Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When it happens, Shouyou doesn’t even realise.

It’s a Sunday. Natsu is away on a weekend volleyball camp, and Shouyou’s mother went with her to chaperone. Tobio is already sleeping over at Shouyou’s. They’re watching the volleyball matches they’d meant to before Tobio’s rut last month, Shouyou’s back to Tobio’s chest, tucked beneath blankets on Shouyou’s bed, Shouyou’s dingy laptop anchored atop his thighs. Bellies full, mouths kissed, it’s their second full-match recap of the day, and Shouyou would have fallen asleep if he wasn’t feeling so itchy.

It starts off mostly innocuous. A tickly sort of buzz on the surface of his skin, raising goosebumps. When Shouyou passes his hands over his arms, or up his thighs as far as his shorts will let him, he’s surprised at his sensitivity. The gingery hairs on his skin prickle when they fall over then flick back up in the wake of Shouyou’s curious hand.

Before long, Tobio pinches Shouyou’s left thigh, telling him to, “Stop fidgeting, you’re crushing my balls.” Snorting, saying some bullshit about how Tobio usually doesn’t mind Shouyou on his balls, Shouyou settles, and the tingle gets forgotten. It’s easy enough to ignore, at least until it beds down beneath his skin.

Shouyou has to bite his tongue to keep from moving. His organs are itchy. His ribs tickle. His gums ache around his teeth. He tongues at them fitfully because it’s the only place he can reach the throb. All the other places are too deep, too far away.

Then he starts heating up. Shouyou already runs a little hot, so even that goes unnoticed for a while in the face of the itch. What’s weird here is that, unlike the itch, the heat starts from the inside. It ratchets up slowly, but when your organs feel like they’re burning, you pick it up quickly. Sweat starts as a light sheen on Shouyou’s skin but he can feel it getting thicker.

He sets his laptop to the side and shimmies himself out from beneath the blanket, frown pulling his brows down. Tobio makes an irritated noise behind him.

“We don’t have to watch this, Shouyou.”

“Sorry,” Shouyou mumbles.

Tobio must notice something in his voice. The irritation dissipates fast. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Shouyou says. “I think. I don’t know.”

The surety leaches out with every word, because the match is still playing, and Shouyou can hear all of it. The squeak of every sneaker on the court, the bounce of the ball on someone’s arms versus their palms. The audience chatter is still pretty indistinct, a sussurating roar, but Shouyou can hear differences in pitch, tone, timbre. A child’s chatter against an adult’s. Anger over frustration over happiness over contentment. He hears it all.

His laptop’s speakers are shit. Usually, he can barely hear applause.

His itch grows ever more, becomes a full-body prickle. His stomach feels hollow, pressing closer to his spine, like he hasn’t eaten in days, but also like food wouldn’t fill the hole up. He starts to feel cold-hot and clammy, damp, his sweat cooling on his skin almost as soon as it settles there.

“Tobio?” he whispers.

From behind him, Tobio peers around until he’s in Shouyou’s line of vision. Concern stamps deep divots into his forehead, between his brows, around his unsmiling mouth. “What?”

Shouyou says, “I feel weird.”

Then, promptly, Shouyou cracks open.

All of Shouyou’s near misses, all the false alarms, coalesce and implode. The something that had crawled closer and closer to the surface of his skin snaps Shouyou’s spine and drags its way out of the rip, hungry. Shouyou screams, doubling over, clutching his stomach, trying to hold himself whole. It doesn’t work. Shouyou’s body unfurls on the inside, spreading out farther than his physical being can contain.

“What the fuck,” he hisses.

His heart has been running out of rhythm with everyone else’s for so long, beating far slower. Now, it’s racing irregularly, fucking sprinting, just to catch up. This arrhythmia had always been stressful but now it hurts. This arrhythmia hurts.

It hurts. It hurts. What the fuck, how could he have ever wanted this? Why would anyone want this?

“Shouyou!” Tobio yells, alarmed, moving out from behind Shouyou and kneeling in front of him. “What’s going on? Tell me!”

“I don’t know,” Shouyou repeats. His muscles cramp, post-workout strain on steroids. It’s a deep, burning pain, an invasive one, a greedy one. It demands to be felt.

Something is burrowing out from the skin of Shouyou’s inner thigh. It feels like a pneumatic drill is tunneling out of him, oscillating through his muscles and bones and blood. The pressure is unbearable, his skin there won’t hold under it, it’s going to give—

And it does. And Shouyou smells himself.

Mandarin. Sharp, sizzling, something that would taste good burning, baking. It’s sweet and it’s rich and it’s citrusy. It makes Shouyou’s tongue sting, then water, then sting all over again.

“Fuck,” Tobio whispers, awe blowing his eyes wide. “Shouyou. You have a scent.”

Shouyou really wants to delve deeper into that realisation, mostly because he smells nice. He likes it. He likes his scent. It’s the first good thing in a whole host of bad ones, and he wants to hold onto it like it’ll save his sanity if he keeps it close enough.

His focus gets stolen away quite quickly, though, because there’s something leaking out of his asshole.

For a truly horrifying moment, he worries this is about to get really fucking gross really fucking fast, but though his mind panics, his body knows better. The thing that cracked him open, the thing he’s morphing into, feels satisfied. A step closer to complete. There’s something about Tobio’s proximity, his recognition of Shouyou’s scent, that makes it preen. Then the preening makes Shouyou leak more.

Shouyou’s mind finds the word before he’s truly ready to process its meaning: slick. Shouyou is leaking slick, natural lubrication. Shouyou has a scent and that means the drilled-open feeling pulsing on his right inner thigh is a scent gland and Shouyou is leaking slick.

Hinata Shouyou has presented. Hinata Shouyou is an omega.

So far, it sucks ass.

“Shouyou. Oi.”

The world before was muted. Shouyou had been seeing it chalky, desaturated, nearly greyed-out. His vision had been a newly-painted, not yet glazed ceramic. Presenting treats it to the burn of the kiln. He can see everything. Colours attack him brighter than they’ve ever been. Nothing feels ordinary under this new lens. Pinks and reds and yellows and purples and oranges and greens are fucking lurid. It’s an assault on Shouyou’s senses, and they’re already being battered enough without every piece of new information his brain receives from his eyes exploding.

But he doesn’t mind looking at Tobio. At his eyes. There are so many shades of blue in them, and they’re all sharp, like his irises are made of crystal. Shouyou laments his previous blindness. He’d thought Tobio was beautiful before. He hadn’t been able to see a thing.

“Shouyou, please,” Tobio implores, clasping Shouyou’s shoulders. “I want to help. What can I do?”

There’s a whole lot Shouyou can say, a whole lot Shouyou’s omega (because clearly that’s what this thing is, what it’s always been) wants him to say. He’s starting to get a pretty good idea of what could fill up the hollow inside him, and his asshole is literally lubricating itself to enable that. The itch-turned-ache is starting to feel vaguely familiar; this is all new, but Shouyou has definitely been close to this level of horny before.

The thought of sex right now is nothing short of terrifying, though. Namely, Shouyou is worried that having it won’t ever be enough, that he’ll always need more, that without it, he’ll always be empty and broken and breaking. So he asks Tobio, very quietly, to, “Hold me. Keep me together. Please.”

Tobio rises to the task like the perfect alpha (and even more perfect boyfriend) he is. He wraps Shouyou in his arms and shifts them horizontal, cushioned by messy pillows and ruffled blankets. The movement sends Shouyou’s laptop to the floor. He doesn’t care if it breaks; he needs a new one. Plus, it means the match isn’t playing anymore. With the silence that follows, Shouyou feels like he can breathe.

“We need to call someone,” Tobio says. Shouyou shakes. “I know, I know. It feels weird, doesn’t it? We need to have someone talking you through it, someone who understands. Are there any omegas you can call?”

The thought of calling his mother makes Shouyou baulk. She would hang up immediately just so she could come home faster, and she’d bring Natsu with her. Shouyou can’t let them see him like this, at least until later, until he’s had the rest of the day to understand this on his own terms first.

Yamaguchi went into pre-heat during school on Friday. His heats are bad. He’s probably with Tsukishima right now, working through it. Shouyou doubts he’d pick up.

Yachi would, but she’d freak out. She’s got a much, much cooler head on her shoulders these days, but this would definitely rattle her. She isn’t used to how distraught Shouyou is going to sound, whoever he calls.

He needs someone who could handle that. Someone who can guide him through being like that. Someone knowing and caring and stable and kind. Someone who would drop everything to help.

“My phone’s on my bedside table,” Shouyou says. “Can you reach? I wanna call Sugawara-senpai.”

If Tobio is surprised by the choice, he doesn’t show it. He leans over to grab Shouyou’s phone, but he’s back quickly because the second he stops holding Shouyou, Shouyou gets another cramp. Unlocking Shouyou’s phone, he dials Suga’s number and waits.

“Do you want me to talk to him?” Tobio offers.

Shouyou shakes his head. “No, I’m okay. I want him to hear it from me.”

He’s gotta claim as much of this shit as he can. After all, this is what he’d wanted. This is what Suga had introduced him to all those years ago. Shouyou needs to find some pride in accepting what he thought he’d never have, and stand on it.

“Hello? Hinata?”

His will disintegrates instantly upon hearing that voice. Shouyou is scared.

“Sugawara-senpai,” Shouyou chokes. “I need help.”

Suga is miles away, and the crackle of the call reflects that. Still, his concern is as loud, as potent, as if he was right here. As if he never left.

“What’s wrong, Hinata?” he asks, taking on the careful gravitas of the senpai Shouyou grew to know, to admire, to love. “What can I do?”

“I just started my first heat,” Shouyou says, embarrassed. Speaking the truth into being feels too revealing, and Shouyou feels too seen. “I’m kinda overwhelmed. To—Kageyama-kun is here with me, and he suggested I call someone to talk through it.”

Suga’s hum sounds like a smile. “Kageyama-kun is right. Thank you for calling me. You’re doing the right thing.” He clears his throat, all business all over. “Where are you both?”

“In my bed at home,” Shouyou responds.

“Is your mother home?”

“No, she’s away on a trip with my sister. Kageyama and I are alone.”

Shouyou tenses on another cramp. His hole leaks more slick.

Kageyama and I are alone.

His body knows what to do with that knowledge, how to make this better, but his mind won’t let it engage. No amount of leaps he has already made today will make him ready for that right away. He’s gotta ease into it. He won’t fuck out of fear.

“Okay. That’s okay,” Suga continues. There’s some shuffling on his end of the line like he’s sitting down somewhere, setting up for the long haul. “It just means you’re both going to have to do a little more work to prepare. Can Kageyama-kun hear me?”

Shouyou taps his screen, sets the call to speakerphone. “He can now.”

“Kageyama?”

“Hello, Sugawara-senpai. How have you been?”

Shouyou can’t stop himself from mirroring Suga’s snort. He is withering away in Tobio’s arms, pumping out thick, anguished, desperate fuck-me pheromones, and Tobio still has the presence of mind to be polite to his senior. Amidst his maelstrom of emotion, Shouyou finds enough space to be fond.

“I’ve been great, Kageyama,” Suga says warmly. “I hope you have been, too. Thanks for telling Hinata to call someone. You’re doing great already, but you’re going to have to do some more.”

Tobio nods. “Tell me. I’ll do whatever I need to.”

Shouyou finds enough space to be proud, too.

“Perfect. Alright. First things first, Hinata-kun is going to need food and water, and a lot of it. His body will be burning itself out almost every second, and he’ll need to replenish his energy much faster than rutting alphas do. Will you be able to get him things to eat and drink?”

“Yes,” Tobio assures. “Hinata’s fridge is well-stocked. I’ll go now—”

“Wait!”

“No!”

Tobio stills, caught halfway off the bed by Shouyou’s and Suga’s exclamations. Shouyou, right next to him, is able to do a little more to keep Tobio closer, namely, clutching fast to Tobio’s shirt in fingers that will tear just to make Tobio stay.

Tobio can’t leave. He can’t. Shouyou doesn’t know which part of him will fall away first if he does. Most likely his sanity, maybe his sense of self. It’s only barely staying intact as is.

“Sorry,” Tobio mutters, so guilt-ridden it’s playing out in his scent, souring the room, commingled with the stench of Shouyou’s stress. He holds Shouyou even tighter than before, soothing him with barely-there brushes of his lips on the sensitive skin of Shouyou’s face. “I’m still here.”

“Good. Don’t leave him just yet,” Suga sighs, relieved. “Ah, sorry, I know this is alarming. I wish I could be there to help, but really, you’re both going to be fine. Can you still hear me?”

“Yes,” Shouyou and Tobio mumble, not bothering to check if the phone, nestled between them, picks it up all that well. Too focused on each other.

“Okay, great. Kageyama-kun, do you have any of your clothes with you?”

“Yes,” Tobio confirms. “They’re in my overnight bag.”

“You’re going to need those, too. T-shirts, sweatpants, socks, anything with your scent on them. Very soon, Hinata is going to start nesting, and he’ll want as many of your clothes as he can for that.”

“Nesting?” Shouyou asks.

“It’s a mating urge omegas get during heats to create as much comfort as they can, for themselves and their partner. It helps ensure closeness. You’ll understand soon.”

“Okay,” Shouyou sighs, resigned. You’ll understand soon is a sentiment that cuts a little too close to home, the kind of promise that Shouyou has spent most of the past three years getting broken time and again. But he supposes all those promises are finally getting realised. He shuffles closer to Tobio. He can wait a little longer, can handle just one more promise of soon.

“Alright. Hinata. Can you tell me how you’re feeling?”

Can he? Where to start?

“It’s a lot, I know,” Suga soothes. “You’re doing just fine already, but I swear it’ll help to talk through it, like Kageyama said. You can tell me. I’ll understand it all.”

It’s almost like reawakening trauma, being asked to explain where he’s at. Shouyou is already living it, and still he doesn’t want to relive it. The more he talks this out into the open, the realer it feels, the more inescapable. He’d spent so long convincing himself this wasn’t gonna happen to him, and that he was fine with that. He isn’t prepared for this anymore. He hasn’t been for a while.

“I’m hot everywhere.” This is what he’d wanted. “Inside and out. I feel like I’m melting.” He’d wanted to melt— “My skin hurts.” —and feel his skin hurt. “Everything’s too bright and loud. I’m… ugh, fuck, sorry, I’m turned on. I don’t feel whole.” He’d wanted to feel unwhole. “I need to be touched but I’m so sensitive so it hurts. I need… more, but I feel like I’ll never get enough. My insides keep squeezing but there’s nothing to squeeze on. I’m just…” He’d wanted to be… “Empty.”

“Shouyou,” Tobio whispers, broken.

“It’ll be okay,” Suga croons to them both. Now that’s a promise Shouyou can’t quite believe. “Right now, you’re feeling the worst you’ve ever felt, but you’re going to be fine. You have everything you need. Everyone you need.”

His conviction is so comforting, Shouyou doesn’t even pick up on how knowing it sounds until a beat later. Come to think of it, Suga has been pretty nonplussed about the fact that Shouyou is a newly-presented omega, and the only person around to help is someone he isn’t mated to. He didn’t question Tobio’s presence here at all. It’s likely he already knows that they’ve been dating since second year, but Shouyou didn’t tell him. Did someone else on the team?

“I always sort of figured you two would be perfect together,” Suga says, like he knows Shouyou is secretly looking for an explanation. “Nobody works better for the both of you than each other. Nobody even comes close. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to presume your relationship, but I’m afraid to say you’ve proved me right. Shouyou. Tobio. All you both need is already with you.”

Shouyou would sob if he didn’t find his mouth stopped by Tobio’s. In a kiss so gentle it’s more of an assault on Shouyou’s senses than a fierce one would have been, Tobio takes his lips and presses into them every emotion that words couldn’t express well enough. It lasts all of two seconds and all of two lifetimes. The sound their separating mouths make has Shouyou blushing, but with all that heat in his cheeks, the inferno everywhere else subsides. Kissed calmer, Shouyou cools. The ache remains, but it’s not the furor from before. Shouyou’s body untenses muscle by muscle until he feels the most human he has since this newer version of him erupted. All of that for a kiss. All of that for Tobio.

“Hello? You two okay?”

“Yeah,” Shouyou sighs. Then, stronger once Tobio nods, encouraging, “Yeah, Suga-senpai. You’re right. We’re good.”

Another smile worms its way into Suga’s voice. “Good job, guys. You’re handling this beautifully. Ready to move on?”

They nod together. In unison, they say, “Yes.”

“Alright. Hinata, do you think you could handle it if Kageyama-kun left for a little while? He’s gotta grab food and clothes now. You won’t want to wait until later.”

 Shouyou could handle it. ‘Handle’ does not mean ‘like’. Still, Suga hasn’t been wrong yet. There's a warning in his tone that hints at Shouyou feeling much worse than he already does if they stop following his advice now.

Soft lips plant softer pressure on Shouyou’s forehead. Tobio says, “I’ll be quick.”

“And I’ll be here,” Suga tacks on. “Talk to me, distract yourself. Kageyama will be right back.”

“Okay,” Shouyou says quickly. The sooner he agrees, the sooner it’s over. “Okay, yeah, go ahead, ‘Yama. I’ll be fine.”

Tobio, true to his word, is quick. He’s out of Shouyou’s bedroom before the depression of his body in the mattress has even lifted. Shouyou hears him pad further away, aiming for the kitchen. The sound of his retreating footsteps digs claws into the edges of Shouyou and starts to pull.

“Hey.” Suga’s voice again. “It’s just for a second. Talk to me, ‘kay?”

Shouyou wraps his arms tighter around his middle, forcing out an exhausted, hysterical chuckle. “This sucks so bad.”

Suga snorts. “Believe me, I know. The first heat is always the worst. I don’t think you’ve even had a pre-heat, have you? You sounded pretty surprised when you called.”

Huh. “Yeah… I guess I didn’t. Is that normal?”

“Sorta. It’s not super common, but sometimes, people get shoved right into a heat or rut without any preamble. Come to think of it, it happens more often with later presentations.”

“Ugh. Even my presentation is faulty.”

“Hey, that’s not what I said! And what do you mean ‘even’?” Then Suga gasps. “Please don’t tell me you’ve been feeling weird about presenting later.”

Shouyou squirms. “Well, you just said. I’m late. So it is weird.”

“Oh, Hinata.” Suga sighs so heavy, so forlorn, it makes him shift around down the line again. “I wish you’d called me sooner. All I mean by ‘later’ is ‘later than most’. You weren’t running out of time or anything. It’s not weird to present in your third year of high school. A lot of people don’t present until university. In fact, I’m the only presented person in my circle of college friends.”

“...Really?” Shouyou breathes.

Suga hums. “Miyagi is so small, Hinata. It’s not even a fraction of the world. By no means are you weird for being different to everyone immediately around you. Once you get out there a little more, you’ll see you’re as normal as can be.”

That’s another thing about heats: it keeps Shouyou seconds away from crying at all times. Suga says this so easily. What had been impossible to Shouyou is obvious to him. Not for the first time, Shouyou thinks about the two years between them, the gap there, the difference in their knowledge. As easy as breathing, Suga has given Shouyou a little more information to close that gap up. Shouyou feels like he’d built and burned so many bridges just to attempt what Suga has done with a few words.

“Oh,” he says.

Suga laughs. “When Kageyama comes back, try to rest. You’re learning a lot today, more than I did when I first presented, and you’re still handling it all so well. I’m proud of you.”

God, he’s still crying. “Thank you, Suga-senpai.”

“Aw, Hinata. Of course. And don’t worry, this will be fun soon. Before I keep assuming, is Kageyama an alpha?”

Shouyou blushes. “Mhm.”

Something wry, teasing, crackles over the phone in Suga’s next words. “I bet he’s a great one.”

“Thank you, senpai,” Tobio, newly returned, mumbles shyly. He’s blushing harder than Shouyou.

Shouyou smiles. Softly, he confirms: “Yeah. He’s the best.”

Suga laughs. “Ah, there you are. Did you get everything Hinata needs?”

“I got food,” Tobio replies, setting literal armfuls of it on Shouyou’s desk. Hands freed, he kneels to the floor and starts rifling through his overnight bag. “I’m looking for my spare clothes now.”

“Good, that’s good.” Heaving a heavy but content sigh, Suga says, “I think that’s all I can help with from this far. I’m sorry. I’d love to stay, but I was supposed to have dinner ready about an hour ago, and Daichi’s coming back from class soon.”

“Ah, I’m sorry, senpai. I didn’t mean to keep you from cooking,” Shouyou apologises. Then, once he takes note of the shock in Tobio’s eyes, he squeaks, “Wait. You live with Daichi-san?!”

Another laugh. “We’ve been mated for a year. It made sense.” At Shouyou’s and Tobio’s continued surprised silence, Suga laughs again. “I know you’re not really surprised. We, uh, weren’t exactly subtle in high school.”

Shouyou can sure as shit attest to that. God, how had he almost forgotten? Hit right in the fucking face with the memory of his Suga-Daichi walk-in, a memory so visceral Shouyou can still smell it, déjà vu almost knocks him clean out. With it, though, comes a very grown-up kind of longing. Suga and Daichi had seemed so old then, but Shouyou is that age now. There’s still so much he doesn’t know, so little he understands. Suga had seemed all-knowing those days, but he has grown even more. So much has changed, and through it all, Daichi stayed by his side.

Those two have been a role model in so many ways. This just adds another. They live together. Suga cooks dinner while he waits for Daichi to finish his college classes. Maybe Daichi does the same, picking up the slack if Suga can’t, just like Shouyou does with Tobio. Maybe they can follow those patterns further. Maybe someday, Shouyou will live with Tobio, too. Maybe they’ll inspire someone else with their closeness, give someone else that grown-up longing.

“Ah, yeah. Guess not. Will you say hi to him from us?” Shouyou says quietly. If he voices any of those thoughts, he’ll start crying again. His tears just dried.

“Of course,” Suga says, warm, like he heard all Shouyou’s thoughts anyway. “I’m sure he’ll say it back. Will you both be alright?”

Shouyou looks at Tobio. Tobio, looking back, almost smiling, nods.

“We will. Thank you so much, Suga-senpai.”

“Anytime. Be well, and don’t be a stranger! Come visit sometime, and if you can’t, call me again. I never wanna hear that you needed me and didn’t come find me.”

The assurance is nice. Truly, it is. If it had ever been under question, it’s now definitive that Suga’s assistance, his guidance, didn’t expire with his graduation from Karasuno. The certainty that his help is larger, lasts longer, than his time there is a balm. But in all honesty, Shouyou has the small, but no less distinct feeling that this is the last of Suga’s help he’ll need for some time. Armed with it now, he knows it’s going to carry him a while. He’s got a little more security in him. With this help, he can start to stand on his own again.

And not a moment too soon. He thinks he understands what Suga meant about nesting.

Setting his phone aside and sitting up, Shouyou asks, “Tobio?”

Tobio looks back up, arms full again but with bundles of his clothes. “Yes?”

Shouyou can smell them from here. “Gimme.”

Lifting a brow, Tobio relents and lifts his clothes into Shouyou’s arms.

Shouyou’s instincts have been weird things over the past three years. A volcano, asleep. A candle, aflame. This morning alone, the volcano has erupted, and the match has burnt way past its wick. With Tobio’s scent-saturated clothes in Shouyou’s grasp, a new item manifests, and explodes all at once: headlamps, alight.

Shouyou’s instincts are vicious, hot, and now, bright. He mutters a breathless, “Oh,” and gets to work. His body’s at the wheel; his mind takes a backseat. He watches himself move, pressing Tobio’s clothes to his face, inhaling, then sorting them on the bed accordingly. Garments that Tobio has most recently worn, or that have been closest to his body (socks, towels, loose sleep shirts), get tucked around Shouyou’s pillows. Thicker clothes, ones Tobio might have worn over things (hoodies over t-shirts, sweatpants over boxers, wait, why didn’t he give Shouyou his boxers, that would have been perfect) get laid out on the sheets as a base. There’s a method to Shouyou’s madness but even he doesn’t really know what it is. All he knows is he needs this space enclosed so coldness stays out and comfort stays in, and Tobio’s scented clothes work best.

Once Tobio’s belongings are firmly strewn around the nest, Shouyou starts to twist up his beddings. Now he can get his scent in here. It’s still new, barely infused in anything, but Shouyou catches any hint of mandarin he can find and packs his nest with it. He tears the pillows free of their cases, drapes the nearest blankets over the edges. When that’s not enough, he takes his shirt and socks off, and those go in, too. He tucks and folds and arranges and only once the headlamps dim inside does he feel done.

Ah. Almost done.

Shouyou turns quickly. Tobio is sitting on the floor, hands on his thighs, somehow managing to make his utter perplexity look endeared. Shouyou clamours for him, wants him nearby bad, because what’s a better source of Tobio’s scent than Tobio? But while his omega wants this too, it’s oddly reserved. The feeling is painfully noticeable; Shouyou’s omega hasn’t been something as demure as reserved all day.

It’s nervous. It wants Tobio to like the nest.

“Do you wanna come in?” Shouyou asks quietly.

Tobio softens everywhere; his shoulders, his spine, his scent.

“You want me in there?”

Shouyou nods. “Yeah. Yeah, please.”

Tobio is up from the floor so quickly his body’s a blur, but oh, he slows down once he approaches Shouyou’s nest. He’s careful. He’s kind. He picks his legs and arms up, and puts them down without disturbing a single shirt or sock. Like he’s thinking real hard about where he moves. Fuck ‘like’, Shouyou can see him thinking.

Eager, appeased, Shouyou pulls Tobio atop him. Even then, Tobio goes down slowly, hovering, resisting Shouyou’s strength with his own, lowering bit by bit until he’s pressing Shouyou into the nest gently. Cautiously.

Shouyou wraps his arms and legs around his nest’s latest addition. “Thank you.”

Tobio nods, pillowing the back of Shouyou’s head on his arms. “It’s nice. You did well.”

Shouyou gasps. “Thank you.”

His gratitude makes his scent heavy. It falls on them thick, and Tobio’s responds, swelling up, blackcurrant clasping to mandarin, merging. It’s the richest, sweetest, sharpest, happiest thing Shouyou’s senses have ever had the pleasure of welcoming.

Hm. Pleasure.

Beyond the obvious greatness specific to Tobio, there is, quite simply, an alpha in Shouyou’s nest. Shouyou built a nest for himself and an alpha, the alpha got in, and the alpha liked it. That’s nice enough. However, concerning that greatness, Tobio is kind. He’s caring. He’s really hot. He’s strong. He fucks good. He smells nice. His dick is big. He’s the alpha Shouyou built a nest for, the alpha that got in, the alpha that liked it. The alpha that’s laying on Shouyou right now, compressing Shouyou into the fruits of his labour, smelling like the fruits of his labour.

Shouyou has had his panic. He was talked down from it, given advice on it. By no means is he out of the woods, the animals are still clawing at his heels, but he’s running a little faster. He’s almost in the clear. And nothing’s wrong with a little help getting there.

Not long ago he’d been leaking. His shorts are sticking to him because of it.

His inner thigh aches.

“Tobio?” he mutters.

“Mm,” Tobio rumbles. “You smell good.”

God, that’s gonna distract him. Shouyou clasps him closer, and that rubs him up against Tobio real good. Impossibly good.

“There’s something you want, isn’t there?” Tobio notes.

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I can try giving it to you, but I won’t until you’re ready. You were freaking out earlier. I don’t want that to happen again.”

It’s maybe the most warranted concern to ever exist. Shouyou can’t imagine how he’d looked from a point of view beyond his own. It’s hard enough to think back on his fear himself, let alone to play it out from someone else’s eyes. This came on so quickly, so dreadfully. By all accounts, Shouyou shouldn’t be ready to push further.

But he has been not ready enough in the past to know when it’s time. His anxieties won’t go away just because he feels prepared now, but he knows these nerves aren’t nuclear. For all his previous desperation to move further, grow older, he really hadn’t been ready before. He’s ready now.

“I’m okay. I’m good,” Shouyou promises Tobio. Besides, “I trust you.”

Shouyou immediately knows he was right to move forward when Tobio’s kiss feels correct, damn near prophesied. The fit of their lips feels like a reward. Tobio’s tongue maps Shouyou’s mouth carefully, and Shouyou’s lips accept it. Suckling softly, lapping lightly. Biting into moans and gasps.

A weird nose comes out of Shouyou’s chest. He’s not making it on purpose. Whatever it is makes their lips hum, their kiss vibrating.

“The hell?” Shouyou mumbles.

Tobio grins at him. “You’re purring.”

Jesus, he is. He tries to stop and can’t. His chest sings. His heart and lungs and ribs thrum. It’s a new part of him he’s just gonna have to learn to live with, because he sure as shit can’t control it.

“It’s fine,” Tobio assures at Shouyou’s stunned silence, starting to kiss Shouyou’s purring throat. “It means you like this.”

“Shit. I could have… t-told you that.” Tobio’s kisses are disorienting. He’s pulling skin into his mouth, sucking it red.

“Shut up,” Tobio scolds softly with another bite. “I can’t hear it if you’re talking.”

Fucking annihilating, to learn that Tobio likes how Shouyou purrs. He’d liked Shouyou’s nest, too. Shouyou’s smell. Shouyou is an omega Tobio likes. In spite of his embarrassment, Shouyou lets his purr hum on. Shouyou and his omega are at least in agreement on that: anything for what Tobio likes.

Approving, Tobio kisses lower. Shouyou’s shoulders, his collar bones, the hollow between them. Something weird happens when he gets to one of Shouyou’s nipples. His mouth doesn’t touch it, his thumb does, swiping over its tip accidentally while he’s moving his hands toward Shouyou’s waist.

Shouyou’s never been super sensitive there. That’s why the touch is accidental; Tobio doesn’t put effort on that part of him, because he’s never needed to.

So why does Shouyou almost scream at the touch now?

He swears, too, hissing out a harsh, “Shit,” when the tip of that bud throbs in the split second that it’s beneath Tobio’s thumb. He feels the touch long after it’s gone, arching his back into it. His other nipple, neglected, aches.

Tobio freezes, horrified. “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” Shouyou gasps, gripping Tobio’s hair. “More.”

Tobio takes a couple seconds to catch on, a couple seconds too long. Shouyou writhes through each one, needy like no other touch on his body has made him before. He pushes his chest up, begging, hoping Tobio gets it.

“Oh,” Tobio says simply. Dark eyes meet Shouyou’s. They drop down just once, to locate their target, Shouyou learns soon. Then Tobio re-establishes eye contact, lowers his mouth, pokes his tongue out, and flicks it over Shouyou’s nipple. “Here?”

Shouyou’s scent bursts out of him like split mandarin, like the little, visible frissons of scent you get from peeling its skin off. “Yeah. Please!”

Tobio obliges. Lick after careful lick. Shouyou’s nipple tightens up fast, springing back against the tip of Tobio’s tongue. He doesn’t leave the other alone long either, reintroducing his thumb purposefully this time, toying with it in gentle circles.

Shouyou has been punctured. Slick leaks sticky from between his legs. He can smell how much headier it makes his scent, mandarins left to ripen under the sun. Tobio’s mouth is watering onto Shouyou’s nipple. When he sucks his spit up, he draws Shouyou’s nipple between his lips too. Flicks his tongue on it while it’s being warmed in Tobio’s mouth.

“Fuck, Tobio,” Shouyou sobs. “Feels good. Nnngg feels so good.”

“You like it here now, Shouyou?” Tobio asks, pinching Shouyou’s dry nipple between his forefinger and thumb. “You like your tits touched?”

“Yes!” Shouyou cries. “God, I don’t… I don’t know why, it’s… I like it so much now.”

“You’re more sensitive,” Tobio explains, switching, rubbing his spit back into the first nipple and lathing the second one with its own wet attention. “You’re feeling things more. You’re built to feel good everywhere, Shouyou.”

God, that truth is insanity. This is why Shouyou’s nerves are more open now? He’s so much easier to please, can get pleasured in places he hadn’t been able to before, because that’s all his body is made for now? Fuck, now his cock’s leaking too. His shorts are a mess, and it’s a testament to how firmly he has finally presented, that that realisation only makes him consider how best his shorts will fit in his nest.

“I’m losing my mind,” Shouyou gasps, nails raking Tobio’s scalp.

Tobio hums. The sound vibrates close and tight around Shouyou’s nipple. His chest is on fire. Tobio plucks pleasure out of him from these two sweet, sensitive little points with too much ease. He’s gonna suckle Shouyou to an orgasm fast.

“Can’t,” Shouyou gasps, using his grip to tug Tobio away now. He has to, because his chest still lifts up into Tobio’s touch, wanting more than Shouyou can take. “Tobio, p-please. Can’t take more.”

Tobio gives each raw, red bud a light kiss. He looks up at Shouyou, surveying the damage. Once Shouyou has calmed down enough, walked himself back from the brink, he asks, “Can I move on?”

“Yeah. Yeah, please,” Shouyou pants, wet chest heaving.

And down Tobio goes. Mouthing at Shouyou’s belly, tongue poking out over touchy places like Shouyou’s navel or between his ribs or at his hip bones. His licks are intentional. He traverses Shouyou’s body like he’s on the hunt for something, the path he walks with the tip of his tongue deliberate like there’s a faded map on Shouyou’s body that he can reawaken as long as he licks along the right lines. Shouyou can’t figure it out. What’s he doing?

Tobio lifts his head. His eyes are blown black again.

“Baby.” Shouyou squeaks. Tobio smiles. “Where’s your scent gland?”

Shouyou’s inner thigh twinges. The drill hole. The sharp, sore spot beneath his shorts. His legs spread independent of his will. Tobio reaches the hem of the shorts and smirks even meaner.

“Under here?” Shouyou, helpless, unable to lie, nods. Tobio asks, “Will you let me look for it?”

“Y-yeah,” Shouyou mumbles.

“Will you let me touch it when I find it?”

“Fuck, yeah.”

Tobio chuffs, grinning. He hooks his fingers into Shouyou’s shorts. Coaxes Shouyou’s hips up. Drags the loose material over them, down his legs, off his feet. He gives them to Shouyou, attuned, perfect alpha that he is. Shouyou busies himself with stuffing the garment somewhere behind his pillow, adding to his nest so he doesn’t have to bear the heat of Tobio’s gaze as he parts Shouyou’s thighs and peers between them.

“Fuck.”

That gets Shouyou’s attention. There’s so much in Tobio’s spat curse, that only looking at him will help Shouyou comb through it and pick out what it means. Awe makes itself apparent with just one shy glimpse of Tobio’s face; his lifted brows, his fiercely red cheeks, his dropped-open mouth (still wet from how it had been working Shouyou’s nipples). Shouyou’s so in love looking at him, Tobio literally has to talk his gaze away.

“Look at it, Shouyou.”

Tobio told him to, so Shouyou listens. He sits up on his elbows, steels himself, and cranes his neck until he can see between his spread legs.

And there his scent gland is. Soft and raw on the inner flesh of his right thigh, close to his pelvic bone. It’s a muted mulberry colour against Shouyou’s tan skin, not as apple-red as Tobio’s since Tobio is a little paler. It’s not as circular as Tobio’s either, a little more elliptical. It stretches longer when Shouyou, curious, bends and straightens that leg. It’s stark. It’s striking.

It’s cute.

“It’s perfect,” Tobio breathes. His scent flares.

He leans down, wraps his arms around Shouyou’s thigh, pulls him closer, and sucks Shouyou’s scent gland into his mouth.

Shouyou screams, “Alpha!”

Then he, literally, comes instantly.

It’s the immediacy of a prostate orgasm without the build-up. The flash-bang is beyond mere pleasure. Shouyou wouldn’t know what to call it even if all his grey matter wasn’t being obliterated by it. His body contorts, pulled every which way by the sheer reach of this feeling. He’s crying, he thinks. That’s probably what the wetness on his cheeks is. Thing is, he’s not paying all that much attention to the outside of him when his insides are shuddering apart until he’s made of nerve endings alone. He’s awash with bliss, on a higher plane of it. If pleasure works in three dimensions, this new feeling works in four.

Shouyou is still so new to sex that isn’t centered around his cock. It had always been a driving force for feeling good. This is yet another example of how little his cock is necessary, and though it plays its part by painting Shouyou’s stomach in pearls, Shouyou’s omega gets stuck on thoughts of, maybe I’ll never touch it again. There’s so much more of me to play with. Maybe I don’t need it.

It’s an ideal only exacerbated by the fact that, through all of this lunacy, Shouyou can still feel his alpha suckling his gland. Pulling on the sensitive skin. Shouyou knows when the very edges of that redder flesh get stuck between the rows of Tobio’s teeth. He knows when each goosebump on it gets a tongue teasing it. Every suckle on that gland elicits another wet spurt from Shouyou’s useless cock.

“Good, Shouyou,” his alpha croons. Then a little later, almost like an afterthought, like he’s testing the word on his tongue even though he knows it’ll feel right there, “Good omega.”

Tobio’s voice is a tether. It reaches up into those newer, greater planes, finds Shouyou’s hand and brings him back down to three dimensions instead of four. Shouyou breaks the surface and gasps, treading water again, drinking lungfuls of air into his somehow still intact body.

“Holy shit,” he heaves, giggling helplessly.

Tobio lifts his mouth off Shouyou’s gland. It’s a relief as much as a loss. Shouyou babbles, uncertainty making an incoherent mess of his mouth. He doesn’t know what he wants, much less if he should actually be given what he wants when he figures it out. Despite his newer body’s capabilities, there’s still gotta be a limit to how much he can handle. If you can be built for pleasure, you can be built for too much of it.

“How do you feel?” Tobio asks. He’d climbed back up Shouyou’s body, holding himself level with Shouyou’s face.

“Loaded… question,” Shouyou pants.

Tobio grins at him. “I’ll wait.”

Sweet sentiment, sure, but even minutes later, when Shouyou’s cum is starting to cool on his stomach, all he can manage is, “Good.”

Tobio snorts. He pushes Shouyou’s hair back from his forehead like he’s wont to do, nose pressed to Shouyou’s hairline. He inhales deeply.

“You smell…” He groans softly. “I can’t even tell you how you smell.”

“Is that good?” Shouyou asks, knowing that it is good because he gets tongue-tied about Tobio’s scent, too. He just wants to hear Tobio say it.

“It’s good,” Tobio confirms. “You would put me into rut if I hadn’t just had one.”

Shouyou’s scent brings out Tobio’s alpha. It compels him, body and mind. It brings him under the spell of mating, fucking, binding, breeding. That kind of knowledge had been hot enough before presenting, but Shouyou understands its weight now. Tobio’s words are just further proof to his earlier words; Shouyou is, apparently, perfect.

Shouyou can only guess how this affirmation presents itself on his face. It’s reflected a little in Tobio’s, blossoming when their mouths meet again. Shouyou’s bare body rubs against Tobio’s clothes. He makes a note to get Tobio naked if he can remember anything other than the taste of Tobio’s mouth after this kiss.

“You called me alpha.”

He probably won’t.

Shouyou blushes. “It felt right.”

“Yeah, Shouyou. It did.” He’s travelling down Shouyou’s body again. “Want to make you do it again.”

Shouyou realises then that it’s not as easy as just saying it. With Tobio’s lips on his gland, it felt like Shouyou didn’t have a choice. Instinct choked it out of him. It’s not a matter of saying it just because Tobio wants to hear it. Shouyou knows Tobio has to coax it out again. His omega has gotta be satisfied so wholly, it overtakes Shouyou’s conscience again.

Trying to figure out what Tobio will do to prompt that switch makes Shouyou’s heart rabbit, beating bruisingly in his chest.

He walks the same path from before. The treasure map has revealed itself in the mottled bruises made by Tobio’s mouth. Down, down he goes, glancing briefly over Shouyou’s nipples, cleaning the cum from Shouyou’s chest, his belly, his cock. Shouyou mewls being touched there. It doesn’t feel as good as the orgasm Tobio had given him from his scent gland alone, but pleasure is still pleasure, and Shouyou knows this version of it. The familiar hook in the pit of his stomach when his cock gets licked, kissed. How he’s more sensitive on his balls than his shaft, and more sensitive still on his tip. Shouyou hums soft, needy, spreading his legs. The noise spurs Tobio on, makes him lap faster, suddenly impatient. This isn’t his last stop. Shouyou can tell.

Then he’s done licking Shouyou’s cum from his spent cock. Then he’s leaning down to drop a kiss to Shouyou’s gland. Then he’s pinning his left thumb on top of Shouyou’s gland. Then he’s shifting even lower. Propping Shouyou’s hips higher, bending Shouyou up so his ass is closer to Tobio’s mouth. His slick is inches away from Tobio’s lips. Tobio closes the gap in nanoseconds.

He’s licking Shouyou’s slick. He’s tasting it. He’s running his tongue along Shouyou’s crack because it has dripped that far down, and he’s drawing more out with every flick of his tongue.

It should be too much, but it isn’t. It’s exactly what Shouyou needs. Maybe his scent reveals that. Maybe Tobio’s alpha guessed it. Maybe Tobio just knows Shouyou that well. Whatever the case, his working tongue on Shouyou’s drippy hole should be too much stimulation after a gland-orgasm, and it’s not, because Shouyou’s first heat is burning through his refractory periods like they’re nothing.

“Tobio,” he whimpers, toes curling. “Oh, man. Oh, fuck.”

Tobio moans. That’s all he can manage. His tongue’s too busy, his mouth too full. It takes about another minute, sixty seconds saturated with the sound of spit and slick, before he can even bring himself to talk.

“You. Taste—” Another quick, flat-tongued lick, like he can’t stop himself for very long, “—perfect.”

Shouyou’s scent. His nest. His purr. His scent gland. Now, his slick. That’s five. Tobio likes them all. Loves them all.

That’s all the coaxing Shouyou’s omega needed. “Alpha…”

Tobio seems shocked by the intensity of his growl, not just like he didn’t expect it, but like he didn’t expect to be unable to stop it. It rumbles away in his chest and his eyebrows lift for one moment, but in the next he’s burrowing his face deeper so Shouyou can’t see much of it anymore. His tongue narrows to a point and pushes. Shouyou’s rim unfurls immediately. He opens easier than he ever has. This is his first stimulation down here of the day. Tobio’s tongue fits in like he’s worked Shouyou wet and soft for hours.

Right; built for this.

Tobio’s enthusiasm makes Shouyou jealous for a taste of himself. How quaint. It’s silly enough to make him laugh, an airy, overwhelmed chuckle trembling out from the bounce of his heaving chest. Tobio is putting in work on him, spearing Shouyou now, fucking his tongue in and out. The nerves of Shouyou’s rim, outside and inside, spark under the press of Tobio’s lips, his teeth once he gets greedy enough, pinching, nipping.

“Baby,” Shouyou laughs, overstimulated, testing the word out for himself. He’d love it enough even without Tobio’s appreciative moan. “You like it this much?”

Tobio barely lifts up to nod. All he manages is a quick bounce of his head before going back under, gripping pale splotches in the shape of his fingertips into the skin of Shouyou’s thighs.

There’s a soul-deep satiation in being able to provide for Tobio like this. He’s taking Shouyou in. Ingesting him. Keeping a part of Shouyou inside him, similar to how he gives Shouyou a part of him when he fucks Shouyou, comes inside. And Tobio likes this part he’s taking, its taste, its warmth, its feel. He can’t even stop indulging in it long enough to tell Shouyou he likes it.

Shouyou’s starting to understand what it means to truly preen. Warmth billows out from him like feathers spreading, ruffling. Fulfillment floods him in waves, arcing from the core of him outward. His muscles relax along the way, rolled slack. Tension bleeds onto the sheets and clothes beneath Shouyou’s sweat-shiny body. He’s so loose, held up entirely by Tobio’s greedy hands.

You could dive in him so easily like this. He’s all soft and easy, moldable. A second ago he’d been overstimulated, but now he can take anything. Accept anything. Fit anything.

Shouyou wants to try. He wants to prove himself even more than he already has. Tobio already likes so much about his new body but won’t he love this newest part? Won’t he love how well Shouyou can take him now, if Shouyou can prove he’ll take him well?

“Tobio,” he calls softly, rubbing the pads of his fingers into Tobio’s scalp.

“Mm?” Tobio responds, still not lifting his head.

“Want more. Want to try more.”

‘Want’ understates it. Shouyou needs Tobio inside him all the way. Taking him, taking a knot, feels like the last step. Tobio thinks he’s perfect but Shouyou won’t know it until he can prove how easy his body is to mate.

And what a terrible time for Tobio to be so kind. He pulls his sticky mouth away from Shouyou and is hesitant, all concerned and cautious when he asks, “Are you sure?”

Shouyou can smell how much Tobio is sure. People down the fucking street can probably smell it. His alpha is so drunk on Shouyou’s slick it’s pushing everything it has into coercing Tobio to fuck, and still Tobio waits. He cares that much. He loves that much.

How many ways can Shouyou say I trust you? Tobio’s kindness is almost making him run out. There’s only one way that he will never tire of using, one way he’s certain Tobio will never tire of hearing. One way that paradoxically gets easier to say the more it means. It’s another example of that rule-of-the-universe simplicity that makes it effortless for Shouyou to cup Tobio’s face, stroke his cheek, and say, “I love you. So yeah, I’m sure.”

And it’s only rule-of-the-universe simplicity, not ancient instinct, that could compel Tobio to accept Shouyou’s words and push forward. Literally. With a gentle, wanting smile on his lips and a slick-damp finger in Shouyou’s ass.

Already, Shouyou knows he’s gonna pass this final test the same way he’d passed the others—flying colours spark behind eyes squeezed shut as Tobio’s forefinger probes deeper, as Shouyou’s hole swallows it. He’s loose and tight. His hole opens easily for each of Tobio’s knuckles, but clings selfishly once it has them, not as eager to let them go as it is to accept them. Shouyou’s omega takes up most of his body’s control to work his inner muscles into giving, softening, and Shouyou uses all the remaining brainpower he’s allotted to focus on fucking breathing.

Shouyou is only distantly aware of Tobio’s crooned compliments through the haze of pleasure his omega revels in. He can hear “good,” and “yes,” and “Shouyou,” but mostly he just registers the low hum of Tobio’s deep voice because pleasure blurs it almost completely out. Also because Shouyou’s purr is louder. That thrum in his chest and throat increases with every finger Tobio adds. Two gets Shouyou noisy, three even noisier. Tobio’s pinky coaxes out a line of slick that makes its way down Tobio’s wrist. Shouyou, watching Tobio lick it from his veins, gets the noisiest he has been all day.

“Ready,” he pants. “Ready, I’m ready, please, Tobio.”

Before presenting, there would have been the slightest, smallest voice of inhibition inside Shouyou. The voice for his reservations. It would have insisted upon more lube. More prep. Not ready. Don’t rush.

Presenting doesn’t even give that voice a chance to whisper. Lube is obsolete. Four fingers of prep isn’t just more than enough, it’s overkill. Shouyou, his body, his brain, have never been readier. There’s no readiness to rush anymore.

Tobio seems to understand, trusting Shouyou to know his own limits, even newly expanded as they are. Or maybe he’s looking at Shouyou’s asshole, at everything except his thumb stuffed inside it, and deciding that Shouyou is plenty ready. Whatever the case, the words are barely out of Shouyou’s mouth and Tobio is guiding those fingers out. The noise the movement makes is the kind of messy that a pre-presentation Shouyou would have blushed at. If Shouyou is blushing now, it’s only excitement’s doing.

“How do you want me?” Tobio asks, finally divesting himself of his clothes, pretty much ripping them off; Shouyou hears more than a couple seams tear.

The question isn’t quite right. It’s too focused on Shouyou’s agency. That’s not the focus he wants. It gives Shouyou power that his human brain is grateful for, but that his omega kicks up a little tantrum at.

A newly, gloriously naked Tobio kneels up in the nest, takes one look at Shouyou’s confused petulance, and makes amends with the addition of three simple words. “How do you want me to fuck you?”

And Shouyou, mollified, could cycle through the list. There are a myriad of positions they haven’t tried yet, and that’s saying something. He’s running through the options for a couple seconds until he realises his body is moving without him. Turning him onto his front. Onto his knees but not his hands; those stay tucked beneath his chest when it presses into the nest. One of Tobio’s t-shirts is directly under Shouyou’s face. Grateful, Shouyou tucks his nose against it and breathes in while his knees prop his hips higher, as high as they can go, ass lifted.

He figures this is his omega’s doing again. It’s preening inside him once more, so Shouyou lets it, trying not to feel too overwhelmed by such indecent exposure. When Tobio still hasn’t touched him after ten seconds, Shouyou finally finds the presence of mind to be confused. Turning away from Tobio’s shirt, Shouyou tilts his head until his cheek presses into it instead. Until he’s looking behind him at Tobio’s awestruck expression.

What’s the problem? Is Shouyou’s ass just that enticing?

Finally noticing Shouyou’s concerned eyes, Tobio asks, hushed, “Do you know what you’re doing?”

Shouyou frowns. “Uh. No. Again, it just sorta feels right? Is it wrong?” He hopes it’s not wrong. Oh, god, he hopes it’s not wrong. He was doing so well up till now, checking every box. Being his best because he was doing his best, even when he just had to follow instincts that told him what he was doing was natural. Did his instincts fuck up? Is Shouyou wired wrong even now? Must he really be faulty everywhere?

“No,” Tobio spits, ass kicked into gear, finally cementing himself to Shouyou’s back, lips firm on the nape of Shouyou’s neck, the mess of his hair. “Shouyou, no, you’re not wrong. I’ve told you, you’re perfect. What you’re doing is called ‘presenting’, and it’s perfect.”

Shouyou doesn’t need to ask a single question more. The mindless way he’d moved, the mechanics of each muscle shifting into place like somewhere, sometime, they’d done so before. The echoes of sense that reverberated in going onto his front, in tilting up on his knees, in laying himself bare. Tobio gave him the word (presenting, homonym; the position, not the emergence of Shouyou’s orientation), but deep down Shouyou already knew all about it.

It’s not like Shouyou’s never been on his front before. The very first time Tobio fucked him, he positioned Shouyou that way (now Shouyou sees why; he’d been trying to replicate this). It’s the first time this has ever felt right though. Proper. Purposeful.

Relief, the heft of it on the heels of Tobio’s repeated praise, has Shouyou melting, pressing him even deeper into the bed, bowing his spine, pushing his ass up. Tobio groans at the newer tilt, the way it primes Shouyou even better to be mounted. Tobio’s weight is a firm, broad cushion on top of Shouyou and he relishes it, humming all sweet and satisfied into every kiss Tobio lays to his ears and neck and jaw, every twitch of Tobio’s cock between Shouyou’s thighs.

Tobio takes one arm away from where it had rested beside Shouyou’s head, propping himself up on the other arm while he reaches somewhere Shouyou can’t see. The blunt, careful pressure that runs up Shouyou’s inner thighs, collecting the slick that dripped down them, makes Shouyou whine. Makes him squeak when that same pressure, the head of Tobio’s cock, nudges Shouyou’s scent gland from behind, coating it sticky before travelling higher up to Shouyou’s hole. Slick wells in the tight furl. Tobio dips his cock there. He doesn’t push inside yet. He’s playing around. Tapping his cock in the small pond of arousal Shouyou’s body has made for him.

“Please,” Shouyou begs. This time the pulse of slick that leaks onto Tobio’s cock isn’t involuntary. “‘M ready, see? Want you. I’m good.”

“Yeah. You are,” Tobio hums.

Shouyou is desperate, absolutely. He’s never needed someone more, never felt less patient. But he’s still so, so happy that Tobio starts to fill him slow.

“Yes,” he sobs around a smile. “Like this, please, it’s my favourite…”

“I know,” Tobio soothes, nipping Shouyou’s red earlobe. “You like to feel all of it, I know.”

God, but Tobio’s hot. He tosses the word ‘perfect’ at Shouyou like a serve he knows will get him a point, but does he have any idea of how perfect he is? Is it one of those ‘takes one to know one’ things, where he only truly knows what perfection means because he’s so well-versed in it himself? Shouyou won’t ever be able to tell Tobio this truth enough, but he’ll try. He just hopes Tobio won’t get tired of hearing it.

He’s about to stutter out another attempt when Tobio finally slides in all the way, stuffed balls deep. Shouyou’s lips part on moans, not words. His blood crackles, just beginning to boil. He can feel the spark of his synapses, pleasure popping between his nerve endings so brightly they’ll probably fray before he even comes. He knows this build up is going to be delicious, though not as much as their scents, still thick on their tongues.

And there’s that rightness again. Shouyou may never get used to how good this feels, how correct, how meant. Being pressed into a nest he made by an alpha who likes it. Emitting pheromones from his gland that this alpha likes the scent of. Being filled by that same alpha, smoothing the way with a wetness he leaks that this alpha likes the taste of. Shouyou is back to ticking boxes and he’s doing it well.

It goes beyond his presentation, too. The unshakeable certainty that this is how he’s supposed to be is one thing, but the absolute truth that this is who he’s supposed to be with is another entirely. Shouyou’s omega loves Tobio’s alpha. Shouyou loves Tobio.

He’d always been a little afraid that he couldn’t love Tobio as much as someone else could. Before presenting, he’d loved Tobio with every bit of himself, 100%. But if somebody could have delivered 110%, a love that could feel instinctual as well as learned, shouldn’t Tobio want that? Didn’t he deserve that?

Shouyou knows he hadn’t been defective for loving Tobio to the best of his capability. Still, with a presentation under his belt and a new orientation that’s still him, it feels good to know he can love Tobio even more than he already did.

He should be kinder to his unpresented self. He’s still got some work to do. He’ll get right to it after he takes Tobio’s knot.

He’s well on his way there; Tobio is pulling his hips away, ready to inch back in. He pulses inside Shouyou thicker, hotter than he ever has. Shouyou squeezes on him, loving the slip of his slick around Tobio’s shaft, the way it slides differently, better than lube. His prostate aches with just this first full thrust inside and out. Shouyou isn’t sure how much more stimulation it’ll handle, but he cares about that less than he would have a month ago. He wants to see how far pleasure will push before he falls.

Mewling confirmation of his adjustment, Shouyou whispers, “Again.”

Tobio grunts, “Slow like that?”

Shouyou wriggles, yearning. “Please.”

Tobio gives it to him slow like that five more times. Pushing in easy, backing out easier. Ten more drags of his long, thick cock on Shouyou’s prostate, on the walls inside of him.

It’s so good Shouyou could scream (probably will) but even he gets tired of what he asked for. He would push back on Tobio’s cock if the lock of his presenting body wasn’t so firm, if it didn’t feel so satisfying to stay this way. Already he needs more. He’s never been this needy. He only knows what he wants for a few seconds at a time, then greed always adds on.

Shouyou doesn’t know how to ask for a faster pace. Doesn’t want Tobio to think he’s doing this wrong. He’s doing this right, so so right, and Shouyou just wants a little more of that, but how can he say it without it sounding like criticism?

He doesn’t even have to try. When he has pulled out until all that Shouyou clenches on is the lip of his cockhead, Tobio lifts himself off Shouyou, clutches Shouyou’s hips, and fucks back inside so hard it almost shoves Shouyou out of presenting.

“Fuck,” Shouyou whimpers, looking back over his shoulder to find Tobio’s gaze once more. “Tobio…”

Tobio looks down on him. His tiny smile is soft but his eyes are flint-hard. “Your scent changed. If you wanted more, you should have just said.”

He doesn’t give Shouyou a chance to respond, to apologise, to explain. He pulls back out and pushes back in the same way; hard, biting, forceful enough to create a clap in the meeting of their skin. He’s fucking the most embarrassing noises out of Shouyou; high little yips from the very top of Shouyou’s throat, then strained little sobs from the very bottom of Shouyou’s chest. He’s fucking tears out of Shouyou’s eyes. He’s fucking precum out of Shouyou’s cock. Shouyou can feel it stringing his stomach everytime his cock slaps up there. Tobio’s balls hit his on every thrust inside. The backs of Shouyou’s thighs smart.

The harder Tobio fucks, the louder Shouyou’s omega grows. It’s clamouring on the inside, wanton, pushy, appeased and desperate in equal measure. It loves the feel of Tobio’s cock so much. When that cock shoves inside the furthest it can go, it leaves a little warmth that Shouyou’s omega obsesses over.

It’s the place where Tobio would put his cum. It’s the place where, after being knotted, Shouyou would keep it. Tobio is so big, and that place is so far. So deep inside. Tobio really is perfect; he fucks his cum deeper than any other alpha would.

It makes Shouyou ache to be worthy of it. As Tobio humps into Shouyou over and over, harder and harder, Shouyou whining louder and louder, he can’t help but want to prove himself again. He wants to be all Tobio ever wants. All he ever needs. He’d felt this urge only once before, toward the end of Tobio’s rut. He hadn’t known, then, where that urge came from. It had been an echo whose origin he’d never found.

Until now. Until presenting. Until becoming intimately acquainted with what instinct really means.

Shouyou wants to mate. He wants to be a mate. A good one. The best one.

“I know,” Tobio pants all of a sudden. Completely unprompted. Then, after a moment of confusion that Shouyou thought he’d only experienced internally, Tobio continues, “I can smell that, too. I know you want to mate.”

He’s leaning over Shouyou again, leaning onto him, hands bracketing Shouyou’s flushed face once more. He doesn’t let his change in position impede his rhythm. He’s fucking Shouyou just as fast without leverage as he had when he’d been using Shouyou’s hips as handholds. His voice jumps with the force of his fuck but he still keeps it low when he says,

“I want to mate you, too, Shouyou. I do. I will.”

“A-alpha,” Shouyou breaks.

“Shh, I know. I’ll mate you, and you’ll mate me. Soon. When we’re both ready.”

In those brief moments when Shouyou gets a proper hold on his senses and finally smells himself, he understands what Tobio means; he smells open. Obvious. Pining, craving, burning.

“I am ready—”

“You’ll know when you are,” Tobio corrects, fucking Shouyou’s words quiet. They taper off into pitchy whimpers while Tobio speaks. “This is your first heat. We’re going to wait.”

“But I–”

“Omega.”

Shouyou jumps so close to an orgasm it makes him scream.

“Baby.”

Even closer.

“I want to mate you so much it hurts not to, but I’m not ready either. I know I’m not.” The speed of his thrusts decreases. Tobio digs his cock in slowly, scooping like Shouyou’s insides are ice-cream frozen too stiff. Rolling his hips perfectly, fucking Shouyou perfectly. “We’re going to take our time.” Another thrust in. “We’re going to make it good.” Shouyou can feel Tobio’s knot swelling. “We’re going to wait.”

Tears well, adhering to Shouyou’s lashes. “Okay,” he gasps.

Tobio shakes his head next to Shouyou’s ear, unsatisfied with Shouyou’s response. “Do you know I want you?”

Shouyou nods. “Y-yes.”

“Let me hear you say it.”

Shouyou’s cock throbs. “You want me. Alpha wants me.”

Tobio hums his agreement. “So much.”

Shouyou turns his head, nuzzling against Tobio’s cheek. “So much.”

“You’ve waited so long already.”

And the thing about Tobio is, he never commented on Shouyou’s insecurity. Not once did he look at Shouyou’s questions to their senpai, his reactions to their friends presenting around them, to Tobio presenting in front of him, and see the insecurities tacked over it all. He’d made it seem like he didn’t even know they existed, and Shouyou couldn’t have thanked him enough for that.

But he had known. The way he says ‘You’ve waited so long already’, the quiet, loaded timbre of understanding, confirms it. He’d known all along, but he hadn’t treated Shouyou any differently.

“Tobio…”

“But you’re strong enough to wait longer.”

When those tears finally roll down Shouyou’s face, it’s as much from bliss as it is from relief. He wishes he’d heard those words sooner, but he doesn’t think he would have understood their worth until now. Tobio gives them to him exactly like he gives Shouyou everything else; at just the right time.

“Tell me you’re strong, Shouyou.” Tobio’s cock drills him. Shouyou’s prostate aches beneath it. “Tell me you’re strong, and I’ll give you my knot, and make you come.”

Shouyou is reaching his limit. He’s only got his tiptoes on the edge now. Pleasure is looking him in the face and grinning because he won’t even need a push to fall over. All it’ll take is a nudge.

“I’m strong…”

Tobio’s knot twitches against Shouyou’s rim. “Fuck, mhm. Strong then and strong now.”

“Strong then and strong now,” Shouyou repeats, breathless.

“Good. Fuck. Good omega. Now hold still.”

And there comes the nudge: the firm, inescapable push of Tobio’s knot, fully swollen, making its way inside Shouyou’s hole, and staying.

Funnily enough, Shouyou doesn’t scream. He wants to. He probably should. His orgasm rends him to pieces, so good it blots out any other feeling that it doesn’t need, any concept irrelevant to it: sensibility, time, direction, knowledge. It fills Shouyou to overflowing with hot blood and those finally frayed nerves and sheer, inexhaustible ecstasy. He should scream as an outlet for it all. It’s so much it burns.

But he can’t scream. He’s so overwhelmed with gratitude, pleasure, pride, acceptance, it makes his jaw crack open on nothing but silence. He quivers like a mad thing on Tobio’s knot, and he thinks Tobio is kissing him, but all he really registers is Tobio coming in him. The warm flood of it into that deep place.

Shouyou isn’t quite sure how long his silence lasts. His ability not even to speak but to just make noise doesn’t return for the entirety of Tobio’s knot. Hearing comes back, touch comes back, smell comes back (just in time for him to catch how happy coming on Tobio’s knot makes his scent). Taste comes back, sight comes back. Making sound doesn’t, not until Tobio’s knot finally deflates, he finally pulls out, and his cum starts to drizzle from Shouyou’s abused rim.

Shouyou can make noise then, and he uses the reclaimed ability to start panicking.

“No,” he wails, squeezing his muscles, stress scorching his vision red. “No no no, I can’t… it’s… it’s dripping out! I can’t keep it in!”

He’s so upset by how quickly Tobio leaks from him. He’d felt so deep. Shouyou still feels warm there, still feels full there. How can Tobio’s cum already be slipping out if he’d fucked it so far inside? Is Shouyou too shallow? How could Tobio’s cum ever take if he can’t keep it in? How could Tobio want a mate who can’t hold everything he has to give?

“I’m sorry,” Shouyou begs forgiveness. “Sorry, I’m sorry, ‘m trying…”

“Shouyou.” Tobio’s voice is even quieter than Shouyou’s. He sounds calm, surprisingly collected. He moves to Shouyou’s left and tucks them onto their sides, facing each other. Holding Shouyou together just like he had earlier. Shouyou had asked for it then. He didn’t even have to now, for Tobio to know that it’s what he needs. “You’re okay.”

It takes some time for Shouyou to believe that. He rocks in Tobio’s hold, once again feeling too small for his own body. His omega is unwieldy, unmanageable, wilder than Shouyou can contain. Its disappointment, its overwhelming sense of loss, is thicker than the knife of Shouyou’s exhaustion. Shouyou has to hack away at it in little pieces, but Tobio’s hands help. With every pass of his palms over Shouyou’s back, every tuck of his chin atop Shouyou’s head, every calming pulse of his scent, he works at Shouyou’s defeat until it’s quieter. Bit by bit, Shouyou stops shaking. Eventually, his omega’s presence recedes. Once more, Shouyou has almost total command of himself, body and mind.

With that command, he laughs quietly. Tired. Embarrassed. “Jeez. That was weird.”

Tobio snorts. “It wasn’t. It’s natural.”

Shouyou is feeling more than a little hollow inside, more than a little delicate, like his wholeness will only last as long as Tobio’s arms are around him. Being only temporarily sane is scary, and he tries to laugh in the face of things that scare him, so he gives it a good go: “Pfft. Which omegas are you talking to, huh? Did they tell you that?”

It… doesn’t really work. Tobio sees right through the joke for the fear beneath it, and doesn’t laugh it away like Shouyou hopes. He holds Shouyou closer and says, “You don’t need to laugh if you don’t feel like laughing.”

Shouyou can’t decide if it’s more affirming or embarrassing to be seen, to be seen through, so easily. Maybe it’s neither. Maybe this is scary, too. To be known by someone else more than he knows himself.

“I’m sorry,” Shouyou mumbles. “I know you’re right. I know it’s natural. I’m just feeling a little fucked up.” Like he’s the most unnatural thing in the world.

“You’re probably going to feel like that for a while.” Tobio never sugarcoats. Shouyou is nothing but grateful. “You’ve only been in heat for a few hours. I needed over a week to feel normal after my first rut. You remember.”

Shouyou does. It’s further recognition that Tobio knew just how much Shouyou suffered that week, without him. It’s admittance that Tobio suffered just as much, most likely more. Sugawara-senpai was right; at least Shouyou has someone.

Still… “I’m scared. I don’t know if this is going to end. I don’t know if it will. And I feel so stupid because I’d wanted this so badly. I’d wanted to feel this bad so badly.”

He hadn’t known a thing about this. He should have stayed ignorant in first year. Knowledge and experience brought pleasure, but not without more pain than Shouyou has ever felt.

He should know by now to anticipate the fingers pinching his cheeks in when he gets upset. The hand cupping his jaw, tilting it up until honey eyes find blue. The determination in those eyes, the love.

“I’ve never seen you regret something,” Tobio says. “I'm not going to see it now.”

Shouyou knows the drill. He has said his piece. He lets Tobio take his turn.

“You think this has changed you, but it hasn’t. Not all the way. You have instincts now, you feel all this weird, fucked-up, ancient shit now. What does that matter? You still love volleyball, don’t you?” Shouyou nods. “You still want to play when we get back to school, don’t you?” Nods again. “You still want to rise to the top, don’t you?” One more time. “Right. So if that hasn’t changed, then you haven’t, either. You’re more than your presentation, Shouyou.”

For someone who never says many words, Tobio is pretty good with them. Shouyou wonders if that’s why he’s so quiet all the time; he has so much in his head, it takes him longer to figure out how to say it all. Maybe in first year, he didn’t care to try, or maybe in first year, he just had a lot less to think about. He has grown up just as much as Shouyou. It’s remarkable enough how easily he uses his words, but even better that he only ever wields them this much to talk to Shouyou. To help Shouyou, to please Shouyou, to tease Shouyou, to guide Shouyou. For Shouyou.

And fuck if it doesn’t work. Already, Shouyou can feel himself easing, relaxing back into himself, into what he knows about himself. He does love volleyball. He does want to play when they get back to school. He does want to rise to the top, to play on the world stage, to be the best volleyball player the world has ever seen. Being an omega won’t change that. Nothing could.

He’ll learn to live with his omega someday, to understand that it’s as much a part of himself as his hair or his eyes or his love for volleyball or his love for Tobio. He only just started his lessons. When has Shouyou ever quit at the beginning?

“You’re right,” Shouyou mumbles again.

Tobio mumbles back, “I know.” Then a second or two later, “And I think you were joking, but I really didn’t talk to any other omegas. I did research, just in case. That’s all.”

Shouyou… bursts out laughing.

After all his praising of Tobio’s eloquence. He’s still as dense as ever.

“Tobio!” Shouyou exclaims, still laughing into Tobio’s bare chest, tears of happiness dotting it now. His hormones are all over the place but that’s something he’ll come to accept as wholly him, too. In the meantime, there’s one thing he’ll never have trouble accepting, nor understanding. He doesn’t quite know how long he has known of its truth, but he’ll never stop knowing it now. “I love you!”

Tobio’s confused frown at Shouyou’s laughter disappears with a cut-off, shocked noise. Like he hadn’t expected Shouyou to say it. Like he’s still getting used to hearing it. Still, it doesn’t stop him from saying back, with just as much (confused but firm) conviction, “I love you, too.”

The only thing to do then, really, is kiss. Shouyou hasn’t had enough of them today, that’s one thing he and his omega can agree on.

It preens even now as Shouyou cups Tobio’s face and kisses his lips, smiling against them. Their mouths meet in careful sucks, jaws working gently. Sometimes their tongues slip out, sometimes their teeth tease. They’re kissing each other way too tender. Still, they don’t stop until Tobio is smiling into this just as much as Shouyou.

It’s pretty reserved (for them) but it ignites something in Shouyou anyway. Distant is the ache for more, more of Tobio’s mouth, his body, his cock, but still, it’s there. Somehow, he’d forgotten he’s in heat. That for the next few days, more is all he’ll want. Shouyou won’t be totally mollified until he gets another knot to try this all again with, and his heat is far from over, but he knows Tobio will give Shouyou everything he wants like it takes nothing to do so. He always has. For now, he lets this kiss soothe him somewhat satisfied.

Besides, that’s his omega talking. Shouyou the human couldn’t be more satisfied if he tried. All those parts of him that worried about never presenting? The person who had those worries? It’s all still here. So he lets himself, that part of himself, celebrate. He would have been okay if he never got here, but he’s just as okay now that he has.

Getting here brought so much stress. So much insecurity, so much confusion, so much apathy, so much not apathy. Shouyou felt like he hadn’t been walking down the same road as his friends for years. He’d grown up worried that he never would.

Now he’s finally keeping up, keeping pace, keeping rhythm. Perhaps for the first time ever, Shouyou’s heart is beating just the same as everyone else’s.

And what do you know? After all Shouyou has been through, after watching his friends grow and change and present? After watching them kiss and cry and laugh? After following in all their footsteps and presenting, too? After finally joining the world he thought he never could, the world he thought he’d have to change irrevocably to be a part of? After all that, Hinata Shouyou still feels like himself.