Blaine leans against the metal frame of the bleachers, letting the dull edge dig into his shoulder, the pain keeping him grounded as he watches the alpha of the Dalton pack … his alpha … walk across the lacrosse field alongside the alpha from another Westerville-based pack – a junior boy from some obnoxious public school not too far from there. Blaine tugs on his uniform tie, unbuttons the top three buttons of his wrinkled, white button-down, and growls low in the back of his throat, his entire body vibrating with the sound. From across the field, Kurt’s body becomes rigid. His ears perk up, but he doesn’t let the omega’s disgust keep him from missing a beat. The boy beside him makes a comment and Kurt laughs his flirty laugh – a laugh that makes Blaine seethe, his eyes glowing crimson in the shadows underneath the bleachers.

Blaine can see the wolf beneath Kurt’s skin – lithe, muscular, preening under whatever flattery this other alpha is feeding him. Blaine’s wolf reaches out for his alpha, trying hard to listen in on their conversation, but he’s too unfocused, his thoughts too muddied. He can’t concentrate on anything other than his wolf in his head growling murderously at this other alpha who dares waltz into his territory and come on to his boyfriend.

The farther they get from where Blaine stands, crouching low and keeping watch, the more the urge to spring out of hiding and rip this alpha to confetti fills his body - from the wolf snarling in his mind to break loose, down to the soles of his feet, itching to run. But suddenly, he feels a touch – Kurt’s wolf reaching out to soothe him, to cool the heat of jealousy threatening to expose him. Blaine is a fairly new wolf, and self-control is not one of his strong suits. Blaine and his wolf are direct reflections of one another – loners, uptight, full of fire and fury with a dangerously short fuse.

Kurt was born with his wolf, so they get along seamlessly.

Blaine’s wolf tends to be difficult for him to control.

But he listens to Kurt – Kurt and his gentle but commanding wolf.

For the year that Blaine has been at Dalton, Kurt has been helping Blaine connect with his animal side.

It didn’t take the whole year for Blaine to fall in love with him.

Before they reach the end of the field, the two alphas turn to face one another. The bottle blond alpha – Sam Evans might be his name – raises Kurt’s hand in his and kisses it. Blaine’s growl grows louder, shaking the bleachers with his rage. He pops a button on his shirt as his fingernails tear through it, feeling too constrained by the thin fabric.

All he would need to do is transform and the confinement of his uniform would no longer be a problem.

Neither would that smug trespasser. He catches wind of Blaine’s scent, his eyes shifting sideways towards the bleachers, a knowing grin spreading across his inhumanly large mouth.

The frame of the bleachers begins to bend where Blaine’s hand wraps around the supports, screeching as if in pain.

Stop.

Blaine hears the command clear in his head and he immediately begins to relax. His grip loosens from the rails leaving two benches suffering, dipping down over his head. There’s a chuckle in his mind, and regardless of his lingering need to shred Sam to pieces, he finds himself smiling.

His intense brooding anger would be more effective if he wasn’t grinning like the lovesick teenager he is.

Kurt turns from the alpha, waving another goodbye over his shoulder. He starts walking Blaine’s way, and Blaine lets his smile drop. He wants Kurt to see every inch of his displeasure, feel it rise off his skin like steam. Kurt catches the fading light in Blaine’s pupils as he emerges from the grey shadows, but it’s his state of partial undress that captures Kurt’s attention.

“I have to say,” Kurt purrs, “I like this disheveled look on you.”

Blaine sniffs the air, his face curdling with the scent that hits his nose. “You smell foul,” he snarls as Kurt comes closer.

“Well, hello to you, too, handsome.”

Blaine breathes in deeper, his lip curling at the stink surrounding his alpha. “You have his scent all over you.”

“You’re one to talk.” Kurt pushes his way into Blaine’s arms and folds himself in his embrace. “What happened to you? Orgy in the senior commons?”

Watching Kurt with the other alpha, Blaine nearly forgot that Jeff and Nick had tackled him in the hallway. Of the entire Dalton pack, which consisted of mainly members of the school’s a cappella choir, the Warblers, Jeff and Nick were by far the most annoying. They needed constant attention, and just like toddlers, it didn’t matter if it was positive or negative. So when Blaine lashed out, batting Jeff across the face and leaving him with four jagged marks running down his cheek, he giggled like an idiot, then grabbed his boyfriend and wrestled him down the hallway.

“You know what Jeff and Nick are like,” Blaine says in a tight voice as Kurt runs his nose down his neck, crawling his hands up the back of Blaine’s shirt to caress his bare skin. “They have no respect for boundaries, just like your little friend.”

“Blaine …” Kurt sighs, deflating against Blaine’s chest “… we’ve talked about this.”

Blaine locks his jaw, keeping the petulant growls of his wolf at bay. “But do you have to flirt with him like that?”

Kurt shakes his head at the stiff sound of hurt in Blaine’s voice. “Flirt with him? I’m not flirting. I’m being cordial. Our territories overlap. I have to make sure that things between us and them stay copacetic.”

Blaine nods once, not all too convinced. He stares down the other alpha, who climbs into his truck, preparing to return to his own school.

“Does he know that?”

“I’m sure he does.” Kurt rolls his eyes even though Blaine can’t see.

“Well, did you tell him?”

The truck rolls out of the parking lot, but not before the blond alpha glares at Blaine with Kurt cradled in his arms.

“I’m sorry, but the subject of him fucking me hasn’t exactly come up yet,” Kurt teases, pulling back to look into Blaine’s face when Blaine’s wolf bristles. “Come on, Blaine! You can’t assume that everyone I talk to is going to steal me away from you! Don’t you have any faith in me?”

“Yeah, in you.” Blaine holds Kurt tighter. “It’s him I don’t trust.”

Blaine watches the truck leave the parking lot, memorizing its every detail – make, model, license plate number, down to the tread on the tires and the infinitesimal scratches on the rear bumper. Blaine hasn’t mastered shielding his thoughts and emotions, and Kurt sees it all, as does the rest of the pack, and soon Kurt’s head is filled with the anxious howls of wolves feeling the omega’s distress, wondering if they should gear up for a fight.

“Blaine,” Kurt scolds gently, his wolf calming the other members of the pack and putting their minds at ease, “you have to control your feelings. At this rate, you’re going to start a turf war.”

Blaine huffs, stepping away from his alpha, but Kurt doesn’t let him go. And Blaine’s wolf needs Kurt. His wolf has no intention of leaving the warmth of Kurt’s body, or the presence of his wolf nuzzling against him in Blaine’s head.

“Look” - Kurt smooths the ruined lapels on Blaine’s blazer, fingers grazing lightly over the skin of his chest - “his pack invited ours to a wolf-friendly club they hang at in Columbus. You down to go?”

Blaine shrugs. “Why are you asking? You tell us to go, and we go.”

Kurt looks at Blaine, his face impassive, the way it becomes when he has emotions he doesn’t know how to manage. Kurt feels for Blaine. Blaine was changed in reform school, forced to become a wolf against his will by a pack of kids who used their wolves to control other students. But Blaine was strong. He resisted. He became an omega to keep from having his life stolen from him – even though, in many ways, it already had been. The moment he stepped through the doors at Dalton, Kurt’s wolf longed to help him; to have him, really. But he is still too wild, too impetuous.

Kurt loves Blaine, but Blaine needs a little fine tuning if he’s ever going to help Kurt lead the pack.

Kurt’s wolf makes headway with Blaine’s wolf, lulling him to a sense of peace, but the man that Blaine is stands stoic, unmoved, eyes focused on a point in the distant that may or may not exist.

Kurt doesn’t touch his mind to find out.

“Right,” Kurt says. “Well, then, we’ll meet up after dinner. Eight o’clock. That’ll give you a chance to finish your calculus homework.”

“My homework’s done,” Blaine says in a clipped tone.

“Sure it is.” Kurt smiles, backing out of Blaine’s arms. Truthfully, he could stand in the lacrosse field with Blaine all afternoon long, holding him in his arms and letting Blaine’s scent seep into his skin. But he has a pack to check in on, a solo to practice, and an A. P. Lit final to study for. His romantic sensibilities will have to take a backseat to the realities of life.

“You coming?” Kurt tugs on Blaine’s arm as he walks backward away, his wolf mentally nibbling at Blaine’s wolf’s ear.

Blaine doesn’t follow right away, enjoying watching his alpha walk, the smooth movement of his long legs as he glides over the grass – agile, soundless, barely bending a single blade.

“You know, two alphas … that wouldn’t turn out well,” Blaine calls after him.

“Then it’s a good thing I have no intentions of claiming him,” Kurt shoots back, spinning on the balls of his feet to walk forward towards the dorms. “Truth be told, I have my eye on a sexy omega, if only he’d get his act together.”

***

“Oh, Blaine,” Kurt moans when Blaine licks a stripe up his neck, ending behind his ear. “You can’t … you can’t just do that.”

“You always say that,” Blaine whispers, doing the same thing again, eliciting an even more desperate moan.

“That’s because … you know all my weaknesses,” Kurt says around a gasp as Blaine’s fingers trail down Kurt’s back to cup his ass through his skinny jeans. “If you keep this up … I won’t be able to control myself …”

That’s what I’m counting on, Blaine thinks, his mouth closing over the juncture of Kurt’s neck and his shoulder. Blaine wants Kurt. He wants Kurt more than he’s ever wanted another living being. He never believed in his life that he would ever want to belong to someone, but he does. He wants Kurt to own him, to claim him.

He wants to be Kurt’s mate in a thousand different ways, and lately it’s Blaine’s biggest fear that he’ll find someone better – someone more worthy of being his mate.

“Come on, Blaine,” Kurt pants as Blaine runs a hand between his legs. “They’re waiting for us.”

“Just a little longer,” Blaine begs, hoping to stumble upon the ideal way to tempt him. “I mean, you’re still completely dressed.”

“Yeah” - Kurt rolls his hips with another pass of Blaine’s hand over his hardening cock - “and you’re ruining my shirt, by the way.” He pauses to laugh, but it turns into a moan when Blaine continues to palm over his erection. “B-but everyone’s inside. I can feel it.”

“Everyone?” Blaine asks. “Or him?”

As if called into existence by Blaine’s thought of him, Sam knocks on the window of Kurt’s Navigator, staring in where Kurt has Blaine pinned to the backseat.

“Come on, gorgeous,” Sam says, addressing Kurt and giving only a cursory glance at the omega lying on his back. “The real puppy pile is inside.”

Kurt laughs condescendingly, nodding with a fixed, barely tolerant smile on his face. Blaine doesn’t see Kurt’s display of displeasure. He drops his hands to his side, digging his nails into the leather seat beneath him. Sam doesn’t seem to notice either, or he just doesn’t care. He blows Kurt a kiss and bounds away back to the club.

“You should go inside,” Blaine says when he hears the other alpha’s footsteps die off.

“We,” Kurt corrects him. “We should go inside.”

“What does it matter if I’m there or not? It doesn’t seem like I even exist when he’s around.”

“Blaine” - Kurt slides off of Blaine’s hips to let him up - “now you’re just being dramatic.”

“Am I?”

“Yes! Absolutely! Why would you even say a thing like that?”

“Because, I …” Blaine’s sentence cuts off abruptly. He looks at his alpha staring back at him with wide, expectant eyes – blue-silver eyes that shift in the moonlight from the concerned eyes of human Kurt to the dark, seductive eyes of Kurt’s wolf. Blaine wants to fall into those eyes. He’d follow those eyes anywhere.

“Why don’t you want me, Kurt?” he asks, his voice ridiculously small to his own ears. “I mean, I’m yours. I’ve been yours since the moment I arrived at Dalton, and I guess I fooled myself into thinking you were mine, too. But …” Blaine smells a familiar, sour stench invading the enclosed confines of Kurt’s Navigator. He turns to the window and sees Sam standing outside the club, partially hidden by the crowd waiting to get through the velvet ropes, staring daggers at him. Kurt tracks Blaine’s line of sight and catches Sam’s glare. He blows out a frustrated breath and maneuvers between Sam’s eyes and Blaine’s.

“Do you know why I haven’t claimed you yet?” Kurt asks, climbing into Blaine’s lap and wrapping his arms around his waist.

“Because I’m a fuck up?” Blaine averts his gaze. He doesn’t want the inevitable look of disappointment on Kurt’s face seared into his skull when Kurt agrees with his assessment. Blaine is a fuck up. He fucked up when he got kicked out of his first four private schools. He fucked up when he got caught selling drugs and got sent to reform school. He fucked up when he allowed himself to get cornered in the showers and changed into the monster he is.

Though, if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have had the glorious time he’s shared with Kurt, even if that time is about to come to an end, because even now, when he’s trying to turn things around and make amends, have a new life with this man that he fell so hard for, he is fucking up everything.

“Because we’re not just our wolves,” Kurt says, nuzzling his head against his boyfriend’s shoulder. “We’re human … teenagers, growing up and making our way in the world, trying to find a place. I know there are expectations, things I’m supposed to do for the pack, but you and me – that’s for us.” Kurt feels Blaine’s breath catch, sees the way his eyes focus in on his with that extreme intensity that makes Kurt feel him, as if he’s passing through his body with that one look.

Most people look away when Blaine stares, but not Kurt. Kurt loves that feeling of Blaine moving through him without a single touch.

Kurt takes his hand and places it over Blaine’s heart, smiling fondly when he feels it race beneath his fingertips.

“I didn’t want to rush into it. I wanted it to just … happen. I wanted you to love me for me, outside of all of this …” Kurt gestures vaguely around him, and Blaine knows what he means – the boys that they can feel with their minds inside the club, their thoughts swimming around them as they dance wildly, clustered close together, nipping at ears and necks, marking each other. “I just need to know that you want to be with me because you love me and you need me, and not just as an alpha. Not just as a part of the pack. You need me.”

“Why would you even doubt that?” Blaine asks, his face crumbling a bit at the insinuation. “All you need to do is touch my mind to be certain.”

“That would be hidden deep within your psyche. I don’t want to invade your privacy. Not like that.” Kurt rubs the tip of his nose lightly over Blaine’s, brushing dry lips against his mouth. “I want you to tell me with words, and show me with your actions that you want to be with me. That we can stand side-by-side as mates because we love each other, not out of duty or responsibility. Can you do that?”

Blaine swallows hard. His eyes – hard and golden, shining like amber – go softer than Kurt has ever seen. Blaine ducks his head, hiding his glowing eyes and the slight color on his cheeks. “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”

Kurt leans down to kiss his omega - not in the urgent way that wolves often do, but with soft strokes of his human lips and tongue. Kurt isn’t eager to let Blaine go. Blaine can feel that in his kiss. He doesn’t want to be apart from him. Kurt wants Blaine. Kurt’s wolf wants Blaine’s wolf. They’re connected. Kurt lets Blaine see that part of his mind – the part that fantasizes about taking him, claiming him, marking him with his teeth as his own. Kurt’s scent fills the vehicle and devours Blaine, erasing all other smells.

It makes Blaine high to smell Kurt on him.

When Kurt’s lips leave his, it’s with a possessive growl and a bite at the corner of Blaine’s mouth.

“So, are we going to go inside?” Blaine asks, breathless, with Kurt’s growl against his lips and Kurt’s heartbeat tolling in his head.

“Nope. Because I think” - Kurt moves Blaine back onto the bench and lies down over the submissive body of his boyfriend - “the real party is right out here.”