I feel calmer whenever any of them are in my line of sight. Adrian by craft services. Bash near the monitors. Elias at the edges.
Three steady points I find myself orienting around before I even realize I'm doing it.
The morning unfolds. Setups, resets, the familiar chaos of a filming day. I move through my stations, check call sheets, confirm locations, and answer questions. Doing my job the way I’ve always done it.
But something’s different.
The first time I notice it is in the production office. I step through the doorway with a scheduling question, and the conversation inside stops. Not dramatically. Not the way it would in a bad movie. Just a natural pause, the kind where people register someone new has entered the space and adjust accordingly.
Except the adjustment is different now.
The line producer—a beta woman I’ve worked with on four previous projects—lowers her voice when she answers my question.
It’s not patronizing.
Just different than usual.
The kind of adjustment people make when they suddenly become aware of something they never had to think about before.
“The warehouse sequence got pushed to after lunch,” she says. Her voice is softer than it was thirty seconds ago when she was addressing another worker. “We’re thinking two, two-thirty. Will that work for your... situation?”
My situation.
I nod. “That’s fine. Thanks.”
I leave the office quickly. The hallway outside feels too narrow suddenly.
Twenty minutes later, the gaffer pulls me aside near the lighting rig. He’s an older alpha, gruff, competent, the kind who’s been in the industry long enough to have strong opinions about everything and the experience to back them up. He’s never treated me differently before. Today, he keeps half a step more distance than he normally would.
“You hanging in there?” he asks. His tone is gentler than I’ve ever heard it. “Long days for someone in your condition.”
My condition.
“I’m fine,” I say automatically. “Really. The schedule’s manageable.”
He nods. Doesn’t look convinced. “Just... you know. Say the word if you need to tap out. Nobody would blame you.” I thankhim and move to the next station before the tightness in my chest can fully form.
By eleven, a PA I barely know hovers near my station for thirty seconds, a question visibly forming and dissolving on his face three separate times before he finally decides not to approach me at all. He turns away. Finds someone else to ask.
I watch him go. A feeling of dread forming as I do.
This is what I’ve been afraid of since the beginning. Not the alphas themselves. The way their attention makes me visible to everyone else. The way my changing scent turns me from Maya-the-production-coordinator into Maya-the-omega in the space of a single breath, regardless of what I want or how hard I’ve worked to be seen as anything else.
People are noticing my designation before they notice me.
The hypervisibility wears on me throughout the morning. Each interaction layers onto the last—the lowered voices, the distance, the questions about whether I should still be working. None of it is cruel. Most of it is genuinely well-intentioned. That’s the part that hurts. They’re trying to be kind. They’re trying to accommodate. And every attempt at accommodation just reinforces the fact that I’m different now in a way everyone can smell.
I’m standing by the craft services table during the lunch break, stirring a coffee I don’t actually want, when Elias finds me.
“I need to run to my apartment,” he says. His tone is casual. Matter-of-fact. “Grab more clothes. I’ve been staying at your place long enough that I’m running low.”
It takes me three full seconds to understand what he actually said.
He’s been staying at my place. For days. Sleeping on my couch, driving me to work, making coffee in my kitchen, existing in my space in a way that has become so familiar I’ve stopped questioning it. And now he needs more clothes because what he brought initially isn’t enough for how long he’s been here.
How long he plans to stay.
“Okay,” I say. “When will you be back?”
