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“Are you happy like this?”
It was a question that came from nowhere, from Haitham’s perspective. Of course he was happy—he and Kaveh had been in a relationship for almost five years. In fact, their anniversary was coming up soon, and he'd been agonizing over what to give Kaveh. Their relationship was perfect, in his eyes. Lacking nothing, and wonderfully satisfying.
“Yes.” He answers, hoping his confusion is less evident than it feels. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Kaveh shuffles, averts his eyes, holds his hands tight together, and that’s how Haitham knows he is resisting the urge to lie.
“I just—” He starts and then swallows, uncharacteristically muted. “I was wondering how you felt about it now. Our bond… or, rather, the one we can’t officialize.”
Oh.
It stings a bit to hear the words from Kaveh’s mouth, truthful as they may be. In a modern world, it was entirely socially acceptable for couples of the same secondary gender to exist. Typically beta-beta, if you’re going to play semantics about it, but notably, alpha-alpha and omega-omega couples are becoming more common by the day.
It’s something he’s grateful for, because he and Kaveh belong to the latter category.
He hadn’t thought it was anything of importance to address like this, not when Kaveh had never expressed dissatisfaction and neither had he. But had that been a mistake? He doesn’t want to assume anything—but despite that, his heart aches in anticipation of what is to come.
“I am perfectly comfortable as-is, I thought you knew that. Are you…?”
His question hangs heavy in the air. Kaveh shakes his head with a smile but his nervousness does not dissipate, and Haitham’s anxiety only rises every second that passes without elaboration.
“I just… wonder sometimes. What it’s like to bond, and all that. Do you think it would be nice?”
Haitham hums, thinks about it. It… would be, he supposes. Nice, that is.
He considers it, momentarily. What it would be like to be chemically connected like that, not just bound by words and promises but by a physical declaration of love, irreversible. It’s understandable why romance novels place so much focus on the act of choosing a mate to bond with. Haitham had never been a fan of such things, but he knows Kaveh has, and wonders if Kaveh had placed any hope in the idea of it. That someday, somehow, he too would be bonded to someone strong, caring, a perfect lover.
An alpha, which Haitham is not.
He goes on about his life despite that train of thought, but he can’t help but feel more agitated than usual. When he catches sight of couples on the street, alpha and omega, their bonds made evident by the pleasant mix of their scents, he grows a headache and turns away.
When he speaks to the elders and they ask him about the possibility that he and Kaveh will seek out alphas for their “so we can have some more lovely youths in town,” he scorns rather than simply ignoring it.
When he bumps into an alpha Akademiya student, entirely an accident on her part, he is a fraction of a second away from openly snarling at her before he reigns himself in.
Fuck.
He needs to relax… to do something, anything but continue interacting with these people. Every reminder of his secondary gender is an additional frustration, an additional source of fury and upset and he can’t recall the last time he felt so bothered by something as mundane as going to work and living his life.
He’s not an idiot, he knows why. But… that knowledge doesn’t change a single thing, frustratingly.
The library is less helpful than it ever has been before.
He researches, attempting to stay within some range of subtlety. Picks up a stack of books, titles ranging from Introduction to Biology to Abnormal Conditions in Omegan Health to Case Studies in Secondary Genders and Society. Nothing. Nilch, naught, zero.
Not a single mention of a pair of omegas being able to bond successfully or rear children, or any other thing that one would imagine is exclusive to alpha-omega pairs. It should have been exactly what he expected, and it was, to some degree, but the realization that in all of this literature there was never even a reference to the idea that what he and Kaveh shared could bear fruit to such things still tears at his heart.
He doesn’t know why he is so invested. He is satisfied, he really is. He loves Kaveh, he loves their home, and he loves coming home from work every day to be greeted by Kaveh, just having come back from some meeting or other himself.
There’s nothing he would change, and yet…
He wonders. Of what could be, of what more he could give.
If he could, would Kaveh want it? Want to wear his mark proudly, want to be changed, want something permanent, want his scent and his mind and his body? He already has Haitham’s heart, but it cannot be felt in the way that the books say bonded pairs feel one another, and he aches at the thought of depriving Kaveh of that.
Kaveh seems upset with him. His scent is sour, and he grows hunched whenever Haitham approaches, even just to pick up something left on the table beside him. He frowns when he reaches over and picks up his pen, and Kaveh flinches.
“What’s wrong?”
It should be an innocuous question, but they both struggle to communicate. For a problem to have reached the stage where ‘what’s wrong’ is a necessary question to ask means that there has already been a large failure somewhere along the line.
“Nothing.” Kaveh speaks, voice sharp. “Just… nothing.”
“It doesn’t seem like ‘nothing’ to me.”
“Please leave it be. I don’t want to upset you.”
Haitham frowns.
“Why would I be upset?”
Kaveh shakes his head, turning away.
“I never should have mentioned that to you. You’ve been acting strange ever since that day, and as of late, it’s been horrible. I could deal with your anger, Haitham, but I cannot deal with this.” His voice is raised, the acrid scent in the room only growing less tolerable.
“Please.” Kaveh begs, turning to face him. There are tears at the corners of his eyes, but he looks angry rather than saddened. “I don’t know why you have become like this, but I can accept this reality. It took me years, but I did. If you haven’t for whatever reason, which I suspect, please sort it out or we’ll have to find another way to move forward.”
“What—?” Kaveh turns to leave, rubbing at his eyes, and Haitham grabs his arm. “Wait, Kaveh—I don’t understand. I promise, I love you, and this is not a problem for me—”
“Then act like it!” He shouts, shaking his arm away. “You haven’t touched me in weeks. At first you were irritable, then you kept to yourself for hours, and now, when I talk to you, it’s like you’re somewhere else. I’ve tried to help you. I have. But I don’t think I can fix this.”
“It was never your responsibility to fix me, Kaveh.” A headache is coming on, and it hurts. “You’re my partner, not my aid. I’m sorry if I have made you feel unappreciated, or lacking, or anything else these past few weeks. I’m sorry, and I mean that genuinely. But this has been hard for me too.” He meets Kaveh’s eyes, which are still shining with unshed tears. “When you said that to me, it was like breaking a dam. I’d been ignoring these feelings of mine for a long time, and it has been difficult to get through this.”
Kaveh says nothing, and so he continues.
“Please.” Haitham begs, for the first time in a long while. “Don’t be rash. This is a temporary problem. You are the most important person in my life, and I have not said that enough. It is my mistake, but I ask that you forgive me for it.”
“Fine.” Kaveh settles on, after a few tense moments. “I have a trip to the desert for a short while, before my next heat. Let me know when you’ve sorted this out.”
…
Although their argument is over and done in his favor, Haitham can’t help but feel defeated. He sits on his bed, alone, and thinks for a time. About Kaveh, about their relationship, about what he wants and what he has and what he is missing.
Dear Kaveh,
I am sorry if you find my telling you this through a letter to be unsuitable, to start. I have always had difficulty expressing strong emotion when I speak, even with you, and so I hope you can understand why I have chosen to write to you about this rather than speak it in person. I fear that the words I need to say might not be able to lift from my tongue if I try.
That said, I want you to know that there is nothing in you that I find lacking. I love you to the bone, from your soul to your body to every breath that leaves your lungs. I could not have enough of you in a million lifetimes, and that depends little on your status as an omega.
Rather, it is with myself that I find fault.
You are everything that a person should be. You are beautiful, kind, and empathetic. Intelligent and willing to fight with me when I am wrong, even though I will never admit it. You hold your ideals close to your heart and you are unapologetically selfless. I find your ability to care about so many things in this world outstanding, and it is not something that I can match.
Why should I deserve you?
You, who is all these things, and I, who cannot satisfy your own biology. I know what you have told me. That it does not matter, that you love me regardless, that the unconventional nature of our relationship makes it all the better… but despite your reassurances, I have not felt satisfied with what I can give to you. And that may change in the future, perhaps, but for now it is something that I must live with, and it is not your fault. Acceptance of myself should not interfere with what I can provide for you, Kaveh.
If you are unhappy with the conclusion that I have come to, then that is okay. I want what is best for you, and if that is not me, then so be it. I will live on. But I would prefer to spend the rest of my life in your presence, even if that means the nature of my own being will stay as an empty pit in my chest.
With love,
Alhaitham.
“You idiot.”
He’s surprised by the sudden interruption, having been in the middle of reading a book. Kaveh stands in the doorway of their bedroom, tears in his eyes as he holds a sheet of paper in his hand, holding it carefully so as to avoid crumpling it.
“You are not less than me in this relationship. Why would you not tell me you felt this way sooner?”
“You’re back early. And… I don’t see it as your responsibility to deal with that.”
“Of course this is my responsibility… It concerns me. I want to know how I make you feel.”
Haitham frowns, shutting his book and setting it on the bedside table.
“You make me feel good, Kaveh. I enjoy being around you.”
“This letter implies otherwise.”
“I didn’t mean to imply that it’s your fault.” He shakes his head, standing to approach Kaveh. “My emotions are not something that you can control.”
“But your place in this relationship is making you insecure.”
“I wouldn’t use that word.”
“Does it matter? You feel guilt, like you’re holding me down.” Kaveh swallows, meeting his eyes. “You shouldn’t. You are my equal.”
“I don’t see it that way.”
“We should change that, then.”
Kaveh pushes him back, back until his legs brush against the edge of the bed and he’s forced to sit down on it, holding Kaveh by the waist to drag him down with him. Kaveh straddles his legs as he crawls on to the edge, cupping his jaw with one hand and squeezing at his shoulder with the other.
“I’m a mess, Haitham. You are not any lesser than me. You support me just as much as I support you, and I don’t know where I would be today without you in my life.” He leans forward, presses a kiss against Haitham’s forehead, then his nose, then the bottom of his lip and the tip of his chin. Kaveh’s lips seek out the line of his jaw, next, and he tilts his head back to allow it with a hitch of his breath. “Don’t think that there is a single thing I would change about you.”
“I thought you liked change?”
Kaveh laughs against his neck, trailing kisses along it. His body grows heated.
“Not with you. I like my baby just as he is.”
A bit of slick leaks at the nip of Kaveh’s teeth against his throat, and he flushes when Kaveh pauses and pulls back, definitely having smelled his arousal.
“Do you want this right now?” He asks, sincere in every syllable of the words.
“Yes.” Haitham answers. “I don’t know that I’ve ever not wanted anything, so long as it’s with you.”
“Well, you’re having a bad day.” Kaveh responds, going back to his licking and bites. “I’d rather double check than upset you.”
“It’d be easier for you to get rid of me entirely.”
Kaveh hums against his collarbone, pushing him down onto the bed.
“I wouldn’t want to. Like this?” He sits back against Haitham’s growing erection, rubbing on it with his ass as he watches for changes in Haitham’s expression, which he is determined not to show.
Not yet, at least.
“Please.”
Kaveh smiles, lifting off for just a bit to remove his clothing, and doing the same with Haitham’s own garments, albeit messier. He leaves his shirt partially on, grumbling something about how it is ‘too tight to be efficiently removed.’ Once satisfied with their level of undress, he gets back on top of Haitham’s hips, an eager smile laid across his face, cheeks flushed with just the slightest coral.
“Alright. Whatever my baby wants from me, I will give.”
He’s not sure where this sort of play started, but he would hardly object to it. Kaveh enjoyed pampering him like this, calling him all sorts of pet names and praising him until his face turns red as a henna berry, and he enjoyed the pampering well enough, too. It feels nice to give up some of his control to Kaveh. To lay back and let his senior do as he please, touch and tease him however much he wants to.
He feels unusually hot, but it’s not anything that he feels he should mind. At worst, an early preheat that he’d have to send Kaveh out to the Akademiya to give notice of. In which case, he’d get to spend the next week cooped up in his home with Kaveh, hoarding his attention and likely triggering his lover’s heat as well, given the proximity of their cycles.
He shifts his hips eagerly and, noticing the excitement, Kaveh grinds back down against his growing erection, which draws quiet groans out from his lips as his hands wander up to Kaveh’s waist, feeling at the supple skin of his torso.
“You want to touch me here?” Kaveh asks, and Haitham can smell his scent growing stronger, more and more aroused as Haitham’s hands wander over his body. He grabs one by the wrist and brings it up to his chest, leaving it there. “Go ahead, then. It’s your night.”
Slick drips down from Kaveh’s hole, smearing onto the skin just above his straining cock. With a free hand, Kaveh reaches back and strokes it as Haitham runs his hands over his chest, brushing his nipples and squeezing at his waist. Kaveh moans softly as he guides Haitham’s cock to line up with his hole, pressing it up between the cheeks for a moment before he pushes it back down, tip brushing up against his wet hole.
“Are you ready?” He asks, a certain hunger clouding those bright-red eyes.
“Yes.” He answers, and Kaveh sinks down onto him, inch by inch. He moans, hands forgetting their place on Kaveh’s chest as his head falls back, focused entirely on the sensation of being inside of Kaveh. He is hot, wet, and so, so tight despite how aroused Haitham can tell he is, and the grip of those slick walls against his cock is exhilarating.
Maybe it’s been too long.
He’s not certain he has ever felt so sensitive like this before. He’s so hot, so hot and all he wants to do is be here. He needs to cum.
“Please.” He begs, unashamed of it. Appreciative of his noisiness, Kaveh smirks, fucking himself harder on Haitham’s cock with a happy grin. Haitham lays back and takes it, whining whenever Kaveh goes at a certain pace which makes his mind fall empty, the only things he can deeply process being the sounds and scents of Kaveh’s pleasure, and the sight of his body moving above him, the feeling of himself being buried inside of Kaveh, slick leaking out from his own hole from the sheer excitement.
It’s at that point that his hips jerk upwards, unexpectedly.
“Haitham?” Kaveh asks, seemingly bewildered by his sudden change of pace. He sniffs the air, balks, and then, after a moment, his face settles into something else, so gentle Haitham feels reluctant to continue the motion of his hips, so rough.
“Oh,” He starts, running a hand through Haitham’s hair. “I think I know what’s happening. We can’t stop it now, so let me take care of you, okay?”
It’s all too much, so much noise in his brain.
Within it all, there is an urge, something new and unexplored bubbling up in the pits of his mind and rising to the surface. Saliva drips from his lips, hot. He pants, blurry eyes looking up at Kaveh and searching—for what? searching for what?—and land on his neck, exposed in nudity.
Oh, his neck.
It’s strange—unreasonable, even—but he cannot resist the urge to bite.
Kaveh does not stop him.
As soon as his teeth pierce the flesh, surrounding what he now recognizes as Kaveh’s scent gland, something snaps into place in his mind. It’s as if cold water and caffeine flood his senses at the same time, becoming incredibly aware of everything around him at the same time that his energy skyrockets, without a place to direct it.
His hips are the obvious choice.
He slams against Kaveh, rocking his hips so hard that his lover—his omega, his omega, has to perch his hands on his shoulders to stay steady, a shaky moan leaving his lips. Blood trails down his neck from the fresh bite wound, but Kaveh doesn’t seem to mind. After stabilizing himself, he wraps one hand around Haitham’s head and holds him there, whispering praises he cannot hear into the bedroom.
Haitham flips them over, powered by adrenaline, and plows back into Kaveh, shoving himself forward until there is nowhere else for his cock to reach. Kaveh moans, eyes gone glassy, but still pets his hair.
“Good, good, so good…” He repeats, soothing. “You can do it, baby, keep going.”
Haitham doesn’t need a command to know that he wants that, but he cedes to Kaveh’s control. The heat diminishes slightly as he does, letting Kaveh instruct him about what to do next. He fucks the way Kaveh wants, interrupted by jitters that have Kaveh mewling, a sound that is matched by his own voice as he grows closer and closer to the edge.
“Oh, are you almost there, Haitham?” He coos, running a hand through gray hair that has grown moist with sweat. “You need it, I know you do, and I want it too, so do it, won’t you?”
He smiles up at Haitham, gaze filled with lust and love and something else that Haitham vaguely recognizes as awe.
“Come on.” He continues, hand shaking as it brushes through Haitham’s hair. “So good, come on, breed me.”
He does.
His hips slam forward one final time, burying himself as deep into Kaveh’s hole as he can manage, and fills him with his spend. It’s an inordinate amount, and in the back of his mind, impossible as he knows it is, he wants it. Wants to breed Kaveh, to do a good job, to give him what he wants so badly. His cock aches inside, despite having just come. It’s a strange feeling.
He rests against Kaveh’s chest, breathing deeply as he’s still buried inside of him, arms laid on either side of his lover’s waist. Kaveh smells so good like this. Happy, much more pleasant than the sour scents he’d been emitting for the past few weeks.
With the reminder of it all, he sobers up a bit and looks up at Kaveh, meeting his eyes.
“Are you alright, Haitham?” He asks, wiping some sweat from his forehead.
“Why… why wouldn’t I be?” He questions in response, but the words come out slurred.
“You’re changing.” Kaveh tells him, and he frowns. “I don’t know how, but you are. I can smell it.”
“Smell what?”
He feels stupid, small. Why doesn’t he know what Kaveh is talking about?
“You smell like an alpha.”
His thoughts grind to a halt, and he freezes. The strange heat, his sensitivity, the scents and his desire to bite… his bite…
His eyes dart to Kaveh’s neck, red from the bite, and his heartbeat quickens.
“Hey.” Kaveh holds him by the chin, turning his vision away from the bite. “Talk to me. What are you feeling right now?”
“I don’t know how this happened. I’m sorry—you said earlier you don’t want me to change, but—”
“No.” Kaveh quiets him, shaking his head with furrowed brows and a strained smile. “I don’t know why this is happening either, but don’t go blaming yourself again. I said I love you as is, and I don’t need you to change. That opinion of mine is solid as rock. I don’t care what you are. Alpha, omega, beta, or none of those things. You are you. And if you are changing now, for whatever reason, then it must be for the best.”
He pulls Haitham up to kiss the top of his head, holding him tight against his chest.
“You are going into rut right now, I think. I don’t want you to be more stressed than you already are. Let me take care of you, okay? We can talk about this later.”
Haitham doesn’t want to talk about this later. He wants to confront this now, to sort out the facts, to investigate why it has happened and what changes his body will endure next.
But he listens to Kaveh, lets go, and strangely, his worries vanish. He is comfortable in Kaveh’s arms, nosing against his scent glands, feeling the soft curves of his body, holding him tight. Being thoughtless, relaxing in Kaveh’s care for him… It works.
As heat crawls up his spine again, he meets Kaveh’s eyes, and the look in them is all he needs to decide to let go.
As the cycle takes his mind again, he trusts.