August woke up slowly, unwilling to move. He cracked open his eyes and they gradually focused on the shapes in front of him. He realized that he was looking at the back of Galen’s head. He listened for the slow, quiet breaths, and confirmed that the Omega was still asleep.

It was a treat to wake up before Galen, and even more of a surprise that it happened on the one morning they shared a bed. The back of anyone’s head wasn’t much to look at, but August stared anyways, tracing the strands as they transitioned from blonde to blue and trailed onto the pillow. One awkward strand had fallen at an almost ninety degree angle and stretched out until it almost reached August.

August found it in himself to move, slowly bringing one of his hands up and out of the blanket. He slowly held it hovering above the strand, like a cat considering when to strike, before slowly using his index finger to pin it to the pillow. The action made him smile. Just like this, there was a small connection between them, running from one side of the bed to the other. It was a silly gesture, and he wouldn’t want to get caught by Galen, but he found that that he didn’t want to let go, either.

Just as August was considering what to do, his comm made an alert noise and lit up. Unhappy, he pulled his other hand out of the blanket and checked what it said on his wrist.

Xanier: I’m at the library early

The message caused August to jump out of bed, waking up Galen. He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palm and asked, “What’s happening?”

“I’m going to be late to a group meeting,” August explained, in too much of a rush to think twice about changing in front of Galen.

“Oh, are you feeling better?”

“Yeah, you can keep sleeping.”

Galen was too awake now to go back to sleep. Instead, he sat up and hugged the blanket as he watched August fly through his rooms, brushing his teeth while throwing books in his bag. The dread and panic of the day before was gone, though an unpalatable bitterness remained. But for the moment, he contented himself with observing August’s routine. Galen didn’t even bother telling him to comb his hair as August rushed out and down the stairs. He shouted, “Take some of the baking with you!”

“Okay!” August shouted back as he threw some leftovers in his bag. He grabbed a container of who even knew what off the counter as he sent a message to the group preemptively apologizing.

Fortunately, they were still waiting for him when he finally arrived. August sat down with them, apologized again, and pulled the container out of his bag. It turned out to be lemon squares. He put them in the middle of the table and pulled out his own breakfast next.

“Is everything okay?” Xanier asked, pushing his unfolded comm to the side.

“Yeah, ugh, I slept in,” August admitted, but it didn’t sound like much of an excuse. He added, “I was in the hospital half the night and got to bed really late, but I’m fine now.”

Milly reached for a square and commiserated, “Wow, that sounds terrible…”

“Well, it was a distraction I didn’t need. I thought I’d be able to get more work done, but it didn’t pan out. Sorry I’m behind.”

“We’ll talk to the prof, he’ll understand.”

Xanier added, “You seem to have had really bad luck this semester! Is your disease getting worse? Just say the word, and I’ll do anything I can to help,” He looked very solemn as he spoke, folding his hands in front of himself.

“No! No, I’m really fine. It’s just that, well, my doctor put me on a new treatment plan, I guess, and there was a hiccup. But it’s mostly been good,” August tried his best to give a circumspect explanation.

Xanier seemed to buy it. He relaxed slightly and offered, “Well, if that’s the case, we can meet up the two of us later, and I can help catch you up to speed? With a little bit of effort, you can definitely pull it off.”

“That would be great!” August agreed.

As they were talking, Milly took a bite of the lemon square. “Mmm! What the hell, these are good!” she declared, her eyes lighting up. She fished another one out of the container and foisted it on Xanier. “Who made these?”

“Oh, uh, my little sister made them,” August said.

“Really? I thought you said she hated baking.”

“Um, I guess it was a special occasion. To make me feel better,” August finished speaking and held his breath. He was getting better at lying, but that didn’t mean he was good at it.

“Tell her I say thanks,” Xanier said, “but since it’s already so late we should really get on task. If we keep up the good work, I just know we’ll be the best Beta group in the class, and maybe the best group as a whole.”
“The best Beta group with the best Beta lemon squares,” Milly teased him as she grabbed another and turned to her books.

August let his breath out in an uneasy sigh and shifted his focus to the work they had to get done.

When August returned from his group meeting, Galen was in the kitchen baking again. There were sheets of dozens of puff pastries covering the countertops, and he was standing over them with an apron on and a pointy knife in his hand while something bubbled in a pot on the stove.

“Welcome back,” Galen said, picking up a puff and boring a hole into it. Once he was finished, he put it back down and picked up the next one.

August stared at the operation, trying to guess what Galen was making, before giving up. “Your lemon squares were a hit,” he said, walking further into the living room.

Galen offered a perfunctory response, clearly occupied with the task at hand. His claw clip was a little loose, but he hadn’t bothered to fix it.

As August moved towards the stairs, he felt something slip underneath his foot and looked down. He picked up the little scrap of paper from under his shoe, and turned it over in his hand. It was small, but the neat cursive handwriting was smaller. It read: Father & Mother.

“Where’d this come from?” He asked.

“Just leave it,” Galen said, “They’re small enough that the house system will pick them up later.”

This caused August to look around again, and this time he realized that the floor around the dining table was littered with scraps like the one he’d just picked up. The table itself had a few full sheets of paper of varying sizes and a fancy stationary set on it. August took a closer look and saw a half-written letter with ink smeared over the page. Unable to help himself, he lifted it up and looked at the one underneath it, where there had been some bleed-through. He could make out the words: when my last lover was murdered.

August immediately dropped the inky page, obscuring what he had just seen. He folded the words up in his mind until he inferred that Galen had been trying and failing to write a letter to his parents. He looked at the state of the floor again and deemed Galen in need of some kind of emotional support. “Is everything okay?” he asked tentatively.

With his back to August, Galen huffed, “Something like that.” He took the pot off the stove and stuck it in the modulator, then looked back. “Do you want to help me with the next part?” he asked.

August dumped his bag on the table and went back to the kitchen. While they waited for the modulator to finish, Galen said, “I’m sorry. I just can’t figure out what to do about my parents.”

“What did they say to you?” August asked.

“Apparently, my father doesn’t believe that Alpha pheromone rejection is real. And mother is too proud to disagree.”

“Oof. I’ve heard there are people like that. It’s one of the reasons why I don’t tell people about it unless I have to,” August said. He’d never dealt with it personally until now. He didn’t really know Galen’s parents, but it hurt a surprising amount to find out that the people who smiled at him and shook his hand thought so little of him the whole time. On the other hand, he couldn’t help but be relieved that Galen cared.

“At the very least, they won’t be coming over again,” Galen said as the modulator dinged. He pulled the now cool pastry cream out and started stirring it vigorously with a spatula. “But I’m afraid that if we go to the police, the report would get leaked like the court files did.”

August watched Galen’s actions, thinking. He picked up a pastry and said, “The cream is going into these, right?”

Galen nodded and continued his train of thought, “And I could tell the emperor, but that didn’t do any good last time. He can’t act without giving a reason or the noble families will balk.” He took a breath and channeled his anger into whisking the cream until it was silky smooth. The two of them transferred the cream into pastry bags and started filling the pastries.

“Honestly, I’m happy if they just don’t come back,” August said. The situation was upsetting, but he wasn’t thinking about it as deeply as Galen was. He’d rather just put it behind him.

“But isn’t it unfair?” Galen said, “That they can just get away with it? They hurt you! It’s one thing to cut them off personally, but the fact that a military leader can believe that stuff is deeply unsettling.”

“You’re cutting your parents off?”

“Of course!” Galen said, throwing his hands up. He almost lost the pastry bag he was holding. “At least until I figure out what else can be done.”

August could now clearly see Galen’s sense of justice at work, and it intimidated him. It was impossible to forget that this very same conviction had led the charming princess to kill before. He squeezed some cream into another puff and casually asked, “Does anything need to be done?”

When he didn’t get a reply, August looked up. Galen was staring at him. “What do you mean, ‘does anything need to be done’?” the man asked. He seemed genuinely confused by August’s question.

“Well, uh,” August turned back to the pastries and filled a few more while he struggled to articulate what he wanted to say. He could think of any number of things that were guaranteed to make the situation worse, but he didn’t think he could back out now, either. Finally, he said, “It’s enough for me as long as it doesn’t happen again, y’know?”

“Really?” Galen asked. He was also filling the pastries, and the two of them worked quickly together. “Even if they get away with it, even if it makes things worse in the long run for other people, you can let it go? Just like that?”

August sighed. “You’re not wrong. It’s a problem that won’t necessarily go away just because we’re not looking at it. And I am upset, okay? But you said yourself that there’s nothing we can do.”

Galen focused on the baking. “You keep filling the choux, I’ll make the cone then do the caramel,” he said, trying to calm himself down. August’s words crawled under Galen’s skin and made him want to cry, or maybe hit something. Every word fit together with the last, but altogether, it just sounded complacent.

Galen took the biggest sheet of paper off the dining room table and rolled it into a cone shape, taping it closed and cutting off the jagged edges to give it a smooth, even bottom. Then he cut the waste pieces into bits of confetti and let them fall onto the floor. “It’s just not fair,” he said decisively, “It’s not right. It’s not just. I don’t understand how you can live with that without wanting to do something about it.” The frustration in his voice was palpable throughout the room.

Galen returned to the kitchen with the cone, put it on a big plate, and started making another sauce in another saucepan.

As August finished with the pastry, he tried to explain himself, “Even if it’s unfair, though, I have to live like this… If I didn’t, would I even be here?” He glanced at Galen, and their eyes met.

Galen saw something in that look that killed the words coming up in his throat. It seemed almost like fear, but he couldn’t understand why it would be there in that moment. August leaned on the countertop and bit his lip, looking for all the world like he was in pain. Galen almost reached out to check. But instead he picked up the pot and swirled the contents around. Finally, he admitted, “I don’t know what you mean.”

August pushed his emotions back down and tried to explain again. He said, “Things, well, they haven’t be fair for a long time, for me. Like, is it fair that I really got to be an Alpha, when every Beta kid wants to be the special one? Or, is it fair that being an Alpha is killing me? Is that justice?”

“No!” Galen interjected.

August continued, “So let’s say that’s not fair then. Well, is it fair that I survived, got diagnosed, when other Alphas—other kids—in the same position as me just… disintegrate instead? I certainly didn’t do anything to deserve it.”

Galen interjected again, “Wait, no, that’s not right. You shouldn’t have to do anything to deserve to live!”

August looked at Galen again. “Then what about the others?” he said.

Galen tried to rebut him, getting through half a word before stopping, trying again, and stopping again. He pulled on his hair as he grappled with the dilemma that August had posed him. If it was fair that August lived when others died, then it was fair that others died? Clearly that wasn’t the case. But the idea of survival being up to chance also didn’t seem right.

Meanwhile, August pressed on. “If I think about it, it gets worse and worse. It’s so unfair that I got diagnosed, that my parents could move to the Capital, that I’m being treated by one of the only specialists in the entire Empire, that the Alpha pheromone inhibitors worked, at least for a little while…”

August laughed, “and it’s especially unfair that our pheromones are compatible! And now the whole galaxy wants to know what happened to you, while I’m standing right here helping you bake!” His voice started to crack, and he stopped talking to preserve his dignity as he blinked his eyes to keep them dry. This time, he didn’t have the guts to look anywhere but at the pastry.