When he opened his eyes, it almost felt soothing to see the woman dressed in all white that contrasted with her dark skin in front of him.
She smiled down at him in a way that filled him with warmth as she looked at him with large gentle brown eyes and a halo of curls proceeding to help him sit up. "Good to see you awake." She let go of him and whirled back to retrieve a familiar-looking needle in her hand. "We just need to-"
Any sense of ease he felt beforehand snapped away.
Ari recoiled away from her. "No!"
The nurse looked at him with worry before she slowly reached for his hand. "Doctor's orders, Aurelius. You need this. You were in heat." She explained to him gently as if he already didn't know that, but he still shook his head lying feebly to her.
"I am not, I wasn't. I don't need this."
She wasn't stupid, she knew he was trying to pointlessly hide it. Everyone in town knew Eli was supposedly the only omega, and Ari wasn't exactly unknown to her. She had seen him around ever since he was a young child, and she never thought of him as anything but another normal child – and normal meant beta.
Clearly this was a secret he kept for years; everyone heard the news already.
"The blood tests already confirmed it, sweetheart."
With eyes that were slowly welling up with tears, Ari looked down at himself to see that she was telling the truth. There was a bandage when he turned to look at the inside of his elbow, and he tore it away to see the evidence of a blood test being done on him. He couldn't blame anyone for this, they were doing their job.
There was also an IV drip attached to him, its contents were unknown to him.
Already resigned to his fate, Ari leaned back on the bed wiping his eyes before looking down at the needles she was about to inject him with. "I already had two doses of that. I don't think more would do me any good. Especially when I am not in heat."
"Oh." The nurse looked conflicted before nodding her head. Nobody knew how to deal with omegas, Ari observed. "No, you're right. I'll go inform the doctor."
Ari nodded his head watching her pull away the curtains from around his bed, smiling at the person behind them.
"He should be discharged soon."
The nurse got a pleasant smile and a grateful nod from the woman sitting cross-legged on the hospital chair as she turned her head to look at Ari. "Thank you."
When Ari met Constantine for the first time, he remembered seeing a head rolling beside him and a group of mangled bodies surrounding him. It was hard not to focus on the prominent smell of blood, and the fact that the cause of all the bodies was approaching him, attracted to him.
Even then, even when knowing what Constantine was to him in that moment, he felt so afraid he could barely speak. There was still a chance that he would have been killed and mangled, too.
That's probably why he wasn't as afraid as he was now. Because there was a chance, no matter how slim, that he would be spared by Constantine – and he was.
But now Ari was sitting on a hospital bed with no dead bodies around him and only the smell of disinfected medical things filling his nose. There were no incoming threats, no cold-blooded killer approaching him, it was just him and his mother all alone in a hospital room.
And Ari had never been more afraid. More frozen.
They have stayed like this in tense silence until the nurse came back with a cheerful tone telling him that he was finally discharged. She took off the IV drip from his hand and wheeled it off with his mother retaining her cold silence the whole time.
"Get dressed." She told him dropping the façade the moment the nurse had left. "I've wasted enough time here waiting for you."
Wordlessly, Ari turned around and felt his bare feet touch the floor. He didn't even dare show his discomfort at the cold touch as he quickly dressed himself. The whole time his mother had her eyes on the window staring at the beautiful scenery of green trees rustling their leaves. She preferred looking at that rather than look at the sickening sight of her son.
But Ari glanced at his beautiful mother and wished she loved him.
Craved just a little bit of motherly love.
Just a bit. Even once.
"I'm done."
Without a word, she sprung up from her chair and walked out of the door expecting him to follow, and he had no choice but to do so. The whole time he felt tense, and the fact that people would look at him whenever they passed by didn't make him feel any better. They knew. Everyone knew.
The usually never spared him a second glance, but now he was a spectacle. The other omega whose been hiding among them this whole time. He never chose this.
The attention was even more suffocating than his secret was.
He almost felt relived to be back at home, almost, but he knew better.
The moment he walked in, he took off his scarf as he heard the door shut behind him, and he turned around to face his mother and explain himself. Maybe even apologize because he honestly tried. He did.
He kept his secret for seven years, wasn't that enough?
"Mom, I am sor-"
The sting he felt on his cheek cut him off him and made stumble backwards from the force of it. His mother was a beta, and she was a lot stronger than he could ever be. Ari could only hold his reddening sore cheek and look up at her helplessly from the floor he fell on.
"Don't you dare say another word."
If he could, he'd beg her not to hurt him.
"Do you know how embarrassed I am?" She said pulling him up to his feet by his hair making him look at her in the eye. Her blue eyes were replaced with a livid yellow, she wasn't holding herself back. "I went through all the trouble getting you those meds, and for what?"
Ari whimper as she tugged his hair forcefully and tried to calm her down.
"It was an accident, I didn't mea- Agh!" He held his nose that she bashed on the wall out of anger, and he could feel blood trickling down his hand as he hoped this would be the end of it.
It wasn't.
"I don't care about how it happened." She spat yanking him towards her by his clothes making his jacket fall off his shoulder as she shook him. "I don't care that you didn't mean for it to happen. I don't care!"
And all Ari could do is try and push her away. "I am sorry, I am so sorry."
A clawed hand rose to tear him apart in a disgusted fury, and they did slashing his jaw and downwards to his neck, but when his shirt tore enough to reveal something, his mother paused and her anger dissipated. At least, that's what seemed to happen.
She was still holding him in a tight grip, but she wasn't hurting him anymore.
Even if she loathed his existence, and even if she was repulsed at knowing what he is, she was still the woman who gave birth to him. She knew things about him, and she knew he didn't have a mole near his neck. Not one that big.
It took her only a few moments to know what it was.
"Is this why?" Her finger pressed the mark making him step away.
"Yes."
His voice was muffled by his cries and bleeding nose, and she didn't feel one bit sorry for any of it. Not even the large gashes that her claws caused. Curiosity gripped her along with the hope that he would finally be taken away and out of her sight. She's finally reclaiming her life without him being in.
"Who is he? Which pack is he from?"
"I-" With a shameful look, Ari looked down feeling smaller under her gaze, bleeding onto the floor. "I don't know."
His mother didn't care. It'll heal by tomorrow.
"You don't know." She repeated and he shook his head.
It was true. He didn't know nor did he care enough to ask. It just never crossed his mind, and it didn't seem like Constantine had any affiliation with anyone or any pack. All he knew was that he killed for money sometimes and changed where he stayed frequently to avoid being found.
This does not seem like a good choice of a partner, he couldn't tell his mother that, but it was still a choice he had made. Any other person sounded infinitely better, but Constantine was his person.
His choice.
"So you threw yourself at the first person you came across without knowing anything about him." She said almost sounding amused at that. "Trash does belong with trash."
Ari didn't say it as he heard her condescending mirthless laugh while he fled to his room, but he'd rather be with trash than be with her.
At least then, he would be loved.