Chapter Text
Omega finishing school in the Royal City is just a bit more intensive than the schoolhouse in Wokingham. Sure, they still do the cooking and the sewing and the gossip, but they also have lessons in things such as history, which Dan tolerates, etiquette, which he hates, and music, which he genuinely enjoys. He also genuinely enjoys Lady Cornelia, who’s upcoming mating and wedding is the topic of much of the gossip, but Cornelia herself doesn’t seem too fixated on it.
“I’m looking forward to getting the whole thing over with,” Cornelia confesses as the three of them walk through the Palace gardens one afternoon.
“When are you expecting your heat?” Phil asks. He’s linked his arm with Dan’s, keeping him close by his side. Dan’s not entirely sure how he managed to get himself into the Princess’s inner circle, but he’s not complaining. Cornelia groans and starts in on a tangent about pre-heat symptoms.
“What, all the times you’ve snuck into his rooms at night haven’t triggered it?” Phil teases, and Cornelia squaks and hits his shoulder.
“Phil! You’re going to embarrass me in front of Dan!” she complains. Dan laughs and butts his head into Phil’s shoulder, taking in the sugar sweet scent of him.
The thing about Princess Phil is that you would be inclined to think he’s popular because he’s the Princess, but he is legitimately kind, making it easy for the other omegas to gravitate to his side. Phil has friends, even alpha suitors, but he still mostly seems to want to spend time with Dan, which is as confusing as it is awesome, because Phil is great. They read all the same books, and they’re both competitive in games, and Phil is as awful at knitting as Dan is. He giggles, high and bright, when Dan pulls out the scarf he’d been making back home.
“That’s- it’s not so bad,” the Princess attempts to reassure him, poking at one of the knots. “It’s my favorite color!”
Dan groans and considers stabbing his own eyes out with the needles. “I’m going to unravel it, you can have the yarn.”
“No!” Phil says, grabbing his arm. “Don’t undo it, you’ve worked so hard! You have to finish it.” He looks at Dan with those wide, pleading blue eyes, the same color as the yarn, and it knocks the breath out of his chest.
“Okay,” he says, voice softer than he meant it. He clears his throat, twisting a bit of loose yarn around his fingers. “Will you wear it? When it’s done.”
Phil startles, a minute little motion that brings his entire body to attention, eyes somehow wider than they were before. “Yeah!” he says enthusiastically, grabbing the end and wrapping the too-short length around his throat. Dan swallows hard at the thought of his scent all over the yarn, has to resist from snatching it back to rub against his own neck. “Does it look good?”
“Great,” Dan says, fidgeting with the end so it lays flatter. His fingers brush against the pale hollow of Phil’s throat, and he feels his breath hitch. “Fit for a Princess.”
Later that night, in the room he shares with a few of the other omegas, he presses his nose to the scarf and falls asleep with Phil’s scent in his nose. The next day, during their free time in the afternoon, he carefully adds a few rows, fingers clumsy and unpracticed. They come out somehow neater than the rest, which makes Dan’s chest rumble in a pleased little purr. Fit for a Princess, indeed.
The other omegas think he’s sucking up, that he has aspirations beyond his station, but he genuinely doesn’t. He just likes Phil and wants to spend time with him. He’s not angling for royal favor or introductions to alphas or an invitation to the wedding, he just likes sneaking off from the endless social events to hang out with Phil outside, splitting pilfered plates of sandwiches and cakes and talking so long they lose track of time.
And Dan is fine, really. The Princess is fucking beautiful and funny and smells like a dream, and he’s going to marry some high born alpha and be taken away from Dan, and it’s fine, because he has this, right now. They’re sitting on the edge of a fountain, the All Hallow’s Eve masquerade going on behind them, and Dan curls into the Princess’s side, swiping the frosting off of the top of a cake.
“No, like-” he says, licking the frosting off of his finger. “That’s the point -”
“Wait, Dan,” Phil giggles, reaching out to wipe the frosting off of Dan’s face. His fingers linger at the corner of Dan’s mouth, a soft touch that sends buzzy lightning down his spine. Dan freezes, his story trailing off, letting Phil touch his face. The faint light from the ballroom and the street lamp above them cast Phil’s beautiful face in stark shadows, his eyes wide and mouth slack.
“You’re beautiful,” Dan breathes into Phil’s soft fingertips. Phil swallows, his hand drifting to Dan’s jaw.
A nd Dan is a coward, but Dan knows how this ends, so he stands up a little too quick, knocks his bear mask to the ground and then nearly steps on it. “I’m going to- go,” he says, scrambling to pick it up. “I’m sorry. I’ll see you inside.”
Phil grabs Dan’s arm gently and takes the mask from him. Dan stands perfectly still as Phil ties it on behind his head, surrounded by his scent. Phil smiles, kind and a little sad.
“Perfect,” he says quietly, fingers lingering in Dan’s hair for only a second.
The rest of the ball goes okay, Dan thinks. He dances with a few alphas, but they can obviously smell his disinterest. They probably think he’s taken, some secret alpha he’s sneaking off to see. They have no idea he’s got himself wrapped around the Princess’s delicate fingers.
Phil is dancing with Sir PJ when Dan finds Cornelia against the back wall. The Crown Prince is off in the crowd somewhere, no doubt fielding offers for his brother’s hand, so she’s alone for the moment. “Think he’s got a chance?” Dan asks, nodding towards the alpha who’s spinning Phil around the floor.
“I think,” Cornelia says slowly, “they both have their eyes elsewhere.”
Dan frowns. “If Phil’s got his eyes on someone he hasn’t told me,” he says. Cornelia rolls her eyes.
“You’ll figure it out,” she says. “Anyway, Sir PJ’s not likely to make an offer, I think. They’ve been friends since childhood, I don’t think either of them are interested in something more.”
Dan nods, watching Phil laugh at something PJ says as they glide through the other dancers. Dan is a shit dancer. He’s always stepping on someone’s toes. Phil is clumsier than he is, but somehow he makes it look graceful as the alpha leads him.
“- no , mum, I’ll be fine, just like I always have,” Phil’s voice comes through the nearly closed door of his sitting room, and Dan freezes in the hall.
“You know it isn’t good for you to go through so many heats alone,” The Queen responds. “Really, Philip, it’s beyond time for you to get mated.”
“I won’t be alone , mum, I’ll do it like I always have.”
The Queen sighs. “You can’t rely on other omegas forever,” she says. Dan clamps a hand over his mouth to try and stay silent, the idea of helping Phil with his heat rushing through him in a hot wave of want. It’s not unusual for young omegas to help each other out, especially with the stronger early heats, but it’s not a habit that many keep up. It’s unseemly, an omega in his 20’s rolling about with another omega like a pair of teenagers instead of finding a mate or riding it out alone. He hadn’t thought the Princess would be the type.
“Well, I don’t have an alpha,” Phil says stubbornly. “As hard as you’ve all tried to marry me off.”
“Cornelia certainly isn’t helping matters,” The Queen says. “All these modern sensibilities. When I was your age, we were married off good and proper, no talk of a love match or any such nonsense.”
Dan scrambles to act like he wasn’t listening in as the Queen walks out of Phil’s room and almost runs into him headlong. “Oh! Excuse me,” she says.
“Sorry, ma’am! Your Majesty,” he says, bowing awkwardly. “I was just- coming to speak with the Princess. About- a school matter.”
He scrambles into the room and shuts the door firmly behind himself, face flushing bright red. “I just ran into your mother,” he says. “Literally.”
Phil laughs, tongue caught between his teeth. “Sorry, I should’ve warned you,” he says. “She’s been on me about finding a mate before my next heat, I keep telling her that none of these alphas are my type.”
Dan sits in one of the chairs, tapping out a rhythm with his fingers. “Uh- what is your type?” he asks. “You know, in case I meet an alpha I think you’ll like!”
Phil rolls his eyes. “I don’t want you to set me up,” he says. “Besides, I don’t know that I want an alpha at all.”
Dan clears his throat, looking anywhere but at Phil. “Well, you know,” he mumbles, kicking his foot back and forth. “If you were looking for someone for your heat. I could do it.”
Phil grins, face brightening. “Yeah, alright!” he says, and Dan relaxes into the chair. He tries not to think about Phil not wanting an alpha as he launches into a complaint about the novel Phil had reccommended to him. One heat, that’s all it is. Maybe they’ll get it out of their systems, and then Phil will get mated properly, and Dan-
Dan won’t. He doesn’t think he will. Even here in the Royal City, all of the alphas smell wrong. Phil is the only person who’s smell he wants on him, and that’s fucking depressing, because Dan can’t have him. Not really.