Chapter 1

The missed condition

Author's notes:

May2014 Plan Notes: I am re-vising and editing all chapters and re-posting them. Please re-read this fic and/or watch out for updates of chapters. Thank you for your patience.

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Admittance to Epsilon

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Alfred Jones looked over the clauses of the front page submission papers for what felt like 100th time. All of his information was entered correctly and all of the proper health documents and parental acceptance attached. Everything check, check check. He felt nervous re-reading all of the clauses and conditions.

Video footage used for education purposes, blurred faces, names of patients excluded in research,privacy concerns, legalities, liabilities, termination clauses of research and of participation. Conditions... conditions... conditions...

"You know you really don't need to do this honey..."

Alfred's eyes briefly flickered to his mother who'd spoke before jamming the pile of papers in the machine. Finally pressed the blue 'send' button.

There! Done. "Its my choice mom."

The petite Omega woman simply wished to comfort her child. However, knowing the Alpha would simply brush her worries away with his sweet smile she simply sighed and dropped her shoulders in slight mock-dejection. He'd been 16 for a while now. A grown Alpha by the State's standards. Yet she always felt he'd always be too young. He was her baby after all.

Yet, as an Alpha, he wouldn't appreciate her trying to change his mind furthur anyways. He'd made up his mind ages ago and had done pretty thorough research. At a deep level, Alfred knew she understood his predicament rather well. Better than his own father did anyways... She was a Yin-Omega and while of opposite natures, her nature's instincts were at least similar to his problems.

While it was natural and instinctual for her. It wasn't abnormal for him.

What he experienced when puberty hit was obviously a genetic glitch. The Epsilon research centre was his only hope for any semblance of normalcy in his life. His parents weren't able to deal with his condition and he didn't want to saddle them with the stressful obligation to deal with him as he would grow more and more out of hand. This was all for the best...

It was a fairly warm spring day. Matthew smiled gently as he pulled up the car up front of the tall grey building's gates.

"W'help, this is my new home Mattie! Wish me luck bro!" The older brother popped out of the vehicle with a skip, belying his nervousnous. With false confidence he grabbed his large duffel bag and swung the brown lump over his shoulder.

The younger blonde bit his bottom lip, purple eyes worried. "Are you sure they'll let me visit you... and stuff?"

Alfred guffawed deeply in his signature trademark laugh. "Of course dude! Why wouldn't they? Its not like its a prison. Well... unless I'm uh... you know…" Looking around, he could see why his young omega brother would think so. There were pretty defensive walls for a research facilities. "If you can ignore the barbed wires its like boot-camp or something!"

The blonde stopped himself, he didn't even like to talk overly about it. Not even to his half-brother. Matthew nodded but still held a look of uncertainty. His hands tapped and fiddled nervously on the steering wheel.

"C…Call me if you forgot something back home. I'll bring it to the centre's dorms once you text me your address. Okay?" The slighter brother dipped his head in a dottingly endearing way.

"Alrighty! Ciao Matt!" Alfred turned around and waved his hand, dismissing his brother rather abruptly. Only because he wanted to hug the omega for being so darn cute and inspiring his possessive Pro-Alpha side.

Seriously, his WHOLE family were just a bunch of worry-warts! Alfred straightened his shoulders before stomping up the stairs like he owned the place.

He signed in relief when he heard the car start back up and roll away. Well.. it couldn't be helped. His mother was Omega, as well as his brother and his father was a Beta who'd (against all odds) had a child with her that was opposite spectrum of themselves. They didn't have a family pack. He was the first Alpha born in the Jones family. Besides... that Matthew was 'inseminated' by an Alpha sponsor-father once his genetic defects had been discovered. To honour the Alpha-sperm donor, they were obliged to name Matthew with his last name. A condition most surrogate families saw no problem with. His parents hadn't taken any chances when they'd wanted another child. He sometimes felt awkwardly unwanted because of it. Even though he knew his parents loved him as much as they did Matthew.

The door slid open automatically as he approached it and he made a Bee-lined to the reception desk. They'd been waiting for him if the Beta brunette smiling warmly and gretting him in a calm voice by his name was any indication.

"Mr. Jones? This way please."

The Beta assistant picked up a clipboard he'd signed his presence-inn and indicated with hand gestures that he should follow her as she moved from reception. The young blonde picked up his duffel-bag and trailed behind her, leaving the semi- deserted lobby. The Epsilon research centre was dauntingly big. Certain areas were heavilly guarded and sealed off completely with metal electric retractable doors.

The Pro-Alpha gulped, the place reminded him of an asylum of somekind. But it certainly wasn't a prison, he reminded himself in a mental mantra. Its a medical research faculty dammit! Why was he so scared? Alpha's weren't scared, they were the heroes! He wasn't like most Alphas though… His train of thought just kept spiralling until he noticed they'd reach their destination as the Beta stopped in her tracks.

"Wait a moment for Dr. Bonefoye. He should be here momentarily sir for your preliminary."

The American nodded. "Ok. Thanks."

The whole place and room smelt very sterile. Well... it was to be expected of a facility that researched psycho-hormonal disorders.

He'd done his own amount of research on the place. Once he'd submitted his papers and volunteered for the research trials, he had expected to stay for a few years. Dorms, food, health and his full education would be taken care for. Including a small stipend of money to set him up to college. The whole facility was staffed by people with extensive background checks, councillors and legal advisors closely attended. There were so many things he'd had to revise and sign once he'd been accepted. It had taken a whole week of pseudo-homework to go through all of it. If there was one thing Pro-Alphas were good at, it was pursuing their goals stubbornly. Thankfully he'd inherited that Alpha-trait.

Waiting in the sterile examination room, he noticed the credentials of MR. Bonefoye. The guy had gone to some places... What were those? Awards? Honours? Damn.

"Monsieur Jones?"

He turned around and was hit right away by the other man's smell. Another Alpha. What the hell?! He felt his whole back and body tense up. What were those pheromones supposed to mean again? He placed a hand on his nose and sniffled. Dammit! He felt a cold sweat starting to break. What a bad way to meet his physician.

"Bonjours, je m'appelle Dr. Bonefoye. You may call me Francis. It is a pleasure, I am sure!" The older Alpha seemed rather the smug kind. "I'll be your physician while you are here. Z-ough I will not be the only person working on your particular case, you will meet zhem in time."

The long haired blonde held his hand out in greeting. While Alfred went through the motions, he couldn't keep but do loops in his head trying to figure out why the faculty would have an Alpha doctor and not a Beta. By his accent, it was obvious that he was french.

Why an Alpha thought? Assigned to his case! Didn't they know?

"I can tell by your posture 'Monsieur' Jones that you are rather disturbed. Let me put you at ease... I am a hormone-neutre Ap-Alpha and have regularly bleach treatments against pheremone caption. I only emit pheromones. I'm asked to treat a few serious specific cases. Yours for one. Usually I only do video-research and consultation."

That... calmed him down minutely. But also brought up many other questions. So the man couldn't capt him? At least that gave him a sense of privacy and comfort in that Francis wouldn't miss-read him.

The fact remained however, that Francis Bonefoye smelt like an Alpha. His tone of voice and his body-posture held high were also indicative of one. He found it odd that any self-respecting Alpha would handicap themselves sexuality by accepting the equivalent of a vasectomy and going nature-blind. He didn't know Francis's story and so Alfred refrained from asking. Though he really REALLY was curious to know.

The doctor had been holding a clipboard, the very same the Beta assistant had been holding previously. He flipped over the pages and pinched them to an entry, holding them open.

"Let me simply re-state zhe conditions you've been admitted for. Az well as ask you a few more questions to complete the medical dossier. Correct me where I am wrong 'Monsieur' Jones." The polite title spoken in french threw him off a bit.

"Just call me Alfred. It'll be easier man." The young American said casually and crossed his arms in a sub-consciously defensive posture.

It had all started when he turned 14. At first he had felt sick...

His mother had given him permission to stay at home, noticing he was running a slight fever. It had only worsened as the day went on. Later that day he'd gotten his first genuine erection. It had been painful... not to mention embarrassing! Dizzy, he'd called his father at work after consulting his mother. The man had been awkwardly informant about his puberty but the erection persisted. It had gotten worse and worse and after a slight temper-tantrum and aggressive fit over something as simple as opening a wind. His mother had pretty much physically wrestled him as any diligent-motherly Omega would, into wearing a scarf around his throat where most of his hormone emanating glands were and blocking his nose with a pool nose-bridge pinch. His mother could be scary sometimes!

Awkwardly, in this manner, she hadn't hesitated in driving him to the hospital.

Her logic and motherly Omega instinct had been impeccable. There had been no unrelated Omega heat scents to trigger his odd arousal and he was showing all the signs of falling into 'Rut'. Surprisingly the collar had worked and the scarf at some degree. Her quick thinking may have saved him from something far more disastrously embarrassing. It had still been very traumatic. At the end of the day, he'd been incensed in 'Rut'. Having no memory of anything past being admitted to the seclusion room of the hospital, wrestled by the staff and then blissful nothingness...

At the end of it, he'd been covered in bruises and strapped down, an IV stuck in him. It had taken him almost 2 weeks to recuperate from it.

The doctors had diagnosed him then and there. Francis was simply repeating what he already knew.

'You have a very rare syndrom Alfred. In your case a version of an Omegas gene switches on. Even z-ough you're born biologically and psychologically Alpha, zhe gene causes you to falsely smell an Omega in heat in zhe same cycles as one normally would. A state unique to Alphas with zhis condition: 'MUST.'"

Alfred hated the whole thing! He har-umphed as Francis kept revised his case with him. It was a preliminary before doing a physical later in the week. The purpose was to interact with him just to get comfortable. He'd gone through a few 'Musts' already. At least half a dozen. During the cycle he was aggressively compulsively driven to copulate.

Unlike an Omega who's instincts was to remain in a safe place and create a comfortable nest to pass the lethargy of a Heat. As an Alpha he was instinctually drive to seek out a partner while in 'Must'. This made him incredibly dangerous, not only towards others, but also to himself. An Alpha in 'Must' was considered clinically insane and incapacitated. He could literally walk out into the middle of the road and be killed by a collision without care. Or even attack, potentially killing anyone which kept him from his intended goal.

He was a walking raping bomb. It was just such a horrible and scary thought.

"Alfred. As I understand it, your previous doctor has been prescribing you oestrogen pills on zhe advent of the first symptoms of your 'must'. It was to help you remain clear-headed?"

He nodded. "Yeah, they helped a bit. Bit I always feel sort'a… drunk while on them. Most of it is a blur. I don't hurt myself as much when I'm on them apparently."

"How long does your 'must' last when you are on zhem?" The frenchman brought pen on paper, ready to scribble his answer.

"About 3 days instead of 5."

Francis gulped, tapping the pen on his clipboard. "5 days is unusually long for a Must."

Alfred blinked, lips set in a straight line. "That's why they put me on oestrogen." He shrugged.

"I see zhat you have another condition which complicates th-ings. I'm wondering if giving you oestrogen was zhe right decision considering."

It was another thing that concerned him on top of having to go through 'must'. "I know I... I'm fucked up."

The older Alpha clicked his tongue at him, frowning.

"Its not your fault Alfred. Never speak ill of yourself in zhat way. It is not a matter of your choice." He was being rather serious. "It is out of your control. Drugs, trials and error for treating conditions are never easy. Not only is 'Must' rare as a condition… But so is intermittent nature identifying disorder. I'm glad you accepted to be admitted to zhe facility, truly. It will help both you and ozhers with zhe conditions."

"Thats... thats why I applied." It definitely was…. Alfred had had this argument with his dad as well as himself multiple times when he'd been scared and reticent to apply to the facility. He needed help... he really did. But what made him finally take the final decision was that he'd be helping others too.

"Of course! It is to be expected by a Pro-Alpha nature such as yourself."

Francis smirked, continuing to scribble notes. The pheremones the doctor emanated were registering to Alfred that he was 'irritated', his facial expression was anything but and the physician's body posture was relaxed. Thankfully Mr. Bonnefoye could not smell any return smell-signals he would have been sending. Epsilon sure seemed to know what they were doing.

That was the problem with his nature identifying disorder or DNID, The pheromone queues confused him to no end. On top of having 'Must' he had this 2nd medical condition! Alfred bit his lower lip, he was learning to control his base impulses just as every Alpha did about his age. Especially the aggressive reactions. He knew he'd wanted to snap at the older Alpha for (falsely) being irritated with him, but mentally he knew the other wasn't at all displeased with him.

He knew it was his darn DNID working up again! Medical professionals agreed that it was something causing the pheromone captors of a subject. Giving mixed pheromone signals than what was intended. It was a bit like being colour blind or dyslexic... He had the annoyingly intermittent version.

It went on and off.

He pitied those that had it constantly active. Responding so long to error-scent cues could cause nature identity problems. Thank goodness they'd caught him while he was young and he'd learnt to compensate other ways.

"So you have been exposed by your doctor to basic pheromones and re-conditioning therapy?"

Alfred was getting tired of this and fidgeted in his seat. "Yes and yes."

"You wrote in your file zhat you've felt sexual attraction to Omegas in Heat before. Despite having DNID. It's not unheard of an Alpha having problems picking up zhose pheromones. Zhat's reassuring non?" The blonde smiled warmly. "There's also a note by your doctor zhat you had the most problems with smells related to fear and aggression."

The young blonde nodded and the doctor sighed slightly, seeming to think longly and wrapping his mind around all of this information. They way the young Alpha must feel about them and how growing up with the two conditions combined would have to have been difficult.

"Its not stable..." Alfred started. "I mean... Sometimes, Omega scents are nice, sometimes they irritate me and I get really riled up and mad about them. My Doctors believe they are linked to my 'Must' cycles somehow."

The older man smiled warmly again. Francis seemed to be the kind of Alpha that smiled entirely too much in his opinion. Maybe it was to make him more approachable? It seemed to only make him uncomfortable currently. Especially with his pheromone queues all over the place. Alfred usually ignored scents (as best he could) until he knew someone better. That way, if there was a misleading smell, he could make up by knowing the other personally and avoid miss-understandings.

"We'll figure zhis all out for your Alfred. I'll be working on a schedule and some basic non evasive tests. First I s'ink we should get you used to zhe way s'ings are done here."

"Sure..." Alfred said dismissively.

"I see you go through a 2 month cycle. Even quarterly heats are rare in Omegas. This is the highest we've ever registered for a 'Must'. It the primary reason you were accepted quickly in Epsilon. Last question: Are you lucid enough on oestrogen medication during your 'Must' to answer questions?"

The young American blinked. "I don't know... No one bothered asking me during."

The parisian smiled in a way that made Alfred slightly uncomfortable.

"First time for everyzing!"

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Alfred gawked at the agenda; there were 5 in his age group that were part of the study this year. What would they all be like?

Miss-fits, malformed or psychotic? Oh swell! 2 of them were Alphas. He wondered if any of them had 'Must' too?

While sifting through the information sheets and his agenda, he discovered that Francis was in fact the lead physician at his entire age group as well as the lead researcher on 'Must' syndrome.

'My oh my. I must be either special or lucky'. Alfred thought. He certainly didn't feel lucky.

Alfred looked at his schedule, munching on an apple to ward his grumbling stomach. His packing boxes were still stacked in a corner of his bachelor-type dorm. Mostly untouched. He didn't have any more information on the other admitted other than their natures and genders. All of them were male. Females were studied in a seperate ward for safety and apparent research purposes. Well if he knew nothing about the patients, they certainly knew nothing about him either!

Yay… blank slate and an opportunity to perhaps make friends. He looked forward to it.

Sitting back up from his stomach laying position he texted his brother the dorm address. Teasing him in a brotherly fashion a bit before going to unpack his things. The small-screened TV and videogame console went up first. Hell yeah! There was nothing like killing zombies to take your mind off of the prospect of meeting hormonally screwed up individuals as much as him!

Just the thought of what other kinds of conditions the others would have gave him the hibby jibies. He wasn't scared. Nope. Not him. He was an Alpha! He was just worried *for* them! What would they be like? Would he get into fights with the Alphas? Would they be best friends, buddies bros? Yeah... the lab-rat pack, the guinea-pig club! This could be fun!

He snickered, his mind just making up weird scenarios.

After playing an hour or so, Alfred got serious and unpacked the rest of his stuff in his little bachelor-place. Soon he'd be visited by the dorm attendant and given a tour of the rest of the facility. He looked forward to learning the location of the cafeteria for the evening meal. The young American was still trying to settle his own mixed feelings on the prospect of living here for a few years. At the moment, he felt a bit trapped. Would that change and become worse when they finally started poking and prodding him? With instruments? OMG! Would they poke him with instruments!?

Argh!

There was a knock on the door and he dropped an empty box. Startling slightly.

"I'll be right there!" He hollered, shuffling and pushing wrapping papers out of the way from his unpacking.

He opened the door and met the dorm attendant!

"Hello Mr. Jones?" A long haired brunette smiled at him.

He nodded. "My name is Elizabetha Hevedary. Its nice to meet you!"

The Beta (was it a Beta? She had almost no smell) extended her hand and he shook it firmly, as only a self-assured Alpha would. With LOTS of enthusiasm and a radiant sparkling smile that he couldn't keep from producing.

"So your my tour guide! Neat-oh, I'm starving! Could you show me the cafeteria first?"

He was practically vibrating at the thought of food. Blue eyes exorbitantly large in his enthusiasm forgetting all manners towards his facilitator. She threw her head back and laughed, not in the least offended.

"Sure thing!"

Elizabeth looked like she was in her mid-20s. Probably an intern for the facility. Alfred crossed his arms up and over his head following the woman. Half listening, storing bits and pieces of information in his head for later use. Food was on his mind and nothing else would deter him from his goal. As they entered, he noticed most of the people were staff. A single individual stood out. Amongst all the nurse outfits and white coated medical researchers, was a teen. About his age, wearing a pale green pull over a sable coloured shirt. Unless he was someone's kid at the facility, he was a bit out of place.

Elizabeth tapped his shoulder, snapping his attention back to her. She handed him a card.

"Its your food-card. It'll get you a basic meal. If you want anything extra though it'll add a tab and you'll have to pay the extra expense from the pocket money the facility provides you for your participation in research." She picked up a tray and handed it to him.

"Thanks! Uh, is the food here like hospital food? I hate hospital food!" He made a face.

The brunette laughed again. "No, its nice. Whatever you get, they'll see pop up. After your physical, the nutritionist should be giving you some advice on your meals. So if I were you, I'd make sure you eat a balanced diet! Otherwise they get on your case for it."

She flicked her hair back and blinked a few times at him. Oh... flirt much? Alfred thought briefly. Alpha instinct kicking in. He certainly liked her!

"Think you can get back to your dorm by yourself?"

"Oh yeah! No problem! I'm on top of it!"

"Alright then!" She waved goodbye but remained in the area, approaching some of her colleges at the facility no doubt.

Alfred puffed up his chest subconsciously (as any Alpha would do). Feeling particularly happy with his first day. No blunders, no making a fool of himself. He shuffled up to the menu area to look up the selection.

"Oh sweet Hamburgers! Yup! Definitely getting myself some of that!"

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