Pistachios and Stories
By: AndiKaneUnderwood
My fourth installment, whoop, whoop!
Milo really couldn't believe his life sometimes, it was too insane even for him.
He was 18 years old and working for an off the grid agency known only as the Company. He'd been recruited when he was young, only about five to six years old, and trained for a long time as an elite weapon until the age of twelve when he was deemed ready to play with other kids his age. He was put on a team of three others.
One he knew, Melissa Chase, whom he'd been friends with since he was young.
The second, Mort Schueffer, who had been going to school with Milo and Melissa since they'd hit fourth grade.
The third had started going to school with them in the sixth grade, but even then Milo found himself drawn to Zak Underwood.
Even if he'd barely known her.
So, really, Milo had been training for even the most insane of missions and circumstances, with or without a team, since he was six years old.
There was nothing that could've prepared him with living, breathing, walking, talking (take your pick their all insane) pistachio trees.
Nor the feeling of vulnerability that hit him as he looked at the Pistachion baring over him with a sick grin on his face. Milo gasped, feeling too week and too enclosed.
Suddenly he was back inside the too small cell with the overbearing, synthesized Alpha man standing over him with a sharp look. Suddenly he was too far into Heat to stop it and he had nothing to help him. Suddenly, it was too dark and too small and he could feel every drag of pain and every thrust inside him and he screamed.
Milo blinked and he was back on the battle field with the same man standing over him and he couldn't bring himself to move. He couldn't feel anything, he couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe!
"Milo!" Cried a new voice and a bat cracked against the side of the Pistachion's head and the creature fell to the ground.
Vinnie Dakota stood wear the Pistachion had once been and he knelt down, blue-brown eyes wide behind the glasses he loved so much (the lenses where cracked but that was alright, Vinnie didn't seem to mind). "Are you alright?" He asked.
Milo shook his head, hands gripping his hair with enough strength to pull down a brick wall. His body shook and he couldn't remember where he was or what he was doing or even his own name, but Vinnie understood anyway.
He laid a gentle hand on Milo's shaking shoulders. "Hey, Milo, come on, we've gotta get somewhere safer."
Milo's voice was too small and too soft when he replied, but Vinnie would take it over shaking and silent.
Vinnie stood and held out a hand with a smile, keeping his front to the kid, but subtly checking for more danger as well.
Milo's shaking hand slowly reached out to Vinnie's and it was two minutes before Vinnie managed to get Milo to stand.
"Zak and Melissa. Mort." He murmured, hoping Vinnie would understand that too.
"Friends of yours?" Vinnie asked the younger Omega with a knowing look. "We found a group of three kids about your age, maybe that'll be them." The Omega replied and Milo felt relief crash into his chest.
"Okay." He let Vinnie lead him to an old abandoned sewer.
It all came crashing back to him. The Pistachion uprising, the capture of his parents, alongside Melissa's and Zak's. The demands of the Company's surrender and the demand of the Time Bureau's surrender. He remember a building crashing as a result of Milo's surprise and upset feelings and he immediately found his backpack, Diogee and his mission suit, knowing that he would need to find his team if he wanted to win this.
He'd told Diogee to find and stay with Melissa, Zak, and Mort (he hoped that meant Diogee was with Balthazar and Vinnie too) before he'd left to see if he could find a weakness to the Pistachions.
He was blindsided by the offending creatures not even an hour into his search. He wasn't getting slow and he hadn't underestimated them, nor had the creature sneaked up on him, Milo had just been hit by a dirty play and hadn't recovered in time.
(Mentally he made a note to do some training by himself; he needed to relearn how to work without a team to back him up.)
Milo was lucky Vinnie had been there, otherwise he wasn't sure the Pistachion would've let him live.
"So tell me, Milo, why weren't you fighting back?" Vinnie asked in a whisper as he checked the corner and surrounding area for hostiles.
"I..." Milo trailed off, still too embarrassed and the wound too fresh to speak about. Talking about it with Zak, his Mate and Alpha, was one thing, but he hadn't even told Melissa about what had happened to him while he was held hostage, how was he supposed to tell Vinnie.
Who was a very close friend ever since they saved a pistachio shipment.
(When the security guards had been looking for some easy money they had grabbed Dakota with intent sell him and nearly succeeded until Milo kicked both their butts and left them on the ground.
Milo pulled the gag from Vinnie's mouth and smiled. "Some security, right?" He asked with a laugh.
Vinnie laughed too, the breathless, nervous sort and nodded. "Some security." Vinnie replied.)
Milo swallowed and countered with a question he very much wanted the answer to. "I'll tell you if you tell me why you didn't fight back at the museum when you where captured by security guards."
Vinnie froze, making a strangled noise in the back of his throat and his eyes glazed briefly, staring off into nothingness for a few seconds and then he grabbed Milo suddenly, pulling him into an old building.
Vinnie took a few deep, calming breaths. Then he sighed and pulled off his beloved glasses, looking at Milo with his blue-brown eyes sad and begging him to understand. "Okay. If I tell you this story, it stays between us, alright? Balthazar knows, but no one else. It wasn't one of my best moments." Vinnie looked at Milo with such a pleading and utterly broken face, Milo found himself nodded (though he would've agreed anyways).
Vinnie drew in a deep, shaky breath and Milo moved closer to offer what little comfort he could bring.
"Okay. So, when I was little, all I ever wanted to do was travel. I wanted to go to exotic places like Paris and Rio and Transylvania." Vinnie smiled a sad little smile and Milo's heart broke even more for this older Omega he'd become fond of.
"When I turned eight, my parents bought me this..." A sigh, "This red, toy plane that you could wind up and it would move and spin and even hover a little. I loved the plane and I took it with me everywhere. One day, I lost the plane inside this huge department store. There were so many places I couldn't check them all, but I did anyway. I left my Mother's cart and I ran off to go look for it.
"I checked everywhere, the mattress store, the food court, even the bathrooms, but I never found the plane. So, I gave up, cut my losses and hoped that whoever found it loved it just as much as I had. I went back to go find my Mom, but I couldn't remember the way." Tears began to fill Vinnie's eyes as he remembered the panic and hurt at the thought that his mother had abandoned him. Milo scooted a little closer and slowly leaned against Vinnie's side.
He didn't know if it meant Vinnie wasn't bothered by it or if he was so lost in thought he hadn't noticed, but the older Omega brought an arm around Milo's slight body and hugged him a little closer. Milo didn't complain, only offered what comfort and soothing thoughts he could.
"I searched for hours and hours, but I couldn't find my mother. I finally just sat at a bench and cried. I don't know how long I was there before this man found me. At that point, I was apparently presenting, because he said he could smell me. Both my parents where Betas and they hadn't explained to me what any of it meant, so I just went along with whatever this guy said. He told me he knew where my Mom was, so I followed him off to this warehouse that absolutely stank and I kept wondering why my mom would be at a place like that. I asked the guy, but he never answered."
Vinnie hugged Milo a little closer and sighed. "Kid, it was awful in there. There where Alphas rutting on Omegas and Omegas being forced to pleasure the Alphas and Betas running the joint, just standing by and letting it happen." Vinnie's eyes screwed shut as if he could still see it and Milo burrowed even closer with a shudder.
"It sounds awful." He murmured and Vinnie nodded. "It really was."
Vinnie chuckled, though it held no humor. "I won't horrify you with all the gross details, but the man said that I lived here now. That I was meant to follow the rules and pleasure the Alphas." Vinnie sighed. "So, I did what an eight year old would do and I did. I learned how to obey the rules; I learned how to get down on my knees. I learned how to do things I didn't even know existed. Eventually, when I was twenty..." Vinnie thought for a minute, "Four, I think. Yeah, twenty four. I was sold off to an undercover time agent. That was Balthazar." Vinnie smiled the same sad smile he'd given Milo when the younger boy had hesitated back out in the field.
"After sixteen years in that place, about the only thing I knew how to do was please an Alpha, so you can imagine how the first couple of nights went." Milo smiled back at Vinnie with no humor on his face.
"So, after about a week, he'd started telling me all about who I used to be, about the real world. He started teaching me how to be someone beyond a slave used for nothing but pleasure. He taught me to be a time agent." Vinnie didn't like remembering the phantom feelings of foreign hands traveling over his skin, he shivered and Milo came close as he possibly could.
"So, I did what I did and I learned. Over time, I found out that the place I'd been at had pretty much burned, it was chock full of enemy time agents. I learned how to function in normal society and I found out how to be me again." Vinnie leaned back with his arms still around Milo and he laughed. "Man, that place sure screwed me up, I was a mess, blamed myself for everything. Didn't even know I'd been raped." Vinnie looked at Milo. "Still have 'panic attack' nightmares about it." He told Milo.
"But, long story short. I got out and six years later, here I am. The reason I froze up back in the museum is because I recognized one of the security guards from the place." Vinnie told him.
Milo suddenly felt really stupid. His problem was practically nonexistent compared to Vinnie's, but when the older Omega looked at him with a smile and said, "Your turn." Milo knew there wasn't any turning back.
"Okay." Milo began. "I was captured by this group of scientists that wanted to know how Murphy's Law worked and what it did back in the summer." Milo told Vinnie about how he'd been captured saving a group of people from a burning building. He told Vinnie about being brought to a room and being left alone for a few days. He told Vinnie about his Heat and about how it hit. He told Vinnie about the synthesized Alpha who'd been sent to service him. He told Vinnie about feeling everything magnified by tenfold because of the pain of being Mated before time. Vinnie was quiet as he listened and took in everything.
When Milo finished, Vinnie sucked in a breath and hissed. "Jeez, Milo. Your problem is way worse."
"Worse? How is it worse?" Milo asked, eyebrows furrowed as he and Vinnie stood.
Vinnie blinked twice before he sighed. "Okay. I didn't know what was going on at all, okay? I thought it was all normal." Vinnie's voice held no malice or taunt, simply understanding and soothing tones. Milo nodded. "You? Milo, you knew what was happening and you were forced to pleasure an Alpha in Heat. Plus, my problem is six years in the past and I can function perfectly fine from day to day life. Your problem literally happened a few months ago."
They started back for the time agent's hideout and Milo smiled. "Hey, Vinnie?" He asked, as they stopped at a door and Vinnie looked back.
"Yeah?" Vinnie knocked three time, paused, four times, paused, then once, paused, and six times.
"Thanks." Milo said and Vinnie grinned.
"Just know something, Milo. If it ever comes to it, you can always come to me." Vinnie ruffled Milo's hair as the door opened and Balthazar moved so they could come inside.
"Find anything?" The grey haired Alpha asked as he led Vinnie off down a hallway.
Milo smiled and turned towards voices, picking up Diogee, who'd come over to greet his master.
"Bright Light, you can't go out there!" Called the voice of Melissa.
"The Hell I can't, Chaser. Danger's in trouble and I've gotta go look for him!" Replied Zak's voice and Milo felt giddy with excitement at his Alpha's voice.
"Hey, Bright Light, turn around, Danger's right there." Mort said and pointed to the youngest member on their team.
"Milo!" Melissa and Zak both tackled him with hugs and questions. Milo laughed as he fell and Diogee hopped off his chest.
"Are you alright?" Melissa prompted.
"Are you hurt?" Zak asked.
"What happened?" Mort questioned.
Milo answered each one. "I'm alright, no I'm not hurt, and as for what happened," Milo looked up to where Vinnie was talking to Balthazar.
Vinnie turned suddenly and saw Milo, smiled and waved.
Milo waved back and returned the smile. "Well, I had a pretty great adventure."