My Former Bully Is My Omega

They buried his mother on a Tuesday.

Ezra thought it was an ordinary day for the world to end.

There weren't many people at the funeral because his mother hadn't been the kind of woman who kept friends or got invited to places. It wasn't entirely her fault. His father had kept her a secret for eighteen years, and she'd learned to live with it.

She had been tucked into a nice apartment in a nice part of town where nice people lived who thought not-so-nice things about her.

Ezra stood at the graveside in a suit his father's assistant had bought him three days ago, still smelling faintly of the store.

He did not cry, because some numb part of him had decided crying would make it final. His father stood a respectful distance away. Far enough away from the mistress's son not to look involved, but close enough to say he'd been there.

"You'll understand eventually," his father told him in the car. "What happened between us. It…wasn't something we could control."

"She's not even in the ground yet."

Ezra wanted him to shut up. He wanted him to never, ever speak about her again.

"I loved her, Ezra. That was never the question." His father's hands stayed steady on the wheel, which Ezra hated him for a little more right then. "It was... a helpless situation."

Ezra looked out the window and said nothing.

Somewhere in that first week, living with a family that had only ever seen him as evidence of something shameful, he swore to himself he would never become his father. He would never be an alpha who took and hid and lied.

He would never be an alpha period.

––––––

The new school took him in without much ceremony.

He found his third-period seat by process of elimination and had barely sat down before someone dropped into the desk beside him, already talking.

"You're new. Obviously." The girl didn't look up from the notebook she was defacing with pen doodles. "I'm Vivian. Welcome and fair warning, this teacher thinks pop quizzes build character, so brace yourself."

"Noted."

"You look like you don't want to be here." She said it lightly, like an observation about the weather. "Rich-family transfer, or witness protection?"

"Something like the first one."

"How tragic. Welcome to Ridgemont. We have a mediocre cafeteria and an amazing swim team." She finally glanced over, assessing him.

He sat up straighter under the gaze of her red glasses.

"You look like you could swim," she finally concluded.

"I do, actually."

"Of course you do." Vivian went back to her doodling, entirely unbothered, and something about her lack of interest made Ezra a little more relaxed.

––––

He joined the team two days later, desperate to grab onto something familiar.

"You're going to make the rest of us look bad," said the guy at the next locker, toweling off after Ezra's first timed lap. His tone suggested he found this more funny than threatening. "Mason. I'd say welcome to the team, but I think the team should be welcoming you."

"Ezra."

"I know, coach already won't shut up about your split." Mason grinned a gap-toothed grin, easy and jovial, the kind of guy who seemed incapable of holding a grudge.

"You're in my AP History too, by the way. Back row, always asleep. That's me."

"I noticed," Ezra said. It was hard to ignore the snoring coming from the back of the class.

"Everyone notices. It's part of my brand." Mason slung his bag over one shoulder. "First meet's Friday. Fair warning, it gets a little intense around here. People care about this more than is reasonable."

Ezra didn't ask what that meant.

________________

He found out on Friday.

The natatorium had the echoing hush of a building that always sounded like being underwater, even from the bleachers.

Ezra was toweling off after his own heat, pulse still up, when he felt the room's attention shift down the deck before he understood why. A ripple of murmurs followed, along with a few heads turning toward the same direction.

He looked, because everyone else was looking.

The blonde boy at the blocks for the next heat didn't do anything showy getting into position. No swagger, no crowd-pleasing wave, just a relaxed confidence.

At the horn, he dove in clean, like the water had simply decided to part for him.

Beautiful, Ezra thought, before he could stop the word from forming. Not handsome. Beautiful.

"That's Soren," Mason said beside him, following his stare. "Calloway. Fastest guy on the team and our part-time friend."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning he's great and I love him, but the guy runs cold sometimes and nobody's figured out why." Mason shrugged. "You'll see. He's not a snob or anything."

Ezra watched Soren touch the wall first, watched the unreadable way he glanced at the scoreboard. He wasn't triumphant. He just looked at the scoreboard and nodded.

He pulled himself out without a word to the teammates clapping him on the back and disappeared toward the locker room like the applause was merely something to survive.

_______________

Across the pool deck, Cole elbowed Soren in the ribs the second he was back on his feet. "You good? You've got a face on."

"I'm fine."

"You say 'I'm fine' like it's a threat." Cole nodded toward the far lane, where Ezra was still getting congratulated by half the team. "New guy's fast."

"I noticed."

"And it's written all over your face, apparently." Cole, unbothered by Soren's tone, bumped his shoulder against Soren's. "Relax. It's one meet."

Soren made himself smile.

He wasn't going to say what he was actually doing. Running frantic math over what it would mean if this stranger turned out to be better than him.

That would mean admitting how much it mattered.

He just needed to beat him. It was nothing uglier than that.

He carried that thought with him to the locker room and let himself believe it. Twenty minutes later Coach Bryant pinned the new relay lineup to the board outside the locker room and half the team crowded in to look.

"Huh," Cole said, reading over Soren's shoulder.

Soren's stomach dropped.

Freestyle leg, anchor position, the spot Soren had held since freshman year, the one his father actually knew the word for, now had two names penciled in beside it, side by side.

His name.

And the new guy's.

By Monday morning, Ezra had realised that Vivian was right about the cafeteria, Mason talked enough to make Ezra’s ears fall off and Coach Bryant did not believe in letting new swimmers ease into anything.

"Again."

Ezra pushed himself away from the wall. His lungs burned.

"Again," Coach Bryant repeated.

He glanced at the clock. "That was my fourth."

"Then you're halfway there."

Mason surfaced in the next lane and pulled his goggles onto his forehead. "He's serious, by the way."

"I gathered that."

"Just making sure."

Ezra laughed despite himself.

Coach Bryant blew his whistle. "One hundred freestyle. Ezra, lane four. Soren, lane five."

Ezra looked over. Soren was already climbing onto the block. He glanced at Ezra. "Don't look so worried."

"I'm not worried."

"You look worried."

"I'm tired."

"Same difference," he shrugged.

Ezra smiled and Soren looked away before Ezra could