Time to get a little spicy

MINORS AND AGELESS BLOGS DNI // 23, she/they/he, bi // Do you want: spicy fandom stories? general horny posting? a little dark content? Well you've come to the right place!

[the-simps-nsfw-corner]

Please read!!

This is an 18+ Only blog! If you follow this blog, please have an age in your bio! IF YOU ARE A MINOR OR HAVE NO AGE IN YOUR BIO AND INTERACT HERE, I WILL BLOCK YOU!

(If you don't have an age in your bio and would prefer to DM me your age, that's fine.)

THIS IS A WARNING FOR DARK CONTENT, KINK CONTENT, AND GENERAL MONSTERFUCKERY; IF YOU ARE NOT COMFORTABLE CONSUMING SUCH CONTENT, DON'T READ OR JUST BLOCK ME

Blog info under the cut

Here we have:

NSFW writing I reblog (will mostly be smut, I will do my best to tag accordingly)

NSFW art I reblog

NSFW stuff I personally create

Blog-specific tags [will be added to as necessary]:

💗.smut - exactly what it sounds like. Spicy stories

💗.art - Spicy art

💗.post - general horny posting

💗.my posting - original horny content by yours truly

🌎.[Fandom] - the fandom tag! All the universes I'm hyperfixated and horny about

💗.answers - answering your steamy questions

💗.safety - PSA posts to make sure sexy times go smoothly

🌸.OC.[name] - the OC tag!

[Twst OC Masterlist]

[Obey Me OC Masterlist]

🌸.OC.Others.[name] - other people’s OCs! Sometimes you just gotta pair up your fake little people and let them fuck <3

🌸.[Character] - the character tag, should I recognize them. If I don't tag any characters and you recognize them, let me know so I can tag them!

Now, with all that out of the way, enjoy!

Avatar Picrew Link

[hellsofhearts02]

not to be horny on my horny blog but I'm kinda horny

[goatgirlballs]

well if its for fucked up and horny reasons, then i guess its okay...

[amiyayuri]

@hamothy_

[tautline-hitch]

OKAY FINE. Spin for a kink. You’ve just noticed this in the tags of an e-rated fic you were going to read.

How are we feeling?

YES this is IT this is my THING

Oh fun!

Sure, why not

Not really my deal but I can go with it

Nah, not feeling it

NOPE.

Vanilla extract (I don't read kink / I don't read e-rated fic / nuance / results

Voting ended onApr 30

Preemptively, in case this gets away: Be cool in the notes.

[nagumoan]

I love when a man, who's so tentative and shy about touching you, is insanely hung. Of course, your cock is huge, shy boy

[yahinata]

for our princesses

[huffslove]

This is safe, right?

[that-derriere-stare]

[slutdge]

i love being a pervert online with all of you

[villainwithacrush]

[andypantsx3]

SOMETHING IN THE WATER | 9 | SHOUTO x READER (FINAL CHAPTER)

SUMMARY: As a future marine biologist, you’ve scored big on your final internship: a summer in the tropics, researching the waters off the coast of a lush, sunny island. But what you thought would be all beach days and piña coladas turns out to be the revelation of a lifetime when you haul in a handsome merprince, and discover not everything in these waters is quite as it seems. TAGS/WARNINGS: mermaid au, interspecies relationships, mating rituals/courting behavior, (sort of) case fic, aged up characters, eventual smut, fem pronouns/afab reader LENGTH: 6.7k of 39k, 9th of 9 chapters

“Who lit a fire under your ass, kid?” Yu asked, eyebrows raised as she opened her bungalow door.

You suppressed a flush, reflexively embarrassed about how aggressively you’d hammered on her door. But you set your shoulders, peering determinedly into her face.

“How do we get to stay to monitor the clean up plan, and what are the requirements to establish a Marine Protected Area?” you asked breathlessly, barely finishing the shape of one word before the next tumbled out of your mouth.

Yu’s eyebrows shot even higher. “That’s a tall order for—” she glanced at her watch, “—eight at night, when we already have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

You raised your own eyebrows, settling your stance more firmly on her stairs. “It’s kind of urgent.”

Yu propped a hip against the door frame, a little smirk sneaking across her pink lips. “This doesn’t have anything to do with beach boy, does it?”

Your face went even hotter, but you refused to cede the point to her. “I want to stay and help with the clean up. Would you sponsor me for a full time offer? And I’d do all the work for an MPA, I just need to know the requirements.”

Yu’s smirk pulled into a fond little smile. “You’re really determined, huh?”

You nodded. “I wouldn’t bother you right now if I wasn’t.”

“Let Y/N in and stop teasing her,” Kamui’s voice issued from inside Yu’s bungalow. You felt your eyebrows shoot towards the moon, and a scarlet flush crept across Yu’s own face.

Your mouth dropped open, but you valiantly bit back the words that might have come out of it. Yu and Kamui—you fucking knew it was something beyond work frenemies!

Yu rolled her eyes and grabbed hold of your bicep with a perfectly-manicured hand, dragging you into her bungalow and closing the door after you. She stuffed you down into a side chair, and you were gratified to see that Kamui was at least fully dressed where he was propped up at the side of Yu’s bed.

“Establishing an MPA is a huge chunk of work,” Kamui told you as Yu settled herself primly next to him. “It would take a whole team of researchers, not just one person.”

Your eyes searched across him, over to Yu. “...I don’t want to be presumptuous, but seems to me like we already have a whole team of researchers. If we had any downtime after submitting the evidence on Sunfish and the clean up plan proposals.” You trailed off uncertainly. “That is…if you think we would be the ones to monitor the clean up… and if I would be staying…?”

Yu rolled her eyes again. “Of course you can stay—you’ve basically been a perfect little assistant. As if I wouldn’t recommend you. I could use a fulltime peon.”

Kamui gratified you by agreeing. “You’ve been nothing but an asset to this team, and carrying someone else’s slack on moving around all the equipment, besides.” His eyes cut over to Yu, who purposefully ignored him.

“Death Arms is also going to make the request that we monitor the clean up,” she said. “And they’ll probably keep most if not all of us on. You especially, when the company hires you, since you’ll be underpaid as a newbie and cheaper for them.”

Any indignation you might have felt at being shorted was swiftly overruled by pleasure—that you were the likeliest candidate to keep behind.

“Thank you,” you said, feeling flushed and overcome with bone-melting relief. “I will work hard to deserve the hire.”

Yu scoffed, while Kamui said, “You already do.”

A helpless grin tugged at your mouth, even as pleased embarrassment urged you to hide your face. “So what do I—I mean how does this work?”

Yu tossed a blonde tress over her shoulder. “I’ll submit my assessment for you tomorrow when we’re done with the Sunfish evidence package. It should be a week or so before they come through with your offer.”

A thrill raced through you. A week until you were guaranteed a multi-month extension. But it wouldn’t be permanent, unless an MPA was established.

“And requirements for an MPA?” you pressed.

“That’s quite a process,” Kamui told you. “It involves defining a clear conservation goal, conducting scientific assessments, creating management plans, getting some measure of community anecdote & support, and then securing a legal designation.”

Your hands closed on the arms of your chair. “Scientific assessments like the population monitoring we already have data on? And management plans like the clean up one that can be adapted for ongoing monitoring?”

Kamui inclined his head in acknowledgement. “We would already have a leg up on establishing an MPA in terms of data.”

“So we’d just need on the record anecdotes indicating community support for the initiative? And a firm definition of our conversation goal? Before we can submit it for legal designation?”

Kamui nodded again. “Yes, I think so.”

Your legs were under you before you realized you’d stood up again. “I can get that. After we finish the Sunfish evidence package tomorrow. I can get all that.”

Yu looked ready to shove you back into the chair, making a surprised noise in her throat. But you were already moving towards the door, tearing it back open in a hurry.

“Talk to you guys about this tomorrow more!” you called over your shoulder, throwing back a distracted wave. “Thank you for all your help! I’ll definitely treat you to dinner when I get the offer package!”

“Wait, kid, what’s the rush—-?” Yu’s voice chased after you, but was cut off as you shut the door hurriedly behind you. You all but tripped down the stairs back into the soft sand, churning a path back to your own room.

You yanked open your own door, all but running for your laptop as if the hounds of hell themselves were behind you. But you were determined to get started tonight—and that by the time you had an offer in hand, your future with Shouto would be secured too.

The next few days were a brutal slog of paperwork and filling out reports.

You spent dozens of hours organizing all of your prior research, poring over hundreds of Excels worth of data, pulling out key metrics and image caps from your monitoring stations. You wrote up your own reports of finding the waste water dump site, attaching pictures, and a step-by-step account of the visit to the Sunfish facility. You argued with Yu over all of the specifics, the phrasing, making sure that every single word entered into the report could not be proven false by any of Sunfish’s security cameras, down to the second-level timing of finding the Formacide-B storage.

You thought you were developing a permanent hump in your back from sitting hunched over your laptop, and wondered if your retinas would burn away under the nearly twenty-four-seven onslaught of your screen.

But then the reports were filed to local police and government, and your clean up & monitoring plans submitted.

Death Arms took you out to the local police station himself for you to give an on-the-record report of finding the Formacide, and you led an officer back out on your boat, through the jungle, and to the lagoon again for him to take pictures himself.

When it was all over you holed yourself back up in your room, huddled over your laptop again, compiling hundreds of pages of Marine Protected Area documentation. You made Yu, Kamui, Masaki and Death Arms read every iteration of the proposal you came up with, tirelessly working in their feedback, harassing them to help with their own sections, and pulling in endless reels of data from your time monitoring the island.

Then, on a sunny morning nearly a week since you’d last seen Shouto, you left your bungalow to gather the last bits of evidence you’d need to submit the MPA proposal: community support.

You wound your way back up the dirt road and around the thick jungle brush again, following the path of Bakugou Katsuki’s driveway.

He opened the door with a frown already in place and the incredulous look of someone who could not believe the nerve of what they were seeing.

“I told you to leave me out of your fuckin’ love life,” he barked, trying to close the door on you again.

“It’s not my love life!” you cried, catching the edge of the door with both hands. Bakugou was apparently horrendously strong, however, and the door pulled inexorably back towards its frame. “I want to set up a Marine Protected Area for Shouto’s pod!”

The door froze for a moment, and then pushed begrudgingly back open. Bakugou’s angry eyebrows appeared around the edge of it again.

“A Marine Protected Area?” he asked impatiently. It was amazing how he could sound both interested and disgusted by a person at the same time.

“Yeah, it’s what it sounds like,” you said. “It’s a boundary zone the government can legally enforce conservation in and ban certain human activities, like too much boating and industry fishing. It would prohibit another company like Sunfish from operating here again.”

Bakugou pushed open the door again fully, and you stumbled back, barely managing to avoid impact.

You hurriedly continued while you had his attention. “The proposal I’m making is to continue to allow local and sustainable fishing practices by legal residents of this archipelago, but to ban industrial fishing and large scale operation. Mostly due to what’s already happened at the hands of Sunfish. But I need community buy-in.”

Bakugou’s scarlet eyes burned through you. “And your first thought was to come to me?”

You flushed. “You’re a local fisherman and a well-renowned chef. You work at that swanky hotel, Izuku told me, with access to a lot of the area’s influential people.”

“Fucking Deku,” Bakugou spat, but didn’t deny anything. He settled a heavy arm against the door, an intimidatingly large bicep looming like a threat. “So what, you want me to fuckin’ charm the pants off of all the rich assholes at the restaurant?”

An image of a crowd of besuited politicians suddenly missing their pants under Bakugou’s judgmental stare flashed through your mind, and you suppressed a shudder.

“Not… exactly,” you said. “I was thinking more like I could collect some on-the-record anecdotes from you on your fishing activities and your concerns about the impact Sunfish clean up will have. With maybe special emphasis on the impact of the quality of the dishes you’re able to serve your important guests. And maybe that makes its way into some local paper, I don’t know.”

You saw the moment Bakugou understood your intention, as his scowl reshaped itself into an almost-smirk.

“And I suppose you want me to chat up my important guests on the same fuckin’ thing and get their buy in.”

You nodded. “Yeah, grease the political wheels, if that’s feasible.”

You thought you saw something like begrudging respect in the set of Bakugou’s features, though he still eyed you irritably. “And they’d ban assholes like Sunfish and leave the island to the residents?”

You nodded again. “That’s the game plan.”

Bakugou’s eyebrows lowered. “And Fuyumi and Shouto’s little fucking lagoon?”

“Being investigated as we speak, with a plan in place to clean it up. Just waiting for actual arrests to start happening at Sunfish.”

Bakugou paused for a long moment, then inclined his head, looking something almost satisfied. “Then get your phone out or some shit. I’ll give you your fucking interview.”

You had it out of your pocket in a flash, fumbling and nearly throwing it into the sand in your haste. “Just… be your most convincing. Charming.”

Bakugou looked annoyed again, and you swallowed any other advice. It was best to get any quote at all for now, and you weren’t sure if he might stomp off if you pressed him further.

You clicked the record button in your voice notes app, taking a deep breath, and launched into your first question, meant to prompt the exact type of engagement you were looking for: “Bakugou Katsuki—you’re a Michelin-starred chef, is that right?”

Bakugou flashed you another look of irritation but took the bait, launching gamely into an explanation of his credentials.

You led him carefully through all of your questions, on his fishing habits, observations about the population and quality of local fish. You asked him what made barramundi so special and his dish of choice, and tried to get him to play up the unique qualities of the local flora and fauna. Finally you asked him about Sunfish, about his concerns, and about the expected impact to his restaurant and Michelin star.

He looked well past annoyed by the time you wrapped up, but you were smiling faintly as you tucked your phone back into your shorts.

“Thanks for helping,” you told him, watching him fold his arms across his chest. “I think you’re probably a good friend to Shouto, even though you keep telling me otherwise.”

Bakugou growled. “He’s a fucking pain in my ass, not my friend.”

You carefully said nothing, but you thought you were beginning to see right through that denial. Bakugou had helped you, explained what everything meant to Shouto, and how your course of action would ultimately impact him. He’d looked ready to blow his top the whole time, but he’d explained it all, and he was here again, helping you set up the protection Shouto and his sister would need to stay safe, longer term.

You didn’t think Bakugou was nearly as bad as he made himself seem.

You chose not to comment on that, however, and gave him a wave, seeing that his patience with you had run its course. You turned on your heel to leave, bidding him goodbye and beating a hasty retreat back up his driveway. You legged it to the inn again, and parked yourself right at your laptop, transcribing the entire interview Bakugou had given.

You attached it to your MPA proposal, and emailed the final draft to the research team, excited that things were finally coming together. Then you carved out sections of the transcript and recording into a separate email, and googled around until you found the name and email address of a local reporter. You carefully addressed it, and drafted everything in anticipation of things going down with Sunfish soon, then shot it off, with a promise to answer any follow up questions should they come up.

By the time you detached yourself from your laptop, the sun had passed its zenith, and the day was sinking into the afternoon.

Almost as soon as you shut your computer down, a pounding came at your door, and Yu’s excited tone filtered through the wood of your door.

“Hey kid, you’re gonna wanna come see this!” she called.

You hurried to the door, yanking it open, only to be grabbed by the hand and dragged down your steps, towards the front lobby of the inn.

The entire research team was gathered around the old television set in the reception room, and both Inko and Izuku were there, watching raptly as a news segment aired.

You caught a flash of policemen in uniform ushering several handcuffed workers out of a very familiar facility, before a reporter with slicked back hair and a studiedly neutral expression was pronouncing, “Local and federal authorities raided the Sunfish Cannery early this morning, following allegations of corporate fraud and the illegal release of hazardous chemicals into a nearby lagoon. Investigators say the company deliberately concealed the discharge of Formacide B, a regulated industrial preservative, into Musutafu Lagoon for at least a year.”

Your heartbeat quickened in your chest, and you could see the excitement pass through your colleagues as the reporter continued.

“According to filings made just this week, internal records suggest Sunfish executives falsified environmental compliance reports and bypassed required treatment systems to cut costs. The chemical, which can cause severe ecological damage, was allegedly released through an unregistered outflow pipe hidden beneath the facility’s processing floor.”

The segment drifted towards a close with b-roll of the cannery, and a squadron of police cars parked outside the facility, masked and hairnetted works being ushered into them. You caught sight of Ikeda being stuffed into a vehicle alongside them, looking mutinous, and couldn’t suppress a victorious grin.

Served him right.

You were so busy gloating over his arrest that Yu’s tackle caught you off guard, and it was only Izuku catching the both of you that stopped her from sending you right to the floor.

“Their timing couldn’t be better!” Yu squealed into your hair, squeezing you until you thought your eye might pop out of their sockets. You could feel Izuku gently trying to push you both back onto your feet, but Yu didn’t seem to be paying your stability any mind.

“They just sent in your offer a few minutes ago, too!” she said. “Two birds in one fell swoop!”

“That is not the saying,” Kamui intoned from somewhere beyond Yu’s mass of blonde hair. You almost missed it as Yu squealed again, completely disregarding him, and put her fist to your head, giving you a fond—if terribly painful—noogie.

“Congrats, kid!” she said, as your mouth yanked itself between a wince and an enormous smile.

“An employment offer?” you asked, hardly daring to believe it.

“Yeah! It’s in my inbox, we can look it over together in a minute before you sign,” Yu said. “They’re stationing you here for another six months with coverage of your housing and food expenses while the whole team monitors clean up. They will reevaluate the need for an extension in six months depending on clean up progress and contract negotiations with Yuuei local government.”

Your heart pounded. An offer! And six months guaranteed more on the island, which was more than enough time for you to get your MPA proposal through the pipeline as well.

You felt like your feet were leaving the floor—and not just because Death Arms had suddenly picked both you and Yu up in a congratulatory hug.

“You did good, kid,” he told you. “And welcome officially to the team.”

You couldn’t stop smiling as you thanked him, and accepted congratulations from Kamui and Masaki, as well as from Inko and Izuku. Inko also immediately insisted on making something for a celebratory dinner, and dispatched Izuku to town to pick up the requisite groceries.

Then Yu disappeared back to her room for her laptop, reappearing with a bottle of champagne from somewhere as well. Kamui rolled his eyes as she popped it right in the lounge, but accepted a glass as Inko helped Yu pour it into a variety of mismatched glasses and mugs. Inko blushed when Yu insisted she take a glass as well.

The wine was bubbly and bright, a perfect match for the feeling in your chest. You were flush with success as Yu propped open her laptop and helped you read through the employment contract and package, explaining some of the terms to you. You were so pleased you didn’t even care to negotiate your salary—you immediately accepted, typing up your virtual signature, and sent off an acceptance within fifteen minutes of opening the offer.

You were going to get to stay here, on the island with Shouto, for many months more, with the lingering promise of forever, if you could get the MPA through. And you would get the MPA through, especially with Bakugou starting to help manipulate circumstances.

You had all you could want for, salary be damned.

The entire research crew did another toast when you finished, and you were all definitely on your way tipsy by the time Izuku made it back with groceries. Inko waved you out of reception and into the part of the building where she and Izuku lived.

At your insistence, she set you and Masaki to washing and chopping vegetables while Izuku set their tiny, cramped little table. Death Arms made himself as unobtrusive as a hulking monster of a man could make himself at the table, while Yu kept everyone’s glasses filled with champagne. Under Inko’s orders and practiced hand, a meal came together, and your whole crew stuffed themselves together at the table, thanking her for the food.

Dinner turned out to be katsudon for victory—with a steaming pile of rice and mound of perfectly seasoned vegetables. You shoveled back as much as you could handle, realizing you’d eaten less than you’d have preferred in your manic frenzy to get all the reporting and proposals in order. It tasted like that perfect blend of practiced technique and love that only someone’s mother could produce.

You were tingly from wine, good food, and pleasure by the time dinner wound down and everyone bid one another good night. You trooped dutifully out of Inko and Izuku’s house with the research crew, but charted a diverging path as the rest of them headed back towards the bungalows.

You followed the path straight down to the beach, the one place you’d wanted to run since you’d sent off your offer.

You stepped right into the water, the last of the sun’s fading rays kissing the waves red and purple as they lapped at your ankles. And then you kept on going, throwing yourself into the surf, paddling out farther into the ocean, knowing a certain merprince would sense you soon enough.

Shouto must have been waiting, as he appeared even more swiftly as you had accounted for. No sooner had your feet begun to lift off the sandy ocean floor than a pair of hands were catching you under your thighs, a red and white mop of hair popping up in the center of the reflexive circle your arms made.

You hugged Shouto around the shoulders, wrapping your legs around his waist.

“Shouto, I did it!” you said, catching a mouthful of salt water halfway through. Shouto turned his head to look at you, his nose brushing yours.

He was so gorgeous up close, pale skin perfect and sparkling with the sun’s last light. Water beaded off his long eyelashes, gathering in the corners of his full mouth. His hair was wet, fringe plastered against his forehead, and he smelled like salt. You thought you’d never seen anything more beautiful—and had never been happier to see a person in your life.

“Did what, love?” Shouto echoed curiously, mismatched eyes finding yours.

He, too, looked like he’d never been more pleased to see you, and his fingers curled tighter around your thighs, pulling you more firmly against him. It had been too long of a week, and you never wanted to go this long without seeing him again.

“All of it, I did all of it!” you said, grinning. “They shut down Sunfish this morning, arrested everyone for corporate fraud. And the government renewed their contract with my company so I can stay for cleanup, and maybe even beyond that, if I play my cards right. I don’t have to leave, and they’re going to fix your lagoon. And I’m going to keep you safe.”

Shouto’s pupils went slitted for a moment, growing long and unfathomably dark, before he intoned deeply, “You can stay.”

“I can stay,” you confirmed, reaching up a hand to yank at Shouto’s hair.

“You want to stay,” he said, watching you inhumanly closely. “You want to stay with me?”

You nodded, clinging to him tighter. “It doesn’t work the same for humans I know. But I think I can say with certainty that there will be no other, for me, too. I want to stay with you, for as long as you’ll have me. I just wanted to be sure I could promise that, before I came back to you.”

Shouto’s eyelashes fluttered, and he bit back a groan, before he was crushing his mouth to yours.

One hand came up to press you even harder against him, as his mouth lay claim to you. You let him kiss you, kissing him back just as hard. It excited and thrilled you, the palpable relief and euphoria in his kiss.

You could accept it now too that you felt exactly the same.

You had no idea how long Shouto kissed you for, losing yourself in his touch, the feeling of his perfect mouth over yours, the tease of his tongue and careful curling of his fingers into your hair.

It was full dark by the time Shouto let you free again, gasping for breath underneath the twinkling stars. You found that he’d maneuvered you to shore again, sand granules digging into your back. Shouto hovered over you, the scales of his tail pressed between your thighs.

And—to your surprise—the hard evidence of something else pressed between your thighs as well.

You couldn’t help but stare down between the two of you, where Shouto had apparently suddenly grown two appendages.

“Where the hell—?” you garbled out, blinking in the dim. You could just make out that they were speckled the same scarlet and white as his tail, and were intimidatingly long and full. “Is that—? Do you have two—? How did you—?”

Shouto kissed you again, flexing his hips so that the two appendages pressed enticingly against your core through your wet shorts. You let you in involuntary hiss, grabbing at his bicep for purchase. Fuck, that felt good.

“It does not have to happen now, the consummation,” Shouto said, and you flushed wildly. Well that confirmed what those were all about.

“It is simply—kissing you like that, knowing you want me too. I cannot help but feel it,” Shouto said in a low, indulgent tone.

“But… where did they even come from?” you couldn’t help but ask, mystified. You certainly would have noticed something—especially two somethings—as prominent as those attached to the front of the man you so desired.

You peered closer, noticing they protruded from a thin slit in his tail—something like a cloaca, and you would have been totally weirded out if you weren’t already so wild with desire for Shouto. You could think about that way, way later, when your brain was back online again.

“They only emerge when I am aroused,” Shouto informed you, in his typically straightforward manner. “And I am…quite, right now.”

Your ears went warm with the open acknowledgement, and you leaned up to kiss him again, relishing the feeling of all that damp, dense muscle over you. Shouto bent his head to you again, and kissed you back with equal fervor, sliding his cocks over the core of you again with deliberate slowness.

“You’re a menace,” you gasped into his mouth.

Shouto took the opportunity to slide his tongue in, flicking it against yours in a way that made you dizzy.

“We need not consummate tonight,” he said patiently, though the slow friction of him between your thighs told you any delay would not be owed to his objections.

You groaned with the feeling of him sliding over you again. “As if I’m going to wait longer when I had to wait a whole week.”

Shouto ground himself firmly into you for that one, a pleased sort of hissing noise escaping him too. When you looked back into his face, you found his pupils had gone slitted again. “Fuck, love.”

You let your hands wander up and down his shoulders and arms, tightening any time he slid back over you.

“With the consummation,” you asked, pausing for a quick intake of breath as he moved over you again. “Do I—both?”

Shouto nodded, his eyelashes fluttering closed at the thought. “Yesss,” he hissed again.

You nodded, all the neurons in your brain realigning themselves as you tried to figure out how this was going to work. “I’m not sure that I can fit…both in one place…” you said. But you also weren’t sure how it was going to work when you only had one spot that self-lubricated enough to make it feasible.

“How do we do this then, love?” Shouto asked you.

You thought for a minute, not liking the idea of pulling away from him. But there was really only one solution you could come up with.

“Can you wait just like, thirty minutes? And meet me on the boat just outside the port instead?” you asked. “If I can get to town they have uh, a grocery with something that—-will help.”

Shouto slid himself over you again as if in protest, a sweet frown curling his mouth. He looked reluctant to let you go.

“I of course would wait forever for you,” he said, however.

Your ears went hot again with the confession, somehow even more embarrassed by it than the insistent way he was rubbing himself between your legs.

You reluctantly maneuvered yourself out from under him, sand imprinting itself on your knees and elbows. “Well I don’t think I can wait forever. I think I might explode if we wait any longer. Meet me in thirty?” you asked.

Shouto nodded, watching you get to your feet and clamber back up the hill towards your bungalow.

Back inside you quickly shed your wet clothes, scattering sand everywhere, and yanked on a fresh set of shorts and a shirt. You hunted around for your wallet, tucking that and your room key and phone into your pocket, and then made a break for the port town, almost sprinting in your haste to get there.

Your face burned when you set down the bottle of lube at the check out, and the evening island breeze teased your hot cheeks as you emerged from the grocery. You hurried down the dock, spotting your boat tied up in one of the berths, and all but threw yourself in. You carefully maneuvered your way out into the dim, the headlight on, feeling slightly insane.

You weren’t far from the port when Shouto’s head popped out of the water, and he hauled himself up over the side of the boat, pulling himself into the chair next to you.

He greeted you with a low, warm, “Hello, love,” that made you tingle all over again.

You deliberately did not look to see if he was still bearing signs of his earlier arousal, though you did press yourself against one of his broad shoulders as he helped you steer the boat out into the open water. He guided you with that unearthly precision again, seeming always to know where and how to avoid the things your human eyes could not see in the dark.

He guided you out to the north of the island, barren of almost any residents, and helped you anchor the boat. It was quiet so far from port, the only sound the waves lapping at the sides of the boat, and your own nervous breath as you settled yourself into the backseat.

Shouto’s eyes tracked across you, flickering to your hand as you produced the bottle of lube, explaining what it was.

“It’s a lubricant. So that you can also—uh—in me—” you fumbled.

Shouto seemed to get the message, however, pulling himself up over you and bearing you down to the vinyl cushions. He kissed you again, thoroughly and unhurriedly, as if refamiliarizing himself after the entire half hour spent apart.

You found that he was still hard after all, just as flush and full against your hip as before. His hands came between your thighs, pulling them apart so he could settle himself back in between them.

Then clawed fingers skimmed up to your shirt, sliding their way beneath the fabric. Your heart fluttered as Shouto settled his hands over your breasts, kneading with no small hint of fascination on his handsome features.

“You are so soft, love,” Shouto said, sounding admiring. “I’ve always wanted to feel you here.”

Before you could reply, a clawed thumb pressed to your sternum, and suddenly the constraining clutch of your bra was gone. You gasped in indignation, rocking up, only to be thwarted by the roadblock of Shouto’s whole body over you.

“You just cut my bra in half!” you said, and Shouto looked a little too pleased with himself.

“I have long disliked it,” he pronounced, a pout pulling at his mouth.

You were cut off from answering him but the press of his thumbs over your nipples, and his own appreciative groan. He ducked his head, pressing his mouth to one breast over the fabric of your shirt.

“Humans and their clothes,” he complained, curling one hand up, and you saw what he was doing before he could manage it. You quickly grabbed a hold of your shirt, yanking it up over your head, away from his claws before they could tear it too.

“Stop ripping my clothes or I’ll be trapped out on this boat with you forever,” you told him.

Shouto groaned again, grinding himself into you, like he liked the thought of that too much to contain it.

“I should prefer that,” he told you, bending his head back to your breast. A hot tongue laved over your nipple, and the feeling made you forget to be annoyed with him. He sucked at one nipple and then the other, alternately playing with them in his long fingers, until you were squirming under him, making embarrassing noises that echoed out over the empty water.

“Shouto,” you cried, throwing your head back as he grazed the side of one nipple with a sharp canine.

He did something mind-bending with his tongue in answer, and you clutched at his shoulders, writhing.

It was only when you felt one of his hands skate back down to your shorts that you came back to yourself, hurriedly trying to rid yourself of them before he could mangle them too. You managed to save your shorts but not your underwear, and then Shouto was sliding down your body until his mouth met your cunt.

You almost flung your shorts over the side of the boat as you clutched desperately at the seats, moaning as his tongue filled you. He let out a pleased hum, sucking at the hood of you in a way that made your vision blur.

“You are way too good at this,” you accused him.

Shouto blinked at you, long and slow, his pupils fully slitted. “And you are far too delicious,” he replied.

That made you hot all over, which only worsened when you heard the bottle of lube uncap.

Then Shouto was putting two fingers to his mouth, and you watched in shock as he bit two of his claws off, until the nails were short as a human man’s. You felt yourself clench in arousal when you realized where those were going, feeling faint as Shouto drizzled the lube over his fingers, looking curious.

“You cannot fight or swim but I do like your human inventions,” he said.

“You’re going to kill me,” you muttered.

Shouto’s fingers slid down your cunt until they reached your ass, and your whole face flamed as he gently pressed one in, the lube easing its way.

It was slightly uncomfortable, and you shifted a bit, until a hot mouth sealed itself over your cunt again. Then you were thoroughly distracted by a delicate suck, the luxurious curl of a tongue over your clit. You found yourself panting and bucking against his mouth, sliding back on his finger, until another one carefully joined the first.

In minutes Shouto had you nearly crying, riding his fingers as he gently scissored them inside you, never letting up the distracting suction of his mouth over you.

“Please please—I’m ready, I’m ready!” you told him, sure that if you didn’t have him inside you in the next few minutes you would die.

“Are you sure, love?” Shouto asked, pressing the flat of his tongue over your clit, dragging it up agonizingly slow.

“Shouto, please, I need you so bad, please please,” you babbled, yanking at his arms, his hair, anything to pull him up over you again.

Shouto allowed it, kissing you on the mouth again. You felt him reach down, angling himself properly, and then he was sliding slowly into you.

He pressed into both holes, deliberate and torturous, until you wanted to wrap your ankles around his back and push him in. Even the strange, unfamiliarity of having both your cunt and your ass filled wasn’t enough to put you off of how much you wanted him, how much you thought you might lose your mind unless he was fully seated all the way inside you.

You were panting by the time his hips were flush with the bottoms of your thighs, and you moaned as he gently eased himself out, and then back in.

“Is this alright?” he asked.

You nodded, leaning up to kiss him again.

“So much more than alright,” you promised, flexing your own hips, trying to move yourself on him. “You feel—really good.”

Shouto looked pained at that, groaning low in his throat as he slid in and out of you again. “We are properly mated now,” he said, with no small amount of pleasure. “I will protect and care for you for the rest of my days.”

“And I you,” you promised, cringing at how breathy it came out. “Now I hope you will also promise to get on with it and fuck me the rest of your days—oh—too.”

Shouto laughed, a white half-moon flash in the dark. And then obliged you, picking up his pace, fucking in and out of you, pressing a hand to your stomach to hold you where he wanted you.

You let him fuck you, squirming and writhing beneath him with delight, a senseless, relentless pleasure building up inside you. He made you feel so unbearably full, in a way that you had never, ever imagined, and it made every sensation a thousand times hotter.

“Mine,” Shouto panted as he fucked you, the tiniest hint of a growl in his voice. “My mate, mine mine mine.”

“And you’re mine,” you said, clenching when that made him fuck you even harder, the pace of his thrusts becoming frenzied, uneven.

“Ah—love, you’re mine,” he hissed, pressing his thumb over your clit with one particularly forceful thrust. Your skin suddenly felt too tight for your body, your nerve endings on fire, his thumb on your clit an awful, torturous, incredible point of pleasure.

You bucked helplessly beneath him, chased towards your own inevitable climax. Shouto’s thumb petted carefully over you as his two cocks drove into you. It felt like too much, not enough, everything all at once—and suddenly you were screaming his name, curling up into him as you came, clench down onto him in your ass and your cunt.

Shouto fucked you through it, looking dazed, until the pace of his thrusts became faster, sloppier, almost desperate. Then he seized up over you, claws tearing through the seat beside your head, and moaned so pretty and sweet and deep as he came too.

He collapsed over to you, sweat and seawater slicking your chests together. You caught your breath together, running your hands absently over him as he mouthed at your throat. Neither of you moved for a long time, listening to each other breathe, the waves swirl gently at the sides of your boat.

“I’ve dreamed of this, since the first day I sensed you in my waters,” Shouto said finally, his voice a deep hum you felt in your own throat.

“And to think I almost clobbered you with an oar. I thought you wanted to eat me or something,” you said, laughing.

“Oh I did,” Shouto said, leaning up so you could see the handsome half-smirk that curled his plush mouth. “Though perhaps not in the way you were thinking.”

Your entire body went hot, and he groaned as you clutched around him again where he still lay inside you.

“You’re way smoother than should be allowed for a fish,” you told him.

Shouto looked smug. “What is it called when a fish catches a human instead?” he wondered.

You smiled, carding your fingers through his still-damp hair. “Mates, I think you said.”

Shouto’s eyes darkened, and he leaned back down to press a kiss to your mouth again. “Mates,” he echoed, and it sounded like a promise—-your whole future, laid bare and clear. “As long as we live.”

You grinned into the night, relishing the unexpected happiness you’d found for yourself.

You’d make sure it lasted for the rest of your lives, and that the island remained protected long after that.

Shouto was yours now—just as these waters were.

You would keep them safe and cared for, guarding what mattered most—something in the water worth saving.

And that's a wrap!! It took me over two years to finish this bad boy but we finally did it!! Thank you so much to anyone still reading this; thank you for your endless patience with me and your relentless love and support for this fic. I have truly treasured the time writing every single word of this fic, even if I've had to do it sooo slowly with everything ongoing in my life right now.

I love you and wish you the very happiest holidays!!!!

[junnaiart]

happy birthday yakumo! 🐍

[yinyuedijun]

PERFUME | zanka nijiku x f!reader

After living his entire life as a beta, Zanka goes into his first rut at the age of twenty-two. This complicates his relationship with you—the only omega in all of Cleaners' HQ.

13.8k words of a/b/o romance and smut! nsft tags: solo, multiple orgasms (zanka receiving), piv sex (reader receiving), knotting, shamelessly horny rut sex. warnings: themes of gender-based discrimination, briefly mentions trafficking and pregnancy/fertility (not in a kinky way). a/b/o worldbuilding notes here!

notes: kei urana revealed that zanka smells like incense and within 7 business days I wrote 14k words about it... man.

Zanka should have been an alpha.

His father had never said that in so many words, but he isn't stupid. During his last days at the Nijiku Estate, he could sense his old man’s disappointment with his disposition. Zanka was supposed to graduate at the top of the Academy like Kyouka and Goka. He was supposed to serve in the Hell Guard like Kyouka and Goka. He was supposed to present, at some point between the ages of thirteen to sixteen, as an alpha—just like Kyouka and Goka. Like everyone else bearing the Nijiku name, Zanka had been meant to dominate Kamuatari district in every way possible: as a genius, as a martial artist, as a leader.

As an alpha.

But Zanka never graduated from the Academy, and he never became a Hell Guard, and he also never, at some point between the ages of thirteen to sixteen, presented as an alpha. He ended up a beta and a Giver, and he ran away to join the Cleaners—an organization that is ironically full of alphas. He’s unusual for being a beta, and he guesses he's also unusual for being an all-around mediocre guy surrounded by alphas like Enjin and Tamsy and Semiu. Which should be fine. He's made peace with what he is.

Except you're an omega.

When Zanka first met you, he knew instantly what your presentation was.

Now, you didn't look like the classical image of an omega (fragile, elegant, something meant to be kept in the privacy of a luxurious house or on the arm of a nobleman), but you did have the scent of one. Zanka, himself, couldn't smell you—betas are all noseblind, unable to detect pheromones—but every single alpha in HQ could. To this day, their heads always turn as soon as you enter the room, enticed by whatever honeyed scent trails after you. Some of them openly trail after you, offering little gifts in the hopes of starting a courtship. Even Enjin, who's met far more omegas than most people will ever encounter in their lifetime, sometimes gets distracted by your presence.

“She smells like fresh flowers,” Delmon once told him. “Tuberoses, I think. They're tough to grow—tougher than any other species.”

Zanka understood the attention after that. Flowers are incredibly rare on the Ground, and most species smell foul thanks to the toxicity of the soil and their frequently carnivorous nature. Even the full garden and all the resources of the Nijiku Estate could hardly support more than a handful of lilies. Zanka couldn't tell you what a tuberose would smell like, and couldn't even really tell you what one would look like—but it must be something addictive, with the way you're always turning heads. He can't be sure, though. Zanka won't ever know your scent.

He has no biological reason to look at you as much as he does. No biological reason to be mesmerised by you as much as he is. No biological reason to want you the way an alpha would.

But it's really hard not to want you. Really, really hard. Which is unfortunate, since he has no business looking at an omega.

“You're so old-fashioned about this stuff," you whine at him one day, looping your arm around his and pressing yourself to his shoulder. Zanka’s heart rate ticks up, but he keeps a straight face. Somehow. He distracts himself with your musings. You love to interrogate people about their thoughts on mismatched relationships—alphas with betas, and omegas with betas, and omegas with omegas—and right now he's the focus of your scrutiny.

“What do you mean you’d never date an omega?” you demand. “What don't you like about us?”

Zanka studies your face carefully. You don't look hurt, exactly, but you do look disappointed. He gets it. Exceptionally rare and desirable, omegas have a tough deal in most parts of the Ground. In places like Kamuatari District, you'd have been courted by multiple suitors, then engaged to an alpha soon after coming of age and safely married off long ago; elsewhere, you might have ended up exploited, or trafficked, or worse. It was his old man’s opinion that alphas couldn't be trusted around unmated omegas, and that omegas should be considered a kind of protected class. The rest of Kamuatari district felt similarly; it was unusual for omegas to marry anyone other than alpha suitors who could take proper care of them—except for maybe the occasional beta with enough wealth and rank among the Hell Guard, but those marriages were usually considered a farce. It was also unheard of for omegas to freely talk to anyone without the company of their alpha mate. Zanka’s mother, herself, never left the Nijiku Estate unless it was on the arm of his father, and said that doing otherwise would be “foolish”.

When Zanka first told you about this, you'd balked at him—probably because you seem deeply uninterested in finding an alpha to chaperone you for all your exploits—though you also kind of understood it.

It does make me nervous sometimes that this place is full of alphas, you'd said, seating yourself on Zanka’s lap. He’d tried not to look at your doe eyes or pouty lips, nor the dangerously low cut of your top. That's why I like it when you hold me, you know. You make me feel so safe.

Zanka said he was glad to hear that, and then he prayed to every god in existence that you wouldn't notice his flustered expression or very obvious boner. Just as he is right now, trying to ignore the press of your chest against his arm.

“It ain't that I don't like omegas,” he replies carefully. “But I’d never be able to take care of one as their mate, y'know? Not as a beta.”

“That's stupid,” you say plainly. “What could an alpha do that a beta can't?”

He tries not to splutter. “Ain’t it obvious?”

You stare blankly. “No?”

Zanka wants to die. You have to be playing dumb. But then again, you've never been in a relationship, so maybe you're just astonishingly ignorant about certain mating rituals. He has half a mind to tell you to ask an omega, but then he realises there are none besides you in HQ.

“Like,” he starts, struggling. “We can't scent ‘em so other alphas stay away. Or make ‘em feel protected. Or take care of them during… you know.” During heats, he wants to say, but can't get out. Zanka’s pretty sure that he's already red up to the tips of his ears; if he goes anywhere near the topic of knotting, he’ll probably combust. “Anyway—omegas never pay attention to me. Don't ya think that says something? I'd never be enough for one.”

“I think you’d be enough for anyone,” you grouse. “I wish you'd stop talking about yourself like that, Zanka.”

“Like what?” He gives you a bewildered look.

“Like you’re always looking down on yourself. Saying you’re a mediocrity, or you’ll never be enough, or whatever.”

Zanka shrugs. “I ain't lookin’ down on myself—just sayin’ the truth. Nothin’ wrong with bein’ a beta or a mediocrity, but everyone’s gotta acknowledge their own limits.”

“I think you were raised to believe in too many limits,” you say, actually sounding a little sad. Zanka would hate hearing that from anyone else—his family’s business isn't anyone’s but his own—but he knows you mean well. And anyway, you were probably raised with infinitely more limits than him. You're an omega, after all.

“Doesn’t matter much now,” Zanka tries to console you. “I’m with the Cleaners now, ain't I? And stuff like that doesn't matter to most people here.”

Though it does matter to him. He's not one to forget about his limits. Even if he's fine with being a beta, a mediocrity, a disinherited nobody—he knows it wouldn't be fine for you, eventually. Or at least he wouldn't be fine giving you that kind of life.

Sometimes, though, when you smile too long at him or stare at him in that pretty way of yours, Zanka wonders if that could someday change. After he's different, after he's powerful, after he's more than some failed heir—then maybe he'd have some kind of business looking at you. But it feels pointless to think about it as he is right now.

After all—he's a beta anyway.

Whenever you go into preheat, you ask Zanka for his sweaters and T-shirts. The fabrics of your clothes are so nice, you always say, nuzzling into whatever you've stolen off his body. Makes for good nesting material, you know?

Zanka’s never thought too hard about it. He's always heard that omegas want comfortable nests, after all—it keeps them feeling safe during a vulnerable and sometimes painful time. It's no skin off his back if you want to borrow some old clothes that would make you feel a little better during your heats, especially since yours are so brutal. You're already looking ill right now, before it's even started. Practically shivering on the couch, deep bags under your eyes from all the sleep you've lost over the past couple of days. When he drapes his cardigan over your shoulders, you immediately burrow into it—pull it tight around your body and press your nose against the blue cotton. You breathe in deeply, sighing with relief—something he's seen you do plenty of times.

Zanka’s never quite understood this particular habit of yours. “Why d’ya always sniff my clothes?” he asks. “Is it an omega thing?”

“Kinda,” you murmur. “It's comforting.” You're so tired that you sway a little bit; he allows you to lean against him and rest your head on his shoulder. “Omegas like familiar scents during their heats—don’t you know that?”

“No,” he admits. “Talkin’ about heats was real taboo in Kamuatari District. I know the broad strokes of what happens, but nothin’ else.” Which is probably a good thing: Zanka thinks he’d die if he did learn, in detail, what happened to an omega during their heat. It's a calculated decision when he asks, “Anyway, whaddya mean you like my scent? Betas don't have scents.”

You frown. “What are you talking about? You totally do. It's just very faint.” As if to prove a point, you close your eyes and lean in very close to his nape. He can feel the soft tickle of your breath against his pulse, your lips inches from his throat.

Zanka stops breathing.

Your voice is low, almost velvety, when you speak again: “None of your alpha friends or family ever told you about your scent?”

“N-nah,” he says. He's stuttering and his face is burning, but you don't comment on it, merely staring up at him in a way that’s making him pray—again—that he won’t get a boner. “It was real taboo to talk about scents in Kamuatari District, too.”

You tilt your head. “Taboo?”

“Yeah. Ain't it rude? It's like commentin’ on someone’s body.”

You let out a laugh: faint, tinged with amusement, and maybe derision too. “That’s awfully silly. An omega’s body is already everyone else's business—wouldn’t you agree?”

You give Zanka one of those long, penetrating looks again, leaning into him. He becomes acutely aware of the obvious view down your shirt and tries to think about literally anything else. You always get extra touchy with him during your preheats: you’ve had some downright horrifying experiences with alphas during previous ones, and it eases your anxiety over it when you're physically close to Zanka. It makes him feel extra scummy for checking you out. You're going to him for comfort; he should definitely not be thinking about the way your curves feel against his body.

“Uh,” he replies.

You press your lips to the shell of his ear, voice soft: “Do you wanna know what you smell like, Zanka?”

“Uh.”

You inhale, breathing out a little sigh afterward that has him shivering.

“Like incense,” you murmur. “Sandalwood, I think. It's very pleasant. Calms me down during my heats.”

He swallows. Hard. “Y-your heats?”

“Mhm.” Your hand brushes against his thigh; his heart jumps. “Mine are really bad, you know. It always hurts so much because of how empty I am. But your scent always helps my body relax. Makes me feel better.”

Zanka is going to die.

He knows you're not trying to make any suggestive comments. Incense helps everyone relax; that's why so many people burn it in the first place. And there's no way, biologically, that Zanka’s scent could provide any kind of sexual or physical relief to you during a heat—he isn't an alpha, after all. But holy shit does everything about this moment feel suggestive. He pulls back, face burning, pants mortifyingly tight. Thankfully, you don't look at his lap.

“Zanka?” you ask, blinking. “Is something wrong?”

You look so innocent—and even kind of worried, like you've done something wrong. Guilt floods him.

“No,” he says quickly, trying to adjust his pants as subtly as possible. “Nothin’ at all. You just made me think—aren’t ya uncomfortable right now? Since you're in preheat. Maybe I should get ya more clothes for your nest, and you could get around to making it faster.”

You blink, then smile a little.

“Sure,” you say. “Why don't you help me build it, actually?”

Zanka ends up giving you half his wardrobe and spends most of the evening watching you meticulously arrange and re-arrange a pile of blankets and sweaters on your bed. He can't determine what makes you satisfied with certain parts of your nest and what makes you decide to demolish others, but that's fine since he isn't helping with actually building it. His only role is to rub his wrists along whatever shirt he's donating to your cause, or holding it against the crook of his neck until you deem it ready to use.

“This is how you scent things,” you explain patiently. “You rub your scent glands on it, or you press your whole body against it. Easy work.”

“But I don't have scent glands.”

“Of course you do. How else would you have a scent?” You frown. “Wow, you really don't know anything about mating biology, do you?”

“It ain't like I need to know about it,” Zanka points out, “since I'm a beta and all.”

“It could still come up,” you insist. “Sometimes omegas and alphas will try to mark their beta mates on their scent glands. Almost never takes, but it happens.”

Zanka imagines, almost against his will, the feeling of your teeth and lips on his neck; he can feel his cheeks going pink. “Sure,” he replies, hoping he doesn't sound too affected, “but omegas ain't ever interested in me, alphas don't look my way, and betas don't do any of that. My ex never wanted me to scent anythin’ for her.”

You freeze. “You have an ex?”

“...yeah?” Zanka is understanding, all of a sudden, that he's said something wrong. From the fleeting twitch of your mouth and the way your breath stops, he can tell you're upset. He wonders what tuberose and bitter orange would smell like together; Enjin had once said, when you had shut yourself into your room for three days straight, that it was very easy for him to tell when you were depressed. Zanka had then decided that since he couldn't smell your moods, he'd simply learn your microexpressions instead—and they’re alarming him right now.

“Met her in the city while I was out on a job, before ya joined the Cleaners,” he says carefully. “Didn't last long.”

You relax. “Oh,” you say. “I guess that's fine.”

Zanka isn't sure why his dating history is being judged or the criteria by which you're judging it, but he feels like it's a bad idea to ask. “Anythin’ else I can do to help here?” he says instead, studying your nest carefully. He still can't see any rhyme or reason to how it's arranged, but if he memorises it, he could re-build it for you next time anyway.

You hesitate. “I mean… you could…”

You don't often get shy—at least, not compared to Zanka. It's weird watching you fumble with your words. “I kinda thought… you know, when my heat comes for real… it’s always really tough since I'm alone…”

Oh. Of course. “Is there anythin’ I can get ya?” he knows to ask. He asked Enjin once how to help an omega through their heat, so he knows the basics: “Water? Snacks? Meds? I'll run out and get whatever ya need.”

“No, I've got all of that sorted. But… company would be nice, you know?”

Zanka stares at you for a little bit before he realises what you're asking, and he has to swallow a lump in his throat. “Are ya askin’ me to help you find a heat partner?”

You give him a dumbfounded look. Probably surprised he's already intuited what you're about to ask, given how clueless he is about other mating rituals. “What? Well, I mean—”

“There's a lot of alphas here who'd be happy to help, I think. I could ask one of them for ya, if there's someone you're thinkin’ of?” Zanka tries to sound casual, even though the idea is unsettling to him. Heat partners weren't a thing in Kamuatari since omegas got married so young there, but they make sense out here in East Ward, where omegas tend to stay unmated for longer. Zanka’s not judging anyone for it. The thing is, when he tries to picture you spending your heat with any of the alphas he knows and trusts—Enjin or Tamsy or Semiu—

—he’s realising that he'd want it to be no one other than himself.

Which is stupid. He's got no business looking at an omega. No business looking at you. What could he do to help you through your heat?

Maybe his mood is showing on his face, because your eyes go soft.

“No, I'm not asking for that either. I'm fine spending it alone.”

“But you should have an alpha take care of ya. Nearly all omegas need it.”

“I don't.” Then you give him an uncertain look, which borders on shy, and which makes his heart jump in a way that feels like it might require medical attention. “But it'd be nice if we could talk a little through our chokers, while I'm going through it?”

Your heat runs its course over the next week. You'd ordinarily hole up in your room the whole time, completely alone, and Zanka would have no clue what's happening in there other than the fact that you’re suffering. It always makes him feel on edge. So this time around, it's a relief when you call at night and he hears your voice—even though it's always ragged and exhausted, like you've been completely wrung out by heatsickness.

“Wish you could hold me,” you murmur once, sleepy and wistful. “It always makes me feel better when you do.”

“I don't think I could actually do much for ya,” Zanka tells you, trying to ignore the funny squeeze that his heart’s doing at your words. “Betas are pretty useless for heats.”

“I don't think you're useless,” you say. “And you always do a lot for me.”

Your voice is so small. It reminds Zanka of that one time where things had gone really sideways for you—stranded and alone in the desert due to a trash storm, weak from an early preheat. You were an impossibly good find for the traffickers who came across you: there's nothing on the market more valuable—or vulnerable—than an unmated omega in heat. Zanka, Enjin, and Gris had found you locked up in the trunk of a car, curled into a ball and trembling in pain. Your entire body was burning with fever and fear, and you screamed when Enjin and Gris tried to untie you. You’d been too delirious to recognise their faces or even their scents: all you knew was that there were two alphas trying to grab you, and they could have done whatever they wanted with you.

It was Zanka who'd helped you in the end. He hadn’t had a choice: he was the only beta among them, the only person who didn't smell like a threat. He took you into his arms—carried you, because you were in too much pain to walk—and delivered you to the clinic, your scalding tears pressed into the crook of his neck the whole time. Please don't go, you'd begged, crying against his pulse. I’m scared, I'm so scared, please don't let them touch me. But his mother’s words rang loud and clear through his head—It’s dangerous for an omega to see anyone other than their alpha during a heat—and Zanka had left, in the end, trying not to listen to your wounded pleas.

You hadn't held it against him. If anything, you trusted him more coming out of the whole ordeal: that's when you started getting all touchy with him, clinging onto him because it made you feel safe despite being constantly surrounded by alphas. But he feels shitty about it to this day, and he’s only been thinking of it more since your latest heat.

He thinks that's what’s gotten him into such a bad mood lately. Your heat’s finished up and you're perfectly healthy now—but Zanka feels agitated, somehow, whenever he sees you.

Specifically, he feels agitated when he sees other people near you.

Now, Zanka considers himself pretty friendly with everyone, unless your name is Rudo and you steal Lovely Assistaff and call it a dumb stick. Then Zanka might try to beat your ass. But otherwise, he's never felt badly toward any of his fellow Cleaners. It's confusing, then, how he gets antsy when he sees you talking with Semiu. How he catches himself frowning when you light a cigarette for Enjin. How his eyes narrow when he watches you and Tamsy sparring and you're clearly on the defensive, brow pinched, breath short. He stares at the two of you, hawklike, every muscle in his body tense.

Please don't go. I'm scared, I'm so scared, please don't let them touch me.

You're strung up by Tokushin, wailing at being bound, and suddenly Zanka’s staff has the other Giver trapped against a wall, its spikes dangerously close to his body. Tamsy seems unfazed, whistling—as if impressed. His eyes lose their golden glow; you yelp a little as you fall to the ground, and Zanka’s gaze snaps to you as you land on your feet.

“Zanka?” you ask, running up to him. “What's wrong? What happened?”

Your eyes dart between him and Tamsy. Tamsy shrugs, nonchalant. “Beats me.” He tilts his head, his keen eyes roaming over Zanka’s form. “Did I do something to offend you?”

Zanka realises that he has no answer. He tries to retrace his thought process, but can't come up with anything concrete—it’s like he blacked out between the time you got strung up and this moment, when you ran to his side.

He remembers being worried, though.

“You were bein’ awful rough with her,” he says, voice tight. “Sounded like she was in pain.”

Tamsy hums. “But we’ve sparred a million times, and she always screams like that. You've never gotten so worried before, Zanka.”

There's nothing he can say to that. He feels like a crazy person. He had no reason to attack Tamsy, but he doesn't want to release him—not until you’ve gotten away from him. I'm scared, Zanka keeps remembering. I'm so scared, please don't let them touch me. You weren't just saying that about the traffickers—it was also about Enjin, and Gris, and everyone else in the Cleaners who tried to crowd around you and nearly suffocated—

“Zanka?” you say softly. You touch his arm, and all the tension leaves his body. Anima and rage drain out of his vital instrument; Lovely Assisstaff returns to its original form, fragile and benign. Zanka tracks Tamsy’s movements carefully in his periphery, but stays turned to you.

“Were you worried about me?” you ask, peering at him curiously.

He shifts, uncomfortable. “Yeah. I know it don't make sense, but—”

“That's alright,” you dismiss. “No harm’s been done.” You give Tamsy an apologetic look. “Honestly, I was kinda tired from my heat anyway. Zanka probably just noticed. Let's call it quits and get back to it tomorrow?”

“Sure,” Tamsy says neutrally, then inclines his head to Zanka. “As long as Zanka’s fine with it.”

I'm not, he nearly says, for some reason he can't fathom. Now that he thinks about it, he also can't fathom why Tamsy would ever defer to him in the first place. It's strange, though Zanka's feeling some of the tension leave his jaw, hackles receding. Weird.

He tries to ignore it, turning to you. “Whatever ya feel comfortable with. I just don't want ya tirin’ yourself out.”

“Tomorrow, then.” You tug on Zanka’s arm, leading him away from Tamsy. “Let's get out of here.”

Zanka watches Tamsy the whole time as the two of you leave, tracking the movements of his feet, his eyes, his hands. It's only after the door swings shut behind the two of you that he finally relaxes. He tastes something in the air as you pull him close—sweet, fleeting, foreign. It's gone before he knows it.

It takes Zanka some time to realise that you've started to wear perfume.

“It’s nice,” he compliments you once he does, sitting next to you as the two of you do maintenance on your respective vital instruments. His staff is shiny with linseed oil; its earthy scent layered with your fragrance is pleasant. He finds himself watching you work, his eyes lingering on your nape as you bend over your desk, biting your lip in focus. “Where’d you get it?”

You blink at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, where's your perfume from? That stuff’s real pricey, right? S’hard to make.” That's what Enjin told him, anyway: his own cologne was terribly expensive, its ingredients imported from some faraway village. When Zanka asked what was even the point of using it, Enjin said it was just for polish. Then Bro ratted him out and said it was actually for picking up betas.

Zanka hadn’t thought much about it at the time, but now it's making him uneasy. It’d be crazy of you to seek the attention of a beta when you have so many alphas around you, who are much more qualified to mate with you—but then again, maybe that's why you're always so curious about people's stances on mismatched relationships. Maybe you've found a beta you're interested in. You've always been a little unconventional, after all.

He swallows at the thought, thinking back to all the interactions you've had with him. The touchiness, the nesting, the way you seem to long for his presence during your heats. It really wouldn't make sense—not when there’s Enjin and Tamsy and Semiu, not when omegas never look his way, not when you should have been married long ago to an alpha who could take proper care of you—but maybe, just maybe—

“I got it in Canvas Town, from a specialty perfumer,” you say smoothly, watching him carefully. “Can you pick out any notes?”

Zanka frowns. “Not really. I'm not good with noticin’ that type of thing. It just smells sweet to me.”

“Give it a try,” you say. “I'm curious what you get from it.”

You offer your wrist to him, and Zanka studies it, swallowing. He's for some reason mesmerized by the sight of it—staring more openly than he ever has at your legs or scandalously low-cut tops—and his hand almost trembles as he takes it and gently angles your pulse toward his face. He reminds himself that you hug him and sit on his lap and hang off his arm almost every day. It’s not a huge deal to smell your wrist, in comparison. It should be a quick and casual thing.

But then he breathes in and his mind goes blank.

Your scent is fucking heavenly.

Zanka didn't know a perfume could smell so good. Enjin’s cologne is underwhelming to him, as have been most other ones he's smelled. But yours is rich and soothing and beautiful—made from some kind of flower, he guesses. But not one he's ever known. It's strange and overpowering and it makes him feel fucking ravenous—like he wants to drink it all in. Or drown in it.

Zanka only realises he’s pressed his lips against your skin when you make a small noise.

He doesn't know how it happened. It's like he blacked out again—but now that he's awake, he jerks back, as if you’d just slapped him. “Sorry!” he yelps, mortified, because what the fuck did he just do? (Something that was definitely an HR violation, he thinks.)

But you don't look mad. You look… flustered. Your eyes are hazy; your lips are parted, breath heavy. Something shifts, and Zanka glances down to see you pressing your thighs together.

If he didn't know any better, he'd think you were aroused.

Zanka swallows, trying to ignore the thought. But it's hard when you're looking at him like that—eyes hooded by your lashes, pupils blown—and harder still, with how good you smell. You've tugged away your wrist but for some reason he can still practically taste your fragrance in the air—heady and almost cloying, now. Springtime bloom, fresh juice on his tongue. It's painfully distracting.

“It's okay,” you say, clearing your throat. “The insides of my wrists are just a little sensitive. There's a scent gland there, remember? Usually only a mate would touch that spot directly.”

Zanka is going to die. Or he's going to get sued for harassment.

“I’m real sorry,” he blurts out. “I dunno what came over me. I shouldn't have done that—”

“No, it’s really fine.” Your voice is gentle. His panicked breath evens out, and he takes in your new fragrance again: mellow, sweet. He feels himself relaxing, focusing on your questions: “What did you smell, though?”

“Flowers,” he says immediately, “and a couple of other things.”

“Like?”

“I dunno. Honey and fruit, maybe?”

“Citrus?”

He thinks for a minute. “Yeah.”

You give him another one for your long looks. He wonders what you're thinking, but you don't let it on, only nodding to yourself.

“I see.”

Zanka feels like he's going insane.

Whatever new fragrance you're wearing is overpowering. Ordinarily if a fragrance permeated everything like this, it would make him annoyed at best, nauseated at worst. But something about this particular scent—syrupy, heady, the memory of your skin against his lips, the sensation of your pulse beneath his mouth—is driving him toward some dangerous edge. He tastes the air and he thinks of you: fingers petal-soft, eyes citrus-bright, voice honey-sweet. The dip of your collarbones, the soft lines of your body. He feels like he'll fall off a cliff whenever you're around.

It makes him feel so, so scummy—like a real scuzzball. All you're doing is existing around him and it's giving him the worst thoughts about you—thoughts he has no business having.

The worst part is that your scent is ever-present, lingering even when you, yourself, aren't there. It's in the dining hall, in the common area, in the threads of his clothes. It's in the training room, when he's trying to focus on sparring. It's in his sheets when he's trying to sleep at night, hoping he's not gonna have some kind of filthy dream about you—waking up mortified when he does, his cock throbbing and leaking, aching to be inside you. It's even there when he's meditating, trying to focus on the weight of Lovely Assisstaff but thinking instead of how your weight feels on his lap—how it'd feel if you sat there, straddling his waist, moaning pretty in his ear as you ride him.

It makes me feel so safe when you hold me like this.

Man. He really is a scuzzball.

He thinks his guilt over this might be responsible for his bad mood lately. He snaps at people when you aren't in his line of sight. He flattened Rudo during training, the other day, after he spotted the two of you having lunch together. He saw you share a cigarette with Enjin—Enjin! His fucking hero!—and he accidentally crushed the glass in his hands.

Zanka tries to get your perfume out of his clothes, but it's not coming out no matter how much he scrubs things. He's forced to stop trying, because if he wears out the threads then your nests won't be as comfortable anymore. But it's driving him fucking crazy.

He's in the canteen, scowling and sleep-deprived, when Enjin comes upon him and whistles at the piss-poor state he's in.

“Alright,” he says in that knowing tone of his, pulling up a chair. “What's going on?”

Zanka can't respond at first. What the fuck is he supposed to say? I’m smellin’ my friend’s perfume everywhere and it's makin’ me so horny I can't focus? It sounds insane. He feels insane. So he ends up just saying, vaguely, that he wants to get your new fragrance out of his clothes, and it's annoying him that he can't figure out how.

Enjin blinks. “New fragrance?”

“Yeah. I'm sure you've smelled it—it’s everywhere, ain't it?” Zanka wrinkles his nose. “S’nice in small doses, but distracting as hell like this.”

“What do you…” Enjin takes a beat, studying him. Then he smiles. “Yeah, it is pretty distracting. But are you really sure you wanna get rid of it? Lots of guys would love it, you know.”

“‘course I do,” Zanka lies. “I don't want people thinkin’ I wear perfume anyway. Ain't my style.”

Enjin nods. “I get it. Well—perfume like this is hard to rid of, but it's doable. I've done it plenty of times before. You gotta take a really hot shower—scrub your neck and wrists especially. And your hair, obviously.”

“And my clothes?”

“You'll need to go shopping—or use bleach.”

Zanka feels nothing but despair looking at the state of his wallet—being disinherited means he can't spend the way he used to—but he goes to buy new casual wear anyway. He makes sure it's all nice—not only because he's still got the instinct of presenting himself like a noble scion, but also because he doesn't want to loan you anything of shitty quality during your next heat. You should be comfortable.

Enjin’s advice does work. Zanka still tastes you in the air wherever he goes, but at least it's not clinging to him. It's enough to stop his daydreams about you, at least. Most of them. He's still having ones at night, and he's still waking up with raging boners, but at least it's something. He finally has some semblance of nonsexual peace.

The next time you run into him, you freeze.

“Hey,” he greets, waving, “how’d your mission go? You went to Canvas Town, right? I heard that things got kinda—”

You march up to him, ignoring him completely. He squirms under the intensity of your gaze, the tightness of your jaw. You layered a new perfume with your usual one, he notices. The citrus is stronger today.

“Zanka,” you say, “has something been wrong?”

He flushes, because the answer is yes, but he can’t exactly say that his dick gets hard whenever he smells your perfume anywhere—and that he's been smelling it everywhere.

He lies—badly: “N-no…?”

“Are you mad at me?” you ask tightly.

“What? Of course not.” He frowns at the crease in your brow. You're distressed. “What's even makin’ you think that?”

You ignore him—again. “Then are you seeing someone?” you try, and his jaw drops.

“Huh? No! Of course not.” He pauses at his own words—’Of course not?’ Why would it be obvious to you that he isn't? Though it's plenty obvious to him, given that he's been fixated on the thought of you for the past two weeks, and smitten for nearly the past year—but you relax, and he lets it go.

“What’s wrong?” he asks earnestly. “Yer anxious about something.”

You seem to think for a little bit, and then you sigh. “I am,” you admit, voice small, and it sets him on edge immediately.

“What's wrong? Is someone botherin’ ya? An alpha?” He nearly pauses again, because what a weird fucking question. Why would it be an alpha? It's probably more likely all your paperwork for the collateral damage on your missions, which you truly suck at doing. No alpha with the Cleaners has ever given you any issues; Enjin, Gris, and Bro have always made sure of that.

You don't seem to question his suspicions, though. “No, not exactly,” you say. “I can handle it myself, but I've been feeling kind of stressed.”

“What can I do to help?”

You look at him through your lashes, pleading. He realises he'd do anything for you in that moment.

“Can you hold me?” you ask. “Just for a little bit. I just need a hug.”

“Of course,” he says immediately, and you loop your arms around his neck and press your face against his shoulder, hair and breath tickling his jugular. It’s oddly pleasant. He swallows as he's surrounded by that perfume again—pulled in, all dreamlike. He thinks about separating from you, but you take one of his hands and lace your fingers with his. He shivers when your thumb runs delicately along his wrist, lingering on his skin.

His mind feels halfway to fraying by the time you let go. You seem happier. Satisfied.

“Thanks,” you say brightly. “That made me feel better.”

You look content—refreshed, almost. Zanka feels himself relaxing as you wave goodbye, rounding the corner so you can run an errand for Semiu. It's only after you're gone that he’s realising the scent of you is clinging to him again, and he nearly holds his head in his hands.

Back to square one.

After another week, Zanka feels like he's getting close to his limit.

For nearly twenty-one days, he's been suffering from intrusive thoughts of you, most of them wildly inappropriate. And as if it isn’t bad enough to dealing with your new fragrance and the sudden, mortifying spike in his sex drive—he now has to deal with your new wardrobe choices. You have a sudden preference for wearing very tiny skirts, and it’s been giving Zanka catastrophically high blood pressure since you keep bending over and giving him a full view of your ass. He always scrambles to get you to straighten up so he’s not looking up your skirt—and also to stand behind you so that no one else is tempted to do the same.

It’s starting to become a struggle to exist around you—but he doesn't exactly want to avoid you, either. He likes being near you. And he's on edge when he's not. After all—if he, as a beta, is thinking about you this way, what are the alphas around you fantasizing about?

Still. He wishes, at the very least, that you'd stop sitting in his lap and squirming around. It gives him a genuine heart attack every time you do it: what if you notice his dick pressing against your ass? But you seem none the wiser, just rubbing up on him anyway.

It’s torturous. And wasteful. He's running up the water bill with how many cold showers he's taken lately—but he doesn't have a choice. He is not gonna be that creep who jacks off to the thought of his friend, who trusts him pretty much unconditionally even during heats. He’s not a total scuzzball, alright? It's a line he won't cross, no matter how good you smell or how nice you feel or how pretty you are when you smile at him.

Then you return his clothes—the ones you borrowed for your nest—and he finally hits his limit.

You're so nonchalant about it. A little careless, even. “Sorry I didn't get the chance to wash them,” you fret, placing your basket of laundry at the foot of his bed. “I've just been so busy since my heat finished, you know, all these missions and then the paperwork… but you must be running out of clothes, huh? You keep buying new ones.”

Zanka swallows. He hardly wants to admit the fact that he's been trying to smell less of your new perfume—it’d be a dick move, and anyway, it's really nice—so he shrugs and says, “I don't mind it.”

You frown. “I'll pay you back anyway.”

“Nah, don't worry about it.” He nods at the laundry. “Don't worry about this, neither. Won't be a big deal to wash some clothes.”

You smile gratefully. “Thanks. When I get back from this next mission, I'll make it up to you, okay? I'll take you out to dinner. My treat.”

Zanka thinks the last thing he wants to be doing is sitting in public with you, trying to hide his boner under some restaurant table, but he nods. “Let's do barbecue.”

You grin. “You got it.”

He signs in relief after you've gone: your fragrance is a little fainter now in the absence of your body. Just another cold shower later and he’ll be fine—he’ll do it after he gets the laundry started.

Then he actually starts sorting through his clothes, and he almost loses his damn mind.

His clothes are doused in your fragrance, flora and honey permeating every seam and stitch. So sweet it's nearly cloying. So strong it's almost like you're still here with him—breath sweeping across his collar, thumb trailing along his wrist. An omega’s body is everyone’s business—wouldn’t you agree?

He doesn't realise he's buried his face in his shirt until he’s closing his eyes and inhaling—groaning as he does. He nearly throws it on the floor as soon as he hears the noise he's making, because what the fuck is he doing? Zanka absolutely has to stop. But his whole body’s gone hot and his mind has gone foggy and he can't stop breathing in the smell of you—like he's some kind of addict, drunk on just the ghost of your presence.

Then he catches another scent layered into the fabric, and his eyes snap open.

It smells like sex.

He rifles through every piece of clothing in the basket; all of them carry that very specific, unmistakable scent. Like you lovingly built that nest with his clothes and brought someone to bed and let them fuck you in it. Except that doesn't make sense—you hate it when anyone other than Zanka comes near you during your heats, and anyway, he'd have noticed if you'd gotten a heat partner. You spend way too much time around him for him to miss it.

What do omegas do during their heats without a partner, anyway? People in Kamuatari District never talked about it; he’d always assumed they just slept through their discomfort and tried to ignore all the symptoms of heat sickness. He hadn't known enough, at the time, to realise that that wouldn't be very realistic. He hadn't known that heats were so painful until he saw you crying in the trunk of that car, sweating and trembling. Until he picked you up and listened to you whimper against his neck. Until you crawled into his lap two months ago, whispering into his ear: It always hurts so much because of how empty I am, but your scent always helps my body relax. Makes me feel better.

Zanka is a beta. He’s biologically incapable of giving you any kind of relief during a heat. But now he's putting two and two together, your words with your scent, and now he can't help the mental image he's forming: you, in a nest built with his things, panting and filling yourself up to chase away that emptiness. Wet and messy and getting slick all over his clothes. Warm and fragrant as you wear his shirts and take care of yourself with your fingers, crying into his fabrics.

Calling him afterwards, fucked to exhaustion and wrung out by countless orgasms, to tell him you wished he could hold you.

Zanka inhales sharply at the thought. Notices that his cock is fucking aching.

His sex drive has been unmanageable over these past few weeks, but it's still never been like this. His dick is pulsing and twitching and painful, and he can't stop breathing in your scent, and he keeps imagining the little sounds you must make in your nest while you touch yourself, and holy shit he is a scumbag for doing this, but—

—he’s unzipping his pants and freeing his cock.

Guilt wells up in him when he wraps a hand around his length. Shame burns across his face. He’s going to hate himself for this later; hell, he already hates himself. But he's just so hard, already leaking prespend everywhere, and it's only getting worse the more he presses his face into his fragranced shirt. Zanka can't help his reaction when he squeezes his cock and finally starts to stroke himself: he makes a noise that's halfway to a whine, his hips bucking toward his hand. Just the smell of you is making his whole body feel sensitive—almost possessed.

He finally caves with the fantasies. Imagines stuff that would make him die if he actually tried it in real life, but he's now convinced you've been intentionally making him think about: squeezing your curves whenever you sit pretty on his lap in public; rolling his hips against your thighs as you squirm on top of him; bending you over whenever you wear that little skirt around him and taking you like that.

It's confusing. Zanka’s not even really a fan of doggy style. He’s a missionary kind of guy, would want to look at your face and hold your hand if he ever did somehow get to sleep with you. But he’s been thinking nonstop about fucking you from behind lately for some reason, and he's thinking about it now as he fucks his fist and groans into his used shirt, as if drunk on you.

It doesn't take long to finish—he’s been pent up for weeks, after all. His cock is twitching and his hips are stuttering and now he's spilling himself into hand, his whole body burning with shame as he cums to the scent of you. But he's relieved, almost—desperate to be rid of the non-stop tension that's been plaguing him these past few weeks. Finally free of all his fantasies, which he hopes to tuck away and never think of again.

But as his panting subsides, Zanka realises something horrible:

He's still incredibly hard.

After his third orgasm, Zanka reasons that something must be physically wrong with him. He just can't quite figure out what. Did he accidentally ingest an aphrodisiac? Get hit by a weird vital instrument? Went too long without jerking off? He has no idea, and he can't really think well enough to figure it out. All he can focus on is fisting himself toward his next orgasm, face still buried in the shirt that you wore during your heat. He’s already dripping and messy with cum—it’s gotten all over his fingers, his length, and now his abs, after getting rid of his shirt—but somehow he still needs more.

His blood is scalding, his body is aching with tension. He feels like an animal. All he can think about is bending you over and fucking you, and he's glad that you've left on a mission with Follo or else he'd be at risk of going to your room and—

“Zanka?”

His eyes snap open. You're in his room, for some reason—eyes wide, jaw slack. Your gaze is darting between his lap and the shirt he's holding against his face.

Damning evidence.

“What are you doin’ here?!” he yelps. He finally drops his shirt, and fumbles to pull his pants up, face burning. “l didn't want ya to see—”

You do that thing where you ignore him again, opting instead to watch him intently. The door locks behind you with a click, and for some insane reason he can't fathom, you walk over to him and lean toward his neck.

Dread and arousal pool in his gut. His whole body goes stiff; he's trying not to grab you and pull you toward him, which is very hard when he can feel your breath on his neck and smell so much nectar in your hair. He almost can't process it when you look at him and point out, “You’re in rut.”

Zanka blinks. “What?”

“You're going through a rut, Zanka.” Your brow furrows. “Which isn't surprising.”

He gapes at you. “What do ya mean, ‘not surprising’? Of course it's surprisin’, it ain't even possible! I'm a damn beta—”

“No, you're an alpha.” You tilt your head. “You haven't noticed? Most people do, right before they present.”

Zanka’s mind goes blank. He can't be an alpha. He’s a beta—he made peace with being a beta years ago, at the same time he made peace with being untalented, pathetic, a disappointment to his entire family, the laughingstock of Kamuatari: the Nijiku clan scion who turned tail and ran away from the Academy. He’s even come to like being a beta—that’s who he is, even for all the limits it's brought him. And sure, it means he’ll never be enough for you, but at least he doesn't turn into some mindless, aggressive animal over your—

He breathes in your perfume again, and a horrible realization crashes through him.

“You really didn't know,” you say, blinking at his expression. “I thought it would be obvious. Your behavior’s been really odd lately. I wasn't sure if you'd turn out to be an alpha or an omega, but I guess we know now.”

His dick is so hard, he can barely think.

“But I've been a beta my whole life,” he protests—as if you can do anything.

You give him an apologetic look. “Some people just present late. I guess you're going through your first rut, now.” You look at him with those pretty eyes that he's been thinking about nonstop for the past month, and he swallows thickly. Realises that everything adds up. His bad moods, his antsy behaviour when he sees you with other alphas, his sudden fantasies about mounting you.

“Do you want help?” you ask mildly, and Zanka nearly jumps.

“H-help?”

“Yes. Do you want me to help you through your rut?” Your eyes flick downward, where the outline of his straining cock is visible through his pants. “I’ve never been with anyone during their rut before, but I think I could do it. It can't be too different from helping an omega during their heat.”

“No way,” he blurts out, panicked. “If I'm really an alpha”—something that still feels like a lie, even though it's getting harder to deny—

“it ain't safe for ya here, is it? Yer an unmated omega. You gotta get out before I…”

You raise a brow. “Before you do what? Something I've been trying to offer for a while now?” You sound faintly amused. “Besides—it’s not like alphas lose all sense during their ruts. You could turn me down now if you want. I'll leave and lock the door to my room, if you’re that worried.”

Zanka thinks he’ll die if you leave right now—if he's cut off from your scent, your smile, you. Still, he struggles—not only from the pain of his arousal, but also from the mad tangle of his thoughts. Alphas are dangerous for omegas, he hears his mother say. Omegas should be protected, his father echoes. There's nothing more dangerous for an unmated omega than to be near an alpha.

Please don't let them touch me.

“But we aren't mates,” he finally says, jaw clenched, chest torn.

Your eyes soften. “You’re so old-fashioned.”

“I just”—he swallows, suddenly aware of how clammy his hands have gotten and how much he's been sweating—“I just don't wanna mess things up between us. Or do somethin’ we’ll regret. I don't want ya wakin’ up tomorrow feelin’ horrible ‘cause I lost control and knotted you, or somethin’.”

“I don't think I'd mind if you did,” you say plainly, and he chokes. Feels himself going red, a full-body flush. Your mouth curls playfully, and now he's realising that you're a horrible tease. You still have a merciful streak, though: “But we don't need to go that far,” you reassure him. “I think alphas must be pretty similar to omegas—just a familiar scent would probably help a lot, right?”

Before he can reply, you're baring your nape to him, offering him the pretty slope of your neck. It obliterates all thought from his mind, leaves only hunger behind. He's been chasing the ghost of you through your fragrance for weeks; now you're here, in front of him, ripe and offering yourself.

It takes a moment for Zanka to realise that he's pressed his face to the crook of your neck, that his tongue is searing a hot path along your scent gland. You whimper, and the noise goes straight to his cock.

You tug him into sitting on the bed with you, giving him access to every scent gland in your body. He's torn between some animal part of his hindbrain that's screaming at him to pin you down and fuck you, and another part of him that’s too afraid to hurt you. Being rough with you is never something he'd thought of doing before all this. And even with his supposed new, alpha instincts, it feels wrong—this feels wrong. You aren't his mate. He hasn't even courted you a little. He should tell you to leave.

But he's also so horny he could die.

Zanka tries to spend time on your neck, not only because your fragrance is strongest there, but also because he can feel the way you shudder every time his teeth catch on your skin. He sucks gently and breathes you in; your scent blooms beautifully for him. His cock is painfully heavy in his pants, throbbing for you every time you whine.

At some point you must have pulled off your shirt—or maybe Zanka did, eager to access more of your skin. Faintly, he notes that you weren't wearing a bra, for some reason; he's too distracted to linger on it, kissing a trail down to your bare tits, his mouth hungry on them. You cry when he does, back arching as he sucks your nipples. The noise makes him groan, brings back his hindbrain instinct to pin you down and fuck you. But he’s just worried enough to stop himself: afraid of hurting you, knotting you, messing things up.

He starts touching himself instead.

He doesn't notice it until he's begun fisting his cock again, his hips jerking as he continues to mouth your tits. He’s leaked so much by this point—through his boxers, all over his hands, onto the sheets—that there's no point in trying not to be messy. Apparently you don't care much; he feels your hand gently touching his own, trying to palm his cock. He lets you, almost gasping when he feels your thumb playing with the head, teasing him. Then your grip firms up, warm and tender as you slowly start to pump his cock.

He whines.

It's embarrassing. Probably. He’s too desperate to finish right now to really care. Zanka focuses on your touch, on the taste of your skin, on the little noises you're making as his tongue swirls around your nipple. He ends up panting into the swell of your breasts as he climaxes—so hard that his spend ends up covering your fingers and stomach and skirt. He keeps mouthing at you as he cums, littering your honeyed skin with marks.

He only stops when he comes down from his high. Vaguely, Zanka notices that he finally feels better, but not by much. His cock is still weeping, balls heavy even though he's just had his fourth orgasm—his strongest yet. Even though he just got to touch you in a way he never thought he'd be able, something he thought he'd only ever experience in his dreams.

“Sorry,” he pants, “‘m so sorry, I dunno what's wrong with me.”

“It’s fine.” He feels your fingers run through his hair, comforting. “I’m like this during my heats, too. You don't have to feel sorry for what your body’s doing. Just keep going until you feel better.”

The words do something to him. Makes him give up on his self-control, or maybe it's just his alpha instincts winning out over his rational mind. Everything passes in a drunken haze: he's aware of you squirming and moaning as his mouth trails over your body again, as he presses his nose against every inch of you. He smells flowers and incense the whole time, tastes his cum on your skin, licks a path down to your thighs. Desperate to smell more of you, he pushes up your skirt, and breathes a sigh of relief when he sees your pussy exposed and twitching for him underneath it. No panties. Without thinking, he closes his eyes and presses his face against you—nose flat against your clit, mouth salivating against your glistening cunt—and he inhales. Takes one deep, long ravenous breath, then groans. The scent of you goes straight to his cock.

He's not really thinking when he starts to lick.

He's too far gone to use any real technique, guided by pure hunger as his tongue works on you. You react immediately: body convulsing, voice squealing, scent blossoming. Vaguely, he's aware that you're grinding your clit against him, that his hips are jerking against the mattress—humping the sheets as you fuck his face, cock twitching and balls tightening just at the taste of you. He shudders as your fingers tighten in his hair and you pull him closer to you, drenching his face in slick. He licks and sucks at you, drinking it up greedily as be thrusts his hips against the mattress, and he's closer and closer and closer to—

—his vision goes white.

When Zanka comes to, he's vaguely aware of his cock spurting against the sheets, his abs growing stickier as he cums untouched just from the taste of you. There's so much of it. It's fucking unbelievable.

But it's still not enough.

Zanka needs more. He feels like he’ll die if he doesn't get more of you. He keeps eating you out through his impossibly long and messy orgasm, which he's not sure will ever end. He starts sucking at your clit—all instinct, not intention—and you whine and jerk your hips. Your body is so sensitive, pussy gushing with slick. Vaguely, he's aware of you crying his name, thighs squeezing around his head—I’m gonna cum, I'm gonna cum, Zanka, Zanka, oh—

Zanka only takes his mouth off you when you push him away, face pinched and exhausted. He's vaguely aware of you saying something about being overstimulated, but it's neither your words nor the strange quality of your scent that brings him back to reality—it’s the fact that tears have pearled at the corners of your eyes.

“What's wrong?” he says, leaning over you. He rests a hand over your cheek. “Did I—did I hurt ya? Did I—”

“No,” you reassure him. “No, I just—just needed a break.” Your eyes are still shiny, a little wet. Zanka’s never liked it when you cry, but right now it feels agonizing to see your tears, closer to a physical discomfort than an emotional one: as if it's hardwired into his body to fix whatever's upsetting you.

He crawls up and takes you into his arms, allows you to bury your face into his neck. You kiss him there—his scent gland, he guesses, from the way he shivers—and now he can smell the incense in the air changing, somehow. It shifts from sandalwood into something gentler.

“You don't have to worry,” you murmur. “I really am okay.”

“It’s still botherin’ me,” he replies, disconcerted. “I know it don't make sense, but it's freakin’ me out to see you cry even a little.”

“I know,” you reply. “Alphas instinctively can't stand to see their partners in distress. It's the same with omegas. But you'll get used to it. It gets easier to ignore over time.”

He makes a face. “Why would I wanna get used to seein’ you cry?”

You smile at him, looking sly. “Well, most of the crying I do in bed isn't ‘cause I'm sad.”

Zanka feels his brain short-circuit. His concern evaporates, immediately replaced by mental images that fill him with immense guilt, even with the mind-screw of his rut. He can't help it, though—if just his mouth was enough to get you tearing up, then what would happen if he were to use his cock instead? And he isn't going to—he really, really can't—but if he were to knot you—

Zanka inhales sharply. Tries not to let the mental image affect him, but of course he's been throbbing and leaking this whole time anyway. You evidently notice it, rolling your hips against his so his cock is pressed against your abdomen, smearing cum and prespend across your skin.

“You're still hard,” you murmur. “You need more, don't you?”

“I don't wanna bother you no more,” he says. “Yer tired enough already.”

You shake your head. “I'm fine.” Then you wrap your legs around him, adjust your hips and shimmy a little beneath him. “Let me help you, Zanka.”

He has a mind to protest, but his hesitation disappears as soon as you start moving—lining your pussy with his length. You don't push yourself onto him; you just let the head of his cock catch against your folds, warm and sticky for him.

Zanka shudders. He nearly thrusts inside you, but the last thread of his self-control stops him. There's so much cum coating his cock; he'd push it all inside you if he fucked you, and that would be terrible, given how fertile omegas are. Plus there's no way he'd last inside you: he'd cum almost immediately.

“We can't do this,” he grunts out, trying desperately to cling to his senses. “I could get ya…”

“We don't need to,” you reassure him. “We can just do this.”

Zanka doesn't have it in him to resist. He sits up, takes his cock in hand and starts moving immediately—dragging the head back and forth between your soft folds, smearing cum all over your clit. You're so wet that your pussy is making the filthiest noises just from this, squelching with each movement of his length. And somehow, you're getting even more aroused—you whimper as more slick starts to leak out of you, your body unable to control itself.

He can hardly process it. “Omegas really do need alphas,” Zanka says, dazed. “Look at how you're reactin’ just to this.”

You shake your head, voice breathy as you reply: “It has nothing to do with you being an alpha. My body’s just always like this around you.” You gasp as his cock slips inside you on accident; his jaw clenches as he feels your pussy twitching around his tip, and it's all he can do to stay still, panting. Nearly impossible, with how warm and soft you feel. “Even when you were a beta, I was like this.”

His breath hitches. “Y-yeah?”

You nod, looking a little embarrassed. “When I go into preheat and I sit on your lap,” you admit, “I always ruin my panties. And during my heats, when I'm wearing your shirts and smelling you, I end up getting slick everywhere. I can't help it.”

“But I’m—was—a beta,” he argues, even as his cock keeps running between your folds, even as he presses his face into your neck again.

“It doesn't matter,” you say through your panting. “You could have turned out an omega and my body would still act like this. I want you, Zanka—”

Your voice cuts off into a strangled moan. He doesn't fully understand why until he feels your walls squeezing around him, his cockhead pressed up against what must be your cervix. He groans as your slick drips all over his balls, which are now flush against your body.

“Zanka,” you whine. “Zanka, I’m gonna—”

You don't need to finish your sentence. Zanka feels you start pulsing around him, trying to milk him. And he's only been inside you for all of thirty seconds, maybe, but his balls are getting tight and his cock is starting to twitch—and he manages to pull out right as he peaks again, shooting cum all over your body. It splatters all over your breasts and stomach, his scent clinging onto your skin—now stronger than ever, incense and musk—but you hardly react. You're too caught up in your own orgasm, shaking beneath him, covered in his marks and spend.

He's made such a mess of you. He'd be mortified if he weren't being driven mad by his rut—which Zanka is now convinced won't ever end. He's still hard, still throbbing, still needs to be inside you. You look like you're no better off, thighs rubbing together, a puddle of slick beneath your ass. You’re just as delirious as him.

You act on it, too. Zanka’s widen as you roll onto your stomach, then stick up your ass up for him. He doesn't know much about mating rituals but he knows enough to understand what's happening: you're presenting yourself, offering your pussy to him. It's some kind of omega breeding instinct, he faintly recalls. And suddenly he's thinking of all those times you bent down around him, skirt revealing your ass and thighs, lacy panties barely covering your core. It finally hits him:

You've been presenting yourself to him for the past week.

You turn to look at him, eyes glassy, pupils blown. “I want you inside me,” you whimper. “Please.”

Something tickles the edge of his mind. His brow furrows. “But—”

“You don't need to knot me,” you whine, “but I need you to fuck me. Please, Zanka, I'm so empty—I’ve been empty for so long, for so many heats, please—”

The crying does something to him. Again. He needs to take care of you, to make it stop. He’ll do anything.

You whimper when he presses against your entrance again, then moan, loud and guttural, as he pushes inside you. He can't think of anything other than his intense need to fuck you, suddenly: he starts mindlessly rutting into you, his cock splitting open your pussy, wet and filthy noises filling his ears as skin slaps against skin. Zanka’s convinced he's become some kind of beast—unable to focus on anything other than being inside you.

You keen when he noses your neck again, breathes and pants against your scent gland. He can feel your cunt tightening each time he mouths at you like this—your skin between his teeth, fragrance blooming under his tongue. Suddenly he realises he needs to sink his canines into you, his entire body screaming with an instinct he doesn't really understand. There's a distant, human part of him telling him that's a bad idea, but it's drowned out by the boiling pressure of his rut.

Zanka opens his mouth—and he bites.

You cum when he does. Gush all over him, your arms and knees giving out. You're getting tighter and tighter, somehow—almost as if you’re trying to push him out—and it's making him desperate to stay inside you, his thrusts getting aggressive, erratic. He groans when he finally manages to bottom out, cock deep inside you, your pussy impossibly tight. Relief floods him as he finally—finally—spills himself inside you. He collapses on top of you as he does, pumping you full of cum as he licks at the mark he's left on your neck.

Some faint part of him tells him to pull out, but he realises that he can't. Something’s stopping him from moving his hips back, keeping the two of you locked together as he fills you up. He’s got no choice but to lie there, letting his cock twitch and spurt inside you for what feels like forever. He's vaguely aware of you drooling onto the pillow, your eyes glassy, as you're made to take it all.

Zanka's panting and exhausted when he's finally done. Doesn't know much time has passed or how much cum he's given you, but it must have been a lot: his spend leaks out of your overfilled, twitching pussy as soon as he pulls out, and you whine as it does. He flushes at the sound and sight; he doesn't know what came over him, to leave you in a state like this. He’s going to miss being a beta.

Zanka’s so fixated on the sight of you, it takes a moment for him to realise his erection’s finally gone down. The haze of his rut is beginning to recede; he can hear his own thoughts again.

“It finally worked,” he murmurs, relieved.

“Figures,” you mumble. “You needed to knot me.”

This makes him freeze.

“W-what d’ya mean?” he asks, although he's already sorting through his memories of his last twenty—thirty?—minutes. Being locked inside you. His orgasm lasting as long as it did. His sudden, inexplicable urge to bite you: something he's never thought about before.

Then he blanches, looking at the mark on your neck.

“I—” He swallows. “Did I…?”

Every horrible thing he's ever heard about alphas suddenly floods his mind. The things they do to omegas in heat. Taking advantage of them while they're weak. Claiming them against their will. Knotting them and getting them pregnant. Locking them in the back of some trunk, leaving them tied up and crying.

Zanka feels sick.

You seem unconcerned though. You notice the line of his sight and touch your neck where it's still swollen and tender with his bite, wincing. “Oh, this? Don't worry about it. It won't take since I'm not in heat.”

He swallows, still not allowing himself any relief. “But… ain't you worried about bein’ knotted?”

“No—it’s also low risk, since I'm not in heat. And I take meds for this kind of stuff, too.” You smile at him, reassuring. “Promise you won't be a baby daddy in nine months. You can relax.”

But Zanka can't bring himself to, somehow. Now that his head’s clear and his body’s calm, he can't think of anything other than the fact that he's never had any business looking at you—and definitely no business touching you like he has. And it isn't like he hasn't been pining after you anyway—like an idiot—but even in his craziest dreams where he did have a proper chance at being with you, things didn't play out this way.

You must sense his anxiety—maybe in his face or his scent or his body language, he guesses—because you’re frowning at him, now.

“Zanka,” you say quietly. “Do you not like me?”

He stares. “What?”

The question feels absurd. Crazy, even. Zanka just spent a month chasing after your scent and the better part of the evening knotting you. He wonders if you're joking, but you’re looking at him with an expression that can't be described as anything other than hurt.

“You aren't happy about knotting me or biting me,” you observe. “And you've been ignoring my signals for months. Is it that you don't want me?”

The air is starting to change. He tastes citrus now, sharp beneath the sweetness of flowers and honey. Zanka swallows. “That ain't it,” he blurts out. “I—I only didn't say anythin’ for so long ‘cause I thought there'd be no way you'd be interested in someone like me… I mean—you'd be better off with an alpha, wouldn't ya?”

“But you're an alpha now,” you point out, voice small. “Shouldn't you be fine with giving us a chance? Or are you just going to make up some other reason that you aren't going to be enough for me?”

Zanka goes quiet. His first instinct is to argue with you: But you could be doin’ better for yourself. You're surrounded by people who are stronger than him, more talented than him, more than him. You're so sweet and kind. And you're an omega. You could get yourself engaged to any alpha of your choice—not the disappointment of the Nijiku family. Not the noble scion who turned tail and ran away from Kamuatari District. Maybe it'd be different if he’d already overcome all that, like he's trying to do. But as he is right now? Zanka’s got no right to be looking at someone like you.

His jaw tightens. “I ain't makin’ anything up… it’s the truth I gotta be better than what I am. How am I s’pposed to ask you to give me a chance before I make somethin’ of myself?”

You frown. “Is it so hard to accept that I simply want you as you are?” you ask, and every retort that Zanka had lined up dies in his throat.

The air is thick with the scent of oranges; you've pulled your knees to your chest, and you're staring at the door. You're trying not to let it show on your face how sad you are, but Zanka knows every dip of your brow and twitch of your mouth: your heart must be hurting bad.

Zanka sighs. He truly is a scuzzball.

He pulls you in, holds you the way you like during your preheats—with your face close to the crook of his neck. You breathe in deeply, and he feels you shuddering against his body.

“I've been real unfair to ya,” he says.

“You have been,” you agree, and the corner of his mouth twitches.

“I just don't wanna do things half-assed with ya.”

“I know. That's why I was okay waiting for as long as I did.” You look him in the eye, uncertainty in your gaze. “Are you turning me down?”

“No. I'm askin’ if I can court ya.”

Your eyes go wide. You actually look a little flustered: a proper role reversal. “You want to court me? Like—for mating?”

Zanka flushes, probably going bright red. He didn't think this would be such a big deal: it would have been the typical order of things in Kamuatari District. “...well, yeah? You're an omega, ain't ya? And I really like ya. If we do this, I'd be serious about it. I'd make you my mate, if you'll have me.”

You give him a long, disbelieving stare—and then you smile.

“You really are old-fashioned,” you say, sounding endeared. Then you lean up, glowing, and press a chaste little kiss to his lips.

His heart nearly gives out.

Zanka’s eyes go comically wide. His face burns; his pulse ticks up. You blink at his expression, then start giggling.

“Why do you look so flustered?”

His mouth opens. “You just kissed me!”

“Yes—after you fucked me and spent half an hour cumming inside me,” you point out dryly, ignoring the way he chokes. “I thought kissing wouldn't be a big deal after all that.”

He almost splutters. “You know I wouldn't have done that if I weren't in rut!” Zanka frowns as he tries to piece together his scrambled memories of the past couple of hours; the more he recalls, the more he wants to crawl into a hole. The bottom of a well would work just fine.

“...I did this all backwards,” he groans. “This ain't how I wanted things to go.”

You hum, watching Zanka with a glint in your eye that makes him feel wary. You lean toward him, breath sweeping over his mouth, a playful little smile on your lips: “Guess we’ll need to make up for that, won't we?”

For the next twenty minutes, you and Zanka make out like you're teenagers, which actually remains fairly tame until Zanka’s cock starts twitching back to life. He then learns the hard way that ruts can last anywhere from twenty-four to seventy-two hours, and the relief that you can get from knotting an omega lasts maybe thirty minutes, tops. A full hour if you're lucky. His first rut lasts around fourty-eight hours in total; he spends most of those two days inside you, your pussy eagerly warming his cock.

“I'm just trying to give you some relief,” you tell him at one point, voice innocent, and even with his mind absolutely blitzed by rut hormones, Zanka does not believe you in the least.

But you are very good at taking care of him. You make him drink plenty of electrolytes and get Follo and Eishia to bring you both meals. You tell his alpha friends to keep a wide berth from his room, saying vaguely that he'd caught a horrible flu and doesn't want to be disturbed. You drag him to the shower even though all he wants to do is keep you pinned underneath him in bed; you wash his back and hair, trying to kiss the tension out of his shoulders and neck as you do. You take his temperature frequently: it's unusual but not rare for alphas to get fevers during ruts. Zanka dodges this risk, but maybe only because you're letting him knot you so frequently.

Apparently as soon as you’d figured out that Zanka’s presentation was about to change, you’d started “researching” how to care for an alpha during their rut—that is, you asked Enjin and Bro point-blank what you should do. This is probably why, the morning that Zanka returns to work and enters the canteen, Bro gives him a thumbs-up and Enjin mouths a ‘congratulations' at him. Or maybe it's because you're absolutely covered in Zanka’s scent and everyone in HQ can tell that the two of you had marathon sex and that he didn't bother pulling out even once.

Somehow, he manages not to die from embarrassment. But he does come close.

It's not all bad, though. Zanka doesn't mind that people know that he's yours. It calms him down whenever you pass him by and he catches his own scent clinging to you; he'd otherwise be worried about alphas giving you unsolicited attention. When he mentions this to you one day, you blink and give him a little laugh.

“But everyone's always known that,” you giggle. “I've been scenting you for ages. Why do you think omegas have never shown any interest in you?”

Zanka isn't mad about this, exactly, but he’s still surprised. “Did everyone but me know that you were wantin’ me to court ya?”

“Pretty much.”

“Even Enjin and Gris?!”

“The two of them before anyone else.”

His mouth opens, then closes. “Why didn't they tell me?”

“Well, Gris thought we should be left alone to work things out for ourselves, like proper adults,” you say mildly. “Enjin just thought it was funny. And he was wondering how long it would take you to notice.”

Zanka feels like he might die from embarrassment, after all. This doesn't stop him from going to Enjin for advice when you go into preheat though—and Delmon, too, because he's one of the few Cleaners who's been married. The two of them give very good instructions for how to take care of an omega during their heat, and Zanka is endlessly grateful for it. (He does wish that Delmon hadn't yelled it at the top of his lungs, though.)

For several days, he prepares for your heat—the first one you'll ever spend together.

He thinks it'll be fine. Probably. It shouldn't be a big deal. You've had plenty of sex and he's knotted you plenty of times before. You're both on medication so there's no risk of pregnancy. He’s bought enough electrolyte drinks to last a full week. All your favourite snacks, too. He’s also prepped several days’ worth of meals for you—apparently omegas have a weak stomach when they have heatsickness, and the canteen doesn't have any good options for you since HQ is so dominated by alphas. You burst into tears when he got you to taste-test one of his meals, then asked him to claim you once your heat started up.

Zanka is 99% sure that was just your preheat hormones talking, but it still made his entire face go red.

It'll probably be fine. There's no way Zanka could screw this up, right? Taking care of your partner during their heat should be the simplest, most intuitive task in the world. He can't be such a fuck-up that he'd fail you at a time like—

“You don't have to be so nervous,” you say, and Zanka nearly jumps. “It's just a heat. I'll live.”

“Who said I was nervous?”

“I can smell it on you,” you point out. “You smell like cedar-leaf incense when you're upset about something. Sandalwood otherwise. Oh, except when you're horny. Then you smell like agarwood.”

“You can tell when I'm horny?”

“Of course. If not by your scent, then because of your dick. You're really bad at hiding it when you're hard, you know.”

Zanka is going to die. This is one of those moments where he deeply misses being a beta, though not even that would apparently save him from the way his blood rushes to his dick every time he sees you. Truly damning evidence.

He expects you to tease him, but you ignore his mortified expression. Instead, you take one of his hands in yours, your thumb lingering on his wrist.

“It’ll be fine. I promise. I know you'll be a good heat partner.”

You stare at your bed, then, where Zanka has meticulously set up your nest—half made of his clothes, half made from sheets and blankets. He scented every piece of it, of course. He's certain that he did at least this much right, so he's confused when you give him a dubious look.

“Did you make this?” you ask.

“Who else?”

You blink. “But how did you know how to make a nest?”

“From the last time we did it together. I was still a beta, remember—so I couldn't figure out what made for a good nest. I just memorized what yours looked like.” His brows knot up. “I still don't have much of an instinct for buildin’ these things, though. Guess I ain't the best alpha, but I'm learnin’.”

Zanka doesn't expect it when you laugh—nor when you fall into your nest and drag him down with you. You're curled up in his arms, rubbing your face into his neck, when you explain, “That's because alphas don't make nests, Zanka. Alphas can help by scenting fabrics for their omegas—but only omegas do the actual building.”

“Oh.” He runs a hand through his hair, hoping his scent isn't giving away his embarrassment. “See—I still ain't the best alpha. Bet I fucked it up real bad. Let's remake it.”

You shake your head, then place a long and chaste kiss on his mouth. He tastes tuberose and honey in the air, blooming sweetly just for him. You're cradled by cotton and incense, and his heart swells when he studies the lines of your expression: safe, loved, happy.

“No,” you say. “You’re perfect.”

end

thank you for reading all the way to the end, you are truly god's strongest soldier <3 extra notes:

some thoughts on a/b/o and the worldbuilding/themes in this fic

FYI tamsy is actually an omega; he is just pretending to be an alpha. he actually noticed, before everyone else, that zanka's presentation was about to change lol

tuberose is a very commonly used perfume ingredient and is thought to be very sensual

I AM VERY RUSTY

happy holidays!!!

[beerdraws]

I love picking colours from official art. I never realized just how pale Rei's skin is until I put it next to Garu's. Garu on the left, Rei on the right. Depending on which monitor I put this image on, Rei's skin looks completely white next to Garu's lol.

I got a little curious so I decided to colour pick the others too. Putting all of the guys next to each other, most of them have about the same shade of pale, but it seems to go like this:

Dante, Morvay, Garu, Quincy, -insert almost everyone else-, Blade, Rei.

After posting about this in the discord, @neotomiccccc decided to put together this helpful reference, colours picked directly from the sprites.

Note: we didn't include Karu's eye colour, nor the exact shade of white from that singular hair strand Rei has, but this should be very helpful regardless. Assuming you're like me and prefer picking the colours directly from official art, that is.

Note2: Yes, Neo actually picked the colours for Aster through Yakumo individually. Their skintones are just super close, so I imagine not everyone can see the difference.

[lovecraftiancicada]

Yakumo's birthday!!! :>

He looks so pretty tucking his hair behind his ear. The suit looks good on him too—simple but nice.

[peoplegettingreallymadatporn]

[pucksburrow]

Drawing the boys pt 2 - Yakumo!