“Hi,” Oliver said, trying to muster a small smile.
“Hello,” Lucas replied, taking a step towards him as though testing the waters.
When Oliver didn’t move, he strode across the remainder of the courtyard and pulled Oliver into a tight embrace. “Reed,” he whispered, pressing his nose into his hair.
Oliver tipped his head up to rest his chin on Lucas’ shoulder. “White,” he said, inhaling the heady scent of the alpha’s sweat soaked skin. They stayed like that for several moments, eventually separating when Lucas leaned back to brush his thumbs across Oliver’s bruised cheeks.
“Do you like my new accessory?” Oliver said, pulling out of the embrace to lightly tap the nose splint. Lucas frowned and gestured for Oliver to join him on the bench. They sat knee-to-knee as the final few rays of sunlight trickled into the little courtyard.
“Are you alright?” Lucas asked, glancing at the nose splint again.
Oliver shook his head. “You first, you never answered my question the other morning.”
Lucas gave a small smile. “You didn’t give me chance.”
Crossing an ankle over his knee, Oliver waved the comment away. “Yes, well. It sounded like you were about to say something stupid.”
“Have you ever known me to say stupid things, Reed?”
“No, but you say a lot ofembarrassingthings.”
Lucas smirked, the tip of his tongue creeping out to touch the corner of his mouth. “Embarrassing for whom?”
“For me!” Oliver replied, tapping Lucas’ thigh with his knuckle.
The alpha’s canine grazed his lower lip as he looked contemplative. “I could say a lot of thingsyou’dfind embarrassing. But, in answer to your question, yes. I’m fine. I’m just sorry you had to see that, to see… me. Losing control like that. And I’m sorry I didn’t reach you sooner.”
Oliver shifted, trying desperately to think of a way to explain that the alpha wasnotthe issue. “Lucas…” he whispered, pressing their shoulders together. “I don’t… I don’t know what I saw. It’s not something I’m familiar with. But my brother-in-law told me a little about what might have happened. And I just want you to know thatI’msorry. If I was in any way the cause. I’ve been irresponsible… to say the least, and I put you in a difficult position.”
Lucas frowned and shook his head. “Reed, let me make one thing absolutely clear. What happened during the warrant—that was on me. It happened because I couldn’t keep my emotions in check.”
Oliver opened his mouth to speak, but Lucas gripped his chin and silenced him with a hard, close-mouthed kiss. Lucas’ lips lingered for a moment, the damp warmth making Oliver’s heart hammer against his sternum. “And if it is still, in any way, unclear,” he whispered against his mouth. “You were most certainly the cause. Not because you were irresponsible, but because you are you.”
“W-Well,” Oliver stuttered, glancing down at their hands that had somehow become intertwined. “In that case, I’m terribly sorry for being me.” He swallowed, trying to reconcile the turmoil of emotions that were fizzing in his chest.
“Never apologise for that,” Lucas replied, the pads of his fingers tracing Oliver’s jaw.
His thumb tipped his head up, as though he were about to kiss him again, but Oliver gave a soft whimper and pulled away.“I can’t do this, Lucas. I can’t… I’m not… Jesus Christ, how can I put this…”
A low rumble emanated deep from within Lucas’ chest, and he turned Oliver’s hand over, cupping it in his own. “Four years ago,” he said, tracing a circle across his palm. “Something happened involving my best friend Joshua. He was a beta and my first ever friend when we came to the UK. We went to school together, joined the Met together. I was the best man at his wedding. But in 2020 there was an incident on a train in Barcelona, and I… lost him.”
Oliver glanced down at their hands, waiting for him to continue.
“Since then,” Lucas said, eyebrows pinching together. “I haven’t felt much of anything. I threw myself into work, taking on all the jobs and working all the hours I could get my hands on. Before I knew it, I stopped socialising, stopped doing anything that wasn’t work, and stopped caring about other people that weren’t Aliya or my parents. But then—” He chuckled and shook his head. “But then this five foot nine, foul-mouthed, tempest of a man crossed my path at High Enfield Crown Court. And it was like my heart started beating again.”
Oliver let out a breath, the tension in his chest almost overwhelming. Lucas brushed a strand of hair away from his forehead. “So DC Reed, perhaps you might start to understand why I got a little worked up when that fuckingidiotattacked you.”
Oliver nodded and licked his rapidly drying lips. “Lucas…” he whispered. “I-I don’t know what thisthingbetween us is. But what I do know is that you deserve so much better. You deserve the fucking world, actually, and all the happiness it has to offer. Surely you know that I can never give you a family, o-or a stable fucking relationship for that matter.”
Because if Sociosexual Essentialists would have the population believe anything—it was that sigma’s held no real value in society.
“Reed,” Lucas said, the tips of their noses touching. “Did someone tell you you’re unworthy, or hurt you in some way?”
Oliver’s eyes widened, his mouth going drier than the fucking desert. “I?—”
Because,yes,yes someone had told him that six years ago. Someonehaddamaged him so badly that he thought he’d never recover. But he’d be damned if he was being made to explainthatparticular seat of depression to anyone other than his family, and the man he saw looking back in the mirror.
He was about to stand, to walk out of the courtyard and never look back. That was until Lucas gripped his elbow and said,“Because they’re wrong. So painfully wrong.”
