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“Claude.”
Claude hummed in acknowledgement, but didn’t take his eyes off of the trade documents he was looking at. He recognized the voice as Dimitri’s - he’d heard him walk into the room a few moments prior - but was currently in a discussion with a tradesmen who had brought his goods into the city. Claude was looking down the list of goods, double checking it for any errors, when he felt a warmth against his back.
Dimitri settled the bulk of his palm against Claude’s spine, where it burned hot through the fabric of his shirt.
“Claude,” he said, slightly more insistently. The combination of the touch and that tone that Dimitri used forced Claude to look away immediately, his concern suddenly piqued.
His husband remained composed throughout it all, his outward appearance suggesting that nothing was particularly wrong with him and that he just needed Claude’s attention for a trivial matter.
Claude knew better. He knew every inch of Dimitri’s face, every strand of his hair, every tilt to his brow. He was holding tension in his jaw, his eye narrowed minutely as if concerned about something, and that - that was a bead of sweat on his brow, as obvious to Claude as if it had been blood instead.
“If you’ll excuse me,” he’d offered the tradesman, who nodded graciously and allowed Claude to take his leave, gently steering Dimitri back out into the hallway.
Once there, Dimitri turned to look at him fully again, though he didn’t quite meet Claude’s eyes.
“What is it?” he asked softly, but his question was answered a moment later when the proximity to Dimitri allowed him the faintest scents of something he was very intimately familiar with.
Claude blinked. Dimitri didn’t seem to need to answer the question and so he didn’t, staring at the floor while Claude’s thoughts raced.
Dimitri was not like other omegas, in almost every sense of the phrase. Physicality and arguable anger issues aside, his traumatized adolescence and lack of tending to during his years in the war had left him with a mishmash of suppressed hormones that seemed to flare and fade as they would. His heats were frustratingly irregular: they would remain suppressed for months at a time, only to come to a boil in intense waves with no rhyme or reason as to when the tipping point might be.
Throughout their time together, Claude had tried many running theories. He’d considered initially that Dimitri only presented when he felt it was safe, when his animal instincts allowed him to put his guard down. But after four years of marriage after the war, Dimitri felt plenty safe and his heats were still just as unpredictable as ever.
Then, he considered that they happened during times of intense stress, as if Dimitri could no longer hide his emotional duress and it spilled out of him - but that too was disproven when they’d had to quell a small uprising from the former Empire and had gone together, back into battle where Dimitri was forced to kill once again.
With little else to go on and painfully little literature about the subject, they simply forged on together, taking each heat as it came. As much as Claude wished that it was easier to schedule around - they’d had to cancel feasts, reschedule trips, and, regrettably, postpone Ashe’s knighthood in the past - he knew that it was through no fault of Dimitri’s and had always handled the details with the air of blameless calm that Dimitri so desperately needed.
It was the same now. He nodded, taking in a deep breath through his nose and letting the scent trickle down into his lungs.
“Are you sure?” he asked, carefully. Another admittedly-frustrating facet of Dimitri’s heats was that he had a tendency to signal and then never quite go, and could sometimes enter the earliest stages of a heat and then pull back to normalcy a day later, as if teasing them both with it.
('I need you now', he would send in his letters to Almyra, only for Claude to be caught on the road a day later by another messenger carrying a letter that read 'False alarm, I’m sorry, I’ll see you at the end of the month'.)
It was frustrating, but Claude was sure to reassure Dimitri that they were in this together, that his biology was no fault of his own, and they’d worked together over the past years to accommodate whatever he needed.
Dimitri nodded.
“I’m sure. I’m…” he flushed in embarrassment, his jaw locking up as he tried to force the rest of the sentence out, “...starting to produce - um.”
“I see,” Claude said quickly, so that he would not make Dimitri say it, “alright. I’ll make the arrangements. Do you want to go to the room? It’ll take me a few hours to get everything together, but I’ll be there for you.”
“Alright,” Dimitri said, somewhat breathless this time, reassured by Claude’s immediate rise to action, “it’s still early. You don’t have to rush.”
Dimitri was always quick to dismiss his own needs, but sometimes he was right. He still seemed to be very early, considering that the smell was only faint and Claude hadn’t scented him from the moment he walked in the door. Claude guessed that they might have a full day before Dimitri really needed him, but regardless, he preferred to be with him throughout the process.
“Good,” he crooned, reaching out to touch Dimitri’s cheek with the palm of his hand, a gesture that was both affectionate and checking his temperature. He didn’t feel too warm quite yet.
Claude leaned up on his tiptoes to kiss him and Dimitri returned it quietly, reassured by Claude’s methodical steps in place to handle it. Once parted, Dimitri let out a small smile, nodding in his understanding of their resolution, and moved to take his leave.
Watching him go, Claude let out a sigh, his hand rubbing at the back of his neck as he considered all that needed to be done. His meeting with the tradesman could be finished, he was near the end of that anyway, but there were others later today and earlier tomorrow that would need to be rescheduled for a few days down the line.
Claude did not have absolute power, but he was able to manipulate around Dimitri’s schedule during times like this and he used that ability over the course of the next few hours while he wrote letters excusing the two kings from their immediate duties and handed them out to the necessary parties.
Then, he took a trip to the kitchens and grabbed whatever he could carry: fresh water, jerky, bits of fruit and nuts. He informed the cooks of where they would be and what should be delivered - they would want hot food, after all - and carefully brought it all up to their shared room.
_
After their first shared heat in the palace had torn Dimitri’s blankets, destroyed his bed, broken the mirror in his adjacent bathroom, put three holes through the wall, and nearly gave a visiting foreign minister a heart attack, Claude had elected to repurpose an old guest room into a room specifically for Dimitri’s heats.
It was off in one of the higher towers, further from prying eyes, and few people knew the location of it. Inside of the room was a large, circular bed that was comfortable but sturdy, with dozens of blankets in the connected linen closet for nesting. There were chairs, a few bookshelves to pass the time before it consumed both of them and for the lulls between rounds. There was an icebox that Claude needed to stock, a small bathroom attached, and a high window that looked out over the grounds.
It was comfortable, and if it was a bit too far out of the way to be convenient... well, that suited Claude’s purposes just fine. When he joined Dimitri in there, he typically would step out every so often to ensure that things were fine - the Kingdom was not on fire, no one had launched a war - and to ask for some food to be delivered to them, before joining Dimitri back in their nest.
As much as it was admittedly a bit of an effort to coordinate everything, to allow for these comforts and to keep all of the details in mind, Claude could not deny that he loved it. Dimitri’s heat was a luxury just as much as it was a headache, because for several glorious days, Claude could waste his time away in Dimitri’s arms, sticky and satisfied in a nest that smelled only of them.
To be honest, it was nice to let go of his plans and habits and thoughtfulness and just let himself be consumed by his desire and fervent passion, to just be and do what he felt like doing, curled up with his husband and mate where no one would bother them.
He hadn’t been to this room in ages. Dimitri’s last heat was almost seven months ago, a little over twice the normal duration for an omega cycle. In retrospect, Claude supposed that he’d been a bit more twitchy lately, but otherwise there’d been no way to tell when this was coming.
Just as well. The high ranking officials were more or less used to Dimitri’s need to disappear for a few days at a time and took it in stride, and so Claude felt nothing but a low, brimming excitement when he reached out to knock on the door.
_
Dimitri was curled up inside of their room, laying in their grand bed with a book in his hands. There were reading chairs next to the bookcases, but Dimitri preferred a place where he could get all of the blankets out of the linen closet, manipulate them to where they surrounded him and provided a soft pillow for comfort and protection.
He was stripped out of most of his nice clothes, wearing just an undershirt and thin pair of pants. Claude stepped closer and saw that Dimitri was flushed, probably overheated, and was tempted to open the window, but stopped at the intoxicating smell of him.
Now it felt powerful. What was just a thin semblance of a heat smell earlier was now a strong scent that clouded Claude’s brain and lay thick and cloying in the air. It would only get more potent as Dimitri fell deeper into it, and he didn’t want it lost to the air outside.
He quickly moved to stock their icebox with the few supplies he’d brought, and poured a glass of water for Dimitri, sitting on the edge of the bed and offering it out to him.
“Are you feeling alright?” he asked while Dimitri closed the book and reached for it, drinking deeply with a murmur of thanks.
“Yes.” Dimitri sighed, shifting slightly as if to get a better sitting position, “Itchy.”
“I know.” Claude leaned down to take off his boots and socks before standing to move for their wardrobe, carefully removing his normal court clothing in exchange for something similar to what Dimitri was wearing.
There was no sense in ruining either of their clothing, after all, not when they could change into something more disposable… and accessible. Removing buckles and snaps and belts in the height of a frenzied passion was not the most fun thing in the world, and Claude took care to ensure that they wouldn’t have to do it again.
Dimitri watched him, hungry but knowing better than to start this too early. They would be spending most of the next few days together, intertwined, mating as often as their bodies would allow them to - they could wait a little more tonight.
“It’ll be okay,” Claude reassured, taking one of the books from the shelf and climbing into bed with Dimitri, reaching out to situate the two of them together. Dimitri was a good deal larger than him and normally when they slept, Claude preferred to burrow in his chest - but now, he wrapped an arm around Dimitri’s shoulders, held him comfortably close. “I’ve arranged for everything. We’ll have food, water, and more food brought up here in a day or so. No one should bother us. I’m yours for the next three days.”
Dimitri made a soft rumbling noise in the back of his throat, pacified by Claude’s presence. Claude ignored the way that Dimitri pressed his face against his shoulder and inhaled, but couldn’t stop a small smile from tugging at the corner or his lips when he could see the waves of relief flood through Dimitri as his senses registered the presence of his bonded mate so closeby.
“You always think of everything,” he said appreciatively, and Claude leaned down to kiss him on the temple, a quick peck.
“It’s worth it. Easier to let nature take its course when you know everything has been taken care of, yeah?”
Dimitri nodded and Claude eased back into the bed, propping up his book in his other hand while Dimitri curled in a way that allowed him to continue reading.
He could feel it, a tension building deep in his gut. There were stories of alphas going berserk when their mate was in heat, but Claude had never felt quite so out of control. He took care to ensure that he could always be near Dimitri, that no one was to enter the room - or worse, come close to him - when they were in the height of passion, and he was sure to keep Dimitri near him during times like this, to sate his animal need and keep his rational thought for as long as possible.
Still though, he could feel it: an ache that refused to subside. Despite his more respectful thoughts, he found himself wondering how slick Dimitri was by now, how sensitive he might be, how soft he’d feel - Claude blinked and shook his head of such thoughts, his mouth twisting into a slight frown as he forced himself to instead focus on the book in front of them as Dimitri quietly fell asleep at his side.
Dimitri was laying too fully against him for Claude to have any hope of extricating himself, and so the books had to be gently set aside when it became too dark to read by the sunlight. He checked Dimitri’s temperature again, knowing rationally that he was being a bit overbearing, and sighed, tucking in to sleep next to his husband.
_
He awoke several hours later with a start to feel Dimitri’s tongue sliding against his neck, hot and wet.
Claude’s eyes snapped open, and as soon as Dimitri saw that he was awake, he whined, his hand snaking against Claude’s pants, pressing at his cock without any sort of preamble or foreplay.
The scent, which earlier felt heavy, was now overpowering, and as soon as he clung to consciousness, Claude had to fight another battle to prevent himself from getting lost in pure instinct. It was impossible not to rut into Dimitri’s hand, and Claude gasped, his legs spreading in a silent consent that allowed Dimitri to plunge his fingers past Claude’s waistband to get a better grip on him.
“I need you,” he said miserably and so Claude gave Dimitri all of him. How could he not?
Together, they peeled off Claude’s shirt and pants in the low moonlight outside. Claude tried to grasp at Dimitri’s sweat-soaked shirt, but was thrown off when Dimitri rolled him to his back on the bed.
“Mitya, love,” he hummed, trying to get his attention despite Dimitri’s frantic ministrations, “take this off, you’ll feel better.”
Dimitri grumbled, but Claude had gotten through to him and he nodded, tearing his hands from Claude’s body for just a moment to get his shirt off and expose his damp skin to the fresh evening air.
Then he was right back to business, pushing at pulling at Claude insistently, and Claude - well, he was along for the ride, giving Dimitri whatever he needed, letting him take.
Dimitri swung a leg over his hips, panting, reaching behind him for Claude’s cock. In his sudden awakening and Dimitri’s quick touches, he’d barely gotten hard enough for penetration, but Dimitri was insistent and needy and Claude didn’t want to deny him anything.
The first time was often when Claude was the most in control and, predictably, when Dimitri most lacked it.
Still - still, the sudden warmth around his cock was nothing short of incredible, and Claude couldn’t hide his reaction. He arched against Dimitri, biting at his lower lip as he felt the slickness from Dimitri’s prepared hole drip over his thighs and gods, it was still the best sensation he’d ever felt.
Being inside of Dimitri was like coming close to godhood. In their normal lives, they traded off in their positions - something that was generally unheard of with a coupling, but it suited them well - but during Dimitri’s heats, Claude got to experience the exquisite pleasure of not needing preparation, of rolling over and fucking like animals simply because they felt like it: instinctive, rough, heated.
“Goddess,” Dimitri moaned, leaning forward with both hands on Claude’s chest, “you feel…”
Claude nodded, reaching up for Dimitri’s hands in turns, wrapping his fingers gently around his wrists, trying to let him situate himself.
“You too.”
Dimitri started to move then, in short quick thrusts that left Claude’s head spinning. He would not knot him, not yet, not so new into this heat when his body was just beginning to wake up to the idea, but they could chase their release together and hopefully let it ease them until morning.
For now though, Dimitri was rocking back onto him, his wet hole easing the slide and making everything so fucking perfect that Claude arched against him with a quick gasp, close already.
He reached down between them to touch Dimitri’s cock in turn, getting his hand around it, stroking until Dimitri moaned with it, thumbing over the head in a way that he knew Dimitri loved.
“I can’t,” Dimitri panted, heaving forward against him, “Claude.”
“It’s alright,” Claude said, reassuring him yet again, “just let go. I’ve got you. I’ll have you.”
Dimitri nodded, a sharp jerk of his chin, and whipped back, arching his spine as he came across Claude’s hands and his stomach. The sensation of it, that slick tightness of him clenching around Claude’s cock had him following right on his heels - a short, less-than-satisfying orgasm, but one that helped to relieve the tension that had been building in the room since he first walked in.
Slowly, Dimitri pulled himself off of Claude with a thick squelch, murmuring something unintelligible as he eased back down against him.
Claude kissed at the top of his head and murmured, “just getting a towel, love,” before untangling himself from the bedding and Dimitri both and wobbling as he stepped to the linen closet, pulling out one of a myriad of fluffy towels so that he could clean up a bit.
He dried them both off and drank a bit of water, coaxed some into Dimitri’s half-asleep mouth, and laid back down until morning.
_
They woke together and lazily fucked once before breakfast, just enough to take the edge off so that they could both focus on the food. Claude opened the ice box and fed Dimitri some grapes, taking some of the jerky for himself, and encouraged his husband to drink even more.
As he was polishing off the last of the bushel of grapes he’d brought, he felt Dimitri’s fingers tracing against his hip, thoughtful, but in a way that was terribly distracting.
He glanced over, tilting his head.
“What is it?”
Dimitri shrugged, scooting in closer and reaching past him for a strip of the jerky.
“I didn’t… hurt you last night, did I?”
Claude shook his head, leaning in for a small kiss.
“Of course not. Even in the throes of your heat, I can say no to you, you know.”
“No you can’t,” Dimitri said almost immediately, teasing him a bit, and Claude tried to pout, but couldn’t stop himself from chuckling.
“No, I can’t. Last night was fine, though. Don’t worry about what I can handle, alright? Just focus on getting through it and I’ll take care of everything else.”
Claude knew that Dimitri was often concerned about his own strength and feared himself when he lost control. He had good reason to be wary: he had killed many of his foes in a blind rage during the war, and while Claude wasn’t there for some of it, he knew that it was difficult to fully recover from the depths that Dimitri had sunk to.
And then there was… the rest of it. Dimitri was abnormally strong for an omega, pushy during his heats in ways that many were not, larger and - some might say - more aggressive. Claude loved him throughout it, but he knew that at times, Dimitri felt as if he did not fit into the narrow societal confines of his secondary gender.
Claude often wanted to laugh at the thought, but restrained himself due to his affection and some genuine concern about Dimitri’s self image. So whenever Dimitri would bring it up - hesitantly, not often - Claude loved to say, 'well look at me!'
That was true as well: Claude was not your everyday alpha either. He prided his intellectual pursuits above all else, had a clear mind and a good eye for strategy, and his method of ‘protecting’ his mate during his heats was more focused on his arranging everything and less on snarling at everyone who got too close.
He was shorter than Dimitri with less muscle mass, and when they weren’t going out of their minds with their biological impulses, he loved the feeling of Dimitri above him, inside of him, biting down a mark on his throat to match his mating bite on Dimitri’s shoulder.
So, it was unconventional. That was Claude’s favorite word to describe their relationship, and he said it with pride whenever Dimitri questioned it.
It still didn’t quite stop Dimitri from worrying, but Claude found such worries easy enough to dismiss with attention.
He felt it was high time he paid Dimitri some of said attention, and so Claude turned on him, setting down his grape stem on the platter and pushing it with his foot to the other side of the bed while he nudged Dimitri back down to the tangled mess of blankets beneath them.
“Hmm… you don’t think I could hold you down if I tried?” he teased, gripping at Dimitri’s wrists and pushing them above his head with a little smile.
“I know you couldn’t,” Dimitri shot back, acquiescing to roll back on his shoulders, pleased to see where this might take them.
Claude frowned, holding both of Dimitri’s wrists in one hand while his other slipped down his body, fingers dipping between his thighs and up under his balls. Just as he thought - Dimitri was slick again, wet with pent-up desire, hardly sated from their morning romp.
At the feeling of Claude’s fingers pressed up against him, Dimitri squirmed, his hips canting up as if asking for it, but Claude didn’t touch him where he needed it most, not quite yet. Instead, he used the slick to bring his hand back and stroke languidly at Dimitri’s cock, which was hardening quickly under his touch.
“I think,” he said softly, leaning down to kiss at Dimitri’s pectoral, “that you’d do anything, if it meant I gave you what you wanted.”
“Oh.”
The answer was soft and breathless, more of a rapid exhalation than a word, and Claude felt that same desire clutch tightly at his stomach, his cock firming with interest at his thigh.
“I think that you’re perfect for me,” he told him, latching around one of Dimitri’s nipples, letting his teeth scrape over the small nub before sucking at it.
Dimitri arched wordlessly into him, his spine bowing beautifully, his cock aching and insistent against Claude’s fingers.
“And I think you should say it,” Claude finished, taking his mouth off of Dimitri’s nipple, sliding down further to his cock. Dimitri made a sound of confusion, but he was too aroused to do much else when Claude manhandled him, spreading Dimitri’s legs around his shoulders and leaning in to lick at his aching dick.
It was wet, both from his slick and the precum he’d already spilled at Claude’s earlier fondling, and Dimitri cried out softly when Claude cleaned it with his tongue, taking him deep into his mouth before popping off of him and kissing slowly down the shaft.
He loved many, many things about Dimitri but one of those things was this: his magnificent cock, comparable even to an alphas, and only smaller than Claude’s own when Claude was knotting. It was as beautiful as the rest of him, and Claude paid it homage in his own way, licking and sucking and stroking every inch of it until Dimitri was practically wailing above him.
“Are you gonna say it?” he asked, and licked his way down to Dimitri’s balls, and then worked at cleaning Dimitri’s slick off of those too.
“I - I don’t know,” Dimitri was panting above him, “what - what you want me to -”
“Mm,” he teased, but it was getting more difficult for him to focus too. His own cock was hard, insistent, now that he was so close to the overpowering scent of Dimitri, he was starting to feel a bit lightheaded.
Why didn’t he just fuck him then? He could get Dimitri’s legs up on his shoulders and have at it, give it as hard as he needed, as hard as he could. He could push Dimitri onto his stomach, mount him, bite at his mating mark, and stay connected to him for the hours to come. He could mark him, claim him, make him his, and - yes, that was the hormones talking.
Claude blinked away the sensation, forcing back his more primal urges so he could look up at his husband from his position between his legs, smiling even despite the awkward position.
“I want you to say you’re perfect for me,” he reasoned, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, “and then I’ll fuck you.”
And then he pressed his head further in, lifting Dimitri’s legs so that he could press his tongue against his hole.
The sound that came up from Dimitri was little more than a strangled sob as he shifted his hips upward, against Claude’s mouth. Claude hummed, satisfied with himself, his face buried exactly where he wanted it to be as he pried Dimitri’s legs apart further, pressing his tongue in, just barely, just enough to hear Dimitri’s resulting high-pitched sound and smile at the corresponding jerk of his hips.
And still, Dimitri didn’t say it. Claude shifted, getting his arms under Dimitri’s buttocks and around his thighs so that he could forcibly shift him up, his shoulders pressed against the mattress as Claude lifted his hips for a better angle. He licked his tongue over Dimitri’s wet hole, teasing him where he knew that Dimitri wanted it most, torturing him with long, slow laves of his tongue.
Dimitri made a move, as if he was trying to twist out of Claude’s grip, but aborted the movement partway through, absolutely helpless to what Claude was doing to him. His arms were thrown over his head where he clutched at the blankets above him, vulnerable and soft as he squirmed in Claude’s grip.
“Claude - Claude, please, I -" once he opened his mouth, he couldn’t stop, and normally the incoherent babbling would be music to Claude’s ears, but that wasn’t what he was looking for now.
“Say it,” he murmured out, barely pulling his mouth back enough to form the words. His instincts were going haywire - why was he not fucking him? Why was he not taking him to task, pushing into him, relieving the screaming tension that throbbed deep inside of him?
Claude clenched down on that sensation, but it was getting harder and harder to focus. Soon, he was sure that he would lose himself entirely and it was only late morning on the first day.
Dimitri’s tongue was pinched between his teeth, but still, he couldn’t make himself form the words. He gave a growling moan, doing his best to rock up into Claude’s grip, but unable to do much of anything with Claude bearing down on him, holding his lower body in the air as he ate him out, mercilessly and without hesitation.
Claude knew that this wouldn’t end until he got his cock in him. That Dimitri’s release wouldn’t be satiating and wouldn’t scratch that itch until penetration happened, and he knew that somewhere, Dimitri knew that too.
He held on, watching as Dimitri’s head thrashed, listening as Dimitri begged him in all manner except for the one that he’d specifically asked for, and when Dimitri almost came dry, almost twisted his torso enough to knock Claude clean over, almost kicked him hard enough to hurt, he finally shattered beautifully in Claude’s arms, tears staining at his eye, one of his hands reaching up to cover his face.
“I’m…. fuck, Claude, I’m - I’m per…” his cheeks were scarlet and his breath hitched once, hiccuping in a deep gasp of air. Claude lifted his head just slightly, relenting on his dogged task, and Dimitri whined out low. Could he say it?
It was clearly difficult for him, even in this state, and Claude gave him some small mercy of a reprieve to lift his face and gently murmur the words to him, as if reminding him of how to say them.
“You’re perfect for me.”
“I’m…” His expression fractured, and Claude saw a tear trickle out from where he was hiding his eye with his hand, “I’m perfect for you.”
When he finally said it, Claude could feel a deep tension easing in him, and felt the same tension release in himself. He slowly lowered Dimitri’s lower body back to the bed and climbed over him, reaching for a nearby towel and scraping it over his face before kissing tenderly at Dimitri’s cheek.
“You are,” he told him, his chest warm with pride, all arousal momentarily forgotten, “I won’t be cruel and make you say it again, but know…”
Claude shifted his fingers down then, pressing warmly between Dimitri’s spread legs, feeling for the soft clutch of his hole before slipping two of them easily inside, stretching him hastily. For all that they’d already coupled this morning, Claude liked to feel him against his fingers, to make sure that he was ready to take him - because now, almost sixteen hours into their heat, Claude was sure that he would knot.
“...know that I always think it, Mitya.”
Dimitri nodded mutely, his earlier arousal rekindled by Claude’s prying fingers. He reached up and put his arms around Claude’s shoulders instead, keeping Claude above him as he shifted his legs open once more.
“Like this,” he asked breathlessly, and Claude nodded, pulling out his fingers and wrapping them around his cock.
Sliding into Dimitri was no less fantastic than it had been the first time, and Claude let out a sigh, finally giving into what he’d wanted for what felt like ages. He pressed in deep, rocking his hips solidly into his lover, trailing kisses along his jaw.
“- gonna knot,” Claude warned, biting at his lower lip. This wasn’t the most comfortable position to do that in, but he couldn’t exactly help it and… well, they’d definitely accidentally done it in more awkward spots.
(In the bathroom, once, with Dimitri bent over the rim of the tub - waiting half an hour or so there was a strong lesson in hilarity but also in timing.)
But Dimitri only nodded in understanding, shivering with pleasure when Claude finally bottomed out, his expression a luxury of pleasure.
“‘s fine,” he muttered, “I want you close.”
Really, what could Claude say to that?
He shifted his hips out only to press in again, firm and even, but his control was starting to slip. Claude breathed out a long and shaky breath as thoughts of mine and owned begin to spiral in his head, rising in intensity until he was thrusting harder, his head bowed low, face buried in the soft skin of Dimitri’s throat.
Claude grunted and strove against him, marveling at how wet and hot and still somehow tight Dimitri was. He wanted to tell him that he loved him, wanted to keep telling him that he was perfect, but his mind was floating away from him, lost in the tangle of Dimitri’s fingers around his hair, lost to everything except wanting more, wanting him, wanting -
He whined out low, his teeth finding the scar of his original mating bite as he came. Claude clenched his mouth over it and Dimitri cried out - a good cry, he thought - his entire body shuddering in his reaction to the pressure that Claude applied to such a sensitive and intimate area.
Then, it was just biology: Claude slammed his hips forward until he felt his knot expanding and instead settled for pressing in as deep as he could go. Dimitri took it all, took everything that he gave him and finally came at the heavy, thudding pressure of the bulbous knot against his walls.
Claude was still coming, his body succumbing to slow, even spurts that he shot deep inside of his lover, locked in with his knot. Each one sent a jittery jolt of pleasure directly to his brain until he was so satiated and fuck drunk that all he could do was sag against Dimitri with a long exhale, his world spinning around the two of them.
Rationale returned eventually, when Dimitri shifted a little and Claude could feel his body give way to another short spurt inside of his husband. Dimitri’s arms wrapped up against his shoulders and he simply held Claude there, content, breathing out the pheromones and sagging back against the bed.
They lay like that for awhile, wordless, tied together, Dimitri’s arms around him warm and comforting while Claude’s hips pulsed minutely up against his own.
“I love you,” he finally remembered to say, and he thought that Dimitri murmured it back, but he might have been too weary to catch it.
_
The next two days that followed were much like that. They fucked on the floor, against the wall, and - carefully - in the bathroom. Dimitri tore their blankets and then gently repositioned them after each bout, and Claude made sure that they were both fed and watered, tentatively poking out of the room for just a few short minutes to make sure that everything was alright and to get more food brought up to them.
He always answered the door quickly, taking in the food with a murmured thanks and closing the door again before someone else’s scent could get into the room.
This late in the heat, Claude was aware enough to know that he was addled, but no longer quite had the presence of mind to do anything about it. When Dimitri trembled and rolled over, Claude mounted him as a dog would a bitch, tangled fingers in his hair, knotted him and slapped a hand against his ass while Dimitri begged for more.
He had lines drawn down his back from Dimitri’s nails, bruises from where Dimitri would slam him into the wall and go down on him. Claude learned Dimitri’s body all over again, more intimately than he knew his own, but after every bout - no matter how rough or animalistic - one of them would always sit up at the end, reach for the stack of rapidly-depleting towels, and put themselves all back together with gentle whispers of affection and sleepy smiles.
Hours blended together. Claude no longer held onto any semblance of time, he only knew whether it was day or night by the light, or lack thereof, that streamed in through the window. It felt like they were fighting through a fever and he was delirious with lust, but Dimitri was with him and experiencing the same thing, which made it more bearable.
The sun was out, so it must have been daytime. They’d just finished a warm meal and Dimitri reached for the blankets to arrange them properly again, though many of them were absolutely shredded.
Just looking at his hands move, smelling his heat, being near him, with him, allowed inside of him - the thought of it all made Claude whine, lowering his head to press his forehead against Dimitri’s back. He was so warm, and Claude needed him, he needed him more than he needed anything else, he’d give his entire kingdom just to have Dimitri by his side, and -
“I know,” Dimitri murmured softly. Had he said that out loud?
Dimitri turned and touched Claude’s face gently, wiped at the sweat beading on his brow.
“You don’t have to give anything,” Dimitri reassured him, reaching out to wrap an arm around his shoulders, pulling him close, “I’m already yours. It’s alright.”
Claude’s animal instincts were alight, but something about being in Dimitri’s arms eased him, calmed by Dimitri’s reassurance. If they hadn’t been up here in this tower, mating for days, then Dimitri would likely have been just as bad as him or worse, but since they’d been satiating that urge for… days, was it days now? Or hours? Claude couldn’t remember, but since they’d been together, Dimitri was calmer, more rational, preoccupied in making their den habitable with his nesting and gentle reminders for Claude to eat.
Meanwhile, Claude felt as if he was going to vibrate out of his skin.
“Need you,” he murmured, pressing his nose into the scar of his mating bite on Dimitri’s shoulder. Dimitri shivered, his palms stroking over Claude’s shoulderblades, “I’ll take care of you… keep you safe.”
He felt Dimitri’s soft laugh from above him and knew, somewhere in his mind, that Dimitri hardly needed anyone to protect him, but he wanted to - he wanted to make a home for the both of them, curled up in one another, safe and whole, so that they could -
So that they -
“It’s almost over,” Dimitri murmured above him, kissing into the crown of Claude’s hair. “You’re at your limit… I think this is it.”
And he wanted it. He wanted it to be over, he wanted to finally unspool the knot in his stomach, to let the tension drip away from them - but at the same time, he knew that when it was over, they would go back to living their lives. Dimitri would sometimes be further away from him, sometimes they would even be in different countries, and he didn’t know how he could take it.
He wanted… oh, he wanted Dimitri by his side always, he wanted a nice small cottage where they could live together, have a family, where he could provide for them and Dimitri could nurture them all, and… no, that was stupid. He didn’t want that, not really, and Dimitri didn’t either, but -
Claude groaned, his nostrils flaring and Dimitri hummed, reaching between them to tuck his hand down against Claude’s cock. Just the touch of him felt like cool water over a burn, and Claude shifted his hips into Dimitri’s hand, his legs parting to give Dimitri as much access as he needed.
“There you are,” Dimitri marveled, smiling as he leaned down to kiss him, his fingers tightening as he stroked.
Claude couldn’t take it anymore. He growled, pushing Dimitri back onto the bed and felt darkly satisfied when his lover went without hesitation. He rolled him until he was laying facedown and got his hands under Dimitri’s hips, yanking him up to his knees.
Dimitri moaned and Claude could still smell him, could taste him in the air as he pressed three fingers quick and fast into Dimitri’s waiting hole.
How was he still so wet after all this time? How did he still arch for it like he grew up in a brothel rather than a palace? How did he keep doing this to Claude, over and over, until Claude’s head was spinning and Dimitri was panting for it again, so close to what he wanted, so close to what they both needed -
Dimitri was right about one thing: this was it. Claude could feel it in his bones when he slid his fingers into Dimitri’s hair and shoved his face down into the mattress, could feel it building in him when his other hand withdrew from where he’d been stretching him and parted his asscheeks so that he could get a good look at Dimitri’s hole: gloriously pink, shining with wetness, twitching in the sudden loss of his fingers, open for him.
“Gods above,” Claude cursed, breathless as he shuffled up behind him, pressing the head of his cock against the entrance, just to feel Dimitri squirm with it.
“Please -”
But Claude was enjoying this, the teasing, the delay of gratification. He held Dimitri still as well as he could with one hand fisted in his hair and the other gripping at his hip and just teased it, stretching him open with the flare of his cockhead and holding himself achingly still, until his body was screaming at him, until Dimitri seemed like he was about to start screaming at him too.
He couldn’t stop himself from finally pushing in, unable to hold it out for any longer, wanting - no, needing to feel Dimitri around him, beneath him, taking it like he’s taken it every time since the beginning of his heat.
Claude fucked into him, speared him open, left Dimitri a mewling wreck beneath him. He felt fluid gush around his cock, trailing in thick rivulets down Dimitri’s thighs from where he was fucking it out of him, and thought, wildly, mine.
“Claude,” Dimitri was panting out, “Claude - Claude, please,” like he wanted to ask for something, but the thing he wanted most was what Claude was already giving him, and giving him hard. He mewled instead, lifting his ass as much as he could muster to make the wet slide of it easier, and he was perfect - so perfect.
“You’re mine,” Claude told him, half-crazed from the rut, “and I’m going to fill you up, make you so full, you’ll never need anything ever again except for me, just me -”
“- yours,” Dimitri agreed, breathless, muffled against the blankets as Claude pounded into him.
Hearing Dimitri agree with him, admit it… it coiled something deep and satisfying in Claude’s gut, his possessiveness temporarily abated in favor of chasing the pleasure building deep in him, until it overwhelmed everything else. He felt his knot expand like some faraway sensation and when it caught against Dimitri’s rim he had to just rock deeper into him rather than outright fuck him. That was fine, that was still good, and Dimitri was still impossibly alive and perfect and whimpering underneath him from the satisfying stretch of it.
His orgasm felt like a punch, like a lightning strike, and Claude cried out, bowing over Dimitri’s back and finally releasing his grip on his hair so he could hold him tightly, his mouth absently finding purchase on Dimitri’s spine as he found his aching, sweet release inside of him.
Dimitri tasted like heaven. He felt better than anything ever had and he was his, his, all his - Claude brought up Dimitri’s shoulders, satisfied when Dimitri lifted to his knees, arching back against him so that Claude could get his fingers around Dimitri’s cock and his teeth around their mating bite.
That was all it took. Dimitri shuddered and let out a high pitched sound as he came over the blankets beneath them, his hips stuttering, pulling Claude with him.
It was beautiful. He was beautiful, and Claude closed his eyes, letting his teeth slide away from Dimitri’s skin, lowering his hands to his hips and just breathing through the fierce pleasure that had short circuited the rest of his brain.
Dimitri brought them down, gently eased Claude until they were lying side by side with Claude still behind him, still inside of him, plugging Dimitri with his knot.
This was good. It was always good, and in the soft moments that followed, Claude peppered kisses against Dimitri’s shoulders, his spine. They drifted - he didn’t know for how long, but he knew that it felt good to just be here, to exist in the same universe, the same world, the same bed as his mate, who loved him more than anything.
Claude let his eyes drift closed slowly, the frenzied clash of Dimitri’s heat and his own corresponding rut slowly fading away into a bone-deep exhaustion. He wanted to sleep for a week. He wanted to never leave this bed again.
After a time - minutes, hours, who could be sure? - he softened enough that Dimitri was able to pull away, spilling out Claude’s seed to the already-soiled sheets below. He was wiped down and then, strangely enough, lifted.
“Mmh?” he asked, confused as he cracked an eye open to see Dimitri with his arms beneath Claude’s shoulders and knees, gently lifting him with his stupid strength, smiling down at him with a satiated, tired smile.
“You’re never going to forgive me if I don’t make you bathe,” Dimitri managed, though his voice was still hoarse, wrecked from screaming.
It was a good idea, he realized distantly. A bath would clean them, but would also get some of the post-heat scent off of them and make it easier to clear his head. Then they could open the window, get some more food, change the bedding and spend one last night here, before leaving the next morning to tend to their stations once more.
“I’d forgive you,” Claude mumbled tiredly, “but I might ravage you again.”
“I guess I’d better do it then. I don’t think my body can take any more ravaging right now.”
He wanted to tell Dimitri to put him down but couldn’t quite manage the energy. As it was, Dimitri wobbled them both into the bathroom and set him down in the tub before turning on the water and climbing in behind him.
Dimitri was right(Dimitri was always right): the water helped. It was refreshing on his skin and Claude absently washed his face in it and could already feel himself perking up. Dimitri saw to his hair and gently cleaned it, lathering the suds into it before dumping the small bucket of water over him to clean it all off.
Claude shook his head to get his hair out of his face, blinking in the new light. He looked up at Dimitri and reached to take the bucket for him, repaying the favor by gently cleaning him as well.
For the first time, he saw the bite marks along Dimitri’s skin, over his nipples and throat, the scratches on his shoulders, the bruises on his hips. It marred his skin and Claude tried to feel bad about it, but then recalled his own scratches and bruises and rationalized that it was just part of this whole thing.
The water helped to dissipate their scents, and - predictably - cleared his head. By the end of their bath, Claude was still exhausted, but was beginning to feel more like himself than he had in days.
“Thank you.”
Dimitri smiled a weary smile in return and Claude could see that he was nowhere near as unaffected as he’d seemed when Claude was deep under the influence of his rut. It was a comforting thought to know that even as far into the heat as they both were, it was still their first priority to take care of one another.
And it was one of the many things he loved about Dimitri.
“I love you,” he told him, sliding through his water to wrap his arms around Dimitri’s middle.
“I love you too.”
_
After changing the sheets and opening the window, they slept for twelve hours.
Claude woke before Dimitri in the early morning, when the sun had still not yet emerged in the sky and everything was soft and gray. He watched his husband sleep, tangled up in his arms, and felt… relaxed, as if someone had reached deep within him and scraped out all of his tension, all of his worries.
Dimitri would be sluggish and weary for another week, but Claude felt more alert than he had in months. This, too, was the hormones: an omega would typically be prepping the den after a shared heat, while the alpha would hunt, protect, and stand guard over their lover.
It didn’t quite work that way in practice, not when they’ve evolved past den living, and not when Dimitri was a king and also the strongest man that he knew, but Claude knew that they could both be patient until this was over. He’d handle a few more of Dimitri’s affairs, cancel an appointment or two if they were too taxing on the King, and then they’d both recover and everything would go back to normal.
After all this madness, normal seemed nice. Dimitri would still be his, and he would belong to Dimitri, and the two of them could continue just as they had been: affectionate, unconventional, and perfect.