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Eddie is propped against his kitchen counter, eating ranch dressing straight from the jar with a spoon - he always thought pregnancy cravings were an invention of the media, but joke’s on him, apparently - when the phone rings. For a second or two, he considers ignoring it. He's been up all morning packing his belongings for the move and he's just about ready for a nap. Every little thing seems to tire him out these days. But it might be the new landlord calling about something with the apartment, or the doctor's office with the results of the bloodwork, so he reluctantly puts his gross brunch-in-a-jar aside and bridges the two steps to the phone.
“Munson residence, this is Eddie speaking,” he intones, putting on a posh British accent just for the hell of it. Silence. Eddie gives the receiver a confused look. Maybe the line died again? He’s just about to hang up and go back to his ranch dressing when someone at the other end speaks.
“Eddie?”
“Steve!” Eddie cheers, stomach erupting with a million butterflies. He’s long past being embarrassed about them. They’ve been courting for months, they’re about to move in together, and then there’s that thing where they have a baby on the way. Steve damn well better make him feel butterflies, all things considered. “Fancy hearing from you! I thought you were at work?” Steve doesn’t answer, but Eddie can hear him breathing at the other end of the line. Long, heavy gulps of air, like he just ran a mile. Or like he’s sick, maybe. The butterflies make way to an unpleasant clenching feeling.
“Stevie? What’s wrong?”
“I-” Steve starts to say, then trails off again. Then, quieter, pained almost, “Fuck.”
“Fuck?” Eddie squawks. “I don’t like that fuck. Fuck what? What’s going on?”
Steve draws a long, shuddering breath. Eddie can just about see him, raking a hand down his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. His mind is running through a dozen worst-case scenarios. Steve has had a run-in with Carver and his goons. Or, even worse, Mommy and Daddy Harrington have come home and spotted the moving boxes. They know about the pregnancy. They’re making Steve break up with him, because there’s no way their precious golden boy is running off with some good-for-nothing, trailer trash omega he accidentally knocked up. What Steve actually says makes the floor spin out from under him for a second.
“It’s starting.”
“It’s- … What?” Eddie gapes at the empty kitchen, ass sagging heavily against the counter. “What is starting? You’re not talking about-”
“My rut,” Steve says, and even though his voice is trembling, Eddie imagines he can hear it now. How it’s growing deeper, vibrating with a barely restrained rumble. It makes an answering chirp tickle at the base of his throat, makes something wet and hot pool low in his belly.
“Are you sure?” he asks. “You said you weren’t due for one for at least-”
“I know,” Steve whines. “It came early. Must’ve been triggered by the pregnancy pheromones or whatever.”
“The pregnancy-” Eddie starts to say. “So what, this is my fault now?”
“Eddie,” Steve whines. Eddie snaps his mouth shut.
“Right, sorry, I just- … Wow. This was definitely not on my agenda for today.”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Steve scoffs, and Eddie doesn’t need to see the fond eyeroll to know that it's there. Then, he clears his throat, suddenly hesitant again. “You obviously don't have to- … Like, I understand if this is all too sudden, but … I wanted to let you know, because we talked about this and we said-”
“Stevie,” Eddie says, and waits for the babble to grind to a stop. Steve is right. They talked about this. How they want to do this before the kid is born. How a heat or rut is the best chance of making it stick. How Eddie is unlikely to go into heat while pregnant, leaving them essentially only this one option. How they both think they're ready for this. “It's okay. I'm coming over.”
Steve whines again, needy and hopeful.
“Are you sure?” he whispers, and Eddie remembers the crippling loneliness and emptiness of his last heat. How Steve's presence and Steve’s touch were the only things that seemed to help. He imagines it must be similar for Steve now.
“Hell yeah, big boy,” he says, stretching the phone cord as far as physically possible so that he can grab his keys from their hook. “Don't you go anywhere, I’ll be there as soon as I can. We're getting mated today.”
*
Eddie doesn’t bother with the doorbell. One of Steve’s first courting gifts was a spare key, and he's been making liberal use of it, just letting himself in and out of Harrington Manor whenever he pleases.
He pauses to shuck off his shoes in the entryway, inhaling the familiar scent of sun-soaked moss and pine needles lingering in the air. Its owner is markedly absent.
“Stevie?” he calls, but there's no reply. Eddie shrugs to himself and heads towards the staircase.
The scent grows thicker as he makes his way up the stairs, telling him that he's on the right track. It also grows … heavier than what he's used to. Earthier than usual, and deeper.
Wilder.
Alpha, whispers his needy little hindbrain. Our alpha.
Eddie tells it to shut up. No need to turn into a hormonal puddle of instinct-controlled goo before they've even made it to their destination.
And then he pushes open the bedroom door and the scent crests over him, and the warm, tingly feeling that has been sitting in his abdomen ever since the phone call dissolves into a hot glob of slick. It drips out from between his legs, spreading over the crotch of his jeans as a dark, wet stain.
“Ew, what the fuck?” Eddie swears, hurriedly fumbling out of the pants and throwing them over the nearby desk chair. His boxers are already beyond saving, completely drenched and sticking to his legs as he pads closer to the bed. “Stevie, are you in there?”
The bed is a tangled mess of sweaty sheets, a tousled mop of chestnut hair sticking out at one end. Eddie thinks how this is a weird reversal of their first night together, when it was him in the same bed, desperate and needy.
“Stevie?” he says again. There's no reaction whatsoever, and okay, this really is starting to freak him out now. Is this normal? He has no idea. Following a sudden impulse, he peels back the edge of a sticky blanket, finding and shaking a trembling, naked shoulder. “Hey, sweetheart, what's wrong, are you not feeling- … Fuck, you’re burning up. We need to get you water, Or an ice pack. Or both? Yeah, let’s make it both. Just lemme get-”
He turns towards the door.
And that's when the heap of blankets explodes in a flurry of movement.
The room flips, and before Eddie can so much as yelp, he's on his back in the sheets, wrists pinned on either side of his head. On top of him, Steve bares his canines and snarls.
“Shit,” Eddie squeaks, trying to shuffle away, but Steve’s grip is like steel. His instincts, meanwhile, seem to have other plans, because more slick oozes out from between his legs. “Steve? Stevie, calm down, it's me.”
Steve pauses. The gravelly rumble that has been bubbling from his throat stops. His nostrils flare. His pupils, thin black needlepoints in his green-and-gold irises, blow wide and fuzzy.
“Eddie?”
Eddie nods so fast he almost gives himself whiplash.
“Yeah, that's right. You called me, remember? And now I'm here. Just like I said. So there's absolutely no need to freak out and tear out my- oh, my God!”
Because Steve has just surged in to lick a long, firm stripe over the side of his neck. His tongue drags over the sensitive gland there, rough and wet and firm, and Eddie's back nearly lifts off the mattress. A high, startled chirp tumbles from his mouth, and Steve answers it with a purr and a roll of his hips.
His shoulders - and somehow it is only now that Eddie fully registers this - are not the only part of him that's naked. There is, in fact, not a shred of clothing anywhere on Steve’s body. His cock, fully hard and huge, slots into the space between Eddie’s thighs as he leans in to nuzzle at the spot he just licked.
“Eddie,” he murmurs against the flushed skin, and it feels like his voice tingles right through the gland and all the way into Eddie’s blood. “My Eddie. All mine.”
Eddie chuckles weakly, even as the hot, tingly feeling pools at the base of his spine, causing his own hips to grind up against Steve, his own cock to press against Steve’s larger one.
“Clingy today, aren't we?”
The only reply he gets is his own name, pressed into his skin like a prayer. Steve's hands are no longer holding his wrists pinned, but roaming down his ribs, his sides, pushing up his shirt and caressing the ever-so-slight curve of his stomach. He's only some three months along, but he's always been skinny, so he's starting to show if you know what to look for. Steve lets his palms rest there for a long time, purring all the while, nose pressed into the curve of Eddie’s throat, seeking his scent.
Just as Eddie is starting to wonder if he should tell him that it's too early to feel the kid move, he speaks again.
“My pup,” he whispers, and the raw protectiveness in the words makes the warm, needy thing in Eddie’s insides quiver. And he must've made a sound - maybe a moan, maybe another chirp - because Steve looks up, eyes finding his, and suddenly all Eddie knows is his warmth and touch and scent. “My mate.”
Eddie’s world jolts to a violent stop.
“Yes,” he rasps, one hand coming up to cup Steve’s face with shaky fingers. “Yes, yours.”
It isn't true yet, not technically speaking. They aren’t bonded. He isn't Steve’s yet.
But he wants to be. Wants to be claimed and possessed with every fibre of his being, inside and out. Wanted this the first time they were in this bed together, when he was too high on drugs and hormones to form a coherent thought. Wants this now, months later, on the threshold of their future. With his belongings packed in boxes and Steve’s baby in his belly. Wants their bodies and souls entwined, just like their lives are going to be.
Steve, somehow, seems to read all of this on his face, or maybe in his scent. He rumbles, low and pleased, eyes like golden sunlight filtering through the canopy of the deepest, darkest forest. He leans in, sealing their mouths together in a long, insistent kiss, pine and moss and earth filling Eddie’s senses.
“Gonna make you mine,” he mutters against Eddie’s lips. “Gonna claim you and mark you and never let you go.”
Eddie thinks he's never heard a sweeter promise in his life.
*
Eddie never thought it would be like this.
For the longest time, he couldn't fathom ever getting mated at all, and even after that, after Steve, he didn't imagine it this way.
He always thought it would be a violent and overwhelming and debasing affair, being taken and made into some alpha's possession. He couldn't imagine how anyone could possibly want this.
He should’ve known it would be different with Steve, because when has Steve ever been what he expected?
It's still overwhelming. It still feels like being laid bare to the core as Steve slowly rids him of his clothes, like being naked and vulnerable in so many more ways than one. It still feels like being claimed as those large hands and those soft lips trace every curve and dip of his body, map the lines of each and every tattoo. But there’s nothing debasing about it. Not in the way Steve looks at him in incredulous awe. Like Eddie is the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on, like he can’t believe he gets to have him. Not in the way Steve touches him like one would touch a precious treasure - firm and sure but also reverent. Not in the words that Steve mutters against his skin as he buries himself inside - pet names and endearments and never-ending confessions of love. This doesn’t feel like being debased.
This feels like worship.
Steve fucks him long and slow and deep, covering his face and jaw and neck in licks and kisses that gradually turn into nips and bites. Like he wants to savor this. Like they have all the time in the world. Like Eddie isn’t coming apart under his touch, turning more into a whining, moaning, chirping mess with each thrust and each touch. The climax that sweeps over him feels unlike anything he’s ever experienced before - powerful and all-consuming, his very being reduced to the pulsing needlepoint that is his own pleasure. He claws his nails into Steve’s naked back, hard enough to leave long, angry welts and tilts back his head, a high, pleading keen tearing from somewhere deep within.
Take me. Mark me. Make me yours.
Steve does.
Locks himself deep inside of him with a final snap of his hips and comes with a hoarse growl. The delicious burn of his knot stuffing him full draws a long, wrecked moan from Eddie’s lips, the pleasure of it so intense he hardly registers the pain when Steve’s fangs pierce his mating gland. It’s going to stick. He knows this instinctively, even after the first few seconds. He has Steve’s knot inside of him and Steve’s come filling him up and Steve’s teeth in his neck, can feel Steve’s pleasure pulse through his own body, so entwined with his own that he doesn’t know where one ends and the other begins. He hopes it lasts forever. He actually whines when Steve pulls his fangs out after a beautiful eternity, shaky hands tangling in sweaty hair to pull him back in. Steve goes willingly, lapping at the thin trickle of blood that has escaped from the fresh wound and covering the fresh bite in more kisses. “Mine,” he whispers, voice spent and exhausted, but also brimming with love and pride. “My pretty mate. My sweet pup. All mine.” Eddie doesn’t find the energy to reply, so he just combs his fingers through his hair and kisses the top of his head, laughing softly to himself when Steve preens under the attention and the purr gives way to a hearty, drawn-out yawn.
“It's okay, big boy. You did fantastic. Get some rest.”
Steve curls around him with a content sigh, nose finding the fresh mating bite, hands settling on the swell of Eddie’s belly. Minutes later, the room is filled with the soft rumble of his snores. Eddie wiggles to find a comfortable position, moaning when Steve’s knot catches inside of him.
“I'd make you some food like the good, doting omega that I am,” he murmurs against the slow rise and fall of Steve's chest, “but I fear I'm stuck.”
“Don't you dare,” Steve mutters without opening his eyes. “You’re just where you oughta be.”
Then, his breathing evens out again.
Eddie allows himself to drift off into a pleasant doze as well, lulled in by Steve’s summer forest scent. The tiredness from earlier has morphed into a leaden, bone-deep exhaustion, but he's content to let himself sink into it.
They're just where they ought to be, all of them, and the future is looking pretty damn good.