Chapter Text
Sebastian slowly made his way through the pitch black forest, gun in hand while a squad of men followed behind him. Only the sounds of crickets chirping in the background filled the night air as the detectives weaved through the coniferous trees towering up into the sky, their feet doing their best to not step on loose twigs and alert anyone who may be in the area.
When he’d originally gotten the tip about a barn full of Omegas in the middle of the woods, he’d been just as skeptical as anybody else would have been. But it weighed on his mind heavily the entire day in the office and he finally decided to assemble a team of detectives with the hope that maybe they’d be able to track down the last of the trafficking rings in Oregon.
It had been an ongoing effort for nearly six years to bust every warehouse, shed, house, or shipping container owned by Omega traffickers, though there had been one last group rumored to have been moving around the country for the last few months. If they found it, the ring they’d been hoping to bring down for good would officially be finished.
It was too hard not to pass up if the gossip was true.
That being said, they only had a general idea of where the wooden barn was in the middle of the forest and Sebastian felt extremely out of his element as they searched. “Are you sure it’s out here?” Lewis whispered behind him.
“I’m sure,” Sebastian murmured back.
“There!” Mick hissed, pointing his flashlight at a roof peeking out between a few trees. Immediately, every gun and glow flashed in the direction of where the younger detective was staring. Sebastian made the hand signal to move forward and the law enforcement group followed forward eagerly.
The barn wasn’t one of the bigger ones they’d discovered, but it was sizable enough to suggest that at least ten Omegas or more were inside. Sebastian expected to have the same sight when they burst through the doors—women and men chained up to the walls, dirty and barely clothed, scared and skinny—but it was never something that got easier to see.
The wood was dark grey and peeling, the gaps between planks large enough for there to be no warmth retained inside, and the scent of suppressant-stuffed Omegas made Sebastian’s nose scrunch up in distaste. It was so often they found groups of trafficked Omegas overdosed with suppressants in order to hold back their heats until they were bought that Sebastian wasn’t even sure why he was surprised anymore.
They were always so out of it too. They tried their best to fight back, to get away before they realized they were being saved, though their efforts were weak, flimsy, and poor. It was hard to watch.
“Search the perimeter,” Sebastian demanded quietly as they approached the large door at the front of the wooden barn. Mick and Lewis went left while Lance and Fernando went right, searching every stretch of forest until they were sure that they were alone in the middle of the night.
“Nothing,” Lewis assured the other Alpha.
“Alright, behind me. Go,” Seb ordered. He kicked in the door only a second letter, sending a cloud of brown dirt up into the air before hurrying in to direct his flashlight around the room. His heart practically sank to the floor. “Mein gott…” he breathed out.
At least twenty-five Omegas were cramped into the back corner, ankles chained to the walls while they held each other, pupils blown wide in fright. Some were awake while others were passed out from fatigue against conscious bodies. Their trembling was enough to rattle the chains and they collectively flinched when Seb took a cautious step forward.
“Lower your guns,” Sebastian commanded when the others stepped inside. “It’s alright, it’s okay. You’re safe now. We’re with the Hood River Criminal Investigation Department here to get you out. Here.”
Sebastian reached into his pocket to pull out the badge showing off his government issued ID and flashed it to all of them, pointing his flashlight on it so they could see. Almost instantly, a few of the Omegas burst into tears while others relaxed their tense shoulders and closed their eyes with relief.
“Okay, we need to get paramedics and cars out here. Mick, call for backup, the rest of you, help me with these locks,” Sebastian dictated. Lance pulled out the lock picking kit from the toolbelt he wore around his waist and handed the two-piece items to everyone so that they could get to work on the bolt around each Omega’s ankle.
Sebastian let his eyes wander over some of them as he undid on the metal, trying to plan what he’d have to write in his report. Many of them were malnourished with scabbed over wounds, bruises, and scars. Their hair was greasy, skin dirty, and cheekbones sunken in. They wore tattered underwear and shirts that did nothing to protect from the elements while their eyes were dull from exhaustion.
“Please…” a voice suddenly whispered to him from the far left corner after Sebastian had freed a few of the Omegas. He snapped his eyes towards the person that spoke, finding a man with messy blonde hair cradling another person to his chest like his life depended on it. “He hasn’t woken up in two days,” the Omega whimpered, tears forming in his eyes out of desperation.
Sebastian rose to his feet in order to make it to the pair, then crouched down so he could observe the other male Omega being held. His brown hair was matted, his limbs were thin, his skin was pale, and his chest looked like it wasn’t moving—filling with and releasing air.
“May I have him for a moment?” Sebastian asked softly. He did his best to let out calming pheromones, a scent that said he could be trusted, and watched as the conscious, frightened Omega with the French accent hesitantly extended the limp one to him.
Sebastian gently took the younger man in his arms and pressed his fingers into the side of his neck, luckily able to find a faint heartbeat. “He’s alive. When was the last time you were all injected with suppressants?” the German detective inquired.
The Frenchman licked his lips after wiping away his tears and extended his arm to show off the different bruised injection spots around the juncture. “Every three days. The next one will be in the morning,” he admitted softly.
Suppressant overdose then. That could be treated well enough.
“Okay. Let’s get you out of these, hm?” Sebastian offered with a warm smile. He held the unconscious Omega against him as he worked on the Frenchman’s lock. “May I ask your name?”
The Omega pushed away the chain once he was freed from it and answered thankfully, “Pierre. This is Charles.” Pierre reached out to take the other Omega’s hand in his own, worried blue eyes scanning the seemingly lifeless figure of his friend. “He’ll be okay?” he asked nervously.
“Yes, he will. Backup is coming and all of you will be taken to the closest hospital before we find safe houses to put you in while we contact family or friends,” Sebastian answered.
“Seb, paramedics are here. There’s only five ambulances that could reach here, so we’ll have to split them into groups if we want all of them to arrive at the same time,” Lewis interrupted, glancing over his shoulder in the direction of the door to stare at the medical teams coming in.
“Alright. The unconscious ones need to be put on the gurneys. The others will have to sit unfortunately until we can get them to beds in the hospital. I’m going to go with this one and make sure they know he’s overdosed,” Sebastian sighed.
Lewis nodded in agreement and started to instruct the paramedics on what to do as Sebastian picked Charles up with both arms in order to carry him to the ambulances on the road not too far away. Pierre stayed behind to receive individual care while Sebastian made his way through the dark forest.
They’d busted the last one, but this one seemed to be the toughest as mental images of all the Omegas packed together inside flashed through his mind. When Sebastian glanced down at the Omega in his arms, his stomach twisted inside of him with disbelief. How anybody could do this to a person disgusted him. The poor thing looked hours away from…
“Otmar! Thank God you’re here. I’ve got an overdose case so he needs attention quickly,” Sebastian greeted once he made it to the road and found one of the paramedics the department had worked with for years.
The older Beta hurried over to inspect Charles and nodded grimly. “Right, let’s get him in the back. We’ll start him on fluids, get naloxone into the system to reverse the effects and monitor afterwards. Setting him up with every-day pill suppressants will help even out the imbalance too,” Otmar rattled on.
Sebastian only nodded at the medical jargon and followed behind as Otmar and another member of the ambulance team set Charles up on the gurney. It was easy enough to stick him with IVs and get the medication flowing, but nothing would be certain until the Omega woke up. “Thank you, Seb,” Otmar said honestly. “I don’t know how you do it but… you’ve saved so many.”
The German detective shook his head and swallowed hard as he stared at the unconscious Omega. “It takes more than just getting them out of the situation to save them,” he whispered.
*****
Max swung the ax through the air and brought it down upon a log set up on the tree stump next to the storage cabin. The log split in half easily enough before falling to the ground on either side of the sharp blade. The Alpha bent down to pick up both of the pieces, then made his way slowly to the little cabin behind his house to pull out a few more split pieces that could be used for the fire indoors.
It wasn’t winter yet, still fall, but living as far away from others as possible in Rhododendron while still being able to get the necessities from the nearby town of Government Camp to survive had its struggles. Max stuffed his arms until they were full, then turned around to head back into the direction of his A-frame home that the department had paid for as an our-condolences-for-your-accident gift.
He ignored the limp in his left leg as he moved.
The home was warm enough when he stepped inside and he set the logs next to the stone fireplace before sitting down on the couch across from it. The pain in his knee hurt less when it was warm. With a sigh, Max closed his eyes and let his head fall backwards while he listened to the crackling of the fire.
The cats were probably asleep in his room after having destroyed something, but he could wait until later to check on that.
Peace was alway short lived, however. The sound of his cell phone ringing on the coffee table in front of him pulled him from his relaxing, forcing him to sit up and snatch the thing to answer just so the annoying sound would go away.
“What?” he greeted grumpily.
“Good to hear your voice, Max,” Seb greeted on the other end. Max could practically hear the smile, if that was possible. “I have a favor to ask of you and I wouldn’t be calling if I had someone else to take this matter to.”
Max felt the rebuttal, ‘I’m not with the department anymore’, build up in his throat, but the words weren’t able to come out. It still stung deep inside. “We got the last group of Omegas from the trafficking ring. All that’s left is to hunt down who was moving them and then it’ll be closed for good,” Sebastian confessed.
The Alpha blinked a few times in surprise, not expecting the mission they’d set out to accomplish years ago together finally come to somewhat of an end, then managed to get out, “You worked hard on that.”
Sebastian laughed softly. “You always had a way with words, Verstappen. Anyway, look… we… we found the last group but there’s twenty-seven of them. You and I both know we don’t have enough safe houses open to protect all of them, so I was wondering if you would, you know, with all the free time you have… be able to…”
The sentence and suggestion hung in the air, but Max was quick to shut it down. “No. I’m retired, Seb. The second a bullet went through my leg, I stopped being a detective,” Max asserted.
“Max, I really need help here. I’ve got an Omega recovering from a suppressant overdose in the hospital right now that has no family or friends in the country besides another Omega who was able to be taken in—as far as we know. He has to go somewhere and you’re one of the only Alphas I trust around here,” Sebastian begged softly.
“He’s going to go into heat as soon as they reverse the effects and put him on low dosage medication, Seb. I can’t have him here,” Max defended, knuckles turning white by his side.
“No, no. The hospital is keeping him sedated through his heat right now so he wouldn’t have to deal with possible seizures. By the time everything runs its course, he’ll just be weak and sick, Max. I promise you, you’ll just be a safe place for him to stay and a person for him to depend on for a while,” Sebastian argued.
Max swallowed down the lump in his throat as he imagined a scrawny little Omega sweating in crisp white sheets without even feeling anything due to the fact he was in a medically induced coma to combat the fact he’d been overdosed by traffickers.
His heart squeezed in his chest when he also thought about the fact that the man would be terrified when he woke up with no one he knew there. Max let out a defeated puff of air and dragged a hand down his face while closing his eyes.
“Alright,” he finally agreed. “But I’ve never done this shit before, Seb, so I’m going to need a little guidance here. I mean that. I’m not killing an Omega because I don’t know what to feed him or when he needs to take his medicine.”
“I swear to you we’ll give you printed out directions and information about him as soon as we can. He’ll be released in four days and we’ll drop him off to you then. If you need anything, we can do our best to provide it to you and we can also tell you what the house may be lacking before he comes,” Sebastian rushed out in relief.
Max bid a goodbye to his old friend, then was left to himself yet again in the horribly large and empty house. He only had one designated bedroom and the meals he made were intended for one person to eat, so there would have to be some serious adjustment in his life. Fuck, what had he gotten himself into? He could barely even walk right anymore…
Max glanced at the iron rod and wood staircase leading up the empty attic-loft at the top of the home and wondered if the Omega would like to have that space to himself, even though Jimmy and Sassy visited the area occasionally. He could put a bed up there, maybe some blankets, and it would allow for the other man to have some space for himself if he needed it.
They’d have to share the bathroom and he’d have to up the portion sizes for meals, but that was alright. If Max was being honest with himself, he didn’t know the first thing about Omegas. Going on dates weren’t really something he did when he was a full-time detective and he certainly wasn’t going on them now.
That didn’t mean he wanted to be romantic with the poor thing coming to stay with him, fuck no, but some past experience definitely would have helped. He’d have to find Daniel—the only male Omega he knew—and ask about their lifestyle if he really wanted to be beneficial.
So with that, a trip into town to visit the homegoods store was in order. It wasn’t like he had extra bed frames laying around and he doubted the Omega would want blankets covered in the scent of Alpha.
Max’s heart stopped in his chest. Fuck, he was an Alpha. Was that going to traumatize the man? Living with the designation that wanted to exploit him in the first place? How on Earth was he supposed to get around that if that ended up being an issue? It wasn’t like he was taking A-Level blockers anymore either—the kind civil servants, celebrities, and government officials used to prevent breakthrough ruts or heats in society.
He was back to every day C-Level blockers which barely masked his scent compared to the complete annihilation of it when he’d worked at the department. God, he was fucked. Max decided he’d call Sebastian after he got off work to double-check on that important piece of information before he stood up from the couch and limped towards the key holder by the door.
He grabbed the car keys, stepped out into the autumn air, then headed for his truck parked along the side of his house. It had been a while since Max had gone into town and while he dreaded the idea of interacting with anyone, their sympathetic eyes always following him, he also knew he needed to get out of the house before he went crazy.
It was only a twenty minute drive into the town of Government Camp and the homegoods store greeted him on the side of the road, surrounded by Western Red Cedars, Douglas Firs, Big Leaf Maples, and Oregon White Oaks.
Max’s mother had been drawn to the Clackamas region along the northwestern Cascades of Oregon in the first place because of how sheltered it was from everything else—something she’d had to consider when Max and Victoria were young.
It seemed others liked the idea of it too, though.
He parked the car in the rather empty lot and headed inside with a great lack of enthusiasm, slowly making his way to the section for bedroom accessories. “Verstappen? Is that you?” a familiar Australian accent called from behind him.
Max closed his eyes in preparation of meeting with the Omega, then turned around and offered up his best smile he could manage, knowing it looked more pained than anything. “What’s a big, strong Alpha like you doing out here alone?” Daniel teased with that megawatt grin of his as he approached expectedly. The Dutchman immediately frowned in a seriously? way at Daniel’s comment.
“I, uh… I need some stuff. For an Omega,” he muttered once the Aussie stopped in front of him. Daniel’s eyes went wide with surprise.
“No shit? Congratulations, Max! Let me guess. Need stuff for a shared heat?” Daniel asked suggestively, winking at Max in a way that made the Alpha’s face burn bright red.
“N-No! No, Seb busted the last ring here and we’re out of safe houses to offer, so he asked me to help one of the worse-off Omegas they have. I need to buy shit to get the house ready for him and I don’t know what the fuck to get,” Max grumbled.
Daniel’s grin instantly melted to something more stunned and bashful than anything. “Shit. Right, okay. Sorry. Well, uh… do you want me to just… pick out some things for you I would want? You know, Omega to Omega?” Daniel offered anxiously.
“You read my goddamn mind,” Max huffed. The Omega laughed then and started to walk towards the blankets section as Max followed behind like a lost puppy.
“So, in his case, you’re probably going to want a weighted blanket. It’ll give the feeling of being held without actually having someone there which would freak him out. He’ll want to nest to feel protected, so about five different kinds of blankets would be best too. Do you have extra pillows?” Daniel asked as he started to pull different folded items off the shelves.
“Yeah. I have a spare mattress too in the storage shed, still covered in plastic and everything, but no bed frame. You never know how ruts are going to go,” Max admitted.
Daniel just nodded in understanding—heats could be messy too.
“Right, that’s good. We’ll ship a bed frame out for you. A heating pad or two is another nice addition, and, if you really wanted to, he’d probably like a stuffed animal to hold for himself,” Daniel pointed out, starting to walk in a new direction.
Max frowned skeptically at that. “Stuffed animal? Isn’t that a little… young?” he asked. Daniel glared at him over his shoulder, immediately shutting the Alpha up.
They rounded the corner to another aisle, stopping when Daniel stepped back and crossed his arms with a raised eyebrow. “Go ahead and choose one. There’s a whole statistical thing that the first stuffed animal an Alpha chooses is the one an Omega will like most,” Daniel commented snarkily due to Max’s poor question.
The Alpha just grumbled to himself as he turned to look at the shelves in front of him, taking in all the different plush animals that sat staring back at him. Almost all of them made him cringe in a slight way. How could any adult want to cuddle a fucking stuffed animal? That was for kids, wasn’t it? Well, he wasn’t an Omega so maybe it was just something for kids and Omegas?
His eyes caught on something light green buried beneath a seal and a giraffe, so he followed his instincts and snatched up the animal that had been tucked away with what seemed like little care.
A grasshopper. He’d picked a fucking grasshopper.
Daniel’s snort from behind him made it Max’s turn to glare at the other individual. “You said pick something, asshole,” the Alpha growled. Daniel just shook his head and turned with a wave of his hand to head in the direction of the registers, balancing everything else in his other arm.
“Come on. Let’s get you checked out.”
Max wasn’t very fond of the fact that he’d spent three hundred dollars on things for an Omega he’d never met, but glancing at the blankets and stuffed grasshopper in the passenger’s seat ten minutes later did something funny to his stomach that made him quickly turn his attention back to the road.
He hauled everything into the house slowly, grumbling the whole way while his knee twinged in slight pain, then took a break to look at all of the blankets spread out on the empty attic floor. There’d never been a reason for the attic to be used before—now there would be an Omega living with him.
Max leaned against the slanted wall and stared out one of the two windows showing off the pale blue sky above. There weren’t any clouds yet, but there would be soon once the winter came. He tapped his fingers along the side of his knee, then leaned forward to pull the sweatpants he was wearing up until the nasty scar exposed itself to the air.
Two dark pink circles were on either side of his knee while a thick, straight line curved over the cap to signify where all of his surgeries had occurred in order to drain fluid, fix cartilage, heal fractures, and create joint support. He blinked at it for a moment and ran his thumb over the raised line.
He’d never be able to go into the field again if he returned to the department.
He’d have a job behind a desk, answering phone calls and writing reports all day, if he decided to go back. They’d given him the house and a pretty nice yearly Alpha pension plan for everything he’d accomplished in such a short amount of time with the trafficking cases, but it had gotten boring having nothing to do after a year and a half.
Being stubborn though, it was either what he wanted or nothing in Max’s mind.
A buzz on Max’s phone in his pocket pulled him from his thoughts and made him focus instead on the text from Seb that had come through.
Sebastian: The doctors estimate he’ll wake up in two days. We’ll drop him off on Friday if you have everything ready by then. He’ll be tired.
Max: That works, yeah.
Sebastian: Thank you again, Max. He’s going to need a good place to stay. I’m glad I can count on you.
Max stared at the thank you message but put his phone back into his pocket with a soft sigh. After a few moments of silence passed, the Alpha confessed tiredly to absolutely nothing, “I have no idea what I’m doing.”