The late afternoon air was crisp as Leon walked towards the small, quiet park a few blocks from the main library. The "park" was really just a patch of grass with a few benches and an old oak tree, usually empty. Perfect for an awkward, tense meeting.
Harry was already there, leaning against the trunk of the oak tree, arms crossed over his broad chest. He wasn't in his usual football gear or preppy clothes; he wore a simple hoodie and jeans, making him look slightly less intimidating, but his posture was all Alpha arrogance, albeit a weary one. He was messing with the grass with the toe of his shoe, clearly restless.
Leon approached him slowly, his nerves jangling. He stopped a few feet away, keeping a safe distance.
"You wanted to talk," Leon said, his voice flat, his gaze steady, trying to project his usual enigmatic calm despite the raging storm in his gut.
Harry pushed off the tree and took a step forward. The intensity in his eyes was unnerving. He wasn't the drunk jock from that night; he was serious Harry. "Yeah, I did. What the fuck is going on with you, man? You've been dodging me for two damn weeks. I see you ducking into labs when I walk by the science building. We were friends, weren't we?"
"Friends don't typically... you know," Leon trailed off, a fresh wave of heat crawling up his neck.
"Sleep together? Yeah, I get that. But it was a mistake, right? We were wasted. It meant nothing. We agreed to act like adults and move on, but you're acting like I have the plague." Harry scoffed, running a hand through his dark hair in frustration. "And I look like hell. People are talking about me. What's actually wrong with me?" Harry switched gears, pointing at his own pale face.
Leon stiffened, the shift in pronoun a relief. "Nothing's wrong with you. You're just sick, like you said."
"Bullshit," Harry said, stepping closer. "Don't feed me that crap. You're pale as a ghost and you look like you're about to hurl half the time. What's the deal, Leon? You can tell me."
Tell him? The irony was almost laughable. The "deal" was literally growing inside the man standing right in front of him, thanks to Leon's own rare biology. Leon swallowed hard, his mind racing for a way to turn this around, to make Harry confront his own physical reality.
"It's just the flu going around campus, Harry. It's persistent," Leon lied again, hoping his acting skills were convincing enough.
Harry narrowed his eyes, the Alpha instinct to sense deceit kicking in. "Don't lie to me. It's been weeks. That's not the flu." He paused, his expression shifting as a thought seemed to strike him, his voice dropping to a low, serious tone. "It's not... you're not..." He didn't finish the question, the implications of Leon being the one to show symptoms too wild for even him to consider.
Leon felt a wave of dizziness from the stress, but he held his ground. He had to make Harry realize. The nausea hit Leon hard then, the stress finally winning. He gagged, turning quickly and stumbling a few feet away, leaning heavily against the trunk of a nearby tree as he dry-heaved, nothing much coming up except stomach acid.
Silence followed. When Leon straightened up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he found Harry staring at him, his face completely devoid of color, a look of pure, primal shock frozen on his features. Harry hadn't seen the pregnancy tests; he hadn't had the two weeks of denial and realization Leon had.
"You're... oh my god," Harry whispered, the arrogance completely gone, replaced by horror and disbelief. "It's not the flu, is it? We..." His voice trailed off, the reality of that drunken night crashing down on him with the force of a freight train, but interpreted through his own worldview. "You're pregnant? From me?
"Leon stared back at him, the irony thick in the air. He was the pregnant one in Harry's mind. The Alpha mind couldn't conceive of the truth. He just nodded slowly, the silent confirmation hanging in the air. The truth, in a skewed way, had been revealed. The game had officially changed, but not in the way Harry expected.