Back at Jun's apartment, Damon flopped onto the sofa like a fish being slapped onto a counter and pulled out his phone. It had been buzzing like crazy while he was talking to Jun's mom, but out of respect, and possibly a little fear that he would be smacked for being rude, Damon hadn't checked it.

He had a text message and two missed calls – from Dr. Yang. He didn't leave a voicemail, but Damon still sat up unconsciously, a tingle of apprehension going down his spine. His original text to Dr. Yang had been simple and vague, on purpose. For one, Damon was no longer in Ganymede pack and therefore, Dr. Yang was technically no longer his primary physician. Bothering him with Damon's strange heat symptoms was likely an inconvenience for him.

For two, Damon didn't think there was anything to worry about, personally. He felt fine now. Maybe he was just predisposed to have difficult heats; it wasn't anything particularly uncommon. Typically, the way you handled a heat was genetically determined – so if the omegas in your family tree had bad heats, you were more likely to too. The thing is, Damon's family had lived in Ganymede pack for decades and only the alphas had heats there, so there was no way of knowing before this if Damon, as an omega, was going to have rough heats. Contacting Dr. Yang was mostly just to put Jun at ease.

So Damon's message went something like this:

Sorry to bother you with this, but I've been having some difficulty adjusting to having a heat. Any advice?

Short and sweet.

Dr. Yang's response was equally short and sweet.

Difficult how?

Damon's racing heart calmed slightly. Seeing that Dr. Yang had called him, Damon's first thought was that either something really was wrong with him or that something had happened in Ganymede pack that Damon didn't know about yet. And yet, though Dr. Yang was just asking for clarification about Damon's admittedly uninformative message, the fact that he had bothered to call, twice, begged the question: why?

Dr. Yang wasn't the type to call and text unless it was something urgent. Biting his lip, Damon briefly stated the symptoms he'd experienced. Mostly it was just aggression that was the main concern, but Damon also made sure to mention that stress was probably playing a part in this. He felt sure that once his lucid period ended, his heat would go a lot smoother. Going twenty-six years without a heat and then suddenly having one under strenuous circumstances – of course it wouldn't be easy.

Well, Damon had maybe two more days of lucidity left. He would enjoy the next two days and reevaluate once his heat started up again.

Damon sent the message and set the phone aside. That was enough thinking. Time to bother Jun.

Speaking of Jun, where had he run off to? He wasn't downstairs, so he must be upstairs somewhere, but Damon couldn't hear him moving around. Maybe he was taking a nap?

Damon went up the stairs and poked his head into the bedroom, but before he could see if Jun was all tucked into bed, he was grabbed around the waist and flung onto the bed, Jun following right after. Damon bounced slightly and looked up at Jun's mischievous grin looming over him.

Usually, this situation would lead to sex, but Jun, apparently, had indeed been thinking about napping, because all he did was thwomp his full body weight on top of Damon and settle in like a clingy golden retriever.

Luckily Damon was also in the mood for a nap, and with Jun's weight acting as a comforting blanket, Damon drifted off, letting his worries float away.

***

Meanwhile, at the Hart house, Mark was hiding. He was in deep shit. Like deep as the Mariana Trench deep. Not only had he been caught scaling the wall of Jun's house, but it was also Jun's brother who found him – and Jun's brother who he, may have, COMPLETELY accidentally - groped as they fell down the hill. It wasn't his fault okay! One, he didn't know Jay was an omega until after they fell, and two, it was hard to control where your limbs went when you were rolling at top speed into a ditch.

So if Mark's hand had gone where it never should have gone, he couldn't be blamed! ...And if he happened to squeeze once or twice while his hand was there, well...

Mark had never claimed to have much self-control. And-and – he was disoriented! The squeezing was just a method of-of figuring out where he ended and the handsome stranger with the potty mouth began.

The problem was that he squeezed a lot more than twice. Enough times that it was hard to explain away as an accident. Mark had always had a weakness for fleshy body parts. He must have gone temporarily insane. Completely whacked out of his mind.

If Jay had been an alpha, Mark would have brushed it off a lot easier. He wasn't attracted to alphas. He would have made a stupid joke and passed right by it. He was, however, attracted to omegas. Granted, he was typically more drawn to female omegas, but Jay was still an omega, and Mark had basically molested him.

Mark only realized Jay was an omega once they landed in a tangled heap in the ditch and he was close enough to get a whiff. It was subtle though. Aside from the rain and mud covering their scents, Jay himself seemed to have a very faint scent normally, so Mark really, truly couldn't tell until then.

Still, it wasn't acceptable to squeeze someone's derriere regardless of their secondary gender. Especially someone who had just caught you trying to break into their house. Thus, it was no surprise that Jay wasn't happy with him.

But seriously, did he have to be so scary? Mark feared for his life, and he was pretty sure that if he made it out of this house alive at all, he would probably leave with some sort of injury. So his strategy was to hide in the guestroom he'd been given with the door locked and hope he didn't have to pee or eat for however long he was staying here.

...Yeah. Even he knew that was unrealistic. So, then the strategy he'd come up with as a backup plan was this – be as quiet and unobtrusive as a mouse and maybe Jay wouldn't eat him alive.

The problem? ...Everyone else in the Hart house seemed to want to get to know him. Jess had already made him promise to eat dinner with them. She was a crafty one. Mark had agreed before he even knew what he was agreeing to. And unfortunately, Mark had heard Jess talking to Jay in the hall. Apparently being her brother didn't protect Jay from her tricks, because Mark heard her cajole him into being the one to make said dinner.

Mark could only pretend to be violently ill. It was the only way. And yet, if he did that, the Hart family would want to check up on him, and they would probably send Jay to nurse him back to health.

Maybe he could pretend to be dead. He could pretend to be dead. For a while. He was pretty good at holding his breath. He held an astonishing record of 35 seconds underwater.

...Or maybe Mark was utterly fucked.