Because The Night

One

Warning: Some mature content, mpreg, and childbirth!

"Mew can you take one more before you clock off?", the ambulance dispatch manager's voice crackled through the radio as the man in question sighed heavily, massaging roughly at his throbbing brow as he raised the mouth set to respond, dryly:

"Go ahead June, I've got exactly 22 minutes of a 12 hour shift left ticking, so make it a quick one - and please, for fuck's sake no drunks"

"It's your lucky night sir, only 7 minutes down the road from you in Norlander Wood, and a real rare one to pique the interest of even your cynical, jaded, old soul. A 23-year old male omega in the early stages of labour. History and circumstances unknown, but apparently he's sought shelter from the storm in one of the caves near Fisher's Fjord and has no means of transportation. He phoned in, before we lost the connection"

"A male birth? Shit, must be almost a decade since I've dealt with one of those. Back in our days as the paramedic dream team of the Skåden region, hey Junie-pie?" - Mew lit a cigarette, taking 3 sharp pulls in quick succession, before tossing it out of the car window into the driving rain, billowing in sheets across the ominous inkwell of a black road ahead - then turned the key to start his engine...

"Ahhh the good old days", came June's exaggeratedly wistful reply, "Listen. Just locate the patient, assess progress and dilation, get some fluids and pain relief into him, and stick with the poor soul until Axel and Fon can get there - they're only 25 minutes away in the ambulance, but the highway is gridlocked after the North Hästvader bridge flooded"

"Hmmm. Why do I feel like this call out is getting more and more complicated...and less and less like a 22 minute job by the second?"

"Never fear Suppasit, you'll be heading home to a cold beer or a warm whiskey before you can say 'Braxton Hicks'"

"Copy that, boss", Mew saluted, and he was dipping the rapid response vehicle's fog lights as he pulled out into the swirling bluster - and pathetic fallacy - of a stubbornly biting late Autumn storm.

His damn head was aching again - if that was even the right word? The sensation of a white-hot metal rod being driven, twisted, through his temples like some shamanistic ritual. The pain had been building for months - much to the chagrin and professional embarrassment of Mew's doctor. Countless blood tests, scans, urine samples and xrays, still nothing. No concrete explanation for that creeping whole-body malaise, cyclically pounding head and chest. Not only vague chest either, but more specifically his beating heart - though every cardiogram disagreed.

Were they phantom pains? Psychosomatic? A physical manifestation of some psychological trauma. Gods knew, Mew's line of work had forced him to bear witness to many a nightmarish scene. Perhaps there was only so much a soul - even one as stoically robust and impenetrable as the 30-year old's - could digest, before it began to crack and fray a little at the edges.

But, enough of that.

Such reflections were as inconsequential as an impotent storm cloud, martyr droplets quivering to be spilled and plummet as lemmings, downwards to their fate.

Fate...fate. The word echoed about the pulsing pain receptors of the driver's mind as he travelled.

And it was only as Mew's tyres skidded toothlessly against the mud and lacy leaf skeletons of the woodland bank he pulled up against, that he realised he had arrived to the exact coordinate points he had been sent, without understanding how. Almost as if he had been lured there to that place by...well, something. Some kind of otherworldly - or othertimely - force.

But this was 2021 for fuck's sake. No time for the archaic superstitions of the ABO landscapes of yesteryear - especially across recent decades, as the old powers had dimmed and faded from each generation to the next, the last glowing embers of a mighty bonfire. Soon to be charred ashes alone.

Which was precisely the reason why this attending case was so undeniably intriguing, as Mew exited the safety of his front seat cocoon to step out into the 50 knot gale, falling branch narrowly missing his skull as he held down the hood of his waterproof with one hand, fumbling opening the car boot to retrieve his emergency medical equipment bag with the other. Scientists predicted that there would be no male omega 'carriers' left within a century...

It was as Mew trekked through the tangled forest foliage and undergrowth towards the network of caves, head down and braced against the elements, that the wind suddenly changed direction.

And that was when he smelt it. Hitting him like a sledge hammer to the chest as a sweet, floral scent - an impossibly familiar, yearned for, scent - danced as treasure hunt clue within his nostrils. Somewhere there amongst the gnarled trunks and pine needles, between the mud and puddles and fungi and storm. Somewhere there, perhaps in the quiet of the eye of that storm, bloomed the delicate, pearly pinks and whites of a cherry blossom orchard.

A person. But...it couldn't be...

Entranced - hand clutched to his own chest in futile attempts to steady a thundering heart, beating so hard that it pulsed out to his icy fingertips, his bitterly numbed earlobes, echoing about his form entire - Mew lifted his head and strode on as if under the spell of hypnosis.

The cave entrance loomed - illuminated in its forest clearing by the on-shining light of the moon just as it peeped knowingly through a tear in the thick patchwork of cloud. And as Mew approached, eyes fixed on what lay within, the heady perfume grew only stronger.

White hot rod twisting in torturous revolutions between his temples, chest aching with a profound and suddenly identifiable emptiness, gums itching as teeth sharpened so rapidly that canines drew blood from his own tongue.

What was...happening...?

That smell - Mew gulped at the night air giddily, greedily, as if his body needed to drink it in, feeling instinctively that he had to be full of that scent, and yet could never be.

And then a sound - a low, animalistic keening towards the rear of the cave - that reverberated about the oncomer's very soul.

He knew, even before the omega turned to face him, eyes alive with fear and only widening further, petrified disbelief, as his gaze met with that of the newly-arrived medic:

"My Gods, it's really you", Mew breathed, simply.

But...

"No, no, no, no!", the other cried out as he shook his head in desperate denial, stumbling as he backed away from the elder man, just as the howling wind invaded the cave to whip the words from the lips of both.