Archive of Our Own ^beta

There was a buzzing under his skin, behind his eyes. Rooster ground the heels of his palms against his face like it would soothe the irritation, like it would help whatever was winding him tight, but it didn’t. Nothing did. 

He was sitting on the floor of his bare-bones apartment, his ass flat on the linoleum and his knees pulled up to his chest. He’d been drawn to the spot all weekend, since he'd come home from teaching on Friday. He’d walked through his front door and not gone back out, hadn’t felt right, hadn’t felt like leaving and hadn’t been invited out, anyway. 

Something was churning in his belly, an itch behind his teeth. He was waiting, and he didn’t know for what. But there was an ax hanging above his head, a promise and a threat unknown. 

Rooster couldn’t get up, couldn’t leave this spot that he’d been pacing across all weekend before he’d finally sat down, rooted without knowing why. He could walk away, play cool, but invariably he was drawn back, trapped by a pull behind his abdomen. It was an innocuous corner of his apartment, no significance that came to mind. His back was to the wall and there was something calling to him like an ancient siren song.

Pulled by strings beyond his control, Rooster rolled his neck back against the cool wall behind his head, and there, it was there. His nose crushed flat against the drywall, and his cock throbbed between his legs. He’d been hard and hadn’t known it, but he felt the pulse of his own arousal now, and the urge was terrifying in its intensity, but he breathed in deeply against the wall and pulled himself out of the fly of his jeans.

There was a scent, something in the surface, in the paint, in the atoms that made up his eggshell white apartment walls. He felt possessed, but started working himself with his hand, started pumping his hips into the dry drag of his palm. It didn’t feel good, but it felt necessary. Rooster didn’t know how long he’d been hard, but it had been too long, he knew, because the fullness of his arousal was painful. His dick skin was too tight, and the friction of his hand was wrong, not enough.

Rooster panted and rolled, rose up onto his knees until the feverish skin of his arousal was pressed into the wall of his entryway. He let his hand fall away from his cock, buried his nose deeper into the hardness and chased pleasure with his hips. It was a dry drag where he was most sensitive, but he was moving anyway, grinding and chasing an unsatisfying friction.

But he wanted the scent more than he wanted the pleasure, and there was something there, and he panted open mouthed like if he could breathe deeply enough he would be able to taste it. Rooster whined, alone in his apartment with no one to hear, and he clipped his head on the coat hook protruding from the wall as he moved to stand. But the pain didn’t faze him and he kept riding the wall even as it pulled dry and painful at his foreskin, at the tender head of his cock. 

He was hurting now, his dick, his head, and a growing ache in his balls and at the root of his cock. But his mouth fell open, level with the coat hook, and it was there, that lush scent. Rooster mouthed at the wall, right where the paint had chipped, and his tongue fell out between the lips as he chased that smell, that taste.

It was so familiar, and he was writhing, licking miserably at the wall right where nothing special happened, nothing at all, just the spot where people hung up their coats. Just the spot where Maverick was always putting his leather jacket, the one he’d had since before Rooster was born, the one that he’d watched Maverick take on and off a thousand times, that he’d looked at and imagined himself pushing right off of the omega’s shoulders–

Rooster’s gut seized and he cried out, strangled, as his balls pulled up and tight and the base of his dick burned but nothing happened. No head rush, no come busting from his slit, no release or relief at all. 

He staggered back from where he stood, half falling until the backs of his thighs hit his couch and he settled down heavily with all of his weight. His balls were aching and heavy, and Rooster looked down at his lap to see his cock laying against his leg, unspent and thicker than it had ever looked before. He was still hard, and he was red too, chafed where he’d been fucking against his god damn wall like he was mindless.

Even then as he stared down at himself, bewildered, he had a pull like an invisible fist around his spine that was dragging him back, making him want to go back to that same corner of his apartment that he’d just done his best to fuck into. 

What was going on, he thought, waking from his own possession. 

He was hard and he was confused and he felt lost, anxious in his own home. Rooster dragged a hand over his face and wiped the spit off of his chin where he’d smeared wet all over himself, lapping at the wall like a dog, face sloppy and his mustache soaking with it. 

Rooster tried to trace back the afternoon and figure out how he’d ended up here, he had to be sick, something had to be going on. But he hadn’t been doing anything, hadn’t done anything at all since he’d been at Top Gun the day before. He usually spent the weekend with Maverick, usually spent his evenings with him, too, but he’d gone home alone and his phone had never rang. 

They had been doing a careful dance around each other since the end of the mission. Together every second, but neither of them fully committed to admitting that it was by design and not just something that they just kept falling into. A relationship of ‘if you aren’t busy’ and ‘if you’ve got nothing better to do’, ‘maybe I’ll stop by’, ‘if I’m in the area’ and ‘maybe’ ‘maybe’ ‘maybe’ until Rooster felt sick with it. They were together all the time, but neither of them would rip the pin out of the grenade and admit why. Rooster swallowed the whys all the time, caught in a game of chicken with Maverick to see who would admit to a why first.

But Rooster didn’t have to admit to himself why. He had a lifetime of knowing the why, but all he had were his own reasons and his own feelings and none of Maverick’s. He knew the truth of his own why, knew the whole huge breadth of it by heart.

Why Maverick was the first person he thought of every day and the one whose face stayed caught in his memory every night. Why he came with the omega’s name on his lips and his picture gripped in the hand that wasn’t holding his cock. Why he’d let his twenties roll by with no mate, no pups, never even really gone out there and tried. 

Mating wasn’t likely for him anyway, and pupping even less likely still. 

He was only a latent alpha, hadn’t popped his knot and fully presented like the true alphas did when they hit maturity. But he’d been packless by then, lost his dad and his mom and his Maverick. It was rare to come into the gene without a pack, and Rooster hadn’t. There was no need, no role for him to fill. He was alone, and genetically his best chance at finding a pack was joining someone else’s instead of gaining the ability to make one himself.

His medical records spoke to his alpha status, relevant only to the differences in his internal anatomy, but in every other facet he could pass for a beta unless other alphas or omegas were looking, and he was treated as such. He was bulky and big for a beta, something intangible about him indicating that he was wrong in some unspoken way, but his scent was neutral and there was no knot between his legs. The skin at the base of his dick was loose like there could have been, should have been, but Rooster’s life after Maverick was a series of could have should haves; a knot was another item on the list. 

But it was hard to find a partner. Betas were usually unsettled by him, his wrongness and his size, and omegas needed what he lacked. He was a joke to other alphas, and not interested in them anyway. Not interested in much of anybody at all.

He didn’t rut, didn’t knot, but he still had the ability to want. Latency never stopped any of the desires for a life that felt like it could have been his.

And what he wanted was Maverick, had been since he knew what want was. Back when Maverick was his favorite person, his everything, and it had nothing to do with what was between his legs. 

Maverick’s omega scent had driven him to the brink when he’d been a teenager, intoxicating to him even though he hadn’t presented. He hadn’t been fully developed, could never have really done anything to Maverick even if he’d gotten him where he’d wanted him somehow. But he’d laid awake in his bed and thought someday, pictured a life where he presented and Maverick somehow wanted him then.

But then everything. And after everything, he hadn’t even been left with the dignity of being a physical match, being a real alpha to Maverick’s omega.

Maverick who never mated either, who kept betas on his arm and alphas at a distance. Maverick who he’d been in love with and thought ‘but maybe when it’s me, maybe when I’m the alpha, he’ll want me then’– the biggest maybe out of a million. 

And now, after the new everything, Rooster had thought maybe again, too. Because he wasn’t a real alpha, like Maverick always hated, and he wasn’t a kid and he wasn’t in a suffocating world of anger and resentment anymore, either. And they were together all the time, reveling in each other’s company like two dogs reunited after being separated from the same pack. They were in a game of look and smile, friendly rub and playful touch, but no confessions and no capitulations, either. 

Maybe maybe maybe, he kept thinking, but Maverick still held him a deniability’s length away, and Rooster was too burned on rejection to ask for more.  

And the last time he saw Maverick had been in the parking lot, both of them standing hesitant between the Bronco and Maverick’s bike. Maverick had smiled at him, a bag over his shoulder like he sometimes brought to the base when he wanted to change before he went home. And Rooster had smiled back, both of them looking stupid and smitten in the parking lot, and he had waited for the invitation. It was the weekend, and he usually followed Maverick to wherever he was going.

His heart had felt full to burst even though they weren’t together, had never even kissed. But it felt like they were something, both caught in each other’s gravity. And Maverick had smelled like a long day of work, intoxicating even to Rooster’s underdeveloped nose. 

Rooster had opened his mouth, about to give in and be the one to make an excuse for himself to come over, when Maverick had clapped him on the shoulder and turned to walk away. 

“See you”, had fallen out of Maverick’s mouth and hit Bradley cold across the face, dizzying.

And then Maverick had really left, hadn’t given any sort of roundabout invitation. 

Rooster had gone home and waited by his phone and gotten nothing, and then the insanity had set in. The pacing, the sheen of sweat on his body and the chemical dependency on the one spot in his apartment that smelled like need and something that he couldn’t place. 

Anxiety rippled through him, and he stared down at his dick in his lap. It was getting softer after he’d almost come, held back at the precipice. Softer, but not all the way, and without any of the satisfaction. Rooster tucked himself awkwardly back into his jeans, maneuvering around the inflexible rigidity of his semi hard-on, and he hissed at the touch of his calloused fingers against skin that he’d just rubbed raw. He had to be sick, had to be. Something was wrong, and instinctively he pulled his phone out of his pocket to call Maverick.

It was a reflex that was as old as he was. Fear and need and hurt all led to the same conclusion of needing Maverick, the answer to his problems for as long as he’d had any.

Except for all of the years that Maverick and his absence was his problem, but even then he’d never stopped needing. He’d only resisted the urge to reach out. 

Rooster stared at his phone in his hand, something desperate choking high in his throat. Maverick hadn’t wanted to see him this weekend. And that was–okay. They’d gone years without seeing each other and he’d survived that (barely), but it felt like agony now. He wasn’t a full alpha, just a halfling. Not alpha, not beta; something wrong and less. He couldn’t be the head of a pack, couldn’t bond an omega like real alphas did. But the urge to talk to Maverick, to be with him all the time, was like a bomb ticking down in his mind. The longer they stayed apart, the closer he came to destruction. And now, hurting and wrong and not knowing what, the urge was insatiable.

But Maverick hadn’t called. Hadn’t invited or hinted. He shouldn’t–he should be good, be patient and not needy.

Omegas needed space, to know that they wouldn’t be pursued when they wanted to be left alone. Crowding them, even someone so removed from his designation as Maverick, wasn’t polite. Wasn’t right, and Rooster knew it. The intense pursuit by even a defunct alpha like him wasn’t acceptable, violated some unwritten social law. 

He could be good. He usually was. But then, he hadn’t needed to be good before, he and Maverick had been in each other’s pockets. No fear of imposing.

But something was different this weekend, Maverick had forced a space between them, and now Rooster was losing himself in it. 

And he was clearly going fucking crazy, couldn’t even make it a day without contact. He clenched his phone in his fist, used every morsel of self-control in his body to reign himself in, to not to pick it up and call Maverick and beg for his help.

Maverick would come if he asked, give in if he begged, but that didn't give him the right to do it. 

But his grip slid across his power button, and the phone’s screen came alive brightly in the dim room. Rooster saw a text notification, and he scrambled to tap on it, hope sprung alive in his chest that it was from Maverick and he hadn’t been iced out afterall.

The icon expanded and brought him to his text messages, and it wasn’t a text from Maverick at all. It was Hangman, and Rooster’s mouth pulled into a grimace.

The text wasn’t from Maverick, but it was Maverick. His back was to the camera, but it was him, unmistakable to Rooster who had jerked off to every line of his body. Maverick was leaning against the bar talking to someone, bent at the waist, and Hangman had sent Rooster a shot of his ass. Maverick filled out his jeans like they were sewn on by a tailor, curves that could only be omegan, only Maverick, and there was a sliver of skin showing between his belt and the bottom of his white shirt. Forbidden skin that Rooster could have stared at for days, would have given his left nut just to touch, and he felt ready to go to jail over Hangman getting to look, too. 

Rooster would have been turned on by the back of Maverick’s head, but this picture was obscene, and he could feel Hangman gloating behind the camera.

He felt his phone creak under his fingers, the plastic moving under his grip in a way that threatened to give in. He stared at the screen and felt anger rise up hot around his neck as he read Hangman’s accompanying texts.

Nice of the Rooster to let his chicky come out to play

Stupid, but nice

Maverick hadn’t said a word to him since they’d been together at the base, was acting like it hadn’t become normal for them to spend every day together. It couldn’t just be random that he hadn’t seen him at all this weekend. There had to be a reason, and suddenly this felt like why. 

Rooster’s thoughts became a runaway train screeching out of the station, and he imagined Maverick inviting Hangman to the bar, conspiring to see him without Rooster there to witness. Hangman was a fully presented alpha, and he flew almost like Maverick reborn. He’d gone to the Naval Academy, too, something else that Rooster hadn’t been good enough for. Deemed by Maverick to be unworthy, then and now. 

Hangman was Rooster’s superior in every way, and Maverick had picked him, picked Hangman, and left Rooster alone and hurting. 

Ugly jealousy was rising up in him, and anger like he hadn’t felt since before the mission was coming back, too. That burn of rejection, and the territoriality of possession, hot and clenching in his jaw. 

Maverick was supposed to be his, and everything was wrong, and he was alone fucking his hand and a god damn wall while Maverick was out there bent over for Hangman and Penny too, probably the whole world. 

Like a man possessed, he was lurching up from the couch and grabbing his keys and wallet, shoving his feet into his boots without grabbing socks before he tore out of the door. His heel wasn’t sitting right, the leather folded awkwardly from pushing his foot in without care, but he didn’t stop to fix it in his haste to get to his car. To get to Maverick.

Rooster eventually pulled his boot on right somewhere along the ride, but nothing else about the drive registered, taking the roads on autopilot while his mind raged off somewhere else. He felt so angry, so on edge. An urge inside of him like a ball of fury that wouldn’t be quieted until he had Maverick tucked under him and hidden from the whole Navy, the whole world. Hidden from Hangman, who had been friendly with Rooster since the mission, but friendship was nothing when Maverick was on the line.

And—and Maverick wasn’t on the line, not really, and Rooster tried to will that thought to the forefront of his mind. He wasn’t Rooster’s, had spent his life avoiding being anyone’s, from what Rooster could tell now and from what he remembered of his childhood. But it didn’t feel like he was no one’s, he felt the ownership in his teeth, like Maverick really was his omega, was always supposed to be. In his teeth and in his cock that had stayed thick and heavy between his legs, his cock that Rooster knew he’d see bulged obscenely in his jeans if he looked down at his lap. 

His hard on still hadn’t flagged, and it was niggling at the back of his mind, the knowledge that, really, something was wrong. But the urge to drive to the bar and punch Hangman’s smug face was stronger than his own barely-there sense of self preservation, and he didn’t stop until he was pulling into the gravel lot.

Maverick’s Kawasaki was right out front, in his special spot that wasn’t really a spot at all, just a flaunt of the special privilege of knowing and having fucked the owner on and off for decades. It didn’t bother Rooster normally (liar), the display of his and Penny’s past, but tonight it made him want to pick up the motorcycle and shove it in the back of his Bronco somehow, just take it home and away from her. 

It was an insane thought, and he didn’t know where it came from, but knowing it was unhinged and not wanting to act on it were divorced concepts in his mind. There was no picking up the bike, but he ran his hand all along it as he walked by, gripped the seat where Maverick sat and resisted the urge to bury his nose in the leather and scent for slick. If Maverick hadn’t been just beyond the doors, he would have.

Rooster didn’t stop touching the motorcycle until it was past his arm’s reach as he walked through the doors, hellbent on finding Maverick. And he wasn’t hard to find, maybe because Rooster was attuned to him, or maybe just because he was Maverick and he drew everyone’s eye, even in a crowded room.

He was at the bar, just like in Hangman’s picture, but he was alone. Penny wasn’t even there, it was Jimmy, and Maverick had his eyes downcast at the wood grain in front of him. 

It should have made Rooster feel better, should have been a balm on his jealous wound. But the voice hissing mine in his ear wasn’t quieted, didn’t care that no one was sitting in the empty seat next to Maverick, that he was waging a war against no one. The room was full of people, a dull alpha stench thick in the air, and the hair on the back of Rooster’s neck was standing up, unsettled.

But Maverick wasn’t alone for long, a few seconds of Rooster’s indecision was all it took for Hangman to slide into the seat next to Maverick, two shots of something brown in his hand like an offering. 

Maverick lifted his head and smirked at Hangman, flashed those white teeth, and maybe he was going to take the shot and maybe he wasn’t, but it didn’t matter because Rooster was already moving. His heart was thudding heavily in his chest and his dick was still hard, never wasn’t, and there was a feeling in his mouth like he wanted to put his teeth around Hangman’s throat. 

There were no thoughts in his head but a low buzzing of urgency, and he moved to the bar and put his big body right between them, sectioning Maverick off from the alpha. But the tickle on his spine wouldn’t let him show his back to Hangman, and he gave it to Maverick instead, didn’t even look at the omega, didn’t give in to the urge to pull him in tight. 

“Rooster!” Maverick said, surprised behind him, but he still didn’t turn.

“Fuck off, Bagman,” Rooster said, his lip curling up to show his canines.

Hangman didn’t look surprised to see him, had sent him the text after all, the challenge, but something uneasy swept across his face after he took in Rooster and his frazzled appearance. 

“Howdy to you too, Bradshaw,” Hangman returned, feigning casual. They had been getting along, as close to friendly as an alpha and a halfie ever really got, but Hangman wasn’t reading friendly on him now and Rooster wasn’t wanting him to. 

“Fuck off,” Rooster repeated, leaning into him now, but Hangman didn’t flinch. He sat straighter on the stool and looked up at Rooster, didn’t give up an inch of his space.

The alpha stench was stronger now, pumping out of Hangman harder as Rooster crowded him in his seat.

“Hey, Bradley,” Maverick said, imploring, and Rooster felt the omega’s hand closing around his wrist. 

Ants were crawling across his body, and the anxiety that he’d been feeling was blooming in his chest and making it feel like he couldn’t breathe. 

Hangman was smirking at him, but he knew Hangman now, and he could see the uncertainty in his eyes. They held eye contact for a long moment, but then Rooster watched Hangman’s eyes dart somewhere to the side, and he knew that the alpha was trying to look at Maverick, trying to see the omega that Rooster had hidden behind his back.

“Don’t,” Rooster hissed, and he pulled away from Maverick’s touch, kept moving forward until his thighs were hitting Hangman’s knees where they were bent on the stool.

“Don’t what, have a drink at the bar? God damn, Rooster,” Hangman said, discomfited and leaning back now, giving in to Rooster’s imposition on his body and trying to make space between them. It appeased something wild in the back of his head, but it wasn’t enough, and he wanted to keep pushing until the fire in his chest went dark. 

Hangman glanced down then, and his mouth fell open, shocked as he took in Rooster in his entirety, "Do you have a chubby?"

But Rooster ignored him like he hadn't said a word. 

“Don’t sit here with him, and, fucking,” Rooster started, but he didn’t know where that sentence was going. He shook his head like it would force the world to make sense again, and he couldn’t resist the urge anymore. He turned his head back to look at Maverick, completely lost and choking. Maverick looked anxious, that expression on his face that he’d had when Rooster had gone for Hangman’s throat at Top Gun months ago. And now they were right back there, the three of them. 

“And fucking screw around behind my back,” he finished, nonsensically, but words were stuck in his throat and not coming out in the right order. He could only look at Maverick and will him to help, to figure out what was going on, what was wrong with him. 

His gut was burning and something wasn’t right, and he wanted Maverick to notice, to see him, and suddenly he felt his eyes burn like he could start crying.

“Behind your back? What the hell are you talking about, Bradshaw? I practically invited you here,” Hangman was saying, and Rooster needed him to be quiet, needed him to shut up and go away before he did something crazy. Something that he couldn’t control. 

“You didn’t invite me,” Rooster replied, but he wasn’t talking to Hangman anymore. He couldn’t fully turn, couldn’t show his back to the alpha, but his gaze was locked onto Maverick now.

“You didn’t call,” he continued, and his face was hot, he knew it would be blushing and terrible if he could see it. He always flushed easy, when he was angry, when he was hurt. His whole body felt like it was raw, bleeding red. The sensation of needles under his skin wasn’t going away, and the pain was blooming in his belly again, curling down to his cock.

Rooster looked down at Maverick’s hand on his wrist, and he watched himself curl his other hand on top of the omega’s like someone else was doing it. He cupped Maverick’s hand tight to his skin, his grip iron and unmoving in case the omega tried to pull free.

He wanted to pick up Maverick’s hand and pull it to his throat, to his heart where it was aching in his chest, to his dick where he was swollen and hurting between his legs.

Maverick looked more worried now, his mouth falling open in something like surprise, but Rooster couldn’t smell fear in his scent. Not in his scent that was so familiar, so everything, that Rooster didn’t know how he hadn’t recognized it. How he hadn't known that it was Maverick’s scent he was chasing in his apartment, in that spot that he’d been unable to leave. He’d screwed his hand, his wall, just for a trace of Maverick, and now the real thing was right in front of him.

But it wasn’t just Maverick he could smell now, it was Hangman, it was beer and liquor and the whole filthy fucking bar. It was sensory overload, and Rooster needed to get out, needed to take Maverick with him, too. He had to go. He started moving, started tugging Maverick up and right along with him.

Maverick got off of his stool easily enough, but they didn’t make it more than two steps before their momentum pulled to a jerky halt.

Rooster looked up, and there was Hangman, and he had his hand on Maverick’s other wrist. On Maverick, on his, and Rooster was baring his teeth and stepping right into the alpha’s space again.

“Easy, Rooster,” Hangman said, steady and placating like he was talking to a zoo animal that had gotten loose. 

“You don’t touch him,” Rooster snarled, and a nuclear meltdown was happening inside of him. His vision was a blur of red and fury, and he was standing at his full height, staring down at Hangman more than he had any right to. He felt bigger, like his body was expanding, growing beyond his normal bulk. 

“What is with you tonight? Me don’t touch him? Look how you’re touching him, out here like you're feral with your dick on display in the bar,” Hangman said, and he was posturing too, chest out and making the most of his size. But his words cut through the roaring in Rooster’s ears, and he looked down at his grip on Maverick. His fingers had dug into the top of Maverick’s hand where he was holding the omega’s grip tight, and he could see Maverick’s tanned skin almost white from the pressure.

Rooster’s grip went slack, but Maverick didn’t let go of his hold on Rooster’s wrist, and he watched with sickness in his belly as Maverick’s hand pinked up where it had been squeezed hard.

The sound of his own internal meltdown was deafening, and a shudder ripped through him. What was happening, what was wrong? Maverick, his childish instinct wanted to call out, wanted help. 

“Mav,” he croaked, giving in to the impulse, lost to his own ears. 

Maverick squeezed his arm and pulled away from Hangman’s hold, moving closer to Rooster, and Rooster could see him saying something to the alpha, dismissing him. But Hangman didn’t go far, just stood watching them with his arms folded across his chest. Even with regret swirling in Rooster’s belly, fear of himself and what he wanted to do, he kept pulling Maverick away with him anyway. 

Hangman watched them as they walked away, left alone at the bar to cover Maverick’s tab. 

Rooster kept dragging them until they were out the back door, and he meant to keep going, meant to take Maverick right to the Bronco and shepherd him in. But Maverick dug his heels in as they crossed the side of the building and Rooster could have thrown him over his shoulder and done whatever he wanted, but he let himself be pulled to a halt. Used every scrap of his remaining sanity to act like it wasn’t setting fire to his bones to obey, to keep himself from forcing, from taking what he wanted.

“Bradley,” Maverick started, and he’d come complacently, but now he had the look on his face. Rooster knew from the last thirty years of his life that the look meant that something he wouldn’t like was coming. Part of him wanted to listen, wanted to obey, but that part wasn’t in charge anymore.

He cut Maverick off before he could start, and he quit fighting the powerful need to take control. 

“What are you doing here,” he hissed, in Maverick’s face before he could stop himself. The without me went unsaid, but it was loud. 

Maverick opened his mouth to answer, but Rooster crowded in, and backed Maverick into the siding of The Hard Deck.

“You didn’t invite me, didn’t call,” Rooster spat, and he was angry, hadn’t known that he was until his words were coming out mean and accusatory. His emotions were all over the place, and he felt himself sliding further out of control. 

Maverick had nowhere to go, no room to retreat, and he had to crane his neck high into the air to look at Bradley looming over him.

“Bradley, I’ve been in your hair for weeks. I got worried that I was cramping your style… Penny said–”

“Penny said what?” Bradley panted, his mouth filling up with spit. The mention of Penny was worse than Hangman sitting at the bar. Hangman was a mother fucker, but Penny was Maverick’s type, and he’d smelled her on Maverick before. Her fluids, her sex. Hangman was having fun, but Penny was a threat, and the thought of her was sending him deeper into the spiral. 

He felt the tightness behind his jaw like he wanted to throw up, and his stomach was swooping and turning inside out. His blood was rushing and his skin felt too tight, like he was filling out, full to burst. Maverick looked smaller than ever, like Bradley could consume him with just his touch.

If he was allowed to touch, but he wasn’t, never had been. 

“She said that I should give you room, and not crowd you. Like–with Amelia. That you need to have a life outside of,” Maverick paused, and tried to gesture between them, but there was no room between them now. No space like Maverick had tried to forge. Rooster had crowded in until there was only just enough room for Maverick to tilt his head to see his face, almost ribcage to ribcage. But he kept his hips angled away, caught between dueling urges to rub his cock on Maverick and hide it from him in shame. 

“Outside of this,” Maverick finished, looking embarrassed, like the fact that there was a this was something that he didn’t want to admit.

“No, I don’t need to. And I’m not Amelia,” he hissed. “I’m not your kid. Don’t talk about me with Penny like that. Don’t treat me like that.”

Maverick looked up at him, too sober to have just left the bar, Rooster’s breath ragged and hot between them. “Bradley,” he started, careful. “All of those years–”

“Were the worst of my life. They were no life. You want to try–try giving me space, letting me go again? Like I can’t live my life if you’re here? What life, Mav? What life?” Rooster panted, frantic now. He was shaking, trembling out of control, and his thighs were burning, his cock the fire licking between them. 

“What life are you giving me room to have? Where’s my mate, my pups? There’s been no life. I didn’t have a life without you, just time. I didn't even present, didn't even– You’re my–” Rooster’s mouth clamped shut before the rest of his soul bared itself out of his mouth, before he finished fucking things into the dirt. He swallowed hard, and noticed for the first time that his hands had moved.

He had Maverick under his grip now, a hand on his hip and the other holding tight on his neck, covetous, where a bond mark would be.

Rooster wanted to pull back, appalled, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t move, couldn’t make room between them. Instead of easing off, he squeezed Maverick’s neck, close to an alpha’s grip.

He’d never done anything like this before. He wasn’t built for this. He was latent, never fully popped, never knotted. He shouldn’t be having these urges, this insanity. He’d never so much as play-bitten anyone before, and now he had Maverick’s neck under his hand in a grip meant for dominance and control.

What the fuck was he doing? It was like an out of body experience, and he knew logically that it was him. He had Maverick pinned, had him flattened to the wall with his hands on him like every alpha-gone-wild horror story, but he couldn’t stop.

“Mav,” he said, weak, and felt Maverick swallowing around the hand on his neck. But the omega didn’t say anything, and the frenetic energy built up in him. He was slipping, sliding further out of control, and he felt as tense as he did the morning of a mission. Like he was ready for an ambush, an attack. Ready to fight whoever tried to take Maverick away from him, like he could kill. He wanted to make someone bloody, and it was terrifying when Maverick was the only one around, vulnerable under his grip.

Everything was wrong, and he needed, and the swell of emotions rose up until it was like a hand around his own neck in return. His eyes filled with tears, and he was choking with sick. 

“Did you know something was wrong with me?” he asked, reflexively loosening and tightening his grip on Maverick. The omega made a small noise under him, but he couldn’t stop, even when something in him knew he needed to let go. “Is that why you stayed away? Why you didn’t want me?”

“Something wrong with you? I didn’t–of course I–god, what’s going on, Bradley, come on,” Maverick tried to say, and he was being held in a way that was outright illegal, and Rooster did scent him then, that instinctive omegan fear licking up between them. Unavoidable under the hold of an unmated alpha, even a halfie like him. Betas could believe he was one of them, maybe with some suspicion for his size, but an omega always knew. But Maverick wasn’t running or struggling in his grip, wasn’t leaving Rooster to his own madness.

Rooster didn’t know exactly what he would have done if Maverick tried to make a break for it, but it would have been something darker than a hold around his neck. “Don’t know,” he managed, and it was all so much, too much, something had to give, and he dropped his hold from Maverick at all points. He tucked in hard instead, flattened Maverick to the wall completely, burrowing the omega under the safety of his own body. 

If someone walked by, if someone looked, they might not have seen Maverick at all, and the thought flooded warm in his belly and down to his still hard cock. The reminder that it was there, the persistent stiffness, made a rush of ache crash back over his dick and his swollen balls. 

Rooster couldn’t stop himself from canting his hips forward, finally, and pressing his dick into the soft groove between Maverick’s hip and belly. Even as the omega stiffened under his touch, he was gasping in relief, because it was everything. A cool trickle down his spine, the cure to what burned him. He hadn’t known how miserable he was, how terrible he felt, until the pressure of Maverick’s body against his throbbing dick made the torment fall away.

But then Maverick shifted underneath him, away from the press of his cock, and the agony rushed back in one tidal wave of hurt.

Rooster gasped, strangled, and ducked his head low to crush his face into Maverick’s neck. Maverick gasped at the press as Rooster boldly rubbed his head right into that spot, Maverick’s mating spot, but he didn’t pull away.

Maverick’s scent was soothing, but his hurt was enormous, and overwhelmed tears spilled over and dampened the skin of Maverick’s neck.

“Mav,” he moaned, sick for it, suddenly opening his mouth and taking the sweat-damp skin of Maverick’s shoulder into his mouth. He wasn’t a real alpha, couldn’t bond, but the urge to suckle and lick was overwhelming.

Maverick did push at him then, tried to pull himself from between Rooster’s teeth, but he could only whine and chase after him. He wouldn’t bite, he wouldn’t, couldn’t bond if he did but he wouldn’t wouldn’t wouldn’t

Rooster smelled something new then, something dark and overpowering between them.

“Let me go, Rooster,” Maverick said, tight and finally pushed too far, but Rooster was crying and he couldn’t. Couldn’t open his jaw, couldn’t release him, couldn’t move away.

“Jesus, kid, come on,” Maverick said, demanding now and pushing with real strength. He wasn’t a kept omega that stayed home pupped and pregnant. He was strong, and omega or not, he was putting up real resistance against Rooster’s hold.

“I can’t,” Rooster moaned, his tongue lapping at Maverick’s skin as he tried to speak. He wouldn't bite, but he wanted to and he couldn’t let go. 

“Christ,” Maverick said, and then he was getting a hand around Rooster’s neck and scruffing him hard, corrective like he had been when Rooster was just a pup and Maverick was one of the grownups that he listened to.

It hit his instincts somewhere even deeper than the madness that had taken hold, and he finally relaxed his jaw enough for Maverick to pull out of his loose bite.

Even held back in Maverick’s grip, he chased him with his hips, tried to make contact between his cock and the sweet smelling omega underneath him.

“Mav Mav Mav,” he whined, rolling his neck against the scruffing, fighting the urge to play easy and make the omega trust him, and the stronger desire to throw him to the ground and take what was his. 

“You’re in your rut,” Maverick said, agape, and Rooster could only shake his head, foggy.

“No, just a–just a halfie, don’t do that,” he moaned, his denial a contradiction to the writhing of his body, the burning in his dick. “Never done that, never popped,” he said, and he grabbed Maverick’s hand and tried to pull it to his dick. He’d been hard for hours now, and he needed relief, was starting to go crazy for it. In his irrationality, he wanted to prove to Maverick that his dick didn’t have a knot, that he couldn’t be rutting, but his first contact with Maverick’s hand was so relieving that he started grinding into his touch instead.

Maverick tried to pull his hand away, but Rooster was shaking out of Maverick's hold on his neck, and he couldn’t be coaxed back into the omega’s thrall again. He held Maverick’s hand firm to his hardness and rode the pressure of his palm, panting at the small reprieve of their contact.

He had been treading waters in the madness for hours, and he felt himself slipping under, threatening to drown.

“It’s rut, Rooster,” Maverick told him, trying to pull confidence in his tone, but his fear was belied by the tang in his scent, the hitch in his breathing.

“No,” Rooster disagreed, but it was, it was, no other excuse for the madness.

And it was rare. Even more rare than being a full alpha to begin with was a late in life presentation, the evolution from latent to active alpha. Rooster had obsessed over it back when he first realized he was never going to pop, had tried to learn all that he could about the what ifs, the pipe dreams of a halfie. 

Sometimes it was because of an early imprint, he’d read. Presentation could get entangled irrevocably with the imprintee, grind the process to a halt if the imprint was lost or didn’t come to fruition. 

And Maverick had– he’d lost Maverick right before he would have presented. Hadn’t seen him for the years that followed, left as a halfling with no omega; didn’t need to pop a knot when there was no one to give it to.

It was too much.

The pain of what he’d lost, what could have been, all ensnared in the agony of the rut roaring through him.

Rooster took Maverick by the wrist and twisted his body until Maverick was face first against the wall and Rooster’s dick was a hard line rutting into the small of his back. He hunkered down over Maverick, hiding what was his.

He wanted to fuck, wanted to fight, wanted to rage over the injustice of having lost Maverick when he was always meant to be his.

It was the worst moment, the crashing together of his urges, and then it got even worse yet, the back door of the bar creaking open as footsteps sounded out in the night.

Rooster felt feral, on the brink, and then the scent of Hangman hit him like a sledgehammer to the face.

“Mav?” Hangman called out, may as well have been outright asking for death.

“I’m going to kill him,” Rooster rumbled, right into Maverick’s ear, and his throat burned and grated as his alpha chords ripped from dormancy. His voice was thick with teeth and dripping with real intent, and he tensed, waiting, and he was going to do it, going to fucking obliterate the alpha who had been alone with his omega, who was looking for him now even though he knew, he knew he’d left with Rooster, wasn’t allowed to leave with anyone else.

“Bradley, Bradley,” Maverick said, desperate, and he was surging back and pressing himself back into the hard wall of alpha behind him. “Don’t leave me. Listen to me,” he begged, quiet and serious as the grave.

Rooster froze, eyes locked onto the omega underneath him. He could hear Hangman’s boots on the gravel, hear him calling Maverick again, but instead of moving to face him head on, he put his hands on Maverick’s hips like a man starved. His hands looked huge on the omega underneath him, and he flexed his fingers, the span of his palms covering most of Maverick’s back. He fucked against him, thrusting into the softness of Maverick’s ass, and felt his brain rewiring. He’d never be able to live a day without doing this again. He was had.

But Hangman was still coming, and the urge to fight was still there, powerful. He couldn’t really have Maverick until it was safe. And he couldn’t be safe if Hangman was there, if Hangman was a threat.

“Maverick? Rooster? That piece of shit Bronco is still in the lot, I know you’re still here!” Hangman called, and a rumble rose back up darkly in Rooster’s throat. He pulled away from Maverick in a jerk and started to turn to walk to where Hangman was, ready to get his hand around the alpha’s throat like some buried part of him had wanted to since they met.

“Don’t, don’t,” Maverick whispered, and he was chasing Rooster, crossing the couple of feet between them until he got his hands on Rooster’s hips and held him still. 

Rooster had all of his teeth bared, ready to snap at the omega until he got behind Rooster where he belonged, but then Maverick dropped to his knees and stopped him in his tracks. 

It was like watching a scene from all of his favorite jerkoff fantasies, and Rooster’s mouth fell open in shock as Maverick looked up at him from his knees and started pulling down his zipper. Maverick didn’t push his jeans off of his hips or unbuckle his belt, just reached into Rooster’s fly and pulled out his cock, straining to get it out. It was rigid, harder than Rooster had ever been in his life, and there was no give to help work it out of the small opening. But Maverick kept pulling at him until it sprang out, and Rooster panted, his eyes darting to look at every inch of the picture happening before him. His wet dream come to life. 

Maverick looked up at him, and Rooster gasped as he wrapped his hand around the base of his dick at its fattest. The pressure soothed him where he burned, the tight stretch that he had been feeling there. His knot, Rooster now knew. He was engorged and heavy with blood, the weight of his erection making the flushed tip of his dick bob down with the force of gravity. 

“Don’t move,” Maverick said, and Rooster couldn’t have, not for his life, not for all of the fucking rut hormones in the world. “Stay with me,” he said, and bent his neck to take Rooster’s cock into his mouth. 

Rooster could have screamed out his relief, but in the back of his mind he still knew there was an alpha prowling around, and he couldn’t call attention to them, not when he was hard and achingly vulnerable in his omega’s mouth.

“Maa–Mav,” he moaned instead, quiet and pitiful, and it was everything, a lifetime of wishes fulfilled. 

Maverick’s tongue was soft and wet, cooler than Rooster’s cock because there was no heat coursing through him, no fire in his blood like what was running through Rooster’s. He instinctively sniffed the air, something ancient making him hope for Maverick’s heat, too, but Maverick just smelled like himself, like home.

And the scent wasn’t heat, wasn’t anything that he could pup, but it was more than he’d hoped for since the first time that he realized it wasn’t normal to want Maverick the way that he did. 

He heard Maverick’s knees dragging against the gravel as he shifted, tried to get into a position where he could open his throat, take the cock that was too big to fit in his mouth. Rooster cupped a hand around the back of his head, slotting his hips forward, desperate to feed Maverick more of him.

Maverick had his hand clenched tight around his base, wasn’t jerking it along his cock to touch every inch of Rooster that his mouth couldn’t reach, but it was perfect, the pressure that he’d needed for hours and hadn’t known. 

Rooster wanted more, needed more, but Maverick gagged when he tried to force himself deeper. He looked up at Rooster then, and his balls seized tight and high as they held eye contact. Maverick’s eyes were watery, and his lips were stretched tight around his girth, a line of spit leaking down the corner of his mouth and onto his chin. He was the most beautiful thing that Rooster had ever seen, always had been, and he felt his gut clench at the sight of Maverick with his cock holding that perfect mouth open wide. 

He felt that sickening sensation again, like he should be coming, but he couldn’t, and Rooster groaned, hurting, and he fucked deeper in, trying to chase release. Maverick gagged again, overstuffed, and moved his hands to Rooster’s hips to try and push him back, and that was when Hangman walked around the corner.

“Holy shit,” Hangman said, and Rooster looked up and away from Maverick to see him standing there. The light was to his back, and he couldn’t make out the expression on his face, but he could smell him, scent the alpha musk and something else, something ugly rising up in Hangman’s scent.

Rooster took a half-crazed step forward, but Maverick clenched his hands on his hips and sucked deeply, working his tongue on the underside of his dick like a kitten lapping milk out of a saucer. 

And it was— it was incredible, the pride and possession that swelled in Rooster’s chest. He felt dizzy with it, wanted to hide Maverick and simultaneously put him on display, wanted Hangman to see. 

But then Hangman took a halting step forward, and the rage flipped back on like a switch. 

Maverick didn’t raise his head, just kept sucking, and ran a hand up Rooster’s chest, imploring. He grabbed Rooster’s shirt in his fist and pulled, tried to tug his head down, tried to direct his focus back onto him. Look at me, he seemed to say, just me, and it was intoxicating, and Rooster didn’t want to look away ever again.

But if Hangman moved another step closer, Rooster was going to kill him. 

Real alphas had mandated suppressants and scheduled rut breaks for a reason. Late in life presentations were deadly, more often than not ended with violence, a dark confrontation between the unprepared and the unsuspecting. 

Rooster watched in a daze as Maverick took his other hand off of the base of his dick, and the misery of losing that pressure was staggering, but he didn’t stop Maverick. Didn’t force him, too entranced by the feeling of Maverick carefully bobbing his head up and down his length, the omega straining to keep his teeth covered around the width of his cock. 

Maverick’s arm was moving, but Rooster couldn’t see what he was doing, gesturing with his hand behind his back.

“Bradshaw, you smell— what the fuck is going on?” Hangman asked, but he didn’t move, rooted to the spot and staring in horror.

And another Rooster would realize, would know, how wrong this was. How humiliating it was for Maverick to willingly drop to his knees and suck dick in front of someone they both considered a friend on a normal day. A fellow aviator, watching the best pilot in the United States Navy drop to his knees and take an alpha into his mouth like the sluttiest of omega cliches. It was debasing, and he would never do that to Maverick in another reality. But in this one, in the swell of rut madness, Rooster was locking eyes with Hangman and proud of Maverick choking on his cock at his feet.

Maverick’s arm moved again, and Rooster could see then out of the corner of his eye that he was trying to wave Hangman off, trying to make him go, trying to save his life. 

“You better fuck off,” Rooster groaned, his accent coming out thick in the rough gravel of his throat. It was the only warning he could manage, the ache settling back in deep without Maverick’s hand squeezing low on his cock. 

He could see when his smell set in for Hangman, when the other alpha knew that it was rut on his scent. His face went steely, but he didn’t turn and leave. He swallowed hard and looked past Rooster, looked down at Maverick. Something hurt and longing was shuttered quickly on his face, and Rooster watched him swallow and collect himself. Stand tall like he wasn’t scared.

With Rooster presenting, they were both full alphas and would have been a decent match, but a rutter always had the deadly edge. A little bigger, a little stronger, and a lot less inhibited. 

“Are you alright, Mav?” Hangman called, risking his life to address an omega that a rutting alpha had claimed. “Tell me you’re fine and I’ll go.”

Rooster kept inching his hips into Maverick’s mouth, didn’t want him to talk to Hangman, wanted every part of the omega for himself, even his voice.

“I’ll get the boys in blue out here if you don’t let him talk to me,” Hangman pushed, and Rooster snarled at him over Maverick’s bobbing head. 

Rooster pulled back, and his cock slid out of Maverick’s mouth with a stream of spit and bobbed between them. He looked wrecked, his eyes wet and his lips shiny red, the corner of his mouth starting to bleed from being held open too long and too wide. 

The look of him like this, his Maverick, slapped Rooster across the face. His gut burned with shame, but he still felt a sick pride, too, and a want that kept rising higher in the seconds that went by without Maverick's touch.

“I’m fine,” Maverick answered, but his throat was hoarse, and he sounded debauched. He was at Rooster’s mercy and they all knew it, and it made Rooster even more furious that Hangman was cutting in, doubting that Rooster could take care of him.

Doubting that Rooster could take care of the omega he had on his knees, who he had uniquely humiliated at the bar.

Hangman still didn’t move, and without Maverick on him, without his touch, Rooster felt his self control slipping through his fingers again. He had barely moved a muscle towards the other alpha when Maverick snagged him by the waist and held him steady, looked up at Rooster and made him hold eye contact, grounding him against the urge for brutality.

 “Go home, lieutenant,” Maverick said, not craning his head or trying to look around Rooster’s hips at the other alpha. He didn’t sound ashamed, but Rooster could see the redness on his face and neck under the parking lot lights. 

They stayed frozen like that, staring at each other until Hangman finally turned and they both heard his slow walk back into the bar.

It was all of the waiting that Rooster was capable of, and he moved to pull Maverick back down on him by the back of his head, but Maverick didn’t go easy and resisted the tug. He pulled his hand away and fretfully petted Maverick’s hair instead, rubbed his hand down the side of Maverick’s face and held him by the jaw and pretended that he didn’t want to just stick his dick inside anyway.

But Maverick was shaking his head, and rubbing his hands down his legs where they were pressing into the gravel. It was rough treatment that Maverick didn’t deserve, ever, and the anxiety was rising in Rooster again at the sight and reminder.

“We’ve got to get you out of here,” Maverick said, and Rooster didn’t need more of an invitation. 

He hauled Maverick up by the armpits, didn’t even bother to tuck his dick back in, and frog-marched him to the Bronco. Maverick went easy, like he didn’t need to be shepherded at all, but Rooster still couldn’t bring himself to let him go.

All of the calm that Maverick had given him was melting back away, no lasting relief. He still hadn’t come, hadn’t lost his hard-on once, and his balls were so heavy and full. Every part of him felt like it could burst, and he knew he needed to. 

He tried to steer Maverick to the passenger seat, but the omega did resist then, kicking his leg up against the door of the Bronco when Rooster tried to push him in. He felt delicate though, like Rooster could have pushed through his resistance, but might have broken Maverick’s leg if he tried.

If he lied to himself, he could pretend like he didn’t spend a sick second considering it.

He would spend lot longer than a second trying to forget, later.

But he held on, and breathed through his teeth trying to get rid of the thought, the insidious whisper in his head that he could just have, didn’t have to ask or wait. 

There was a reason that rutters weren’t allowed out in public, had to stay under tight medical control. 

Rooster came to a grinding halt though, frozen as he held Maverick in the air, half-way shoved into the car already but keeping Rooster at bay with his locked leg. 

“No way in hell you’re driving,” Maverick said, and Rooster rumbled in his ear, the vibrations of his chest palpable against Maverick’s back. It was the wrong thing to say, and Maverick rolled his head back into Rooster’s chest like he knew it, eyes squeezed closed in regret. “Bradley, please. Please let me drive.”

They both panted together, alone in the parking lot, distant noises of happiness from the bar a low buzz in the night. 

Finally Rooster nodded, but didn’t let Maverick walk to the driver’s side with dignity. He crowded him in closer to the door, Maverick huffing as he was forced to climb in through the passenger door and crawl over the console, Rooster unwilling to let him walk around the car. Unwilling to give him a chance to escape.

But Maverick didn’t seem like he was trying, just settled into the seat and dutifully extended his hand for the keys.

Rooster gave them to him, gave him control that he didn’t think he was capable of surrendering, but he had to trust. It was Maverick. The only one left who had ever taken care of him, had ever since he was born. 

They didn’t get far into the drive before Rooster was writhing in his seat, unable to go so long without Maverick’s touch.

“Mav, Mav,” he begged, sweating, aching between his legs with fire racing through him.

“I’m taking you home, kid, hold on,” Maverick said, spitting kid out of his mouth that had just been full of Rooster’s cock. 

“It hurts,” Rooster told him, truthful, trying to stroke himself and whining when it hurt more, felt like his touch was making the burn build instead of extinguishing. It didn’t feel good, didn’t feel like pleasure at all. Nothing like when he’d been in Maverick’s mouth, on his tongue, Maverick’s hand holding him at his base where the pain was at its most excruciating. 

“Be at your house soon, hang in there,” Maverick said, his eyes on the road, resolutely not looking at Rooster splayed out and obscene in the seat next to him.

“Not my house. Want to go to your house. Don’t take me home, Mav,” Rooster panted, his head lolling back in the seat. He wasnt buckled, couldn’t stand the idea, and he worked his belt now to get it off so he could push his pants down further below his dick. He shoved his jeans down until he could get his balls out, and he cried out openly in relief, the ache better by a fraction in the freedom of the air. “Take me to yours, please. Please,” he said, rocking his hips up, and Maverick did look then, glanced down at his lap and the whole big package.

Rooster pictured his sad apartment, lonely with the memory of grinding against his fucking wall because it had a hint of Maverick leftover just hours ago. And now they were riding somewhere together, and he’d felt Maverick suck him off, felt his touch on his cock. The dream of a lifetime.

And he pictured instead of his place, Maverick’s house, that smelled like omega, smelled like his. He imagined himself in Maverick’s bed, his nest, making it reek of himself and his come. A permanent mark on Maverick’s territory that would never go away, could never be washed out.

Bringing an alpha to your house was a sign of commitment, or an interest in throwing out your whole bedroom set. The scent was potent by design, and he imagined painting Maverick’s house with it. 

He grabbed Maverick’s hand and tried to move it to his cock, but Maverick pulled it back to the stick shift instead, and Rooster started shaking. Fearful and overwhelmed at the idea that maybe the parking lot was a fluke, maybe Maverick was just going to take him home and leave him there.

Or try.

“Okay, Rooster. My house,” Maverick finally said, and Rooster squeezed his eyes closed in sharp relief. 

He endured the rest of the ride like that, trying not to move a muscle until he felt them pull to a stop in the street parking in front of Maverick’s house. 

Rooster didn’t wait for Maverick, didn’t tuck himself back into his pants or pull them up, only rolled to open his door and slide out into the street. He didn’t wait, didn’t give Maverick the chance to bolt. He reached across the Bronco and started pulling at Maverick, gave him no choice but to crawl back over the console and follow Rooster that way. He flattened himself to Maverick’s back again when he was upright with his feet on the asphalt, his dick searching for contact and fucking into the indelicate cotton of Maverick’s white shirt.

They walked to the house like that, Rooster plastered all to his back, caught in his rut and the orbit of his omega. 

He reached over Maverick’s shoulder and groped for his cock for the first time, but Maverick knocked his hand away and didn’t let him touch. 

His breath choked in his throat, and he pressed his face into Maverick’s neck, needy and miserable.

“Come on, let’s–let’s talk,” Maverick said, a herculean request to ask of an alpha lost in his rut. But Rooster wanted so badly to obey, to be good and not chase the instincts that were riding him to press and to take and to be indifferent and open to cruelty.

Only his face in Maverick’s neck, the heart of his scent, kept him sane enough to nod his agreement.

Maverick let them into his house, and Rooster crowded him up against the wall of his entranceway as soon as the door locked shut behind them.

“Easy,” Maverick breathed, firm and begging all at once. 

Rooster was grinding against him already, rubbing his dick into Maverick’s belly, pulling his shirt up so his naked cock slid against the soft hairs there, the trail that led into Maverick’s jeans and the treasure within.

“I need you,” Rooster said, like there was any doubt. “I need you, Mav. I need,” he kept babbling, stopped only by Maverick slapping a hand over his mouth. Rooster licked at his fingers, tried to fuck his tongue into the slits between each one, dying to be inside of any part of Maverick that he could reach.

“I’m here. You’re going to be alright, Rooster, I just need things from you, too. Okay?” Maverick asked, not pulling his hand away, letting Rooster lick at them, half-stupid. 

He nodded, dumb and willing.

“Just—I’ll take care of you. But don’t bite me, Rooster. Don’t. And then after, we can just,” he paused, shaking his head, resolutely not looking at him. “We'll talk,” Maverick promised and looked at him like he wanted Rooster to promise, too. Rooter nodded along, not sure if he was lying, not caring if he was. 

“Okay,” Maverick said, like the words were being pried out of him. “Take me to bed,” he finished, the muscle in his jaw working as soon as the words were said, like he wished that hadn’t come out. 

Rooster was off the leash from the second that okay was out of his mouth, and he hoisted Maverick up, his big hands spanning the soft backs of Maverick’s thighs as he lifted him.

Maverick was a grown man, an important man with an important career, and he was feather light in Rooster’s hands. He tried to encourage Maverick to wrap his legs around his hips, but the omega wouldn’t do it, stayed almost kneeling in Rooster’s grip. But it didn’t matter, because Rooster had been to his house, knew the layout like the back of his hand, and he took to the bedroom in an instant. But he would have found it even if he’d never been there, never visited. It was like following his nose to a freshly baked pie out of the oven, could have been done blindfolded and dizzy. 

“God, I want to fuck you, Mav,” he confessed, almost blind with it, delirium and need settled deeper in his bones than shame could have ever reached.

He collapsed together with Maverick on the bed, careful not to crush the omega with his bulk, but boxing him in tight with all of his limbs. Letting no part of Maverick stay exposed to the world or competition. 

Maverick didn’t say anything, but he ran a hand through Rooster’s hair. On any other day he might have come just from the pleasure of that touch that he’d been pining after for so long.

But his cock has been burning for hours, and it wasn’t a normal day, it was the first day of the rest of his life as an actual alpha— the entrance into a new world. 

A new world that he didn’t want unless Maverick was there with him.

Rooster tucked his face into Maverick’s neck and let his jaw fall open, fell into his instinct to suckle at him again, even as he felt Maverick stiffen all over. But he wouldn’t bite, he wouldn't (maybe), he thought, even as he teased his teeth across Maverick’s skin.

It was a dangerous game that he didn’t have enough control to be playing, and they both knew it. He wasn’t experienced as an alpha, had been having sex like a beta until now, and he had no business teasing at something that his instincts were screaming for him to do.

But he couldn’t help but do it anyway, even as Maverick went rigid beneath him. 

Rooster didn’t bite, but he started working Maverick’s clothes away as he teased, and Maverick didn’t fight but he didn’t help. Stayed placid and unresisting, but not enthusiastic, either. Dutiful, he laid beneath him, like a man who had been drafted for war.

Maybe on another day it would have stopped him in his tracks, but not today, not drunk on the high of his first rut. Rooster breathed heavy, needy, as Maverick’s skin was exposed beneath him. More than he ever thought he would see.

He trailed a reverent hand down Maverick’s chest as his shirt came off. He’d seen Maverick like this, seen his tits on the beach as he outclassed all of the young kids at a game that he’d invented on the spot. He’d seen them since, too, and drank his fill out of the corner of his eye when he thought he might get away with it. But it was different now, with Maverick laying under him, exposed for him, not as a stolen treat. 

Rooster locked eyes with Maverick, and the omega was looking back at him behind an expression that was veiled with something, and Rooster didn’t know what. Maverick was putting up a barrier between them, even as their clothes came off, and Rooster wanted it down.

He moved his lips away from Maverick’s neck, and felt Maverick breathing easier after that. But all bets were off now, his mouth unleashed, and he bit and licked his way down Maverick’s torso. His tits weren’t full, weren’t engorged like a good breeder’s would be, but Rooster took them into his mouth anyway. He bit then, like he hadn’t been allowed on Maverick’s neck, and he heard a cry out from above him. 

Rooster rubbed his tongue into Maverick’s skin as an apology, as sincere as he could be without intending to stop. 

When Maverick’s nipple filled up hard against his tongue, he couldn’t help himself anymore, and every stupid fucking thought he’d had for years started spilling out around the swell of Maverick’s breast in his mouth.

“Wanted to get my mouth on you like this that day at the beach,” he panted, taking Maverick’s tit back inside and sucking needily, like if he kept going maybe milk would come out.

But Maverick had never been pupped, never mated, and Rooster spread his hand out on Maverick’s flat belly to remind himself of that before the jealousy could rear up, hateful in his mind.

Maverick might have been busy fucking betas, leaving a trail of hearts across the country, but he’d never let anyone get a pup on him, never let anyone’s mark take his neck. Maybe he’d been stuck in stasis, too, this whole time, as latent as Rooster had ever been.

“Jerked off to the thought of you every night,” Rooster professed, all shame gone. He wanted Maverick to know. Wanted him to squirm with it, wanted him to feel a fraction of what Rooster had been sick with for years.

The fire was raging through him, and he wanted to take Maverick with him as they both burned down to ash. 

“Your tits, and your pussy, wondering what you’d taste like in my mouth,” he confessed, kept kissing, licking down Maverick’s body. There was no restraint, the concept gone from his vocabulary, and he dragged his tongue in broad stripes across Maverick’s chest. He buried his nose in Maverick’s armpit and licked in there, too, and bore his dick down into the bed at the scent, so concentrated there where no one belonged. 

“Christ, Bradley,” Maverick grunted, tried to pushed his face out from the crook of his arm, but Bradley kept licking in anyway, fucking his tongue into the crease between his arm and chest. “Just— get it over with,” Maverick begged, starting to squirm under him.

And Rooster’s dick was screaming, begging for him to do just that, but Maverick was a feast and he’d been waiting for years to be invited to dinner.

Rooster shook his head in rabid denial, unbuttoning Maverick’s jeans even as he licked his side, biting him as he went. He was down to Maverick’s hip and biting at the jut of his bone before he managed to pull his pants down, managed to reveal the omega’s cock in a soft nest of curls. 

Maverick wasn’t hard yet, softer than he was stiff, but his dick had fattened out where it rested up against his belly. 

Rooster kept his eyes trained on Maverick’s dick, pink and pretty, as he worked the omega’s jeans the rest of the way off. He’d thought about that dick since he was a kid. He’d seen it before, Maverick being a man baptized in foster homes and the Navy, born gorgeous and never having known what it meant to be shy. But he’d never seen it hard, never seen it needy for him, and he wanted. 

He swooped down low and tried to take it into his mouth, Maverick’s cock, but the omega stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. Rooster jerked up, and the rumble came back to his chest, a warning.

Maverick dropped back against the bed at the sound, weak with the urge to comply.

“Don’t do that,” Maverick commanded anyway, staring at the ceiling and not meeting Rooster’s eye. “You need to fuck me. Just do it. Don’t keep touching me like that,” Maverick said, gritting his teeth like he was the sacrificial lamb. 

But he wasn’t in a position to make demands, and Rooster was in no position to listen. 

“No fucking way,” Rooster hissed, and he bent low and took Maverick’s dick in his mouth.

He’d never sucked cock before, but it felt good, felt like taking possession of one more part of Maverick’s body. It was his, his to suck and hold and put in a cage if he wanted, not Maverick’s to fuck with, not anymore.

The urge to possess was raging through him, and he couldn’t take Maverick deep, but he swallowed convulsively over what was in his mouth and Maverick’s hips left the bed in chase of pleasure. Maverick spread his legs wide, opening himself up for the first time as he involuntarily tried fucking deeper into Rooster’s mouth.

And then it hit his nose, rich and pure addiction, and he knew he’d never be able to go without again.

Maverick’s slick, powerful and intoxicating from between his thighs, and the intensity of the scent hit him with more force than if he’d flown his jet right into that canyon wall. 

It wasn’t heat, no fire burning in Maverick, and he shouldn’t have been so wet, shouldn’t have been able to be so slick. But he was, for Rooster, and his chest burned with pride. He’d never fucked an omega before, never had the privilege, always just a halfie who had been looked down on by his own kind and regarded warily by the betas.

But now he wasn’t lesser, now he was presenting, going to pop a knot that had waited years for Maverick.

And Maverick was leaking slick, wet sliding down his ass and into the sheets, all for him.

Rooster pulled off his cock and let Maverick slap heavy against his belly, hard now, and he didn’t wait for the omega to complain again before he ducked down further, pushing his nose straight into the tight little opening of Maverick’s cunt. He lapped like a man starved, letting his tongue hit the soft skin between Maverick’s pussy and his ass, and Maverick shouted, pushing at his shoulders like he wanted Rooster off, like he couldn’t take it.

But Rooster didn’t let up, kept nosing in, grinding his face right into the slit between Maverick’s legs. He worked his nose against the plush folds, suffocating in it and lapping up all the slickness that was trailing down. He could have died like that, with Maverick on his face and deep in all of his senses. He wanted to drive his nose deeper, wanted to fuck Maverick with the big sharp angle of it, wanted to smell him deep in his pussy, right at his core.

But the urge to taste was too strong, and he lifted his face up and licked in hard instead, bringing his tongue inside deep in big lapping strokes like he was part animal, and he was. 

“Bradley, don’t,” Maverick tried to say, strangled, pulling at him by the shoulders.

“You let people do this, Mav? Let people fuck you?” He asked, but he didn’t want to know the answer, didn’t know why the question had fallen out of his lips.

Everything felt dark and red and he couldn’t think beyond the need to possess, to mark. But he wasn’t allowed. Couldn’t claim, so he needed to take possession of Maverick’s mind instead.

His hand went to Maverick’s cunt by instinct, and he fucked in with two thick fingers, pushing in deep to the knuckle until Maverick cried and rode his hips down on his hand.

Maverick was shaking his head no, to the question or the pleasure, Rooster didn’t know. But it wasn’t enough. Rooster had to know, had to own.

His own cock ached like it never had before, and he was fucking down into the sheets like it would help, but it didn’t, would never. He needed Maverick, but he wanted to hear begging first.

He was sick with rut, but he’d been sicker in love with Maverick for a lot longer. 

“I’ve wanted to fuck you since I had my first woody,” Rooster said, dark, his chords breaking out.

“Don’t,” Maverick said, straining, trying to hold his hips still.

“This was the only place I ever wanted to stick it,” Rooster said, and he fucked another finger in too, leaning back enough to watch the tight skin of Maverick’s pussy stretch around his knuckles, the skin pink and getting redder, like it wasn’t used to the width.

And it felt good, made him want to roar to see his omega’s little pussy struggling to take him in.

Slick was squirting out around his fingers, Maverick gasping and shocked, and Rooster didn’t know if it was his words or the movement of his hand that was getting the response. 

But he wanted more, needed more, needed Maverick so wrecked that he forgot he ever didn’t want Rooster’s teeth in his neck.

“Used to come in my hand and dream it was you, dream that every time I came it was meant for your pussy,” Rooster babbled, and he was losing it now, he had to get in, had to fuck, but he couldn’t shut up, and he kept talking, “Used to fuck my hand every time you called me at home, would come with you on the line,” he confessed, secrets that he normally wouldn’t have admitted to with screws on his balls just tumbling freely out from between his lips.

“Shut up, Rooster, shut up,” Maverick demanded, and he took Rooster by the wrist and pulled him out from between his legs, tore his hand right out of his cunt.

Rooster panted and watched as Maverick tried to turn onto his belly, but he couldn’t let him, he wanted to see, wanted to watch, and he fisted a hand in Maverick’s hair and pulled until the omega followed and he forced him to lay flat on his back against the bed.

“Fuck no,” he breathed, hitching Maverick’s thighs up on his hips, “You’re going to watch. You’re going to know it was me,” he said, and he lined his cock up and pushed in, huge and overwhelming into Maverick’s pussy. 

He slid in, and it was like nothing he’d ever felt before. Maverick was too small, not stretched enough, his lips sliding tighter than a handshake along his cock as Rooster sunk in, inner walls rippling and gripping at him as he fucked in to the root.

Maverick gasped, hurt, and arched back into the bed, trying to escape the girth or the depth of his intrusion, but Rooster followed and pinned him to the bed with his hips. 

Crushing Maverick to the bed, fucked in full and deep, Rooster realized that they’d never even kissed.

Even as his hips started to fuck back and forth, thrusting into Maverick beyond his capacity, he stayed steady and tried to get Maverick to meet his eyes. With relief seeping in through his cock, more sated with every thrust, Rooster had time to think, had time to want, and he wanted to kiss Maverick. Wanted it to be real and not a favor, not a debt owed.

He leaned down and tried to catch Maverick in a kiss, but his lips slid across Maverick’s cheek as he turned his head to avoid meeting Rooster’s mouth. 

Any other day and it would have been game over, he would have pulled out and stopped, but he couldn’t. Couldn’t stop chasing pleasure, stop trying to push more dick into Maverick than wanted to fit. Tears welled to his eyes, and he knew Maverick smelled the salt in the air because hands carded tenderly through his hair. Maverick was petting him while he kept fucking in, and Rooster crushed his face into the secrecy of Maverick’s neck and hid his tears against the omega’s skin.

It wasn’t real, none of it, but he wanted, needed more than life. 

“Just fuck me, Rooster,” Maverick said, quiet, and Rooster did. Drove his hips in harder until Maverick wasn’t quiet anymore, until he was moaning loud into the empty house and Rooster’s eyes started to dry out.

A wave of heat crashed over him, and a groan drew out from deep in his chest.

He wanted Maverick, wanted his soul, but another urge was blossoming new in his body.

His dick hurt, worse than ever, more intense than the relief that fucking Maverick was giving him. The base of his cock felt like it might explode, and he didn’t know what to do, suddenly. He wanted to pull out and look at, make sure it wasn’t about to rupture from pressure, wasn’t about to burst.

But a deeper desire was taking root, something primal and heady, and he couldn’t have pulled out for his life.

“I want,” he moaned, and pulled back enough to look at Maverick, drink him in like it might be the last time.

Maverick was strong, and Maverick was everything, and Rooster wanted him all for himself, and yet still more.

“God, Mav,” he whined, the depth of his want overwhelming.

The pain of it all was building, and his dick felt wrong, felt like he couldn’t fuck in hard enough to get relief, but he kept trying anyway.

Something bubbled over in his throat, and then it started spilling out of his mouth, coming from a place of desire that he hadn’t known existed.

“I want you,” he cried, and the tears were coming back, but he kept fucking through them and didn’t try to hide his face again. “Wanted you for so long, want you so—so much,” he confessed, his emotions everywhere. The anger and the aggression was bleeding out, and all that was left was his hideous and humiliating need, everything that he’d ever tried to shelter within himself and keep Maverick from glimpsing.

He wanted. Wanted days at the hangar, nights together in bed. Wanted to sling an arm around Maverick at the bar, allowed to touch, not just coveting. Didn't want to spend any more sullen nights staring into his drink and hoping that no one caught Maverick's eye. He wanted to belong, and wanted Maverick to belong too.

Maverick’s pupils were blown as he moaned, soft, aching noises fucked out of him with every thrust. His dick was hard against his belly, and he let Rooster get a hand around it, let him stroke it to match his thrusts. His lips still looked raw and abused, and Rooster wanted to kiss them, wanted to be allowed to lick every hurt better.

“Want to fuck you deep, want to bite,” he whined, and Maverick shut his eyes then, shaking his head in denial against the bed. But Rooster wasn't done, kept babbling out all of the thoughts that had been brewing somewhere in his subconscious, “Want to come in you so deep it never leaks out, want you to— want it to catch, want to get you fat with mine, my kid, my pup.”

And the truth of it shocked him, a thought he’d never had before. A thought he could have never entertained with any hope, not as a halfie, not before.

But he was presenting now, finally, Maverick had said. And Rooster knew that it was for him, that it was by design to make him perfect for Maverick.

He’d never been allowed to want it before, but he wanted it now, wanted to fuck Maverick full, wanted to put a whole litter between his legs. 

“God, I’m sorry,” he choked, trying to think, trying to get his mind clear.

Maverick shook his head, his body still jolting at the force of their sex.

“It’s just the rut. It’s okay, you’re—you don’t mean it. It’s normal to think. It’ll pass,” he reassured, but Rooster didn’t want reassurance. 

He wanted Maverick. Wanted what was his.

“It won’t,” he moaned, and he couldn’t pull out anymore suddenly. His dick was catching, and he looked down, scared. “Something’s—it hurts,” he confessed, shaking and needing for Maverick to have all the answers, nothing new. 

“It’s your knot, sweetheart, fuck, you’re popping it. Just part of your rut,” Maverick groaned, trying to comfort him even then. Rooster’s heart was pounding and he didn’t try to pull anymore, didn’t want to hurt Maverick, but he wasn’t done, and he ground in deep instead. Just fucked in and worked his hips in a tight circle, rubbing every inch of his dick against the vice-tight walls of Maverick’s pussy.

Something was building in his body, and he pumped Maverick’s cock, wanted to bring the omega down with him.

“Everything I want–it’s not my rut,” Rooster groaned, kept pumping, kept grinding in deep with his hips.

“Bradley—”

“Not my rut, Mav,” he repeated, panting and shaking his head. “Just me for you.”

Maverick groaned and arched his back to take Rooster deeper. 

Rooster felt the omega’s dick throb up fatter in his hand, his walls clenching in tight around Rooster at his thickest.

“Kiss me,” Rooster blurted, frantic, the feeling of something new building up terrifying in his cock.

Maverick tried to shake his head again, but Rooster wouldn’t let him, ducked down and pinned the omega’s head still with his mouth crushed in tight to his cheek. Just next to his mouth but not touching, not taking, only waiting close by for permission.

“You wanted to give me space?” Rooster asked, and he moaned low, close now. “This is as much space as I'll want,” he said, and Maverick cried out, turned his head to the side and kissed him.

Maverick’s lips were soft and puffy, better than any daydream, and he licked in greedy as the dam gave way. Rooster kissed him back sloppy as his cock started expanding wide wide wide at the base, filling Maverick’s pussy with his first knot.

Rooster cried into Maverick’s mouth, and Maverick licked him back, groaning his own release and pulsing into Rooster’s hand, shooting his small load between their bodies.

Maverick was gasping as the knot grew, full to bursting inside as Rooster’s come started painting his inner walls in thick ropes.

It was closer than Rooster had ever been to anyone, more than he’d ever hoped, and he kept kissing Maverick even as the omega went slack jawed and kitten weak with the flood of hormones in his body. 

His knot finished filling, and he kept licking into Maverick’s mouth, lapping at his tongue until the omega came back online.

“Me for you, Mav,” Rooster murmured, his heart still pounding in his chest, drunk on his own rut cycle and still coming. He petted down Maverick’s body, cupped the flatness of his lower belly with the thought that maybe something could be there, someday. Maverick wasn’t in heat, wouldn’t catch, but Rooster barely remembered what logic felt like. He stroked Maverick until his belly started to swell, started to get plump from the flood of come inside of him, and hope bloomed new as Rooster thought maybe, his favorite maybe yet.

“You for me,” Maverick said, finally, and kissed back up at him.