Alpha/Beta/Omega 'verse; Alpha!Law, Omega!Kid; drunkenness; acquaintance. Kid is almost impossible to understand, so if translations are needed let me know!

Prequel to Absence makes the heart grow fonder, Spontaneous Knotting, Sincerely with Love, I'll Always Be Yours, never a dull moment, and if you can remember me, I wil be with you forever.


"Y'don' touch me a'ym're."

"Sorry?" Law asked, blinking.

"Y'us'd t' touch me all th' time," Kid mumbled, stumbling on a jagged stone.

Law righted him automatically, tightening his arm around the Omega's waist as he scrambled to find an answer. He'd never seen Kid drunk before; the younger man usually drank slowly over a long time and never seemed more than slightly tipsy. Law had definitely never seen him sway on his feet or had to steady him before. It had always been Kid helping him home, not the other way around. Law didn't know how he'd managed not to thoroughly embarrass himself numerous times, though maybe he just didn't remember and Kid didn't bring it up.

"Law?" Kid was leaning into him, almost toppling over a bump in the road in an effort to catch his eye.

"I thought you didn't like me touching you," he answered, half-holding the bigger man up as he found his feet again.

"I don' like bein' touch'd us'l'y, bu' i' was OK when y'did i'." Law could barely understand him between the slurred speech and pronounced accent. "Y'were- jus' bein' fr'en'ly; di'n' mean no'hin'- no 'a'm."

It hadn't seemed to Law like Kid appreciated his touch. He'd stiffened and shied away at first and then not reacted at all. Kid was good company, and Law valued their acquaintance. He wasn't going to destroy it by making the younger man uncomfortable.

"You didn't show it."

"I wasn' sure 'ow t' wi'hou' enc'ragin' y'."

"Without what?"

"Enc'ra'in' y'."

"Enc'-? Enc'ra'- Encouraging me?"

"T'-t'-t' g' fu'th'r. Alphas- Alphas ain'- Omegas don' a'wa's- No' a'ways tr'ted good."

Law wasn't sure how to respond to that. He knew Omegas were rarer in South Blue than the rest of the world – families had tried to keep them to themselves to make sure strong, healthy children were born but failed to realise that only made Alphas more common – but he hadn't imagined they were badly treated. Omegas were treasured, the most prized of the genders – especially the males with their unique ability to carry two pregnancies to term at the same time without harm to the children. To hurt an Omega was the worst thing most people could imagine, and purposefully hurting one-! It was an abomination. The most terrible thing Law could think of.

"You know a bad Alpha?" He tightened his arm protectively around the Omega, looking him over surreptitiously for any sign of mistreatment – bruises, scratches, bite marks; anything – but saw nothing.

Kid was silent for a while before he answered.

"Did. Lon' time ago."

He said no more, staring ahead, and Law was too busy trying to imagine what 'long time ago' meant and exactly what horrible thing said 'bad' Alpha had done to his friend to keep up a conversation.

He would have three years to imagine all sorts of gruesome things before Kid ever let him broach the subject again.

None of which came even close to the truth.

It takes a special kind of twistedness to hurt someone the way Kid had been hurt.

A twistedness the 'Surgeon of Death' couldn't even begin to imagine.