It could have been hours later when Tristan came back inside the restaurant and went to the table to collect Myrick for all he knew; Myrick had, more or less, simply set his head down on the table and waited, not caring to check the clock and instead let himself rest, if only for a little while. As Tristan came up to him, he stole a glance at his phone to see how much time had passed, more than a little surprised that he’d managed to drop the car off and come back in less than fifteen minutes, though he managed to keep that to himself as Tristan gave him back his car keys. For that to even be possible, he must have sprinted back to the restaurant at least partially, a thought that utterly baffled him even as Tristan helped him up and guided him to his own car. He was showing a surprising amount of effort in helping him, a level of care that he hadn’t been shown for as long as he could remember.

Outside of the business, when people weren’t beholden to him, he was utterly unaccustomed to much of anyone going out of their way to try to make him a priority, even if they had slighted him. To have someone go above and beyond to try and right a wrong they had committed against him? He, who most people had accepted was unreachable and therefore hadn’t bothered trying to even pretend to care more than superficially? He couldn't recall the last time that had happened; he couldn’t count Isabelle, as nothing had ever happened where she had needed to make anything up to him or had hurt him.

“All right, let’s get you situated, then,” Tristan was speaking again, in a low, rumbling tone that some deeply instinctual thing inside of Myrick was hyper-focused on even through the fog of his exhaustion. “Do you want to lie down in the back seat or sit in the passenger seat?” Myrick wasn’t entirely sure how to respond; he wanted to lie down, sure, though he knew that lying down in a car would likely only serve to make him feel sick all over again. That, and he didn’t want to lie down on anything but his own bed.

“ The passenger seat is fine,” he managed to mumble, walking toward the car door. “I, ah, didn’t mean to have the night end on such an awkward note. I‘m sorry.” He groaned, spilling himself into the passenger seat and closing the door.

“That’s not your fault in any way,” Tristan frowned. “I’m sorry that I made a comment like that to you—I wasn’t even thinking about it when I said it, it just sorta…slipped out, I guess.” He pulled out his phone. “Here, enter your address in my navigation, that way you can just rest while we drive.”

“Works for me,” even with the lightheadedness and the faint dots of light that flickered in his vision, he forced his fingers to work, typing in the address and handing the phone back to Tristan. “Did it slip out because I’m an Omega?” He asked before he could think twice about it. What part of him that was at least somewhat coherent was kicking himself for dredging this topic back up. Wasn’t this what he’d panicked over in the first place?

“Being an Omega?” Tristan parroted the question, seemingly caught off guard as he pulled his car out of the restaurant’s parking lot and took off on the road. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Shouldn’t have anything to do with anything.” Myrick agreed. “But it usually does, and I hate that. If I ever let anyone get close to me, it’s suddenly all about how I’m an Omega and how great it would be to get me fat with child and—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Tristan cut him off, slowing down to a stop at the red light he came to. It gave him ample opportunity to turn his head and look at Myrick, eyes crinkled in worry and confusion. “Are you sure this is a good time to talk about this? You still look really pale and shaky.” He let out a sigh. “Though, I’ll be perfectly clear, you being an Omega had nothing to do with anything. I,” he flushed lightly and turned his head back to the traffic light, waiting for it to turn green. “I just blurted it out because you’re handsome.”

Ah, Myrick’s face was hot again—was that from the alcohol still?

No, no, there was no point in trying to hide what he was feeling, not right now. He literally didn’t have the energy for it at this point. He knew it wasn’t love, that it was a far cry from it, in fact, but what he was feeling was certainly attraction in more than just the physical sense. Attraction wasn't something he had really felt for another individual in such a long time. He wasn't quite sure what to do with it. It wasn’t as though he had dated very much. There was the odd boyfriend that lasted a month or two back in high school. Though after he’d bolted from his arranged marriage, he hadn’t let anyone get close enough to even entertain the notion of such a commitment. Rather, he opted to focus on his work, on his sense of security, independence, and stability, and found fulfillment once he’d found himself on even footing. He had been content.

Now though, there was an undeniable fire enkindled in his chest that he had thought would never be started, a match he never thought would be struck; the only fire he had ever been good at wielding was the one that burned bridges, not thawed hearts. Now that he had found something like it...he found himself unsure of what to do, at least in this moment, being at least a little honest with himself. Maybe not enough to do anything with, but just enough to be true to himself.

“I’m not used to that.” Myrick spoke up after a long silence between them, one that hadn’t exactly been awkward but had hardly been a comfortable one. He wasn’t looking directly at Tristan, but saw him nod his head to show that he was listening. “I dunno how it is for an Alpha, but…” he let out a pitiful sniff, wincing at how weak he sounded. “Omegas usually just get chased for the fact that we can have kids. ‘S what happened to me, back when I presented, you know.” He turned his head to look out the passenger window, the detachment from speaking to a person directly making it easier to share his experience; he didn’t have to go into detail, didn’t even want to go into detail, but if he just explained the bare bones of what had made him this way, maybe his vice president would understand; he seemed eager to sympathize with him and it was that glimmer of hope that Myrick clung to as he continued, “Even had an arranged marriage all set up for me. Everything was great. Great! I should have been happy! Everyone would have gotten what they wanted!”

“Not you though,” Tristan guessed. “Doesn’t sound like you had a whole lot of say in any of it.” Tristan was taking a stab in the dark, his voice gently poking and prodding him to respond confirming or denying his suspicions. His voice spoke volumes to how carefully he was attempting to tread, though it was nice that someone was even trying to get him to talk about it. Now that he’d started, part of him never wanted to stop.

“Not any say, no.” He curled into himself as best he could around the seat belt. “Just sorta came home from school one day to see one of my classmates—one of the Alphas that had been bullying me since middle school—sitting there on the couch with my parents and his parents and…” he sniffed again. “He just…he just looked so goddamn smug, staring at me while our parents talked. Like this was what he deserved. What he was owed. It was like this was everything he could have ever wanted all rolled up into one nice little fucking package. He and his family would get benefits from the government, so would mine, and he’d basically get to harass me and make my life a living hell until I died.” He scowled darkly out the window. “Must have been his dream come true, the goddamn sadist.”

“Did your parents know that he was your bully?” Tristan’s tone wasn’t judging, bless him, merely baffled at the way that his parents had behaved. He almost thought he heard notes of offense on his behalf, and that made him feel strangely fuzzy inside. Hearing someone else confused by the way his parents treated him after he’d presented as an Omega was more than a little vindicating—more than he had thought it would be.

“They’d known from the start, ever since we were little kids. The money was just too good for them to turn down, so they kept trying to tell me that we would be a perfectly normal married couple just because we were gonna get married. ‘You’ll both mature together this way!’ Never mind that we were already doing that, he was just maturing into a complete and utter fucking sadist. And my parents were just fine with throwing me up with him to just have, like I was some possession to be pawned off for some extra cash.” His scowl deepened.

“I’ve heard about arranged marriages and shit like that,” Tristan muttered, though Myrick made it a point not to look at him, so had no idea what expression he wore to accompany such a grim tone. “There were even a few of my friends that went through with it, but it was usually with someone they were already close to like a friend or something.”

“I might have been able to cope if it was a friend of mine at the time. I dunno.” He shrugged. “Didn’t matter to my parents, though—I was supposed to be grateful for all the work they put into it!” He gestured weakly with a hand, his body feeling like it was made of lead. “My whole life would be solved for me, and all I would have to do is sign on the dotted line and promise not to kill myself.” The corner of his lip curled up into a snarl. “I more or less had to demand to be given until after graduation before getting married. Made up some excuse that I wanted to enjoy one last year with my friends as a bachelor before I signed anything. I saved up enough money that the day of graduation, I bought a bus ticket and bolted straight from my graduation ceremony. Never looked back.”

“And never opened up again.” His tone was not accusatory, merely sad.

“Better that way.” Myrick nodded his head firmly. “I didn’t get hurt that way.”

“But didn’t you hurt yourself?”

Myrick didn’t have a response to that, and Tristan didn’t press for one, so they lapsed into silence once more as Tristan followed the navigation app on his phone to Myrick’s house. Myrick shivered; even though he didn’t feel cold physically, he almost felt like his body had its own bone-deep coldness that he was only just now noticing existed. He had no reason to feel this way, with it only being the middle of September. He didn’t even have a solid enough reason to allow himself to divulge this information to Tristan, having only barely made it through his first week of working with him, and yet...

And yet…in this moment, with his forehead pressed against the cool glass of the passenger window of the Alpha’s car, he found that he couldn't deny that things had begun to feel like more than a simple physical attraction, more than a passing interest, more than something that he could simply bury until he didn’t feel it anymore. He was not so proud and sure as to pretend that he was okay, that the way with which he coped with things was normal by any stretch of the imagination. Though actually putting voice to at least a part of it…he had to admit, it felt alarmingly like some of the burden of his past had shifted ever so slightly. It hadn’t lifted, and he still felt its weight keenly even as he spared a glance over to the man driving.

There was a certain…something he found in Tristan that he hadn’t allowed himself to find in anyone in a long time. Lately, when his eyes lit up with excitement about something, Myrick felt a strange warmth in his chest, an indescribable, almost primal instinct to do all in his power to see his eyes twinkle that way again would niggle in the back of his mind while he went about the rest of his day, and would linger even as he lay in bed waiting for sleep to claim him. When they would move ever so slightly closer, when their hands would brush as they poured over boring, droning reports and files and busywork, Tristan’s warmth would linger on his skin long after he had left the office for the night, like he had been branded by a spectre that wouldn’t truly leave him.

The question remained: what was he to do about it?

As much as Myrick prided himself on being able to put up walls that no one had ever crossed, he began to wonder if he had been so successful in the past at keeping others away simply because they hadn’t wanted to bother trying. By doing nothing more than being approachable, Tristan had already managed to clamber over every wall that Myrick had ever built for himself, and it left him more exposed than he was used to. Maybe it was because of that openness that he had never let himself feel that he was now floundering in the face of Tristan showing him care and respect, despite their social statuses and what they were. His concern seemed genuine, and Myrick struggled to come to grips with that.

“How are you holding up, boss?” Tristan asked as he rolled to a stop in front of Myrick’s house. “Are you well enough to make it inside on your own?”

“Yes…?” Myrick frowned and peeled his forehead gingerly off of the window. As he sat up straight, he felt that sudden swooping feeling in his stomach that typically accompanies a fall, and the mismatched sensation made him feel dizzy again “...No.” He admitted, resisting the urge to let his head fall back against the window—it would have probably been fine—but Tristan didn’t need a cracked window, and he didn’t need a cracked skull. His head was already not cooperating with him as it was.

“All right, Myrick,” Tristan let out a soft laugh. “Let me get out, and I’ll come help you to the door.” Tristan managed to kill the engine and step out of the car before Myrick could even form a response, so he opted to not say anything and remained silent as Tristan opened his door and offered him his arm. He didn’t have to lean on Tristan in a physical sense, though knowing that he was there if he needed to was reassuring. They both walked to the door, Myrick focusing on nothing more pressing than the feeling of Tristan’s hand returning to the small of his back and how nice that felt. He fought against the tremble that had set in his fingers as he unlocked the door and stepped inside. He didn’t turn around until he noticed that Tristan’s hand was no longer at his back, and he looked over his shoulder to see Tristan standing on his welcome mat, lingering like a vampire who hadn’t been invited to cross his threshold. It was bafflingly charming, and he had to bite back a snicker at the way that he looked faintly like a kicked puppy asking to be let in from the rain.

“You know, I usually make myself a cup of tea or two after a panic attack,” Myrick commented as conversationally as he could with his head pounding as much as it was. Tristan looked up at him. “But I’d just be wasting water if I filled up my kettle just for one or two cups.” He inclined his head toward the innards of his house, though did so slowly to keep his head from feeling floaty again. “Come in—least I can do for the assistance. And dinner.” There was a moment where Tristan regarded him as though he didn’t believe him, blinking owlishly at him before a roguish grin spread on his face, and he crossed the threshold.

Being back in his home allowed Myrick that crucial moment he had so desperately been needing to breathe a sigh of relief—they had made it, safe and sound, and he was back in his den of security, and everything was okay. The moment he had been allowed to relish the fact that he was coming down from his prolonged panic attack crumbled. The feeling of at long last being secure in his own home gave way to fresh pangs of anxiety that he felt keenly. As he watched Tristan step out of his shoes and set them next to his own by the door, the reality of the situation set in that his personal space was being filled with the man he was growing steadily more and more attracted to for more and more reasons that had utterly terrified him to even think about. Still, he managed to pull himself together enough to pad into the kitchen and pull out his electric kettle; he'd invited Tristan in his home specifically for this reason, after all. He heard the patter of Tristan’s socked feet follow behind him but didn’t turn away from his task, filling the kettle with water and plugging it in.

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Tristan asked him after a few moments of silence. Silence that neither were sure was a comfortable one. Myrick spared the taller man a glance as he flicked the switch of the kettle on while he contemplated what he was supposed to say in response, given what had transpired in a matter of hours.

“I mean, I'd say we're, if nothing else, friendly enough colleagues for a drink of tea? Especially after tonight’s escapades?” Myrick flushed, unsure of why he was even half making it seem like he was insinuating something when he was just trying let someone in.

He was very clearly not good at middle grounds.

“Well, I can’t say no to caffeine,” Tristan seemed to finally settle on those words, and Myrick was grateful that he wasn’t trying to test any waters again. He needed that right now. “And thank you; I can take a guess that you want the night to end on a better note for both of us.”

“Yeah, well,” Myrick sniffed, eyeing that bottle of replacement Tylenol he had left on the counter and taking a couple of the capsules out for himself. “Wasn’t gonna just shoo you off after you did so much to help me through that particular episode.” He tossed the gel capsules in his mouth and swallowed, glad he had mastered taking those without a drink. “What kind of tea do you like? Any preferences?”

“As long as it isn’t plain green tea, we’re fine.” Tristan rested a hand on his hip as he leaned his shoulder against the wall. Myrick noticed he was keeping plenty of distance between them, still not wanting to crowd the smaller man, and he was grateful for that. He whistled low when Myrick opened his cabinet and rummaged around for a blend of tea that would suit them both. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone with a cabinet dedicated to tea before.” Myrick snorted.

“You’ve never been to Isabella’s place, then. I picked up the habit from her!” They shared a laugh.

“Though I guess that’s not totally true, now that I think about it,” Tristan mumbled almost to himself as Myrick scanned the different boxes of teas he had, debating between loose leaf and bagged before deciding that loose leaf was too much cleanup for him to worry about for the moment. “There’s this friend of mine, bless her heart, she’s always sick, so any time I stop by her house or check in on her, she always has a cabinet completely dedicated to soups, teas, and like cold medicines and shit.” Myrick nodded as he grabbed two coffee mugs out from his cabinet. “I always worry about that girl—she has such a frail immune system.” He shook his head, clearly not wanting to discuss his friend anymore, and Myrick didn’t press the subject, opting instead to fish out some tea bags and plopped them into mugs while they waited for the water to finish boiling.

“You strike me as a worrier.” Myrick realized how hypocritical that sounded, and hastily added, “That’s coming from a serial worrier, just in case you couldn’t tell.”

“I never would have guessed,” Tristan pursed his lips but still managed to let out a throaty chuckle. “But I guess I’m bad at hiding it too, so I can’t really say anything.” He sighed and moved toward the counter Myrick was standing at, leaning against it. “I stress about everyone in my life that I even kind of give a shit about.” He shrugged. “Guess it comes from being everyone’s bodyguard throughout school.”

“People would turn to you for protection?” That wasn’t exactly a surprise, nor was it hard for him to picture. “I’m guessing you were big even back then.”

“Yup!” Tristan popped the 'p' with an emphatic nod of his head. The kettle switched itself off, signaling that the water was ready, and Myrick took the time to pour them each a cup. “Even before any of us had presented as anything, I had sorta taken all my friends under my wing; anyone tried to mess with them, they had to go through me first.” He scrubbed the back of his neck, looking a little sheepish but not at all sorry. “I, ah, might have been a frequent flyer in the principal’s office for most of middle school and high school.”

“I can imagine.” Myrick chuckled, but it felt rough in his throat. He handed one of the steaming mugs to Tristan, which he took with a soft, ‘thanks,’ before he began to blow on his own tea. “I’m just…gonna sit down, yeah? My legs still feel shaky.” Tristan nodded and followed him out to the living room, where Myrick sank gracelessly into the plush, overstuffed armchair with a deep sigh, feeling his weariness in his very bones. Tristan took a seat on the couch catty-corner to the armchair, leaning forward and holding his mug in both hands. “Thanks, sorry—you were talking about when you were younger.”

Tristan nodded, looking more than a little happy that he had been listening. “I don’t think that anyone was even sort of surprised when I presented as an Alpha.” Tristan grinned, eyes crinkling in a smile, though it looked almost tinged with bitterness. “Only solidified people’s want to be my friend so I would protect them. Sorta made things a little overwhelming, but that’s life, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Myrick croaked at the sudden warmth that flooded his chest at the sight of that disarming smile. “But…how was it overwhelming for you, specifically?” He couldn’t fathom an Alpha struggling against anything but his baser instincts, though did his damndest to try and squash that assumption—it was bull, and even he knew that.

“Mostly it was other Alphas that felt like they had something to prove. It wasn’t a whole lot of them, but I wasn’t bothered too much by that; better it be me that takes the hits than someone smaller, that’s what I always thought. Nah, that wasn’t the bad part,” he took a drink of tea in the same way a man drinks hard liquor—in a deep pull with no mind for the burn on its way down. “I mean, it still hurt, and it still sucked, but that wasn’t shit compared to the people that would try to pretend to be my friend just so I’d protect them.” Myrick watched his eyes darken over, and in that moment they looked eerily like the ones he saw in the mirror every morning. “They didn’t care about me—all they were interested in was what I could offer them.” He took another glug of his tea, throat bobbing with the swallow. “Ahh, no sense in talking about it.” He shrugged a shoulder. “No sense in dredging up what I can’t change.”

“But you still just…let people in?” Myrick asked, unable to keep the incredulity out of his tone. “And you don’t worry that someone’s just using you for what you can give them?”

“Oh, I always worry about it,” Tristan shrugged, draining his tea and setting the mug down on the side table next to the couch. “But I don’t want to let that worry stop me from having a social circle, y’know?” Myrick didn’t know, but kept that to himself, taking a long drink from his tea to avoid answering. “I’d rather have been burned a hundred times and only made ten friends through it all than never been made to care.”

“Isn’t not caring easier?” Myrick mumbled into his tea. Tristan didn’t seem deterred.

“Is it?” Tristan gave a thoughtful hum. “I don’t think so. I mean, sure, it’d probably be easier to not let anyone in or try to make connections, but isn’t getting by without anyone else to lean on way harder than not?” Myrick didn’t have an answer, but Tristan’s gentle expression lingered in his mind even after he looked down into the last of his tea, as if staring at the bag in his cup was some twenty-first century divination method that would help him find the answer.

What a peculiar thought, he realized with a chuckle.

“What’s so funny?”

Myrick flinched, worried that he had come across as laughing at Tristan’s comments.

“I was just thinking about cheap tea leaves, questions I don’t want to answer, and feelings I don’t want to feel. About how sometimes we try to find any solution but the obvious one and just make more problems for ourselves later.” Startled by his own revelation, brought about by Tristan’s more relaxed perspective, he fell into silence, draining the last of his tea.

“True, though I think it just comes from fear.” Tristan shrugged.

“You always seem so calm,” Myrick marveled at how outside of work Tristan was as solid as he was when they were back in their offices. Myrick was good at leading while he was working—he wouldn’t have gotten to the position he had if he wasn’t, after all—but when he was left to stew over something, or worse, he was forced into confrontation outside of the business he conducted during work hours, his nerves would fray and tear quickly.

“I just don’t try to do more than I can or think about more than what I can control.” Tristan shrugged again, scratching at the back of his neck. “I know what I am and what I’m not, and even though it took me a while to figure out how, I’ve drawn lines where those things end.” Admiration for Tristan swelled in his chest, and he felt strangely warm, like he had neglected to turn the thermostat down before he left the house. Had he? He needed to check on that.

The Tylenol he’d taken had begun to kick in, and though his legs felt more sure than they had before, he was starting to feel the niggling demand of sleep from his muscles, and he couldn’t stop the yawn that snuck up on him from escaping.

“I should probably let you get some sleep. You’ve been put through the wringer, so to speak.” Tristan chuckled, putting his hands on his knees and rising from the couch. He plucked his empty mug from the side table, taking the used tea bag out of it to toss it in the trash with a wet plop before setting the mug in the sink. “Since your car is at work, I can come pick you up in the morning. That way you can drive home tomorrow and be good to go.”

“Ah, I don’t want to put you out.” Myrick said, his tone timid. “I can just call a cab—”

“No sense in wasting the money,” Tristan insisted with a dismissive wave of his hand. “What time do you usually come in? Eight?” Knowing he was beat, Myrick nodded. “Perfect—I’ll pick you up around seven thirty?” Tristan stepped back into his shoes, hand already on the door. “Is that a good time?”

“Yeah, that’s usually when I leave anyway.”

“Perfect!” He smiled brightly. “Get some rest, you hear, boss? I’ll see you in the morning—I’ll bring coffee!” With a wave goodbye, he pulled the door open and stepped back out onto the threshold. “Have a good night!”

“Good night, Tristan,” Myrick gave a meek wave of his own, hesitating long enough to make sure Tristan made it to his car before closing the door and locking up for the night. The loudness of isolation began to fall around him —when did he start noticing it? He wasn’t sure, but now that he knew what loneliness sounded like, that it had a presence, he wanted to get rid of it, or at the very least, shut it out.

That he knew the difference between comfortable quiet and empty solitude was progress.

Slow progress, but progress, he supposed.

Sliding his hands off the door and trudging to his bedroom, he felt as though his limbs were leaden and stiff. He rallied himself into functioning long enough to change into pajamas, but though he forced himself to pick up the pieces of his suit off of the floor after he’d peeled them off, he couldn’t be bothered to even think about hanging them up, opting to toss them on his computer chair. His whole body ached—it always ached after he got nauseated, and by the time he made it to his bed and tumbled onto it, he scarcely felt human for how much he hurt all over. Sleep came for him quickly, too quickly for him to even bother with crawling under the blankets. Just as well; he felt warm, almost feverish.

His groggy mind wondered if he was getting sick.