." It had been dismissed as a rumor by most of the scientific community, but Xeno remembered every word.
And now, looking at Stanley trembling before him, he felt the world tilt.
He swallowed, voice carefully steady. “You should rest. I’ll get you some water.”
Stanley shook his head stubbornly, though his body betrayed him as he leaned heavily against the couch cushions. “Don’t make a fuss. I’ll be fine.”
Xeno ignored him, fetching a glass and pressing it into his hand, he sat beside him, forcing calm into his posture. But his mind raced. It’s impossible. Nearly impossible. Yet his instincts screamed otherwise.
Stanley’s lashes fluttered, heavy with fatigue. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin your visit.”
“You didn’t ruin anything,” Xeno said softly, he brushed a stray lock of hair from Stanley’s clammy forehead, an action more tender than he usually allowed himself. “Sleep. I’ll stay.”
Relief flickered in Stanley’s expression before sleep dragged him under.
The apartment was quiet except for the sound of Stanley’s uneven breathing. Xeno sat rigid in the darkened living room, the bag of groceries forgotten on the counter, the thought gnawed at him, relentless. If it was true… if their reckless night had done more than bind them with a mating mark…
By the time the clock struck another hour, he’d made his decision. He slipped out and coat pulled tight, before he walked swiftly through the chilled streets. The 24-hour clinic glowed faintly at the corner of the block. Inside, he bought five different brands of pregnancy tests, ignoring the curious glance from the nurse at the counter, he shoved them into a paper bag and returned before Stanley woke up.
Stanley was still asleep when he slipped back in. He set the bag on the table, sitting beside him with silent caution until he fell asleep beside him.
The next morning
When Stanley stirred, his confusion was quick. “Xeno? You’re still here?” His voice was raw, fragile.
“I wanted to talk to you as soon as possibly” Xeno pushed the bag toward him. “We need to check something.”
Stanley frowned, pulling the bag closer, when he saw the contents, his breath froze. His eyes snapped to Xeno’s, wide with disbelief. “Are you serious?? pregnancy tests?” His laugh was sharp, incredulous. “You can’t be serious. I’m an Alpha.”
“I am serious,” Xeno said, his tone like carved stone. “I know it's ridiculous, but I just wanted to make sure.”
Silence fell between them, broken only by Stanley’s deep sigh, his fingers trembled as he pulled one of the boxes free. “This is insane,” he whispered.
“Maybe,” Xeno agreed. “But we need to know.”
The minutes stretched, heavy with tension, Xeno waited outside the bathroom, listening to the faint rustle of movement inside. Stanley emerged pale, the test clutched tightly in his hand. He set it on the table, face unreadable.
They waited in silence.
When the result appeared, Stanley’s composure cracked. Two lines.
“…No,” he breathed, shaking his head. “That has to be wrong.” His amber eyes darted toward the bag. “Another one.”
Xeno nodded once.
They repeated the process.
Then again.
And again.
Five times in total.
Each test, without exception, gleamed with the same verdict.
Positive.
Stanley stood frozen, staring down at the lined plastic sticks scattered across the table like cruel little oracles. His breath came fast, shallow, the minty sweetness of his scent warped with panic.
“This... this can’--” His voice broke, raw and unsteady. “I’m not supposed t-”
Xeno rose, closing the distance between them, he hugged the latter, steadying him. The Alpha’s frame trembled beneath his grip, lean muscles tight as if bracing against a storm.
“It’s confirmed,” Xeno said quietly, his obsidian eyes softened, though his voice carried unshakable certainty. “You’re pregnant with my child.”
Stanley’s gaze snapped to him, wide and terrified. “What the hell are we supposed to do?”
For once, Xeno had no immediate answer. He only knew that everything between them had changed again, suddenly, irreversibly.
5 days later
Stanley had grown used to silence filling his apartment, the kind that pressed against his ears and reminded him, with every passing moment, that Xeno had not returned yet. It had been almost a week since the tests, a week since the impossible became reality. A week of lying awake at night, one arm curled protectively over his stomach as if he could shield what was growing inside from a world that would never understand.
He wasn’t ready, not really, he didn’t know if he would ever be ready, but the fact remained that he was pregnant with their child.
His mornings blurred into afternoons, his body caught between nausea and exhaustion, his sharp composure softened by uncertainty. And though he hated admitting it, he missed Xeno’s presence, the silence that wasn’t suffocating when he was around, the way his unreadable eyes seemed to see through Stanley’s facade without demanding explanations.
So when the knock finally came, light against his door, Stanley’s chest tightened, and he pushed himself up slowly, heartbeat uneven as he crossed the short hallway of his living room. He told himself he would meet him with composure once he returned, with that cool Alpha dignity he’d always carried.
But the moment the door opened and Xeno stood there, silver hair glinting faintly under the afternoon light, Stanley felt the fragile wall he’d built begin to crack.
“You’re here,” he murmured, voice hoarse with something dangerously close to relief.
Xeno didn’t waste time, he stepped inside without any hesitation, Stanley opened his mouth to question, to scold, to demand why he had left and disappear for a week without a word, but the words died as Xeno suddenly went down on one knee before him.
For an instant, the world froze.
Xeno looked up at him, his obsidian eyes unwavering, his hands were steady, folded in front of him as though he’d rehearsed this moment over and over. And in a voice that carried both steel and something startlingly fragile, he said...
“Stanley. Will you marry me?” And opened a small box with a ring inside.
“...What?” Stanley managed to say, staring down at him, amber eyes wide. “Xeno, I- this i-” He broke off, laughter trembling out of him, disbelieving and overwhelmed. “You disappeared for a week, and now you show up at my door with this?”
Xeno’s gaze didn’t waver. “Yes. So... Will you marry me?”
The simplicity of the answer sent another wave crashing through Stanley’s chest, the longer he stared into those dark, unreadable eyes, the more something in him quieted and get confused because beneath the stoic composure, that Xeno had, he saw truth. He saw responsibility, yes, but also determination, and buried under it all, a raw, unspoken devotion that Xeno had never dared put into words until now.
Stanley’s throat tightened, his fingers, still trembling faintly, and rose to press against his lips as though to keep the emotion from spilling out too quickly. Then, slowly, shakily, he nodded.
“Yes,” he whispered. Then stronger, as though the sound alone could make it real: “Yes, Xeno. I’ll marry you.”
For the first time since Stanley had met him, Xeno’s composure cracked. The faintest exhale of relief left him, subtle but undeniable, and he reached up, grasping Stanley’s hand firmly as if it help them closer to each other at the moment.
Stanley pulled him up, and suddenly they were face to face, so close that Stanley could see the faint shadows beneath Xeno’s eyes, the exhaustion of days spent away.
“Why now?” Stanley asked softly. “Why so urgent?”
Xeno hesitated, then leaned in just enough that Stanley could feel the warmth of his breath against his skin, his words were low, carrying the weight of a vow and a promise.
“Because I can’t let you give birth to our child unmarried,” he said.
The simplicity of that that answer caught Stanley off guard for someone who always held the world at arm’s length, who had built himself into something untouchable, Xeno’s honesty landed with too much responsibility.
Stanley laughed again, but this time it was broken by the sting of tears threatening at the corners of his eyes. He pressed his forehead against Xeno’s, amber and obsidian locking in a silent promise neither needed to put fully into words.
They stood like that for a long moment, the silence no longer heavy but filled with a fragile warmth, for once, there was no hesitation, just the two of them, bound by something far greater than either had planned.
Stanley drew a deep breath. “Alright then,” he murmured, a small smile tugging at his lips. “If we’re really doing this… we’ll do it together.”
Xeno’s hand tightened around his.
“Together.”
The End