how do you feel,,,, abt aob scoteng,,,,
I have many thoughts in fact 👀 about omegaverse scoteng. There are a few rough ideas half-finished in my drafts, but one of my favourites might be this one:
Arthur is a beta. Ordinary, common, unremarkable. He weaves himself in and out of the complicated affairs of others for centuries, catching glimpses of possession in the mating bites that litter the skin of nations, in the muted musk he can taste in the air, feeling only a fraction of the intoxication that others might. Or at least, he imagines they must when he wakes up in a pile of feathers and rumpled bedding, the bed half-caved in beneath the shared weight of his lovers.
(It is no easy thing, keeping pace with an Alpha's rut or an Omega's heat but leave it to him to try and hold his own. Something about the pain, the heat, the strain on his muscles. Feeling like he'll come undone locked on the stretch of a knot, clawing at the sheets and biting back his moans, begging wordlessly for something.
He doesn't let his eyes linger then. Takes a too-hot shower to feel the sting of the scratch marks running down his back and does not let himself want even as he digs his own nails into the crook where his shoulder meets his neck in a poor imitation of what it might feel like to be owned like that.)
And so it goes, decades to a century. He takes one job, then another, phasing from one human life to the next, the only constant the nations around him and as of a few lifetimes ago— a home. Filled to the brim with other people's things that are as much his as they are theirs. Crowded and loud and sturdy, and if Arthur has never known what it is like to be bonded sharing a home is his first real taste of what it feels like to belong to other people by measures. Alasdair, Dylan, and Connor; Sean when he can be arsed to be around (which is... often. Or not so rare as he would have people on the outside of their queer arrangement believe). They share a table and a roof and sleep on linens hung from the same line to dry. Fight over inconsequential things and stand together when it matters.
Arthur is not sure that he's ever slept quite so well in all his very long life, or that he's eaten so regularly as he does now. He gains weight and his edges soften. Keeps his sharpness in other ways but finds himself settling in comfortably into what is almost a routine, as much as lives like theirs could ever be.
One evening he goes to bed feeling like his head is full of cotton and wakes up sweating.
It's the flu, he reasons and stumbles downstairs dressed for work with the first three buttons of his shirt left undone. Never mind that they don't get sick. Or not often, not like this.
Alasdair is in the kitchen fixing himself something (tea? smells too strongly for tea, Arthur thinks faintly and turns his back on him before his stomach can object.)
"You're looking peaky," Sean calls, loud and caustic from where he's sat at the table and Arthur can't even focus on him long enough to grouse something back. Alasdair says something in his stead (or does he?) and Arthur really should be getting to work only that it's somewhat hard to keep track of what's going on around him. The lights are too bright and the kitchen too hot, never mind that it's late November, and Alasdair is—
"Arthur,"—saying his name like he's been trying to catch his attention and standing suddenly close, hand hovering near Arthur's hip like he's about to reach out to steady him.
"What?" Arthur asks impatiently and takes a half step away to rest both hands on the kitchen table and steady himself. Even just that makes him ache somewhere in his core and he squeezes his eyes shut, lowering his chin almost to his chest when his heart jumps unsteady in his chest. He feels like he has in the tipping point before a high becomes a comedown, pulse racketing and mind clouded, oversensitive, and overly aware of every breath he takes. Only he is sober now and overdressed and what in the blazes is that bloody smell.
"You're hot," Alasdair says, close again and holding onto him this time, one hand on Arthur's hip the other pulling his head back almost gently, pressed against his forehead like he's feeling his temperature. His nose is pressed behind Arthur's ear like he's scenting him, deep and easy and he shifts his hold, moving the hand on Arthur's hip to his front, bracing him up. It makes Arthur's mind blank out for a moment, the feeling of it hot and broad against his stomach all whilst Alasdair presses his lips to his nape. When Sean's chair scrapes against the tile and sounds to him like it's coming from far away and not across the table.
Arthur tells himself that he’s about to tell him off when Alasdair fists the front of his shirt and pulls it down, enough to uncover more of his shoulder and lick up the side of his neck.
“You’re in heat,” he says roughly, voice tight with restrained arousal but clearly shocked.
"Fuck off," Arthur snaps immediately back between unsteady pants. "Fuck off. No, I'm bloody not."
"Arthur," and it's Sean speaking this time, Alasdair's lips are back against his neck.
