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Two Alphas marrying isn’t commonplace, yet Phainon and Mydei make it work. Now, on their honeymoon, nestled in a tranquil cabin in the middle of the Alps, with Spring ushering them into their ruts, Phainon breeds Mydei into submission.
How blessed Mydei is to have an Alpha for a husband who happens to be an Enigma; a stronger variant with pheromones potent enough to cause such an extreme biological shift in other Alphas if willing.
Perhaps, bitching is a more tedious process than Mydei had anticipated it being. His thighs ache from hours of being fucked, and still, the heat in his belly only grows, and his cock drags divinely against sheets, the friction only adding to desire.
Phainon is no better, lost to the heat of Mydei around him – so tight and perfect and his, in his husband’s own words – with his knot seated deep inside him, stretching him wide.
“Fuck, yes.” Mydei’s cheek presses into the sheets, soft silk, fingers sinking into the pillow that rests beneath his chest. He prostrates himself for Phainon, legs spread wide and heat rushing through his body, all while breathing in the headiness of his mate, his Alpha’s, pheromones.
Crushed honeycomb and the darkness of pepper and salt thrown over is such a tantalizing blend.
Phainon bows over Mydei. Drags his tongue and teeth over their fresh mating bond, still bloodied and healing, and groans, low and feral. How long he has waited for this.
“I’m close,” comes Phainon’s voice, broken and uttered, against the shell of Mydei’s ear. He nips at Mydei’s throat, the line of his jaw, and Mydei shudders. Leans back and pushes himself up, to roll into the press of Phainon’s cock against his prostate. “So close, Mydei. You smell divine.”
A broken sound leaves Mydei as Phainon sinks his teeth into their mating bond, by the juncture of neck and shoulder, and stays there, while hips come flush with his own as they still. Phainon’s knot is large. Larger than Mydei’s, and slowly fills out.
It’s surprising how Mydei’s instincts abate so quickly. Instead of snarling and trying to roll over and pin Phainon to the sheets, he only sinks deeper into the pace Phainon sets. He wants to drown in Phainon’s scent. Wants to take all the release Phainon has to give.
He wants to be thoroughly claimed and bred.
Very unlike his tendencies as an Alpha, but there is no fear in it. Only submission. And that’s a haze Mydei lets fall over his better judgement. At least, until their ruts are over.
His heat will come soon enough, once pheromones have fully shifted.
“Breed me. Please.” Mydei moans as he brings himself to his hands and knees. It changes the angle, and he sobs, tears finding his waterline.
This way, he rocks back to meet the roll of Phainon’s hips, and he gasps, as Phainon presses a palm to his belly, feeling where he’s seated deep. Phainon’s knot spreads Mydei’s rim wide and catches there, a cruel addition of sensation.
“I fill you so well, don’t I?” Phainon asks, all honeyed syllables against the length of Mydei’s spine, lips tracing the red ink there. A relic of Mydei’s days as a wrestler. It feels like a lifetime away, considering he teaches Amphoreus College’s national team now. “Tell me, what do you want, husband?”
“You.” Mydei’s tongue is thick in his mouth, and he can hardly think, attention honed in on the way Phainon carves a space for himself inside him. It’s stunning. A bright bliss that has him going soft as clay in Phainon’s capable hands.
Mydei hasn’t always been easy to yield.
Unlike Phainon’s upbringing in a well-off home, with a guaranteed job in finance after his years of study as an accountant, with a late father’s firm to inherit, Mydei had clawed his way up the ladder, all feral rage and the need to make a life for himself when he had nothing to start off with.
But he is so safe here with Phainon. So accepted and loved and cherished. In more ways than one they’ve been the sun and moon, just missing each other when rising and falling upon the horizon. The only difference between Phainon and other Alphas had been Phainon’s way of truly seeing people for who they were. He is genuine and golden-hearted, and that’s what had drawn Mydei in.
They love each other for who they are without their pasts and their standings in society. The fact that they were both expected to find lifelong partners in Omegas says just as much, Mydei knows.
“There’s more to that. You have to tell me,” Phainon requests, taking hold of Mydei’s hips. He pulls free from Mydei’s body, knot not fully locked in yet, and Mydei almost lets another sob loose, with how wide his rim is stretched with the movement.
And then the emptiness. Mydei is no longer filled and he feels so horribly untethered. It steals his breath away.
He needs Phainon back inside him. Now, now, now –
“I have you. I have you.” Phainon is a gentle lover. Thorough and deep-seated, yes, but considerate. “Here. Fuck, you’re stunning.”
Mydei allows Phainon to guide him to his back. He shifts up, until his back finds the softness of pillows stacked against the headboard. He presses hands into the mattress, and digs heels into the bed, splayed and open for the taking for Phainon.
“Pups. I want your pups,” Mydei demands – near begs – the words bringing heat to his face. He’s flushed enough to tell of a day spent in far too much sun, but it’s more than that. He’d never thought of a family before Phainon, but now, he wants one. Wants their new home in Okhema to be filled with warmth and laughter. “Please.”
He’d never had that with the passing of his parents; a home to truly call his own. He’d been left alone to navigate the world. As privileged as Phainon had been, he’d wanted that, too; a happy childhood. One where Phainon felt truly loved.
Mydei knows they’d make beautiful parents. No one is perfect. It’s impossible, but fuck, they’d try their best. Love their child with all their hearts and more.
This time Phainon takes Mydei slowly. He eases his knot into the tightness of Mydei’s body. Finds the small bottle of oil on the nightstand and drips more down Mydei’s taint, for it to settle where he sinks into Mydei’s body, easing the glide.
“I’ll claim you thoroughly,” Phainon promises. His grey-white hair is tousled, and those ice-blue eyes are wild, pupils wide and his face flushed. Mydei knows he looks no better, utterly dishevelled. “My mate. Mine.”
Mydei growls, a deep-throated thing, as Phainon fucks into him. He picks up to a brutal pace, until he can no longer pull out, his knot catching on Mydei’s rim and no longer passing completely out.
“Fuck. yes. There.” Mydei shudders as the head of Phainon’s cock kisses his prostate before going deeper, leaving his knot to press over it again and again and again with each small grind of their hips coming together.
Prerelease smears across Mydei’s belly, his own cock flushed and hard. His knot aches too and he ignores it. Wills himself to find that part of him that has always craved to be bred and be recognized as an Omega. He breathes in Phainon’s scent, and lets pleasure bloom fast in his gut.
And then orgasm takes him as Phainon ruts shallowly into him, knot relentlessly grazing his prostate.
Mydei doesn’t think he’s seen a man more beautiful when finding release than Phainon. Pale brows draw together in ecstasy and lips part, already kiss bitten and swollen, and soft gasps, high and unlike an Alpha’s deep snarls, leave him as he spills inside Mydei.
“Yes. Yes, Phainon. Please. Give me more.” Mydei is babbling. Doesn’t even have half a mind to care. He digs his heels into Phainon’s lower back, drawing him in. Their kiss is unforgiving and adorned with the feral sinking of teeth into lower lips, just to taste more of each other.
Phainon’s knot doesn’t go down for another hour. They spend that time on their sides, Mydei’s back to Phainon’s chest. Lithe fingers, not as calloused as Mydei’s own from hours of training, brush over the distension of his abdomen, in fantasy of what Mydei would look like when carrying their pups.
“Do you think they’ll have my eyes or yours?” Phainon asks softly. Beyond their cabin, the weather turns and the wind picks up, telling of an afternoon thunderstorm.
“Two pups gives us a chance to have one for each,” Mydei hopes. The odds are slim, considering Phainon’s genes will be dominant after Mydei’s biology shifts. “One can dream.”
“We can, we can.” Phainon sighs, tucking his nose into Mydei’s neck to breathe in his scent.
“I love you, Phainon.” Mydei doesn’t say it often. The words still sound odd in his mouth, but only because love is too soft a word. It does not encapsulate all that he feels, and thinking about it makes him want to run for the hills.
This feeling is terrifying. Earth-shattering.
I love you, I love you, I love you, turns to I cannot live without you, and you are my very life.
One word cannot express it all, and Mydei has given up trying. Their bond now, though, sings with affection. It’s a gift, to be so intimately connected, in both body and soul. Perhaps, this is better than love.
“I love you too,” Phainon says, just as they both begin to doze off, rain pattering at the windows.
–
Winter passes far too quickly, with many, many attempts at triggering Mydei’s heats, but before they know it, in the final two weeks of February, just before their one year anniversary, something finally changes.
Mydei wakes to a dull ache in his belly, and when he shifts to read the time, turning the clock on the nightstand to face him, he finds it’s just past four in the morning.
And it’s a Monday.
The heat persists, no matter how hard he tries to fall back asleep. A dull ache starts between his legs. Heat radiates from his core and soft tremors of sensation skitter up his spine, not at all like his ruts used to be.
Ruts are all heavy-handed fire and the urge to sink one’s knot into a mate, but heats? It’s a slow, syrupy trickle of sensation that grows and grows and grows with each passing moment. Instead of being sent into a craze, Mydei longs to be tended to. To be fucked and filled.
With a harsh inhale, Mydei sits up. Throws the blankets off of him, and goes to the bathroom. His vision tilts for a moment.
Fever. This feels like a fever, but it’s also desire and lust and the need to have Phainon inside him.
“Fuck.” Mydei closes the door. Opens the bathroom window to let in cool air, chilled and telling of the very tailends of winter. He leans over the sink and takes a few deep breaths, bracing himself, before sitting on the edge of the bath to undress.
Hope flutters to life in his chest, as he takes in how dewed his complexion is. Amber eyes are dilated and a blush creeps its way down his throat. As his sleeping clothes fall to the floor, he dares to brush his fingers down the cleft of his ass, to feel if the changes he has been hoping for all this time are finally there.
Memories of his presentation as an Alpha are still clear as day. He’d been in a chemistry class in high school, just shy of senior year at boarding school, and had complained of the heat despite the AC being turned up. It’d been summer and Aglaea, bless her heart, had been the one to snap at the teacher and take him to the nurse’s office.
He’d locked himself in his small room and refused to come out until the worst had passed. It was only after three days that he’d accepted food from the school nurse.
To him, it’d always been unnerving to lose his greater sense of control over his urges. Instincts terrified him. He didn’t view them as a privilege to have, but rather, something detrimental to his survival in this world. Sure, Alphas were given priority in the workplace, and their social standing was excellent, but Mydei wanted to make that path for himself without his secondary gender being placed on the scales for consideration.
Something he truly could not avoid.
“Fuck.” Now, Mydei ghosts fingers across his taint. Presses the pads of them to the furled muscle of his rim, and shudders. It’s a full-body sensation, and it rocks through him, sharp and sweet, and it makes something somewhere deep inside of him tighten with need.
His fingers come away wet with slick.
It worked. Fuck, he’s an Omega.
–
Phainon wakes in the early hours of morning to the muted click of the bathroom door closing. Something sweet lingers in the air; sugar and honey laced with the bite of citrus. It’s certainly not Mydei’s scent. Far from the heady strength of his pre-rut he’d caught a few days ago.
Just as he’s about to push the duvet aside to go find Mydei, the door opens and pale light washes through the room. Mydei has a towel around his waist, and a strange look on his face that Phainon half blames on the fact that he’s half asleep himself.
“Mydei? Why are you up?” Worry weight heavy on Phainon’s scent, but he can’t help it, as he shifts to the edge of the bed, arms open to take Mydei into them. “Are you feeling sick?”
Not an unusual symptom of pre-rut. Some Alphas grow ill due to pent up agitation. Mydei has always worked out those feelings through training, though, but Phainon feels this is different.
“Phainon.”
And the way Mydei breathes his name has Phainon relaxing. His husband isn’t distressed. He sounds ecstatic.
Before Phainon can ask a thing, Mydei draws back and kisses him. This is a deep and loving kiss. Something that is meant to linger. And it’s then that Phainon breathes in that sweetness again and realizes that it’s coming from Mydei.
“Oh, Mydei.”
Phainon doesn’t touch Mydei, no, he waits for his mate to guide his hand.
“It worked.” Salt traces their lips as a tear slips between them, falling down Mydei’s cheek. Phainon tastes that joy, straight from the shared breath they take and the laugh Mydei gives. “Phainon, it worked. I’m yours.”
I’m your Omega.
“My love.” Phainon brushes hair from Mydei’s face. Cups his jaw and meets his gaze. “Whether you were an Alpha or an Omega, you would always, always be mine. Even as a Beta.”
He thumbs away tears as they fall. Mydei falls apart. They fall apart in each other’s arms, really, tucking beneath the blankets and not caring for the bathroom lights still on. Phainon switches on the bedside lamp, washing their room in warmth. A softer colour for comfort.
“May I know you?” Phainon’s fingers take a path down Mydei’s spine. “Relearn you?”
“Please.” Mydei shivers beneath Phainon. He’s still all the strong man he’s always been; burled muscle and fierceness. But in this room, he is soft and waiting for Phainon. Tender and fragile in the newness of this moment for them both.
When Phainon’s touch finds Mydei’s rim, slick and pliant, he fears he’ll come before being able to feel how wonderfully he fits inside him.
“Take me, my Alpha. My mate.” Mydei is the one to push Phainon to his back. He lays astride Phainon’s hips, and slowly sinks down onto him.
Phainon knows he’s never been so close to death, yet so filled with life.
–
Pre-rut quickly turns to rut and they wait patiently for Mydei’s heat cycle to come in the days after. In that time, Phainon takes leave first, and Mydei spends every evening after work in bed with Phainon, drowning in his lover’s scent as it permeates their sheets; dusked and heady and arousing.
“Mydei, Mydei, Mydei,” Phainon sighs into the line of Mydei’s shoulder as he fucks into him, grip on his hip bruising, but rough, and just how Mydei likes it. “I need you.”
Finally, one and a half days later, as the dregs of summer rock by, Mydei’s heat comes.
“If I’d stayed, I would’ve been a threat to my team,” Mydei explains as he comes home. Amphoreus University’s team is good. On their way to nationals with a few athletes on the roll for the Okheman Games, but Mydei will be no good for them in this state. He’s running hot, and it’s not the weather
He wants nothing more than to have Phainon bend him over this damned kitchen counter and fuck him. And Phainon looks no better, leaning against the counter, panting, cheeks flushed and gaze dazed as it rakes over Mydei in his suit.
Fuck, that suit.
“Easy.” Not the first time Mydei has to remind Phainon to breathe. To calm his pheromones. They’re overpowering and it has Mydei’s vision slipping a bit.
“Sorry, sorry.” Phainon pushes himself away and reserves himself to the couch. He watches as Mydei unpacks the groceries he’d bought, fully stocking the fridge for the foreseeable future.
“This is worse than ruts. It’s under my skin. In my– “ In Mydei’s gut, a brutal flame that cannot be quelled by the pleasure of his own hand.
Mydei opens the freezer at the top and leans against it, relishing the cold blast of air it offers him. He groans, a thing of pleasure, and closes his eyes for a moment.
He needs to be bred. To be fucked with Phainon’s knot and filled.
In a breath, Phainon is up. Packing the rest of the groceries away, his hands shaking, and then he has Mydei pressed against the counter, marble cold and hard against his lower back.
“Fuck, Phainon, wait–”
But Phainon can’t wait. Mydei knows that to tamper with an Alpha’s patience is to dare to walk upon thin ice that’ll crack with every second too long left to pass.
Mydei gasps into Phainon’s mouth. Parts lips for that tongue to press to the backs of his teeth. Phainon moans, low and deep, and tangles fingers in Mydei’s hair. Tips his head back and takes, and takes, and takes.
“Fuck me. Please.” Mydei has never felt so empty, and now, he succumbs to the full fire of his heat. He belly clenches again, and he moans, pressing a kiss that is more of a brush of lips to the corner of mouth as he rocks against Phainon, pressing aching arousal to his abdomen. “I’ve needed you all day.”
“I need you here. Can I take you here, Mydei? Please?” Phainon is a strong Alpha, just as Mydei was. But Mydei had always known how to take what he wanted, and Phainon still teeters on the edge of indecision now that the scales of order have been tipped.
“Fuck me here. On the couch. The floor.” Mydei urges Phainon on, each phrase brought with the roll of hips meeting hips. He arches into Phainon’s body, and rakes nails down his broad back, feral. “We have a week. Two at most. Enough time for it all. Why battle to decide when we have the entire apartment to ruin?”
“To mark as ours,” Phainon agrees. He bends down and kisses Mydei’s temple. A gentle thing compared to how his pheromones turn wanton. There’s a spiced aggressive note that Mydei picks up, but it screams protect, protect, protect.
Mydei curses beneath his breath. They undress. Push slacks down to kick away and retrieve in the morning. He gips the counter and lets Phainon lift him up. Brings his legs around Phainon’s waist, leaner and lithe, and draws him in.
“Fuck, you’re hard.” Mydei salivates. Something he’s never done. He wants Phainon on the bed of his tongue. He wants his jaw to ache from pleasing his Alpha.
Oh, yes, his Alpha. He wants to please him and taste that satisfaction himself when Phainon comes.
“Let me taste you,” Phainon asks first. He slips his hand into Mydei’s briefs. Takes his aching cock in hand and strokes him. “Fuck, you’re perfect Mydei. Mine. All mine.”
“Yours.” Mydei leans back, and rolls his hips into that touch. Finally, after a day of agony, he’s home. He can let go. “Always yours.”
Phainon makes Mydei come like this. With his hand. He turns Mydei around. Urges him to all fours, and drags his tongue down Mydei’s spine as he eases his fingers past the furl of his rim. It’s feral and filthy and Phainon tastes the sweat of the day on him, but it’s perfect.
And Mydei comes again when Phainon’s fingers sink in to the last knuckle. They crook up and find his prostate, and he comes again, sullying their counter with his spend. Slick spills down the backs of his thighs and to the counter, and as he bows his head down, he catches sight of Phainon dragging his fingers through the mess on the counter and tasting.
“I can’t–” Mydei sobs. Arches his back deeper, asking for more. “I need more.”
Those fingers withdraw, and Phainon inhales sharply. The scent of arousal is almost choking, and Mydei spares a glance back to find Phainon palming himself through his briefs to stave off the edge of his pleasure.
“Your taste…you–” Phainon’s breath hitches. He sinks fingers into the swell of Mydei’s ass. Squeezes. Mydei moans. Lets one leg slip off the counter for his foot to find the tiled floor again.
They don’t make it far, though, despite Mydei’s best intentions. Rounding the counter, Mydei’s knees hit the back of the couch – a long settee before the mantle – and lays down, letting Phainon settle over him.
“Take me, don’t –” A sob from Mydei. Pleasure is bright in his belly, and that same emptiness returns, stronger this time. Overwhelming. “I’m so empty, Phainon, please, I need your knot.”
Something in Phainon seems to snap. Those eyes turn wild and Mydei can’t help smiling a little. There he is, he thinks. My mate.
Mydei skates his legs wide, presses heels into Phainon’s back, and pulls him in. Finds that sweet, sweet mouth again, and begs Phainon to take him.
Time slips away from them.
Phainon is relentless. Mydei loves this. Loves this side of Phainon where caution is somewhat thrown to the wind and they are allowed to simply be one with their instincts and the drive to be bred and breed.
From the couch, they find themselves showering, finally. Cleaning the day from them along with release and slick, tacky upon their thighs. Mydei draws an orgasm from Phainon in the shower while on his knees, uncaring for the bite of hard tile, and only craving the taste of his Alpha.
Freshly showered, hair still damp and muscles finally lax, Mydei gets to all fours, cheek pressed to pillows at the head of the bed, offering himself in a mating press for Phainon.
It’s better than before. His heat sends him into overdrive and he sobs as he comes. He clenches around Phainon, tight enough to feel every single small movement Phainon makes as he comes, too, filling him with warmth.
“Fuck,” is all Mydei can say as they rest to catch their breath. They’re both still hard, and Phainon’s knot begins to swell at the base. Mydei reaches for Phainon, squeezing at the base, partly to alleviate the pressure, and mostly to indulge in the way Phainon’s face morphs into pleasure.
“We need to…” Phainon’s grip is lax on Mydei’s wrist as he works his hand over his cock. “I need to knot you.”
“Let me.” Mydei gets up to his knees, sinking fingers into the sheets. He’s shaking, and his thighs ache from exertion already. He sighs, bowing his head to calm the racing of his heart as another dull roll of heat passes through him. Slick already drops down across his taint, and he knows nothing will satisfy him but Phainon.
He straddles Phainon. Mouths at their mating bond at the juncture of Phainon’s shoulder as he reaches behind himself to take Phainon’s cock.
The head kisses his rim, and they both gasp. Phainon’s hands find Mydei’s waist, steadying him, and Mydei eases slowly onto him.
Aching pleasure cleaves through Mydei as Phainon’s knot passes by his rim, and as Phainon offers small rocks of his hips, each movement grazes past his prostate.
“Fuck. Yes, there.” Mydei tips his head back. Leans back flat-palmed upon Phainon’s thighs. This angle hits deep and hard, against his cervix. Tears bloom at his waterline, and he doesn’t realize he’s crying until Phainon brings a hand to his face to brush them away.
“I have you, I have you, Mydei,” becomes Phainon’s mantra. He fucks hard into Mydei, knot catching on his rim, and soon, it can’t be pulled out, and those movements become shallower.
Mydei lets Phainon stroke his cock, and tip him over the edge. When he comes, he clenches around Phainon, but this time, he’s full. So very full that he can hardly bear down, and he gasps as a shock of pleasure resonates deep inside him.
“Look at you.” Phainon’s voice is laced with awe, and he presses a palm to Mydei’s stomach; the soft skin just below his navel, where his knot distends the muscled planes of his abdomen.
“Phainon.” Mydei can’t stop coming. Orgasm comes in waves, a merciless onslaught of heat and thoughts that run away from him before they can be caught. He loses himself to the back of forth of their hips and their bodies meeting.
So this is what it’s like to be bred, does cross Mydei’s mind. And it satisfies him.
They come down from their high slowly. Laying on their sides, Mydei revels in the fullness of Phainon’s spend and knot inside of him. He lays his hand over Phainon’s, resting over his abdomen, and for the first time in weeks, he dares to hope that perhaps this will work.
Perhaps they will be able to have a family after all.
–
Autumn colours Okhema in muted browns and oranges. It’s a beautiful time of year, and Mydei loves it.
Except the shades are too bright for so early in the morning, and the mush of dead leaves in piles along the sidewalk, waterlogged from last night’s downpour, make him feel ill. He walks to work, as he always does with their apartment being three blocks away.
So much for enjoying the season.
Nausea has Mydei’s gut clenching tight, and he swallows thickly as he rounds the corner. He turns his focus to the park, where children run through piles of leaves beneath trees.
What did they have to eat last night? Takeaway, from a new Xianzhou takeaway branch down the street.
Mydei stops. The feeling of being doused in ice has become commonplace over the past two weeks. He’d thought nothing of it, but now he realizes that this is more than ill-timed takeout orders.
The nausea abates for a moment, and Mydei takes in a deep breath through his nose. Releases it through his mouth. Grips his briefcase a little tighter.
His team has a final quarter match before midterm exams and winter break. This is their make or break. He can’t be sick.
“Fuck.” The feeling comes back and Mydei’s jaw turns stiff. Saliva pools in his mouth.
Too late to backtrack this now.
He can’t be more thankful for the lines of bushes outside each block of apartments. They’re unkept and evergreen, thank the Aeons, meaning as his stomach clenches and he rids himself of the bland breakfast he’d had to avoid this very situation, no one will be privy to what happened here while on their own way to work.
Mydei groans. Spits and finds a tissue in his pocket to wipe his mouth.
His walk to work is slower, but he feels better. The cold wind helps, and he drinks water. Takes a strong mint and prays that he still has a spare toothbrush in his office.
–
Mydei takes Phainon with him to the doctor’s appointment the next day when he finds himself sick again that morning. After shifting, they are both still cautious that these changes could have brought with it hormonal imbalances which could be to blame.
“We took a few blood tests, just for a comparison from when you first shifted,” Hyacine says as she sits down at her desk again. “You said these spells happen in the morning, but at night too? It’s not uncommon, considering the changes you’ve gone through, yet…” she turns to her computer and clicks through Mydei’s medical history.
Her office is pristine and smells faintly of lilies; by far the most welcoming GP office at Okhema’s main hospital. Her specialization in Omegas and Late Presentation were what drew Mydei to contact her when first navigating the changes in his biology, and he’s thankful to have her guide him and Phainon through the process.
“You are still a very healthy Omega, Mister Khaslana, but it seems we picked up the presence of the hCG hormone in your blood.”
“What?” Phainon squeezes Mydei’s hand tighter, a silent support. “Is that…good?”
“It depends on what you are expecting.” She sighs. Smiles a little, and meets their gazes one by one, to gauge their reactions. “It’s far too early to tell, but it seems you are pregnant.”
“Oh.” The weight of the world falls from Mydei’s shoulders at that. Instead, emotion wells in his chest, and he sniffs. Can’t help lifting a hand to cover his mouth as he laughs, shocked.
“How many weeks?” Phainon asks. He’s pale, but his eyes are wide, and his scent gives off nothing but a rushed sort of excitement, with a very, very normal amount of worry. “Will we be all right?”
“Yes, you will both be fine. As a specialist in Omega pregnancies of this nature, I can assure you that we have had more successful pregnancies carried to term than not.” She glows as she says this, and it eases their worries. She loves her job, that much has been clear since first meeting her. “And you will absolutely be happy to hear that you are a month and a half along. Perhaps two.”
A beat of silence.
“Right, right.” Mydei closes his eyes. Tries not to laugh. But he can’t help it. Can’t believe it, really.
“Lined up heat and rut cycles are incredibly favourable, and considering your first heat was a success, it would not be a bad estimate,” Hyacine says kindly. She is so very undeterred by the entire conversation, while Phainon is flushed a dark red. “But, may I give you a moment, before coming back with a full panel of your results?” She stands, and blessedly, gives them space. “I’ll be back in twenty.”
The door shuts and Phainon takes in a deep breath. Mydei does too. They let the news settle before they speak.
“We’re going –”
“ – I can’t believe it.”
“Phainon.” Mydei laughs. This time he lets his tears fall freely and he stands. Takes Phainon into a hug. Kisses his cheek. Breathes in his scent. Somehow when he’s closer like this, the nausea that seems to have him on edge so often seems to go away. “You are going to be such a good father.”
“I’m so scared I’ll mess this up. Do something wrong.” Tears glisten in Phainon’s eyes, nothing but a worried sort of affection in them. He places a hand on Mydei’s abdomen. There’s no swell there yet, but it brings them both a sense of wonder to know that they have a child to look after now. “I want to do my best. Give our child the best I can.”
“And we will,” Mydei reassures him. He kisses Phainon, softly, tenderly, as if this kiss alone will express all the love he harbours. “Together. We’ll do this together.”
“Always.”