Chapter Text
“I love you so, so much.”
“Gwen, come on…”
Merlin doesn’t need to glance over the top of his cubicle to know what’s going on, but like any good masochist, he does it anyway. Over by the water cooler, Gwen is smiling up at Lance as if he’s hung every individual star in the sky, his hands gently placed on her waist.
Suddenly, Merlin’s spreadsheet is extremely interesting again. He should’ve expected this kind of thing on Valentine’s Day, especially from the mated employees of Camelot Solutions Inc., but having a mated couple acting so sickly sweet in front of him is just a little too much.
Gwen giggles and another wave of her comforting Omega pheromones roll over towards Merlin. Normally, he wouldn’t mind, but the last thing he needs tonight is for his hormones to start craving human touch when he knows he’s going home to an empty house.
“Gwen, Lance, would you mind?” Merlin asks as politely as possible. He doesn’t quite meet Lance’s eyes, even though Lance isn’t the kind of Alpha who would get upset at that sort of thing, but Merlin isn’t in the mood for confrontation in any sense.
Of course, that’s when Arthur Pendragon steps out of the conference room from his 4 o’clock interdepartmental meeting. His scent is a little heady, a little more potent than usual, and Merlin swallows.
“Lance,” he nods tightly at the other Alpha. Merlin ducks back behind his cubicle again, not daring to watch what’s bound to be a slow-motion car crash, on today of all days.
Everyone knows that soulmarks and mating don’t go hand in hand. You could be mated to someone for decades and never have one show up, or you could have just met someone and have one appear at the next full moon. That’s the nature of soulmarks: they only recognise compatibility, not current happiness.
That’s what Gwen’s soulmark had failed to account for - the fact that Arthur and Gwen had been happily mated for a couple of years. When her mark had shown up, and Arthur’s hadn’t, the new sales manager Lance had turned up to work with a matching one the day after that full moon.
It was the kind of stuff that fuelled rom-coms, which Merlin didn’t watch unless he was feeling particularly full of self-loathing. Since he’d split with Gwaine, he’d watched more than he ever had in the other 26 years of his life combined.
Merlin’s phone vibrates and chirps a specific notification, making him jump. He tries to silence it, but before he has the chance to, Arthur is looming over his cubicle divider.
“Was that your heat alarm?”
Merlin rolls his eyes, resolutely staring at a broken formula in his spreadsheet and clicking aimlessly at the screen. “Pretty sure HR said the Alphas had to stop asking the Omegas about their heats,” he replies off-handedly.
Arthur huffs, folding his arms along the top of the cubicle divider, and Merlin risks a glance up at him. It had been a month or so since Arthur and Gwen had split, but Merlin had never considered how Arthur was actually coping, besides his cool regard for Lance.
Merlin joined the company straight out of university, five years ago, working his way up from the reception desk and general office duties to becoming one of the most knowledgeable members of the branch. Arthur had joined at the same time in a technical role but had been promoted more quickly; Merlin could hardly blame nepotism, because Arthur really was good at his job.
It’s just that they’d never really spoken much. They’d exchange pleasantries in the staff room about the weather or the weekend. Merlin might’ve mentioned once or twice that he used to spend his weekends painting, and Arthur tends to box most mornings, but that had been about it. When Arthur started dating Gwen, who’d worked the reception desk with Merlin, they had a bit more in common that they could discuss. Still, Merlin had never given a thought for how Arthur would be handling the break-up, just as Arthur hadn’t asked about Merlin’s split from Gwaine.
“Maybe you should put your phone on silent if you don’t want every Alpha in a ten mile radius hearing it,” Arthur offers with a smirk. Merlin sighs and closes the spreadsheet, obviously not about to get any more work done. “It’s not like I haven’t been able to smell your scent changing today anyway.”
“Why are you so interested?” Merlin asks, a little irritably, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms. He thinks about how Gwaine used to cook him an elaborate meal the night before his heat started each month, to keep his strength up for the next twenty four hours, forty eight if it was a particularly strong heat. Merlin blinks that thought away, his stomach rumbling.
Arthur barks a laugh. “You’re a recently single Omega.” He points to himself. “I’m a recently single Alpha.”
“You’re my boss,” Merlin says, regretting the words as soon as they’re out of his mouth. Another Nanto Tracker notification pings on his phone - probably telling him that the tracker on his wrist is picking up an elevated heartbeat - before Merlin finally silences it.
Arthur’s eyes are on Merlin’s watch, as if he knows the effect his presence as an unmated alpha is already having on Merlin. Unmated, his scent is sweeter, riper. “So was Gwaine, before he took the job in Melbourne.”
Merlin glares up at Arthur, mostly because Arthur’s right, and a little because the wound is still raw.
Arthur’s smile is kind. “And you’ve never treated me as your boss anyway, have you, Merlin?” His voice is soft, the kind that placates an Omega struggling against a fight or flight response. The conflict must be evident on Merlin’s face before he logs off his computer and rolls his chair back.
“Are you offering to service me this month?”
Merlin doesn’t miss Arthur licking his lips. “You could sound more enthusiastic about it,” Arthur smirks.
“Well, are you?”
Arthur frowns. “You’re telling me you haven’t got anyone lined up? Didn’t get a match on one of the apps?” A pause as Merlin shrugs. “You realise how dangerous that can be, right?”
“It’s my first heat since Gwaine left,” Merlin says, which is answer enough perhaps, or at least the most he’s willing to give Arthur at the moment; he doesn’t want to mention that he hadn’t had much luck with his profile on Heat Help. He stands from his chair and grabs his coat and bag. “Come on. If I have to see one more loved-up couple tonight, I’m going to be sick.”
“Good. One thing we can agree on.”
They take a taxi back to Merlin’s house, Merlin fidgeting the whole while, becoming more and more aware of Arthur’s presence mere feet away with each passing second. His nantonone levels are getting dangerously close to where they are when the first waves of heat hit, and he knows that Arthur knows, because Arthur’s nostrils keep twitching.
Finally, the taxi pulls up on the leafy suburban street Merlin’s house sits on. Arthur pushes Merlin against the wall of the hallway as soon as the door shuts behind them, holding him in place with a forearm braced against his chest. Merlin melts, submitting to Arthur immediately, relishing in the control Arthur has over him.
“It’ll be more awkward if we don’t kiss--” Merlin says in the silence that follows, before Arthur puts his lips against Merlin’s and claims him, for this heat at least. Merlin whimpers into it as Arthur’s hands move, quickly undoing the buttons of Merlin’s shirt as Merlin works on his fly. He’s not completely lost to the heat, not yet, and has the presence of mind to grope at the front of Arthur’s trousers, at the thick hardness there.
“Eager,” Arthur kisses into Merlin’s neck, near his scent glands, and Merlin’s head thuds against the wall as he lets it fall back.
“Please put it inside me,” Merlin begs. He can feel slick running down the insides of his trousers and he trips as he tries to take his shoes off.
“Steady,” Arthur reassures him, hands catching him easily. He helps Merlin out of the rest of his clothes, leaving them in a breadcrumb trail from the hallway all the way upstairs into the bedroom as Arthur finally strips, too.
Merlin crawls onto the bed naked, his leaking arse high in the air, and reaches towards the nightstand. He feels the bed dip behind him as Arthur joins him, one warm hand running over his skin, setting him aflame.
“Fucking hell, Merlin,” Arthur moans as Merlin clumsily throws him a condom from a box he hasn’t touched since Gwaine left. “You must’ve been wet all afternoon.”
Blind with lust and the need to be filled, Merlin’s aware that he’s heat-drunk as he starts speaking but he’s too far gone to care. He touches himself briefly, vaguely aware of the fact that it wouldn’t be polite to come before Arthur is inside him. “I could smell you… when you walked up to my desk…”
Arthur slides into him then, obliterating any further hopes of conversation from Merlin’s mind. The sensation is overwhelming; sparks of lust tingle down each of Merlin’s limbs as his brain recognises that he’s about to be knotted. They move together in a slick tandem, Arthur setting a quick pace, holding Merlin’s shoulders down to the mattress. Merlin gasps into the bedsheets, Arthur’s knot nudging at his hole, lowering his hips so he can hump the covers for some much needed relief against his hard cock. “Please,” he begs, tears running down his face because he wants it so much, so much more than he’s ever needed it before. “Please.”
Arthur’s knot presses inside and Merlin comes undone, Arthur’s arm looping around his stomach to stop his boneless form from crumpling. Merlin spurts over the mattress as Arthur wraps a hand around him, calling Arthur’s name loud enough that his neighbours will hear. Merlin trembles as Arthur ruts against him, before they both tumble down as Arthur reaches his own climax.
“Fucking hell,” Merlin murmurs a few minutes later, Arthur still rock hard inside him. The fire in his stomach is doused for the moment, but he knows that they’ll rut again soon. As it is, Arthur swivels his hips against his arse. “How are you still hard?”
Arthur makes a noise of dismissal behind Merlin; Merlin’s too tired to turn his head. “Dunno. I never stayed this hard with Gwen.”
“Really?” Merlin asks lightly. “We’re talking about Gwen, now?”
“What?” Arthur asks, and Merlin finally turns his head to raise an eyebrow. Arthur is close in the semi-darkness, but they haven’t kissed since getting into the bedroom. “You’re not jealous of her, are you?”
Merlin screws his face up. “No. I couldn’t think of anything worse than being your girlfriend. No offence.”
Arthur laughs. “You’re an idiot. You meant full offence.”
“Fine. Full offence.” Arthur rocks his hips again and Merlin chokes. “But she’s my friend. I’d rather not talk about how you used to fuck her while you’re currently inside me.” Merlin pushes his hips back against Arthur to make his point, his slick squelching between them, and it’s Arthur’s turn to gasp.
“How many waves of heat do you normally have?” Arthur asks. He pulls at Merlin’s wrist, tapping at the screen of his watch to illuminate his tracker.
“Arthur,” Merlin groans as Arthur begins to thrust in and out of him shallowly.
“How many?”
Merlin’s breath comes out in a high-pitched moan as Arthur drives into him forcefully. “Three!” he says, raising his arms to grip the headboard at Arthur’s guidance. “The second isn’t… normally… so fast.”
Arthur gives Merlin no time to explain as his knot, having only just deflated, is pressing against Merlin’s rim again for the second time that evening. The bedsheets are a sopping mess beneath Merlin, having spent the first rut coming nearly non-stop after Arthur’s hand had finally, finally, gravitated towards his cock and kept it there, playing with it in quick strokes.
This time, once Arthur’s knot has slid home, Arthur leans over Merlin and growls into his ear. “God, you’d look so fucking good pregnant, Merlin,” he says, and that’s all it takes for Merlin to come so hard that he blacks out.
When he comes around, Arthur has slipped out and is tapping Merlin’s watch again. “Ger’off.”
“Checking your nantonone,” Arthur murmurs, his face thrown into sharp relief by the light of the device. “It’s dipping again.”
“Good,” Merlin murmurs into the pillow; he’s drooled into it, but can’t bring himself to care. “I’m tired.”
Arthur laughs under his breath. “Need a drink, or anything?”
“Water,” Merlin mumbles. Arthur places a hand against his shoulder briefly, and Merlin shudders. “You have my consent to fuck me while I’m asleep,” he continues, “if my nanto goes above 24.”
Squeezing his shoulder, the bed rises as Arthur stands. “Noted. Go to sleep.”
Merlin’s already gone.
*
After attending to Merlin a couple of times in the night, Arthur leaves the house before breakfast the next day, Merlin having already booked it off as heat-leave.
Arthur says goodbye as he goes out the door on the way to his boxing training, so it wasn’t an attempt at a silent escape, but Merlin still finds himself curling up in the middle of the mattress, alone. His nantonone is down at a solid 12, in the expected range for the day after breaking a heat, but the number doesn’t acknowledge that Merlin could really, truly do with a cuddle.
Instead, he makes himself pancakes, puts on a rom-com, and sends a text to Arthur.
Same thing next month?
They fall into a pattern easily, and Merlin finds it fills some of the chasm that Gwaine leaving for Australia tore in his life. They don’t sleep with each other between heats, don’t talk about who they are or aren’t dating (although Merlin reckons neither of them are in a good place to be dating right now), and don’t make a fuss about it in the office.
In April, Merlin picks up his paintbrush for the first time since Gwaine left. His easel had sat in the corner of the lounge they’d once shared, gathering dust for weeks. His first painting is more abstract than usual, an explosion of blues, reds, and golds, but it makes him feel just a little more collected than before, a little more like himself.
After May’s heat, Merlin adds Arthur’s profile to the Nanto Tracker app on his phone. “So you can plan work trips around them,” Merlin says with a shrug one day over lunch. He catches Arthur’s glance towards Gwen and Lance in the corner of the staff room, heads close as they laugh about something or the other, hands clasped on the table.
“Thanks,” Arthur replies with a small smile.
It doesn’t help them in July, when Merlin and Arthur are sitting in a large interdepartmental meeting about team values, or something else that Merlin should be listening to but isn’t. At the height of summer, even the brand new air-con isn’t able to remove the warmth of this heatwave from the air, and so Merlin sweats in his suit and tie just like everyone else.
Instead of listening to Uther drone on, he’s acutely aware of how many Alphas are in the room: Arthur, at the other end of the table to him, Lance opposite, Morgana at his side, coolly fanning herself, Uther at the lectern, and Mordred smiling pleasantly at Merlin…
Merlin swallows, nodding back at Mordred politely with a smile. Mordred’s smile turns to a dangerous smirk as he runs a hand through his hair, bicep bulging inside his shirt sleeve, having removed his jacket. Merlin blinks, looking away, trying to remember what the hell Uther’s talking about.
Merlin’s phone buzzes on the table. He snatches it up to put it on Do Not Disturb before he sees what the notification is.
Nanto Tracker
Your nantonone levels are rising very quickly! Your heat may unexpectedly trigger.
Heartbeat audible in his ears, Merlin tries to surreptitiously glance down the table at Arthur, who’s looking at his crotch.
Merlin’s phone buzzes again.
Arthur Pendragon
I thought you weren’t due in heat for another four days.
Before Merlin has the time to respond ‘neither did I’, another text arrives.
Arthur Pendragon
Christ, Merlin, you need to go
I can smell you from here
“Arthur?”
Merlin watches Arthur’s head snap up at the sound of his father’s voice. “Uther.”
Uther raises his eyebrows. “Are you going to enlighten the rest of the meeting about your department’s…” Uther trails off, sniffing the air.
“Oh God,” Merlin murmurs, turning red. He tries to slink further into his seat to hide, but Mordred is almost half out of his chair, and even Morgana has raised an eyebrow.
“Mordred, sit down,” Uther snaps. “Merlin, get out of here.”
“I’ll help him get home,” Arthur says, immediately getting out of his seat and staring Mordred down. It only stokes the fire burning low in Merlin’s stomach.
Uther shakes his head dismissively as Arthur rounds the table. “Remember to keep track of your heats next time, please, Merlin.” The please is so acerbic that Merlin flinches.
“It’s early,” he whispers, the room quiet enough that everyone can hear it. Arthur all but drags him from the meeting by his suit collar, leaving Merlin blushing and stumbling along behind him through the empty office. “Where are we going?”
“Where do you think,” Arthur grinds out as he pushes them into the men’s loos and locks the main door behind them.
“Are we seriously about to knot in a toilet?” Merlin asks. Arthur grips his wrist to illuminate the display, the Nanto Tracker reading a 29.
“Does that answer your question?” Arthur asks, pressing Merlin up against a wall, grazing his teeth over Merlin’s earlobe. Merlin submits easily, clenching his arse to try to keep his slick inside but failing miserably. “God, you smell so fucking good.”
Merlin bites his lip at this, Arthur unbuckling his belt when his fingers fumble for too long. “I do?” he asks, voice purposefully soft, and Arthur groans.
“Every Alpha in there was looking at you like they wanted to eat you up,” Arthur mutters, turning Merlin around once his trousers have fallen to the floor. Merlin leans into it, pressing his sodden arse towards Arthur, hands splayed against the blissfully cool tile. They haven’t even made it into a cubicle, and if someone unlocks the toilets, they’ll be on full display for the whole office to see.
“Yeah?” Merlin says instead.
Arthur tugs Merlin’s boxers down, the head of his cock sliding in the mess around Merlin’s hole before it breaches him. Merlin rocks forward onto the balls of his feet, but Arthur holds him steady as he sinks into his body.
“Mordred looked like he was about to crawl across the table so he could get inside you,” Arthur groans into Merlin’s ear, clapping his hand over Merlin’s mouth just in time to muffle the long moan as Merlin comes for the first time in their encounter, splattering over the wall. “Even Morgana looked interested, and you know she’s not into Omega boys.”
Merlin’s eyelids flutter as Arthur picks up the pace, sweating inside his suit but entirely at Arthur’s mercy. “Need you to knot me.”
“Beg for it,” Arthur commands, and Merlin’s knees buckle. Arthur holds him steady as he pounds into Merlin.
“Please Arthur,” Merlin gasps. “I only want your knot. Only… only...” Merlin’s mouth drops open soundlessly as Arthur feeds him his knot, sweating palms slipping against the tile. Unable to hold his head up, it drops between his shoulder blades, watching his cock dribble come and listening to Arthur’s grunting as he ruts inside him. “Fuhhh,” Merlin manages, eyes closing, completely overwhelmed.
Arthur wraps his arms around Merlin’s limp torso, pulling him back against his chest, and Merlin hums as Arthur’s scent intensifies with his head leaning back against Arthur’s shoulder. “Your arse takes my knot so well,” Arthur murmurs in his ear, and Merlin smiles dopily, his eyes still closed, still so heat-drunk that the typical Alpha sayings Arthur favours make him feel warm all over rather than nauseous.
Merlin’s next words leave his mouth before he even registers saying them. “Are we exclusive?”
Arthur doesn’t reply, apart from a hitch in his breathing. Merlin’s eyes open slowly to the sight of Arthur’s jaw, to the feel of Arthur coming inside him. The slick and come escaping the knot slides down the insides of his thighs, towards his trousers. “We…” Merlin tries, frowning. “We can’t stay here for twelve hours,” he says instead. He raises his wrist before Arthur even asks to see it.
“21,” Arthur says with a sigh. “God, it’s like your body doesn’t even recognise that you’ve had the knot.”
“Trust me, my arse is very aware,” Merlin mutters; when Arthur scoffs a laugh, it all feels a bit more normal again, or at least as normal as they can be after knotting in the toilets at work. “Did you drive in today?”
“Yes, thank fuck. Let’s go.”
Arthur helps Merlin fasten his trousers again after quickly cleaning the two of them up with some loo roll. They unlock the bathroom door to an empty office still, the meeting having continued in their absence. “God, that’s good,” Merlin mutters as they pass under one of the air conditioning units, cold air blasting him momentarily.
“Nanto?” Arthur asks as they cross the large open-plan working space towards the lifts, jabbing the button once he gets there.
Merlin glances at his watch needlessly; he knows he’s running high as he can’t stop fidgeting. “Fuck.”
“Tell me.”
“23.”
“It’s been two minutes,” Arthur hisses, pressing the call button five times in succession. “How can you need it again so--”
“I don’t know,” Merlin mutters, “your knot isn’t doing a good enough job, is it?” He drags the back of one wrist across his forehead, collecting the beads of sweat there.
“If this lift doesn’t get here--”
“I thought I’d told you to go home.”
Lost to his hormones, Merlin lowers his gaze in the presence of the older Alpha as Uther rounds the corner to the lift.
“I’m trying to get him out of the building,” Arthur says tightly on Merlin’s behalf. A whine escapes Merlin of its own accord, and Arthur puts his hand to the nape of his damp neck to establish contact.
“Look at the state of him, Arthur,” Uther snaps. “An unmated Omega stinking of nantonone and…” The pause makes Merlin’s stomach drop; he keeps his eyes trained on Uther’s expensive shoes. “Have you knotted him already? In my office?”
The lift opens behind them, and Merlin is jerked backwards by Arthur. He glances up at the fury on Uther’s face, and can’t help the moan summoned by the strong scent of the Alphas’ hormones, raised by the stand-off. Arthur presses the button to close the doors and then for the garage level. “If you’d wanted him for yourself, you should’ve staked your claim.”
Uther’s snarl is cut off by the doors shutting and the lift beginning its descent. Merlin collapses against Arthur, nosing at his neck, clammy against his own skin. “Need,” he whines. “Need.”
“I know,” Arthur promises. “My car. We’ll have to.”
Merlin barely remembers getting into the thankfully cool garage, or Arthur opening the back door of his BMW, pushing Merlin inside and yanking his trousers down. Merlin sweats against the leather seats as Arthur fills him to the brim, standing at the open door, allowing his knot to inflate inside Merlin as he thrusts shallowly. “Come in your boxers,” Arthur instructs, and Merlin is helpless but to obey, trying to remember the last time he came on command like this.
Clarity begins to return to Merlin’s mind as Arthur pumps him full of come again, and Merlin finally realises what’s happening to him, why he’s reacting so strongly to Arthur.
“Oh God Arthur, we’re not using a condom,” Merlin blurts out.
“Fuck,” Merlin hears Arthur mutter outside of the car. He tries to pull out, which makes Merlin yelp, well and truly tied together by Arthur’s knot.
“Arthur!”
“Sorry.”
“It’s too late now, you stuffed me full upstairs in the loos.” Merlin hangs his head. “Fuck.”
“Move forward,” Arthur demands. With some pulling where they’re joined, and a couple of bruised knees, Arthur manages to lie down on top of Merlin along the backseat, their feet hanging out of the open door. The weight is a little comforting, but anxiety begins to rise in Merlin’s chest.
He grabs one of Arthur’s hands, clutches it close to his chest. “That’s why my nanto levels were so high; I think your come made my body think it was being bred, so it triggered the next wave more quickly.” Arthur’s chest rumbles with a groan, and his hips shift forward in response to Merlin’s words. “God, you really do have a breeding kink, don’t you?”
Arthur doesn’t answer, instead pulling his hand from between Merlin’s to palm his cock, still trapped in his sticky boxers. Merlin comes against the pressure of Arthur’s hand, before that hand gravitates upwards and rests on his stomach. Merlin whines, squirming down against Arthur’s knot, the implication making him warm all over, nothing to do with the heatwave. “You’d look so good pregnant,” Arthur murmurs, rubbing Merlin’s tummy in small circles. “Huge belly, full of child, all because of me. I’d keep you pregnant all the time; you’d glow, fucking radiate with it, and everyone would be jealous.”
Panting, Merlin can picture it, with Arthur’s breath hot against his neck. His body responds as Arthur’s come fills him again, driving him deeper, as if desperate to conceive. “That’s the rut talking,” Merlin says, trying to dismiss it.
Arthur makes a non-committal humming noise. “You’re on birth control anyway.”
“Well…”
Arthur adjusts his position so he can look into Merlin’s eyes. “Right, Merlin?”
“I haven’t been on the pill since Gwaine left.”
Merlin watches confusion, desire, and frustration roll across Arthur’s features in one fell swoop. “But we’ve been fucking.”
“We always used condoms!” Merlin says quickly. His watch vibrates, picking up on his elevated heartbeat. “I didn’t think we’d need it - I’m not seeing anyone outside of my heats, and we were always so prepared for them… this one just caught us by surprise.”
Arthur’s features soften. “You’re not seeing anyone else?”
“Arthur, the man I’d been mated to left me six months ago. Of course I’m not seeing anyone else,” Merlin says too quickly. Arthur looks away, and Merlin knows he’s struck a nerve; perhaps that’s not the approach Arthur has been taking to deal with his own recent break up. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to--”
“It’s fine,” Arthur says in a tone that suggests it isn’t. “You and Gwaine were different from what happened between Gwen and I, anyway.” With a sigh, Arthur’s cock slips out of Merlin.
Arthur doesn’t even have to ask the question. “18,” Merlin reads from his watch, happy to change the topic of discussion.
“Good enough,” Arthur says as he extracts himself from the back seat, leaving sticky palm prints on Merlin’s skin and the leather in his wake. “Watch your feet.” Merlin pulls his boxers up a little and manages to sit upright as Arthur shuts the rear door, making his way round to the driver’s side and sliding into the front seat. “I’m taking you back to mine.”
Merlin is too tired and too anxious to protest. “Okay.”
He’s never been to Arthur’s before, or at least not since the split from Gwen. Where Merlin had remained in the house he and Gwaine had shared, as Gwaine hadn’t needed to keep his furniture when moving halfway around the world, Arthur had moved into a flat on his own. As Arthur guides him through to the lounge, Merlin weaves his way between cardboard boxes, still not unpacked. He opens his mouth to say something, and then decides it’s perhaps best left unsaid.
“There’s a pharmacy just at the end of the road,” Arthur says after he’s gotten Merlin a glass of water and given him some clean clothes to wear. “I’m going to grab your Plan B now, then we can settle down for the rest of the day. Call me if your nanto hits 24, okay?”
“Yes,” Merlin huffs. His eyes are on Arthur though, suit jacket abandoned and shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow. Merlin licks his lips “You’d probably be able to smell it.”
Arthur groans before he leaves.
Merlin settles down into the blankets mostly because they smell like Arthur, and he’s ashamed to admit just how much comfort his scent brings him. He tries not to think about the metres growing between them as Arthur walks down the road, Merlin’s scent and slick still clinging to him.
Merlin rolls on his side, inhaling Arthur’s scent. He places a hand over his abdomen, still full of Arthur’s come. If Merlin really wanted to be bred, or if Arthur wanted it, they would’ve stuffed a plug up Merlin’s arse every time to stop any of Arthur’s come leaking out as soon as the knot had slipped free.
Of their own accord, Merlin’s fingers work their way under the waistband of Arthur’s borrowed trackies, wrapping around his cock lazily. He quickly grows too hot for the blanket but is desperate for the smell of Arthur. He’s considering rummaging through Arthur’s laundry basket for something that smells even more like him when the man himself returns.
“Everything okay?” Arthur asks, a little out of breath. He pauses in the doorway as Merlin peeps at him over the back of the sofa. “You… smell okay?”
“Please hold me,” Merlin asks in the smallest voice he can muster. Arthur drops the carrier bag on the coffee table with a clatter.
“Hang on,” he says as he quickly unbuttons his shirt.
“I don’t need to--”
“Idiot,” Arthur says softly, scooting Merlin and his blankets along the sofa so he can lay down. “Put your head here… that’s it,” Arthur soothes as Merlin lays down on top of him, his head on Arthur’s bare chest, Arthur’s heartbeat steady under his ear. The skin-on-skin contact quells some of his anxiety; perhaps Arthur can feel it through the connection, too.
“This is nice,” Merlin murmurs, lips smushed against Arthur’s skin, and Arthur hums in response. “We don’t usually do this.”
Arthur clears his throat lightly. “I think today is a bit different.”
“My tracker is the latest version,” Merlin says in the quiet that follows. “It tracks a few hormones: gravidaline as well as nantonone, plus a couple of other ones which are normally pretty steady.”
Arthur’s hand is reassuring on Merlin’s back. “Which one’s gravidaline, again?”
“The pregnancy hormone.” Arthur can’t see his face, but Merlin hopes he could hear the eye roll in his voice anyway. “That should track at 0 or 1, but it starts climbing up to 50-odd within a few hours of conception if you’re pregnant.” He shrugs a shoulder in explanation. “Gwaine and I had a scare, once.”
“I see,” Arthur says, chest rumbling under Merlin’s cheek.
“So we need to wait, like, three hours or so. If we use a condom for any further waves, then we can see if it alerts before I have to take the Plan B.” Merlin’s eyes close as Arthur cords his fingers gently through his hair. Using such clinical terms for something so terrifyingly huge helps him keep calm, Arthur’s scent doing the rest of the work.
“I’ve heard Plan B can make you quite sick, either way,” Arthur says, and Merlin nods a little. “Well. You don’t smell like you’re going to have another wave.” He picks up Merlin’s limp wrist. “Your nantonone is at 17.”
“Not great, not terrible,” Merlin murmurs, and Arthur nudges him gently at the reference to a TV show they’ve both seen only the first episode of.
“We could watch more of that, or a film if you like, to pass the time?” Arthur offers.
Merlin raises his head to look at Arthur, his stubble catching slightly in Arthur’s chest hair. “You’d do that with me?”
Arthur rolls his eyes before guiding Merlin’s head down again, reaching for the remote on the coffee table. “I’ve potentially just knocked you up, I think a little skin-on-skin and a film is the least I can do,” he says with a snort, but it makes Merlin smile anyway.
The sunset illuminates Arthur’s lounge as an hour crawls by, and then another. Merlin vaguely follows the plot of the action film on telly, drifting in and out of sleep, occasionally waking up to stare down the box of Plan B on the coffee table. Arthur strokes his hair absent-mindedly, and Merlin feels happy enough that his anxiety is kept at bay, for now.
The film dips into a quiet scene between the two main characters, the emotional moment after the big finale. “You know, I’ve always wanted to have kids.”
Arthur’s hand goes still on Merlin’s head. “Merlin, I don’t think--”
Merlin props himself up on his elbows, either side of Arthur’s torso. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not keeping this one, even if there is one.” He looks away from Arthur’s gaze, feeling like it’s digging into his soul. “I want to meet my soulmate before I have kids.”
It’s Arthur’s turn to look away. “Yeah,” he says. “I… Gwen and I had been talking about it.”
“Having kids?” Merlin asks. His stomach drops, for reasons completely unrelated to his heat.
Arthur nods, looking at the TV screen. He doesn’t expand on that.
Merlin presses the fingertips of one hand to Arthur’s skin, and Arthur gives him a curious look. “I think we’re probably similar, in that sense. Want to find our soulmates before settling down again.”
Turning back to the TV, Arthur scoffs under his breath. “I’d hoped Gwen was mine.”
Merlin leaves the subject there, turning back to the TV to see the credits rolling. “Can I have a shower? I’ve still got an arse full of your come.” Arthur gives him a scorching look that makes Merlin’s breath hitch. “I--”
“Merlin,” Arthur groans, and Merlin feels Arthur’s cock stirring beneath him, growing hard.
Merlin glances to his watch, a steady 14 flashing back at him. He’s convinced that this heat is well and truly wrapped up, hastened by their mistake of forgetting to use a condom. He swipes to the next screen, the screen he rarely has to look at. “Gravidaline’s at 2,” he says, reassuring him that he’s not pregnant, but now Arthur is looking at him with an expression he can’t quite define.
Merlin knows, and Arthur knows, that they’ve never slept together outside of the confines of a wave of heat. They’ve mentioned it in passing before but never discussed it fully, the boundaries it sets, the buffer it provides between their lives, that thin line between friends and something more. As friends, Merlin can pretend that Arthur services him each month because, yes, it’s mutually beneficial pleasure, but there’s nothing more to it than helping a friend in need.
He licks his lips. “Going to have that shower.”
He gets up too quickly, stumbling when he feels light-headed. “Merlin,” Arthur calls after him, but Merlin makes it into Arthur’s bathroom and locks the door behind him, his watch buzzing again to tell him his heart rate is too high.
He unfastens it, throwing it onto the counter before starting the shower.
Taking his time because he knows they still have to run down the clock for the Plan B, Merlin carefully cleans every inch of his skin. Arthur is always careful to not leave marks, but on more than one occasion under the warm water, Merlin flattens his palm against his stomach and sighs before blinking the thought away.
“You’ve got plenty of time to find your soulmate,” his mother had assured him the last time she’d called. As Merlin shuts the water off, he realises it’s been six months since Gwaine left, and he hasn’t been on a single date since.
And he’s never going to find his soulmate if he keeps doing this with Arthur.
Merlin dries with one of Arthur’s towels, not before pressing it to his face to breathe his scent in, trying to keep it in his lungs forever. He straps his watch back on, biting his thumbnail as he waits for the reading to update.
“Nantonone’s down to 10, gravidaline’s at 1,” Merlin announces as he goes back into the lounge, dressed in Arthur’s clothes again. Arthur has pulled the blankets back up over him despite the summer sun, and Merlin wonders if he’s been trying to memorise his scent, in return.
Arthur raises an eyebrow. “That’s really low. The nantonone, I mean.”
Merlin scoops up the carrier bag of Plan B from the coffee table. “My heat’s over, that’s all. It’s been three hours since the first wave; my gravidaline levels would’ve risen if there was something wrong.”
Humming, Arthur stands, realising that Merlin wants to leave. “Do you need a lift home, or anything?”
Shaking his head, Merlin holds the carrier bag up. “How much do I owe you?”
“Nothing. It’s my fault; I was the one who should’ve been clear headed.”
Merlin chews on that one as he starts the short walk back home, his work clothes bundled into another carrier bag and with the promise of returning Arthur’s loaned ones. Is Arthur always so worked up around Omegas in heat, so easily able to forget himself? Perhaps it’s a silly question, but it nags at Merlin.
Not for the first time, Merlin wonders what dating Arthur would be like. More afternoons like the one they’d just had, spent on the sofa enjoying each other’s company. Merlin could sketch him, perhaps while Arthur worked on the punching bag he keeps on his balcony. There’d be more scorching hot sex too, hopefully.
But they aren’t soulmates. They can’t be; Merlin doesn’t have a mark, and he’s sure that Arthur doesn’t either. If they were destined to be bound together, the marks would usually have shown up by now. It’s not like Merlin hasn’t been dutifully tracking each full moon.
Heaving a sigh, Merlin runs a hand through his hair. He knows his mother is right - he’s only 26 years old, still plenty young enough - but there’s every chance that he won’t have a soulmate at all.
And the thought of that is crushing.