Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There wasn’t much you could do to get out of the mandatory alpha ed classes that met twice weekly during sophomore year, but Richard Hendricks had devised several fail-safe plans. The first of which was beg not to go and swear to he’d read the pamphlets and watch the informative videos on his own. The second was feign illness, and the third, which actually worked, was test into the honors program and play the college application card, which was exactly what Richard did.

He may have been a terrible alpha, but he was also—a motherfucking genius.

—

To say that everyone was shocked when he presented would be, like, the understatement of the century. It’s possible that he was more surprised than any of them.

Richard’s parents were both betas—nice, normal folks. His nana, on his mom’s side, the extra recessive side, had been an omega, but she’d married a beta. Then she proceeded to spend the remainder of her life on the old fashioned suppressants that pretty much everyone knew caused cancer now. She died before Richard was even born.

There were no alpha role models in his life. No kindly baseball coach or uncle to show him the ropes. He’d always, always assumed he was a beta. Maybe it was his smaller then average frame and his entirely normal looking penis (for a sixteen year old), or his cringeworthy inability to be even moderately aggressive. His parents were betas, he was either a beta, or less ideally, an omega—surely not some kind of virile, manly, thick-necked alpha idiot. For a year he even waited with growing anxiety for the telltale wetness from his backside.

It never came.

He was a kid; how was he supposed to know that his literal anatomy only allowed for the other two options?

Which was to say, on a very ordinary Thursday, not long after his 16th birthday, Richard was assaulted by the scent of freshly cut grass, grapefruit, and what seemed to be a hint of sage if he strained for it. God, did he want to strain for it. And just like that he was desperately driven to touch himself, sweaty and oblivious of his own fevered pace, flat on his back on the downstairs powder room floor, mom’s decorative hand towels staring him the face as he brought himself off one time, then another, nearly hyperventilating from the rush of it.

His toes curled so hard with each successive orgasm that they cramped up. It was in that undignified position, his nostrils still full of the most glorious smell he’d ever been subjected to, that Richard popped his first knot, brought to a halt to find his hand clenching around it, and shocked by the miraculous, brain-melting pleasure he felt. Unlike anything he had ever known, unlike anything he had ever dreamed of knowing.

He came for a third time, his chest heaving with great locomotive breaths. He was—drenched in his own release, absolutely striped with it. It was an unconscionable amount of semen and it made him giggle before he stood on wobbly, scabbed-up legs and teetered over to the sink like he was wearing a pair of high heels or something. His pants and boxers were around his ankles. His penis felt like a foreign object, impossibly unfamiliar and so far from the dick he’d known that morning. Richard washed his hands. He wiped down his thighs and groin with a soft, small hand towel covered in festive poinsettias (which he subsequently tossed in the trash). Then he redressed, a spotlight of bright, hot shame shining down on him.

By the time he made it out of the bathroom—out of the sullied sex pit he’d made it into with his—good fucking christ—alpha seed, the scent that had started it all was gone.

“You missed Jacob from nextdoor,” his mom said over dinner.

Jacob was several years older than Richard, already off at college. One time he’d locked Richard in the shed at his house just because he was bigger, and could, and knew that Richard would inevitably cry. His mother thought they’d been amiable playmates, but Jacob was a monumental douchebag. A veritable bag of dicks if Richard had ever met one.

“Oh?” he said. He pushed the pile of peas on his plate around. Jeopardy played in the background.

“Poor dear,” his mom said, a little bit wistful. “Home for Christmas break and going into his first real heat. His mother sent him by with cookies—” she leaned in “—before it gets real bad.”

Richard nearly dropped his fork. He did lose control of his face entirely, and knew his nostrils had flared to release a very irate exhale. All he could think was that awful, cruel Jacob was not only an omega, but the omega who had thrust him violently into his first rut.

Typical.

He shoved away from the table with both hands.

“Mind the floor,” said his dad without looking away from the TV.

“Your dinner,” said his mom.

“I’m not hungry,” Richard said, and fled.

—

That was the last time he so much as saw his knot in high school. It was like he’d scared it away, and omegas didn’t typically have their first heats until they were older these days. He felt normal, like an average beta, even if he sometimes felt a tug in his stomach to do something when an attractive omega was in his vicinity. He ignored that impulse with the same intensity he brought to his coding hobby. But the truth will out, and his did—which meant alpha classes, and his mom buying no less than six books on raising your alpha child, and his dad pulling him aside to discuss what little he knew of Claiming.

“We go over all this in those stupid classes,” Richard said. “It’s all garbage.”

“I’m sure there’s some useful take away.” His father’s tone was chiding but his eyes had a teasing look, like he was trying to make some kind of innuendo.

Richard snorted. “Yeah, not really.”

He was sure, even then, that no sane omega would want to be with him, let alone claimed by him. He would never need to have any idea what he was doing, and frankly he didn’t care to. Stupid shitty classes and stupid shitty rules were the bane of his sophomore year, and while they may have lived in liberal Tulsa, Richard knew there were still places where claimed omegas let their alphas—were expected to let their alphas—decide and do everything for them. He’d even seen hand-feeding a few times, usually out-of-towners or the few very traditional families in the area. Once or twice he’d even seen an omega sitting at her alpha’s feet, cushion under her admittedly cute butt.

It made Richard shudder. He could maybe, maaaaaybe imagine doing that kind of thing at home, in private, on special occasions, not that it mattered, because he had no intention of claiming anyone anyway. He had his ingenious liquid-cooled PCU to work on, he had instant messenger, and the guys on Something Awful. He had Zelda and The Wheel of Time, and Buffy (what an alpha, god).

The point was, after that day, with Jacob’s scent gone straight to his brain like a drug, Richard didn’t see his knot for a very, very long time. As far as he was concerned, it didn’t exist anymore.

Boy, was he wrong.

Chapter Text

“We like to keep a chill atmosphere here at the house, if you catch my...drift.”

“Yes?” Richard clutched his messenger bag a little bit closer to his chest as Erlich Bachman showed him around the ranch home he’d referred to as “the hacker hostel” in his CraigsList ad. The posting had said something about 420 so Richard wasn’t like, shocked or anything.

“It’s not that this isn’t an alpha friendly zone, but as master of the chateau it’s my call, and studies show it’s better to keep aggression low in the workplace. For productivity reasons.”

Richard blinked at Erlich a few times. “Oh, well, uh—”

“So you’ll do just fine here, is what I’m saying.” Erlich winked. “Just—try to keep the alpha suitors at a minimum, and don’t be a slut.”

Richard was about to protest when Erlich added, “even betas can be sluts, Richie. I’ve seen it all.”

“Right. Ha-ha,” was his tepid reply.

He chose to keep his mouth shut and he chose not to be insulted. In some ways it was exactly what he wanted. He’d been passing almost entirely as a beta since he started college. When Bighead moved to Palo Alto Richard made him swear up and down not to tell anyone what he was. Bighead swore. (“Should we spit on it?” “No, no man. Gross.”). It made Richard nervous that someone he was close to knew about him, but Bighead was too oblivious to give him up to Erlich and the guys. Which meant as far as Richard knew, the only people aware of his alpha status was Hooli HR, and that stuff was all classified.

In some fields, being an alpha was an asset. He could have been a surgeon, or a stockbroker. He could have gone into sales. Any number of traditional hyper-aggressive professions would have seen his tertiary sexuality and its characteristics as desirable.

Trouble was, he didn’t really have any of those characteristics. He was mostly, well, impotent as an alpha. Not as a regular guy, because he could do regular sex stuff just fine, but—some people weren’t looking for passable-maybe-mediocre sex. The one time an omega picked him up in college she’d mostly gotten mad at him when he wasn’t, uh, enthusiastic enough for her. He hadn’t gotten her pants off; that’s how that wild night ended.

And if college had been awkward at times, Hooli was downright weird. Most coders were either omegas or betas, and the alphas tended towards development or customer facing work.

Obviously Gavin Belson was an alpha; he wore it like a T-shirt, except Gavin would never wear a T-shirt. He was, in Richard’s opinion, the worst kind of alpha, the kind of alpha who went around with a smooth smile promising not to bite, and feigning offense when someone suggested he might. Richard supposed, in a terrible sort of way, that he wasn’t much better. But—the difference between him and Gavin fucking Belson, aside from the billions of dollars, the Fortune 500 company, and the monumental success, was that Richard really wouldn’t bite.

He didn’t even know how; he’d skipped those classes.

—

Becoming Pied Piper’s CEO didn’t change much.

Richard had the dubious pleasure of going toe-to-toe with Gavin Belson, which only served as a reminder that he wasn’t exactly the typical alpha start-up guy. He didn’t like to think that he chose Raviga because Peter Gregory was so obviously an omega that Richard trusted him immediately in a moderately disconcerting way, or that he chose Raviga because Monica was clearly a better alpha than him and could probably kick his ass (weirdly appealing).

He would like to think he chose Raviga because it was the brave, bold thing to do. And Jared kept telling him it was, so it became easier for him to believe.

It felt good to be working on his own thing even if he was terrified, constantly, in a gut-churning way that refused to abate no matter what he tried. He felt lucky to have the team he did, and to be in the process of making something bigger than himself, something meaningful. There was a marrow-deep protectiveness in him when it came to Pied Piper, and he suspected that alphas way back when had felt that way about their packs. Maybe some alphas still felt that way about the things they loved.

The only person whose love for Pied Piper came even close to his was Jared’s.

Jared was—odd.

Richard remembered seeing him, maybe a few times when he was still at Hooli. He was always a few steps behind Gavin Belson in a way that made him look frankly claimed. Like, Richard knew he wasn’t? And also that Jared most likely wasn’t an omega? But every once in awhile he would see Gavin look at him and basically morph into Tex Avery Wolf. It bothered Richard more than it should have; he didn’t know Jared at all. Then Jared showed up on his doorstep.

They worked well together. When the other guys were grab-assing and fucking around Jared was a calming, sometimes annoying, beacon of maturity. He was terrifically patient. He let Richard rant, and rave, and pace, and eat cilantro right up until the point where he didn’t. Jared was warm towards him, and kind in a way he didn’t deserve.

Richard paid him back by occasionally jerking off and thinking about Jared’s big hands and soft smile. In other words, he really didn’t deserve half the attention Jared paid him, and he wasn’t actually interested in dating a beta (in his fantasies, disgusting as they were, Jared would be waiting for him, ass in the air, slick all the way down his thighs). He wasn’t interested in dating anyone other than his laptop and his right hand, and fantasies were meaningless anyway.

—

It was possible Richard took Jared for granted sometimes.

Because it took him a full forty-eight hours to realize that Jared wasn’t at work, or at the house, or anywhere within shouting distance. It took a solid two days of actually saying Jared’s name out loud, getting nothing in return, and going on with his life, before Dinesh said, “dude, he’s not here.”

“What? Where is he?” Richard frowned over the top of computer screen.

“He’s home,” said Gilfoyle. “Like he said he was going to be.”

“He said—”

Dinesh pointed at the very large, very color-coded calendar hanging on the wall in the workroom. “He put it on the calendar last month. Do you, like, never look at it?”

Richard had never noticed the calendar before. He frowned harder. “So he’s not sick?”

Gilfoyle turned around to look at him. “That’s a pretty outdated way of thinking about it, but sure. You could say that Jared is sick.” He used air quotes around “sick” and Richard felt like a) he was being mocked, and b) like he was missing something entirely. So it was a normal… Tuesday? Was it Tuesday?

“If he’s sick I should bring him soup or something,” he said. “That would be nice.” He wasn’t particularly good at “nice” but he knew, in an unexpectedly instinctual way, that bringing Jared something was the The Right Thing to Do.

“He probably has whatever he needs,” Dinesh said, dismissive. “Jared is the most prepared person on the planet. Unless, you know. You’re going for different reasons.”

“What? What different—Actually, nevermind. I'm gonna bring Jared soup. Because I’m a nice guy. And a—a good boss.” He grabbed his cellphone and opened the Postmates app. Picked the highest rated chicken soup option and checked out with a very satisfied feeling. “There. Soup ordered. Soup en route.” He crossed his arms over his chest and gave Dinesh a look.

Dinesh raised both his eyebrows. “Okay, see you in a few days.”

What? “What?”

Gilfoyle turned around again. “He means—”

But Richard was already standing, shaking his head. He snapped his laptop shut and snatched it up. “You know what, I don’t care. Bye.”

As he was walking away he could have sworn he heard Gilfoyle say something like, “should we tell him?” But that also seemed like pretty standard behavior. Sometimes it felt like Dinesh and Gilfoyle spoke their very own language, largely composed of insults and vague sexual innuendo. It was easier for betas to make jokes like that, they were lucky—Dinesh, Gilfoyle, Jared—there was nothing that set them apart from each other. Nothing biological at least.

Richard sniffed at himself as he headed back to his bedroom. Changing his clothes seemed like the prudent thing to do, and showering. It would be a half-hour until the soup arrived, which gave him just enough time.

Then he’d call a Lyft. And do a nice thing.

—

Jared’s condo was in Santa Clara, no more than a half-hour away from the Hostel. Richard sat in the backseat of his Lyft, soup on his lap, and tried to decide what he’d say to Jared when he got there. Probably something along the lines of, I was worried, here’s some soup.

Short and to the point, which appealed to him.

It wasn’t until they were actually pulling up to the curb that Richard realized calling first might have been a good idea. But then he opened the car door and his brain shorted out completely. The intensity of heat-scent in the air was immobilizing. It was—jesus—nearly suffocating, but still so appealing it made Richard’s knees weak. This incredible wildflowers-just-before-the-first-snowfall smell that felt utterly impossible in its specificity. Fuck—it made him feel stupid, light-headed, horny.

“You gotta close the door, man. If you wanna end the ride,” said his Lyft driver.

Which was how Richard noticed he was standing, stock-still, one foot halfway inside the Prius and the other on the sidewalk. His head was tilted back, chin jutting out. His goddamn eyes were closed, and they snapped open when the driver spoke. He’d been scenting the fucking air.

“Oh, uh. Sorry,” he said, before hastily stepping away and slamming the car door shut with more force than was necessary. He winced.

The passenger side window rolled down and Richard prepared to be admonished for his carelessness. Instead the driver leered at him.

“I’ve got my own at home, but—” he gave Richard a grossly knowing look. “Someone around here sure wants it bad.”

Richard’s eyes widened. “Huh?” Oh. The guy could smell it too. Because he was an alpha. They were both alphas. “Haha?” Richard said, feeling awkwardly like he’d been called out.

The driver smirked before pulling away from the curb, and that made Richard feel even more disgusting somehow, especially as the smell seemed deepen into a richer aroma, drawing him in. Closer. Closer to a warm, dark, needy place that had no point of origin as far as he could tell from the sidewalk. He glanced around, a little bit hopefully, and it was like some form of camouflage he hadn’t known existed had vanished, and there were alphas... all around him. Maybe five or six different people. A teenager who looked like he’d stumbled into sunlight for the first time, a fucking mom jogging with her baby in a stroller, hair up in a high ponytail, and paused on the sidewalk with her face in the air, sniffing real casual. Three code monkeys, who didn’t even look like alphas, had come out onto the porch across the street and wore identical dreamy, feral looks.

Richard bristled, an unfamiliar surge of territorialism going through him. What a bunch of heathens, he thought, chubbing up unmistakably in his cords.

One omega gone into a particularly strong heat and apparently he lost his mind just like the rest of the—the rabble. Fucking ridiculous. He was going to need to wash this off, too, because the smell had only strengthened as he headed up the path to Jared’s condo. He clutched the bag of chicken soup in his hand, and followed another tenant into the building, prepared to surprise Jared like a nice friend, with a nice gesture. The kind of thing he thought Jared would like.

But the air felt thick inside, humid with pheromones. He’d never had to use blockers; he just wasn’t that kind of alpha. The only thing he ever felt biologically driven to do was sleep, and after his very first suboptimal rut he hadn't experienced anything else like it again—no uncontrollable urges, no lusty desires in need of sating. Most omegas were a blip on his radar, a hint of aroma if any. Fine, maybe more than a blip if he happened to be in the vicinity of an omega in the full grip of heat, but that was so rare these days. Nearly every omega old enough to present took some kind of suppressant, either the daily ones or one of the five year implants that had gotten so popular lately.

This scent, this scent that seemed to permeate every bit of him, was—an anomaly.

Richard could fucking drown in it. He wanted to—he wanted to pull his dick out right then and there like olden times or some shit. He wanted to find the omega tormenting him with her scent and fuck her until she couldn’t fucking walk, mark her, keep her—

Shit.

He was better than this. Being a bad alpha made him a better person, he was sure of it. But—was that evergreen now? Crisp, cool water? Dripping honey? He was, he realized, breathing too quickly. Rapidly becoming overwhelmed by his own urges. It felt—he nearly snickered—like he was hulking out, becoming something truly Other. Fucking hell, there was literally no way he could show up at Jared’s door with a raging hardon, panting like a dog, and on the verge of humping a wall as though that might help. He wasn’t sure Jared even knew he was an alpha. He didn’t broadcast it. He didn’t want anyone to know. All the guys were nice betas and he—

Richard took a deep, sustaining breath and blew out through his mouth. The scent filled his nostrils; he wanted to swoon. Jared lived in a good building, the kind of building that had a maintenance staff to fix things when they broke. The kind of building that probably had a supply closet on each floor. And he. He needed a closet. There had to be a closet he could slip into to take the edge off, then he would: drop off the soup, ask Jared how the fuck he was feeling, and get the fuck out as fast as possible and away from this smell that threatened to wreck him.

He started trying doors, all the ones that weren't marked obviously as apartments. At the end of the hall, on the verge of actually giving up and bringing himself off in public, one door opened and Richard stumbled blindly, desperately into the dark. He nearly fell into a wash bucket. His foot caught on a mop head’s tangled ropes and he careened into the far wall with truly unexpected momentum. He was swearing loudly, and at length, and the trauma of practically biting it face-first into a bunch of cleaning supplies did absolutely nothing to quell his boner.

This was hell. He was positive. Being an alpha was hell and he was suffering for it.

How, how, he wondered, undoing his pants in dire need, had humankind managed to get anything done at all if people had been dealing with this since the dawn of civilization? How had he been spared for so long?

 He took himself blessedly in hand, and his dick pulsed in his fist like some kind of sentient thing. He was dripping at the tip, his boxers had an embarrassing damp spot that brushed against the back of his hand as he slid his thumb and forefinger over his wet, sensitive slit and began to jerk himself off with furious intent. He wasn’t sure where he’d put the chicken soup. Where was it—where.... Fuck, the chicken soup; he’d buy more chicken soup. He’d buy all the chicken soup. He’d shower Jared in chicken soup because that was the kind of—chivalrous, good fucking alpha he was, and if Jared was sick with the flu or whatever then he would be right by his bedside with soup. Fucking—christ. He’d buy every single pint of chicken soup in the Valley, and—

There. There it was, that wonderful, familiar tipping point. He came with absurd force. He’d managed to prop himself up against the wall, and his head thunked back as he finished, knot partially present and thrumming with blood under his palm. He felt wrung out, still sporting a semi, and his mouth was hanging open on a silent, overwhelmed scream.

Richard stood in the dark for a few long minutes, breathing heavily, before he wiped his hand off on a very helpful roll of paper towels. If anything, the scent was even stronger now, but he felt renewed resolve. He had given in once to its siren call but that was enough. He tucked his dick back into his boxers, shivered when his fingers brushed over the stupid, hopeful swollen place where his knot would be, and zipped up his pants.

He would be in and out. That was all. He would check on Jared, apologize about the soup or maybe not mention it at all (he’d definitely dropped it), and leave.

Chapter Text

Richard’s first thought was that Gilfoyle was wrong, so very wrong. Because Jared was definitely sick. Very, very sick. His second thought was, jesus christ, I’m gonna pass out. Because he was a hit with a veritable wall of scent when Jared opened his door.

The air felt just as it had before his very first rut; and even though he’d taken care of himself mere minutes before, Richard’s body made a valiant and immediate attempt at arousal.

“Richard!” said Jared, obviously surprised.

“Guuuuuh,” said Richard. Then he shook himself. “Jared, hi. I brought you soup—”

The scent preened, which didn’t make sense, but it really did seem like it was ruffling its feathers somehow, fanning out and showing off. And changing, shifting into the pleased, warm aromas of clove and citrus, maybe spruce. Richard inhaled sharply, and tried not to make any incriminating noises. The smell teased at him; he was becoming rapidly, unstoppably erect.

“That’s very kind of you,” Jared said.

“I dropped it.”

“Oh.”

Richard grimaced. “Sorry.”

He rubbed the back of his neck with his fully clean hand and tried to think of the next thing he wanted to say. His brain refused to cooperate. He wasn’t running at full capacity; his system was bogged down, boner-induced latency issues. The lights in the hallway felt too bright and too hot. And Jared was staring at him like he could see directly through him to his tightly-coiled, overheating core.

“It’s the thought that counts,” Jared said. He didn’t invite Richard in.

He looked, Richard couldn’t help but notice, rumpled in a very un-Jared way. His hair was mussed, and one thick curl had found its way into the center of his forehead. He was wearing a worn t-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms, and Richard’s swollen dick was quick to point out that not only did Jared look absolutely fucking delectable like, what the hell, but also everything he had on could be very easily removed. His nipples were peaked just so beneath his t-shirt, and holy shit, Richard had never considered the possibility that a Model UN Summer Session 2002 shirt could be the sexiest article of clothing he’d ever seen in his entire goddamn life, or that Jared, Jared of all people, could drive him to the point of such physical distraction that he was potentially about to start drooling, and—

“Richard, are you okay?”

“Oh my god, it’s you,” he burst out, eyes widening to the point of straining himself. “It’s fucking you. You...minx!”

Jared touched his breastbone. “Me?”

“Yes!” Richard knew he was pointing, and he knew it was rude—especially rude considering—and he just couldn’t stop himself. He was tumbling through a series of very not-safe-for-work Jared related fantasies, the ones where Jared was also an omega. He jabbed at the air. “You with the scent, and the-the pheromones. And the—.”

“Why don’t you come in,” Jared said, face all scrunched up, at the exact same time that Richard sputtered, “I should go.”

They both said, “okay” at once, and then Jared was moving out of the way with a vaguely nauseous expression and Richard walked inside feeling, truly, like he was making the best and worst decision of his entire life, which was saying a lot. He could feel Jared behind him, closing the door, locking up. It was like—and this was breathtakingly new—like he could already taste him, and before he could make a conscious choice to do something unimaginably foolish, Richard turned around and pressed Jared bodily up against his apartment door. Someone was making a low, rumbling sound as he pushed an urgent knee between Jared’s two and shoved his face into the crook of Jared’s pale, incredible smelling neck.

When he took a deep, hectic breath the rumble stopped; because he was the one making it.

Jared might have been saying his name, he might have even been asking him to stop, but mostly he was clutching at Richard’s shoulders, and tilting his head to the side. He was asking for it, Richard thought, asking for it like—like an omega in heat, because he was one, and Richard, Richard could have him. He licked at Jared’s neck and whatever Jared was saying dissolved into a whine. Richard wanted to dig his teeth in, and for one weak moment, he let his canines graze Jared’s soft skin, dragged his teeth down Jared’s neck to his collarbone, and sucked.

The whine ended on a cracked little sob. He wanted to hear Jared make that sound again.

Fucking hell.

Richard jolted backward, shocked at himself. His face was burning. He dug the heels of his hands into his eye sockets in a feeble attempt to force himself into submission, but Jared’s scent was on him now, pressed into his cheeks, his mouth, his nostrils. His lungs felt full, he thought he might be sick.

“Would you like a glass of water?” Jared’s voice was feathery.

“I—what? Jared—I just fucking.” Richard exhaled hard, a great blustery sound. Jared was still frozen against the door, his hands held at chest level, fingers tipped nervously together like little claws. “I just tried to, like, eat you.”

He could see the way Jared’s throat bobbed at that, as though the notion of Richard eating him had tremendous appeal, and Richard had to resist the urge to lick his lips and drive home the possibility that Jared could, in fact, be on the menu. Which would be new to him, and yet, he thought he could find it in himself to be adventurous today. He thought about saying, “would you like that?” And getting in close again, and biting down for real this time, and his dick jerked against his thigh. He wondered belatedly, helplessly, if Jared was wet for him.

“Why don’t we both have a glass of water?” Jared tried again, his mouth contorting into a feeble smile. He sounded mostly recovered, but smelled stronger.

“Fine,” Richard snapped. God, what was wrong with him?

He followed Jared dutifully into the kitchen, trailing behind him like he had to keep a safe distance, hands shoved into his pockets. The kitchen was well-lit, and very clean, and a row of stools stood at the ready along a small kitchen island. When Jared gestured for him to sit he did. There was a decorative bowl of lemons beside the sink, and a bottle of very nice olive oil next to the shiny stovetop.

Unsurprisingly, Jared kept a impeccably tidy home. His tranquil pale grey walls, and tasteful furniture made the hostel look like a squat pad, and that irritated Richard. He lived like he was still a college kid and Jared had a lovely home to go back to each day. If he’d taken that ten billion from Gavin Belson then he’d have a nice house of his own, the kind of place where he could settle down, find a nice omega to provide for, have a couple of kids, teach them to code…

Jared put big glass of ice water down in front of him and Richard snapped out of it. He was losing his mind. Jared’s heat was clearly making him lose his mind. And if he’d taken that money then he wouldn’t be here (going crazy) with Jared at all. He took a sip of water while Jared watched him from the other side of the counter. It was possibly the best water he’d ever had in his entire life, chilly as went down down, and cooling to his overexcited body. He sighed and felt himself relax.

“I think we should talk, for a moment,” Jared said. His hands were back in their nervous configuration, fingertips touching in front of his breastbone. Richard watched him shift his weight back and forth. “I have to say I’m surprised to see you, since I put this on the calendar months ago. I hadn’t realized my absence—”

“I, uh, don’t really look at the calendar,” Richard muttered.

“Then we should find an alternate form of event tracking that works for you. Have you considered—”

“Jared.”

“What I mean to say, is that this was planned and prepared for.” He frowned before continuing. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am to have disrupted your day; and I hope you can forgive me. Using a suppressant implant makes it extremely hard for alphas to scent you. I would have told you myself, but—” he shrugged. “I never imagined this scenario would occur. Nothing like this has happened to me since I was living under that freeway in Fresno, and I swear it won’t happen again. I’ve been told how distracting omegas can be in the workplace.”

Jared touched his neck absently, where Richard imagined his mouth had just been. His cheeks were flushed pink, from embarrassment or his heat Richard couldn’t say for sure. He gnawed on his bottom lip, abruptly certain that it was his responsibility to console Jared—as a boss, or a friend, or, or, an alpha—and that he yearned to do so.

“I can help.”

“What?” Jared’s eyebrows lifted.

“Let me help. With your, uh. With your thing. Don’t go it alone.”

“Do you know what helping would mean?” Jared shook his head the moment the words left his mouth. “Of course you do. You had special classes too.”

“Right yeah.” Richard tried to sound as firm as he could. “So, you should let me. Help.”

Jared looked skeptical. Richard could see him doing the mental math of just how badly this would fuck up their working relationship. “I’m not sure—”

“Just trust me, okay? This doesn’t have to change anything. It’ll be good. For, uh, both of us.” He smiled closed mouthed. 

“Alright,” Jared said. He fidgeted.

Richard stood up. He gave Jared the most commanding look he could muster, which may have actually been a grimace, and tried to remember half the shit he’d learned in the very few alpha classes he’d gone to. “C’mere,” he said. Jared went. Richard touched his wrist, circled it in his fingers. “Show me where you’re spending your heat.”

Chapter Text

Seeing the neat collection of unused toys lined up on Jared’s tidy nightstand was what really hammered it home for Richard. Seeing the toys, unboxed and all clean, made something in him stumble to life like a horny Frankenstein’s monster: this overwhelming, crimson feeling that he could do it better, could make it better, for Jared than every single one of those crass looking contraptions with their shoddy hand-pumps attached so that a poor, miserable, mewling, desperate omega could create the facsimile of a knot and push through the harrowing (he’d heard it was harrowing) heat cycle on their own.

“Well,” Jared said, sitting down on the edge of his bed, which was made. Like he hadn’t been writhing around in it at all. Richard had heard that heat involved a lot of writhing. It seemed obvious that Jared wasn’t having a terrible heat, but his scent seemed to say otherwise, and his hot cheeks, and—the little beads of sweat at the nape of his neck that Richard wanted to lick up and keep.

Christ.

“You’re sweating,” he said, instead of stepping through the bedroom door. His surety was a fucking bell curve.

Jared frowned, then shrugged, as if brushing off his own discomfort. “It hasn’t broken yet. Sweating is part of it; the sweat carries pheromones.”

“Yeah, I—“ Richard’s eyebrows went up. “I can tell. The whole neighborhood can tell.”

“The whole—“

“Jared, christ. You know your entire block is full of alphas? Sniffing around? Trying to figure out where this scent is coming from?”

“The entire block?”

Richard waved his hands around. “Fine, not the entire block but they’re out there. Can’t you smell them?”

“Richard—”

“What?” He sounded annoyed again. That didn’t seem right. He wasn’t supposed to be annoyed, he was supposed to want—to protect—to take care of—to claim—

“I can only smell you.” Jared smiled at him like it hurt. “I’ve only been able to smell you for days. You’re all over my clothing. Like I carried you home with me and—”

“What?” Softer, good. The annoyance had passed, hadn’t really been annoyance at all, had only been—

“Richard, you smell like sex.”

Richard resisted the urge to say, “not possible. That’s crazy.” Instead he shuffled his feet and wiped his hand on his pant leg. He knew—he knew—being an alpha meant that his—his semen smelled stronger, maybe, than other people’s, definitely other betas. “I may have had—a moment. Before I got here. It was—”

“No.” Jared shook his head, firmly. “It’s sex all the time.”

“Oh.”

“Yes—“

“So you knew. Before today, I mean. Before.” He gestured behind himself, meant to say, before I tried to ravage you against your door and couldn’t bear it.

“Being on suppressants doesn’t stop you from—”

It hit Richard slowly, but forcefully. The full breadth of meaning behind Jared’s words. That not only did Jared know, but Jared could smell him, had been smelling him, had spent time in close quarters with him, touching his hands, turning down the collar on his oxford, brushing lint from his shoulders, getting close to him, speaking soft to him, taking care of him, and he’d never, not once, spared Jared much more than constipated gratitude and some late-night masturbation sessions.

“I’m so fucking sorry.” It came out all in a rush. “I should have said. I just wanted to pretend. I didn’t mean—”

“What?”

“To lead you on?” He hated the way his voice ticked up at the end, an awful little question.

“It’s just biology. You don’t have to feel bad.”

Richard laughed: short, self-deprecating. Of course it wasn’t him, it was just the thing he was. “Well, I’m sorry anyway. I didn’t realize, and that’s not—fair.”

“Very little is,” Jared said, like he was the one who needed to apologize. “You can come in, you know.” He patted the bed.

“But—I really shouldn’t.” Richard tugged at his pointer finger with his other hand. Felt like he was tamping down about eighty other tics, including the impulse to stride into Jared’s bedroom with a forceful gait, turn him over, and show him exactly what else biology could do. He coughed.

“You said you wanted to help,” Jared said gently. “Helping starts in here.” He patted the bed again and looked up at Richard from under his eyelashes which felt like a very unfair play. Like something out of the omega handbook or some shit, if such a thing existed. “Come here, Richard.”

Richard bit at his mouth, weighing the options. He could leave, turn tail and flee like a coward just before walking into what literally felt like a porno scenario, one he just said he wanted, or he could fucking buck up and do, frankly, what he was born to do, however vile that felt to him most days.

“Richard,” Jared said. “I like that you never said anything. Or did anything. That you treated me like any other colleague. I like that you just smell—” his eyelids fluttered and Richard could see him inhale deeply—“so goshdarn good to me without even trying.”

“Holy shit,” Richard said and felt immediately lightheaded because every single drop of blood in his veins had just rushed rapidly down to his dick. All because Jared fucking Dunn said he smelled good.

No, not just good, like fucking sex.

“Would it help if I took my clothes off?”

Jared’s hands went to the hem of his t-shirt and took hold of it. He pulled it off, mussing his hair into a facsimile of bedhead that would haunt Richard for a long time to come. He wanted to touch it. And if the shirt had been sexy then seeing Jared’s bared chest was going to set him on actual fire. So pale, and with that funny little indent he had between his pecs, which somehow seemed unbearably vulnerable and erotic to Richard, like he had to press his face there and taste it or he’d die.

“Nnnnghhh,” went Richard, transfixed.

“I know I’m not exactly a looker, but.”

“No—I. You—Pants?

“Pants?” Jared tilted his head and smiled in this fond little way that made Richard’s heart speed up. “Okay.”

He was gripping the doorframe on both sides white-knuckled. If his nails hadn’t been bitten to the quick they’d have been digging into the paint. This day was going to give him a heart attack which was not what he’d expected when he left the house. Nor had he expected to see Jared’s long, also terribly pale, surprisingly shapely legs. He wasn’t wearing underwear—why would he be?—and when he straightened up, Richard caught a glimpse of his neatly trimmed pubic hair and sweetly slender erection. The—the platonic ideal of a penis, Richard thought, and then frowned at himself because who thought things like that?

Jared pulled his legs up on to the bed and sat there, cross-legged, hands on his knees. It sounded like he was carefully regulating his breathing. His eyelids were at half-mast. “Richard,” he said, very calmly. “Would you kiss me?”

Instead of saying yes, my god do you have to ask? Richard said, “are you meditating?”

Jared nodded. His eyes had closed entirely, which felt like permission for Richard to creep toward the bed. Jared had a heavy gaze.

“Why?” He sat down with a foot or two between them, and Jared’s scent responded to his closeness, even if Jared didn’t. Richard was enveloped by it.

“It can be beneficial,” Jared said, between measured breaths. “Meditating can ease the more...oppressive aspects of heat. There’s a window—” Richard tentatively rested his hand on Jared’s knee, and Jared’s breath hitched. “Of time before the new implant starts releasing the correct level of hormones.” Richard’s hand inched higher. He couldn’t look at Jared. “Until then, meditation helps stave off the throes of it. I’ve always—” Jared bit his lip; exhaled audibly through his nose. “Preferred to hold out as long as I can. It helps—” Richard shifted closer, close enough that he could feel Jared’s body heat, see the goosebumps on his arms. “It helps keep the inherent loneliness at bay, when you don’t—”

“Have someone?” Richard whispered. He brushed his knuckles over Jared’s cheek. “How long have you gone? Before you’ve given in?”

Jared whimpered. “Nearly to the very end.”

“And then what?” Richard kissed below his ear, his neck, back up to his jaw. He smelled—intoxicating, incredible. The most edible, delicious thing imaginable. Made for him. “Tell me. I can’t help you if don’t tell me.”

“Richard, I—” Jared’s fingers were digging into his knees.

“Did you, did you fuck yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Hard?”

“As hard as I could.”

“I bet you looked like—like a fucking slut,” Richard said.

“Oh my god,” Jared gasped. One of his hands unclenched from his knee to spread out across his collarbones. He swayed as though he might swoon.

Richard kissed him

Jared’s arms came up around his shoulders and pulled him closer, nearly dragging him astride his lap. They toppled backwards onto the bed together, mouths still touching. It was less of a kiss and more of a tease; passing air between each other, lips catching, coming together, then pulling apart. Jared’s hands were in his hair, his legs tangled with Richard’s. And although he would have preferred to be equally nude, being clothed made him feel powerful, having a nubile naked omega—Jared, fucking Jared, his mind corrected—sliding against him, gasping into his mouth, made him feel powerfully aware of himself and what he was.

“Richard,” Jared kept saying, each time they broke apart. “Richard, Richard.”

He had, in his lifetime, kissed a fair handful of people. One girl in high school, a few people in college. There had been several lackluster Internet dates since he moved to the hostel, all with betas. He had learned that following someone else’s lead usually worked best, that moving things along too quickly ended poorly, and that no one really liked getting a tongue stuffed down their throat.

This was different.

He felt entirely ready to consume Jared, to crawl down his throat if he could, to have all of him. Before he was fully cognizant of it, Jared had most of his shirt buttons undone and was pulling it off of him, then pulling him down and close again, kissing him with tongue, tasting the corners of his mouth, kissing him wetly, wantonly.

“You want it, don’t you?” Richard heard his own voice saying. He was nuzzling Jared’s neck again, couldn’t stop if he wanted to. He propped himself up on an elbow so he could see Jared’s face. “You’ve been waiting, fucking torturing yourself, and you’ve been so good.”

“Yes.” Jared shivered.

“Were you waiting for me?”

“That’s not—That wouldn’t be—”

“But were you?”

“Yes,” Jared said. His eyes looked teary. “Since day one.”

Richard kissed him again, sucked at his lower lip. Jared was, god, Jared was humping his thigh, hips lifting off the bed. He could feel a dampening spot on his jeans, above his knee where he’d managed to press himself against the source of Jared’s heat, his need. Jared’s hands went to Richard’s waist, undid the button and the zipper and then Jared watched him as he stood to shimmy out of his pants, one hand twitching restlessly above his hardon, not touching.

Those fucking classes, Richard thought. Fucking alphas.

“Go on,” he said, nodding. “You don’t need my permission. This isn’t—” It could be though, his mind supplied rapidfire, it could be like that, you could collar him, keep him, make him seek permission for every— “This isn’t like that,” he finished.

Jared started to touch himself, eyes closed, back arching.

“Wait.”

He froze. His blissful expression shifted into an almost fearful look that Richard never wanted to see him wear again. The buzzing in the air lowered to a hum, and Richard’s hindbrain retreated just enough for him to think clearly.

“Get on all fours, elbows and knees” he said. “Please.”

“Okay, Richard.” Jared looked so achingly relieved that Richard’s stomach dropped. There were a lot of things that could happen to a very young, very alone omega, and—he didn’t want to think about them, right now. Not at all.

“Like this?” Jared asked.

“Yeah, yeah, exactly.” Richard climbed back up on the bed. The sheets were finally a rumpled mess. He found himself staring with his mouth open. “You’re so—wet,” he said. “It’s—”

Jared peeked over his shoulder with a nervous expression, his forehead crinkled up. His mouth was swollen, his skin blotchy. His cheeks were still very pink, and they were tracked with tears. “Richard, if you don’t want—”

“It’s incredible.” Richard exhaled. “I’ve just never.” He felt so foolish, admitting it, after all his bluster and, and the making out. “I’ve never been with an omega, like this. At all.” He could immediately feel Jared’s posture change, the way his legs and arms stiffened up. He’d said the wrong thing, of course. But it looked—it looked like Jared was even wetter now, clenching on nothing but air, a few glistening drops of fluid dripping down his perineum.

His voice sounded breathy and hopeful when he said, “do you mean that I’m your first?”

“Yeah.” Richard was very quiet. “I guess so.”

“Oh goodness,” Jared groaned. Another bit of fluid sluiced out. Richard needed to touch him. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t yet, especially now that he knew the distinct, delicious scent that had driven him into a frenzy belonged to Jared. Or how he could see Jared shiver as he waited, presumably, for Richard.

“Can I touch you? Here?”

“Please—please, could you?”

“Yeah, yeah okay.” Richard swallowed once, hard, and put his palm on Jared’s quivering thigh, close to his hip. His skin was clammy, but hot. “Okay,” Richard said again.

To his surprise, Jared laughed. “You sound like you’re convincing yourself. We could go back to kissing.”

“No, I got this,” Richard said, before reaching out with a shaking hand and gently thumbing at him. He rubbed his finger pad over Jared’s wet, puckered hole and marveled at the way Jared seemed to tense and release for him, like his body yearned to be breached. He pressed the blunt tip of his thumb just inside and Jared made a miserable, guttural sound, like a speared animal might. He clenched at Richard, and Richard, in his patented inability to do anything right, snatched his thumb away.

Jared was panting. He took a heaving breath—Richard saw his body expand and contract—and said Richard’s name in a very small, sad voice. “Please don’t stop.”

“What?” How could—It’d seemed— like maybe it was painful for him.

“Please.” Jared coughed lightly, as though composing himself, and sounded far more together when he said, “please, Richard. I would be grateful, if you could keep going.”

Oh fuck it, Richard thought. He’d fingered girls before, he wasn’t a virgin; it’s just that they had all been betas. The one boy at college had been a beta, too, and he’d mostly been interested in Richard, and Richard’s body, which had been fine...but none of those encounters had filled him with sparking, nerve-wracking desire. None of those people, however nice they were to him, had the indelible scent of need pouring off of them, suffusing him. None of those people had been Jared.

Jared looked back at him again over his pale, sloped shoulder. His eyes were very wide and very blue and somehow Richard had never noticed how very pretty he was. Nor had he realized that Jared’s hair curled when it wasn’t brushed neatly into place.

Jared wet his lips, and Richard could tell he was about to say something. Probably something encouraging and kind, the sort of thing Jared was always saying to him. And for some reason, the fact that Jared felt the need to talk him through this, in his time of need, when Richard should be helping him, like he wanted to, like he said he would, urged him back to action, and before Jared could speak, Richard hushed him. A low, quiet sound that made Jared quake under his palm.

“Just let me—“

Richard tucked his tongue between his teeth and smoothed his free hand over the curve of Jared ass, dug his fingers into Jared’s hip to hold him steady. Jared shifted his knees further apart like he wanted Richard to get a better look and Richard nearly bit down on his tongue.

He’d been sporting a semi since walking into Jared’s apartment, but that, that tiny expression of desire, made him stiffen impossibly harder. His dick ached. He hadn’t known that was an actual thing. This time he used two fingers; they slipped inside so easily that Richard sucked in a stunned breath at the sight of it. Jared moaned for him when he stroked back out, pushing lightly against his slick interior walls. He wasn’t entirely clueless about omega anatomy, but he was still surprised by the way Jared’s body tried to hold onto him, at how easy it was to push back inside with three fingers tucked together into a neat little triangle.

“Holy shit,” Richard breathed out, mesmerized. “Jesus Christ, Jared.”

“Everything—okay?” Jared glanced back at him again. His mouth was bitten red.

“I just.” He couldn’t look away from Jared’s hole for more than a moment, where his fingers were still moving, steadily pushing inside. Each thrust brought more slick with it, and Richard’s thumb was wet down to his palm, from being tucked up just behind his fingers. It felt like he could add his thumb and his pinkie just as easily as he had these three fingers. Like he could just as easily fuck Jared with his whole fist; or, Christ, his knot.

“Richard?”

“Oh, uh. I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I don’t really know what I’m doing.” He stretched his fingers apart and Jared’s eyelids fluttered. “I’m really just winging it, you know?”

“Yes, I—you’re doing fine.”

“I meant. When I fuck you, I won’t know what I’m doing.” Richard half-smirked, a funny kind of certainty welling up inside him. “When I’m fucking you.” He thumbed at Jared’s rim, just the barest pressure, a promise.

Jared’s mouth fell open. “You’re an alpha. Your body—gosh—knows what to do. It’s—“ he whimpered. “Instinctual.”

Richard’s stomach flipped. “Say that again.”

“It’s instinctual?”

“No the other thing.” Richard’s skin felt too tight on his bones. He was, quite suddenly, four fingers deep in Jared’s ass, past his third set of knuckles. He shifted his wrist. “Say it again.”

“You’re an alpha, Richard.” Jared’s voice broke.

“Again. Please?”

“You’re an alpha.”

Richard felt, genuinely, like he was going to explode.

“Fuck, I need to do this. Okay? Jared, tell me I can do it. Tell me— it’s not enough. That you need me—that you need to get fucked with.” Richard cringed. “That you need this alpha dick.”

He needed to get his boxers off, and he shoved them down hastily with his free hand. His dick felt heavy and huge in his palm, which was—not normal. Very gently, he took his fingers back. Jared’s body sagged, telegraphing his displeasure. He was still looking at Richard and without thinking, Richard brought his dripping fingers to his own mouth and sucked on them.

Jared swore, eyes going so wide they looked absurd. “I need it,” he said. He licked his lips, still straining his neck so he could see Richard’s face. “I need you to fuck me, Richard.”

“Grab the headboard.” Richard thought of every single sex scene that had ever gotten him off, he thought about mere minutes ago when Jared was moaning under him, rubbing his slick all over Richard’s thigh. “Hang on for me.”

Chapter Text

There were moments in his life he would most likely remember forever. That first time he felt his knot, when he was accepted to Stanford, the time he fell down carrying a birthday cake and his entire high school somehow knew about it. When they won TechCrunch disrupt…. But he wasn’t a nostalgic person, he didn’t revisit memories simply because he wanted to. Richard’s mind wasn’t suited to that kind of information; it felt foolish to waste valuable mental energy on keeping a record of mundanities. Sometimes he forgot his own birthday. But this—

He was going to remember this for the rest of his fucking life with cinematic clarity. The expanse of Jared’s back, the few moles he had there, his long arms, the way his thighs trembled in anticipation of Richard.

It felt like a stroke of absolute fucking genius to take hold of his erection and push only a little bit inside Jared’s body before popping back out again. It forced Jared to gape slightly as he pulled out, and before Richard could really think about it, he slapped his cockhead against Jared’s wet, clenching hole.

Jared cried out and pressed back towards him. Chasing his dick.

Richard knew, with absolute certainty, that if he went balls-deep now he would barely last a moment. “Stay put,” he said, clutching Jared’s hip with his other hand. He did it again: dipping inside to the shaft before pulling out and bouncing his dick off of Jared; a third time and Jared’s moaned, “don’t tease, Richard.”

“I thought you liked to wait,” Richard said, feeling giddy. “You said—you said you liked waiting. So—“ He slid his dick up and down between Jared’s asscheeks, spreading slick and precome around and messing Jared up further, “I’m making you wait.” He wanted—god, he wanted Jared even wetter, to see him dripping with want. He wanted to watch his own spunk squelch out of Jared’s ass when he was—when he was done with him.

“Do you need me to beg?” Jared asked. “Would that help?”

“Yeah.” Richard was still toying with him, teasing at him, high off the combined menace of their pheromones, off the sex in the air. “Fuckin—beg for my dick.” He heard Jared sigh, and for a moment thought that he’d gone too far, because he was an idiot, as always, even if right now he was an idiot with a big, erect alpha dick that Jared was clearly gagging for. He scowled. “Tell me you want it.”

“Richard—” Jared’s shoulders shook; his thighs were glistening. Richard couldn’t have wet-dreamed it better. “Richard, please. Please help me—please—”

“Please what?” Richard spat.

“Fuck it out of me.”

“Yeah, baby. I’ll fuck you so hard you can’t walk straight. You thought—” he snorted. “You thought those shitty toys could get you off? Like, maybe it was better if you were all on your own, not bothering anyone? Like, I don’t know.” He actually fucking giggled, high-pitched and possibly unhinged. “Maybe you thought you could just fly under the radar forever, get omega scent all over our fucking office and I wouldn’t notice one day and just bend you over something? Fuck your slutty little ass just like this?” he lined up his dick and pushed inside in one go, almost to shut himself up.

It didn’t work.

Jared was gripping the headboard, back curved, ass lifted like he was presenting himself for the taking, and Richard intended to fuck him until his lungs gave out, until they were both too sore to go again. He was on the brink of something impossible, standing before a door that was previously locked to him and had since opened to reveal the pure, unadulterated wonder of his birthright. All he had to do was step over the threshold.

“Shit, holy shit, holy fucking shit, you feel incredible, this is, you’re—”

“What?”

“Perfect, you’re perfect. I should tell you all the time.” Jared liked that; Richard could tell. “You look—perfect, like this and you feel perfect. And—fuck, Jared—why didn’t you tell me? We could have been. We could have done this. Every day.” Jared was so wet for him. And he kept making these high-pitched ah-ah-ah sounds each time Richard’s hips made contact with his perfect, tiny asscheeks, and Jared was taking him, rocking into each thrust like he couldn’t wait for it.

“We should,” Jared said, between gasps. “Will you? Oh Richard, I want to feel your knot.”

“My—”

“Your—ah—knot. I’d like to ride it.”

“Oh my god, don’t say shit like that—I’m gonna—”

“Richard.” Jared made eye contact over his shoulder. “I want to be so full of you I can’t think straight.”

He never stood a chance. One over-extended, too high-pitched “fuuuuuuuuck,” and Richard came without managing to knot at all. Instinct let him flip Jared onto his back and encourage him to ride out his own orgasm on four of Richard’s fingers, shoved in deep to the crook of his thumb while Richard sucked him off gracelessly. But afterward, as Jared recovered, the shame set in.

He found himself pacing while Jared watched him from the messed up bed.

“I can’t even. Can’t even knot properly. What kind of alpha—”

“No, Richard. Darling—” Jared looked down before meeting his gaze. “If I may.”

Richard shrugged.

“Darling, you were wonderful. I’m grateful.”

Jared looked so earnest. He was sweaty and his cheeks were blotchy, but he looked like he really meant it. Like—even though they hadn’t been able to knot and he was still quite obviously in heat, he thought Richard had been wonderful. None of that mattered. “Do you want me to go?”

Jared’s mouth shifted into a pathetic, pitying moue. As though Richard were a spoilt child need of soothing. “It’s not all about the knot. It’s so much more than that.”

“I wouldn't know, remember?”

“Come here,” Jared said. “Lay down with me.”

Richard did. He let Jared envelope him and succumbed to being the little spoon. It wasn’t terrible. He wasn’t—a particularly touchy or affectionate person, but Jared made him want to try. Omegas needed attention; they required devotion once you had one. Perhaps he’d never considered what he might get in return. It had never crossed his mind, aside from in the most isolated hours, that he might benefit too. Jared kissed his neck, tucked his face against it, chin on Richard’s shoulder. He was still semi-erect and Richard could feel it.

“I think it’s sweet,” Jared said.

“Pfffft, okay.”

“I do.” His breath tickled Richard’s ear when he said, “you were so worked up. Over me, Richard.” A little lick at his earlobe and Jared rolled his hips—sensually. “How could I not like that? I got you going, darling.”

“Yeah, well—“

“So.” Jared’s voice was a low purr. It was inappropriately erotic coming from him. Which was complicated, because everything about Jared was turning out to be inappropriately erotic. “I’ll get you going again.”

Richard moaned. He wanted that. He wanted back in. He could feel himself getting hard again, which. Jesus, he was just destroying a lifetime of bad sexual statistics. Maybe his dumpy, oddly smug alpha-ed instructor had been right: maybe all it took was the right partner.

“I—“ Richard willed himself to find the right words, too. “Can I.”

“Take your time.” Jared was touching him now, nimble fingers wrapped around his dick.

“If you wanted.” He cleared his throat. ”Maybe I could, like, eat you out.” His voice trailed off, but Jared’s breath hitched. “You know. Until I was. Ready, again. If you’d like that.”

“Do you want me on my knees or on my back?”

Oh god.

“Knees,” Richard said, already moving, already pulling away so Jared could get into position. “Definitely knees.”

By the time he was fucking back into Jared’s body with unexpected abandon, he’d never been harder in his life, or tasted his own come in such volume, or made someone else come that many times (shit!), or been literally wet from his cheeks to his chin in omega slick. But there was a first time for everything and he was checking off his list—today? Tonight? It didn’t matter, because Jared was screaming his name and his knot was swelling as he ground his hips against Jared’s, and everything had a sloppy-hot-slipperiness to it, and-and-and he was fucking doing this.

“You feel that?” he gasped, appalled at himself. “All for you, baby. All for you.”

—

Jared toyed with his fingers, both of his large hands dwarfing one of Richard’s as he stroked Richard’s palm with his thumb, then brought each of his fingertips to his mouth for a soft kiss. They were knotted—knotted!—together, and had been, Richard curled up behind Jared, one leg thrown over Jared’s two, his dick still thick at the knot and equally snugged up tight in the hot channel of Jared’s body. He was shockingly comfy, sated, and even keeled in the aftermath of so much doing. He supposed that everyone who knew had said it would be this way, he just never believed it could be this way for him.

And—fuck—Jared still smelled absolutely, breathtakingly incredible. He felt like he’d be hard for the rest of his fucking life, perpetually on the brink of popping a knot now that he knew what it was like. Now that he knew he could have this. Have Jared. Richard thrust forward experimentally, buoyed by the thought, and Jared made this encouraging, satisfied little noise, an “Mhmmmm,” followed by a breathy laugh before he said, “gosh, Richard, you’re—”

“Yeah?” Another short thrust.

“Mmmhmmm. Keep going, I’ll keep—”

Richard did, rocking his hips, feeling his knot make space for itself as he moved. Stretching Jared open, making its way. “You—you want me to keep fucking you? Fuck you with my—” christ, it still felt depraved, even just saying it. “My, uh, knot? You wanna feel my knot, baby? Wanna get fucked on it?”

Jared nodded, pulled Richard’s hand close to his chest and held it there, over his heart. “Please. Please don’t st-ahhh-p doing that.”

It was sweet, gentle. Much more so than it had been before their bodies tied together. The sound alone, of moving through his own release and Jared’s slick, that perverse squish, made Richard shiver all over. He was already close. He would come for the fourth time—how absurd, how wildly fortunate he was. What a lucky fuckin’ alpha.

He had Jared tilting his head back against his shoulder, holding him tight inside, sighing happily, and seeking his mouth for an easy, wet kiss.

“Can I—can I tell you something?” Richard asked, keeping his pace slow enough to speak.

“Of course. Anything.”

“It’s embarrassing.” He stroked down Jared’s flank with his other hand and reached over to wrap it around his semi-erect dick. He tugged gently at the head, and Jared squirmed. It made Richard’s balls ache.

“I won’t think so.”

Richard huffed a laugh. “Well.” He kissed Jared’s neck, nosed at him. “You smell—so good.”

“Silly, that’s not embarrassing.”

He nipped at Jared’s soft, delicious ear, shushed him. “And—I, uh, I jerked off. In your supply closet. Before I got here. Dropped the soup. Fucking—” he pushed his hips forward more forcefully, remembering that he’d come to Jared scent before he even knew it was him. “Fucking rubbed one out all because I could smell you. And you—” he pressed another kiss at the juncture of Jared’s neck and shoulder, the “claiming spot” as they called it in his textbooks, even though everyone knew that was barely a tradition these days. He nibbled at Jared anyway and relished the ways he could make Jared moan for him. “And you taste even better then you smell.”

“Oh my goodness, Richard.”

“I wish I could eat you,” Richard said, swiping his tongue over Jared’s neck, rocking into him still, kissing and licking at him.

“I want you to. I want that.”

“I wish I could keep you,” he said. And it was lower then his normal register, more of a growl then he’d ever produced. “I wanna keep you, Jared. Mine, just for me.”

“You can—” Jared clutched his hand, pushed back against him, urged him deeper. “I want you to. I want you.”

Richard swallowed thickly. Jared’s willingness riled him up, he felt taken along for a ride by his own hormones and apparent insatiability. He felt—savage. All this gentle swaying wasn’t enough; what he needed, what he was positive Jared needed, was a good, hard fucking on his knot. He needed Richard to fill him again and again until he was reduced to a shaking, come-drenched bitch. That’s what—that’s what he was here for. Richard brought his hand back to Jared’s hip and rolled him onto his stomach, felt his knot tug against Jared’s hole from the movement, and Jared keened at the stretch. He didn’t want to hurt Jared, but a filthy, primal part of him said it didn’t matter if he did, all that mattered was that he give Jared what he needed, at any cost. Richard manhandled him onto his knees with surprising agility and shoved inside hard.

Jared sobbed and his scent crested into a deeper, more nuanced aroma. “Oh god,” he was saying, over and over. “Oh god in heaven, oh, oh, please—” like Richard was punching the words out of him with his dick.

“You—you like that?” He felt himself rapidly losing control of his tongue again. “You like getting fucked like a bitch? Taking my knot like you were made to? A slutty omega bitch just waiting for someone to come along and pound you out like you deserve. Is that what you are—” Richard choked himself off, fingers digging so hard into Jared’s hips that they were white. “Jesus, I’m so fucking sorry—I don’t know. I don’t even know what I’m saying—Jared—” His hips slowed to a bewildered stutter. He tried to catch his breath, there was ringing in his ears. He felt ashamed, and—

One of Jared’s fucking massive hands reached back and gripped his thigh.

“Jared, I—”

“Shut up, Richard.”

Richard blinked.

“You’re not done yet.” His hand squeezed, hard. “You’re not done fucking me yet.”

“Oh. I—uh—okay.” He caught Jared’s eyes over his shoulder and they weren’t wet, or even glazed looking. Somehow his ice blue stare was molten steel, so determined Richard was almost afraid for a moment. He started to move again, and Jared’s head dropped toward his chest with a deep, gratuitous groan. It took a second before Richard realized Jared as talking, a jumbled litany of harder and give it to me and more.

Okay, Richard thought. Okay, okay, oh—kaaaay. He must have said the last one aloud because Jared clenched down on his dick with such vigor that Richard lost his breath. He adjusted his grip, and like a system-reboot, he started jackrabbiting hips, pulling out as far as his knot would allow before slamming back in. He was going to sleep for a week when this was over, for a month, and every time he woke up he fully intended to tire himself out again just like this—

“Never stop,” Jared said, muffled but fierce. “We can stay like this forever. I could keep you—inside me forever, Richard.”

“Oh, oh shit, I’m gonna come.”

“Do it.”

And Richard knew, with the certainty of generations before him, of alphas still in pelts and tanned leather, and alphas with swords strapped to their backs and chainmail over their shoulders, that Jared wasn’t just telling him to finish, Jared was asking to be claimed. He was asking to be marked, marked with bruises and suckmarks, visible even above his neat oxford collars, so that everyone would know exactly who he belonged to, and exactly what he was. He was asking to be Richard’s, and Richard’s alone, at least for a time.

“Do it,” Jared repeated, more strained this time, definitely on the verge of release himself.

With one final, desperate thrust Richard emptied himself, curled over Jared’s sweaty, wonderfully naked back just far enough that he could latch onto his shoulder and bear down hard with his teeth. His knot seemed to pulse with violent urgency, a frantic, beating heart, and then, with a sense of encroaching sorrow, Richard felt it unswell.

Under him, Jared exhaled noisily.

Richard rolled to his side with such haste that he forgot how badly he’d wanted to see Jared’s thrice-used ass up close again. His soft penis had slipped free with ease. He flattened himself on his stomach, hands curled up under his chest into fists. “I—” he said, unsure, panic rising. “I’m not—”

Jared turned onto his back with the languidity of a just-woke cat. He looked at Richard from beneath his lidded bedroom eyes, and smiled a cat’s grin. “We could order soup,” he said. “If you’re still feeling bad about that.”

—

After the soup, and a nap, and a shower that Richard had to bribed into so that Jared could change his sheets for fresh ones like some kind of clean freak, they were back in bed. The scene of the crime. Jared’s face was pressed into his neck, his breath was slow, regular, and his still-damp hair smelled like Dove soap and somehow, the two of them at once. Commingled.

He rans his fingers up and down Jared’s spine, over each bump. Tender, so very tender. Jared made a pleased sound.

“I used to think about you,” Richard said. He felt dreamy and at ease, especially since Jared gushed to him about just how thrilled he was that this had happened, that fate had intervened for them in such a way.

“Me?” Jared tilted his head back so Richard could see his curious expression.

“Yeah. I used to—god, Jared—get off thinking—”

“Richard!” Jared batted at him playfully.

“I know, I’m terrible.”

“No, it’s okay.” Jared snuggled back down against his chest. Richard could feel his breath across his throat, feel Jared’s soft, full lips move. “Me too.”

“In my head you were always an omega,” Richard confessed. “And you wanted me so badly. You were always—ripe for me.”

Jared snickered. It sounded nice on him. “Well, you must be far more perceptive then you give yourself credit for. I’m not surprised; with a mind like yours one might expect—”

“You know I’m about—about as observant as a brick.”

“Some part of you knew,” Jared said, firm but soft. “Just like I knew.”

“Knew what?”

“That I had to be near you. That you were the one for me even if I could never—” His adam’s apple bobbed. “Have you.”

Richard’s heart did something funny at the same time that his dick did. “Oh, you’ve had me,” he said, smirking. “And had me, and had me, and had me—” He nudged Jared onto his back and straddled him.

“Shhhhh.” Jared laughed at him, full and warm.

“And had me, and had me—”

Jared pushed a very large hand over his mouth. Pretty bold for a claimed—claimed!—omega, but Richard was too happy to care and that sort of thinking was stupid anyway.

“We’ll have to tell them,” he said, after licking Jared’s palm. “The guys. Otherwise Gilfoyle and Dinesh will make a whole thing about it.”

“It’s been nearly 48 hours. I have a funny feeling they already know; and besides.” Jared’s tone turned coy. “I may have cleared your calendar in advance. Just in case.”

“You minx!” Richard said. He grinned.