Archive of Our Own

You can fuck
anyone—but with whom can you sit in water?

— "After Bombardment, Sonya" by Ilya Kaminsky

In hindsight and given their track record, perhaps Eddie should have considered that simply by virtue of making the plans, they had simultaneously doomed them from ever happening. The invention of the ship was the invention of the shipwreck, and all that.

The problem was—as it oftentimes is—that Buck was being so sweet about it. Sweet and caring, and Eddie is genetically wired to tuck his chin against his chest and colour up his cheeks every time Buck so much as offers him a sandwich, beholden to the rock-bottom standards of what constitutes being cared for by an omega. It could be worse, of course, because it’s not as if Eddie doesn’t benefit; he feels his omega’s ooey-gooey gratitude as if the sentiments were his own because they are, in a slightly more concentrated dose. But there is a point to be made, about the inherent influence of Eddie’s designation across all corners of his life.

“We should do something,” Buck says, casually, as he appraises a stalk of broccoli in the produce aisle. It’s mid-afternoon in the grocery store on a Monday, so it’s mostly empty, save for the stay at home omega’s and Instagram influencers that frequent these places at these hours, along with the shift workers such as them. “For your next heat, I mean.”

Eddie was sixteen when Shannon triggered his first heat cycle. Ever since, he’s faced down his semiannual so-horny-it-hurts phase with a detached compliance and lukewarm acceptance. The reality was that heats were less so something that omegas did and more so something that happened to them, and it was all mercilessly unavoidable. Suppressants existed, and had for years, but those were designed for mitigating symptoms so omegas could live their daily lives as normal right up until pre-heat settled in, and keeping cycles regular. Needless to say, Eddie has never really looked up the dawning days of a heat with any sort of provocation. And the intrinsic nature of heats—that they were for omega’s, and only omega’s became hypersexual in such a way—would mean that it always came with some shame tacked onto the end, like Eddie should be embarrassed about the things his body couldn’t control.

The thing about Buck, naturally, was that he had changed a lot of aspects of Eddie’s life. Some on purpose, and some by accident. Maybe this would be something else to add to that list.

Still, Eddie prods for further details. “What kind of ‘something’ did you have in mind?” He asks. They’ve moved onto bananas now. Eddie pushes the cart while Buck thoughtfully inspects the bushels.

“Nothing concrete,” Buck replies, selecting his bananas based on arbitrarily qualities Eddie doesn’t understand, and promptly elaborates. “I was thinking we could get away for a bit, though? I’ve been looking into these—I don’t know if you’ve ever seen them before, but they’re called, like, Heat Cabins? Which is a moronic name, but they look nice. There’s some not far from here. They’re isolated, and you get the whole cabin and the grounds around it to yourself. Lots of amenities. Outdoor tubs and huge showers and all that,” Buck shrugs, continues, “but like I said, nothing concrete. Just an idea. I wanted to talk to you before deciding on anything, obviously.”

It is sort of comically horrible, how they’ll find a way to make an industry out of anything, including omega heat cycles. But whatever. Buck’s looking at Eddie under the fluorescent lights of the grocery store, detailing the ways he’d like to make Eddie’s next heat more comfortable and enjoyable for him, and it brews that warm, sickly omega-feeling of being cared for in his tummy. Plus, Buck’s has a point, and a few days away might do them some good.

“That sounds really nice, Buck,” Eddie says. “You can show me some pics when we get home, maybe?”

Buck smiles and gives a short nod, leading them both along towards the grain aisle. Eddie can see the line of his shoulders relax as he follows behind dutifully, and imagines Buck’s alpha instinct to provide and protect has been somewhat satiated.

“Also,” Buck speaks to Eddie from over his shoulder, “I’ve been tracking your cycle—”

“You’ve been tracking my cycle?”

“Well . . . yeah. I guess. Of course. Anyway!” They stop in front of shelves stacked with cereal, splayed out in technicolour. “Based on your cycle, your next heat is due right around our, uh, six month anniversary.”

God, Eddie loves him so much. It’s been weighing on him lately, the sheer magnitude of the growth of his affections, how much it has blossomed in the relatively short amount of time since they stumbled into this ever-so-specific dynamic. Like a tree with deep roots, grown through the space between the ribs, holding on tight and sturdy. It produces its own sweet oxygen, fills Eddie’s lungs with it, crisp and cool, when Buck does something particularly . . . loveable. Eddie could do nothing to free himself, by this point, and he’s accepted that. Now it’s a matter of when all of this comes to a head, and how.

“You don’t have to track my cycle, Buck,” Eddie tells him, though there is a fondness attached to the idea of it, of Buck looking at his calendar on his phone and thinking of Eddie. “No one expects their alpha to track their cycle.”

Their alpha. My alpha. Eddie’s omega is basically a giggly school girl in his head, with heart eyes and pink clouds above its head.

“Well,” Buck stands, resolute, with a determined look on his face and his arms crossed. “I’m not like most alphas. Better get used to it.” He’s joking, at least a little bit. Or playing it up for the bit.

Still, Eddie kind of hopes he never does.

*

Contrary to what was said between them in those final moments of Eddie’s lucidity, before he was pulled below the surface of the murky waters of desire, they did not exchange claiming bites.

Eddie’s heat descended promptly in the aftermath of their pre-heat escapades, uncaring as it always was of the ways their bodies still needed to recuperate. Eddie woke from the stupor two days later, sore and tired but thoughtfully tucked into bed, with a glass of water waiting for him on the bedside table. He sucked the whole thing down in one go, blissfully cold over his still-hot insides. The bedclothes smelt like both of them, but Eddie’s omega always found the spots where Buck’s scent was the richest, and he had unabashedly allowed himself to stuff his nose into the fabric and breathe in deeply. It washed over him like bathwater, warm and soothing and clean.

Omega’s retain little memories of their heats once they have passed. Something to do with the more primal, subconscious part of their brain taking over, and an excess production of hormones that fucks with their short-term memory. There has been some research to suggest that repeated heat cycles in the presence of the same alpha can mitigate this somewhat, and an omega may retain some additional memories under these circumstances, but Eddie’s never spent enough heats with the same alpha to test the theory himself.

All this to say: when Eddie awoke from that first heat he spent with Buck, there was a moment where he assumed it had been done. He had reached up, circled a hand around the base of his throat, and tried to feel for it; the break in the skin, the spot where teeth would have ruptured through with deliberate pressure to leave a mark. Eddie prodded, waiting for the sting, but found nothing. There was only a stiffness in his muscles and an empty well that once held his energy, so cavernous now it was a struggle to even keep his eyes open. Heats could, and did, take a lot out of someone. Eddie usually needed at least twelve hours to feel completely like himself again.

Eddie succumbed to the spectre of sleep again without much of a fight, and when he once more woke, it was to Buck sitting on the edge of the bed and petting a hand through his hair. “How are you feeling?” He had asked, and Eddie had given a vaguely positive grunt in response, preening under the focused attention of Buck’s touch and the affection laced throughout. Buck had offered to help Eddie into the shower, and Eddie agreed with the same assenting noise he had made previous, though he was remorseful to leave the warmth and safety and good smells of the bed.

They didn’t talk about the bonding bites. Eddie didn’t bring it up, and neither did Buck. In the shower, Eddie’s skin was damp as he circled the perimetres of his throat once more with delicate fingers, wondering if he had somehow missed it. He found nothing. His emotions were threadbare and jumbled; he couldn’t figure out where the disappointment began or where the relief ended, and in the process of trying to categorize it one sort of became the other, and vice versa. It wasn’t objectively upsetting, to imagine the split second where it might have occurred to Buck to mark Eddie up, claim him, sink his teeth into flesh and taste blood and the concrete truth that Eddie was now his, but it all sort of hinged on the answer of why exactly it didn’t happen. Bonding bites didn’t necessarily need to be exchanged in the midst of an omega’s heat. Maybe Buck wanted something different for them; maybe he wanted to wait; maybe he was unsure; maybe he wanted Eddie conscious, alive below him beyond the part of him that was merely desperate to breed. So many maybe’s, all with no definitive answers, only potential theoretical solutions.

It was still on Eddie’s mind when the shower curtain shimmied down the rod and Buck’s form displaced the steam behind him, hands coming up to grip either side of Eddie’s hips as he pressed a kiss to the top knob of Eddie’s spine. That made it easier to forget. It didn’t banish the thoughts completely, and—even as Buck’s palms came to roam across the broad, wet planes of Eddie’s chest—Eddie knew they’d come back to him eventually. His final thought on the matter, before he lost himself to the heat of the shower water and Buck’s capable touch, was the hope that he’d be better equipped to deal with all of it when it came back to him.

*

What they don’t tell you about selling a house from out of state is that’s the worst decision you could ever possibly make. Eddie loses hours to phone calls, text messages and e-mails, and still the issue drags on.

He can admit it has affected his mood. Eddie’s bottom lip is raw, the skin around his fingernails gnawed on. There has been an especially frazzled quality to his days lately, and Eddie finds himself doing careless things that perturn him, quite frankly. Like forgetting Christopher’s picture day, or leaving his phone on the counter of the pizza place they ordered from, or missing toilet paper on the list at the grocery store. Buck—bless him—takes it all in stride, always prepared to talk Eddie off the ledge when things get especially harrowing, an understanding look in his eyes and a particularly soothing edge to his voice while he says something ridiculous like no, Eddie, you can’t hire someone to burn the place down.

There is one thing currently, and blissfully, unaffected by the house situation, however, and that’s how often Buck and Eddie have sex.

They’re an active couple, as far as intimacy is concerned. Once that dam broke there was no stopping the rush of water, the rush of hormones, the rush of something so spectacular and brand new. For Eddie, none of the moments he shared with Buck amidst his heat were his to keep, lost to the primal being inside him. As a result, he was desperate to fill his own cup with his own recollections, little moments and big moments and the moments before, and after, and in between. He got his wish, of course, not that Buck was indignant to oblige him. They wanted each other, and the off-kilter schedule of shift work and their child’s unusually active social life meant that they spent a lot of time together alone organically. Which meant that they spent a lot of time having sex. Organically.

“Harder,” Eddie moans, head hung limp between his shoulders. Buck’s got him on all fours, fingers dimpling the flesh as he digs into Eddie’s hips and sets a relentless pace. The force rocks through both of their bodies, and the bed creaks below them, but somehow it is not enough. That bubble won’t pop, and trapped inside is a satisfied craving and a full belly. Eddie is starting to doubt he’ll ever flood that pit of want inside of him, less Buck opens him up and crawls inside of him to make a home of it.

Still, they’ll give it a good college try.

“Harder,” Eddie repeats, suppliant. He is asking, but desperately, needily, like he’s not sure what he’ll do if he doesn’t get it. “C’mon, Buck, fuck me harder,” and he punctuates by thrusting back against Buck’s forward momentum, pushing the weight of the head of Buck’s cock firmly against his prostate.

“Eddie,” Buck speaks, his voice thin and punched-out, without halting his rhythmic, determined movements. “Sorry to disappoint,” he says, grunting a little, re-orienting his foot against the mattress to pummel Eddie’s insides at a slightly different angle, “but I think I might be fucking you as hard as I physically can.”

“Uuuuugh,” Eddie groans, sounding more disappointed than he means it, and loud even over the slap of their skin and the squelch of fluids between them. “I need more.”

“Jesus Christ, babe,” Buck replies. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you were in heat. You’re sure begging for it like you are.”

Eddie shakes his head, still rocking backwards to meet Buck’s hips as they drive forward. “M’not due for another week and a half,” Eddie corrects him.

Buck hums. He pinches Eddie’s ass cheek. Eddie yelps. “I guess you’re just a greedy little omega all the time then, huh?”

Eddie’s cheeks heat, turn pink. He tucks his face into his bicep out of embarrassment, but his dick drools wet and persistent all the same.

Afterwards, they lay side by side with all the blankets kicked off. In this sticky, humid aftermath, they wear the evidence of the other upon their flesh, the heaviness of mouths and teeth and hands. Eddie is often captivated by the picture they make; their bodies stretched out, supine and parallel; the splotchiness of their complexions and the sheen of their sweat-slick skin; the two of them, and the galaxy of stars each of them tuck into the others chest, twinkling glimmers and burning hot. Gravity bends around them. They become the centre of their own, hand-crafted universe.

“Sorry,” Eddie says, fingers stretched across the miniscule space between them to ghost lightly across Buck’s ribcage. “I don’t mean to be,” he screws his nose up as he tries to find the appropriate word, “demanding, I guess.”

Buck shrugs. He turns over onto his side. Eddie mirrors him, and it brings them face to face. “I don’t mind when you’re demanding,” Buck tells him. “But I don’t like feeling that there is something you want that I can’t give you.”

“No, no, that’s not—,” Eddie begins, before it occurs to him that there is value in physical evidence. He cradles Buck’s face in his hands, palms to cheeks, and kisses him, long and slow and hot. Buck reciprocates smoothly, and it’s time like these that Eddie is reminded that the universe made them this way. For each other. “You’re great, Buck. You’re perfect,” Eddie insists, pulling away but not too far, whispering into Buck’s slightly hinged-open mouth, like he’s feeding him the words. “You know I’m just—all over the place right now—with, like, trying to sell the house, and. And everything. I just feel so—,” Eddie attempts to wave his hands non-committedly between them to explain himself, lacking the words.

“It’s okay,” Buck assuages, gathering both of Eddie’s wrist into the circle of his fingers, holding them tightly. He presses kisses along the knuckles as he speaks, paying each one its own individual attention. “I get it,” Buck says, and presses his lips to the centre knuckle on Eddie’s middle finger. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” he continues, moving along to Eddie’s ring finger.

Eddie gives a wordless mhm, as he watches Buck drag his tooth down the pad of Eddie’s thumb. Buck uses his strength and leverage to haul Eddie closer.

“That’s good, because I don’t even know if I could. My brain feels like mush,” Eddie admits.

“You want to try again?” Buck asks, pinning Eddie back against the bed as he leans forward to nibble along the edge of his jaw.

“Huh?” Eddie’s eyebrows fold together, though he adjusts the tilt of his head to allow Buck more access.

Buck smirks. “I think I can fuck you harder now,” he elaborates. Another nibble, then, and a hard suck that stings and is smoothed over with the flat of Buck’s tongue. Eddie feels Buck’s cock, getting hot and thick, resting partially against Eddie’s naked thigh. “Do you wanna try again?”

It is likely that Buck’s alpha demands it. That it refuses to let an omega be dissatisfied, least of all when it comes to this, and it’s whispering in Buck’s ear like a devil on his shoulder to get to work and fuck their omega proper. At least Eddie hopes so. It’s not exactly much of a burden for him to reap the benefits, either.

*

It is a truth almost universally acknowledged that, as an omega, sometimes your body will ask for things you are not yet prepared to provide.

For example: Eddie knows his omega wants pups. But he also knows that his omega would want pups in even the most dire of circumstances, and that Eddie could have a dozen babies and his omega would still ask for more. There’s no blame to be placed, because that’s all his omega knows; the hunt for an alpha with the intent to breed, over and over again. It’s the fact of the matter, plain and simple, and despite the annoyance and occasional enjoyment one can derive from the endless loop of heat and rut cycles, that is all they are really for. A biological need in search of its biological solution.

Eddie is not interested in pups. He loves Christopher, and wouldn’t change a thing about him or how he came to exist in the world, but Eddie was a teenager when we has born. Now he’s an omega in his thirties, and the idea of carrying, birthing, and starting over from square one with an infant was hardly how he wanted to dedicate the next eighteen years. He and Buck would be in their fifties by the time any child they would have would be legally classified as an adult.

It didn’t appeal to him. Eddie had long ago come to terms with this, and explained it to Buck, and Buck has never been anything but exponentially supportive about it. They’re a family already, and no second child or lack thereof would do anything to change that.

And yet: that doesn’t mean Eddie isn’t built to respond to certain stimuli.

Last night he dreamt Buck pinned him to the ground and got his teeth into his neck and didn’t let go. Not even as he opened Eddie up with his fingers, not even as he fucked him hard and thorough, dragging each thrust in and out of Eddie along the whole length of his cock, like they had all the time in the world. Eddie had whimpered, and squirmed, and yelled. And what’s worse is he begged for Buck to fill him up, to make Eddie belong to Buck in all ways, to fuck him full of—

Eddie shakes out his head. He tries to communicate telepathically with his omega. Get a grip, he repeats in his head over and over, with the sneaking suspicions he’s only talking to himself.

Two days later they respond to a 9-1-1 call on a school playground. It’s after most of the kids have gone home, and one of the coordinators of the after school daycare program is stuck up to her ribs in a sinkhole mud puddle. A lack of follow-through when it came to regulations, Eddie would guess, and the carelessness that comes with trying to do something like this quickly. It probably wasn’t the schools fault, and they’ll probably get blamed for it anyway.

They’ve got the situation largely under control, each of them slipping into their roles like well-worn clothes. Eddie takes a bit of a backseat, holding the daycare provider--her name is Gemma--by the hand and trying to keep her calm. She is, for the most part, subdued and that’s good, because Eddie is more than a little distracted.

Somehow, in all of this, Buck has ended up responsible for the gaggle of children, who were all playing outside when Miss Gemma’s accident befell her.

Eddie is smart enough to know that it’s that ooey-gooey omega centre that traps his attention and places it firmly on Buck, surrounded by a group of at least a dozen four to seven year olds. The youngest among them is a girl in a pink dress, her knees skinned bloody, with dirt on her cheek and her pigtails all messy. She clings to Buck’s leg, little fist gripped into the fabric of his turnouts, and makes him lean all the way down so she can whisper directly in his ear. Eddie could melt, if not for the sight than for his seemingly steadily climbing internal temperature. Huh. It’s not even that hot out today, and what’s more is that the extraction of Miss Gemma is taking place under the covered shade of a big, leafy cedarwood. Eddie’s neck is wet with sweat all the same.

At some point Buck ends up carrying a whopping six kids around in his arms, three curled into each bicep, and Eddie feels like his temperature spikes high enough that you could fry an egg on his forehead.

It takes a few hours, but eventually another daycare provider shows up, and they send Miss Gemma off in the ambulance, to be monitored at First Presbyterian. Freed from duty at last, Eddie digs around in his bag for his lukewarm water bottle, and downs the whole thing in about five gulps.

He finds Buck leaning against the side of the truck, waiting for the all-clear to head back to the station.

“They loved you,” Eddie says, maybe a little more dreamily than he meant. It’s his omega slipping through the cracks, responding to its chain-link biological compulsions. Eddie takes a deep breath, and his palms feel slick.

“That was exhausting,” Buck replies, his shoulders sagging. But for all the energy he ostensibly exerted, he doesn’t look nearly as warm as Eddie feels. And there’s no way Buck is in that much better shape than him.

“Yeah,” Eddie is smiling fondly. “Aren’t you glad to have missed that phase?”

Buck shrugs. “Not really,” he answers honestly. “It would have been fun, I think. I would have liked to be a part of it.”

Eddie’s skin tingles, every single inch of it, like he’s sharing a puddle with a livewire. He doesn’t quite comprehend the reaction; he’s seen Buck interact with children before, and he was able to process the inherent adorableness of it, without feeling--like this--this deep pit of urge, all tight and hot in his belly.

He wished he had another bottle of water.

“Eddie,” Buck calls his name, a bid for Eddie to turn to face him, and when he does Eddie is greeted to the sight of Buck’s folded together eyebrows, and a concerned look on his face. “Are you feeling okay? You look kinda warm.”

“Yeah,” Eddie scrubs a hand over his face. “I mean, I don’t know. I’m definitely--I feel okay, but I’m definitely warm. I think I just need a shower. And to rehydrate.”

It’s a reasonable enough conclusion to make.

It hits him once he’s sitting in the engine, though. Buck climbs in after Eddie, and plasters himself to Eddie’s side, all the way from their shoulders to their thighs. Eddie usually finds the pressure to be somewhat grounding, all that secondary-gender bullshit of having an alpha close by, but today it frays Eddie’s nerves, badly, and rockets up his heart’s B.P.M.

Years of suppressants and the obsessive tracking of his cycle have kept Eddie pretty regular. He had no choice, in the Army; there was a clause in omega contracts that essentially meant you could be dismissed at any time, for any reason, so long as they could reasonably prove you were unfit to be responsible for yourself. Because the Army had no interest in being responsible for the omegas it allowed into its service. Eddie had never missed a heat prediction. He always filed the necessary paperwork. He’d spend three days, alone in a cold, white sanitary room with one single window, fucking himself with knotted dildos swathed in synthetic alpha hormones until the roiling in his guts finally ceased. It was hardly enjoyable, and he was glad to never have to subject himself to that again.

Maybe that’s why this is so hard for him to believe. The meticulous planning, the checking and double-checking. The last thing that fucked with Eddie’s heat cycle was when Shannon left, and the stress from that had made him a month late. But this—isn’t that. It’s the exact opposite, in fact.

Eddie’s heat is coming. And not in that arbitrary, vague way that a dot on the horizon will appear as if it’s getting closer. No—Eddie feels it, humming like a halogen light bulb when the switch is flicked on. His flesh burns. The back of his neck is damp. His whole lower body feels heavy, and slick.

His heat, which is not due for another week, is coming. And it’s coming right now.

*

The 118 fire station boasts an impressive array of supply closets. Some are more spacious than others. In this particular case, Eddie values distance from common areas above all else. The one he settles on is cramped, but it’s tucked away from most everything else, and is filled with extra uniforms. This does nothing to help the tight squeeze, but it will help muffle sounds.

To be frank, Eddie has no idea what is going to happen when Buck steps foot into this closet with him. He’s not sure how much he’ll be able to control himself. Will he have the mental fortitude to keep himself upright, or will he immediately fall to his knees and start nosing at Buck’s cock through his pants, the spot where his scent bleeds from him as full-dose alpha, all before the door is even closed? In the absence of clarity on how this will all play out, Eddie controls what he can, mitigating the likelihood of embarrassment or, worse, disciplinary action. He sinks back against the pillow of turnout coats behind him, and waits.

Buck appears amidst the halo of the light the open door lets in from the outside, and disappears back into shadow as soon as it closes behind him. His scent hits Eddie’s nostrils immediately, squeezing his insides and pooling slick between his ass cheeks. He sees it—the moments his own fragrance comes over Buck, in the slight widening in his pupils, the tightness of his jaw, the clenching and unclenching of his fists, the wriggling of his fingers.

“Is something wrong?” Buck asks, with some difficulty, though his concern is obvious and genuine. He reaches out to touch Eddie.

Eddie flinches back without meaning, afraid of the tailspin Buck’s touch might induce. Buck’s face falls, dejected, and Eddie speaks hastily in damage control. “I’m in heat,” he gets straight to the point. “I don’t know—I’ve been so stressed out lately—and today, when you—fuck, I feel so stupid and embarrased but I’m—I’m in heat, Buck. Right now.”

Buck blinks twice, mouth pressed in a thin line and his brow furrowed, until all of a sudden it dawns on him. “Wait,” he says, throwing his hands up, palms out, between them, “right now?!”

“Yes,” Eddie pulls the word through his clenched teeth. His omega thrashes inside of him, begging to be set free. To covet the alpha that chose them. Eddie does his best to hold everything back, to not rock his body forward into Buck’s gravitational pull, to keep himself from nuzzling against the curve of his throat and scenting him. It pulls like a cluster of a hundred lengths of string, tugging at Eddie just below the belly button, and each minute that passes snaps another thread of his resolve. “I need to get out of here.”

Buck nods. “Okay,” he says, and despite the frenzied look in his eyes and the twitch of his fingers to reach out and touch, there is a determined set to his jaw and his brow. “Let me go talk to Bobby. I’ll tell him we’re leaving, and then I’ll take you home and—”

“No, Buck,” Eddie cuts him off, shaking his head. “I mean, yes, let’s do that but I—I,” Eddie bites his lip, the long spider legs of shame creeping up and over each vertebrae. His next words come from him half-mumbled. “I don’t think I can wait that long.”

Buck’s eyebrows shoot up. “Eddie, I can’t,” his eyes dart around like someone can hear them, like someone might be shoved into this closet with them somehow. “I can’t fuck you in the supply closet at our job.”

“No! That’s not—of course not, Buck, I wanna go home but I—,” Eddie struggles to explain himself, searching deeper for the words his omega might use. In the heat (heh, not funny) of the moment, the beast below his ribcage sometimes knows what to say. “I need to smell like yours. Before we step out of this closet and into the rest of the world, I need to smell like I belong to you.”

Eddie can only imagine the ripe nature of his current scent, omega heat pheromones rolling off of him in waves and pulsing against the soft tissue of Buck’s brain. There are other alphas in the vicinity; some of them known, and mercifully mated, and others who are neither. For Eddie to walk out amongst them, unclaimed and losing more and more of his capacities by the second? It could be a disaster. At least if he smelt like an alpha it’d throw people off; at least if he came, even just once, it might clear his head a little.

Buck emits a low growl. It rumbles through his chest. He grips Eddie by the bicep to haul him forward. Eddie follows his lead like a rag doll.

The sense of comfort that showers over Eddie is immediate, and he imagines the omega inside of him sighing contentedly and presenting its belly. In tandem, Eddie tilts his head back, and presents Buck with the length of his throat.

Centuries ago, an alpha would rip out the jugular of any omega presented to them during their rut that they found unappealing. Now, Buck honours those who came before them by dragging his teeth along Eddie’s earlobe as he noses into his hair. It’s not the same, but it’s close enough, and Eddie wonders if the omegas who met their ends that way felt the pleasure mixed with the pain the same way he does.

Eddie leashes the noises he wants to make, leaves them half-fulfilled and floating in nothing as the air clears his lungs. Buck is holding him by the hips, slotting them together from chest to ankles. He nips at the skin over Eddie’s carotid artery. Eddie shivers, full-bodied, and grips Buck by the shoulders.

Eddie thinks about asking him. Why didn’t you give me a bonding bite last time? It rattles around in his thoughts like a rock in a tin can. But he can’t, not like this, both of them subject to the whims of their biology, to the things ingrained within them thousands of years ago. Buck’s crotch is bulky and hot where it presses into Eddie’s lower abdomen. Eddie’s already dripping enough to feel the wet patch forming in his underwear.

“Buck,” he sighs, ragged and lustful, as Buck smears his hot open mouth across Eddie’s neck and jawline. “I need—”

“Shhh,” Buck soothes against Eddie’s skin. His palms drag downwards until each one is cupped firm around the plush curve of Eddie’s ass. He digs in with the weight of his fingers, pulls the cheeks apart, and Eddie feels his skin unstick, shameful and hot, below his clothes. “I’ve got you, okay?”

Eddie’s throat is dry when he swallows. But he nods, pushing back against the hold of Buck’s hands, feeling himself spread wider.

“You smell more like me now,” Buck tells him, though he’s not sure how he can tell. To Eddie, the room stinks of alpha, heady and thick. Perhaps the closet full of fabric to which a scent can cling was the wrong choice. “Gotta make you smell like me everywhere, though. Gotta make you smell like mine.”

It’s a tight squeeze where Buck slides his hand past Eddie’s waistband, but he makes it work. Eddie gasps at the feel of skin on skin, like his nerves are all lighting up bright and dying a swift death in the next second. Buck’s fingers squirm for purchase, but they don’t stop until they meet their destination; a feather-light touch passes over Eddie’s sopping hole, the dulled bite of a fingernail catching against the rim.

Eddie’s eyes slip close, his forehead drops against Buck’s chest, and he comes all over himself. It clings, sticky to his dick and thighs, in the confines of his underwear.

“Fuck,” Buck all but growls, and when Eddie looks back up at him his pupils are dark and wide. “Didn’t think it’d happen that fast.”

Eddie's cheeks are hot and flushed. “Yeah, well,” he mumbles, tucking his chin against his sternum in embarrassment. Buck holds him by the jaw, redirecting Eddie’s gaze so they are once again looking into each other’s eyes. They kiss, wet and sloppy, Buck’s tongue licking deep into Eddie’s mouth. Once he pulls away, Buck drags the pad of his thumb over the parted seam of Eddie’s lips, and Eddie nips into the skin with his teeth. The taste of Buck’s sweat is rich on his tongue.

“Feel better?” Buck asks, not pulling his hand away. Eddie nods. To be touched feels less like an open wound and more like a dull throb. And it’s easier to ignore, now that they’ve cleared some of the fog. “Alright. Let’s get you out of here, okay?”

Heat still pools in Eddie’s stomach—a reminder of his current state—and it sits at a low simmer, delighted at the prospect of what is waiting for Eddie once he and Buck make it home.

——

In hindsight and given the circumstances, perhaps Buck should have considered that simply by virtue of Eddie’s current state, making it home would be more complicated than he anticipated.

In fairness, the blame does not solely rest with Eddie. Buck is not somehow unaffected by it; the omega leaking all over his passenger seat, smelling delicious and edible, the scent of his slick still strong where Buck used his fingers to barely breach him. Buck’s alpha is always there, boiling hot as it crawls under the skin and eggs him on to take what it’s decided is his. He’s asking for it, the dark corner of his brain supplies, you scented him, he’s yours now, we have to give him what he wants, it’s our responsibility, we’re the one who takes care of him, we give our omega what he wants.

Buck is doing his best to disregard the chanting in his head, or at least hold that part of himself at bay until the location is more appropriate. It was hard enough leaving the station; he knows he reeked of omega, of Eddie, as he explained the situation to Bobby, and there’s no way a single alpha or omega missed the honey trail of Eddie as they exited. He just hopes Eddie isn’t too embarrassed, no matter how sweet he looks when he’s all pink and shy about it.

Eddie unraveled again fairly quickly, once he and Buck were tucked away into the relative but not quite total privacy of Buck’s truck.

The situation, as it currently stands, sees Eddie bent in half in his seat on the passenger side, his shirt inadvertently hiked up to expose his lower back, nuzzling against the bulge in Buck’s pants.

It doesn’t necessarily help to keep Buck focused on the road ahead of him.

Back in the closet, he shucked off all pretense and allowed himself to slip into that sturdy alpha headspace. It was what Eddie needed, and that was something Buck and his alpha always aligned on: giving Eddie whatever he asked for. Now, with his alpha somewhat tucked inwards, though hardly all that quiet, Buck tries to keep it together long enough to lock his prettylovelygoodsmellingoursoursours omega away. And inch by torturous inch, Eddie noses along the ridge of Buck’s hard cock through layers of fabric, pressing his mouth hot and open and wet at the head. Buck hisses, using one hand to grip the steering wheel tighter as the other finds its way into the already sweat-damp hair at the base of Eddie’s skull.

“E-Eddie, baby,” Buck stutters, his alpha goading him on as his faculties slip from him further. The soft muscle of Eddie’s tongue is an insistent pressure against the teeth of his zipper. He keeps breathing in deeply, too, and groaning in the back of his throat as he rocks his hips backwards against nothing. His arousal penetrates Buck’s every sense, digging in and holding on, climbing up the back of Buck’s throat. “Just hold on, okay?” Buck says to Eddie, but also sort of to himself. “It’s not much further.”

Eddie makes a dissenting noise, broken and whiny like it’s through a snapped rib. Buck hears it muted by the fabric of his pants. “Alpha,” comes the same voice, still thin and reedy and muffled in Buck’s lap. “please.”

One single word, beautifully fractured from a supplicating omega. Buck’s head is spinning; his heart is ripping apart at the seams, his hands itch to drag themselves hotly across bare skin.

“I know, sweetheart,” Buck replies, frowning deeply. It hurts to deny Eddie anything, not just metaphorically but physically. Buck’s alpha growls, with the pained-annoyance of someone getting a paper cut or a sliver, sourced from the baser functions of Buck’s brain stem. “I’m trying to get us home safe. And once we make it, I promise I’ll take care of you. I’ll give you whatever you need, okay?” Buck applies a deep pressure with his thumb to the spot behind Eddie’s ear, rubbing back and forth comfortingly. It’s enough to soothe him—and his omega, presumably—at least partially. Eddie sighs and ceases his wriggling, but he does not pull away from where his head still lays, face burrowed into Buck’s lap and his jaw hinged open around the mound of Buck’s hard cock. Each exhale is hot against Buck’s skin, even through the layers. He feels his self-control breaking off of him, one brick at a time.

Buck wonders, absently, just how deeply Eddie has slipped away and into the dense haze of his heat, and how much of him is still clear-headed enough to comprehend what Buck is trying to explain to him. It’s been roughly thirty minutes since they were snug amongst the turnouts in the supply closet, and Eddie seemed relatively present then—despite his blown-out pupils and how easy it had been for Buck to bring him his release. Some of that is clearly missing, replaced by that big hormonal slop of impulse and instinct. The truth is that Buck has no way of knowing what is Eddie and what is the heat, or what exactly is penetrating deep enough to reach the leftover logic in his brain. By consequence, Buck approaches everything cautiously.

If nothing else, Eddie appears relatively content for the rest of the ride. His head never leaves Buck’s lap, whining periodically as his hips seek out a friction that isn’t there and his nose nuzzles in deeper, but for the most part he remains settled. Buck keeps an anchoring hand on the back of his neck and tries not to focus too much on the smell. He smells like ours, his alpha tells him. Sweet and delectable and overall largely indescribable, it fills out all the open space in the car, poured over them like melted wax or encasing amber or hot honey. Buck can taste it on the back of his tongue: Eddie’s arousal, the slick making a puddle in his underwear, the precome that dribbles from the tip of his dick.

For all the ways it must be difficult for Eddie to sit still and be told not yet, it is nearly as difficult for Buck to be the one to give the order. If it was up to him—or perhaps the alpha inside of him, though at a time like this there is hardly much of a separation—he’d have split Eddie open on his cock in the parking lot of the fire station, and that would have been that. But there’s more to being an alpha than just the pleasure of breeding and fucking and possessing an omega; Buck is a provider and a protector amongst everything else, and he knows the Eddie that thinks clearly, beyond this boiling point that overcomes him periodically, would have never wanted that. And when Eddie is lost to the things he cannot help, it is Buck’s responsibility to keep him safe, and to never allow himself to do anything that might hurt him, in the moment or otherwise.

It is not something that Buck takes lightly. Maybe because he grew up with an omega sister. Maybe because it’s just in his nature. Maybe because he cares, and so much, about Eddie that it can’t help but override those hungrier, wilder urges.

Buck had never led an omega through their heat before Eddie. It had been a surprise, how easily the instincts came over him. There was some nervousness to be flushed out at first, stuck in the edge of it, colouring a slight hesitancy onto Buck’s action, but the second he surrendered to the slow-moving current of his alpha inside of him some of the weight was lifted. Buck could trust himself to know what to do. And Eddie had been so lovely for him, pretty and pink and pliable. He smelt of syrupy cognac and milky sugar, like fruit dipped in cream. There was a distinct sense of pride that scorched Buck’s heart, this sweet little omega laid out below him, entrusting him implicitly with his body, his heat and his pleasure. And beyond the pride, still, there was duty; the kind of thing they wrote Regency era period pieces about, sweeping love epics filmed in bright sunlight, where people wore funny looking clothes and had weird looking hair, and alphas scented omegas and flexed their fingers when they couldn’t allow themselves to touch them. There was no greater satisfaction to be found for Buck than giving Eddie exactly what he asked for. He had asked for so much—for Buck’s cock, and his mouth, and his come. He asked to be filled, to be fucked, to be pressed into and held open and split apart. Buck had done all he could to fulfill every wish, satiate every desire, see every request through to its twinkling fireworks end.

When it was all coming down around him, the veil stripping itself off like fake cobwebs on the first day of November, Buck felt something click into place and lock in tight. The feeling permeated, made him rub his knuckles against his sternum. He thought a good long while about sinking his teeth into Eddie’s neck and claiming him.

He didn’t, in the end. He’s spent a lot of time since wondering why.

They pull into the driveway, Eddie a whimpering mess in Buck’s lap.

Buck is gentle, using a light touch to turn his head. Eddie’s eyes are wet and red, same as his mouth, white teeth visible through parted lips. Buck melts at the sight of his omega in an even vague sense of distress, even dipped in so much desire as it is.

“It’s okay,” he says, petting Eddie’s hair, “you’re okay. We’re home now. Just gotta get you inside and then you can have whatever you need, baby.”

Eddie turns to nuzzle into Buck’s palm, and his tongue darts out to taste the sweat collected at the base of his thumb. His eyelashes are wet where they flutter across Buck’s heated flesh. “Mhm, my alpha,” and merely to watch Eddie’s mouth form around the possessive adjective and the title is enough to make Buck’s cock throb. “I’ll be good.”

Buck bends over to press his lips to Eddie’s forehead. “You’re always good,” Eddie’s breath hitches at Buck’s words. “Let’s get you inside, okay?”

It is surprisingly easy to wrangle Eddie through the front door. The house is blissfully, completely empty; Christopher is still at school for a few more hours, and Buck has already made the necessary arrangements for Hen and Karen to pick him up after they let out for the day, with the promise of an impromptu sleepover. Buck will get Christopher take-out from his favourite place when he comes home in a few days too, just for good measure.

Eddie is on him like the opposing force of a magnet as soon as Buck closes the front door behind them, pawing at his clothes as his eyes dart feverishly from one point on Buck’s body to the next. “Hey, hey,” Buck coos tenderly, gathering up both of Eddie’s wrists tenderly into one of his hands. “Slow down. We got time.”

Eddie shakes his head vehemently. “No time,” he insists, speaking short and clipped. “Need it now, please, alpha.” As if to illustrate his point, Eddie breaks free of Buck’s hold and drags Buck’s hand down, along with his, and down further—until Eddie pushes it against the bulge in his pants. Despite the clumsy pressure being led by Eddie himself, it still makes him whine and pivot his hips, just once, and uselessly. “Need to come again, make me come again, please.”

That word won’t stop tumbling from Eddie’s mouth, please, rapturous and delightful in it’s steady torture of Buck’s self-restraint. He said it a lot the last time too. Kiss me, please. Fuck me, please. Knot me, please. Breed me, please. Fill me up and fuck it back inside of me. Please, please, please. It’s like a chorus of angels; one Buck anticipates he’ll be hearing often for the next roughly forty-eight to seventy-two hours.

“You beg for it so well,” Buck praises, watching gleefully as it upturns the corners of Eddie’s mouth. He’s already working at Eddie’s belt buckle, using the hand Eddie placed on his crotch so thoughtfully. “What am I gonna do with you, huh? Locked inside the house for days with an omega as lovely as you?”

Eddie sways forward, pulled into Buck’s orbit, eyes still somewhat red-rimmed as he noses into Buck’s shirt. He sniffles, and pushes his hips forward into the loose grip of Buck’s fist where he circles it around Eddie’s cock.

Buck continues. “You smell so good, smell like you’re mine,” he says, teasing Eddie’s cock with barely any pressure. Eddie grinds into it despite himself, whimpering into Buck’s shirt. They’re still standing in the entrance, Buck leaning back against the front door. “And you always get so wet for me.”

“Ungghhh,” Eddie moans, wetting the fabric of Buck’s shirt where he sucks it into his mouth. Buck can’t imagine what Eddie looks like under the privacy of his bottoms, so wet and messy with slick and beading droplets of precome. He can smell it, though. With enough clarity that he could probably draw a semi-accurate diagram, if asked.

“You get wet here,” Buck emphasizes by reaching around to press two fingers against the suggestion of Eddie’s wet asshole through his pants. “Obviously. But you get so wet here, too,” and this time Buck emphasizes by flicking the slit of Eddie’s dick with his fingernail.

Eddie hisses—tense—before he melts against Buck, boneless.

“And so sensitive, too,” Buck drags the pad of his thumb across the head, spreading precome, just to hear Eddie make the same noise again. He doesn’t disappoint. Of course he doesn’t, always so slick and perfect and agreeable. Made just for Buck, for his alpha and his cock and his worshipful hands. “You like this, huh?”

Eddie nods. Buck’s shirt is still stuck in his mouth.

“Can you use your words for me? Tell me how much you like it, baby?”

“Yes,” Eddie obeys, breathless. “Yes. Like it so much.”

Buck smiles. The circle of his fist is still half-hearted around Eddie’s cock, but the drag of his thumb is insistent as it moves back and forth across the tip, paying special attention to the slit and the base of the head. “You like it when I play with the tip of your dick like this? Think you could come from it? From me playing with your dick like it’s your wet clit instead?”

Eddie’s knees buckle immediately. Buck catches him, one-handed, under the armpit. He takes the brunt of Eddie’s body weight, holding him carefully, and never ceases his teasing on the head Eddie’s cock. He speaks, devout, into Eddie’s hair. “My sweet omega,” he rumbles, Eddie balanced against his chest, “all pretty and wet.”

Eddie is trembling against him, moaning hotly against Buck’s clavicle, his hands pinned between them. He rolls his hips, resolute and futile, for Buck ignores the entire length of his dick in favour of giving the head all of his attention. He digs into the slit, a little rough and mean, but it makes Eddie moan throatily, and that’s all that matters. He presses the head against his palm, letting Eddie grind against it, rubbing frantically in slow circles. He really does treat it like a clit, massaging it with his thumb, teasing it with different levels of force.

Eddie comes apart at the sutures, and Buck holds him in his grip and takes him over the edge.

He spurts, hot into Buck’s cupped hand, and whines pathetically. Buck does not abandon his assault on the head of Eddie’s dick yet, however, shoving his hand against it like he wants to push Eddie’s come back inside of him.

Post-orgasm allows Eddie to come back to himself slightly, penetrates and shakes off some of the hold of the heat. When Eddie meets Buck’s eyes, for what feels like the first time in hours, he’s damp all over. His expression flickers, nose and mouth twitching, as his hips maintain these aborted half-thrusts into Buck’s hand.

“How are you doing?” Buck asks him.

Eddie groans, somewhere between satisfied and frustrated. “Take me to bed,” he says, and Buck does.

*

As is typical for an omega in heat, they fuck on and off for hours. They take breaks to drink water and eat, and they sleep on and off. Sex takes everything out of Eddie, sucking him dry, but his omega pheromones imbue Buck with a tenacious vitality, and a seemingly endless supply of energy to fuel it. He naps with Eddie, occasionally unable to resist being drawn in by the softness of his form, but when Buck gets too restless among the dirty sheets, he attempts to keep himself busy. He tidies up the bedroom, and then the living room. He makes Eddie snacks, slices cucumber and plates it with baby carrots, brings him a sleeve of crackers and a few hunks of cheese.

Everything Buck offers to Eddie is met with a wide-eyed look of gratitude and devotion, like anything Buck does for Eddie is the most gracious thing anyone has ever done for someone else. And his expression conveys such sincerity that it’s almost enough to convince Buck that that’s true. Or, at least, that Eddie believes it. Wholeheartedly.

Somewhere around what Buck assumes is eleven p.m., he bullies Eddie into the bathroom, strips him of his boxers (the only piece of closing worth wearing, at this point, and for no other reason than to roam around the house without accidentally flashing an unsuspecting neighbour) and draws him a bath.

Eddie is nearly completely lost to the heat, speaking mostly in short noises and clipped sentences. Buck doesn’t mind; he talks enough for the both of them. And he likes seeing Eddie this way—content, bone-deep, with nothing weighing on his mind as long as his alpha is nearby, taking care of him.

Not for the first time, Buck is humbled to be offered the chance to be responsible for such a lofty duty. Not for the first time, he thinks of the unmarred skin where a claiming bite should be.

At first, Buck has all the intentions to lean by the edge of the tub and help Eddie get clean. Eddie, of course, will not allow it. He tugs on Buck’s wrist, trilling pleading noises from the back of his throat. Eventually, Buck gets the hint, drops his own boxers, and climbs into the tub, slotting himself between Eddie and the wall.

There isn’t much room; hence Buck’s original plan to stay dry, but Eddie sighs contentedly and leans back into the circle of Buck’s arm, their thighs pressed together under the water, so it’s hardly all that bad. Buck washes Eddie’s hair, massaging his scalp. Helps him scrub away the grime from his skin and flush some of the slick and come out from between his ass cheeks. Eddie’s heat is far from over, and things are going to get messy again, but, well, isn’t that part of the fun? Making someone clean just so you can dirty them up again?

Eventually, the water goes tepid. Buck is thinking of pulling the plug and drying them off when his ears pick up the soft, distinct sounds of light snoring, and he realizes Eddie is asleep against his chest. He’s not sure how he manages—maybe some secret alpha superpower Buck has never heard of before—but somehow, he gets them both out of the tub, dried off, and carries his omega back to bed.

*

Buck wakes with a crick in his neck and his shoulders gone rigid. He groans, still half-asleep, and attempts to stretch. His skin is dried-over with last night’s stickiness, glazed and tight with it. They fucked twice more after the bath. He’s still naked, and the air around his cock is warm and wet and oh—

Buck’s eyes fly open. Nestled between the V of his thighs, he finds Eddie curled in on himself, body unguarded in relaxation save for where his hands are folded together and tucked to his chest. His hair is messy, swooping this way and that as it falls into his eyes, and that red blush that dusts his cheeks—the one Buck noticed, and catalogued, the last time he guided Eddie through a heat cycle—is still there. He can smell Eddie, a potent musk that permeates the room. Richer in the throws of heat, but perhaps a twinge sweeter too. It’s hard to pin-point; Buck’s nose searches the air for the difference in the notes and the only information his brain supplies back to him is EddieEddieEddie.

He wonders how long Eddie’s been like this: half-awake and holding Buck’s cock in his mouth.

There is a tenderness to it. Eddie’s not sucking him off; he’s barely moving, in fact, his head nestled against Buck’s pelvis and his throat wide open around the head of his cock. Periodically, there’s a twitch of tongue, a bump against the soft palate, cheeks that hollow for a split second—but that’s all. In the pursuit of nothing, besides the inherent comfort Buck imagines an omega feels in a position like this, when alpha and knotting and breeding is all that’s on their mind. It’s intoxicating, to know Eddie yearns for Buck’s cock and knot the same way his lungs yearn for air. Eddie’s mouth is velvet, too much and too little, and Buck can feel it when Eddie exhales against the bare skin of his thighs. Their threaded together essence is everywhere; Eddie’s slick and Buck’s come, their sweat and spit and the natural fragrance they each emit, dripped densely across the air. Eddie is so beautiful, the picture of every prettysweetperfect omega that Buck once thought only existed in the most elaborate of alpha fantasies. But here he was, cuddled up in bed with remnants of Buck still stuck inside of him and his lips stretched around Buck’s cock. Buck’s alpha loves it; Buck, himself, loves it just as much, if not a little bit more.

Buck draws his fingers through Eddie’s tousled hair, scratching lightly against his scalp, and watches Eddie’s lashes flutter shadows against his ruddy cheeks. Eddie gives a pleased hum at the feeling. The reverberations roll in waves against the length of Buck’s cock, pooling thick desire shallowly in his stomach. He knows he could do anything to Eddie in these moments. Press his head down, force his throat wide around the girth of Buck’s rapidly hardening cock. He could make Eddie swallow around his knot. He could pull Eddie up and all the way off, give him some air while Buck jerks off onto his face, mess him up good to make him clean himself up afterwards with fingers and tongue. He could offer commands, tell Eddie to sit on his cock, or present himself on all fours, or wait patiently with his head bowed and on his knees against the hardwood floor. He could make Eddie gag for it. He could make him beg and whine.

Like this, Eddie does what Buck tells him to do, and that’s a gift. It’s an honour and a privilege to be the alpha that an omega chose.

Before Buck can settle on any particular indulgence, however, Eddie pulls off his dick slowly. He makes a show of it, dragging intent pressure along the underside, suckling at the head. Parting his lips around the tip so Buck can watch himself leak precome onto the flat surface of Eddie’s tongue. When he’s finally finished, Eddie tilts his head back to meet Buck’s line of sight and says, eyes wide and wet and pleading, “knot me, please?”

It is easy enough to forget sometimes, that this is all biology. That it is instinctual and largely beyond Buck’s level of comprehension. Buck doesn’t pretend to know how the switch inside of him got there, but he knows it exists, and he knows what it does. He knows it makes him want to provide, and protect, and possess, and that it is especially concentrated when there’s a naked omega in his lap, batting his eyelashes and begging to be fucked and bred.

“You’re such a sweet thing,” Buck tells Eddie with reverence. Eddie flushes fully pink at the compliment, his scent spilling sugary across the air as if in testament. Buck’s brain-to-mouth filter is shot to hell, and whether that’s from Eddie or from the impending rut he feels looming over his shoulder, he could never be sure. At this point it doesn’t really matter. The hand on the clock is ticking down the seconds, and any moment now Buck will become lost to the whims of his designation, its bruising hold and the line-up of sharp teeth in its jaw.

Eddie’s train of thought remains a fixed point on the horizon, however, and his verbal response to Buck’s worshipful praise is simple, reinforcing his earlier request. “Alpha. Need you,” he says, crawling over Buck’s prone form slowly, palms climbing up the mattress, rolling the plush curve of his ass back against Buck’s gone rock hard cock. “Need your knot. Please. Please, alpha, puh-leeeease.”

“I gave you my knot less than twelve hours ago,” Buck replies, though he’s sure Eddie’s grasp on the passage of time is tenuous at best. Still, a little harmless teasing never hurt anybody, least of all a keyed-up omega in heat. “And you’re already begging me so pretty for it all over again?”

“Need it,” Eddie insists with the kind of ferocity one might expect from a wild animal kept in a cage. Which, come to think of it, might be somewhat accurate. “M’empty,” Eddie says, as the head of Buck’s cock catches on the edge of his wet rim.

“I don’t think that’s true,” Buck taunts further, smiling crookedly at Eddie’s pouty expression. “You’re still all full of my come from the last time.”

“S’not enough,” Eddie slurs, half-mumbled as he wriggles further into Buck’s lap, persistent and tempting as he is. Buck would find it more difficult to resist him, if he wasn’t acutely aware that this was all just build-up to the upcoming main event. “Need more, alpha, please.”

“How’d I end up with such a greedy little omega, huh?” Buck cups Eddie’s cheek with his palm. Eddie’s skin is scorching where he leans into it. “So needy, always begging me for it, not satisfied until I give him everything. Have you always been this knot-brained, baby? Or is this special for me?”

Eddie whines at a high frequency. He drops his head to nuzzle into the spot between Buck’s clavicles, breathing full-bodied. It’s very endearing, and purposefully so. “Don’t be mean,” Eddie fusses, dragging his teeth along Buck’s sternum.

“Shhh. I’m not being mean,” Buck soothes, hand moving to cup the back of Eddie’s skull. “Are you gonna answer the question?” He asks, serious like it’s an alpha command even when it’s not.

Eddie looks up at Buck from below the shadow of his brow, his mouth still tasting the skin and his hair still falling into his eyes. “Special for you,” Eddie answers, squirming backwards until the girth of Buck’s cock splits the seam of his ass cheeks and ends up nestled between them. His hole leaking, warm and sticky, dripping over Buck’s hard-on, his knot, his balls.

“Mhm-hmm. I thought as much,” Buck allows himself the pleasure of shallow upwards thrust, dragging his cock against Eddie’s hole without opening him up. “That’s better. I think I can give you my knot now.” Eddie’s demeanor visibly brightens. If he had a tail it’d probably be wagging. “Can you lay on your stomach for me, baby? Sounds like I need to fuck you good and hard this time. Gotta make sure I give what you really need—gotta make sure it sticks.”

Eddie scrambles to obey Buck’s wishes before Buck is even finished speaking them. He chants yes and alpha and please like those are the only words he knows, or maybe they’re the only words he feels like he needs. Buck watches him go, indulging both in the exposed pinked-up softness of Eddie’s supple body, and his excitement at the prospect of getting what he wants. And it’s all for Buck; not a realization that dawns on him, but rather a facticity sewn into his skin, a reality he carries with him in his blood and his bone marrow. His heart beats Eddie’s name in the staccato. The hairs on his arms stand up to be closer to him. The world made Buck and then they made Eddie just for him. Buck’s known that since the day he met Eddie, he thinks.

Eddie’s on his front with his cheek pressed against the mattress, gaze a wildfire of heat where it cooks Buck alive. “Knot, please?” He asks again, canting his hip upwards against nothing, shoving his ass in the air.

“At least you’re polite,” Buck says, a final jeering remark, before he spanks Eddie open-palmed, relishing in the sound of skin-on-skin and the red mark his hand leaves behind. Eddie moans, unabashed, and grinds his cock against the sheets below him.

Buck holds Eddie down against the mattress by the hips and licks him out for a good while. Eddie is fidgety at first, but eventually he melts into it, humming contentedly, turning lazy and relaxed. He reminds Buck of a cat stretched out in the sun, so pleased by its decision to do nothing.

“I see how it is,” Buck says, lifting his head from tasting Eddie’s slick to place a kiss against the base of his spinal cord. “You gonna make me do all the work?”

Eddie all but giggles, his omega scent flaring distinctly sparkly and bubbly. “You like it,” he answers.

“I like what? Doing all the work?” Buck scoffs, though Eddie has an iota of a point. He bites into the fleshiest part of Eddie’s ass cheek. Eddie sucks in a tight breath. “Not like I have much of a choice when you’re like this.”

“Stop lying,” Eddie retorts, lifting himself up onto his elbows to cast a look over his shoulder at Buck. “Know you like it—like taking care of me,” and he melts back against the mattress as he speaks the last part.

Buck’s heart stutters a start and then stops. Oh.
It kicks back on.

“Yeah,” Buck agrees. “I guess I do.”

Eddie ends up star-fished across the bed on his back, his legs folded over Buck’s shoulders as Buck pounds into him in earnest. He doesn’t fumble a hand around his own cock, doesn’t even arch off the bed. Just lies there, face screwed up as he puffs punched-out little whimpers and moans from his lungs. Buck moves the sweat-soaked hair away from Eddie’s forehead, leaning over to kiss across his brow, pressing in deeply. A beautiful, lovely exhale of uhn-unnnngh gets halfway caught on the way out of Eddie’s throat, until Buck bullies the rest of it free with a particularly hard thrust.

“So pretty, laying here all spread out for me,” Buck mumbles into the bend of Eddie’s knee, his mouth as hot and as wet as Eddie’s flesh. “I get to do whatever I want with you.”

“Fuck me so good,” Eddie slurs, his chest heaving and his eyes shut firmly. His lips are a swollen, bitten shade of red. “Feels so good inside me.”

“I know, baby. I know,” Buck replies, his hands roaming the meat of Eddie’s thighs, pinching and scratching and occasionally nibbling, when he can get his mouth on the right spot. “Aren’t you the luckiest omega on the planet? All you have to do is lie there and let me give it to you. You’re so spoiled.”

Eddie gives a half-hearted uh-huh, as his own hands come up to pinch and play with his nipples. Not with any kind of fervour; almost non-committal, like Eddie can barely be bothered.

“If I stopped right now,” Buck asks, voice dropping an octave, leaning in close and nuzzling the head of his dick right up against the bundle of nerves that is Eddie’s prostate. “What would you do? Scream and cry? Whine and beg for it? Would you climb on top and try to get my cock back inside you? Could you even do that? Would you even know how?”

“Alpha,” Eddie gasps out. His hands have already fallen to his sides, his perfunctory task abandoned. But his eyes are open now, and they are big and glassy.

“What would my sweet omega do? What would happen if I wasn’t here to fuck him good and right?”

“Oh, alpha, please, I, I—,”

Buck reaches down to take Eddie in hand, agonizing with slow strokes up and down the length. Eddie attempts to rut up into it, but seems to barely possess the energy, flopping back against the mattress dramatically with each abandoned upwards thrust.

“Don’t worry, m’not going anywhere,” Buck soothes, thumbing across the slit of Eddie’s wet fucking dick. “I’m here to take care of you. I’ll make sure to fuck you good and full of my knot whenever you need it.”

“Now,” and it sounds like Eddie wants it to be a command, but his voice is too broken up with arousal for it to work. “Alpha, please, want you to give it to me now.”

“Oh, sweetheart—I’m gonna give it you, don’t worry,” and sure enough, Buck’s knot tugs at Eddie’s rim as he pulls out and fucks it back in. He nails Eddie’s prostate with precision, over and over and over, until Eddie’s dick squirts pathetically all over himself and Buck’s hand, as if his cock is just as lazy as him.

Buck comes inside, filling Eddie deep, touching him even deeper. It takes about forty-five minutes for his knot to deflate, and when he pulls out he watches as Eddie grabs a pillow and tucks it beneath his hips, angling his ass upwards. Buck’s come dribbles, thick and viscous, from Eddie’s hole. Eddie’s own slick facilitates the slide. Buck thinks about tasting it, or shoving it all back in.

“What are you doing?” He asks Eddie instead.

“Gonna give you pups, alpha,” Eddie replies, like that’s a sound explanation. He’s deep within the clutches of his heat, all higher function traded in for basic omega instincts. Fuck, breed, have babies, do it again. And again. And again.

Buck shrugs it off. “Sure you are,” he says, but he lets Eddie do as he pleases.

Buck knows it’s the heat talking. He knows what Eddie wants. And Buck’s fine with that, he is, and not even in a fake pretend way but in a real, honest way—he doesn’t think his life is missing anything, least of all this. But if the circumstances changed, if things were different, if they made new decisions the way adults sometimes do—well, he wouldn’t be opposed to it. And he tries to make the most of it, at least, at a time like this.

But, then again: maybe they should at least exchange bonding bites, before they consider revisiting the subject of more kids.

*

In most schools across the country, there is a state-mandated secondary gender sexual education curriculum. Growing up in Pennsylvania, Buck took the class his freshman year of high school, when he was fourteen.

It’s all very clinical. A frank discussion about biology and sex organs, of rut triggers and heat cycles. Buck remembers his class being split up by designations and shuffled off into separate rooms. He remembers the single alpha girl that was in his grade, blonde and petite despite her secondary gender designation, and sticking out like a sore thumb amongst a sea of alpha boys. He tries not to think about it for too long, though, lest he imagine Eddie as a teenager, the lone omega boy with his head bowed, herded off into the next room with a group of girls.

But to return to the point: one of the most important things underscored in secondary gender sex ed is the permanency of a bonding bite. “There will always be an urge,” Buck remembers his teacher, Mrs. Brookheimer, telling them. She was a beta, teaching them about things she had never experienced firsthand. “And during the mating process, it will be especially difficult to resist. But mating bonds are permanent—once you’ve marked an omega, it is not only medically irreversible, it is also legally binding. So it is extremely important that each of you think long, and hard, before claiming somebody. And remember that the omega you ultimately chose needs to be involved in the process too.”

The thing is: Buck has thought long and hard about it. About claiming Eddie. About sinking his teeth into the curve where neck meets shoulder, of biting down until he tastes blood, the toasty flavour of brandy mixed with the sweet softness of cream. He knows he wants it, and maybe he knows that Eddie wants it too, but it’s just—

Buck gets hung up on the permanency of it all, on the idea that anyone could truly desire to be with someone forever, least of all him. He assumes Eddie has the same information Buck does, about claiming bites and the like. That he went through the Texas version of the same basic idea of sex ed, but does he really understand? Could they ever understand? The human brain doesn’t have the capacity to fathom infinity; does shrinking it to a lifetime really make it all that much easier to comprehend? What if things are different, afterwards, in ways they can’t fix or prevent? What if forever is too long? What if Eddie changes his mind.

Eddie’s been buried under so much for all of his life. Buck refuses to add anymore dirt to the pile. Even if that metaphorical pile of dirt is himself.

*

Buck wakes and his skin is on fire. His cock is rock hard, his knot pulsing at the base. His nose is full of omega, potent enough to make his mouth water. He returns to his body one limb at a time, and realizes the source of the delicious scent is curled up on his chest, Buck’s nose pressed to the crown of Eddie’s head.

Eddie looks so peaceful in sleep. Buck can smell the threads of heat where it still clings to him, raising his body temperature and emitting his sweet scent. Buck names the sensation as it bubbles in his gut; his rut, helmed by his alpha, come to sink its teeth into the omega they both want so badly. And Eddie is none the wiser, serene and unassuming, oblivious of the alpha who looks him over like a piece of meat. Like he’s prey.

He stirs when Buck pushes two fingers past his lips and teeth, pressing them down against his tongue. Eddie gags, his eyes fluttering open and then he moans, shameless, as he finally catches up to what’s happening.

“Good,” Buck praises, curt. “Lemme open you up.”

He does it, mercilessly, but not before hauling Eddie up and over and placing him on hands and knees. There is no hesitancy in his actions, as Buck takes the two fingers he fucked into Eddie’s mouth and pushes them inside of him up to the knuckle. Eddie collapses onto his front, his arms falling out from underneath him, his face pressed into the mattress. He manages to clench around Buck’s fingers despite the inherent laxness of his hole, leaking slick around the digits. Buck places a hand on his lower back to hold him still as he fucks in and out, his cadence fast and brutal. Eddie is a whiny mess about it, drooling on the sheets, his cock dribbling in vain between his legs.

“You want my knot?” Buck asks, curling his fingers inside of Eddie to drag them across his prostate. Eddie makes a noise. Buck grabs a handful of his ass and squeezes, hard. “What was that?” He slides his hand into Eddie’s hair and pulls, using the leverage to lift Eddie’s face up and away from the bedding.

“Yes,” Eddie cries, breathless and desperate. Buck tugs on the strands of his hair again to coax him, none too gently, and Eddie continues. “Alpha, please, want your knot. Can I have your knot? Will you give it to me?”

Buck hums. “When you said you were only this much of a knotslut with me,” he asks, playfully, a pleased servant of his rut and all the things it wants. “Did you mean it?”

“Yes,” Eddie repeats, wrung out of him with a puff of air, the same as the last time. “Only for you. Only yours. Only want your knot, alpha. Please, can I have it?”

The thing about Eddie is every part of him is made to be desirable. From the top of the longest hair on his head to the very soles of his feet, Buck wants him, wholly and completely. And Eddie’s body and the impulses of his secondary gender make him good at being wanted, coy and desirous in a way that is instinctual, biologically formulated to be impossible to resist. And yet, even without all of that, Buck would still want him desperately. Even if he didn’t smell the way he did, or leak slick all over the sheets, or bat his eyelashes and downturn the corners of his mouth in a pout, or moan for Buck’s cock like he was starving for it. Absent all that and more, Buck would still feel the same about him.

He’ll claim him, Buck thinks. Not now. But soon. Somewhere nice. He’ll make it special. He’ll claim Eddie. He’ll try to be the best alpha that he can, and hope that that’s good enough. Isn’t that all anyone ever does, when they commit to something as arbitrary as forever?

A high-pitched, teetering whimper brings Buck’s soul back to his body. Lost in thought, he had slowed his ministrations, and now Eddie is moving back against his fingers, trying to fuck them in deeper by himself.

“Want your pups,” Eddie says, the words sticky as they leave his throat.

This time, Buck has no sarcastic reply. This time, Buck says, “I’m gonna fuck you full of ‘em,” and lines up his cock next to his fingers. Despite the girth, he manages to slide in alongside, stretching Eddie wide open.

“Greedy,” Buck comments, relishing in the way Eddie’s hole sucks his digits, even as Buck tugs them free. Eddie groans at the loss, gasping when Buck replaces the stretch with the penetrating heat of his full-to-bursting knot. Eddie’s legs tremble beneath him like Jell-O. If he falls, Buck will catch him, but until then he’ll indulge in the harmless torture of making Eddie stand it. “Gonna fuck you like you’re mine. Like you belong to me.”

“I am,” Eddie answers. “I do.”

“Gonna fill you up so good,” Buck continues. “Gonna pump you full of my come, over and over.”

“Gimme all of it,” Eddie replies, hands scrambling for purchase. Buck hauls him up by the hips, helps to steady him. “Wanna feel you inside even after. Want to give you so many pups.”

“You’d smell so good when you’re full of ‘em. All sweet and happy,” Buck talks through the strain of his voice. Talks over the echoing sounds of the slap of skin as he snaps his hips into Eddie, ferocious and precise. “Everyone would know you belonged to someone. To me. My sweet, lovely omega.”

“Fuck,” Eddie curses. Then, “M’gonna come.”

Buck barks out a laugh. “Didn’t even touch your cock. All you needed was my knot? Knew you’d go dumb on it.”

“S-stop,” Eddie whines, sheepish. Buck can tell he doesn’t mean it. If anything, the whine he emits sounds even more broken than the last one.

“My dirty, knot-brained omega,” Buck continues to tease. Eddie’s whole body is flushed red, from shame or exertion or perhaps an intoxicating tincture of both. “If I was a real alpha, I’d never let you leave this bed. Keep you here all the time. Give you my knot whenever you ask for it. Fuck you full of my pups.”

Eddie comes, untouched, with a sharp shout of Buck’s name and a hearty, prolonged moan. And then he goes limp, brimming with aftershocks, and the knowledge that Buck was the one who satiated him in such a way bolsters him with pride. He fucks Eddie harder, rocking the whole bedframe with it. Eddie hiccups, broken, but he does not pull away. He still has the strength, even, to give a demure arch of his back.

“Ask me for it,” Buck demands, his orgasm coiling in his stomach like a writhing pit of snakes. “Ask me for my load.”

The moan of please comes from deep within Eddie, pulled forcibly from the widest, darkest pit of desire within him. Or, at least it sounds that way. “Alpha,” he chokes out after it subsides, then repeats, “please, can I have your come? Please, I want it so bad. Want your come so much.”

And that is something Buck and his alpha are always aligned on: giving Eddie what he wants.

*

The rut fades away over the course of the day, and so do the last vestiges of Eddie’s heat. Buck wakes from a nap to greet a dark, sunless world around him. He’s curled around Eddie, spooned chest to back. Eddie, for his part, seems floaty and content, and more present in his body than he has been in days.

“Can I tell you something,” Eddie asks, tracing Buck’s features with his fingers in the darkness of their bedroom. It still smells potent; tomorrow they’ll strip the sheets and Febreeze the whole thing into next week.

“Anything,” Buck answers, same as he always does.

Eddie swallows, looking at Buck from under the fan of his lashes. His face is so shadowed it’s more of a suggestion, but Buck’s mind fills in the blanks without much issue. “I thought I might wake up with a claiming bite,” he confesses, looking apprehensive. “I thought I might even after that first time, too.”

“Oh,” Buck responds lamely, the sound soaring through the air heavy like a brick where it drops from his tongue. “Would you—want that?”

Eddie is quick to answer. “Yes,” he says. “Would you?”

“Yes, Eddie, oh my god, I—,” and Buck’s not sure why he says it, why he is possessed by the words, compelled to spill them out into Eddie’s waiting hands. Buck speaks honestly, “I was afraid you wouldn’t,” and tries to watch Eddie’s expression carefully in the dark.

Eddie’s face folds, affected in equal parts by a tandem rising tide of fondness and worry. “Oh, Buck,” he says, his brows pinched and his eyes soft. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Buck shrugs. “I was thinking—during your heat, I was thinking I should just get over it. Make you mine and be done with it. But I was worried—I was worried no matter how hard I tried, I could never—good enough—or, a good enough alpha, I guess. For an omega like you.”

“Buck,” Eddie’s voice is watery, rattling around in his lungs. “No one has ever even tried to be a good alpha for me. That already makes you a cut above the rest.”

Eddie kisses him. With red hot fire, with singe-burnt emotion, Eddie pours himself into Buck’s mouth and asks to be taken down in one piece, kept close and whole. The universe molded them one for the other, sculpted out of clay to fit like two snug puzzle pieces. Eddie is so warm, and he smells so good, so sweet and comforting and—and—like mine, Buck’s alpha supplies. Like yours. Like ours.

“I want it to be special,” Buck mumbles into Eddie’s mouth. “For real. Your next heat—let’s actually get out of here. Take a vacation. Go to one of those stupid cabins. I can chase you around the woods and pin you down and fuck you in the dirt.”

It’s Eddie’s turn, now, to allow an unbidden oh to fall out of him. “I’d like that, Buck,” he replies after a moment, “not just the last part. I like all of it. But I do like the last part, especially.”

At that, Buck buries his face into Eddie’s throat and sucks a bruise against the skin. Eddie laughs, and then Buck laughs, and they kiss again, laughing into each other’s mouths, allowing their hands to roam. Buck pins Eddie’s hands behind his back and tells him don’t move, pressing his knee into the thick line of Eddie’s crotch and grinding against him until he comes, again, for however many times it’s been. Buck has lost count. The air tastes salty, like come, and sweet, like the pseudo-nectar of the God’s that seeps from Eddie’s hole. In Ancient Egypt, male omegas were elevated citizens, and people believed that slick had healing properties. In modern times, Buck slurps on it until it makes his head feel all bubbly like he’s drunk.

Buck thinks about his teeth in Eddie’s neck while he jerks off into his stomach. When he comes, he shoots it all over the place, and then he rubs it into Eddie’s skin. “Gross,” Eddie complains, screwing up his face.

“You like it,” Buck retorts. Then, “you love, it.”

“Yeah,” Eddie nods. “I guess I do.”

*

When Buck finds Eddie in the kitchen, rummaging in the fridge for the ingredients to make a sandwich, he knows that it’s over. He’s only mildly disappointed. It comes back every six months or so, after all. Eddie is wearing one of Buck’s t-shirts and a pair of well-fitting boxer briefs, his ass all round and fat and juicy in them. Buck can’t help but swoop in and cop a feel.

“You would think that you’ve had your fill,” Eddie throws over his shoulder, not even turning to look.

“Could never have my fill of you, baby,” Buck replies, and presses a kiss to Eddie’s shoulder as he turns, leaning against the kitchen counter behind him. “Speaking of babies, though. Your omega wants pups. Bad.”

Eddie emerges from the fridge juggling cold cuts and various condiments. He deposits them all on the counter indelicately, before crossing his arms. “Yeah, well, it’s a good thing he doesn’t make those kinds of decisions, I do.” Eddie worries the inside of his cheek between his teeth for a second. “And not to steal your segway, but speaking of babies--there’s no chance you remembered to make me take my ‘script, right?”

“No,” Buck winces. “Sorry. I didn’t think of it.”

“Don’t apologize. You had other things on your mind,” Eddie gets a little red, right at the apples of his cheeks, when he says it. “Plus, you can make it up to me real easy​​--by going out to the pharmacy to pick up stuff for me.” He gives Buck a toothy smile.

Buck nods, resolute. “Right,” he replies, sprung into action now that he’s been given his task, already looking for his keys. He’s not even wearing a shirt yet. “I’ll bring back snacks, too. And Gatorade. For the electrolytes.”

“Yes, Buck, I know what Gatorade does,” Eddie rolls his eyes. He snags Buck by the strings on his sweatpants, pulling him in close enough to kiss him hard.

*

Buck deposits a plethora of items on the counter at the pharmacy, in all the colours of the rainbow. Taki’s (for Buck) and sour cream and onion Pringles (for Eddie), two zero sugar blue gatorades, a bag of mini Reese’s to be kept in the fridge, and a selection of the three for one on offer plastic bags of chewy candy. Oh, and the pale lavender box of an emergency contraceptive pill, a can of Red Bull, and a bottle of Tylenol.

“Whoa,” the kid behind the counter says as he rings Buck up, half-sarcastic if his tone is anything to go by. “Someone’s got a sweet little girlfriend.”

Buck chooses to ignore his cynicism. “Yeah,” he answers sincerely, “someone really does.”