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The grocery store was unusually busy.
Ordinarily, this wouldn’t bother Reno. He didn’t love crowds, but he’d grown up in the slums, so he was used to being surrounded by other people – crowding into his space, perfuming his air with their pheromones.
But right now, it did bother him, which was why he was even at this fancy ass upper-plate health foods store, instead of at the bodega in sector three that he’d been shopping at since he was old enough to spend gil.
It was the smells – all of them. Good and bad.
Perfume, sweat, alpha pheromones, omega pheromones.
At this point in his pregnancy, one good whiff of anything had him gagging harder than the first time he’d sucked dick.
So Reno had been trying to stay away from people, trying to avoid jobs that involved monster encounters or working up a sweat. Stayed in the car while Rude ran in to deal with whatever bullshit Rufus or Tseng had put them up to. Changed his shampoo to something that didn’t keep his hair quite so shiny but also didn’t make him want to vomit in the shower.
Found a grocery store that had wider aisles and less warm, smelly bodies.
Rude had suggested it after Reno barfed up foamy, yellow bile onto the scuffed tiles of the bodega – which the owner had barely flinched at, only rolling her eyes as she pulled out a wheeled bucket full of soapy water and a dirty mop.
Since then, they’d been shopping at the health food store just outside sector zero, which Reno absolutely hated. It wasn’t the overpriced trendy brands, or the fact that he couldn’t walk down an aisle without running into some SOLDIER-wannabe-turned-infantryman. It wasn’t even the aggressively bright florescent lighting that buzzed just loud enough to make him want to swing his emag rod at the ceiling.
No, the thing Reno hated the most about anything on the upper plate was the people.
Rich, entitled, rude. Not scared of him in the slightest, even though they had everything to fear by just catching a glimpse of his ponytail swinging around the corner.
Overly familiar, even though they didn’t know him at all!
There was a dude in sector three that had been panhandling on the corner since before Reno could talk. He’d grown up seeing him every day and he still saw the flash of recognition in his eyes whenever Reno and Rude walked by.
Reno couldn’t have told you his name with a gun to his head.
That’s just how it was there! You didn’t talk to people unless you had a reason to. You didn’t make small talk in the check-out line, you didn’t invite yourself into someone’s business unless they asked, and you definitely didn’t put your tiny, wrinkled hand on the stomach of a pregnant omega you’d never even seen before.
Just like this old, reckless bitch was doing to him right that very moment.
“Oh, you must be due soon!” Her voice was thin and reedy, and Reno was already imagining how it would sound if he electrocuted her right then and there. “Is it an alpha or omega?”
Who the fuck did this old cow think she was?
Her hair was white, tied up in a graceful bun, her face creased with soft wrinkles. Luckily for her white dress, the only thing he could smell on her was floral powder, too old to produce any real pheromone scent.
Reno’s stomach was round, his navel poking out just below the straining buttons of his white shirt. He’d hung up the jacket months ago, after he’d popped a button in the middle of a board meeting – it’d flown from where he stood by the door all the way across the room, striking Reeve in the back of the head. Tseng had given him a maternity shirt the next day.
A childhood as a street punk and adulthood as a Turk had instilled incredible reflexes in Reno. Reactions that have kept him alive through countless near-death experiences. But for the first time in a long time, Reno was frozen, this little old lady shocking him to his core.
Who the fuck touched an expectant omega without their permission?
She smiled up at him, and Reno felt the emag rod slide down his sleeve and into his palm before he could even think.
“Who the fuu—” Reno started, his left foot swinging backward as his body loosened up into a natural fighting stance. Only the hard squeeze of a familiar hand on his shoulder stopped him.
Rude, who’d been two aisle away last Reno checked, was standing at his back, fingers digging into his scapula warningly. He reached around Reno and grasped her small wrist, smooth as can be, gently pushing the old lady back at the same time as he pulled Reno in closer.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Rude said, his tone of voice clearly conveying back the fuck up in a way Reno would only have been able to achieve through violence.
She looked at Rude, startled, before her face broke into an even wider smile.
“Oh, you must be the father!” She pulled her wrist out of Rude’s grip only far enough to cradle his gloved hand in her own. “My alpha was just as protective when I was pregnant.”
Reno bristled like an angry cat. This bitch.
There was nothing Reno hated more than another omega trying to relate to him like they had some kind of shared secret, wrought from carrying a uterus. Like they had something in common because they’d both missed a pill and begged their alpha to cum in them in the throes of passion.
And to just assume Rude was his alpha.
Like, yeah, he was, but she didn’t fucking know that.
“I’m his partner,” Rude replied calmly, at the same time Reno said, “I don’t need protectin,’ yo!”
Rude’s scent, the only one that had yet to trigger his gag reflex, was a cool breeze, settling Reno enough to slide his emag back up his sleeve.
The old lady looked confused for a moment, before willful ignorance bled back into her features.
“Is this your first?”
Reno squinted at the woman, before turning to look at Rude.
“Let me shock her. Just a little bit.”
Even with the sunglasses, Reno could tell Rude was rolling his eyes.
She was still watching them, clueless to the danger they posed, or how irritating he found her entire existence.
“If you want to wait outside, I’ll finish up—” Rude started to offer, but Reno was quick to cut him off.
“Nah, I’m still shoppin.’” He swung away from the rude ass old lady, more than content to forget her audacity, with Rude’s hand still firm against the small of his back.
He was just thinking how lucky she was that Rude had a sixth sense for Reno’s propensity to cause a scene, when she spoke again.
“Oh sweetie, wait!” And then her hand was touching him once more, this time on the elbow of his sleeve, gripping tight. “You need these!”
Reno exhaled hard, pressing his hand to his stomach where the baby was kicking out as if sharing his outrage. He turned to see the box of nutrient bars she was holding out.
“To help put some weight on those bones!”
“Ah, shit,” Rude sighed behind him, releasing his grip on Reno’s shoulder in defeat.
Rude knew, that was why. They’d been together since the slums. Protecting each other’s backs and fighting to find enough to eat just to stay alive. Rude knew intimately the way a childhood of starving had turned Reno into a ravenous dog, someone who thrived on an empty belly, found hunger a sort of energy all its own.
Eating slowed him down. Hunger kept him sharp.
But Rude had also been there for all the prenatal appointments, where the doctors kept telling him if he didn’t eat more, he was going to lose their baby. And for the first time in his life, Reno had been forced to eat with somewhat semi regularity – choking down calorie packed crackers and drinks standing over the sink at two am.
Reno didn’t take offense to people calling him a non-traditional omega normally but struggling through this unexpected and unexpectedly wanted pregnancy had brought those feelings to the forefront.
And this bitch had zeroed in on his biggest insecurity with all the skill of a turk sharpshooter.
The emag was in his hand and against her throat before Reno even really knew what he was doing.
It crackled with electricity. Not enough to seriously shock her, but enough to snap painfully on her thin old lady skin.
“Who the fuck do you think you are, you rude ass—”
“Please, I didn’t—” Her words were choked off as Reno pressed the weapon harder. She tried to tug at his wrist, to push him back, but he slapped her hands away.
Somewhere distantly, someone was yelling. A yuppie health food employee. Probably calling for help – as if Reno didn’t have the clearance to order away whoever showed up.
The sound of sniffling caught his ear, and Reno turned his attention back to the woman to see that her eyes were filling with tears, and even her nose had begun to drip. A show of weakness that Reno had seen plenty of times before and usually only inspired disgust.
Now though, it was a different emotion.
As a tear finally fell, tracking down her powdery cheek, Reno felt a sharp tug in his chest. Lower maybe.
Suddenly the grip on his emag was not as tight, and the electric tip skimmed down her skin just a bit before finally falling away. He slid the weapon back up his sleeve.
“Gimme the fuckin’ cookies,” he growled, and before she had a chance to move, Rude bent down to pick up the now slightly crushed box. Reno looked at the label, grimacing at the smiling babies on the front. “These taste like shit?”
He looked at her questioningly, his left hand still held slightly away from his body, like he might pull out his emag at any time.
“N-no, they—they taste good,” she stuttered, her eyes wide. She looked to Rude for guidance, but Reno knew she wouldn’t find any help there.
“The crackers the doctor gave me taste like sawdust.”
She shook her head, harder than Reno thought was necessary.
“When—when my daughter was pregnant, these helped her! And they tasted good, I—I swear!”
Reno grunted, flipping the box to read the back.
They were high calorie. Even more so than the disgusting bars the SOLDIERs ate to put on weight. He threw the box to Rude who placed them gently in the handbasket he was holding.
Brushing a hand through his messy bangs, Reno looked at the old lady again. She wasn’t crying anymore but the wide-eyed prey look hadn’t quite left her. He placed a hand on his stomach and nodded.
“It’s my first.”
She returned his nod, not looking at his stomach.
“G-good luck to you,” she smiled nervously.
Reno hummed, turning back to Rude with clear dismissal. He didn’t bother listening to her scamper away.
Over the rim of his dark glasses, Rude gave him a look.
“Less bloodshed than I was expecting.”
Reno shrugged. “Ah, pregnancy is makin’ me fuckin’ soft.”
Rude huffed a laugh, his hand once more at the small of Reno’s back.
“Sure, we’ll call that soft.”
“You know this shit never happens under the plate, yo,” Reno pointed out, his eyes following the store clerk who was standing at the register, clutching a phone to his ear and watching them both. Probably calling someone who would show up, see their suits, and inevitably turn right back around. “I coulda electrocuted that lady and no one woulda batted an eye.”
“Like anyone would try to touch you,” Rude agreed, his gaze also on the clerk. “Maybe I should do the shopping alone from now on…”
“Nah, you always forget something.’” Reno took the basket, heading towards the cash register. “Let’s bounce before some infantry asswipe shows up.”
“After you, partner.”