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The first hint that something is awry comes in the last moments of battle: a light, sweet scent rolling across the blood-soaked, salt-stained boards, cutting through the heavy air. “Shit, not again,” Ivan sighs, flicking his cutlass to clean it of gristle.
Stede sniffs curiously, takes out a handkerchief, and dabs it gingerly against the blade of the little dagger that Izzy threw at him two months past, which Stede decided was his to keep and which Izzy sneers at every time Stede takes it out, to cut through the air for emphasis as he lectures the crew on morale and team spirit and how to execute a floor plan with little to no stumbling, steps almost in unison.
“Hm? What’s happening?”
Ivan tosses his head toward the forecastle. Stede follows with his eyes, tipping his head up and sniffing, still curious, because that really is quite a lovely scent, now isn’t it? Reminds him of something too, though what, precisely, he isn’t certain of, though it does feel familiar- a little comforting, a little exhilarating, a little bit like home.
“Oh, there’s our Blackbeard,” Stede sighs, happily and admiringly at the sight of Ed standing tall and triumphant, arms akimbo and hair streaming in the faint wind.
Their opponents hadn’t given them much trouble, only that they refused to surrender, and so of course they’d been boarded and given no quarter. Stede still isn’t quite used to that sort of gusto, but he’s getting there. Managed to even poke a few holes into a few sides, though Izzy had to shove him down with a snarl when Stede neglected to notice that flintlock pointing at him, and well, really-
Ed’s response to a shot fired at his mates had been something, now hadn’t it?
But Stede doesn’t see how that has anything to do with the strange scent in the air, plucking at Stede’s guts and spine and heartstrings like some jaunty rigaudon: Stede’s posture straightens, he picks up his feet, and before he knows it he’s moving across the ship, past the shroud, up the steps.
“Ed,” he greets, confused and muddled.
“Thank fuck,” says Blackbeard, giving a gusty sigh. “Here, you take him. Gotta clean up this mess, don’t I? Can’t all of us be out of commission.”
Izzy gives a faint rumble of discontent. “Edward. I can go on my own.”
“Yeah, sure. Like Stede here would let you.”
“I’m not his,” Izzy hisses back, and he’s a stubborn, angry black blot against the blue sky beyond, whatever blood might be on his clothes and in his hair swallowed up by his austere appearance, his perfect, almost vicious professionalism. His back is ramrod straight and he’s scowling into the middle distance, stiff and furious.
He looks perfectly normal, except-
“You seem awfully flushed, Izzy dear,” Stede says, and finds himself nearly toe to toe with the man, quite suddenly and entirely without conscious decision. Stede swallows, blinking down at Izzy’s scowl in surprise, his gut twisting something awful. “Er. That is. What is happening here? I seem to have, hm. Lost a bit of motor control. Odd, how odd.”
Ed laughs, low and sweet. “Ah, Stede. Knew you’d be down for it, mate. Good, good. Iz, go on and take him with you. I’ll be over when I can.”
“Edward,” comes Izzy’s hoarse growl.
“You know how you get.”
“Tch.”
Stede takes in a great, big lungful of that sweet, sweet scent and oh, oh, of course! “That smell is you!” Stede says, voice strangled high as he recognizes the issue, and Izzy’s glare finally snaps to him, eyes dark and hot and hard, his lip curling up to bare his teeth.
“Fuckwit,” he says. “And you call yourself an alpha.”
“Well, really, it’s not foremost on the list of things I call myself,” Stede argues, “at least when it comes to that which I aspire to. What really is an alpha, after all? Nothing more than a knot! A few pheromones! A whole sordid history of terrible behaviour hand waved for convenience! I’d rather not.”
Ed laughs again, still low and sweet, now soft and fond. Stede watches as Izzy’s scowl wobbles, losing its edge. His face gets soft and tired and pinched about the eyes without the fearsome expression to prop it up with.
“Shall I stay?” Stede asks. “Ed can go with you. I assume it’s your, er-”
“Shut up,” Izzy hisses.
Stede makes a face at him. “Don’t be embarrassed! It’s perfectly natural, Izzy! Well. Maybe not the timing- do you normally go into heat this suddenly? Does the mayhem and the terror and the blood lust really do it for you that much?”
Peripherally, Stede notices Ed bend over, hands on his knees as he wheezes for breath, laughing too hard to say anything at all.
“I’m- irregular,” Izzy admits, voice thin and tight.
“About most things, yes, I’ve found this to be true. Sometimes your oddities are even charming, if we ignore the disturbingly homicidal lean to many of your quirks-” Stede doesn’t know why he’s saying all this to an omega so suddenly in the early stages of heat, except that it’s natural, it’s fun. He and Izzy will always be at each other’s throats more often than not. Will always needle and poke and prod each other with little mean digs, with funny little quips.
Biology isn’t going to change that.
“-are you going to want a severed arm for your nest?”
Ed howls, banging a fist into his thigh.
“Oh, fuck you, Bonnet,” Izzy snarls, softer than Stede is expecting. There’s a faint, vicious looking smile flirting with the edges of his mouth. His eyes are still dark and hot and hard, that sweet scent thicker and riper with every breath.
Stede can’t look away from him.
“I’m gonna pop a knot just listening to you two,” Ed finally gets out, breathless and giddy. All around them the crew is giving them a surprisingly respectful, wide berth, milling about their usual business after a successful raid: checking on captives, double-checking that the dead are really dead; picking up choice morsels that shine ever so brightly as they find them, looting the victims.
Stede wonders if he’s going to have to go find a severed arm for Izzy’s nest, now, but thankfully Izzy only sighs once, short and sharp and like giving in. He says, “Edward. Since fucking Bonnet is here, take your time and do it right. This is a good ship. Don’t waste any of the supplies.”
“Aye, captain,” Ed mocks, soft and mean.
Izzy finally flickers his gaze away from Stede to look at him. A convulsion overtakes him, some ripple of feeling through his whole body, rattling his frame. The scent of him blooms bright, full and heady, and Stede suddenly gets a noseful of Ed’s scent ratcheting up in response, thick and potent, heavy and smothering and like he wants nothing more than to drown Izzy in it.
“You’re such a twat,” Izzy protests, annoyed.
“Yeah, well. I can’t scent you proper if I’m meant to let you go, so-”
“C’mon, Bonnet,” Izzy grunts.
His hand comes out, leather creaking. Fingers fist into Stede’s shirt and hold on, yanking him to follow. Stede is still a bit dizzied from how gorgeous Izzy and Ed’s scents are when they catch and mingle like that. He doesn’t experience it much. They all three of them smell so much like each other now that everything gets a bit muddled, a little blurred. Stede likes it, though he’s also achingly aware that his and Izzy’s scents have never quite blended, not like Stede and Ed’s, not like Ed’s and Izzy’s.
But now-
No.
Stede shakes his head, sharp, stumbling over his feet after Izzy.
A heat doesn’t mean that Stede’s going to be doing anything at all to him, after all. Ed is Izzy’s alpha. Has been for so long, a bond that’s nigh unbreakable. Even if Izzy allows Ed to have another mate, even if Izzy allows Stede into his bed and his body and his heart, at least to some extent, that doesn’t mean Stede will be welcomed into his nest, allowed to do anything else save keep him company while Ed is gone, to fetch them food and ale for the duration.
For their sake, and the sake of this careful relationship they’ve painfully woven together, one frayed strand at a time, Stede can ignore his cramping gut and the thud-thud of his own stupid, foolish, hungry heart.
-
It becomes quickly apparent that Stede’s plans are futile.
“Izzy!” he cries, staggering back across the floor. He fetches up against the desk and nearly winds up sprawled atop it. Then Izzy fists his hand, still in its glove, once more into the loose fabric of Stede’s shirt, pulling it taut all across Stede’s shoulders and against his back, making a high keen in the back of his throat.
Stede gasps, immediately overwhelmed at the angry manhandling, Izzy’s lush scent, the naked need on his face.
He forces himself to scrabble at the desk’s edge and not at Izzy’s hips, grasp solid wood tight enough that his fingers ache at the desperation of his grip. He chokes out, “Izzy, Izzy, darling. You- You’re not yourself right now, you must- must slow down! Don’t you want to build a lovely nest for you and your alpha? I’ll keep you company, I can-”
Izzy shoves him flat onto his back, and oh, but he is fast.
Before Stede finishes blinking the stars from his eyes, Izzy is straddling him on the desk, hunched over and snarling at Stede from only an inch away. His hand is shaking in Stede’s shirt.
Slowly, carefully, Stede unlocks one hand from its death grip on the table.
He brings it up to rest lightly over the furious clench of Izzy’s, bunched up right over Stede’s rapidly beating heart. “Izzy,” he whispers. “You don’t want this. Do you?”
“Fucking Bonnet,” is Izzy’s strained reply. “What kind of alpha are you, huh? Too polite. Too genteel. Fucking- not enough for you? That I’m here. That you are. What the fuck is it you want from me, then! Want me to beg? Want me to present? That it? You need to play with me a little, or- or you- you don’t-”
Izzy’s breath rattles wetly in his throat. His eyes gleam, bright and wet.
“I- I don’t- Izzy, I didn’t mean to-”
Over him, Izzy crumples a little, folding over and barely catching himself before burying his face in Stede’s neck. Stede can feel his breath shuddering out of him, wet and gasping. Feels the trickle of tears drop down against his skin, hot and miserable. “You don’t want me,” Izzy mumbles.
Oh, lord.
Stede’s hand comes up off the desk so fast it’s a miracle he doesn’t hurt Izzy with the momentum, swinging it over his hunched up back, pressing him down hard against Stede’s chest. Izzy whimpers, and-
“Is this what Ed meant?” Stede asks, uneven and uncertain. “That you- how you get? It came on so fast, Izzy! You’re already this far gone. You can’t wait, can you? For Ed?”
“Hurts if I wait,” Izzy grits out.
“But you could for Ed, couldn’t you? For your actual alpha? Wouldn’t you like it if you wait for him instead of- of me.”
At that, Izzy pushes back up, and there’s nothing like a scowl or a snarl or a familiar sneer on his flushed face, nothing hard about his dark, dilated eyes, glassy and dazed. He makes a pitiful nose. His knees come in tight against Stede’s sides. “I can- I can convince you,” he mumbles, all threadbare and hurt. “Alpha. Alpha, please. Let me be good for you. I know I can. I can do it. I’ll make you want me, please- please say you want me. St-Stede. Let me be good, I can- I can-”
“Shh, yes, I’m certain you can,” Stede soothes, blood boiling and cock thickening up so fast it leaves him almost as dizzy as Izzy’s sweet scent does.
“Why don’t you want me,” Izzy cries.
“I do!” Stede yelps, more than a little panicked.
But it’s true enough, and more than that it seems to calm the rampant hormones. Izzy whines in sweet relief, ducking his head back down into Stede’s throat and taking a huge gulp of air. Then he shudders hard; seems to get a semblance of control over himself now that he isn’t being bowled by omega instinct, calmed at being wanted, calmed further by drowning where Stede’s scent is thickest, helping clear the heat from his buzzing mind a little.
“Fuck,” Izzy mutters, thick and wretched. “Fuck.”
“Do you really want me here?” Stede asks, and there’s so much in the question, a whole world and wealth of meaning.
“...Yes.”
Stede lets out a slow, shuddering breath, letting that sink in a moment. Because obviously Izzy can’t wait for Ed. Obviously both he and Ed expected Stede to knot Izzy, or else they never would have sent him in here with him.
“But you…you said you’re not mine.”
“Fuckwit,” Izzy groans. “Because I’m not. Not- not yet.”
Stede stares up at the dark beams of the ceiling, stunned senseless. “O-oh,” he manages as that sinks in.
Izzy wants him.
Like this, raw and pained and trusting him during his heat, when he is weakest and out of his mind and utterly vulnerable, nothing more than desire and greed, desperation and fire.
Stede doesn’t know what to do with the way that makes him feel, except that his scent must say something clear enough about it anyway, considering the way Izzy shoves his face harder into Stede’s throat, the way he groans and rolls his spine, a fresh spike of his own sweet scent hitting the air.
“Alpha,” he whines. “Yes, yes, want you. Need you. C’mon, Stede, fucking- c’mon.”
Stede finds himself smiling, wide and bright. Finds himself petting indulgently at Izzy’s back, growing harder in his breeches, arousal and relief pouring through him. Can’t resist letting loose a happy, sweet little sigh as he stops fighting for control and instead muses, “Imagine! Izzy Hands, the most feral omega I ever did meet, and he’s such a needy, darling little thing when his heat overwhelms him, hm?”
At his neck, Stede feels the press of Izzy’s teeth, sharp and mean against his skin, pressing just above Stede’s scent glands and just below where Ed’s mating scar is.
Stede swallows hard, admits, “It is painfully attractive, I’ll have you know,” which makes Izzy whine high in his throat and bite him after all, stinging and fierce and excruciatingly deliberate. “Yes, yes,” Stede fusses, half laughing and half groaning, tilting his head to let Izzy have at. “Take your fill, you greedy thing. How long until you need a knot to sate you?”
“God.” Izzy rubs his face against Stede’s throat. “Now. Now. Alpha, please.”
Stede tuts. “Are you always this shameless?”
Izzy groans, wiggling atop him. His face is hot. “Alpha,” he whines again.
Turning his head, Stede manages to kiss the top curve of Izzy’s equally hot ear. “That’s all right,” he soothes. “I’ve got you, darling. Let your alpha take care of you, hm?”
Izzy’s answering sob is grateful, undone.
-
Izzy’s heat burns through him fast and hard and brutal. By the time Stede gets them from the desk to the bed he’s gone soft and malleable, trembling and sweet. Tears stream down his flushed, sticky cheeks and his breath is unsteady, hands fumbling. Stede’s chest squeezes too tight; his prick pulses. He says, “There you are, darling. Do you want to be good for me? Good for your alpha?”
“Nhh. Please.”
“Hands on the bed, then,” Stede says, a little brisker. Hunger is prickling under his skin, gnawing at his bones. If he doesn’t get a chance to knot Izzy before his own rut wakes and takes him, he’ll curse himself forever; this is a memory he wants to keep.
“A-alpha,” Izzy groans, like the order is the most painfully cruel thing Stede could possibly have asked of him.
Stede snorts. “Now,” he says, and while he’s never been very good at the growling, he knows by now how to project a bit of alpha into his voice when he needs to- it’s very convenient when the crew is being particularly unruly, and besides, Ed likes it a lot in bed when Stede rides him slow, leans down to whisper indecent things in his ear.
Izzy seems to like it too. He whimpers, thighs clenching tight. Turns around so fast he nearly stumbles before bending over, planting his hands on the edge of the bed. His feet slide wide, boots squeaking against the wood floor.
“No, no,” Stede says. “Not yet. You’re fully clothed, you ridiculous thing. Come now, let me just-”
“Knife,” Izzy pants, rocking up onto the toes of his boots.
It takes a moment for Stede to get past the dizzying rush that fills him at the visual of Izzy doing his best to present even like this. Oh, but Stede is never going to survive this mating, he just knows it. “What about a knife?” he asks, stumbling over the words and his own feet, coming up behind Izzy and touching careful hands to the rounded curve of his ass.
Like this, Stede can smell the faintest whiff of his slick through all that leather.
He swallows a groan.
“Your- the knife I- I gave you,” Izzy grates out, shoulders hunching. “The- for the-”
“The one you threw at me all those months ago?”
“Yes!”
“Aha,” Stede says, feeling triumphant. His hand grows bolder. He palms the generous swell of Izzy’s ass, and- and he really is so very plush, isn’t he? Smaller than both Ed and Stede, yes, but still so wonderfully thick, such a handful, more than enough to dig your fingers and your teeth into, to pinch and squeeze and bite-
“Alpha!”
“Er, right,” Stede gasps, shaking his head hard to gain back some clarity. “I meant to say, aha! So you did intend to give it to me!”
“Stede-”
“I knew you liked me,” Stede enthuses, rubbing his palm against Izzy’s rear, stroking and fondling and pushing at him, tipping his hips up even more. “Admit it, Izzy. You like me. You want me. You can’t help yourself!”
Izzy groans, and all at once Stede remembers that Izzy is compromised, and perhaps this isn’t the time, but also- Izzy knows perfectly well who Stede is, so- so really, he can’t be terribly bothered and hopefully won’t murder Stede with the very same knife that he’s admitting in a tortured rush, “Alpha, it was a fucking- courtship gift, fuck, you’re so dense, God! You took it, you accepted it, you use it all the time, but still you won’t- w-what do I have to do, for fuck’s sake? You’ll fuck me, but you won’t knot me and you won’t bite me and I want- I want-”
“Oh, Izzy,” Stede breathes.
“I want you to take that knife and cut me out of these fucking clothes already! They feel so fucking awful and just- I need a knot,” Izzy snarls out, choked up and hurting and wet with tears. “Stede, p-please.”
“Yes. Yes, of course, darling.”
Stede gets out the knife with trembling fingers. Then he blinks down at the wavering blade and says, “On second thought, that’s a terrible idea, I’m absolutely going to stab you accidentally.”
A rough noise. Izzy husks out, “Don’t mind bleeding, alpha.”
“Well I mind,” Stede snaps back without thinking, which- which wouldn’t be bad at all, except Izzy really is lost to his heat and hormones and instincts. He flinches, whines, goes up onto his toes again and presses into Stede’s hand, babbling out, “Sorry, sorry, sorry!”
Shocked, Stede smacks him right on the rump.
Izzy squeaks.
“You’re forgiven,” is the thick reply Stede manages to force out of his clumsy mouth. It must be the right one, though, because Izzy shudders hard and goes limp, panting, back flat on his feet.
Stede puts the knife away- the courtship gift, oh heavens! -and tells Izzy that he’s “doing so well, you’re so sweet, aren’t you?” as he hauls him back upright and holds him close, works one handed at his belt, his laces, and rubs his cheek against Izzy’s, crooning, “there you are, darling omega, my greedy sweet boy, let’s get you out of those nasty clothes,” as he goes down to his knees to undo Izzy’s boots, pry them off his feet so that he can drag leather down those pale, shaking legs, revealing Izzy's soft cock, his glistening thighs, slick matted in the dark leg hair. It's a shock of scent and lust and need, all while Izzy’s hands grip and knead and tremble for balance against Stede’s shoulders, and oh, oh-
They don’t get Izzy’s vest or shirt or the kerchief off. Not even the glove.
Not before Stede hums low and sits Izzy on the edge of the bed. The look on his omega’s face is too sweet, lost and burning and drowning in want, in need, twisted up and hurting. Stede’s chest mirrors that ache, squeezing tight once more, and then he gets Izzy’s legs up and thighs spread so Stede can put his mouth on him down where he’s wet and hot and leaking, a scent so thick and sweet that it makes Stede’s blood sing, makes him groan and hold Izzy tight about the hips, lapping at his rim, delving his tongue inside again, again.
Izzy mewls, fingers dragging at the cushions beneath him.
A purr rumbles out of Stede’s chest in response, and he would be embarrassed by it, the not-exactly natural response from an alpha to an omega, but Izzy only shudders and arches his spine at the soft sound, a fresh pulse of slick leaking out of him to smear across Stede’s face, to coat his tongue.
“I’m gonna- I’m-”
Izzy can’t get the words out, but Stede only purrs a little louder, holds him tighter. His nose is smushed and his jaw aches already and his own breathing is loud in his ears, but Izzy smells divine and feels divine and tastes like heaven and hell all rolled up into one perfectly indecent package, and Stede can’t resist fucking him with his tongue as deep as he can, until he breaks.
“A-ahhn! Alpha, alpha, no, please- need your knot, your knot- ahhh!”
Stede pulls back to rasp out, “You’ll get it, greedy boy,” before kissing the back of Izzy’s thigh. A sheen of slick is left behind, an imprint of Stede’s lips. “But first-” he dives back in, groaning and purring and using his thumbs to pry Izzy open more, too hungry for that sweet taste, for every aching cry and startled whimper that ekes out of Izzy at the treatment. He gets a little mindless with it, all his focus narrowed down to tracing his tongue in a lewd glide around Izzy's twitching opening to make him shake and shudder, before licking flat across it, a firm pressure and lingering, slick touch that never ventures in, a brutal little tease to make Izzy's hips jump, his hole to leak anew, and for his cries to get louder, more hoarse and desperate, until Stede simply can't resist any longer.
Has to taste him, the sweetness of his slick and all that heat, the delectable vulnerability, curling his tongue inside again-
Izzy keens when he comes, whole body locking up tight.
“Beautiful,” is Stede’s heartfelt sigh when Izzy slumps panting against the bed, one arm thrown over his face. Carefully, Stede lets Izzy’s trembling legs come back down, folded over the edge of the bed.
“K-knot. Alpha, please. I’ve been g-good, haven’t I? I need it!”
“I know,” Stede murmurs, kissing Izzy’s knee. Then the front of his thigh, then the other one. The dark, coarse hair of his legs feels lovely against Stede’s sensitive, swollen mouth. He trails kisses up higher, nuzzling the crease of Izzy’s hip. Rubs his cheek gently against Izzy’s erection, still mostly soft, as he pets at Izzy’s balls.
Izzy chokes on a wet breath; shudders hard all over.
During heat, an omega’s body is mostly concerned with being knotted. Izzy’s prick won’t get hard without careful, thorough attention, or so Ed has told Stede before. And oh, but Stede wants to try it. He wants to put that sweet, soft morsel onto his tongue, swallow him whole. Make him shake and cry and thrash beneath him and work him to hardness, to madness, make him come and make him wet and make him scream-
“A-alpha,” Izzy hiccups.
Stede blinks, blinks again. “Ah,” he says, smiling shakily. “You’re a menace, Izzy dear. The things I want to do to you. Never imagined, never thought- oh, darling. Come here, let me finish undressing you.”
Again, Izzy is soft and malleable, weak and melting. It’s beautiful, lovely- Stede feels it wash over him in waves, this remarkable trust. That he is allowed to witness it, that he is someone Izzy will let see him like this: needy, desperate, the softest thing. Stede brushes tears from Izzy’s lashes. Gets him naked and straddling Stede’s lap on the bed, gets him to kiss Stede with a lax mouth and hitching breaths, muffled whines when Stede licks against his teeth, his tongue.
Stede is so turned on he barely even notices how hard he is, the ache so constant as to be his entire existence. It’s almost a shock when Izzy reaches down, grasps at him.
“Yes,” Stede whispers. “Go on, then.”
With a moan, Izzy guides Stede to his hole, wet not just from his own slick but also Stede’s mouth, loose but still hungry, fluttering for more. He gasps at the press of Stede’s cockhead, the stretch. Then all at once he sinks down, down, a perfect, filthy glide of heat and tenderness and sparking pleasure.
Stede hisses. “Oh, ohhh fuck,” he gasps out, clutching Izzy to him.
Another mewl. Izzy melts into Stede, chest to chest, his hands curling sweetly over Stede’s shoulders. “Alpha,” he sighs, nuzzling in against Stede’s scent glands. “Yes, yes, please- fuck me, alpha, fuck me, ah ah-”
“Well,” Stede manages, breathless and dizzy with the feel, the scent, the need digging teeth into him, tearing him apart. “When you ask that prettily, Izzy, h-how can I resist?”
Slowly, Stede leans back against the pillows, arms wrapped around Izzy’s back to keep him pressed up against him, held in a cradle of Stede’s own limbs. Izzy shivers, rolling his spine and making more of those lovely, breathy little sounds of pleasure as his whole body rubs against Stede’s. As Stede digs his heels into the cushions and uses the leverage to drive his hips up, grinding deep into Izzy, and-
“Thank you,” Izzy gasps. “Ah, ah! Alpha, alpha, thank you, thank you!”
Stede sucks in a tight breath, grimly unsurprised to find that his knot is already starting to swell at the base of his dick, ramping up the sensitivity. One hand stays tight on Izzy’s lower back, holding him in place, while the other sweeps up over Izzy’s scarred, sweat-dewed shoulders. He fastens his fingers tight to Izzy’s nape, rubbing against the long strands of his hair, and presses him down close, down tight, down where Stede can breathe him in, that familiar, sweet scent, vibrant and powerful and alive with desire.
Doesn’t take long before Stede is panting, gasping, purring fit to fill the whole room with soft, rolling sounds, edged with alpha contentment. His thrusts get harder, sharper. He adjusts his grip on Izzy, digging his fingers into his hip, the upper curve of his buttock, driving him down onto Stede’s cock as Stede thrusts upward.
“Ah, ahhh! Yes, yes! Alpha, yes!”
“So noisy,” Stede grits out between clenched teeth. Sweat stings his eye. His fingers tighten on the back of Izzy’s nape, making him shudder, making him whine sweet and wild and go limp, utterly still, a perfectly hot and soft and pulsing wet body for Stede to fuck.
Izzy moans, sobs.
“Shh. I have you darling. Your alpha will give you what you need, hm?”
Each deep thrust has Izzy gasping, tightening up around Stede and the thickening swell of his knot. Big enough to start catching against Izzy’s swollen, sensitive rim. Izzy gets noisier, though he tries to bite it back, tries to obey Stede’s accidental command.
Stede groans, holding Izzy down flush against him, grinding in little circles. “Let me hear you, Izzy,” he gasps. “Oh, go on, darling! You’re so- oh, so good for me, sound so sweet. Let me hear you scream.”
As Stede’s knot keeps swelling, catching and catching against Izzy until it’s too fat to force past the clench of him, until Stede can only grind in as deep as he can go, buried to the hilt and letting his knot finish bullying Izzy open wider, Izzy actually does scream- a hoarse, sharp cry that echoes in the room, thunders down Stede’s spine, pools molten in his gut.
“Yes,” Stede hisses.
Another cry, then another.
Izzy locks around him tight, muscles squeezing and milking Stede, so much pressure on his knot and so much slick heat against his dick that Stede chokes, crushes Izzy to him, bucks up into him even though there’s nowhere to go, even though it only makes Izzy scream again, convulsing around him and coming once more on Stede’s knot as it grinds into him, and oh, ohhh-
“Alpha, ahh ah fuck, yes, yes! Thank you, thank you,” Izzy sobs, curled up against Stede’s chest, a tremble running through him at the first hot pulse of Stede inside him, filling him up.
-
“How much fucking come is in me,” is Izzy’s tired, irritated drawl only a brief time later, when the heat has sunk far enough back under his skin for clarity and ire. Stede is still purring, still flushed and sticky and breathing a little hard, knot fully and wonderfully encased in Izzy’s hot, tight body.
“Not nearly as much as there will be,” Stede says, delighted at the prospect.
Izzy shivers. Lets his face thunk back down onto Stede’s shoulder. Slowly, he pries his arms out from where they’d been curled up between the two of them, hands flat over Stede’s chest. “Don’t gloat.”
“I’m not!”
“You fucking are, Bonnet. Ohh, lookit shitty Izzy, dizzy with heat. My, what a slut! So fucking horny for any fat knot that comes by-”
“Hey now,” Stede interrupts, and perhaps it’s unfair that it comes out with too much alpha, more than enough to get Izzy clamping tight around him, a fresh gush of slick trickling down past where they’re joined, soaking Stede’s thighs and already-aching balls.
But in his defense, Izzy has very much so managed to invite Stede’s rut to play.
“Mine,” he says, coughing to clear his voice of that nearly feral intensity, patting Izzy’s plush ass with fond, tender possession. “Or so your courtship gift says, Izzy Hands! No take backs!”
Izzy splutters. Uses his now freed arms to splay his hands on the cushions and push up enough to glare incredulously down at Stede. The flush in his cheeks at the moment has nothing to do with his heat. “I was compromised!” he shouts, far too loud.
“Was it a lie?”
Izzy’s teeth click together in a grimace.
Stede raises an eyebrow. Dares to slide one hand down the curve of Izzy’s ass to where they’re locked tight together, Izzy’s clenched up tight around the very base of Stede’s dick, keeping that knot buried. When Stede’s finger traces along the puffed up, sore rim Izzy gasps, shudders, pushes down on him like there’s anything left that Stede hasn’t already given him.
Groaning, Stede presses his finger in tighter, like he might somehow fit it inside.
“Alpha,” Izzy keens, struggling to push back, to take him in. “Bonnet, fuck! You- what are you doing!”
“I don’t really know,” Stede admits, setting a nail very gently against Izzy’s tight rim now and scraping it against him.
This time, Izzy howls.
Stede shudders, which jostles him inside all that blood-hot, pulsing heat, even wetter now with Stede’s own spend mixing with Izzy’s slick and oh, ohhh, that makes something heavy and lovely and hungry wake up in Stede’s gut, his groin, his aching chest. He says, soft and low and with a hint of a rolling purr, genuine concern,
“If you don’t want me to claim you as mine, tell me now, Izzy. I’ll leave as soon as my knot goes down, go get Ed. Before my rut sets in. But if you- if you meant it, truly, then I- I want-”
A breath shudders out of Izzy.
“I hate you, you fuckwit,” he whispers, clenching up tight again, wiggling down onto Stede’s knot and moaning sweet when it rubs against all his most sensitive places. His soft prick is heavy against Stede’s belly, squeezed tight between them. Izzy clenches his eyes shut. “God, Bonnet. You’re exhausting. Stupid. Fucking- moronic! Yeah, I want you to claim me! Fucking twat, how do you not know that?!”
“You give very mixed messages!” Stede yelps.
It makes Izzy laugh, incredulous, relieved, a little mean. He keeps rolling his hips down, moving Stede’s knot inside him in a way that has arousal too sharp and too hot and too painful knifing through Stede’s belly, all that oversensitivity making him sweat, making his vision blur out.
His own fault for starting it, really, but-
“You really are a slut, aren’t you?” he grits out, scraping his nail careful against Izzy’s rim again, just to hear him keen.
“F-for my alphas only,” Izzy says, voice all thick and heated, eyes bright and dazed and hot and hard and so very, wonderfully dark, looking down at Stede with greed and hunger, daring him to deny it.
But Stede doesn’t want to. “For me,” he agrees, soft and pleased.
Izzy’s eyes flash. “Yeah. Fuckwit.”
That garners a harder scrape of Stede’s nail, which might have been exactly what Izzy was hoping for. He chokes on a pitiful cry, eyes rolling back and mouth dropping open, so Stede does it again, does it until Izzy has fresh tears in his lashes, sparkling like stars, and his body shakes apart on Stede’s knot, another orgasm tearing through him.
“F-fuck,” he pants after, slumped once more over Stede’s chest.
Stede feels a little sick with pleasure, too hot and too intense. He swallows thickly, winces through a wave of lust as Izzy’s scent only gets thicker, brighter, more violent. “You’re going to need it again before we even unlock, aren’t you?” Stede whines.
A wet, hungry mouth drags along Stede’s neck. Hot tongue to Stede’s scent glands.
He gasps. Clutches Izzy tighter to him.
“Gonna wring you dry, alpha,” Izzy promises, and Stede would be cross but he’s too busy feeling stunned all over again at the purr in Izzy’s own voice, rumbling out of his chest, the sweet sound of an omega sated and safe.
There are worse things, he thinks, and then he doesn’t think much more after that.
Hunger grows in his bones. Heavy in his heart.
“Omega,” he purrs back.
Rolling, he holds Izzy tight to him and somehow gets them reversed, Izzy pressed down into the cushions, both of them crying out weakly for how the move pulled at their union. “Oh, oh darling,” Stede gets out, frantic and breathless, because already he’s grinding away inside of Izzy, ramming his knot into all those wonderful little nerves that make Izzy arch his spine and scream, nails digging into Stede’s back.
“S-Stede,” Izzy chokes, thrashing sweetly beneath him, baring his throat, expression soft and open and desperate. His lashes gleam and sparkle, tears streaming down his face.
Stede presses a kiss to the naked stretch of skin above his scent glands, where Stede’s own mating bite will go. “How many times can I get you off before we unlock, hm?” he asks, and feels Izzy shudder hard beneath him, go weak and pliant with wanting, rather than heat. “Yes, that should be a good way to pass the time. And just think- soon Ed will join us, then we can pass you back and forth between us. You’ll be so full of our seed, darling, so good for us-”
Around his knot, Izzy convulses again.
No sound comes out of his mouth though, nothing more than faint, fluttering whimpers as Izzy comes once more simply from the thought.
“Lovely,” Stede sighs, kissing his neck again, worrying at him with teeth.
Izzy clutches at him. “Gonna kill you, Bonnet,” he whines, thighs tight around Stede’s hips. His heels dig into the meat of Stede’s ass, keeping him pressed in as close as they can get. “You’re dead. You’re gone. I’m gonna- gonna- oh fuck-!”
Stede kisses him again. Sets his teeth in, testing.
Moaning, Izzy presses into it, chanting, “Yes, yes, fuck! Stede, alpha, please!”
Groaning, Stede bites down even though it won’t take yet. And though each sharp shove of Stede’s hips causes too much sensation to roll him over, he can’t stop rutting into Izzy- doesn’t want to, wants to keep right on fucking him until he’s ruined, pliant, until he gives in and gives up and rolls over, offers Stede everything, all of it, every sparking and vicious and serrated part of him.
Half of that is Stede’s oncoming rut talking, but the other half is simply Stede and the way that Izzy makes him feel- wild, outrageous, a little bit unhinged.
“You’ll let me keep you,” he asks then, while there’s still time and because he can’t help himself, he has to know. The question comes out hushed and raw, awkward and hopeful, and Stede pulls back with spit stringing from Izzy’s neck to Stede’s hungry mouth, feeling stupid and wretched with longing. Tucking his head down, Stede presses his nose to Izzy’s scent glands, swollen up and potent, so terribly, horribly sweet, good enough to drown in. Muffled, he whines, “Izzy,” and “You can’t let me if you don’t mean it. Izzy, Izzy. I mean it, I want- you. To keep, to be kept, same as with Ed. Can I-?”
Izzy pounds a fist into Stede’s spine, and Stede would be worried except for how there’s still a purr leaking out of Izzy’s chest, same as Stede’s, giving voice to the terrible secret in their hearts.
“You fucking- better,” Izzy grits out. “You fuckwit of an alpha. So fucking needy.”
“Rude,” Stede huffs, even as relief and pleasure sweep over him, warm and welcome, tangling in with the arousal, the sharp bite of lust and need and harrowing instinct. He starts working his hips again. Izzy loses the ability to form words within seconds, making only little choked up cries and mewling pleas. Stede lets the heat rise up from him, sink into his own skin, blur his mind, take hold-
By the end of this, Stede and Izzy will smell like Ed and Stede, Izzy and Ed do. They’ll all smell like each other, properly mated, perfectly melded.
“Mine,” he rasps.
Izzy whimpers, stutters out, “Y-yours.”
Stede greedily kisses the promise off his lips, licks it up and swallows it down, buries it in his heart where Izzy already belongs.
-