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The thing about life is it was full of little ironies–strange coincidences, little tricks of fate, the games Celestia certainly must be playing to amuse themselves. Take Kaveh, for example–he was the model of the ideal Kshahrewar on the surface–an acclaimed genius, master craftsman and architect, the Light of the Kshahrewar, the most celebrated graduate in centuries. He was even born a lion hybrid, and an alpha to boot–was there ever a more perfect example of what the Kshahrewar could be, if they were only properly appreciated?
What would any of those people think, he wondered, if they could see him now?
“You’re thinking too loud,” Al-Haitham commented idly, shifting his weight to almost tease a grind on his cock, as he flipped through the paper he was reading over. Kaveh didn’t know whose it was–Al-Haitham had told him, but that information was deemed completely unnecessary to store in his mind’s prodigious memory vaults, and obliterated the moment Al-Haitham had sat on his dick.
Truth was it didn’t matter who these essays belonged to. Al-Haitham had only committed the sin of taking work home in order to do this to Kaveh, poised and collected instead of an omega in heat.
If Kaveh was the picture-perfect Kshahrewar, then Al-Haitham, always contrary, was a living contradiction. He matched the Haravatat bull almost by accident, and Kaveh was secretly convinced the man had his horns tipped out of pure disdain for matching even one single stereotype. As an omega, Al-Haitham was bold, sharp-tongued and sharper-tempered, and had about as much respect for the idea of biological hierarchy as he did for the cobblestone that paved Sumeru’s streets. He was lithe and agile instead of the towering size expected of bulls, but no less willing to put to rest any notion of his supposed omega frailty. He refused, staunchly, to be seen as an omega, or a hybrid, or as anything but Al-Haitham, Scribe of the Akademiya, and found it of great irritation that his temporary promotion had put him and his secondary gender into the spotlight.
No matter how much Al-Haitham held the demands of his biology in disdain, they were still the demands of his biology. They had gone through this before, as students–their emerging cycles synced up almost immediately when they met, and that synchronicity resumed when Kaveh moved into the house. Just as quickly, they negotiated their arrangements without really even speaking on it; it was a given fact Al-Haitham would not accept a mating bite, and it was equally a given Kaveh was too proud to ask for help with his own rut.
It was that arrangement that had Kaveh muzzled and tied to a chair in the study. Muzzled, so his muddled head and fiery impulses couldn't get them into trouble neither of them could undo; and bound, to keep his marauding hands from distracting Al-Haitham from his work and prolonging this game.
Al-Haitham’s heat must have been as powerfully strong as his own rut, Kaveh knew, but aside from damn near drowning in the scent of ink and aged paper, there was no sign of frenzied madness. Only Al-Haitham's infuriatingly steady hands and calm hum, even as he deliberately clenched down on Kaveh’s cock.
Kaveh thought he was probably going to die.
Their arrangement hadn't started this way. Kaveh had been gagged by his own choice that first time, desperate to keep from crossing a line he knew he'd never be allowed to, fucking with a frenzied desperation he'd blame on his rut and not his own breaking heart, and Al-Haitham's incredibly flimsy framing of it simply being more efficient to take Kaveh's dick than deal with the week of cramping and nausea.
They were lying to each other, and they knew it, but what good would it have done to touch the space they carved around with their lies? No, let it lay there dead and buried.
Kaveh whined as Al-Haitham shifted forward to reach for one of his stamps, and pressed his cheek deliriously against the back of Al-Haitham’s neck, rubbing in the scent there. The muzzle kept him from biting or licking or even nibbling just a tiny bit, but he could still drown himself in Al-Haitham’s scent, soaking in the smell, paper and ink and aged glue, the smell of an old library–not quite musty, but rich with the weight of accumulated wisdom. It had always been Kaveh’s favorite scent, since the day they met, and even in the years apart he gravitated towards antique bookshops, just for a pale facsimile of a scent that haunted his memories.
There wasn’t much scent to be had in his cheeks, but there was enough, and the scent of his flowers mixed among the ink was the closest Kaveh thought he’d ever get to what he really wanted. Even that thought made his cock twitch , somehow swelling harder inside Al-Haitham. He began to wonder if he could knot just by sitting here. If anyone could do that to him, it would be Al-Haitham, the impossible man, only ever an overachiever in being a vexation –
Al-Haitham hooked his ankle through the chair leg and rocked his hips to scoot the chair closer to the desk, and Kaveh made a strangled yell, silk rope digging into his wrists and the chair creaking as he pulled uselessly at his restraints. He didn’t quite manage not to buck, either, hips jerking up sharply as Al-Haitham’s hips moved, but he stilled after one, panting raggedly against Al-Haitham’s shoulder.
“...You made me stain this page,” Al-Haitham told him sternly, but Kaveh’s ears perked up, not missing the way his voice was rough with want. Neither one of them wanted to admit they wanted to stop this, that they wanted to fuck recklessly on this desk, or the floor, or every single room in this house, but until one of them did, they would keep going until someone’s self-control crumbled. Right now, the score since Kaveh had moved in was 37 to 41 in Al-Haitham’s favor, but it didn’t mean Kaveh wasn’t going to push for everything he got. The sight of Al-Haitham losing his composure was always so spectacular that it was worth fighting his own instinct and impulses again.
Instinct. Kaveh sighed, pressing his cheek to Al-Haitham’s bare and unmarred neck again. He wanted. He wanted –
“Weren’t you bragging about how your hands are steady, just the other night? That you could do your job even if I properly fucked you? Sounds like the stain’s your problem, not mine .”
Al-Haitham exhaled sharply through his nose and his chin jerked up, a telltale warning of his sharp temper only seconds before he clenched down, so tight around Kaveh it threatened to be painful. Kaveh yelped and swore, drenched in sweat, his feet scraping along the floor in an effort to keep still. He did not have to fight for long, as shortly after the excruciating grip there was an instant release as Al-Haitham stood in one smooth motion. Kaveh did not have time to do more than whine at the sudden sensation of air on his feverish cock before Al-Haitham had turned around, shoving the chair back and lacing his fingers through the leather of the muzzle to yank Kaveh’s face upwards. Fury blazed as bright as lust in the Scribe’s eyes, sharp in every line of his face as he stared Kaveh down. Proud omega, ascendant over the only alpha in Sumeru pathetic enough to be turned on by this.
Kaveh thought Al-Haitham was the most beautiful man to have ever been born beneath Teyvat’s stars.
“What am I going to do with you, Kaveh?” There was a dangerous lilt to Al-Haitham’s voice, and his eyes glittered with threat, but Kaveh simply stared up at him silently, letting his scent bloom brighter and drown the room in his undisguised want . Al-Haitham’s lip curls, almost a smile, and his nose wrinkles, but he tugs the muzzle again, far more imperial and dignified than a man with no pants and a leaking cock had any business being.
“Answer me…what am I meant to do with a man who can’t follow simple instructions?”
“Finish what you started and sit back on my dick?” Even though the muzzle mostly hid it, Kaveh smiled sunnily up at Al-Haitham, rewarded with the narrowing of his eyes. Al-Haitham may have been the undisputed champion of riling Kaveh up, but Kaveh was no stranger to where Al-Haitham’s buttons were, and had never met one he hadn’t wanted to push. The silence dragged a little too long, so Kaveh spoke again, sickly-sweet, pressing his face against Al-Haitham’s hand.
“Come now…are you going to pretend you don’t want to finish? Or is my cock just too much for a feeble scholar, Alhaith–”
The reaction was almost instantaneous, the chair roughly shoved farther back from the desk and strong hands gripping onto Kaveh’s shoulders, almost hard enough to bruise. Moments later, Al-Haitham dropped all the way down onto his cock, slamming down to the hilt so hard Kaveh saw stars. Even as Kaveh groaned and bucked into the sensation, the blinding heat, Al-Haitham had begun to move, lifting almost all the way off of Kaveh before dropping down again in the roughest, most punishing ride he could.
“Fine then, Kshahrewar,” Al-Haitham growled, low against Kaveh’s ear, and wound a hand into his hair. “I’ll finish what I started…don’t complain to me when it’s more than you asked for.”
More than anything, more than breathing, more than he wanted his heart to keep beating, Kaveh stared blearily up at Al-Haitham and wanted to consume him. To take, to mark, to make this beautiful man his . He was sure they’d lock him away for study somewhere in Vahumana if he ever admitted what this did to him, that Al-Haitham’s sharp temper made him harder than his pheromones, and the punishing rhythm of his bouncing hips was made sweeter not because of the omega’s heat, but because of the muttered curses under Al-Haitham’s breath as he adjusted speed and angle, half leaned back onto the desk to get what he wanted without releasing Kaveh.
He must have lost his mind. In truth, Kaveh thought he’d probably lost his mind the first time Al-Haitham spoke to him, and it had been all downhill from there.
The pace was brutal from the start, but once Al-Haitham found the leverage he needed and the angle he liked, it became unrelenting. Kaveh tried to keep up at first, but could not, the thick scent of adhigama and aged paper overwriting his brain until all he could feel was the hands on his shoulders and the wet slap of Al-Haitham’s hips onto his, the sound of the man’s cock bouncing against his stomach. It was a fever that consumed him, and he let his mind forget the weight of Al-Haitham’s threat under his own groans, helplessly fighting the ropes that held him as he watched Al-Haitham fuck himself on Kaveh’s body.
He should never have forgotten Al-Haitham always made good on his threats.
Kaveh realized his mistake as his orgasm drew near, his balls tightening with that warning heat, and he tried to choke out a similar warning to Al-Haitham. No sooner had the words “I’m close,” left his lips did Kaveh see the glimmer in Al-Haitham’s eyes and realized, too late, what they promised.
He couldn’t have stopped it if he’d had his wits about him either.
Kaveh came with a yell, almost a roar, vision going fuzzy, and Al-Haitham pushed himself off the desk to be flush against Kaveh’s body, wrapped his long legs around the back of the chair, and ground down hard against Kaveh’s dick. The noise that Kaveh made was more of a wail than anything like a moan, and he sputtered, jerking in the chair like he’d been electrocuted, unable to get away or deeper .
“A-aah, A-al-haitham, w-wait, wait, I– ”
“ Finish what you started ,” Al-Haitham mimicked Kaveh down tho his intonation, right into his ear, and tugged on a strand of hair. “Or admit you lack the stamina to keep up with even a feeble scholar .”
Well, that sent a flare of anger straight from Kaveh’s brain to his dick. Stubbornly he bucked his hips, even as his vision started to blur, determined to prove exactly how far his stamina went. Professional torturers could not have gotten him to call this off now.
Al-Haitham smiled against the shell of his ear, ran his hand through Kaveh’s hair, and rode him harder .
Kaveh lost count and all sense of time somewhere after his third orgasm, and had no earthly idea how many times Al-Haitham had cum–only aware that he had by the stickiness between their bodies–but the swell of another biological pressure brought him back to consciousness. His eyes watered, his vision swam, all he could smell or think about was Al-Haitham, Al-Haitham still grinding on his lap, panting feverishly in his ear, hissing faintly as the swell of Kaveh’s knot started to catch on his hole.
Panic brought a new level of clarity back to Kaveh’s brain, and he suddenly yanked against the rope, wincing at how his wrists chafed.
“A–Al-Haitham, wait. Wait, that’s my knot , you need to stop–”
“Do you want me to?” There was something in Al-Haitham’s tone, raw and almost pleading, that cut through Kaveh’s heart like a knife. He lifted his head to stare at Al-Haitham, and wondered, breathless, why he was looking at him like that.
Why would Al-Haitham look at him like his heart would break if Kaveh told him to stop? Why would Al-Haitham’s voice be little more than a hoarse whisper, as he cradled Kaveh’s head in his hands.
“Tell me you don’t want to knot me and I’ll stop, Kaveh.” It wasn’t Al-Haitham begging, not really, but it yanked at Kaveh’s heart and twisted it all the same. He whined, almost a sob, but could not wrench his eyes away. His knot was still swelling. Very soon, they would be locked together if Al-Haitham did not pull away.
Knotting was not something unmated pairs did . You did not lock yourself together with someone you did not love, if only because the reality was you were likely to kill anyone you didn’t love with your whole heart.
Kaveh had always been a fool for love.
“I can’t,” He whimpered, the tears in his eyes not just from the waves of pain and pleasure shooting down his overstimulated dick.
“Can’t…?”
“I can’t tell you I don’t want it, Al-Haitham.” Kaveh lied about many things, and had all his life. But not here. Not now. He could not lie about how he felt about this man a second time.
The last thing he saw before Al-Haitham slammed his hips down around his knot was a single silver tear that rolled down the track of that perfect cheek, before Kaveh blacked out entirely.
He was cold, by the time he woke up, chilled by the fan in the room and the cum cooled all over his stomach and shirt. Somewhere in that time, his wrists had been unbound, and when Kaveh lifted them he could see that an ointment had been applied to the rope burns, one Al-Haitham kept in his desk for when Kaveh inevitably cut himself on his latest model.
More importantly, Al-Haitham still lay draped across his shoulders, breathing steady and even as though he’d fallen asleep. His tail gave him away with uncertain, irregular flicks, but he didn’t move even as Kaveh stirred himself to take stock.
Kaveh’s knot had not softened enough yet to release them, but enough for Al-Haitham to move around some, evidently. Kaveh could hear the turn of a page behind him, and snorted.
“...Of course you’re reading a book.” He did not expect Al-Haitham’s scent to bloom as he spoke, or for the man to sit up suddenly, staring down at Kaveh with a strange, overbright fever in his eyes.
“What else was I meant to do? I could hardly drag you to the bath from this position.” Briefly, Kaveh tried to envisioned what that would look like, came up with some horrible misshapen centaur, and shook his head clear. It took him a few moments to recall how his legs worked, but managed, a few more moments after that, to stand, lifting Al-Haitham with him.
It wasn’t exactly easy–Al-Haitham was taller, and heavier than Kaveh. But he’d make it to the bathroom without needing to call Mehrak for help, and that’s what he intended to do. He made it a few shuffling steps before he felt Al-Haitham startled, and fingers wind into his hair at the back of his head.
“Kaveh, wait.”
Kaveh did not stop walking, because every second counted in his mission to carry this overly lanky lazy bovine to the bathtub, but he made a strained noise in the back of his throat to question Al-Haitham’s motive.
And felt the click of the muzzle being unbuckled.
There was a clatter as it hit the floor, and Kaveh really did pause, not long enough to look back (his arms were already starting to complain, but if he collapsed Al-Haitham would never let him live it down) but enough to turn his head and stare at Al-Haitham.
Al-Haitham stared back, almost expectant.
“What?” Kaveh asked with his greatest eloquence.
“Were you really going to wash up with that on?” Well, yes. That had been protocol every other time they’d bathed together during their shared cycles. Kaveh’s instincts and desires did not politely wait for the water to stop running. He stared at Al-Haitham, blinking in his confusion, and Al-Haitham huffed at him, irritated.
“It isn’t as though we need it.”
This was even more confusing, and something in Kaveh’s tired mind cried for mercy. This, he decided, could wait until after they had bathed and his knot had finally released them.
Besides, Kaveh thought, nosing into Al-Haitham’s neck and inhaling unimpeded for the first time since he’d moved in, who was he to look a gift bull in the mouth?
He was smiling still, when they settled into the bath.