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A clatter startles him out of his thoughts, and Luuk looks up from the medical journal in his hands, ready to summon his Ichor to dispatch any intruders. There shouldn’t be anyone here, inside of his workspace.
Except there is - Rover, leaning against one of his planters as if he’d lost his balance, close enough to see the secret Luuk has kept hidden for over twenty years. His wide eyes aren’t locked onto his face or even his shirtless chest but the breast pump attached to him, still dutifully pumping milk out of him. Something in him burns - whether it’s because he’s embarrassed or relieved that Rover has finally found out, he can’t say.
Rover doesn’t say anything for a long time, his face darkening until it’s clear, even with his color-blindness, that he’s blushing. Luuk sets down the journal and waits for him to say something, but Rover doesn’t even move.
Finally he clears his throat. “Rover? Are you all right?”
“...fine,” Rover says after a long moment, voice raspy. He picks himself up and approaches cautiously, as if Luuk is a feral omega that will lunge at him and bite out his throat if he so much as looks at him wrong. His heart squeezes. For Rover, his feelings couldn’t be more different. “You… Luuk, you’re…”
Up close his scent is a maelstrom of emotions - shock, confusion, hurt, wistfulness, sorrow, betrayal, jealousy. Usually he has such a good control over it that the best way to read him is his expression and body language. Luuk carefully regulates his breathing and his scent. He can’t be getting his hopes up, even if those aren’t normal emotions to have been you discover your close friend is lactating - actively, even. As he inhales he gets a lungful of Rover’s scent - smoky and wild, the floral note so subdued it’s almost imperceptible.
“Come here, sit down,” he says. He pulls out the chair next to him, and Rover drops down into it, still staring at the breast pump. He glances at the containers - he should probably switch them out. “Golden boy, can you hand me those?”
Mechanically Rover reaches over and hands him the containers he’d indicated, only seeming to realize that they’re for his milk as they leave his hand. He jerks back. Luuk smiles gently at him as he switches out the full containers for the empty ones in the pump, his hands moving with an ease and speed born of decades of repetition.
“What’s with that reaction?” he says teasingly. “You’ve never seen someone lactate in all your long years?”
Rover doesn’t even retort that he doesn’t remember most of his ‘long years’ like he usually does. “No,” he says hoarsely. “Not like this.” In his lap, his fists clench. “How…?”
“It’s a long story,” he says. His milk flow doesn’t show any signs of stopping soon, so he asks, “Would you like me to tell you?”
In response he gets a slow nod. For the first time since he arrived Rover lifts his gaze to look him the eye. “Please.”
In all honesty, there were definitely signs. Luuk, like any other doctor, is well-versed in how pregnancy and its aftermath can change the body, but he is not and never has been pregnant, and he isn’t even mated. He hasn’t had sex in so long that it’d probably be embarrassing if anyone asked him about it.
And yet… he squeezes his chest again. It feels weird, but it’s not as weird as watching white liquid dribble down over his skin. He catches some of it on his finger and brings it to his mouth to lick. Even diluted from the water of his shower, it’s clear what it is.
That’s definitely milk, he thinks.
Recently he’s been noticing soreness in his chest, but some self-examinations didn’t turn up anything out of the ordinary. It’s only in the past couple of days that he started feeling pain, his chest unusually heavy. Today he’d absently decided in the shower to massage himself, hoping to do something about the pain.
The milk… the milk explains it all.
His shower ends up being abnormally long as he figures out, through trial and error, how to best express the milk from his breasts. Squeezing it out with his hands is definitely not how it’s supposed to be done, but it’s not as if he has a pup to suckle from him. Watching the mix of cloudy water go down the drain makes his inner omega whimper.
It’s supposed to be for pup, it whines sadly.
We don’t have a pup, he thinks back. It only whimpers more, sending a rush of foreign forlornness through him. He shakes his head to clear his thoughts, his wet hair whipping him in the face. Right, he needs to rinse his conditioner out - and, at this point, he probably needs to wash his body again.
Much later, when he’s settled into bed with his datapad, he searches for cases of omegas who have spontaneously started lactating. He has to search for a while. While it’s extremely rare and the documenting is somewhat sparse due to privacy issues, it’s not unheard of. Most seem to have started due to external stimuli - though what that entails Luuk isn’t entirely sure - and stopped pretty quickly as their milk dried up if they didn’t start nursing. He bookmarks everything that he’s read and sets his datapad aside to charge. Hopefully, he thinks as he pulls his blanket up, this all ends soon.
It does not end soon. Briefly he experiments with not expressing his milk at all, but he gives that up the next day.
“N.A.N.A.,” he says, “are there any students right now who need my attention?”
N.A.N.A.’s eyes flicker as she looks at her internal holograms before she shakes her head. “None, doctor.”
“I’m going to take my break then.”
“I’ll page you if you’re needed,” she says, already moving up his break on the scheduling. Luuk nods at her in thanks before walking as casually as possible to the infirmary’s private bathroom. As the door closes behind him, he checks to make sure he locked it, then checks again. He removes his gloves, then his coat and shirt, hanging them up on the hooks on the door and placing his gloves on the paper towel dispenser. Washing his hands, he feels a tad too paranoid, glancing over his shoulder to be absolutely certain the door is still locked.
His chest feels achy and bloated, and it’s tender to the touch - to the point of being excruciatingly uncomfortable, in fact. He looks even worse in the mirror. His breasts are slightly fuller than he’s used to them looking normally - although, they’ve been like that ever since this started - and his nipples look horrendous. Luuk winces.
Bending over awkwardly, one forearm braced on the lip of the sink, he starts massaging one of his breasts. Nothing, stubbornly, comes out, and then a weak trickle, until his milk is leaving his chest in what seems like a torrent. The sensation oscillates between feeling like relief and feeling like pain; he has to bite his lip so he doesn’t make a sound. He’s not sure what would leave his mouth - a pained groan or a whore’s moan. Either would be bad for anyone to overhear.
Somehow, after everything he’s been through, this is what humiliates him - milking himself in the infirmary bathroom, his knees weak and trembling, his hair sticking to his face as sweat drips down his jaw. His inner omega whines, scrabbling at the inside of his chest as his milk flows down the drain.
So much time has passed by, and still he’s producing milk like a pup just popped out of his body.
“Luuk,” Rover greets him. He smiles, quickening his steps. Rover is standing atop a small, grassy hill, waiting for him.
“Rover,” he says back. He sits down when Rover does, not even minding that he’ll probably have grass stains on his coat after this. “Finally come to visit me?”
His response is a snort of laughter. “Sorry,” Rover says. “I know we’re supposed to be keeping tabs on the Fractsidus, but Aemeath is a handful.” Smiling unconsciously, he adds on apologetically, “I can’t stay too long, I promised her I’d be in home in time for dinner.”
The sun hasn’t set yet, but it will soon. Luuk smooths out the legs of his pants. “I won’t keep you too long, then,” he says. “How is she?”
Rover’s scent makes his feelings clear before he can say anything - a strong floral note overpowering everything else, leaking his love out into the air. His entire body is covered in the milky scent of a pup, and the clear smell of snow that is probably the first burgeoning note of Aemeath’s scent. “She’s so curious about everything, she’d fit in right here among all of your students,” he says, laughing. “The other day I asked her what she wanted to be when she grows up, and she said she wants to be someone who protects me. Can you believe that?”
His heart pangs in his chest. In this he and little Aemeath are the same - wanting to protect the person dearest to them. He glances over. The way Rover looks right now, leaning back on his hands and kicking his feet like he doesn’t have a care in the world, is something he’d give anything to protect.
Before his scent can give it away he stifles it tightly. “Maybe she will,” he says lightly. “If you’re busy protecting people, someone has to protect you, golden boy.”
Rover flashes a grin at him. “Maybe once she’s all grown up.”
Until then, I’d like to protect you, he thinks silently. “When she’s old enough, you should send her here to Startorch,” he says. “I’m sure she’d take to it like a fish to water.”
“I’ve been thinking about it, but hearing you say that gives me more confidence,” Rover says. He hops up onto his feet, stretching. “I should be heading back, but before I forget, here.” A sheaf of papers appears out of his jacket, and Luuk takes them from his hand. “Some notes I complied. Sorry that that’s all I have.”
“Don’t say that,” he says. “If anything, you should be focusing on caring for your pup, not tearing off after new leads.”
Though he’d meant it to be a little scolding, Rover preens, the wildness of his scent blooming in the air. “I’ll come see you as soon as I can,” he promises.
“Take care,” he says, waving. Rover starts jogging towards one of the motorways, and he stands up, putting the papers into his coat. He should probably head to his workspace and input them into his system as soon as possible.
No pup again? His inner omega asks sadly. When will we get to meet pup?
Stopping in his tracks, Luuk turns around. Rover is already far away, and from this angle he’s hard to see because it looks like he’s heading into the sun. He thinks about how Rover didn’t deny that Aemeath is his pup, and how badly he’s in love with him.
External stimuli, he thinks. Out loud he says, heavily, “Fuck.”
So apparently he’s so in love with Rover that his inner omega has decided to accept Aemeath as his pup as well. Nevermind that he’s never even met her; nevermind that she’s never even smelled his scent. His body is making milk for a pup that’s not even his.
He dreams of it, when he’s drunk himself to sleep. A life as a family, in that cabin he’s never been to that seems so far away. Small hands holding his and Rover’s as they swing Aemeath in between them as they walk, her bright laughter spiraling up into the sky. He doesn’t even know what she looks like.
A life in which his and Rover’s scents are inextricably intertwined, in which his most treasured scar is the silvery imprint of Rover’s teeth in his mating gland. A life in which he can kiss Rover any time that he wants, and be kissed back in return.
When he wakes up from those dreams, there are tear tracks down his face, and his chest feels overfull with milk.
It’s when he starts thinking about how long he’s been lactating in months, not weeks, that Luuk finally acknowledges that his milk won’t dry up. None of the other omegas who experienced spontaneous lactation that he read about had Ichor flowing through their veins. It seems this so-called ‘drug of evolution’ only makes him produce milk without end.
Under a fake name he orders leakproof nursing bras made specifically for male omegas and breast pumps, shipping them to the Startorch Academy faculty mailing lockers. Under his real name he starts applying to donate breast milk to hospitals and breast milk banks, though he spends a week first running as many tests as he can think of on his milk. Everything comes back ordinary, but he makes it clear that he has ‘health issues’ and he’s unsure how they might affect any pups drinking his milk on his applications. There’s no precedent for any pups growing up on milk produced by someone with Ichor flowing through their veins, after all.
He gets many polite rejections, probably because he can’t specify what ‘health issues’ he has even though he was extremely forthcoming and exact about the rest of his health. But a few places tentatively accept his application, and they coordinate interviews via Terminal.
Being a doctor, he learns, goes a long way, especially when he’s asked if he’s donating because he has hyperlactation syndrome and is producing more than his pup needs. When he says spontaneous lactation, then follows it up with because of my job as a school doctor, I can’t go in for a blood test, but I have the equipment to run one here, though, he’s met with hesitant answers.
“It’s not that we don’t trust your credentials and oaths as a doctor,” one interviewer tells him, “but we have to put the pups first. I’m sorry, but we can’t accept your donations if you can’t come for a blood test in person.”
In the end, the number of hospitals and milk banks willing to take his milk amounts to less than the number of fingers on one hand. He sends off the results of the blood tests he runs on himself and samples of his frozen milk. He gets back all yes’s and boxes of bags and containers for him to ship his milk back in. Staring at them all on his table, Luuk realizes that he’s going to need to invest in a large freezer.
He gets used to wearing nursing bras underneath his usual clothes so his milk doesn’t leak through, and to the routine of expressing, freezing, and shipping his milk. The stack of recently-published medical journals on the table he hasn’t had the time to read becomes a distraction as the breast pump does its job. When the students cheekily ask him why he smells like milk all the time now, he smiles enigmatically at them and doesn’t doesn’t give anything more than a vague non-answer - and while the rumors about him never quite leave the students’ collective conscious, he becomes the first person they go to when they have questions about pregnancy or pregnancy scares. He quits drinking cheap alcohol when he’s depressed, and switches instead to fruit juice. When his nipples start chafing he learns about lanolin nipple cream, and orders enough to last him half a year.
All throughout this, he never breaths a word to Rover.
One day Rover leaves and never returns, and his inner omega wails for what feels like an eternity. Learning how to live without him feels like relearning how to walk. Some days, Luuk doesn’t want to.
Just once he searches for Rover and Aemeath’s cabin. When he finds it the scents inside have long gone stale, enough that his heart squeezes in pain. The faint scent of his alpha sets his inner omega off again, and he manages to find the strength to stay just long enough to write down how to find him on a piece of paper. He leaves it on the table along with his business card after thoroughly scenting both of them.
Where mate?! His inner omega screams, Where pup?!
He doesn’t stay very long after that. He tries not to cry when Aemeath, like Rover, never shows up.
One day, years after he last saw Rover, he catches a familiar scent on campus. Luuk turns around, his heart freezing in his chest.
That’s Aemeath. It must be; she smells of the same scent of snow he used to smell on Rover all those years ago, though now she also smells of steel. She’s tall, dressed smartly in a new Startorch Academy uniform, her hair pulled up into a ponytail. She would look nothing like Rover, except that she shares his golden eyes - albeit a different shade of gold - and the same determination he carried too. They look exactly alike, like father and daughter.
His mate, and his pup who he never had.
Luuk hurries on his way, before she catches him staring. He keeps a tight grip on his scent before his pain leaks out for all the students to smell.
In the next few months she seeks him out, bursting with hope at finding someone who knew Rover. But as she asks questions that he can’t answer - either because Rover made him swear to never tell anyone, or because he wants to shield her in his place - she starts to distance herself. She stops dropping by his office, and if she sees him on campus she makes herself scarce without being obvious about it. He respects her decision, even as it pains him to let her go, and they become nothing more than one student among many and the school doctor who treats everyone equally.
During Aemeath’s brief stint at Startorch Academy, he produces more milk than ever. When she disappears too, his scent becomes as grief-stricken as it had been when Rover left.
“And then you returned,” he finishes softly. “I was so unbelievably happy when I first saw you, even if you didn’t recognize me. But my omega recognized your alpha at first sight.”
He doesn’t say that his inner omega had thought that his alpha had finally come back for him, and that it still holds out hope that Rover will mate him.
“And you-” Rover’s throat works as he swallows. “You’ve been… lactating this whole time? For over twenty years?”
“Yes, I have.” Leaning back, Luuk shrugs. His milk stopped flowing a while ago, and Rover’s gaze keeps flitting back and forth between the containers filled with his milk and his puffy nipples. “It’s the Ichor.” Quieter, he says, “I have a theory that it might stop if I ever have a pup naturally, but I’m not certain that’ll work. It’s possible I might just produce milk forever.”
Rover opens and closes his mouth and opens it again before he says, “And you’re still healthy?”
“As healthy as I can be.” Laughing, he says reassuringly, “Don’t worry, golden boy. I’ve got a meal plan I follow, and I don’t drink anymore. I’m much healthier than I was when you met me for the first time.” Nudging one of the half-filled containers over, he teases, “If you don’t believe me, you can taste my milk to confirm it yourself.”
Rover scrambles back, nearly falling out of the chair, his face so flushed even he can see it. “No no no, that’s fine!” he says, voice a little too high, waving his arms in refusal. “I just remembered I have to get back because I left the stove on, see you later, Luuk!”
He’s gone as if Aleph-1 itself was chasing him out. Luuk huffs out a laugh. That’s probably the most words he’s heard Rover say since he tried shaking him down for information in his office - and he’s definitely never heard him that nervous.
Alpha? His inner omega asks softly. Where alpha? Where mate?
He soothes it absently, warmth pooling his in chest. This time, even though Rover will still leave him eventually, he’ll extract a promise from him that he’ll return.
A few days later, during which he’s seen neither hide nor hair of Rover, he gets a text from him saying he needs a week of rut-leave. He puts it into the system, wondering wryly how inappropriate it would be to send him an extra coat of his, drowning in his scent. It’s only a fleeting thought that Luuk doesn’t act on.
Occasionally during the week Rover texts him a random string of numbers and letters, as if he’d accidentally sat on his Terminal. It happens three times, and three times Luuk goes with a portable rut-specific first aid kit to see if there’s an emergency. Three times he’s turned away by the rut protocol enacted by the dorm system, telling him Rover hasn’t hit his panic button yet. The seal around his door that keeps in scents and sounds does its job so well that countless students walk by, all without a clue that Rover is suffering beyond that door.
Each time when he gets back to the infirmary Luuk takes a moment to text Rover back. It’s all simple messages - I’m here, golden boy, followed by advice like drink some water or eat something.
The first coherent message he gets from Rover is just after his rut leave expires. It’s late at night, and he sees it as he’s changing into his pajamas.
Rover: Luuk, where are you?
Dr. Luuk Herssen: At my usual place.
Rover appears at his workspace in record time. Though he’s evidently taken a shower and attempted to clean himself up, he looks as if he was run over by a motorbike several times - heavy bags underneath his eyes, clothes put on haphazardly, and hair improperly dried. More than that, he still smells like he just came out of rut. Luuk breathes shallowly, his inner omega clamoring inside him.
Rover stalks toward him with purpose, the gold of his eyes glinting in the light. He backs him up against the table behind him, caging him in. Luuk subconsciously widens his legs just enough that Rover can step in between them. This is closer than they’ve ever been before - close enough that Rover’s scent is overwhelming, all smoky and floral and wild. His heart is beating rabbit-fast in his chest. Sentinels above, how is that every time he sees Rover he gets even more gorgeous? “Luuk,” he says, his tone so soft it’s dangerous, making the hair stand up on the back of his neck, “I’m only going to ask you this once more: what are we to each other?”
“Rover,” he says back, just as softly. “I’m sure you know by now that that’s not really the question you should be asking.”
Growling, Rover snaps his teeth at him. Luuk can’t take his eyes off of him. This… this isn’t how an alpha acts towards their friend. This is how an alpha acts when they want to tear someone’s throat out. He’s not entirely sure that that won’t be how this ends.
“You test me,” he grounds out. “Fine, then. Luuk, what do you want us to be to each other?”
Slowly, so he doesn’t startle him, he slides his arms around Rover’s waist. When he bends down to nose at Rover’s temple, he’s allowed to, golden eyes tracking him like he’s prey. “For over twenty years now,” he confesses quietly, “I’ve known that there’s only one person for me.” Looking Rover in the eye, he says, “I want to be your mate.”
Snarling, Rover shoves him down onto the table, the few papers he has on there scattering into the air. Luuk wraps his legs around his waist, pulling him close. He’s sure he doesn’t look attractive at all - his hair is messy and unstyled, and he doesn’t know what color his t-shirt is but he knows that he has breast milk stains from when he leaks in the middle of the night - but the way Rover looks at him says that he wants to devour him whole. His scent says the same thing, along with a high note of hope.
“All these years,” he says roughly, tugging at his shirt, “and you never told me about your feelings?”
“You were busy,” he breathes out. “And then you were gone.”
“And now I’m back.” Leaning down, Rover laps at his scent gland. Luuk shudders, gasping. His scent must be diffusing in the air. Before he settled down in Lahai-Roi, he used to hear all the time that the harsh antiseptic smell of his scent overpowered everything else, to the point where people’s noses burned just walking near him. As he adjusted to life at Startorch, his scent mellowed, and the honey note he had almost forgotten about came to the forefront. He wonders what Rover’s smelling right now. “Tell me, did you ever dream about us together?”
“All the time,” he manages to say. One of Rover’s hands is underneath his shirt, fondling his chest. “You and me and Aemeath, as a family.”
Rover halts for a moment before pulling back, his face stoic but his scent giving the depth of his heartache away, a rolling wave of smoke. “Just the three of us?” he asks softly. His hand settles over his stomach, a patch of heat against his skin. “You never imagined what our pups would look like?”
Swallowing, it takes him a moment to answer. “Sometimes,” he admits. Though many years after Aemeath’s disappearance he stopped dreaming about the three of them as a family, the dreams returned when Rover did. “But you were off saving the world back then. Even though you’re back now, I thought…”
He trails off, and Rover reaches up and brushes his bangs out of his face. They’re both in pain, he thinks.
Alpha’s here, his inner omega says. Safe now.
“I thought that we could discuss it after Aemeath came back and you were ready to settle down,” he says quietly. “That we could talk then about how many pups you wanted to put inside me.” His hand tightens around Rover’s wrist, which he didn’t even realize he’d grabbed. “We could give Aemeath as many little siblings as she wants.”
Rover straightens up to look at him properly. His iron control over his scent is back, and Luuk can’t discern any of his emotions just by looking at him. In fact, Rover looks as if he’s shut down, even though he knows there must be a war inside of him.
“You don’t have to give me an answer right now,” he says softly. When he sits up Rover barely moves, only tilting his head back just enough not to lose eye contact. “You still have so many things to do here.”
After several long moments where he’s doing nothing but petting Rover’s hair, Rover exhales. “I do,” he says, voice low. “I want to be your mate too, Luuk.” He slides his wrist out of his grasp, just enough so that he can intertwine their fingers. “I’ll care for you as your alpha.”
“Rover…”
“Don’t say anything.” Blowing out a harsh breath, Rover looks down at their hands. Luuk has been rubbing circles on the back of his hand with his thumb. “Like you said, I still have so many things to do. I know that sooner or later, I’ll have to leave again. I don’t want to claim you just to put you through that again.”
Smiling helplessly, he says, “The responsibilities of the savior of Solaris are never really over, are they.”
Rover shakes his head. “No.”
They stay like that for a while longer, silent. Luuk watches Rover as he thinks. He doesn’t know what it’ll be like to have him leave again - even if, this time, he goes with the promise to come back to him. Will it be better or worse?
Sighing, he says finally, “You should head back to your dorm, golden boy.” Rover blinks at him slowly, like a cat.
“Why?” he says bluntly.
Luuk flicks his forehead. “You know you’re in post-rut, right? You’ve still got pheromones on you.”
Rover grumbles. “It’s not that bad though, right? I took a long shower before I came here.”
He stifles a smile. “Golden boy, I know you’re smarter than that. Go rest, and you can come back when you can think more clearly.” Pitching his voice low, he purrs seductively, “If you can’t listen to Doctor Luuk Herssen, you should listen to Luuk, your omega.”
Eyes smouldering, Rover lets go of his hand and steps back. “All right, omega,” he says. “But when I return, you better be prepared.”
After Rover leaves, nothing but his whirling scent lingering in the air to show he was there at all, Luuk covers his smile with his hand. In some ways, Rover hasn’t changed at all.
Thinking about it, though… he looks towards his bed. He… he doesn’t have any condoms.
Standing in the middle of the aisle of the Startorch Academy general store, he stares at the shelves, realizing he doesn’t know what size condoms would fit Rover. He’s probably proportional, but what if he isn’t? Not that Luuk would have a problem with Rover’s size - he certainly doesn’t mind all that much if he’s smaller than average, though him being bigger would be a challenge - but it would really help if he knew what size condoms to get. And he should probably get both knot and knotless condoms, just in case Rover is the kind of alpha that can pop a knot outside of rut.
Looking down at his shopping basket, he laughs at himself a little. With six boxes of condoms and two bottles of lube, he looks like some kind of sex fiend.
“Doctor Luuk!” the cashier says brightly when he sets his basket on the counter. She’s definitely a student, but he doesn’t recognize her off the top of his head. “Did you find everything all right?”
“Yes, I did,” he says smiling pleasantly. Her expression turns shocked when she sees the contents of his basket, and from the change of color on her face she’s probably blushing madly.
“O-oh. I see!” she squeaks. She looks mortified. Looking at the numbers on the register’s hologram as the price racks up, he idly wonders if he should put on another safe sex awareness event. Enough time has passed since the last one, and he can probably can give away some of his new condoms, since he doubts that he and Rover will use - he glances over - all… seventy-two of them.
Maybe he went a little overboard.
He pays with his Terminal. The cashier hands over everything in a reusable shopping bag. Seeing his expression, she stutters out, “The b-bag is on the house, Doctor Luuk! Um, have a good day!”
“Thank you,” he says, smiling gently at her. On the inside he’s amused. The fabric of the shopping bag is opaque, and it’s probably better that he doesn’t scandalize students on the way back. If he was in their shoes, he wouldn’t want to know the campus doctor is getting around either.
Walking out of the store, he thinks about how he could advertise the event. He could probably rope a few art students into creating some flyers, right?
Rover bursts into laughter when he sees what’s on the table. “Luuk,” he says breathlessly, “Luuk, why is there a pyramid of condoms on your table?”
“Three guesses, golden boy,” he says teasingly. “But the first two don’t count.”
Still laughing, Rover goes over and picks up the topmost box. Before he’d left Luuk had meticulously built the boxes into a pyramid, setting the two bottles of lube behind it, just in case they needed something to break the tension. He’d been right; when he’d met Rover at the door he’d been silent, his expression solemn. Now he looks over at him, an amused grin on his face, so bright there’s practically light coming off of him.
“For us?” he says, laughter still present in his voice. “Luuk, I seriously doubt we can use this many condoms, even if we had a week and were rabbits.”
Surprisingly, he feels his face heat up. “I had to guess your size,” he admits. “And then I didn’t know if you were the kind of alpha who can knot someone outside of rut, so I bought both kinds. You can see how it spiraled from there.”
Rover sets the box down, his eyes gleaming. “We can test which one fits the best,” he says. He prowls forward, and Luuk lets him bully him backward until his back hits the side of his bed. “What do you say, omega?”
There’s extra emphasis on the last word, and he’s never been able to resist Rover anyway. “Challenge accepted, alpha.”
And then Rover is kissing him, their mouths messily colliding. He licks against the seam of his lips like he has something to prove, and Luuk parts them as they topple back, the blankets puffing out around them. Rover’s hands move all over his body, touching him everywhere until he can just barely keep track of where they are - first his hips and waist, next his sides, then over his shoulders, and finally one hand on his chest and the other cupping his face. There’s something primal about the position that they’re in - him, flat on his back on the bed; Rover, hunched protectively over him and plundering his mouth single-mindedly. He wants to grind down on the knee in between in legs, but it’s a distant want, overpowered by how badly he doesn’t want to devote thought to anything else other than kissing Rover.
“You’re so beautiful,” Rover murmurs to him when they separate to breathe. He’s feeling up the muscles in his arm now. “My gorgeous Luuk.”
He laughs. “Golden boy,” he says fondly, “are we keeping the clothes on or taking them off?”
“Just give me a moment. I know I made you wait, but I want to savor this.”
Trying not to give away how much that made him melt, Luuk threads his hand through his hair and pulls him in for another kiss. “Then savor away,” he murmurs back.
They kiss for so long he forgets everything that isn’t Rover - the taste of his mouth, his heady scent hanging in the air around them, the feel of him touching him. He feels endless - and there are things he doesn’t know about Rover, and things that he never will, but right now those don’t matter. What matters is that Rover has chosen him, out of all the people he knows.
“Stay here,” Rover murmurs to him when he rises up and he tries to chase his lips. Luuk props himself up on his elbows to watch as he gets off the bed and goes to the table. He grabs a box of condoms and one of the bottles of lube, the latter seemingly at random. When he comes back, he asks, “Why did you buy condoms anyway?”
Luuk laughs as he lets him shove his coat off his shoulders and undo his belt. “The last time I had sex was long before you left. I’m not even on birth control.” Leaning up, he whispers into his ear, “I don’t even remember if I can get wet enough for you to put it straight in anymore.”
With the way Rover is pressed up against him he can feel the whole-body shudder that goes through him. After that they’re a blur of movement - Rover practically tearing his shirt off, him fumbling with Rover’s pants and his thigh garters. As sexy as he thinks they are, does he really need two of them?
When he reaches behind his back to undo the clasps of his bra, Rover grabs his wrists. “Keep it on,” he says huskily. Luuk lets his arms go lax, and he slides down his body.
It takes him by surprise when he buries his face in between his legs, inhaling. His boxer briefs are still on, which is probably the only reason his dick isn’t slapping Rover in the face right now from how aroused he is. Rover sniffs him like the only air he can breathe is between his legs.
“Come on,” he says, a tad helplessly. His face is probably gold from the strength of his blush right now. “Golden boy, it can’t be that good-”
Rover lifts his head, and Luuk trails off when he sees the dazed look in his eyes. They refocus, though, when they land on his face, and a moment later he’s peeling his underwear off of him. “Everything about you is that good,” he says seriously, tossing his boxer briefs over his shoulder. They’ll find it later - probably.
It turns out that he can get wet - not enough to really do anything, but when Rover presses his hand against his hole strings of slick stick to his fingers when he draws it back. His eyes darken, and he licks his lips.
“Golden boy,” Luuk says, voice already hoarse, “put your mouth on me later. I want you inside of me.”
“Fine,” Rover says. It doesn’t sound like he’s given in - rather, it sounds like the holidays have come early for him. Kneeling on the bed, he adjusts him a little so that his legs are spread. “Then next time you can present for me. Right now I want to see your face.” Before he can react to how sweet that is, Rover looks at the lube he’s holding and bursts out laughing once again. Holding up the bottle, he says, “You seriously bought lemon-flavored lube?”
He sits up, bracing himself on his hands and smiling sheepishly. “I saw it and I thought it would be funny,” he says. “Because I made you those lemon waffles.”
“I remember.” Rover unscrews the cap and peels the foil seal off before sniffing it delicately - much more delicately than he was just sniffing him two seconds ago. “It definitely smells like lemon.”
“There’s a normal bottle too,” he says. He’s halfway up to get it when Rover pins him down.
“It’s fine,” he breathes. “I think it’s sweet, Luuk.”
His heart trips in his chest at that, and he tries to get himself under control as he watches Rover recap the lube. He squeezes some onto his fingers, warming it up a little before he steadies himself with one hand on his hip. The adoring way he touches him just makes him give up on controlling his reactions; his scent must flood the air, because Rover starts breathing open-mouthed.
When one finger breaches him Luuk gasps for breath, hands clenching in the sheets. He’s fingered himself open during his heats, but that’s just some perfunctory stretching before he fucks himself with his knotting toy so that his heat can be over as soon as possible. He can never get deep enough or find the right angle, but Rover - with his smaller, strong hands - makes it all seem effortless.
“Tighter than a virgin,” he says, awed. “Luuk, you’re going to snap my cock off.”
“Surely that’s not right,” he says, amused. Rover’s eyes are fixed to where his finger enters him, and he moves it around curiously. He’s so gentle about it, and Luuk finds he can’t fault him for it. He takes his time, not adding a second finger until the slide is smooth and effortless. The process repeats with every finger, and soon enough he has to hold down his hips with his forearm.
“Luuk,” he says without looking up, “behave.”
“That’s a little difficult right now,” he manages to say. It takes a massive amount of effort to not roll his hips down onto Rover’s fingers, and even then he can’t stop them from moving. He’s wetter than he can ever remember being, even during his heats - though it’s not a lot, and Rover still occasionally pours more lube over his fingers. “I think I’ve been stretched enough by now.”
Rover checks just to be sure, and he moans, his hips rising off the bed even with the pressure of him holding him down, as the four fingers inside of him spread apart. “I agree,” he says. The removal of his fingers makes his inner omega start salivating for what comes next. Luuk watches with lidded eyes as he wipes the lube off his fingers on the sheets. He breaks open the box of condoms, taking one out and tearing open the foil packet. The box is dropped onto the bed, and he manages to get a look before he’s distracted by Rover taking off his underwear and rolling the condom on - knot condoms, the text on the box reads. Rover smirks when he sees his thighs flex.
“Like what you see?” he asks cheekily. Luuk wraps his legs around his waist and pulls him in.
“More than,” he replies fondly, “so get to it, golden boy.”
Though he rolls his eyes at him, Rover lubes his cock and presses himself against his entrance. “I’ll go slowly,” he promises. He means to respond to him, but every thought flies out of his head as soon as Rover enters him. He’s barely aware of his back arching off the bed, of how his voice is just one long moan, of how Rover is hissing because of how tightly he’s clenching. It feels so good, having his alpha, his mate, his Rover inside of him. His inner omega is so satisfied it’s gone completely silent.
“-uuk,” Rover is saying through gritted teeth when he claws his consciousness back, “Luuk, you have to relax. You’re actually going to snap my cock off.”
Panting, he reaches up and drags Rover down, curling up just enough so that he can bury his face in his neck. Despite how hard it must be for Rover not to move, he smells of nothing but love. “I can’t help it,” he groans. “You have to- you have to give me a moment.”
Holding himself above him, Rover is tensed as if he’s in pain. “Next time,” he mutters, “we’re going to stretch you even more.”
His chest starts rumbling, and through the haze in his head Luuk registers that he’s purring. Rover realizes it too, because he sucks in a breath. Incrementally, he relaxes, tension leaving his body. Rover sags over him, huffing out a sigh of relief. “Tighter,” he says meaningfully, “than a virgin.”
“If you want to roleplay that, golden boy, that’s going to have to be another time.” Rover hesitates for that single, fatal moment. “You’re serious?”
Rover mumbles something unintelligible into his hair.
“Sentinels.” He shoves his nose against his neck. “What you do me, Rover…”
“What you do you me,” Rover says roughly. “Raise your torso, Luuk.”
He does, feeling Rover’s hands worming behind his back. He undoes the clasp of his bra, gently guiding his arms through the straps. It’s placed to the side, and he shivers when Rover’s warm hands start massaging his breasts.
“So good for me,” he murmurs. Luuk tips his head up, and Rover obliges him with a kiss. He’s still purring. “All this milk. You’re going to be such a good father.”
“Rover,” he whispers raggedly, “Rover, Rover, Rover…”
With Rover’s distracting hands on his chest, by now he’s forgotten that he’s inside of him. He’s reminded of that fact now, as he starts shallowly rocking his hips into him. Gasping into his mouth, he clutches at Rover’s shoulders.
“I’ll take care of you,” Rover promises. “I’ll come back, and we can fuck until your body remembers my knot, until our pup takes. We can learn how to take care of our baby together.”
Luuk can’t tell which direction is up or down. He only knows the heat of Rover’s cock slowly sinking into him, the sensation of his hands passing over his chest. He’s managed to coax a little milk out of him, and it makes the movement of his hands slick.
“We’ll both finish what we need to do, and then we can build a house near here.” Rover is rambling, and he barely manages to properly listen to what he’s saying. “As big as we need to handle however many pups we want. We’ll christen our marriage bed by claiming each other. I want your teeth in my neck so badly, Luuk, I need it. You already look so stunning in white, you’ll look perfect when we get married. I’ll buy you the most beautiful gold ring in all of Solaris.”
“Just tell me you’ll come back,” he pleads. He can feel Rover exhaling against his cheek as their foreheads touch. “Tell me you’ll come back to me.”
“I promise,” Rover says. Luuk looks into his eyes, and all he sees is gold. “I promise. I’ll come back, my mate.”
Hurriedly, he shoves his shaking hand down in between their bodies. It’s not the careful way Rover is rocking his hips into him, as if he’s already pregnant with their first pup, or the tender look on his face, that has him on the edge of the precipice. It’s his vow - the only thing he’s truly wanted from Rover ever since he came back. Another hand joins his, tacky with dried lube but still wet with his breast milk, and Luuk moans softly into his ear as they both touch his cock. Rover leans in and kisses him with bruising force, and that’s the last push he needs to come all over his stomach. Rover follows immediately with a bitten-off moan, spilling into the condom inside of him. The dual sensations of liquid heat inside of him and the rapid expansion of his knot make him dig his nails into his back.
As they come down from the high and catch their breaths, Rover gingerly rolls them so they’re on their sides, facing each other. “Was I good?” he asks quietly.
Luuk blinks at him. “Were you…?”
Rover looks away, chewing on his lower lip so hard that it’s white. “I haven’t… if anything, I’m the virgin between us. I haven’t had sex since I woke up.”
He kisses his cheek. “Of course you were good,” he says affectionately. “This would have been the best sex I’ve ever had even if you came as soon as you entered me.”
There’s a laugh, and then Rover is looking at him from under his lashes. “That would’ve been impossible,” he says mischievously, “considering how hard a certain someone was clenching around me.”
“You can try it next time,” he suggests playfully. Grinning, Rover snaps his teeth at him - but unlike before, this is harmless, his teeth barely making a sound when they clack together.
“We can make it part of the virgin roleplay,” he says. “And maybe next time, I can try your milk too.”
Luuk eyes him, then his own chest. He’s not leaking - he’s certainly not full enough for that - but as evidenced by the drying milk smeared onto his skin, there’s still a little left. “How flexible are you feeling?” he asks. Rover winces.
“Are you sure I won’t hurt you?”
“I’ll be fine,” he assures him. Rover looks at him flatly. “I’ll tell you if I feel any pain.”
“You better,” he mutters. Then they’re shifting, him bending backwards to push his chest forward as Rover slides as far down as he can. It makes his knot pull uncomfortably, an extremely unpleasant feeling, but he stops moving just before it turns painful. In turn Luuk guides his head forward to his left breast.
Rover kisses his nipple before he closes his mouth over it. It’s awkward - he’s never had anyone drink of him, much less an adult that doesn’t have a pup’s instinctive knowledge of how to suckle. Rover uses too little suction at first, furrowing his brow when no milk comes out. He reaches down to thumb the crease away, petting his hair. Eventually Rover finds the right rhythm, suckling until he has a proper mouthful of milk before he swallows.
“How is it?” he asks him as he unlatches. “I’ve never actually tried it myself.”
Sending a hungry look at his other nipple, Rover turns innocent eyes on him, licking his lips. “I don’t know,” he says guilelessly. “I’ve heard you need to evenly empty both breasts. Maybe I should try the other one to be sure?”
He’s going to be the death of him. Still, Luuk nods, knowing as Rover eagerly attaches himself to his chest that his scent broadcasting his happiness in the air. Rover’s is the same - happiness, and love.