a/b/o au (for deadlyhairpin)

[intheashes]

They're in a new town for their usual act. The quick draw that gets them enough money to stay in the next town for a bit. Mostly because after they fleece the people, they don't dare linger too long. No one much likes getting conned out of their hard earned money. Sometimes, he felt guilty for it. Most times he did, if he was being honest with himself.

But it worked and he hadn't really had to struggle to get by from town to town since he had taken up traveling with Billy Rocks. A decision he had made quickly one day perhaps a month and a half ago when he had seen the wiry bastard surrounded by alphas. He'd never seen anyone fight like that. Not anyone. Usually, men with that subtle scent he had caught that day would have just rolled over and showed their bellies. But Billy had fought. For Goody, an alpha who didn't really like to fight at all, it had been quite something.

He'd rolled right up after that, affable as he pleased, and carefully whisked Billy away from trouble by heaping it upon himself, claiming that day with a feral glint in his eyes that he had been the one that had done it because someone had challenged his dominance. Once away, he had gone out of his way to prove he wasn't like all those other Alphas. He stayed arms length away, always there the moment some other might start sniffing around, ready to stare them down with cold blue eyes. Better him take care of it than Billy. Billy left bodies because Billy wasn't like any omega he had ever met.

It was part of the draw to their little show after all. No matter how skilled Billy was, no one ever bet for an omega. They were weak, after all. They were there for breeding. Omegas were supposed to be swelled with young or serving their mates, even this far west, not standing in the middle of a ring with a gun in hand. Goody seemed to not care about that distinction. It brought good money. It got them food and shelter in the evenings the next town over. It wasn't honest work, but it was work (even if all he did was promote the game and collect the winnings). But there were times when he had to do it himself. When he had to keep Billy in their room. When he smelled so strongly that Goody could barely contain himself.

It's getting close to one of those days. He can smell it. The aroma that accompanies an omega nearing their season. Goody can tell the bar around them is starting to notice it as well. If he doesn't do something soon, he's going to have to start throwing his weight around. It's something he hates to do. It's easier to just try to avoid it to begin with.

"Billy, we've got a busy day tomorrow. I think it's high time you kicked off upstairs. Don't worry. I'll be behind in a tick." He's trying to control this before Billy's scent catches the wrong sort of attention.

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[intheashes]

He's beside himself with the idea that Billy could be pregnant. Not just any baby. His. The best and strongest omega he knew could be with his child. Goody hadn't really expected something like this to happen. Never really thought it would happen. For one, he wasn't a very strong Alpha. So for him to get Billy with child...

He wants to hold Billy. He wants to take care of him even more. Deep Alpha instincts to take care of the man are emerging. He knew that a lot of Alphas just left their mates to deal with that on their own. But he's not them. He wants nothing more than to make sure both his child and the man he was tied to would be cared for and protected. He wanted to see to it that they never wanted for anything.

Of course, there was a probably with that. Billy would be having a child out of matelock. There was such a stimga against that. But Goody would protect his omega from that and he would step aside if another Alpha was chosen by Billy to help raise the child. It would break his heart, maybe even kill him, but he would do it. He would, for Billy. For the baby.

The baby! There was so much to do now! Only his worry and excitement and sheer joy is cut cold by stiff arms shoving him away and Billy denying that it might be the case. He tries not to look hurt that he was pushed aside. He still thinks deep down, he will lose this Omega to a proper Alpha. He doesn't try to touch the man again, to give him his space, but Goody is still utterly giddy. He nearly vibrates with his joy.

"I know we aren't. Not right now. But we can be. I can arrange for it. For everything. We can go wherever you want. I will wire for all the money we'll ever need. I'll even set up a store front or whatever it takes to make enough money to take care of you both. We could be together. A family. You and me. We can raise it together until you find the Alpha you really wish for. But first, i you want, I can find us a midwife here in this town. I can bring her up to the room and she could have a look at you. That way we'll have a good idea of when we need to really start settling down."

[deadlyhairpin]

"I'm not pregnant!" he shouts, regretting it immediately with how furious he sounds. Regretting it even more because he knows how overjoyed Goody is. He inhales deep, on the verge of a panic attack. Which is completely foreign, for him. Goody has panic attacks, not him. He's never had a panic attack in his entire life. But right now, with a sour stomach and the evidence piling up against him, he can almost feel the walls closing in on him. This was his punishment. This was what he got for taking an Alpha, even an Alpha who was as good as Goody was. He played with fire and now he had gotten burned, completely.

And he hadn't just taken himself down, in the process. Fuck.

He stood and walked to the window, staring out at the street before remembering he was nude and walking instead over to the mirror. Now that he looks at himself more clearly, he can almost see the smallest softening around his chest. Nothing around his stomach, not yet. But it would be coming.

Fuck.

"I can't be pregnant, Goody. I can't." His hands are fists as they press into the dresser's top, eyes staring down at the wood grain.

"I don't want to be pregnant."

And there it was. Slowly, he turned and looked at his friend, apologizing as much as he was standing strong as he met his eye. "I don't want an Alpha. And I don't want to settle down. What we've been doing...it was fine. But I am not having a baby, Goody. I drank the tea every single time," the lie is almost offensive with how easily it comes out of his mouth. He can't look at Goody anymore. Not now.

"This is a stomach flu. Nothing more. And I'll have it confirmed when we get to our next town. Volcano Springs is only a few hours ride. They have a specialist there that can look me over. And then we'll know for sure."

The specialist, he didn't say, wasn't a midwife at all. Volcano Springs was infamous among Omega who felt like Billy did; it was the place to go when one was in trouble. The place to go to have the trouble ended, once and for all.

He couldn't look at Goody as he said it. Couldn't look at him as he dashed his hopes across the ground. The best Alpha he had ever known and Billy was going to take away what was probably the only thing he had ever wanted. The one good thing to come his way in years. But it was the only thing he could do. There was no way he could be a mother. There was absolutely no way he could have this child.

"Let's get dressed. Get over to Volcano Springs. We'll...figure it out from there.

[intheashes]

The shout has him flinching, his joyful exuberance slowly deflating as if Billy had stabbed one of his knives deeply into it. His happiness bleeding out at his feet as Billy keeps talking. As Billy denies that seems so obvious to Goody. After 3 brothers, he had been certain, but Billy is so adamant. So certain it's not that Goody has to question what he's sure he knows.

And even more than that, there is a pain growing. The knife of Billy's words, twisting in his heart. He hears them and to him it only sounds like he's being refused in the most basic of ways. Billy doesn't want his child. Billy doesn't want to settle down and be a family. Billy doesn't want an Alpha. Billy...doesn't...really....want...him... That's what he's hearing. That this thing that they had was just something that happened because instinct had won. He was just a convenient knot to fill the man when he needed it. Nothing more.

It hurts.

It hurts and he accepts it. He does because he had mated for life and he'll take whatever he can get. He'll take it and he'll like it because he has no other options left over to him. He'll accept it just like he'll accept the day that Billy decides enough is enough and walks out on him. He'll die that day, but at least he won't drag this wonderful Omega down with him.

"...You drank the tea." He parrots, trying to hide the soul deep disappointment and hurt. "It's just the flu. I...I understand. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I overreacted. You know me. Always so over dramatic." He stiffly goes to dress, that unnatural silence that comes from him when he's hurting most filling the room. When he's finished, he murmurs, "I'll get the horses ready and swing by the general store for some mint leaves for you to chew. It'll help your stomach upset. You...come down when you're ready..."

He's rather proud of himself that he doesn't just run out of the room. But even as he flees in a dignified manner, Billy's voice chases him, echoing "I don't want an Alpha" in his head.

[deadlyhairpin]

"Fuck," Billy curses as he watches Goody disappear out the door and out of sight. He walks over to the bed they'd been sharing so comfortably and sits heavily on the top of it, cradling his head in his hands. The nausea is fading, but there is a deep horror replacing it that's almost worse. Goody's scent is on everything. On the bed, on the pillows, on the curtains. On him.

In him.

His hand goes to his stomach on instinct, touching the child he now knows he's growing within him. Goody's firstborn. His own firstborn, as well. He can't feel anything yet, but he knows that it's there. A little boy or girl that they created together and that Billy was now planning to have taken care of in Volcano Springs.

It is what needs to be done, he reminds himself. But even as he thinks it, the traitorous part of his mind replays the exuberant happiness Goody had experienced, knowing he was to be a father. It reminded him what a good Alpha Goody was. Letting him fight his own battles and go his own way. Even as far as allowing Billy to have another mate, if the time would come for that.

He was the perfect Alpha for a man like Billy. And this child? Goody deserved to have a child.

But Billy just couldn't let that child come from him.

He stands up and walks over to where his clothes are, pulling them on and ignoring how he's now aware that the rough shirt hurts his chest. He straps on his knives and makes sure that all their items are in his bag before he goes down to meet Goody.

His friend. His lover. The father of his tiny, growing child.

He's going to be sick, if he keeps thinking about it. Best to just let it go. They'll be in Volcano Springs by tonight and, by tomorrow, he'll be a free, more careful Omega. Of course he will.

What could go wrong, now?

[intheashes]

Goody goes about everything with a near mechanical numbness. He knows a downward spiral when he sees it and he knows he's likely not going to be able to come back from this one. But that's fine. It's fine because Billy's voice is still adamantly in his ear, denying him. Rejecting him.

He can't look at Billy when the man finally appears. Can't look at the Omega for fear of what Billy might see. For fear he'll see that moment when Goodnight shatters beyond the point of any repair. He takes slow and steady breaths and he knows what he has to do. And in that moment, it all goes away. As soon as he decides, that's it. There's no more fear. No more hurt. There's just clarity and the knowledge that for once in his damn life he'll be doing the right thing. Fitting really, since the right thing will be taking himself out of the world.

"I went through our joint funds. Doctors aren't cheap, but I'll see you see a good one when you get there. So that you can get medicine for that stomach flu. I'll do the draws. I'm not going to make you go out in the ring with you sick and all. You can go get seen." He knows that all he needs to be is purposely slower once Billy is away. Then there'll be one less alpha Billy doesn't need in his life. "Sound like a plan, Mr Rocks?" He asks the question with a smile on his face, but those blue eyes are hollow.

/Rolls in late with Starbucks

[deadlyhairpin]

There's something wrong about Goody's face. Billy can feel it as soon as he comes around and sees him again. The way he doesn't even look at him. The way that his eyes hold nothing in them except for the reflection of his pain. They are in public now so there isn't much that he can do to demand answers out of his friend. But, really, he knows what the answers will be. Knows that they will come back to the choice he's made for the both of them. The words he so cast between them. He knows. And the coward in him has him nodding instead of reopening the wound. Has him getting on his horse and riding in silence for as long as he can.

Thinking about that baby inside of him and the lover beside him and what he was going to be doing to them both.

It's a long ride. Longer yet from the tension and pain between them. Halfway in, they hit a stretch where they are alone and Billy looks over at where his friend is. Worry claws at him as much as his own guilt and anxiety. But Billy's priority has always been looking after Goody. Just as Goody's has always been taking care of him.

He moves his horse closer, slowing the pace.

"Goody..." His voice is gentle as he speaks, quiet despite their privacy. "Once I get the medicine, I should be back to normal. You don't have to do the draws. We can always stay for longer, too. Take off some time and do draws after. You don't have to shoot a gun. I wouldn't ask you to."