The rest of the weekend goes by pretty uneventfully. Jude doesn't leave his house, obviously, and his responses over text are few and far between. It's understandable, though. The guy is probably, uh... busy.

Jude isn't going to school Monday, though. He shouldn't go Tuesday, either, but he probably will because the guy hates missing school. This means that when Monday does eventually come, Robin is on his own. Robin is totally cool with being alone for certain amounts of time, and a school day or a weekend is completely fine. However, he really doesn't want to go to school without Jude for one specific reason:

Miles.

Jude is the reason that Miles doesn't mess with him the entire school day, and now Miles has absolutely nothing to watch out for. This is gonna suck.

Robin gets in his truck and heads to school, dreading the day the entire time. He didn't get any sleep last night because he's been making a conscious effort not to think about the other night.

Every time he does, he gets this... feeling, and he can't tell what it is. Embarrassment? Guilt? Excitement? Regret? All of the above?

So, he's been avoiding those thoughts. It's a lot harder than he thought it would be, hence being up most of the night.

Once arriving at school, he parks in Jude's parking spot and sits there. He pretty much just plays games on his phone until it's time to go to class, because he doesn't know what else he'd be doing. Jude is basically his only friend, unless you count the acquaintances he's made over the years—most of which he doesn't talk to outside of school and video games.

Don't get him wrong, he isn't sad about this. He has no desire to have any close friends aside from Jude. He used to have the typical childhood dream of being popular and having a million friends, but that—along with many qualities and dreams of his—died off when he presented.

It's honestly insane how much his presentation changed his life and how he developed. It's like he lost a piece of his soul. His childhood. He was so crushed, as dramatic as it all sounds. He's spent every day since wishing he could be anyone else. It was quite honestly the worst day of his life.

He wonders how he'd look, if he'd been a beta or alpha. He'd probably still have his blond hair, as well as either no tattoos or far less. He most likely wouldn't spend all his free time distracting himself with video games. He wouldn't have any of his piercings. All of this was caused by his mental breakdown.

Robin would look completely different. Robin would be completely different.

Robin sighs as it gets close to the bell ringing. He hates it when his mind gets like this, all negative for no reason. He's so bummed out now, he just wants the day to end.

Robin walks to his first period with no problems. He doesn't see Miles at all during his first classes, and he begins to hope that by some strange coincidence, the guy didn't show up today. He is proven wrong during lunch, though.

He decides to spend lunch in the auditorium. He grabs some chips from the cafeteria and just sits in the corner of the large room. He isn't the only one either, lots of kids come to the auditorium to eat their lunch. They all sit in the black box area, and it's usually people with no friends.

Robin doesn't care. It's quiet. At least, it is until he feels his earplugs being ripped out by the wire as someone takes a seat far too close to his liking.

Robin looks up, and unsurprisingly finds Miles. "Well you look pathetic."

Robin rolls his eyes. To be fair, though, he totally looks like shit right now. His hair is a complete train wreck, and he has his typical dark circles under his eyes. He's wearing a baggy black shirt with some video game company logo on it, black cargo sweatpants, and five years old torn up combat boots. He's tired, and he misses Jude, and he's been depressed all day. Also, his head hurts.

"What do you want, Miles?" Robin asks.

"Where's your alpha?"

"He's not my alpha," Robin says, already beyond irritated. He's not in the mood for this.

"Really? 'Oh, Judah, this isn't you. Leave it alone. Look at me, let's go get lunch. Remember the flowers?'" Miles begins mocking in a high pitched voice that sounds nothing like Robin's.

"I didn't even say that. It's your fault I had to talk him down in the first place." Robin states, wanting this conversation to be over. Miles is so goddamn exhausting.

"Well congrats, Bird Boy, you did the impossible."

Robin feels frustrated. This conversation is going nowhere. Miles is a lot less hostile than he usually is though, so at least Robin's being spared on that front. "Is there a point to this?"

"Yeah, actually." Miles says, which kind of surprises Robin. So this guy genuinely had a reason for coming over here and bothering Robin? That's curious. Robin honestly finds that hard to believe, though there's got to be a reason Miles hasn't inflicted any pain on him yet.

"Okay, what?" Robin inquires, because Miles isn't elaborating. Miles studies him for a while, and Robin just raises an eyebrow. The eye contact goes on a bit longer than anticipated, though, so he glances away shortly thereafter.

"I'm changing the conditions of our deal."

Robin's gaze immediately snaps back to Miles in alarm. Seriously? Fuck, Robin knew this would happen. He knew he couldn't trust a damn thing Miles says, Robin seriously should've expected this.

"What? Why?" Robin asks, unable to mask the panic and stress he's feeling. He feels so dumb for actually taking Miles' original deal at face value.

"Doesn't matter. I just didn't realize how much power you had over him. Anyway, new deal. I won't tell anyone that you're an omega—"

Again, too fucking loud. Robin tries to keep his composure, despite the nerves eating away at him.

"But you have to get Jude to do whatever I want."

Robin blinks. He wants to go home. "Huh?"

"You're the only person I know that he listens to. So you're gonna get him to do whatever I want."

Robin is not a fan of this new development. He thinks Miles is really overestimating his influence over Jude and his decisions. Sure, Jude listens to him to an extent. Keyword: to an extent. There is a limit, and he feels as though whatever Miles is wanting him to do will be outside of the boundary.

"Well what do you want him to do?"

"I want to be top of the class." Holy fucking shit, there is absolutely no way Robin could get Jude's grades to drop at all. School is just way too easy for the guy. Let alone when they have less than a month of school left—exams are only in a couple weeks.

"Dude." Robin says, and he is just so done with this entire situation. "Why are you so obsessed with him?"

Miles immediately looks pissed, directly contradicting the easygoing, cocky attitude he presented before. Robin usually doesn't call the guy out, but this is beyond ridiculous. It's not like Miles can do much physical harm to him right now, anyway, since two people sat somewhat close to them a minute ago.

"I'm not obsessed with Jude," Miles replies, voice dark. He's visibly restraining himself.

"Yeah you are." Robin argues, "as soon as you got something over me, all your blackmail conditions have had something to do with him. Why can't you just leave me out of it?"

Miles really does not appreciate Robin—submissive, reserved, compliant Robin—talking back to him. It's obvious, but Robin has been so stressed over all of this that he doesn't even care.

"You know I hate Jude." Miles says. "You're the easiest way to get to him. Any chance to fuck up either of your lives, and I'll take it."

"Why?" Okay, Robin is being a little annoying. Still, he's at his limit right now. He needs some answers because this is starting to not make any sense to him. Why does everything have to be at his expense? "I've never even done anything to you. Why can't you just keep your problems with Jude in between you and Jude?"

Miles just stares at him, and Robin wonders if he crossed a line. He's not even sure what his goal is here. Is he trying to talk Miles out of this? Maybe. He doesn't know.

"Stop questioning me." Miles finally says, and it takes everything in Robin not to roll his eyes. He probably knows the answer to that question already, anyway.

It's pretty obvious that Jude surpasses this guy in just about every aspect that matters—even the ones that don't matter, to be honest. This includes wit, intelligence, height, strength... things that Miles would generally need in order to achieve his goal. Jude isn't exactly someone to mess with, and it's difficult to get to him in any way. The only 100 percent guaranteed way to do so is to mess with Robin. Miles is smart enough to figure this out.

So, now Miles is convinced that Robin is the answer to beating Jude as well.

"How in the world am I going to bring his grades down?" Robin asks, because he doesn't want to do so to begin with. There's no way he'd be able to come up with a plan on his own. "You realize there's only a few weeks of school left, right?"

"Get him to fail his exams."

Oh. That's an idea.

"How?" Robin asks again, unable to hide his frustration anymore. "Dunno if you noticed, but Jude's kinda smart."

Robin isn't really surprised when Miles grabs him by his hair and forces him to meet his eyes. He looks irritated at Robin's attitude. "Distract him."

"How—"

Miles reaches up and covers the Robin's mouth. "Fucking figure it out. If I'm not valedictorian in June, Jude knowing that you're an omega will be the least of your problems."

What? How would that be the least of his problems? Keeping that from Jude is like the entire reason—

Oh. Oh shit.

Robin always knew the threat was there, but it never completely set in. If Robin doesn't do everything this guy says, not only will Jude know...

Everyone will.

Robin would probably have to move away. He couldn't leave his house, without risking his safety. His parents would definitely kick him out, especially since there's the threat of vandalism.

As this all occurs to Robin, the gravity of the situation begins to set in. Wow, Miles really fucking hates Jude.

Robin must look deeply troubled, because Miles grins. It's anything but pleasant, and as soon as Miles releases his hold on the omega, Robin backs as far against the wall as he can get.

"Why are you doing this? Do you not realize how fucked up it is?"

"I don't care."

"I hope you know it won't work out for you," Robin says, and he's not even sure if he believes what he's saying right now. Life isn't like the movies, villains win all the time. "Even if you think so. Jude will do something."

"Sure, Bird Boy. I'll check in with you by the end of the week."

"Why?" Robin hisses. That's his word of the day. "It's not gonna work!"

Miles throws his bag over his shoulder, and leans down so his face is closer to Robin's. Robin almost pulls even further away, but he doesn't have time before Miles begins speaking lowly;

"Then pray."

Miles exits the auditorium, leaving Robin alone with his words. Robin genuinely has no fucking idea what to do here. The way he sees it, there are two options;

1. Fuck up his life

Or, 2. Fuck up Jude's future

Neither of those are ideal. Hell, the second one isn't even an option. Even if he could somehow affect Jude's grades, he still wouldn't go through with this. He cares about Jude way too much to sabotage the guy in such an astronomical way. Being valedictorian is a big deal to Jude, whether he's willing to show it or not.

There is a lot of pressure on Jude for greatness. His parents are unbelievably successful, so the exact same thing is expected of their son. Anything aside from the very best is unacceptable to them, and Robin knows that. That's not even counting all the shit Jude constantly needs to prove to himself.

So Jude losing his spot as number one is out of the question. However, so is letting Miles go through with outing Robin's secret. Robin's in a box here.

Robin can imagine the looks on his parents faces, if their family got outed for having an omega son. The aftermath would suck. Robin's sister and parents would never hear the end of it. He's not doing that to them. Sure, he knows it all would eventually blow over, but still. It would be hell for a while, and they'd never be looked at the same.

Robin is starting to not see a way out of this. He's having to deal with so much on his own, and he wishes that he were smart... but he's just not. He's tried his very best to improve himself and strategize and keep up with Jude throughout the years, but it's just not him. He needs help with this.

Who could possibly help him, though? His parents are conveniently never around, and also wouldn't want to talk to him about his problems anyway. Miles is the only other person that knows. He can't tell Kat, because he doesn't trust that she will keep it to herself yet—and even if she did, it's not like she'd know what to do.

Margo can't know either, or else he might be able to talk to her. Robin refuses to tell anybody, which is ruling pretty much all possibilities out. So... could it possibly be time to let someone else in on the secret?

Who, though? It's between Margo, Kat, and... well, and Jude, now that he thinks about it. He doesn't want to ruin any of their opinions on him, though! Fuck!

So he can't talk to anybody about this. But he really needs to, because it's about to rip him to pieces trying to deal with it himself.

The only person that could genuinely be of any help here, would probably be Jude. Anybody else would just be to help his mental state. Jude might actually be able to figure something out, considering he's the only person in their entire class that has proven to be able to out perform Miles. That's also kind of the problem, though...

Perhaps there's a way that Robin can get Jude's help without revealing his secret, though. That could work, right? Maybe?

Robin needs to come up with a plan. Unfortunately, he's not particularly skilled at doing so. Two things he knows for sure, though: this situation is a lot more serious than he'd previously thought. Also, he's positive that there is no way to handle it on his own.

Aside from that, though, he's lost.

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