Broken

One

Up… down… up… down… Lance McClain was growing dizzy watching his blue stress ball pop up into the air and plop back down in his hands. The emergency room was almost eerily silent, something that rarely happened anymore. Normally it was packed with idiots who had brilliant ideas like eating Tide pods or trying to snort condoms up their noses. Once you've pulled a condom out of a teenager's lung, it's easy to become jaded as a nurse.

"Somebody kill me now," Hunk Garrett groaned, leaning so far back in his rolling chair that Lance was sure it was going to give out on him any second. "Then we would at least have a patient."

"I know," Lance nodded in agreement, setting his stress ball back down on his desk at the central nurse's station and sighing. "It hasn't been this quiet around here in a long ass time."

Hunk pushed off his desk, rolling from one side of the station to the other. "I mean, it's not like I want people to get hurt or anything, but it just seems odd that we're this dead."

"Watch it be a 'calm before the storm' type of thing. We'll let our guard down and then get slammed with a ten car pile-up or a bus crash or something," Lance laughed, kicking his feet up on his desk.

"Why do I get the feeling that you're secretly hoping that'll happen?"

Lance was about to reply when a sudden rush of scent made him damn near fall out of his chair.

"Lance? You okay, buddy?"

"He's back," the head nurse whispered, looking around the empty ER.

Hunk raised an eyebrow, glancing around with him. "Who's back? And why are you acting so weird?"

"Keith," Lance stated bluntly, offering Hunk no other hints as to who he was talking about.

"Do you know how many Keiths we've probably treated over the years?" Hunk asked him, watching him skulk around the room in search of this guy.

Lance grumbled. "Keith! You know, the little omega with the black mullet. He's mute?"

"Ohh! That guy! Wait, you can smell him all the way from the waiting room?" the other nurse wondered, sniffing the air curiously.

"You can't?"

Hunk took another deep inhale, but he couldn't smell anything but Lance's own scent. "Nope. I just smell you, like usual. And how do you know it's him specifically anyways?"

"I'd know his scent anywhere. The first time I treated him, I'd never smelled anything like it. What the hell is the receptionist doing anyways? He's the only one out there!" Lance exclaimed impatiently, pacing in front of the intake door.

"Dude, calm down. They're probably still getting his info."

Lance exhaled slowly, trying to settle down. "Sorry. I'm just bored."

When his iPad finally chimed, notifying them that there was a patient waiting, Lance dove at the counter to grab it and pull up his chart. Taking in a deep breath, he swung open the intake door and stepped into the waiting room. "Keith Kogane?"

The small omega jumped a little, his ass two seconds from making contact with a chair. They usually never got him back so quickly. But he did recognize the nurse calling his name, at least. He stood back up and nodded, following Nurse McClain into the ER.

"What happened this time?" Lance frowned at him, seeing the bright red handprint on his cheek with a deep gash in the middle of it.

Keith just shrugged, pulling out his phone so that he could communicate. 'I tripped.'

Lance snorted in disbelief. "Into someone's hand? I don't know who you think you're fooling, but I can recognize a handprint when I see one."

'Don't worry about it. Do I need stitches?'

The nurse squinted to see his phone screen and then straightened back up, putting his hands on his hips. "Most likely. Do I need to call the police?"

Keith shook his head vigorously, his eyes wide. The action activated his scent glands and sent a cloud of that delicious aroma wafting right up into Lance's face, making him dizzy for a moment. 'No! No police. Just fix me.'

"Are you sure? This is a safe place, Keith. We can help you, but only if you let us," Lance pressed, growing more and more concerned for the omega by the second.

He nodded firmly, and Lance just sighed. He hated seeing signs of abuse like this, especially when the person wasn't willing to do anything about it. He grabbed a suture kit and started to prepare a tray, thinking back to all of the other minor injuries he'd treated Keith for. Every single one pointed to abuse of some kind, but he could never convince him to talk to the police.

A sharp tug to the sleeve of his scrubs startled him and he turned around only to have Keith's phone shoved in his face. 'It can't look like I was here. Can you use normal Band-Aids over the stitches?'

Lance just gave a nod, starting to clean the wound. It wasn't quite as deep as it looked, but it would still need at least five stitches to close it. "Keith… do you have an alpha?" he wondered, feeling the burning need to figure out who was doing this to him.

The little omega nodded, scrolling through his phone before showing Lance a picture of him. The guy sure looked like a typical alpha-tall, muscular, broad… He also looked quite a bit older than Keith too. After showing him the picture, Keith brought his notepad back up and typed in the heart-eyes emoji, smiling.

"You're pretty smitten, huh?" Lance asked, getting another adorable little nod from Keith. "I feel the same way about my wife."

'I didn't realize you had a mate. Er… a wife. Why don't you wear a ring?'

"Maybe because I wash my hands ten thousand times a day?" he laughed, taking off one of his gloves so that he could reach down the front of his scrubs and pull out a gold wedding band on a chain. "She'd kill me if I lost it."

Keith was typing away while Lance tucked away his ring again and put on a fresh glove. 'Are you an alpha or a beta? I can't tell. Which is weird, 'cause I can usually tell immediately.'

Lance chuckled, blushing softly. "I'm a beta. But it's nice that you'd think I could be an alpha."

'You give off a strong scent like alphas do, but you act more like a beta. I've never really seen someone like that before.'

"You're the one with the strong scent!" Lance informed him. "I could smell the second you stepped into the hospital!"

'My mate tells me that too. I have stronger pheromones than a lot of other omegas.'

"Try to keep your head up," he mumbled, lifting Keith's chin so he had enough light to clean out his wound properly. "Keith, is it your mate that's hurting you like this? Just because you're an omega doesn't make it okay to take abuse. There are plenty of omegas who do just fine without an alpha."

'He's a good guy.'

"If he's hurting you, then I can assure you he's not a good guy."

Keith got this defiant, pissy look on his face. 'Yes he is! He just can't help it sometimes.'

"How long are you gonna keep telling yourself that?"

'Shut up and fix my face already.'

Lance had to give the small omega props; he was definitely a feisty one. Usually omegas were very subservient in nature, and listened even to betas without question. Keith was quite the opposite.

He sat there in a huffy mood while Lance began to delicately stitch his face, occasionally mumbling to himself in what sounded like another language. Spanish, maybe?

'You don't sound like you're from Nebraska originally. What's your accent?'

"It's Cuban," Lance told him, finding the way that he could type on his phone without even looking rather interesting. Though if it was the only way he'd been communicating all this time, it made sense. "I grew up along Veradero Beach. Moved out here for med school. It's funny… most people don't pick up on my accent at all."

'I mostly hear it when you speak Spanish. What are you muttering to yourself anyways?'

"Nothing important. Just thinking about what my mother would say if she saw a handprint on me like this. Doesn't your family notice what he does to you?"

'Dad died when I was a kid. Mom ran off when I was a baby.'

Lance might as well just shove his foot in his mouth while he's at it. "Sorry…"

Keith fell silent again for awhile, setting his phone in his lap while the nurse finished his stitches and tied them off. He saw Lance's hand go for a gauze dressing, but then he stopped and grabbed a traditional Band-Aid instead, adhering it to Keith's cheek.

"You need to change this at least twice a day, cleaning around your stitches when you do. They'll dissolve over time. Shouldn't take long."

He nodded, taking the box of Band-Aids that Lance was holding out to him. But when it came time for him to get up and leave, he lingered.

"What's wrong? Do you need anything?"

'Uh… I know this is a weird question, but… do they make birth control for omegas?'

Lance raised an eyebrow, a bit taken aback. "They do, but we rarely get requests for it. Why?"

'If I were to take it… would he know? I mean, would it screw with my scent or my heat or anything? It's not the same as a suppressant, right?'

"It might regulate when your heat comes and goes a bit more, but it shouldn't affect you other than that. It'll basically just inhibit your ability to reproduce. Did… you want me prescribe it for you?" It was so unusual for an omega to ask for birth control. Their very existence revolved around finding a mate and being bred.

Keith thought for a moment before nodding slowly, his eyes locked on the floor in shame.

Lance pulled up Keith's chart on his iPad again and put in the order for him. "You can pick it up at the hospital pharmacy before you leave. It's just off the main lobby. And hey… don't feel bad about wanting it. I'm sure you have your reasons."

'I love him, but I can't bring a child into this…'

That just made the nurse practicioner furious. "Why do you stay with him?! I don't get it!"

'When I said he couldn't help it, I meant it. He's bipolar.'

"Yeah, but… I mean, does he take medication? Most people with bipolar disorder can lead relatively normal lives with the right meds. It doesn't give him an excuse to beat you!"

'His alpha rejects whatever meds he tries to take. His body just burns right through it.'

Lance had heard of that happening before. Sometimes a person's alpha side was so strong that their bodies would reject whatever they tried to use to suppress it. "I can understand that, but what I don't get is why you feel the need to be with him when he's capable of hurting you like this."

'Because 95% of the time, he's a perfect, sweet, amazing man and I love him. If I occasionally have to take a hit, it's still worth it.'

"Do you even realize how ridiculous you sound?!" Lance exclaimed, flailing his iPad around until Hunk came over and took it out of his hand. His coworker always got nervous when Lance started talking with his hands.

'Why do you care so much?! I'm just some pathetic little omega!'

Lance felt like bashing his head into a wall. "It doesn't matter if you're an omega! Nobody deserves to be abused!"

'You have no right to tell me how to live my life. I'm perfectly happy, and I'd appreciate it if you'd stop insinuating things about my alpha.'

"Fine. Go back to him. I guess I'll just put a bed on reserve for you here," he grumbled. This was absolutely the worst part of his job; seeing problems like this that he couldn't fix.

Keith just rolled his eyes and grabbed his jacket off the bed, shoving his arms in the sleeves. He didn't need his phone to convey his next message, flipping Lance off as he walked out of the room.

Lance watched him go, steaming with anger. When he turned back around to walk to the nurse's station, Hunk was giving him a very confused look.

"Uh… so I only heard one side of that whole conversation, but… is everything okay? Like… should we call someone or something?"

"We can't," Lance huffed, dropping into his desk chair. "He has to be willing to file charges. We can't prove that his alpha was the one who assaulted him."

Hunk fidgeted with the watch around his wrist, nodding. "Right… the broken system in all it's glory. But hey, why were you getting so upset? You were acting more like a family member just now. Do you know him outside of here or something?"

"No, I'd never seen him before he first came in a few months ago. I don't know what got me so riled up, honestly. When I realized that his injuries were all from his alpha, I just kind of lost it."

"You know you can't keep doing that, right? He could call our boss and get you fired if he wanted to," Hunk reminded him.

Lance had to laugh at that. "I don't think he'll be calling anyone."

"Oh. Right. He's mute. Well, he could send a strongly worded email!"

"No, you're right. I've got to get myself in check. Hopefully we'll never see him in here again and it won't be an issue." Lance wanted to believe that more than anything, but he had a gut feeling that Keith would be back.

Suddenly Lance's iPad squawked at them, and he picked it up. "We've got incoming. We're gonna need all hands on deck."

"I knew it. I knew it couldn't stay quiet all day," Hunk sighed, standing up and stretching before the surgical interns began to flood the ER for the incoming trauma.

As Lance pulled on his trauma gown and gloves, his mind kept wandering back to that omega. Why exactly did he care so much anyways?