They drove in silence for approximately fifteen minutes before Jay decided the break was more than enough and continued chatting at Damon.

"You've never experienced a heat before have you? I bet living in Ganymede pack is pretty sweet in that regard."

Damon shook his head. "No, I haven't." Then, after some consideration, he decided that since he was trapped in a car with an omega who had experienced heats he might as well get as much info as he could beforehand. "Are there any rules or procedures I should know about?"

Jay hummed in thought. "Try not to get pregnant. Don't go running around if you can help it."

...That's it? "What about documentation?"

"Documentation?" Jay's eyebrow popped up. "Ganymede pack is something else, huh? Venus pack doesn't bother with all the red tape. They expect omegas to be responsible enough to make the necessary arrangements beforehand. Other than in cases where an omega goes into heat in public or claims they were raped, the pack doesn't really care."

That could be both good and bad, in Damon's opinion. A lack of control on the part of pack leadership allowed for more freedom and likely less taboo regarding sexual behaviors. But it also left a lot of room for omegas to be harmed during the Season. Damon was lucky enough to have Jun watching out for him, but he imagined there were plenty of omegas who didn't have such a luxury.

They would cross that bridge when they came to it. "What are heats like? I know they're a little different for everyone, but when alphas go into heat, they usually get aggressive and have a tendency to harm themselves or others. Is it any different for omegas?"

Jay uncharacteristically took longer to answer this question. The silence was uncomfortable, and Damon thought he might have stepped on a nerve. He hazarded a look back at Jun to see how badly he had fucked up, but Jun's face betrayed nothing.

"I'm not the best person to answer that question. I don't get heats."

...Strange. Had Damon smelled wrong? His scent said omega, but he was a beta?

Jay smiled ruefully. "I know what you're thinking. Yes, I'm an omega. Womb and everything. I just don't get heats. I'm defective."

At this, Jun finally reacted and reached forward to thwack his brother again. "No," he said simply. Meaning, in his succinct, Jun way – don't say that.

Damon was searching for something to say. What does one say in this situation? Asking for more details would be outright rude, but saying something like 'I'm sorry,' felt hollow. He waffled for a bit and ended up landing on "oh," which was better than launching into an invasive question, but still not great.

Thankfully, Jay didn't seem to mind Damon's non-response, and said more on his own. "It's been this way my whole life. I'm used to it. I get a little more agitated during the Season, but I've never had an actual heat. It's a fertility thing."

Meaning, Damon extrapolated, that Jay was either completely infertile or had uncertain fertility. Again, Damon didn't know exactly what to say. He wasn't sure how Jay felt about it – whether he wanted kids or didn't want them – and so he couldn't reasonably comfort him. He wasn't sure if he needed comforting in the first place. Jay was smiling easily, but Damon didn't know him well enough to know if he was the type to hide his emotions behind a façade.

"But," he continued, "I have plenty of omega friends who can answer your questions. You're not in heat now, so either the heat will take a day or two to set in, or – since you've escaped from your pack – your pack leader hasn't cut ties with you yet."

Damon pursed his lips. "Likely the latter. My parents are friends with the pack leader. They might delay him."

Jay hummed again and tapped the steering wheel in thought. "Could be. I guess we'll see, won't we?"

Damon sunk down in his seat, and it seems Jay was finally satisfied and stopped making conversation. They drove in a surprisingly comfortable silence for about an hour, and eventually, Damon fell asleep.

***

When Damon woke up, his abdomen was clenching with cramps, the kind he would get before nesting. Damon had just finished nesting, so he knew that wasn't it. It also came with a rumbling stomach – so probably he was just hungry.

He rubbed his eyes and when his vision came into focus, he found himself in a dark room that smelled like Jun. So he had slept through the car ride. But where was he? His eyes hadn't adjusted to the dark yet, but he could hear muffled voices in another room – it sounded like they were below him, so he was either in a motel and the downstairs guests were particularly noisy, or he was in someone's house. Based on how comfortable the bed was, he was guessing the latter.

Because this room smelled so heavily of Jun – not just the lingering scent of him having been in here recently, but the scent of him having been in here a long time ago, and frequently – Damon could only reach one stomach-curdling conclusion.

He was in Jun's house. With Jun's family. Oh god.

Well. Better to get it over with now, right?

That's what Damon thought, but his body had other ideas, and he ended up slinking off the bed like a worm, reluctant to part from the warm covers.

When he opened the bedroom door, he had to pause for a moment to let his eyes adjust to the bright light in the hallway. There was one other door in the hall off to the left that was slightly open, revealing a bathroom. In the other direction were the stairs, which was kind of weird. If Damon was in Jun's house, where his entire family lived – shouldn't there be more rooms upstairs? The Harts had three children and themselves, plus however many betas they had working for them.

Confused, Damon went down the stairs and found himself in a small living room with a connected kitchen. In the kitchen were two familiar figures, Jun and Jay. But no one else. Was this...not the Hart family home, then?

Damon shuffled to the kitchen, alerting the other two to his presence. Jun wandered up to him and draped his body across Damon like a dramatic Victorian woman having a fainting spell. There were bags under Jun's eyes. So baby was tired, then. Why didn't he just sleep while Damon did, then?

Jay leaned his hip against the kitchen counter and rolled his eyes at his older brother's behavior. "Welcome to Jun's apartment. You slept a long time. We got through the Venus pack border and a screaming match with our father without you waking up."

Well, that answered most of Damon's questions. Apparently, Jun didn't live with his family, he had his own apartment. And he hadn't slept because he was doing damage control with his parents.

"How'd you get me across the border without waking me up? Wouldn't they have to verify my identity or hold me somewhere?"

"You were with us, so the border guards let us through without a problem. They did, however, call our parents to tell them we were bringing an unfamiliar wolf in, which then led to our father coming to smack Jun upside the head a few times for leaving the pack. Thankfully he was too preoccupied with that to bother asking much about you, but once he cools down, he'll remember."

"...And then what?"

"Then you get to tell our parents you're boinking their son."

"..."

Damon was dead. Well and truly dead. Goodbye world. It was nice while it lasted. Strange that neither Jay nor Jun seemed as frightened as he did.

Jay smiled at him. "You look pale. Feeling alright?"

Damon swayed slightly on his feet. The cramping that he had been ignoring was intensifying – so it was stress and fear cramping then. Wonderful. Maybe Damon was developing a stomach ulcer.

Jun, who had his nose pressed into Damon's hair, practically taking a nap on top of him, suddenly shot up straight, then leaned in again to take a long sniff. Damon side eyed him. He hadn't taken a shower in a couple days, so sue him. Though knowing Jun, who was a verified weirdo, he probably found Damon's musk sexy.

But Jun's expression was a little strange, so Damon couldn't help but ask – "What?"

"You're in preheat," he said, as if remarking on the weather, and took a few more sniffs. Oh, it's raining. Huh, that's a new shirt. Oh yeah, you're in preheat.

Well...fuck.