Chapter Text
With their three-month break in full swing, Evelynn takes advantage of the peace.
It's been two non-stop years of making hit after hit, and though Evelynn prides herself in her incredible work ethic, she's grateful for the opportunity to unwind. After all, even demons need their beauty rest; she loves her girls, sure, but now she has the entire K/DA house to herself and it feels magnificent.
She wakes up to a quiet morning with no banging or yelling haunting the halls. She stretches, hums at the lick of heat in her gut — god, is it March already? — and basks in the morning that Ahri can't interrupt when she's almost halfway across the world with Kai'sa. She has the entire morning, the entire day, the entire week to herself and more, and Evelynn couldn't be happier.
Just kidding, she's lying through her teeth and she knows it.
The truth is, Evelynn's damn near close to losing her mind.
She's already breezed through the to-do list she'd made for herself for the break: maintaining her cars, general cleaning and some light redecorating, conceptualizing a new album theme she knows Ahri would love to hear about when she's back, learning how to make spicy ramyun from scratch... that last one had been a last minute addition to the list, a spur of the moment decision after she'd stumbled across (read: checked on purpose) Akali's Instagram and found her post of six spicy ramyun cups stacked in a pyramid with a caption that simply said: "Food Pyramid of Heaven!"
Speaking of Akali, she misses the damn rogue. Misses her even worse when she stumbles across a gouge mark on the wall where Akali's kunai had once found their home, or when she finds one of the ceramic chopsticks she'd lost between the couch cushions, or when she passes by their Hall of Game and sees a variety of Polaroids of Akali looking like the world's dorkiest fuckboy.
It's, quite frankly, annoying.
Akali's hyperactive, immature, impulsive, flirty, cocky, playful, brave, passionate—goddamn it.
So she likes Akali, sue her. It's not like she's the only one. Practically half the goddamn world's got a crush on the rogue. Really, it's an inevitability and the sooner Evelynn acknowledges that, the sooner she can work through it.
(Unfortunately, she's been telling herself the same damn thing for two years now and she still hasn't worked through it.)
She bustles about her day doing absolutely nothing. She migrates from place to place within the house: first the kitchen for coffee, then the living room to watch a show she can't seem to pay attention to, then the garage to do some final tune-ups, then the bedroom to fold and refold her clothes. She drifts, wholly occupied in her vacancy, equal parts tethered and untethered but almost entirely lost.
She calls Kai'sa and Ahri and asks them about their day. She calls Akali, too, but the rogue must have forgotten to charge her phone (it wouldn't be the first time) because it doesn't even ring (Evelynn makes an involuntary sad noise at the back of her throat but she quickly attributes it to her boredom). She calls Seraphine, the young popstar Ahri has taken under her wing (er, tails?) and gives her a few pointers. She calls Akali again and still gets nothing (no, she's not disappointed).
By the evening, Evelynn has completely run out of things to do but still feels like there's got to be something. Her body is buzzing with what feels like way too much energy, the kind that hums under the skin like a live wire, and she paces and paces and paces until she decides she should probably just leave the house and find something to do that isn't tearing her hair out by the fistful to count each strand.
She isn't sure why she hadn't thought of it much, much sooner...
At least, until she's dressed and walking towards the front door.
Almost as soon as she puts her hands around the doorknobs, her entire body throbs. Evelynn bends over and gasps, stinging like she's been slapped, a tremor rocking through her from head to toe in protest and she realizes—
Fuck everything to hell.
She's nesting.
It's why she's been holed up in the house for literal weeks without even thinking about leaving. It's why she's been feeling like she's always on her back foot, restless and unsettled. It's why she's taken it upon herself to clean every inch of the goddamn place. Her. Evelynn. Cleaning. It really should've been a dead giveaway.
She remembers a vague thought of '—March, already?' and quickly pulls up her cycle tracking app, staring in horror as it loads until—
"Damn it."
She closes the app and tosses her phone on the table by the door like she's been burned.
Her heat's starting. Fuck.
"This is fine," she tells herself, taking off her coat and hanging it up by the door. It's like realizing that she is has opened up a floodgate of symptoms because now she's uncomfortable, she's hot, she's feeling a twinge of panic but repeats, "This is fine. This is fine. I have the house to myself."
The thought isn't nearly as reassuring as it is, but she blames it on the heat. Realistically, an empty house means she can suffer through her cycle in peace and no one would be the wiser. She'll just have to make sure to re-clean absolutely everything because the scent tends to stick, and though Kai'sa probably wouldn't be able to smell it, Ahri and Akali surely will.
Especially Akali.
At the thought of the rogue, Evelynn's stomach lurches sharply.
"This is fine," she says again, half a reprimand to herself. "Get yourself together. She's an ocean away—"
A scent hits the air, subtle but rapidly intensifying. Evelynn stops halfway through the living room in mortification as the growl of a bike rumbles just outside before dying.
Well, evidently she's not.
She stands there, stunned like she's in the process of watching a trainwreck (honestly, she might as well be), as footsteps click down the driveway in a staggering, uneven rhythim; the metallic sound of a key sliding into the doorknob almost — almost — jolts Evelynn out of it, but then that scent catches between her teeth as it gets stronger and she's stuck, wanting to taste more of it, hating that she does, chiding herself to "move, Evelynn, NOW" only to be caught by the spell all over again.
And then the door opens.
From her spot in the dimmed living room, Evelynn can see the entrance through the short foyer, watches as it reveals Akali backlit by the street lights just outside and leaning heavily against the doorframe. She's got her rolling luggage by her feet, helmet hanging from the crook of her elbow, black-and-blonde hair in glorious disarray.
She looks more enticing than she has any right to be, and she's giving off this scent that's driving Evelynn crazy. Damn heat.
"Oh, hey Eve," the rogue says when she looks up briefly and realizes she's there. She's panting a little, shoulders rising and falling with every laden breath, and Evelynn inches back half a step as subtly as she can. "Didn't realize anyone was home. You didn't go anywhere?"
"No," she answers, only barely managing to raise her voice past the lump in her throat. She shoves her hands in the pocket of her trousers and counts herself lucky that the wind is blowing in instead of out. Sure, she's being assaulted by Akali's (enticing, intoxicating) scent, but that's so much better than accidentally giving Akali a whiff of pre-heat pheromones. "You're home early."
"Yeah, things got a little rough," Akali laughs, a husked sound that sends another tremor down Evelynn's body. She needs to escape and fast. "Kept picking fights with the others, dunno why. Kennen had to intervene before Master Shen could get on my ass about it. Figured I was getting a little stir-crazy."
"Mhm," is all Evelynn can supply, forcing herself to stop trying to taste the air. She has to leave but she can't because she's nesting and she can't exactly kick Akali out because she just got home and looking like she's half-dead on her feet.
She repeats in her head: Fuck. Everything. To. Hell.
"Hey, you look all dressed up," Akali comments when she notices Evelynn's attire — a white sweater and gold pants, beautiful in that "I'm worth more than a thousand of you but I'm keeping it understated" vibe. "Going out? Just got back?"
"Changed my mind."
The way Akali's eyes sweep down her body burns her skin.
It feels good, which is bad.
This is bad. She's completely, irrevocably fucked but she isn't sure what her options are at the moment because her Omega hindbrain seems to have latched onto the fact that a perfectly available Alpha is standing right there and it's not like Evelynn doesn't have feelings for her anyway. She's hot, she's unmated, she's looking at her with a curious smirk on her face and Evelynn wants to both flee to the nearest hole and die in it, and beg Akali to slam her against the wall and fuck her to death.
Which is to say, Evelynn puts on her most "cannot be fucked" face and jerks her head away, forcing herself to look at the wall in feigned disinterest.
"Anyway, I'm going back to my room," she forces out through her teeth. "You go get settled. We've got a few weeks' worth of absolutely nothing to do."
Except each other, her hindbrain supplies, to which she responds by not-so-kindly asking it to shuck the fuck up. Which is odd, considering it's just her and her stupid Omega instincts in her head and really she just told herself to shut up and—Oh god, this is going to be a long week.
Akali chuckles tiredly, finally stepping inside. "Sounds like a plan."
Evelynn nods sharply, unable to help herself as she gives the rogue one last look, and then she's turning away and heading up to her room, cursing the lamenting wail that rings in the back of her head.
It gets worse in the morning.
By the time Evelynn stirs from her fitful sleep, she's almost knee-deep in the thick of her heat. She's practically feverish, sweating but shivering, kicking her covers off with a scrabble of her feet only to get distracted by how good it feels to rub her bare thighs together, the slide of skin on skin where her satin sleep shorts aren't covering her. Her hips buck up, but she hisses and forces herself to stop, grabs a pillow and bites into it and muffles the annoyed groan that forces itself out of her.
She absolutely hates this.
Her heat has never been a problem before. Before K/DA, before Akali, she'd been perfectly capable of finding a nice, available Alpha to hole up with and ride until the burning dissipates but now — now — she can't do that because it's just not the same, because she wants Akali even when she's not in heat, so when she is it's so much worse because she only ever wants to spend her heat with her.
The first time she went into heat after meeting Akali, she'd tried to do what she'd always done. She'd called up one of her contacts — an easygoing Alpha who was perfectly capable of giving her exactly what she wanted without the desperation to mate her for good; he was fine and he didn't make Evelynn want to kill him on sight and it would've been alright — and spent the rest of her cycle with him.
It was awful. It felt wrong. Sure, it had seemed like a good idea at the time, and Evelynn was well-fed by the end of it but she had also felt absolutely sick to her stomach and hasn't called him since.
Hasn't called anybody since, actually, because her hindbrain already has one Alpha in mind and isn't content with anybody else.
Who would've thought her inner Omega was a diva like her, right?
It would almost be hilarious if Evelynn didn't fucking suffer because of it.
After that mishap, Evelynn had spent the rest of her heats alone, renting cabins in the middle of nowhere with nobody but herself and a handful of toys to keep her company. They're not ideal but they work in a pinch; at least she doesn't have to worry about her irrational hindbrain making a fuss and complaining that she isn't with—
Well, it's whatever. Clearly, that's not the situation now because she's still at home and spending her heat with somebody else in relatively close proximity for the first time in, what, two years?
She smells Akali everywhere.
Even with Evelynn's thick walls and closed door, she can smell the rogue much stronger than she had the night before. It lingers in the air and gets caught on her gums and seeps down straight between her legs and it's like she can't get enough of it. She knows she shouldn't, she knows it's the opposite of helping, but she breathes it in like she'll suffocate if she doesn't and it makes the throbbing between her legs simultaneously better and worse.
In the end, Evelynn manages to rub herself off one, two, three times even though it does absolutely nothing to take away the sting. If anything, it makes her even hornier and now she's hungry too and fuck, fuck, she needs to get her shit together. Akali's just down the hall. Akali's just down the hall, would it be so bad for her to go inside her room and—
Evelynn shoots to her feet to try and keep her thoughts from straying in that direction, wrapping herself up in a plush robe and dousing herself in perfume to muddle the pheromones. It smells downright awful to her but she hopes it'll mask her enough to take a trip down to the kitchen.
Hands clenched in tight fists to remind herself not to do anything stupid, like accidentally going inside Akali's room and accidentally tripping and accidentally riding her until the sun goes down and the world burns, Evelynn meanders through the corridor and down the stairway, thankful that Akali's door is closed. When she reaches the kitchen, she immediately goes through the cupboards to find the tea she knows Kai'sa keeps in stock for Ahri — the suppressants, not the preventatives, she has to remind herself because it's not like anything's gonna happen—
Aaaand it's not there.
Fuck.
Evelynn retrieves her phone from the table by the door and opens her messaging app:
Evelynn•8:33 AM
Kai'sa.Kai'sa•8:33 AM
Well, good morning to you too.What's up?
Evelynn•8:33 AM
Tea packets. Where are they?Kai'sa•8:34 AM
Ahri has them.Evelynn•8:34 AM
ALL of them?Kai'sa•8:36 AM
The suppressants, yes.Her cycle's coming up.
The preventatives are in the island drawers though, second one to the right.
Why?
Evelynn•8:36 AM
Why do you think?Kai'sa•8:36 AM
Ahri says she's very sorry.And that she didn't realise yours was too.
Also, you didn't tell us.
But hey, at least you're home alone, right?
Evelynn•8:37 AM
Akali's here.Kai'sa•8:40 AM
Oop
Oop? Fucking oop?
She loves her friends too much to murder them... maybe she can just slightly maim them, though. It's not like they all don't have faster healing. A scratch or two (or five, or ten) would last, like, a day.
Kai'sa•8:42 AM
well, between you and me, i think this is a WONDERFUL opportunity for you and akali so CONGRATS BESTIE - ahri
Scratch that. She can at least murder Ahri.
Evelynn sighs and puts her phone down on the table, cursing the vastaya with all the labored breath she manages to pull into her lungs before grabbing the damn box of preventatives and glaring at it glumly.
"The hell am I supposed to do with this?" She grumbles, switching the box from one hand to the other in contemplation—
Until the earthy smell of musk and Alpha and Akali rises sharply in the air like the electric precursor of lightning, strong enough that Evelynn has to grasp at the marble edge of the countertop to keep her footing.
"G'morning," comes the husked greeting of the rogue in question, thick with sleep and maybe a little something else. Evelynn's heartbeat has sunk just below her gut when Akali emerges from the archway leading into the kitchen, dressed in a loose band shirt and basketball shorts, hair hastily wrangled in a messy ponytail and putting her unmarked neck on full display. "What're we having for—"
Akali stumbles to a stop, half-lidded eyes landing on the box in Evelynn's hands.
She watches, half-horrified and half-desperate, as Akali scents the air once, twice...
And then her eyes go dark.
The heat that shoots through Evelynn's body at the sight damn near brings her to her knees.
"Akali..."
"You're in heat?" Akali asks, voice much lower than it already had been, eyes still stuck on the box of preventatives in Evelynn's hands.
A wave of... of something rises in the air, and Evelynn gulps it in like she's starved.
"Yes," she answers honestly, because she can't lie to Akali even if it's with the fear that Akali will make her go away or maybe even leave herself. Just the thought of it — of Akali crossing that threshold, of Akali walking out that door — sends her hindbrain sobbing, and Evelynn begs it to shut up because she's still got enough of her common sense so early in her heat to know that Akali has the right to do whatever she wants.
"Hm."
But Akali doesn't walk away, she just stands there and stares some more, filling the kitchen air with her scent. Evelynn wants to drown in it, wants it on her and in her, wants it everywhere—
"You're in your rut," Evelynn realizes, and as soon as Akali slowly dips her head in acknowledgement, the buzzing, humming thing under her skin almost sets fire to her entire body with the way it intensifies. She gasps in a breath, squeezing her eyes shut, willing herself to stay rooted to the spot even when her toes are already curling against the tiled floor at the mere thought of—"Tell me to leave, Akali. Tell me to leave and I will."
A beat — a single, nerve-racking beat — and then:
"Do you want to?"