Archive of Our Own

He’s laughing. Through the dim lighting, Joe can’t see him as clearly as he’d like, but he likes the way his head is thrown back just a little, his hair scraping at the collar of his rumpled polo shirt. He likes the sliver of soft skin peeking out where the shirt rides up.

If he didn’t like that kind of softness so much, Joe wouldn’t be here.

He can’t help himself, though.

There’s a muscle-bound man on the dance floor, close enough that Joe can scent him, if only because Joe’s so near his heat he can scent fucking everything. He’s got slicked-back hair coming slowly loose, a tight T-shirt, a tattoo winding around his massive bicep.

He could probably give Joe what he’s after.

Joe hates how he smells. It’s musky, pungent. Masculine. Too close to Joe’s own scent.

Maybe, if he were a little further out, he could rationalize it, but now, with his heat dogging his footsteps, the wrong scent is enough to turn his stomach.

He steels himself for another disappointment and heads for the man at the bar with the soft stomach.

“Buy you a drink?” he offers, sliding into a recently vacated space. He inhales deeply, just…checking. It’s a clean scent, floral but not perfumed. Like a mountain clearing, cold air and wildflowers and summer hay.

Joe’s mouth waters.

Soft stomach’s eyes slant over to him. Joe can’t quite catch their color, just how coolly he’s assessed.

“You sure that’s a good idea?” the man says. His voice is low, and his accent is so melodic Joe’s knees make an attempt at giving out.

Joe snorts, unimpressed. “I can manage my own symptoms, thanks.” It’s true, it’s not smart to get drunk right before a heat and heighten the ever-present risk of dehydration, but he resents a stranger commenting on it. If only he didn’t smell so good.

“I didn’t mean—“ soft stomach man stops himself. “I only meant, if you’re looking for a heat partner, I’m happy to stay sober.”

It’s blunt, and unexpected. Joe was thinking he’d have to get through at least two drinks and a bunch of smalltalk before it was socially acceptable to mention the obvious stink of preheat he didn’t even bother trying to cover up with cologne.

Possibly he’s taking a few too many risks.

“That obvious, am I?” Joe asks lightly. He tries not to let it show in his voice that he’s a little pleased this man was already thinking of what he can do for Joe. How he can provide for Joe, even.

Soft stomach man shrugs. “I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“I approached you,” Joe points out. “I’m Joe.”

“Nicky.”

“And I am looking for a heat partner,” Joe tacks on. He’s still not sure about this guy, he’s so soft-looking and so uncomfortably direct, but his scent is just too good. Forget thinking with his dick, Joe’s thinking with his nose and it’s going to get him trouble.

Nicky signals the barkeeper with a laconic hand motion. He orders two sparkling waters and settles his tab.

“Dance with me?” he offers.

A crowded dance floor is an intense place for an omega at the best of times. The night before Joe’s heat’s due to hit, it’s essentially a sensory overload. There’s the burn of alcohol, the stinging chemical smells of perfumes and colognes, the base notes of sweat and layered through it all, each person’s individual scent. It’s intense.

Joe kind of loves it.

He likes to be overwhelmed, he can already see the swirl of chaos taking form on canvas tomorrow, or more likely three days from now when his heat’s over. It’s the kind of feeling just riding the edge of unpleasantness that he wants to harness, to capture and put into color.

Nicky’s a shit dancer, but it doesn’t matter all that much. The water is cool going down Joe’s throat, he was thirstier than he thought—damn Nicky for reading that right—and he sets the bottle down on one of the tables surrounding the dance floor when he’s done. He crowds in close to Nicky, aligns their bodies thigh to hip to chest, grasps Nicky by the hips and moves their bodies together.

Against his ear, Nicky’s breath is warm. Everything is warm, there are at least three hundred people crammed into this tiny space, but it still makes Joe shiver. He inhales deeply, nose buried in the side of Nicky’s neck, and his eyes roll back.

Fuck, he smells so good. 

Joe was pretty sure he had at least till tomorrow morning before it really hit him, but with each greedy inhale of Nicky, he’s losing faith in that prediction.

“What do you think?” Nicky asks, close enough he barely needs to yell to be heard over the speakers.

“You smell…” Joe takes another deep, shuddering inhale. “I want your scent all over me,” he says at last, because if Nicky can be blunt, so can he.

“I’m an alpha,” Nicky points out.

Joe pulls back, irritated. “I know that,” he says. “I can smell it on you.”

Nicky shrugs, unrepentant. “Most people can’t.”

Joe doesn’t bother responding, just raises an eyebrow. He knows his scent is unusual for an omega, he’s been told enough times. Usually by alphas who smell like Nicky, who desperately want an omega to take the reins, but often enough by betas with just enough sense of smell to catch Joe out as unusual. Too often by other omegas who want to rub in his face that he doesn’t exactly conform to a standard of beauty that was outdated in the 50s.

“I realize that was a stupid question,” Nicky says, with just enough grace that Joe forgives him. “I just don’t want you to be disappointed.”

Joe probably will be, anyway. He almost always is, after a heat. Enough so that he didn’t bother calling any previous partners, casual or otherwise, when he felt it coming on, and instead decided to go trawling nightclubs for a lover. Only, he considers, with supreme annoyance at himself, to find someone exactly like the kind of partner who always ends up disappointing him; a sensitive alpha who values emotional honesty and being up-front about things. 

If Joe’s being fair, he values those things a lot too, which is why he keeps ending up getting disappointed.

In the interest of being a little more fair, he decides, he’d better tell Nicky what he’s after.

“That’s up to you,” Joe says. “I know what I want.”

“Oh?” Nicky asks.

“I want to present for—someone,” Joe says bluntly, nearly saying you instead when he catches another whiff of Nicky’s scent. “I want to be held down, and taken, and I want someone to do it who isn’t going to take it as a blanket statement about my politics.”

There’s a low, rumbling noise, and Joe realizes Nicky’s growling.

His asshole clenches and slick begins to form.

Tomorrow morning is looking more like ten minutes from now.

“I can do that,” Nicky says, voice rough.

“I think we should leave,” Joe says weakly. 

Nicky’s head dips low, breathing in Joe’s scent. He can smell himself, and he’s crossing the line from pre-heat into full-blown heat scent. “I think you’re right,” Nicky agrees.

They don’t get a cab. Joe’s not keen to stink up some poor taxi driver’s car with pheromones, and by the time they get out of the club, Nicky’s scent has thickened to almost match Joe’s in intensity. 

Joe’s nearly dripping with desire at this point. 

Those are not stains he wants to pay for removing.

“I live close by,” he pants, but he makes no effort to lead Nicky there, pushing him up against the closest building and kissing him instead.

Nicky’s lips are soft, his hands are soft, and he feels so good Joe wants to cry.

“Don’t be gentle with me,” he demands, and Nicky’s grip on the back of Joe’s neck changes from soft to firm, demanding, angling Joe’s head where he wants it to go.

Joe does cry, just a little, then, helplessly aroused. His head is spinning, he can’t get enough air, everything is Nicky, Nicky Nicky Nicky, holding him fast and kissing him breathless, shocking him down to his very core. He’s clenching around nothing, body desperate for whatever Nicky will give him.

“Let’s get you home,” Nicky says, pulling away. Joe can smell the arousal on him, he can feel the sizable erection pushing into his thigh, but Nicky’s tone is light, firm, in control.

“Alright,” he says shakily. He dips down to kiss Nicky one more time, to get lost in the plush softness of his lips, and then wrenches himself away.

He’s so wet the night air is cold on the soaked-through seat of his pants, it’s fucking humiliating, but he’s so turned on he can’t even care. It takes twenty minutes to walk the two blocks to his apartment because every time he looks over at Nicky, with his hands stuffed in his pockets, he can’t help himself. He needs to pause for another look, another touch, another kiss. He hopes against hope that this time, this time his partner listened and understood what it is he wants. Just the thought of Nicky’s broad shoulders boxing him in, Nicky’s big hands putting Joe where he wants him, Nicky taking care of him…

“You are making it very hard to control myself,” Nicky groans out between heated kisses on the stoop of the door to Joe’s building.

“Good,” Joe says. “Don’t.”

“You really want me to…” Nicky trails off, nose buried in Joe’s neck again.

Joe’s heart sinks.

“I really want you to take me apart,” Joe says, shivering all over at Nicky’s touch and irritated at himself for being so weak for someone who doesn’t believe he knows what he wants. Again. “If you can’t give me that—“

Nicky growls. “I’ll give you what you need,” he says with a voice that sounds like it’s being dragged over gravel. “Just get us inside.”

Heat shoots straight down Joe’s spine. He fumbles the keys, gets them through the front door. Walking up the stairs is an experience—Nicky is close behind him and his growl is a constant reverberation of low noise in response to what must be the smell and sight of how wet Joe is for him.

Inside Joe’s apartment at last, Nicky gives no quarter. He pushes Joe back against the door, and Joe—lets him.

Joe’s a little taller. He might be stronger. He doesn’t care. 

“You want me to take care of you, don’t you?” Nicky murmurs in his ear. 

Joe nods furiously. “Please,” he says. “Please, no one ever—“

“Oh, sweetheart,” Nicky says, and fuck, Joe clenches around nothing at all and drips more slick into his boxers. “Have you not been getting what you need?”

“No,” Joe wails. 

“Mm,” Nicky hums in disapproval, tracing his lips down Joe’s neck. Joe throws his head back. He’s dizzy, he’s drawing in great big gulps of air, and Nicky’s barely touched him. It’s like his heat’s been jump-started, he’s gone from zero to a hundred in barely an hour and his heart is racing with it. “You smell perfect, Joe,” Nicky tells him, and the words wash over Joe in a pleased haze. “So strong, so confident, and you’re letting me have you.”

He suckles at Joe’s pulse point and Joe’s cock throbs. It’s just what he wanted to hear, just what he needed to hear, that Nicky gets it—Joe’s scent is no mistake, he is that strong, he is that confident, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to be taken care of. This close, in the enclosed space of the apartment, Nicky’s own scent twins with his, and the combination is heady. The floral, summery notes of it fill the spaces left by Joe’s own deeper, woodsy scent, and there’s a pounding in the base of Joe’s skull, an urge to bite into that smell, like it was made for him.

It’s the heat talking, he knows it’s the heat, but he’s careening wildly into it by now and his impulses are running haywire. “Please,” he begs, and he doesn’t even know what for until Nicky sinks to his knees in front of him.

Joe whines in disappointment—that should be him, on his knees, that’s what he wants.

Nicky shushes him brusquely and starts unbuttoning his pants.

It should be embarrassing, how wet through he is underneath, but Nicky’s nose burrows into the space between Joe’s legs, licking and sucking at his sodden boxers, forcing Joe’s legs apart, forcing him to scrabble at the door for balance. 

“Your taste,” Nicky groans, and he rips Joe’s boxers off, tossing them to the side.

For a long moment, he presses his forehead into Joe’s stomach, nuzzling into his abs, drawing in deep breaths.

Just when Joe thinks he can’t wait, he’s going to scream for it, Nicky swallows his cock all the way down. 

He does scream, then, fist thumping into the door. 

Nicky pulls off. “Legs apart,” he orders.

Joe’s legs splay even wider instantly. 

“Good,” Nicky says, and uses his left forearm to pin Joe’s hips into place right where he wants them.

One of Nicky’s thick fingers traces the dripping rim of his asshole even as he sucks Joe’s cock back into his mouth. 

“Nicky,” Joe gasps. “Alpha.”

Nicky growls. The reverberations of it, the way Nicky’s holding him back against the door with a surprisingly strong arm thrown across his hips, the feel of Nicky’s finger sinking into him to the first knuckle—it’s enough.

Joe comes, clenched tight around Nicky’s finger, wishing it were his cock and at the same time wishing for this to last forever, the heat of Nicky’s mouth, the firmness of Nicky’s grip. He floods Nicky’s mouth with come, gasping up to the ceiling. 

It’s short, sweet, not like it would be if—if—it doesn’t matter, it’s good, it’s what he needs, and when it’s over, the fog in his brain clears.

It will be back, of course, heat is like that, but it’s nice to feel his heartbeat calming a little, it’s nice to feel satisfied instead of wanting.

Nicky pulls back and rocks up onto his heels before standing.

His pants aren’t particularly well-fitting, but Joe can still see the outline of his erection in them. It must be painful by now. Still, he makes no move to release himself, instead licking his lips—god, he must taste of Joe—and scanning over Joe’s face like he’s checking if Joe’s okay.

Joe’s fantastic.

“Do you have supplies?” Nicky asks.

“Huh?” Joe asks absently, still staring at Nicky’s glistening lips.

“Water,” Nicky says. “And food. Do you have any?”

Joe would roll his eyes—he can make his own preparations, he’s been doing this for nearly two decades—but there’s some animal impulse in him that’s pleased Nicky’s taking this seriously. “In the kitchen,” he says.

Nicky nods and heads in that direction.

For a moment, Joe just watches him go, confused, legs still shaking.

He peels himself off the door. Giving up the clothes he was wearing as a problem for future Joe, he pulls off his shirt as well and follows Nicky, who’s standing in front of the open fridge, frowning.

“What?” Joe asks. “Doesn’t meet your standards?”

Nicky closes the fridge, passing Joe a bottle of water. Joe uncaps it and drains most of it in one go. It is nice, actually. He usually forgets to drink enough at the beginning and only notices on the second or third day. It’s never been dangerous, only mildly uncomfortable, but he can already tell Nicky’s not going to let that happen. 

“Do you like energy bars that much?” Nicky asks dubiously.

Joe shrugs. “They’re not bad. I didn’t have enough time to cook anything in advance.” He studies Nicky, daring him silently to comment that Joe’s priority should have been his cycle.

Nicky doesn’t.

“Would you mind if I have a friend drop some other things off?” Nicky asks. “Just for variety.”

Joe shrugs. “I’m not going outside.”

“You won’t have to,” Nicky assures him. “It’s just…well, I’d really like to feed you, if you aren’t opposed, and energy bars aren’t as sexy as what I pictured.”

Despite all the water he just drank, Joe’s mouth goes dry. “I’d…I’d like that,” he says weakly. It’s the kind of stereotypical heat dynamic most of his friends make fun of ruthlessly—the overcome omega, reclining, as the powerful alpha feeds them. Privately, Joe’s always thought it would feel nice, to be pampered like that. It’s not like he expects it of alphas, he knows it’s kind of outdated and silly, but if Nicky’s offering, well.

Nicky’s smile is lovely. It’s kind of shy, which Joe adores, like he didn’t just cage Joe in against the door and blow his mind, like he didn’t just casually offer to fulfill one of Joe’s most hidden fantasies. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and sends a series of texts before putting it down on the counter, face-down.

“How are you feeling, Joe?” he asks.

“Good,” Joe says instantly. “So good.”

Nicky’s smile brightens. “I’m glad. How long are the waves of your heat usually apart?”

“Two hours or so to start. But we can keep going now, you must be…” Joe trails off. Would it be too self-centered to say Nicky must be desperate for him by now?

“I’m not important right now,” Nicky says, waving him off. “But before the next wave, I wanted to ask you a few things.”

Joe leans against the counter, very aware of his own nakedness. “Shoot.”

By the way Nicky can’t quite stop looking at him, so is Nicky.

Nicky clears his throat. “You said you wanted to present,” he says.

“Yes,” Joe says instantly. “Yes please.” His gut clenches, just a little.

“What else do you want?”

Against his will, Joe feels himself flush. He shouldn’t be ashamed of this, he reminds himself. Wanting what he wants in bed is fine, it’s separate from the rest of his life, it’s not a bad thing, it’s just—

“It’s alright,” Nicky assures him with a little quirk of his lips. “I won’t judge, I understand what it’s like to…want things people don’t expect you to.”

Joe breathes out a little sigh of relief. Right. Nicky with his soft stomach. Nicky with his light, bright scent. Nicky who growls when Joe lets him take control. Nicky who wants to feed him.

“I want you to take care of me,” Joe says. “I want you to put me on my knees, I want you to fuck me from behind, I want you to hold me down a little. I want you to act like I don’t…smell the way I do, or look the way I do, like I’m a soft, pretty omega.”

Nicky cocks his head to the side. “I don’t see why you aren’t soft and pretty just as you are,” he says.

Joe sighs in pleasure. “And you,” he says, drawing Nicky close, pawing over that soft belly that first attracted him to Nicky. “You’re all alpha, aren’t you.”

Nicky huffs a laugh. He scents at Joe’s neck again, even though he can’t be putting off much, not between waves. 

“Joe,” Nicky says tentatively, “tell me if I’m going too far, but…”

“Hm?” Joe’s got his own nose buried in Nicky’s neck, so he’s privy to the deepening of Nicky’s scent when Nicky asks.

“How do you feel about knotting?”

Joe moans. His knees buckle a little and he can feel the slick start building again.

“Yes,” he hisses. “Yes, I want that, I want that Nicky, please.”

He wouldn’t have asked, even if it’s the fantasy he gets himself off to most often. It’s just not something you ask a casual hookup for. Some gay couples never do it, and why should they? Biologically, it’s only to increase the likelihood of pregnancy, and male omegas can’t get pregnant. Why put your body through the stress? Knotting heats leave omegas sore and alphas exhausted. No omega needs a knot, and no alpha needs to knot. It’s just another evolutionary dead end like the pinkie toe or the appendix, a relic of a long-gone time when secondary genders were necessary to keep the species alive. Wanting to be knotted, asking to be knotted, is about as old-fashioned as wanting to wait for marriage. The only people who usually beg for it are the kind of alphas who claim they can’t come without knotting, and they’re usually lying. 

Joe’s had heats where he bit his own tongue bloody to stop himself from begging his partner to just do it anyway.

There’s some part of him that just relishes the idea, the romance of driving his partner so wild they tie their body to his, the intimacy of being locked tight to someone in the afterglow, the sense of belonging from being claimed liked that…

It’s so appealing Joe is limp in Nicky’s arms at the mere thought.

“How did I get lucky enough to find you?” Nicky mutters, and Joe would say the same, would ask how he found an alpha as unassuming as Nicky, ready to fulfill his every taboo desire without sliding into the disrespectful, almost hateful treatment a more traditional man might, but he can’t say anything at all.

He’s too busy kissing Nicky for all he’s worth, pulling Nicky as close as he can, until the bulge of Nicky’s hard cock is pressed firmly to Joe’s hip.

Joe whines when Nicky pulls back. His pulse is pounding, he’s dripping wet, why is Nicky stopping?

“I thought you said two hours?” Nicky pants.

It takes Joe a moment to fight through the haze of heat clogging his brain.

“Usually it is,” he says helplessly when he realizes Nicky means he shouldn’t be burning this hot already again. 

Tentatively, Nicky licks at his neck. 

Joe groans as his entire lower body spasms, clenching around nothing. He clutches at Nicky’s arms to stay upright.

“Bed,” Nicky says. 

Unable to speak just then, Joe nods. He leads Nicky through the living room toward the bedroom at the back, hoping Nicky won’t notice the mess left by his frantic scramble this afternoon to find every soft thing in the apartment. The other rooms look at least mostly modern, he thinks. He certainly has enough prestigious modern art lining the walls, a sleek, big TV, shiny, meticulously organized bookshelves.

The bedroom is another matter.

Joe just couldn’t help himself.

The whole of the wall behind the bed is covered in fabric, from the crocheted quilt his grandmother made when he was born to the flimsy bedspread his sisters bought him as a going-away present when he left for university, a riot of color and pattern that reminds Joe of home. The floor is soft carpeting he used his first paycheck as a full professor to have installed, soft on his toes.

The bed takes up most of the floor space, and this afternoon, he arranged every pillow and blanket in the apartment around it. Not on, because he knew he’d be going out in search of someone just like Nicky, and everyone knows you can’t actually fuck in a nest without destroying it, but he likes having it there. Close by. For after, if Nicky stays.

“Joe,” Nicky says reverently as he takes it in. “This is wonderful.”

Joe flushes with pride. 

He bites at his lip, draws a breath in, and crosses the floor to the bed.

He climbs up onto the bed and situates himself on all fours, spreading his knees wide, before lowering down onto his elbows, head resting on his forearms.

His spine is an arch, and his ass is an enticement.

Just the position makes him leak.

Behind him, there’s the rustle of cloth as Nicky undresses, and then there are hands on him, stroking up his spine reverently. 

“Such a good omega,” Nicky says.

Joe whines.

“May I touch your hair?” Nicky asks. 

“Please.”

His fingers tangle in the curls at the base of Joe’s skull, tug a little. Joe groans in pleasure. Behind him, the bed dips as Nicky climbs onto it behind him. Getting in place, Joe’s heat whispers, getting ready to claim him.

There will be no claiming, of course. 

But there will be knotting, and the thought of it makes Joe whimper into his own arms.

He’s had toys with an inflatable knot at the base, when he was truly desperate, but he’s never had the real thing, and it’s all he can think about.

“Sweetheart,” Nicky says. He presses a kiss to the base of Joe’s spine.

Joe shivers all over.

“Do you want me now?”

“I need you,” Joe answers, and even as he says it, it becomes true, a wave of desire swamping him, forcing slick to leak down between his legs, forcing his cock fully hard. It’s been maybe half an hour since he came, and he’s ready to beg for it.

He wants to beg for it.

“Do you,” Nicky says, amused. The heat of his body vanishes for a moment, and Joe is about to cry out for him when his big hands spread Joe’s ass cheeks wide and his tongue traces around the rim of his hole.

Joe chokes on air.

His feet lift up off the mattress, legs tensed, and thump back down when Nicky licks a broad swath across his hole.

This. This is what he wants, an alpha who will lick his hole so gently, so delicately, and then fuck him blind and knot him down into the bedspread.

He’s keening, he realizes eventually, Nicky’s name, pleas, just noise, over and over again. Another spasm of need wracks through his body and he manages a full sentence: “Nicky, fuck me now.”

It’s not poetry, but it will do, because the next thing Joe knows, the blunt head of Nicky’s cock is pressing at his entrance.

“Condoms,” Nicky asks, gratifyingly breathless.

“No,” Joe whines, “no, I want you bare, I need you to fill me up, I need your come—“

Nicky pulls open the drawers of the bedside table and pulls out a condom, one of the alpha ones Joe bought in a fit of optimism three heats ago.

Joe whimpers in disapproval.

Another kiss on his back, this time between his shoulder blades.

“Next time,” Nicky promises, “when we’ve talked about it.”

“It’s not as good,” Joe pouts as Nicky rolls the condom on, although he has no way of knowing because he’s never done it without.

“I’ll take care of you,” Nicky promises, and slides into him.

Joe forgets to be annoyed, or sad, or anything but incandescent.

Nicky’s huge, he’d known that, vaguely, from the feel of him pressed against Joe’s leg, but filling him up like this, in the position where he’ll feel it most deeply—it’s just what he needs.

He gasps Nicky’s name, scrabbling against the sheets as he’s taken.

There’s no other word for it, Nicky takes him. Joe is static, a receptacle for pleasure, and with each movement of Nicky’s hips, he receives.

“You feel so good,” he groans into his arms. “I feel so good, fuck Nicky, just—just there.”

Nicky’s hands are brands at his hips, holding Joe steady as Nicky pounds into him. Joe’s been fucked from behind before, but like this, with his spine arched, it’s deeper—or maybe that’s just how big Nicky is, filling him to the brim.

“Such a good omega,” Nicky croons from behind him.

Joe’s spine liquefies at the praise, his belly dipping down low to the bed, spreading his knees even further apart.

Nicky’s hands clench tight on Joe’s hips. Joe sobs. Nicky’s thrusts turn harsh, perfect, filling Joe up just right.

“I won’t hold out,” Nicky says, low, intense. “You feel too good, Joe, omega, sweetheart—“

“Fill me up,” Joe pants into his arms, “knot me, claim me, make me yours, Nicky, please!” Distantly, he knows he’s spouting the worst, most hackneyed phrases from the romance novels he hides in the back of his closet, but he means it, he means every word, if Nicky sunk his teeth into Joe’s neck and claimed him for life right now, Joe wouldn’t care, Joe would love it, Joe would, Joe would—

Joe’s going to come.

He’s never done it, untouched, not even writhing on a fake knot in the worst wave of a solo heat, not even with the most attentive partner, but now…Nicky’s knot is swelling in him, Joe can feel it, even through the condom. It’s stretching him out just right, filling him all the way, and his body is singing with endorphins.

“I’m gonna,” he pants, “I’m gonna, Nicky—“

“Come for me,” Nicky growls.

Inside Joe, his knot locks tight, and Joe lunges forward to bite into his own hand as he comes so hard stars shimmer behind his clenched-shut eyes. Nicky, Nicky, Nicky, he needs to bite Nicky so badly, he needs Nicky to be his, he’s all Nicky’s, his thoughts go haywire as he comes all over the bedspread, leaking copiously around Nicky’s cock as he goes wet and tight.

He’s whimpering around the meat of his hand, he realizes, long minutes later, still jerking his hips down into the bed, still coming in fits and starts. He’s lost his position, laid out flat on the bed with Nicky inside him, on top of him, surrounding him.

“Shh,” Nicky says, rolling them onto their sides, and oh, Nicky’s arms around him, yes, that’s good.

Nicky’s big hand grips his cock, strokes it, and Joe convulses again, his orgasm intensifying into another wave of pleasure so intense he can’t see. 

When it’s over, when his balls are finally milked dry, he’s gasping for air.

“Feel better?” Nicky asks, close against his ear.

Joe groans. “I have never felt so good in my life,” he says, a little too honestly. In for a penny, he figures, and adds, “Can I just keep you here to do that whenever I want?”

Nicky’s laugh is a low rumble. Joe wants to blame it on the heat that he’s so satisfied to have made Nicky laugh, but this wave is ending and his brain is pretty clear and it’s more than probable his dumb heart has decided that this guy fucking him so good he came untouched is reason enough to fall in love.

“You can keep me any way you like,” Nicky says, and fuck.

Fuck.

This was always a danger, of course. 

Omegas, says the voice in Joe’s head that sounds alarmingly like the narrator of a dumb romcom from the 90s. Falling all over themselves for the first alpha who acts like they give a shit. It’s not true, Joe knows it’s not true, fuck, if Andy could hear him think that she’d punch him in the jaw and remind him that it took Quýnh at least ten dates and twenty fucks to make Andy even sort of warm up to her. 

Nicky rubs his stubbly jaw over Joe’s neck and Joe leans back further into his hold.

He can’t help that he’s hardwired to love like this, it’s nothing to do with his designation and everything to do with who he is. He falls fast and hard, and he’s been stopping himself at the precipice for years, shutting down before he can let anyone in, because no one else seems to feel the same.

He can only hope Nicky will.

It turns out, Nicky’s belly is exactly as soft as Joe thought it would be. He nuzzles into it, wishing he could purr like a cat as Nicky feeds him another grape.

“Food was such a good idea,” he praises. “This is so much better than energy bars.”

“I know,” Nicky says, every inch the self-satisfied alpha.

Joe kisses the space just left of his belly button.

He’s achy all over, especially his thighs and his ass, stretched from being knotted twice. “’M sorry it’s going so fast,” he mumbles, not really all that sorry. Mostly he’s just confused; usually his heats are a lot more mellow and the waves are far enough apart they take a few days, but it feels like he’s burning through this one all at once. There was barely enough time between Nicky’s knot going down the first time and Joe’s heat restarting for Nicky to pick up the food he’d apparently somehow gotten delivered to the front door. By the time Nicky had gotten back to bed, Joe had pulled him in with all his limbs and clung tightly to him through two separate untouched orgasms until Nicky was knotted tightly inside him again.

“Such a hardship,” Nicky teases. He feeds Joe a strawberry and Joe moans as it bursts, bright and sharp and sweet on his tongue.

Joe smiles up at him, and Nicky’s thick fingers brush gently through his chest hair.

“You’re really ridiculously gorgeous,” Nicky says, casually, matter-of-factly, his eyes trained on Joe’s chest, on his abs, his hands still carding through the hair there gently.

Joe doesn’t even care that he’s liable to end up with sticky fruit juice in his body hair. In part, it’s because he’s ridiculously gone on Nicky; in another part, there are enough other fluids staining both him and the bed at this point that he’s past worrying about it.

It’s hard to worry about much of anything, right now.

He stretches out, sighing. “I know people go on about it being better for alphas when they knot, but fuck, I did not know I would come that hard.”

“I didn’t even touch you,” Nicky agrees with something like wonder in his voice.

“Mm,” Joe agrees. The second time proved it wasn’t just a fluke, the instant Nicky’s knot started expanding Joe made a mess of himself all over again, whimpering into the pillows. “I knew it would feel good, but I didn’t know it would feel that good.”

Nicky’s fingers pause just as he they reach the happy trail leading down to Joe’s cock. “You’ve never done that before?”

“No,” Joe says. “It’s not exactly something you just ask an alpha for.”

“I’m so sorry,” Nicky says. “I should have—I shouldn’t have—“

Joe twists a little so he can pillow his cheek on the soft curve of Nicky’s stomach and look up into his eyes. “Did you miss the part where I was begging you for it?”

Nicky swallows. “No,” he says. “But you were also begging for me to fuck you without a condom.”

Joe winces.

“Thank you for not listening to that,” he says, although, if he can get Nicky to stick around, if he can get them both tested, he absolutely still wants that. “But you asked about the knotting while I was still lucid.”

“Were you?” Nicky asks doubtfully. “I don’t want to push your boundaries while you’re in heat.”

“It’s not a boundary,” Joe says, “it’s something I’ve always wanted and been too scared to ask for.” Also, and he’s not telling Nicky this quite yet, he’s pretty sure that Nicky asking for it is what short-circuited his heat and sent him spiraling into the second wave so fast. And the third.

“Well,” Nicky says, his hand resuming it’s slow tracing across Joe’s lower belly. “For what it’s worth, I’ve never knotted anyone, either.”

“I’d never have guessed,” Joe says, even though he kind of did at the overwhelmed expression on Nicky’s face when he knotted Joe for the second time.

Nicky smiles, Joe’s heart does a stupid little flippy thing, and Nicky reaches for something else from his food package beside the bed with the hand not currently petting Joe.

Something rubbery is set at Joe’s lips. It smells of artificial fruit flavoring.

He pulls back. “What’s that?”

“Gummy bear.”

“Oh,” Joe says. “Uh, sorry, no gelatine.”

Nicky draws away, putting the gummy bear back in its bag. “Oh, are you a vegetarian?”

“No, I’m Muslim,” Joe says.

“Oh,” Nicky says. Joe can see him process the information, search for the right words. He steels himself, curling a little tighter, regretfully lifting his head up to have a better view of Nicky’s face. He can’t change that he’s naked and sweaty, he can’t change that in some ways, Nicky now knows him more intimately than his own mother. But if Nicky turns out to be an asshole, Joe’s ready. He’s heard it all before. 

“It’s almost dawn,” Nicky says, “do you need to pray? I’m sorry, I didn’t know, I would have—“

Well-meaning, at least, Joe thinks. “Omegas in heat are exempt from salat,” he says.

Nicky blinks. “You don’t…sound thrilled,” he says hesitantly.

In point of fact, Joe thinks exempting heat and menstruation from religious duties is generally a good idea. He does have quite a few mortifying teenage experiences involving having to explain to distant family members why he can’t fast on certain days of Ramadan and a bit of a chip on his shoulder about society expecting him to be ashamed of going into heat in the first place, but mostly, he just feels guilty that he doesn’t actually pray all that much even when he can.

He has a prayer mat that’s been collecting dust for twenty-odd years since he got it in the first place as a going-away present from his grandmother when his family moved to Europe, because it turns out that the school system in the Netherlands isn’t all that conducive to non-Christian religious practice and as a teen, Joe cared a lot more about fitting in than about fulfilling his duty to Allah. The older he got, the more he realized that he’s shit out of luck on that front either way; he has no interest in conforming to the idea of what an omega ought to be presented by more traditional Muslims and he has even less interest in pretending that just because he lives in Europe now he’s left every aspect of his parents’ and grandparents’ culture behind him, especially because it keeps turning out that actually, a lot of Europeans have the same ideas about omegas.

These days, not eating pork products and going to the mosque on those rare Fridays when the faculty council gets cancelled is about as far as he goes in terms of actually acting on being Muslim.

He still tells people he is, because otherwise they seem to take it as blanket permission to say Islamophobic shit to his face.

“I have a complicated relationship with faith,” Joe says at last because he just doesn’t have the time or energy to unpack all of that to a man he just met when the next wave of his heat is probably already closing in. “You’ve already seen me drink alcohol and have premarital sex tonight, I think it’s safe to say I don’t stick to the letter of the law.”

Nicky laughs a little. “I understand that,” he says. “I don’t have the easiest relationship with God, either.”

It’s a difference of phrasing that Joe wants to hear more about; it sounds as if Nicky has cause to be angry at God, which is an avenue he’s never considered personally. It’s a lot easier to be angry at people. 

“Are there any other restrictions I should know about?” Nicky asks. “Only, I was going to cook later, and I’m…a very stupid white man. Feel free to tell me if I say something offensive, or, or kick me out.”

Joe huffs an exasperated laugh. “Just try not to say it while we’re tied together,” he suggests. “Pork is the big one, I’m going to go out on a limb and say you’re not planning on cooking any carrion or mule or cat meat or whatever.”

“Foiled again in my plan to feed roadkill to my conquests,” Nicky says. He offers Joe another strawberry, and Joe settles his head back on Nicky’s belly, chewing. “I’m serious, though, I’m sure I’m full of terrible stereotypes and if I offend you—“

“We’re all full of terrible stereotypes,” Joe says. “For instance, I blindly assume you will cook me pasta, because I figured you’re Italian based on the accent.”

Nicky looks a little sheepish. “That’s not the same,” he says, which is a little pleasing because it’s true; it is a lazy stereotype on Joe’s part, but Nicky’s not about to get profiled by the police for eating too many Farfalle. “Also,” Nicky adds, “you’re maybe not incorrect about the pasta.”

“Good,” Joe hums. “I like pasta.” He laughs a little, not because it’s all that funny, but because he’s so relieved that Nicky’s not going to be a dick about it.

“Come here,” Nicky says.

Joe pouts. “I’m comfy.”

“But I want to kiss you.”

Kisses are good. Joe likes kisses. He struggles up towards Nicky’s head, hovering above him to press their lips together briefly.

Under him, Nicky smiles beatifically.

“More,” he says, and loops his arms around Joe’s neck, pulling him in for more kisses, deep and thorough.

It’s nice, it’s intimate in a way they haven’t been yet, and Joe enjoys it even as he mourns the fact that he can feel himself getting wet again, he can feel the hormones start to cloud his brain again.

He pulls away with a gasp and rests his forehead against Nicky’s broad shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” Nicky asks. His hand is a steady presence on the back of Joe’s neck. It should be irritating, too warm, but it isn’t. 

Joe sighs. “I like getting to know you,” he admits. “But…”

“But your cycle’s starting up again,” Nicky says, scenting the air. 

“Uh-huh,” Joe says. “What’s the opposite of a cockblock?”

Nicky kisses him again, bearing Joe down into the pillows, twisting to sit atop Joe’s hips. 

A flood of arousal swamps Joe, dragging him back under, making him writhe under Nicky and paw at any bit of Nicky’s skin he can reach.

“I think it’s a heartblock,” Nicky says thoughtfully, gripping Joe’s arms easily and holding them up over his head.

“What?” Joe asks, even as his hips thrust up helplessly. He’s fucking dripping, again. How has Nicky done this to him?

“The opposite of a cockblock,” Nicky says, as if Joe can keep hold of any thread of conversation when he’s this turned on. “A heartblock.”

Making an impatient noise, Joe surges up to kiss Nicky again. He can’t wrap his legs around  Nicky like this, with Nicky straddling him, but they try to spread of their own accord. The overstretched tendons in his thighs twinge and he winces.

“Sore?” Nicky asks. He swings his leg back over Joe’s hips and Joe mourns his absence.

“Yeah,” Joe says. “You’ll have to be gentle. Maybe no knot, this time.”

Nicky’s hands part the cheeks of Joe’s ass, and Joe whines half in pain at the stretch of overused muscles and half in pleasure at Nicky’s hands on him.

“Want me to ride you?” Nicky asks, even as he collects the slick accumulated between Joe’s legs on his fingers.

“That works,” Joe agrees breathlessly. It won’t calm the screaming, aching emptiness in him, but that won’t matter once he’s come. Heat’s fickle like that, makes you think it needs one thing and one thing alone, but really any will do. It’s like waking up so hungry you feel sick and only waffles will do, but the waffles take so long to procure you have to eat a banana to tide yourself over, and it turns out that really any food would have been alright to quench the hunger, you just really wanted waffles.

Maybe that’s just Joe. 

“I have lube,” he offers breathlessly, even though the glisten of his own slick on Nicky’s fingers is doing wonders for his renewed erection.

Nicky shakes his head. “You could finger me, though.”

A shudder wracks its way all down Joe’s body, leaving him breathless. The pace of this heat is insane, he thinks, and pointedly doesn’t think too hard about why that might be. “You want,” he says—pants, really, “me to finger my own slick into you so I can fuck you.”

“Yes,” Nicky says. His eyes are half-lidded, he’s already reached behind himself with his wet hand. Joe scrambles upright so he can kneel opposite Nicky, collecting more slick on his own fingers. He’s too rough in his haste and scrapes a nail across the abused skin of his hole. It makes him hiss, but it also makes him remember how thoroughly Nicky claimed him.

With his fingers thoroughly covered in the slick leaking from him copiously, he reaches around to find Nicky with one thick finger already pushing into his ass. He moans when Joe sets a second by its side. 

“You like this,” Joe says in wonder.

“It feels good,” Nicky sighs. “I’ve got all the same parts as you, I just can’t get wet.”

“You have one part I don’t,” Joe says, fondling Nicky’s cock. It’s already mostly hard; he’s been good at keeping up. Joe’s had betas who couldn’t keep up, during a heat, who fucked him with fingers and toys when they couldn’t keep going.

He’d like Nicky to do all those things, too, but right now, he wants more of Nicky’s body.

“You’re going to smell like me,” he realizes, even as his finger sinks into Nicky.

Nicky moans. “Yes,” he says. “Everyone will be able to tell that you chose me to cool your heat.” He says it like it’s an honor, something to be proud of.

In order to avoid saying something about how lucky Joe feels, how he’s never felt this good during a heat, how Nicky’s giving him everything he wants, Joe leans in close and noses his way around Nicky’s neck. Nicky’s scent is hot and thick, and it drugs Joe, leaves him reeling. He fucks a second finger into Nicky.

“Enough,” Nicky says. “Slick up your cock.”

Joe does as he’s told instantly.

“On your back,” Nicky commands.

Joe stretches out, hands going up to grip the headboard.

With Nicky straddling his hips again, Joe feels unmoored. Nicky’s fist is firm around his cock, Nicky’s ass is tight and slick around it, and like this, Nicky setting the pace, Nicky’s strong thighs weighing him down, prohibiting movement—Joe still feels like he’s the one being claimed.

He throws his head back to not look directly at Nicky as he rises and falls on Joe’s cock.

He can’t. 

Nicky’s too fucking sexy like this, the muscles in his thighs bunching and releasing. His stomach—Joe’s obsessing, at this point, but there’s a little jiggle in his soft tummy with every rise and fall, and the way it felt to rest his head there and be fed, the way it felt brushing against his back when Nicky took him the first time, the way it brushed against his cock when Nicky fucked him the second time…

Joe’s grip goes white-knuckled.

“You can touch me,” Nicky says, like it’s a generosity, a benevolence, and maybe it is, because Joe is fucking greedy for it. He’s clumsy, reaching for Nicky, pawing over his sides, pulling him close to kiss him, scraping fingertips over his nipples and relishing how he clenches down around Joe.

He catches a whiff of their scents, combined, because Nicky’s slick with him, Nicky’s full of him, Nicky’s his.

“Won’t last,” he manages to say between fevered kisses to Nicky’s skin, between gropes of every bit of Nicky’s skin he can reach.

“Touch me,” Nicky demands, and Joe reaches for his cock, his fucking perfect cock, stroking it off. He’s leaking already, he’s so hot for Joe, he’s so hot.

Nicky’s pace redoubles, slamming himself up and down on Joe’s cock, panting and groaning. Joe uses his other hand, massages the place the knot would be at the base of Nicky’s dick.

Instantly, Nicky doubles over. In Joe’s hand, the knot swells up all at once and come bursts over Joe’s hands. The smell of it, the feel of it, sets Joe’s heart racing. He fucks his hips up into Nicky once, twice, making Nicky moan, making himself come screaming.

“Fuck,” Nicky’s saying when Joe comes down enough to process words. “Fuck, fuck, Joe.”

Joe’s pretty sure he hasn’t heard Nicky swear before. 

“You okay?” he asks muzzily. Nicky’s still coming in his hand, he notes, still convulsing around Joe’s softening cock. 

“So good,” Nicky gasps, “so good, fuck, Joe, I never, didn’t know I would, sorry—“

“Don’t be sorry,” Joe says instantly. What’s there to be sorry for, when he feels like this, flying high on hormones? When his whole body has gone heavy and relieved? When the world is going hazy around the edge because it’s all filled up with Nicky? “Think I’m gonna fall asleep though,” he mutters, only a split second before he does.

Joe wakes up with an incredibly dry mouth.

His eyes are glued shut and he can barely move.

“Good morning,” Nicky says.

His voice is familiar by now, but it still sends a thrill down Joe’s spine. He forces his eyes open so he can take in the view of Nicky, sitting up against the headboard beside him. Struggling through the sheets to get closer, he wraps his arm across Nicky’s hip and pushes his head into Nicky’s side.

Nicky laughs, delighted, and settles his hand in Joe’s hair, scritching at Joe’s scalp.

“Sleep well?” Nicky asks.

“Mm,” Joe says.

“I did,” Nicky continues. “I slept till one PM, that never happens. You really took it out of me.”

“Mm,” Joe agrees. Nicky knotted his hand. Joe’s never even heard of that happening, he was pretty sure knots were reserved for fucking exclusively. You learn something new every day, or something. Nicky also knotted three times, that must have taken it out of him.

Joe’s definitely still feeling it.

“What time’s it?” Joe asks into Nick’s skin.

“Almost three,” Nicky says.

Joe struggles upright. “This is a weird heat,” he complains.

“The waves were very close together,” Nicky agrees. “And it’s been a long break since the last one.”

“There’s usually more of them, though,” Joe warns. He doubts he’s done yet.

Nicky shrugs good-naturedly. “I have time,” he says. “Summer break.”

“You’re a teacher?” 

“Kindergarten.”

Joe tries not to have an aneurysm at the thought of Nicky, the same man who took Joe as roughly as he’s always wanted, surrounded by sticky-fingered children, giving them hugs and snacks.

“And you?”

“I’m a professor,” he says. “Art history.” He tries not to sound as proud as he is; there aren’t exactly a lot of omegas in higher education.

Then again, there aren’t a lot of alphas out there teaching kindergarten.

By the way Nicky smiles at him, pleasure and pride lighting up his eyes, he’s thinking the same thing. 

For me, the thought that’s been niggling under Joe’s skin since the second wave hit him so fast and so hard makes itself known. Just for me. 

He clamps down on the thought hard. True mates don’t exist, they’re a myth the crowned heads of Europe used to legitimize their stranglehold on wealth and power and colonies. For every couple that claims to be incandescently happy, truly mated and truly fated, there’s three others who thought they were mates, who claimed each other, forever and always, only to end up miserable. A claiming is no more and no less than a marriage, everyone knows that, it’s just that a claiming is a damn sight harder to get out of than a marriage.

Doesn’t stop some romantic impulse in Joe’s stomach, in the hungry, empty, lonely parts of him, from wanting it.

Nicky sets his book aside. “Are you hungry? We should probably eat something, before—“

“Oh fuck, you were reading that?” escapes Joe’s mouth.

Nicky grins, unrepentant. “It was very interesting,” he says innocently. He picks it up again. On the cover, a man covered in rippling muscles and a shirt that barely contains them holds a woman in what can only be termed a see-through bathrobe as she swoons.

“His Majesty’s Mating Grounds,” Nicky reads the title. “I haven’t gotten to that bit yet, but he’s certainly talked a lot about all the things he wants to do to her on them.”

“Shut up,” Joe mumbles, flushing red. “I know it’s not good—“

“What does that matter, if you enjoy it?” Nicky asks.

Joe shrugs. “People seem to think it matters a lot.”

“Ah, people,” Nicky says. “They think all these things, who can keep track.”

It’s said in the tone of a joke, but, heart pounding, Joe takes the leap that Nicky’s been yearning to be seen for exactly who he is just as much as Joe has. He leans in, presses their foreheads together gently, and lets himself breathe with Nicky.

His heart feels full.

It’s a strange feeling.

“At the risk of ruining the moment,” Nicky says eventually, “is that something you’re interested in?”

“Hm?” Joe asks, still basking in Nicky’s closeness.

“You know, mating grounds, mating runs…claiming runs. All that.”

Joe pulls back. He swallows.

“I’m not asking for now,” Nicky says hurriedly. “I just mean…generally. Because those are the kinds of things my very conservative Italian parents think are good, old traditions that should be brought back. And I have spent a long while forgetting everything they taught me, so it has been very refreshing to meet someone who likes the same parts I do without all the…” he waves his fingers about in a way that Joe takes to mean bullshit societal expectations.

“Ah,” Joe says. “Well. Yeah, I like the idea of all that. It sounds kind of romantic to me, you know, being chased, being caught. Trusting someone to catch me no matter how far I run or how well I hide. But it’s like with the sex—outside of that, I need to be an equal partner.”

“Of course,” Nicky says immediately. “I just mean…it’s so hard to want to live your life the way you want to—“

“And to like the things you like in bed without people acting like it’s some big awful statement about who you are,” Joe finishes. “My colleagues are dicks about my designation already, if they knew I liked to get held down and knotted, they’d use it to invalidate me at every turn.”

“I’m sorry,” Nicky says. “That sounds terrible.”

Joe attempts a smile. “It is. Just promise me you won’t call my dean and tell him what I did yesterday.”

Nicky holds out his pinky. “Don’t call the woman who runs the parent-teacher association.”

Joe hooks his pinky around Nicky’s. “Deal.”

They seal it with a kiss.

“So,” Joe says. “You said you’d feed me pasta.”

A pleased flush spreads across Nicky’s cheeks. It’s adorable. “I did say that, didn’t I,” he says.

In the end, the next wave of Joe’s heat never comes. He sits in his kitchen for hours, chatting with Nicky, eating and drinking water and talking about their childhoods, and eventually, night falls around them with no fifth wave in sight.

Joe’s suspicion of Nicky’s effect on his heat intensifies.

He talks Nicky into coming back to bed with him, builds up the nest around them properly, until there are so many pillows on the bed the only way they can sleep is wrapped tight around each other.

In the dark, with Nicky’s back to Joe’s front, Joe finally dares ask for what he thinks they’ve been dancing around. 

“Can I see you again?” he asks. “Maybe for your next rut? Or—“

“No,” Nicky says instantly, and Joe feels like he’s been stabbed.

After all that, he’d been so sure that Nicky felt it too, he’s already thought of three different things he wants to do with Nicky, he was already thinking about calling his mother. 

He draws his hand away from where it was resting casually on Nicky’s stomach, but Nicky holds it fast.

“No,” Nicky says, “that’s a month away, I can’t wait to see you again that long, Joe, I want to see you tomorrow, and the day after, and every day after that.”

Joe’s laugh of relief is shaky. “Good,” he says. “See me. All of the days.”

Nicky’s rut is two weeks early.

Joe’s next heat is a week late.

Within two months of knowing each other, their cycles are fully synced. 

High on pheromones and pleasure, Nicky tells Joe over and over again that he loves him, and delightfully, he repeats it after, when they’re wrapped up cozily in Joe’s nest and fully clear-headed.

Neither of them says anything about their cycles matching up, but with each passing day they spend together, Joe’s suspicion deepens. Every comment from their friends and family about how well-suited they are feeds his secret little dream, until he finds that within the privacy of his own mind, he thinks of Nicky as his mate.

At the tail end of a shared heat cycle where he has to spend the entirety of it face-down, biting into the pillows because he’ll bite Nicky otherwise, he finally confesses.

“I think you might have been made for me,” he says. “And even if you weren’t—Nicky, I want you to be it for me. I want to claim you. Will you be mine, forever?”

Nicky looks at him, stars in his eyes. “On one condition,” he says.

“Anything,” Joe agrees immediately.

“Marry me first.”

They plan it carefully, a sensible, low-key wedding that could almost pass for an elopement, just no-frills enough that they don’t get too many comments about how fast they’re moving; they schedule the honeymoon to fall perfectly around their next cycles.

Barely a year after they first met, in a remote, private Air B’n’B Nicky found them, Joe finally, finally sinks his teeth into the base of Nicky’s neck as he’s knotted.

It’s ecstasy. 

Lying beside Joe, panting in the aftermath, Nicky looks incandescent, his face haloed in the hair he hasn’t cut in a while.

“You next,” Joe tells him. He can already feel his body gearing up for the next round, barely a break in between anymore. With Nicky, he burns through his heat hot and bright, over in a matter of hours as compared the days of low-level discomfort interspersed with bright sparks of arousal he went through before.

“Mm,” Nicky stretches. “We can do it the same way if you like,” he offers. “Or…”

Joe props himself up on his elbow. “Or?”

Nicky smiles over at him slyly. “This place has about twenty square kilometers of land. It used to be a mating ground.”

Joe’s breath hitches. “You’d chase me?” he asks.

“I’ll catch you,” Nicky promises.

He does.

Joe gives him a run for his money—of course he does, he has to. Joe’s a lot stronger than Nicky; Joe’s fast over short distances, quick to get up trees or under the cover of bushes, but Nicky’s steady. Nicky follows. Nicky tracks him.

Nicky lies in wait, and two hours after they set out, when Joe thinks he’s safe climbing down a particularly impressive tree, Nicky catches him. Immediately, his touch sears through Joe’s soul, burning hot and bright in the full flush of his heat’s second wave. 

He puts up a token resistance, pushing back at Nicky’s hold, trying to escape, but Nicky smells so good, and Joe doesn’t actually want to hurt him, and then his thumb brushes across the soft line of Nicky’s stomach and it’s over.

There’s nothing he can do but pull Nicky down to the forest floor and lick across the claiming bite he left on Nicky’s neck, until Nicky’s teeth are bared with the strength of his desire, until Nicky’s hoisting Joe’s legs up around his hips and sinking in deep.

“You caught me,” Joe breathes, even as he feels the swell of Nicky’s knot already tugging at the rim of his ass. 

“I’ll always catch you,” Nicky promises. In the darkness, his eyes are a glimmer, but Joe knows how beautiful they are all the same. “I’ll always find you. I could track your scent across time itself, fuck, Joe.”

It’s neither of their best showing, but it doesn’t matter that it’s over fast, it doesn’t matter there are pine cones and twigs digging into Joe’ back; the instant Nicky’s teeth dig into Joe’s neck, he comes screaming his pleasure into the night sky.

After, it matters a little, but Nicky is kind enough to roll them over so it’s his back on the ground. 

“Do you feel different?” Joe asks him, head tucked into the space between Nicky’s neck and shoulders, where his scent is the strongest.

“I feel like I love you,” Nicky says. “I feel like I always will. That hasn’t changed.”

“I love you too. And I feel like I’m yours,” Joe says. “That hasn’t changed either.” He smiles into Nicky’s neck, and Nicky giggles at the brush of Joe’s beard. “Track my scent across time, can you?” he asks Nicky, while he’s got him here, happy and warm and still tied to Joe.

“I might have had a little advantage in that I researched the grounds beforehand,” Nicky admits. “But I thought you would pick that tree out of all the trees here, and I was right, wasn’t I?”

“You were,” Joe says. “Thank you for this. It made me really happy.”

Nicky’s arms wrap around him, hugging him tight. “That’s my job,” he says, delighted. “Since you married me, and claimed me.”

“Sounds like a good decision on my part,” Joe says. 

“The best.”