Archive of Our Own ^beta

Harry rummages around the floor of his closet trying to find the missing left shoe from his old pair of boots.  They’re still his favourites even if they are a bit worn out. It’s just been a while since he’s worn them but the mate has to be somewhere in the mess of things jumbled and tossed out of sight.  

He’s just about to give up when his fingers land on something with a strange, squishy texture that makes him yank his hand back to hold it against his chest.  Logically he knows there aren’t any weird animals in his closet like some kind of large snake, but that’s what his reflex had told him it was.  

He cautiously turns the light of his phone towards the object and lets out a small laugh of relief when it comes into view.  There on the floor half covered by one of his old hoodies is an object he hasn’t seen for ages even though he was the one who threw it back there to begin with.  

It’s his ex’s knotting dildo, the one he’d tossed into the closet in a very cocky alpha-like display during one of the heats they’d spent together.  He’s claimed his own knot would be the only one he’d ever need again as it had thunked against the wall.

That had been true for the year they’d been together.  Now he feels a little bad about it. It must have been a really expensive dildo with its remote and multi-functions.  Harry had buried it in his closet and essentially stolen it. Maybe he should find some way to give it back without it being too awkward.  Any scenario would probably be awkward short of leaving it in an anonymous paper bag outside their door. 

He grips the shaft and pulls it out before sitting back to look at the thing.  The realistic colouring of it is a little unsettling, really. The manufacturer had gone through great effort to mimic life and it really could have been his own if it weren’t for the base and small control panel.  It’s got some weight to it and Harry can see the appeal. He’d want the same quality in a toy for his rut as well. They probably made things for alphas as well. If only he had the money to go look.  

He picks up the little remote attached and starts to press the buttons.  It grows warm in his hand after a few seconds. They really had thought of everything to make it as lifelike as possible.  

The longer he holds it, the more he starts to wonder how real it actually feels.  Must be pretty good if so much had been put into the design and function. It was no cheap knockoff.  He bites his lip as his thoughts begin to spin.  

It isn’t as if he hadn’t thought about it before.  He’d been with O’s– mostly the male ones– that had a thing with teasing his rim while they were tied.  He’d even experimented himself when he was approaching his rut and needed that extra push over the edge.  Some artificial slick and wandering fingers really did it for him when he was really into it. It has made him wonder if maybe he would enjoy being with an alpha himself.  He hasn’t been ready for the judgement or shame of searching out a partner to try it out, though. Not yet.  

But the dildo in his hand might be the key to private experimentation.  

No.  It’s just a fantasy he likes to think about.  He wouldn’t enjoy the reality.  

He tosses it onto the bed and forgets about it, going back to the search for his boot.  

-

“What the fuck?” Harry groans after flopping himself down on the bed and landing on something firm.  He lifts his hips up enough to move the object and, for the second time that day, pulls out the knotting dildo by the shaft.  He stares at it and the two beers he’d downed after dinner have made him reckless enough for thoughts to seep back into his head, to consider trying it again.  It sounds more promising now.  

“Fuck it.” He reaches under his pillow for his bottle of artificial slick and shimmies out of his shorts.  Might as well go for it.  

He twists around awkwardly on the bed, limbs bending to find the best angle to spread the slick.  That part is easy and more familiar than what he plans to do.  

He ends up on his knees, dildo positioned under him with just the tip barely touching his hole.  Already he can tell it won’t be the same as a finger. He takes a deep breath and experimentally sits back enough to feel the pressure of the blunt head.  It definitely is much different than the feeling of just a finger. 

He starts a countdown to push down into the uncomfortable pressure and chickens out more than once.  He isn’t sure what he’s scared of. He’s the one who has done this to omegas countless times. He should be able to take what he gives.  

With his eyes closed, he takes a deep, calming breath and then lets the head pop in as he breathes out.  The surprise makes it catch a little in his throat but at least it doesn’t hurt.  

He gets bolder after that, working himself down the shaft in small increments while he strokes his cock to keep himself interested.  It’s foreign and strange and he isn’t sure he even likes it. It’s definitely not how he imagined it. He had expected either pleasure or pain, not the bland, uncomfortable feeling of just having it inside him.  

It’s not until he’s fully seated and ready to just give it up that he realizes what is missing.  There’s jerking off just for jerking off’s sake and then there are fantasies that lead to an experience.  Fucking himself with a knotting dildo is not something to just do, the fantasy has to be there for his mind to get into it.  

So he closes his eyes and scans through his mind for a fantasy to focus on.  He flips through quite a few until he starts to think about how much he loves when his omega is on top.  He imagines it’s himself beneath him and thinks of himself as the O on top. For some reason, the role reversal really gets him going and he starts to rock his hips in small motions.  

It isn’t long before uncomfortable starts to feel okay and okay starts to feel enjoyable.  The deeper he gets into the scene in his head, the more into it he gets. It isn’t until he pulls up and drops back down on the dick that things finally start to get interesting.  He moans and his eyelids fly open. He’s left panting after feeling whatever the fuck he just felt. It was a jolt that he felt through his entire body that was almost too much, almost enough to pull away.  

But he wants to feel it again.  

He had no idea there was something so pleasurable for alphas when it came to penetrative sex.  Had he known, he would have been doing this a long time ago, wonders why all alphas haven’t been doing this.  

Experimental motions become more confident and soon he’s thrusting down onto the dick in earnest, begging the fictional alpha beneath him to fuck him harder.   

He’s almost there, just about there, so close.  Just a little bit more, just a hint of a knot, that’s all he wants to feel, all he thinks he’ll be able to handle this time.  He taps the remote but barely feels a change. He goes to bump it up again, just a little, not too much—  

The doorknob rattles as he hears Louis call out his name.  The bathroom door. Shit. He hadn’t locked the bathroom door that connects their rooms and it’s being pushed open.  He fumbles the remote in a panic. 

“Don’t come in—” he cuts himself off with a guttural, open-mouthed moan as the knot fully inflates within him and he comes.  Hard. Punched out of him like a blow to the stomach.

The shame of fucking himself on a knot washes over him along with the most intense orgasm he’s probably ever had and all of it happens while he’s locked in eye contact with his shocked alpha roommate.  He’s probably shooting halfway across the room onto the carpet but he can’t tell because they’re still staring at each other. His hand grips around his own knot and squeezes on instinct and the stretch of the dildo aches as it pulses where it’s stretched inside him while mimicking the real thing.  It hurts so good.  

And they’re both still staring at each other in shock.  Why is Louis still standing there? Why can’t he look away?  Why isn’t he rushing to cover himself? Why is he still coming??

“I, uh, sorry, uhm—” Louis stammers, the only time Harry’s ever seen him speechless.  Harry almost wishes they were still staring at each other when Louis turns back into the bathroom and Harry can see the profile of the tent in Louis’ own loose shorts.  It had only taken him those few brief seconds to get hard from the sight of Harry orgasm. It makes his knot pulse again.  

Coming on a knot was already going to be a dirty little secret in the back of his mind for the rest of his life and now Louis knows about it too.  He pushes those thoughts aside and rocks down against the dildo and the knot that is relentlessly pressing up against something that’s making his whole body quiver.  It’s too much and not enough at the same time and he’s never felt such full-body ecstasy from sex before. Being with an omega in heat never felt so deeply satisfying.  Even the presence of Louis’ scent swirling around the room was heady when alpha scent was usually sour to his senses when he was aroused. 

He fumbles around for the remote again when it really does become too much and deflates the knot all at once.  The real experience may have gotten him off, but the slow deflation that would happen naturally isn’t something his body wants to wait around for.  His hole is already aching with the stretch and he feels uncomfortably full now that he isn’t in the midst of pleasure.  

He hisses when he pulls off the dildo, collapsing back onto his mattress to recover.  He might never be able to look Louis in the eye again but at least it had been good.  

-

“Soooo are we going to talk about it?” Louis asks over his mug the next morning as they sit across from each other at the kitchen table.  He may only be peeking over the shiny surface but his eye contact is direct and unyielding. Harry blushes and fidgets in his seat.  

“Talk about what?” he forces out a nervous laugh.  They both know he knows exactly what Louis meant. It’s the only elephant in the room.  

Louis rolls his eyes with a small shake of his head.  “You can’t pretend it didn’t happen and I just wanted to let you know that it’s cool if you are, you know, into other alphas.”  

Harry can tell that Louis’ small shrug is meant to be casual but it’s a little too controlled.  What Harry can’t tell is why. They’ve been roommates for years now, but they don’t usually talk about their sex lives or preferences.  They just let their partners pass through the apartment without comment.  

“I don’t know actually,” Harry ventures and traces a scratch on the table top with his finger.  “It’s not something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about.” 

It’s Harry’s turn to try a casual shrug.  He knows it is probably just as over-acted as Louis’ had been.  Louis hums and takes a sip. This whole exchange is an act. They both know it, but neither knows exactly why.  They’re never awkward like this around each other

“I found Nick’s knotting dildo in my closet,” Harry shrugs one shoulder again.  Might as well be truthful about it since the reality isn’t as bad as what Louis most likely has in his head.  “And I got curious.” 

“So you knotted yourself?” Louis raises a brow.  

“That part was an accident.  I hit the wrong button when you came in and it just happened.”  

Louis arches an eyebrow at him.  It’s that stupid smug, challenging expression that Harry hates and loves when it’s directed at him.  This time it has Harry feeling flustered.  

“It’s so lifelike and I started wondering how real it would feel and then thought that if I wanted to try it, it was better to do it alone and I don’t know! It just happened!”  

Harry knew all of his words had jumbled together and it made him sound more guilty than he was.  Was he even guilty? Last he checked, dildos weren’t illegal and even alpha knotting was no longer a crime in all fifty states.  It hadn’t been for decades.  

“If you wanted to know what the real thing was like you could have just asked me to do it,” Louis shrugs and takes a sip from his mug.  

Harry’s panicking brain stutters to a halt.  What?

“What??”

Louis gives another casual shrug.  “I’m just saying that I have a perfectly good knot if you want to know what the real thing feels like.”  

Louis gets up to rinse out his mug in the sink and the sight of his shorts makes Harry remember the tent he’d seen there when Louis left the room.  Surely he hadn’t come to look for Harry with a boner. That meant it had to have been caused by the sight of him.  

Does that mean Louis is into other alphas?

He starts to think about another body pressed against him, moving in the ways his fantasy had.  He wanted that.  

“What if I do?” Harry asks softly.  

Louis turns around and leans back against the counter.  He crosses his arms over his chest with a smirk. “Yeah?”  

“Maybe.”  

Harry doesn’t want to back out but he also doesn’t want Louis setting him up for a joke.  He doesn’t think Louis would do that with something like this, that doesn’t seem like him to be cruel.  Insecurity about what they’re arranging to do just makes him second guess everything.  

“You want to know what it’s like to have an alpha take you?” The purpose of Louis’ smirk and quirk of his brow is now clear while all his focus is on Harry.  

A small squeak slips out of Harry when Louis’ hand drops to palm himself over his shorts.  But this isn’t a normal interaction between roommates and Harry tries to shake himself out of it.  

“Are you just trying to get me to admit it so you can make fun of me later?” Harry asks hesitantly.  He doesn’t want to think Louis would do that, not at all, yet he has to be sure.  

“I’m not some knothead trying to bait you into admitting you’re queer,” Louis’ face is a mixture of offended disgust.  Harry feels bad for even letting the thought cross his mind. He blames the culture they grew up in. He knows Louis. He knows Louis isn’t like that just like he isn’t like that.  

“I don’t think that,” he says quickly, “You’re really offering?” 

Louis shrugs.  “It looked like you were really into it.  I kind of wanted in on the action. So I thought if you really wanted to try it...” 

Louis’ hand returns to the front of his shorts.  Harry’s eyes drop down to watch. His own dick is more interested than he’d like to admit.  

“Okay.”  

It’s out of his mouth before he can stop it, a thought he hadn’t meant to say out loud yet there it was hanging in the air between them.  

He’s still sore from the night before yet the idea still excites him.  A real knot without having to fumble with a remote or do all the work so he knows what’s coming.  His mouth starts watering and his face feels hot. He wants that.  

Louis smirks and disappears around the corner towards their bedrooms and Harry scrambles to follow.  He’s barely around the corner when he collides with a body and is suddenly pressed against up against the wall.  Harry is stronger than Louis, they both know by the frequent arm wrestling and brotherly scuffling that has happened as roommates.  Louis does give him a run for his money considering it isn’t Louis spending hours each week at the gym.  

But in the hallway, Harry surrenders like he’d never win.  

His breath is hot as it ghosts along Harry’s jaw and Harry feels goosebumps prickling his arms.  

“You want to be my O?  Is that what does it for you?” Louis purrs into his ear.  Their bodies are flush together now and there is no question whether either of them are into it.  

“Not exactly?  I don’t know,” Harry breathes out no louder than a whisper.  

“Just want to be taken by an alpha, then?” 

Harry shudders and breathes in the distinct scent of alpha.  It’s usually just a presence in the back of his mind in the apartment, so used to it that he hardly takes note.  Now that Louis has brought attention to it, it’s all Harry can focus on. It has the same bravado that Louis’ personality has, rich and unique and now saturated with arousal.  Harry wonders if Louis can smell the same on his. Louis’ scent alone is turning him into an olfactophiliac. Other alpha’s scents are supposed to be a turn off, and they usually were, yet he can’t get enough of Louis’.  

“Just want your knot,” he whimpers, his brain scrambled with want.  

They rip their clothes off as they stumble into Harry’s bedroom since it’s the closer of the two.  

“Condom?” Louis mumbles against Harry’s lips while their hips grind together.  Harry can feel Louis’ erection lined up against his own and he wants to look so badly.  He sneaks his peek when Louis leans over to fumble through the drawer in his bedside table and then openly stares at the hint of knot already at the base.   

Harry shouldn’t be surprised or shocked by what he sees.  It’s exactly what happens to his own dick when he’s aroused.  He should be very familiar with it, however he’s never seen another alpha hard in person before.  The perspective somehow makes him feel like he’s looking at one for the first time. He doesn’t even try to look away.  He wants that inside him.  

Louis starts to settle between his legs and Harry shakes his head.  He doesn’t know where it came from but he knows what he wants.  

“No, I want to do it traditional.”  

Louis’ brows raise towards his hairline but moves to let Harry get up on all fours.  It’s every alpha’s favourite position, even if they won’t admit to it. It’s instinct to mount, instinct to mate.  That’s how Harry wants it and he can tell Louis is surprised he’s so willing and eager to submit to it.  

Louis’ hands are warm on his hips and the faux slick is cold along his crack.  He still feels open from last night and is glad that Louis doesn’t spend a lot of time building him up.  He’s already buzzing with anticipation and it’s somehow more embarrassing to be conscious of his roommates fingers in him than his cock.  

He tries not to think about the fact that fact or that they are both alphas.  He tries but fails because he could never trust anyone else enough to do this.  He probably would have let this happen a long time ago if Louis had ever shown any interest.  

He tucks that thought away for later.  

The dildo has a weak claim for being realistic, Harry decides when Louis starts to push in with his actual alpha dick.  It still feels strange and uncomfortable at first and his erection flags a little while Louis works himself in, but it’s attached to a real person and that makes all the difference.  He thrives on the noises and loud breaths as the alpha behind him takes pleasure from his body. The dildo couldn’t give him that.  

It isn’t bad, but Harry is struggling to remember what got him so worked up when he’d been fucking himself last night.  He reaches down to try to stroke himself back to full hardness when Louis’ palms slide up his chest and pulls him back with the ease of his natural alpha strength.  He sits back against Louis where he guides him and oh– there it is.  That’s what had him working for it last night.  

He’s rushing towards the finish now, just as pointedly as Louis is, dick hard and proud in front of him.  He can feel the width of Louis’ knot pushing into him more distinctively now, the stretch anticipated with each thrust, and his own has started to swell.  His hand can’t resist massaging it as he rocks back to meet Louis’ thrusts up into him.  

A long and heavy groan reverberates through his chest when he feels it finally happening.  Any thrust and Louis will be anchored in his body, any move aborted and it’ll pop before tying them together.  Harry pushes back to make sure that doesn’t happen.  

Louis curses behind him but it’s background to the buzz of white noise that’s making Harry’s brain hazy and his vision spotty.  

“Here it comes,” Louis repeats in a rushed chant along with other things of the same sentiment, but Harry doesn’t remember them because it’s happening .  

The stretch burns and the real thing is different from the dildo in ways Harry isn’t sure how to describe.  But Louis is also there with one hand gripping his hip and the other stroking his side and then it’s slipping around to grip the part of himself Harry had nearly forgotten existed.  

He bucks into Louis’ hand and then groans when Louis’ knot tugs at his burning rim.  It’s a lot yet he still comes like a punch to his gut, harder than even the night before.  He feels boneless.  

“Fuck, are you okay?” Louis asks breathlessly and leans forward to ease the pull.  

“Aches, but I’m fine,” Harry mumbles and hopes it comes out in english.  

“Shit you’re fucking tight.”  It sounds like Louis is talking to himself so he doesn’t respond.  He can’t respond.  

After a while it starts to feel a little awkward that he’s relaxed back against his roommate’s chest while his knot is literally locked inside his body and his own dick and knot are deflating limply against his thigh.  The silence while this is happening is the most awkward thing Harry has ever lived through. What do you say when your alpha roommate volunteered to help you out with a knot?? Thank you?? 

“Soooo…” Louis is the first to speak through the tension. “Did you– do you – like it?”

It makes Harry blush because he can still feel periodic pulses as Louis keeps coming into the condom, the squeeze of a body signaling his contents to empty.  It’s a feeling harry knows all too well. He almost wishes there wasn’t a condom holding him back from feeling it from this perspective.  

“I’ve never come so hard in my life,” he answers.  It seemed safer to say it that way. 

“I’m still… coming…” Louis says breathlessly as a particularly hard contraction causes them both shutter.  They both grow silent but it’s comfortable this time.  

“So, would you want to try it out again sometime?”

Harry had never seen Louis so unsure of himself before.  Even if he was flying blind, Louis always had an air of confidence about him in everything he did.  It felt intimate that Louis was allowing himself to be like that around Harry. It made him blush.  

But he does want to do it again.  He definitely wants to do it again.  He nods.  

Louis nuzzles his nose into the soft hair at the back of Harry’s neck.  “Good. I like this.”  

Harry immediately melts into Louis and lets himself be held.  

“Me too,” Harry hums and he should have known in that exact moment that again would turn into always.