Chapter Text
Bower (n). From bour, Middle English, "room"; compare Bauer, German, "birdcage"; see also boudoir (from boudour, French, "to pout").
A bower may be a shelter of entwined tree boughs, a country cottage, or the structure built by bowerbirds during courtship. In falconry, a bower is a young bird of an age to leave the nest, although this usage is now obsolete. More traditionally, a bower is the room or suite of rooms occupied by an omega, the privacy of which is guarded ferociously. See Hayden ("She tended to his wounds in her bower, where he was safe from the king's eyes"), Flores ("Received in the bower inviolate"), Varga ("He made only one copy of the key to his bower and saved it for many years until he met Lilla"). A bower, therefore, suggests a guarded place where quiet things grow in secret.
— Jackson's Glossary, 4th ed.
When Kaner knocks at his door, Jonny's rummaging in his kitchen for a bottle of Excedrin. He always gets the worst headaches over the summer—because of the weather, or maybe just because he spends too much time out on the lake—and he knows he has painkillers in one of his junk drawers. Actually, maybe Kaner will know where they are; he's better at keeping track of that kind of thing than Jonny. Back when they roomed together on the road, he used to just raid Kaner's suitcase, which was not only better organized but also better stocked.
Kaner knocks again, and Jonny shouts, "It's open!" Which should've been obvious, but Kaner gets weird about letting himself in sometimes, even though he's had a key since Jonny moved in.
The door opens, and he gets his first whiff of Patrick since July: he smells impossibly better than anything else Jonny's smelled in his life despite the medication that flattens his scent and quells it. Jonny's always hit hardest when they haven't seen each other for a while, and today's no exception; half the reason the door's unlocked and he's in the kitchen is to give himself a private moment to react without Kaner in the room.
"Better be glad I'm not a robber!" Kaner calls, and Jonny forces himself to open his eyes and shut his mouth.
"Lock the door!" Jonny calls back. How many wallets does he need? Apparently he still has the old velcro one he used when he was thirteen. He shuts the drawer and moves to the next one.
"I bet you say that to all the robbers," Kaner says. His voice is getting closer.
"Only the ones that are stupid enough to break in during the day when I'm home." Jonny takes a deep breath and looks up; and there Patrick is.
He tries to time the refamiliarization in stages: scent first, and then sight, so he can catalog how Patrick's changed. Jonny is stupidly happy to see him. His hair looks shorter under his hat, and while he isn't tanner, his nose and the tips of his ears are a little pink from the sun. He looks good, healthy—happy, too. He's lit up. In another five or ten minutes, Jonny might be ready to clap him on the shoulder.
"Did you lock the door?" Jonny asks.
"Nice to see you, too, Tazer," Patrick says. "Yeah, I locked the door. How's your mom doing?"
"Better," Jonny says. His mom had come down with a bad summer flu a couple of weeks ago; she hated being trapped in the house, so Jonny had spent the last part of his off-season entertaining her when he wasn't training. "I'm just glad she didn't get the rest of us sick."
"No kidding," Patrick says. He has his hands shoved in his pockets, and he's beaming. His dimples are lethal. "I'm glad she's doing better."
"Me too." This drawer has Tylenol and Aleve, but no Excedrin. "How are the sisters?"
"Are you ever going to learn their names?"
"Come on, I know their names. Is my Excedrin in this drawer?"
"No," Patrick says. "Move. They're good. Jess got an internship with a vet clinic. Why do you have a velcro wallet?"
God, he smells good. "It's not in there."
"Yeah, it is," Patrick says. He stacks four wallets on the counter, picks a red thread off the velcro one, reaches back into the drawer, and extracts a bottle of Excedrin. He slaps it against Jonny's chest; there's a brief moment when Jonny's hand covers Patrick's before Patrick slips away, and then Jonny's left holding a bottle of headache medicine he doesn't even need anymore. Patrick's scent is thick in his mouth.
"Thanks," Jonny says.
Patrick grins and ducks his head. "No problem," he says, and that's when his heat hits.
Jonny's never smelled anything like it, he's never experienced anything like it: he's never smelled that heat scent on Patrick at all. Flash heats are rare, especially in an omega of Patrick's age, and they're never like this, like a cyclone of psycholfactory input that rips into Jonny and tears his sense away and leaves only a roaring bundle of nerves and need behind. That's his rut. It comes out of nowhere. He's never lost himself in it before, but now the last scrap of higher thought left to him is being used to hold himself in check. He wouldn't need that restraint if Patrick didn't feel like every part of him was calling out to Jonny. Rut didn't work like that, didn't compel you towards someone who didn't want you; but the way Patrick smells is past receptive. He smells like he's been Jonny's all along.
Patrick's eyes are blue and blown wide. He's pulsing at the same frequency as Jonny.
"Patrick," he forces out.
"Yes," Patrick says immediately, and he makes it clear: "Jonny. Yes," and then Jonny's on him.
He bears Patrick back out of the kitchen, away from the door, towards a safe corner—towards the bedroom, where there's a bed and also another door. It's hard with Patrick pressed up against him, shoving his face against Jonny's neck, trying to climb Jonny or at least provoke Jonny into fucking him, but Patrick doesn't get a choice in this. He pushes at Patrick, herds him backward, even nips at him once, which earns him a look of such shocked dismay he doesn't do it again; and finally he does end up carrying Patrick the last length of the hall, because once Patrick gets his arms around Jonny's neck, there's nothing to prevent him from hoisting himself up and wrapping his legs around Jonny's waist, too. Jonny grunts and puts an arm under his ass and hauls him the rest of the way to the bedroom, and does his best to ignore the soft sound Patrick makes in favor of kicking the bedroom door shut and locking it.
He starts tugging at Jonny's clothes even before Jonny tosses him on the bed—trying to work the buttons and then getting frustrated and yanking. Jonny strips himself and catches one of Patrick's flailing ankles. He's wrestling with his own clothing now, but Jonny tightens his hand until Patrick goes still on his back except for the trembling he can't control, and then he strips Patrick, too—first his socks and pants and underwear, as fast as Jonny can pull them off, and then he yanks Patrick's shirt off over his head. The hat's long gone. Jonny doesn't care about the hat.
What he cares about is Patrick finally being where Patrick belongs. He smells incredible: sweet and ripe and receptive. He looks more incredible: naked, pale, radiant, his hard flushed cock twitching below his navel, his thighs parted and hands palm-up by his head. Someone should put a baby in him. Jonny should put a baby in him. Jonny's going to fuck him so thoroughly that he won't ever let another alpha this close, so thoroughly that Patrick won't ever want another person in his bed ever again.
Patrick doesn't stay passive for long; he twists around, and at first Jonny thinks he's trying to kick, but then Patrick gets his knees under him and drops his shoulders down so his back makes a perfect lordosis curve and his pert ass is presented to Jonny. His little hole is slick and smooth and just as pink as his cock, so small Jonny can't picture how it'll stretch around his own thick knot. He settles a hand on Patrick and presses into Patrick's hole with the pad of his thumb, and Patrick whines and pushes back against him. Patrick's wet and getting wetter; Jonny's going to taste his slick later, after Patrick's pregnant.
Jonny doesn't want it like this, though. Not at first—if he's going to fuck a baby into Patrick, he's going to watch Patrick's face when he catches no matter how much Jonny's instincts are driving him to breed Patrick right then, to pin him down by the neck and drive into him. Jonny's control is shuttered but not absent; first he's going to have Patrick on his back. He flips Patrick over and flattens him. He grunts and then grumbles and then finally whines as Jonny holds his smaller body in place, and he starts pulling at Jonny, clawing at his back, trying to draw Jonny into him. His legs are bracketing Jonny and his hips are rolling in an attempt to catch the head of Jonny's cock against his hole, but even if he could get the angle right, he's too slick; all he's doing is squirming against Jonny's dick.
And Jonny, all at once, gets his hand under Patrick's thigh and rocks him up and open and positions the tip of his cock against Patrick's soft little hole; and then he pushes inside.
Patrick throws back his head and keens.
He's tight. Jonny's never felt anything so tight around his dick before; there's a particle of light racing up his spine. Once the head of his cock is seated just inside of Patrick, though, Jonny forces himself to stop. Patrick's so slick that Jonny's mattress is going to smell like him forever, and he keeps begging with his body, trying to shove himself downward to take more of Jonny's cock, but Jonny refuses to move even when Patrick whines again high in the back of his throat. He stitches his restraint together enough to keep himself still and make Patrick hold still, too, until Patrick is merely quivering; and then he drops his head and drives in another inch.
In another life, Jonny would've worked Patrick open slowly until he was wet enough and relaxed enough to take Jonny's cock easily. Neither of them have the patience for that. Patrick barely has the patience to stay still when his alpha makes him, but Jonny has one arm under Patrick's knee to control him and the other arm braced beside Patrick's head so he can open his mouth over Patrick's throat in warning. It's an empty threat, one carried out not because Jonny is willing to do harm but because Patrick, even more than he wants Jonny's knot, wants to obey.
Jonny pulls back a hair, making Patrick whimper; and then he pushes in.
This time Patrick lets out a wet little gasp, a noise that Jonny punches out of him, and Jonny halts again as Patrick's body clenches around him. He's hot on the inside, so much so that the top half of Jonny's cock is warmer than the bottom, and Jonny wants to sit back on his heels so he can watch his big cock forcing its way into Patrick's ass, but this view is better: Patrick's eyes are blown so wide open the blue is just a thin ring around the pupil, and his pretty mouth with that cupid's bow over the full lower lip is parted so he can suck down big heaving mouthfuls of air.
He bucks under Jonny and then crosses his ankles at the small of Jonny's back, and his eyes are darting around, so Jonny kisses him until he calms again. He wants to fuck Patrick but this is important, and he needs Patrick to understand that. It must transfer, because when Jonny lifts his head, Patrick's staring up at him like he's never seen Jonny before and he never wants to look away.
Jonny holds them both still until Patrick relaxes beneath him, and then he starts working himself in again with slow short thrusts that turn longer and easier. He wants to shove forward. He's shaking from the difficulty of forcing himself to wait, from how much he wants; his cock is so hard it's throbbing. Patrick still hasn't looked away. Patrick's eyes are locked with his, and then Jonny's in, the base of his cock held snug by Patrick's hole and the swell of his knot inside and his balls pressed up against Patrick's ass. He could stay here until Patrick shook apart around him, he wouldn't even have to move—
Not move? What a fucking joke.
He rocks back and gets his other hand under Patrick's knee and spreads him open so he can see his dick gripped by Patrick's tight little hole. The backs of Patrick's thighs are glistening just like the front of Jonny's thighs, and that's good, that means Patrick's slick enough to do this. Jonny pulls out long and slow and measured and takes in this sight of just the head of his cock holding Patrick's ass open. He tilts his head, considers it, glances up at Patrick, and puts them both out of their misery by driving himself in.
Patrick screams. There's a white fountain of light pouring through Jonny; he understands. He's going to pour that luminosity into Patrick, too. He drives in and draws out and fucks in again, shoving into Patrick so hard he slides up the bed. Patrick's past thinking about bracing himself against the headboard; instead he opens his arms for Jonny, and Jonny catches him by the wrists and slams his arms down and keeps fucking him.
Someone has to put a baby into Patrick. Jonny has to put a baby into Patrick. He can tell how much Patrick wants a baby, Jonny's baby; it's so clear and tangible it sits like a feature on Patrick's face as plain as his nose or his eyes. He wants Jonny to fill him up and keep him full, and he wants the quiet feeling of having a life they made growing in him, sheltered by them both, and he wants a little baby with Jonny's eyes that he can hold and play with and watch grow with Jonny at his side. They've made so many miracles together, but this is something bigger. They aren't going to be the same after this.
And Jonny wants that, too. He wants a little baby with Patrick's eyes who cries at balloons and tries to chase every dog he sees and has a closet full of #88 onesies for her to wear to every home game. He wants two or three of them. He wants as many of them as Patrick wants; he wants to keep Patrick, and Patrick wants so badly to be kept. Jonny's always been greedy for Patrick, has always been possessive of him even though he knows he has no right to be possessive, and right now for the first time ever he's opening up that cage.
Even better is how Patrick rises to meet him: he puts his teeth over the meat of Jonny's shoulder and when Jonny fucks him just right, he clamps down and screams and only when Jonny shifts and the rigid arch of Patrick's back relaxes does he let up and lave the bruise with his tongue and breathe wetly against Jonny's skin. He's staking his claim on Jonny, too. Even if he'd been in heat before, his heat never would've taken him like this with another alpha; and he never has been in heat before. This is a result of Jonny, and of how much Patrick needs him.
The physical sensation might pale in comparison to the knowledge that his cock is inside Patrick, but Jonny's never fucked someone like this. He doesn't have any basis for comparison. If the sex got better, he would unravel at the seams. Alphas and their omega counterparts tend to have high sex drives—not always, but often—and Jonny's never lacked for bed partners or for good sex, but this is to good sex as shinny is to the Olympics. There are superficial similarities, but there's no mistaking the one for the other.
Patrick's clingy little hole is still so fucking tight around Jonny's dick that every time Jonny rolls into him he's not sure Patrick will open up again, and every time he rolls out he isn't sure the grip Patrick has on him will permit him to leave. He snarls and fucks in harder and Patrick tosses his head back again. He's cracking open; he can't believe Jonny's touching his skin. Jonny can feel the white dense star of pressure building at the base of their spines.
He fucks into Patrick's hole and stays there, and then he lets go of Patrick's right wrist. Patrick shoves his hand between their bellies and wraps his hand around his dick. His fingers slide over the crown—
And the star goes supernova—
And Patrick starts to come.
His whole body contracts around Jonny's cock, and that and the sheer cliff of pleasure that Patrick tips over pull Jonny's climax out of him. His vision grays out, and then his knot swells and locks him into place even as he keeps trying to grind deeper into the tight clutch of Patrick's hole. Patrick is sobbing outright as he clings to Jonny's shoulders, and he's losing himself, too; they don't merge into one person, but so much of each of them belongs to the other that finding out for the first time that what he feels is mirrored in their binary system overwhelms him. It overwhelms Patrick, too.
They're shaking together, shuddering in each other's arms, and finally the worst shock passes through him and Jonny collapses even though he's still pumping come into Patrick. He thinks he should—he should move, he's crushing Patrick, but Patrick doesn't want that; he holds Jonny tighter, he doesn't want Jonny to leave, he only ever wants Jonny closer and now Jonny is as close as he can be. Jonny burrows his wet face against Patrick's neck and breathes. The gray goes black. And somewhere in the remnant nebula created by a stellar explosion, a small new light starts to shine.
-
When Jonny wakes up the next morning, Patrick is gone.