Luan Vierra hadn't expected, when he'd come to the city to just once, in his life, get out of the tiny, rural country town that had trapped him all his days, that he would find his fated mate, his soul-bonded alpha, the first day in the massive, overwhelming city. Had not expected his shitty luck and cursed clumsiness resulting in more than a few stitches to the curve of his elbow. Definitely hadn't expected his lamenting, or honestly whining, about the situation to get a mental response from the bond that had always been radio silent, other than the soothing weight of another at its end.

Yet, Luan couldn't shake the way that impressionless voice, more of just words echoing in his mind really, had clattered through him. Couldn't get rid of the warm pleasure that came with every gentle attempt to talk his mate had offered since, despite the seldom, pathetically hesitant responses they received from the omega in turn. Their attempts ranged from everything from mindless small talk to not so subtle attempts to narrow down his location that had a smile tugging at his lips despite it all.

But that feeling faded, Luan's heart clenching and the smile slipping from his lips as he remembered who he was, what he was. 

Because if one thing had been clear, it was that his mate wasn't a patient here, and anyone who could even potentially work in a facility as well funded and extravagant as this one deserved far, far better than Luan Vierra could ever offer. 

So maybe it was best if he just left once the violet-haired nurse returned with his discharge papers, though it had been over an hour now since she had left in search of them. Maybe he should just leave, perhaps even go home early, after all, and deal with-

He was abruptly drawn from his thoughts by the sound of footsteps approaching his cracked door, and his head lifted, expecting to find the colorful, pleasantly snarky omega nurse slipping back through the door to hand him the sheaf of papers that would grant his mate their freedom. 

But what he got instead was the massive breadth of what was assuredly an alpha, because surely no one else could be that large, clothed in teal scrubs with a lab coat draped over one arm as they strode down the hall past his room. They lifted one huge hand to run it through their blond hair and, for just a fraction of a moment, so quick Luan doubted they had actually registered his existence, deep, beautiful brown eyes met his. And, as a shudder coursed down his spine, trembling his entire body with the strength of the shiver, a heat began to bloom. 

It started low, in the base of his belly, that burnish, spreading fire. Poured like heated molasses through bone and sinew until his entire body was aflame, shuddering with the intensity of the warmth that consumed him. A panting gasp burst from his lips as, unbidden, he rose shakily to his feet and, as if he were not in control of himself, Luan slipped from his room, following the alpha down the hall as if another were in control of his body. 

As if, perhaps, the alpha himself were holding the ends of Luan’s puppet strings, tugging him steadily along. 

When the alpha turned a corner, shifting slightly so his front was in full view, Luan's heart nearly stopped dead in his fucking chest, that burning spread a secondary thought, shoved deep into the recesses of his mind. 

For that was blood on the alpha's scrubs, splattered as if someone had slapped it across the breadth of that wide chest, soaking the teal fabric to shades of bruised, aching purple. It was destroying Luan inside, as he slowly followed around that corner, to not know if the alpha was injured or not, if the blood soaked through that teal fabric came from a wound hidden beneath it. Luan could not explain why it mattered to him so much, why he was slinking behind the stranger like a fucking creep as if following this alpha were the most important thing in the world, even as that heat that consumed him grew ever more painful, more addling, with every passing moment. 

Becoming ever harder to ignore, to shove aside, to focus on the injured alpha mere steps before him.

He paused to brace his hands on the wall, panting as his head bent, struggling to consume air through the burnish weight of the heat that encompassed him, and nearly jumped from his skin at the sudden arrival of a loud, boisterous voice. 

His head snapped up, dark curls flaring, just in time to see a willowy, red-headed doctor clap the alpha on the shoulder, seemingly unphased by the blood covering them as they offered a wide grin. 

"Hey, Finn, what're you up to, man?" they crowed brightly, and Luan wasn't sure if the nausea that flared was in response to the cloying cheerfulness, or the heated haze clouding his every inch.

"Going to change scrubs," the alpha, Finn, replied with a sigh, tugging at the teal fabric, pulling it away from his belly to show a hint of tan skin that dried Luan’s mouth with an ache. "That patient in Trauma One was another bonded omega."

Finn offered no other explanation, and the newcomer didn't seem to need it as they hissed through their teeth in sympathy, brows furrowing as they hooked their hands behind their head. 

"Bad?" they asked simply, seemingly understanding something about the situation Luan could not.

"Bad," Finn confirmed with a sigh, shaking his blond head before tilting it toward the nondescript door he stood next to. "I'm gonna get changed, man, still got five hours left. See you Sunday at mam's? I'm off after today."

"Wouldn't miss it," the other doctor confirmed before clapping the alpha on the shoulder once more and striding back the way he came. Yet Luan could pay him no mind as Finn distractedly set his lab coat on the chair beside the door so he could dig out his badge for the ID reader, and slipped into the room, leaving the crumpled pile of white fabric behind, as if he had all but forgotten about it. 

And, suddenly, every burnish molecule of Luan's body, every suppressed omega instinct he'd ever had, was screaming at him to grab that coat, to take it and let it soothe him in Finn's place. 

Despite the fact it made no sense, and the heated addling of his mind was no help, Luan found himself walking across the empty hall unbidden, and taking the coarse fabric in hand. When he lifted it, and the faint brush of pheromones caressed his nose, there was only one thing on his mind. One, singular word every inch, each and every throbbing, burnish part of him, declared in sudden, aching agreement. 

Mate. 

The storage room Luan found himself in was dust shrouded and quiet, almost forgotten, in a hall off-shooting from the emergency room that seemed as though it hadn't seen a patient in months, despite the nurses crowded around their station. 

Yet, Luan found himself comforted by that fact, by the likelihood of his concealment, as he found a massive metal cabinet in the very back of the storage room, yawning open its creaking, rust coated doors. He crawled in amongst broken broom handles and rusted tools, for once glad for his small stature as he settled. Once pillowed amongst his dangerous companions, he lifted the lab coat once more, letting the pheromones wash over him, and ease that heated ache a fraction with every inhalation of that comforting, instinctively soothing scent. 

Teaky and spicy and warm. 

Heated like the burnish embrace of peppers roasting over a bonfire. 

The lab coat was coarse against the oversensitive skin of his face as he burrowed further into the starched fabric, inhaling the woodsy warmth of the alpha, of his mate, and shuddering with something nearing ecstasy at the soft brush of that soothing scent. 

A spell that was shattered abruptly into noisy, clattering pieces that scattered into chaos in time with the thundering panic in his chest, as something heavy slammed into the metal doors of the forgotten cabinet he'd claimed as his refuge, his haven, as he dealt with that burning, damning ache. 

"I know you're in there," an unfamiliar voice panted, the words nearly slurring, as if the voice's owner was intoxicated by something, by someone. And Luan couldn't help the worried pang that diffused him, wondering if the heat consuming him were the cause of the alpha's behavior, of the acrid, thickly aroused pheromones that filtered in through thin slits at the top of the metal doors. 

This alpha's scent was nothing like the warm, woodsy spice of his mate, and it had something within Luan recoiling, faintly begging for the massive form of his alpha. For the scent of this one was sour and cloyingly thick as Luan choked on it, his body rejecting its very existence, nausea coating his tongue with an acrid burn that built with every unwilling breath. 

"Open the door, baby," the voice continued, either unknowing or uncaring of Luan's miserable turmoil, of the instincts that hounded him. He was leaning towards the latter especially as, after a pause, the alpha growled and slammed their fist into the door, denting it toward him, and startling him backwards into the metal wall, hissing as his temple hit something sharp and hard, and a handful of those broken handles clattered down over him.

Fingers reached into the small crack their punch had opened, prying at it as if they sought to tear the door clean off. Luan draped his alpha's lab coat over his head as if he could hide from the assailant, clutching the coarse fabric to his chest with trembling hands, his instincts convincing him that it could somehow protect him, that his alpha would protect him. 

Luan had never been able to stand up to an alpha before, no matter how many of them condemned him for the mere crime of existing, and he wasn't sure he could start now. Not with how hazy and faded the world seemed, buried beneath the weight of that burning heat. So he begged silently, irrationally, for his alpha to come, for that massive, warm embrace to hold him. 

"Sweetheart," the faint brush of his alpha's impressionless voice suddenly whispered in his mind, as if his mate had heard his plea, sending a shuddering whimper escaping his unwilling lips. Oh, how he wished to hear Finn's beautiful, deep voice in that moment. How he begged once again, in a small voice, deep in his chest, for the alpha to hold him, rather than fabric and residual pheromones to soothe the aching heat. "I know you're in this hospital and that you're very likely an omega. So, I need to know if the omega in heat is you. Please. I promise I'm not mad at you, baby, but I need-"

But as those fingers reached deeper, pawing about as if they would grab him, Luan could not quite help the piercing, summoning screech that burst from his lips, as a flood of those shielding, dual-toned pheromones left him in a pouring, thunderous deluge. 

His shield activated, snapping into place in time with the howling cry that burst from his lips, startling the alpha back a fraction, and Luan could only hope against all logic hope that his alpha would be the one who found them first.