Archive of Our Own

Estinien had not wanted to properly join the Scions for a number of reasons. He enjoys his independence. He does not want to get embroiled in geopolitics any more than he already has been. He doesn’t want to make it any easier for the Ishgardian government to know where he is. And though he is not frightened of those Lalafell women, he holds a wary caution for them that anyone with a brain should.

And there is also the matter of walking into a close-knit group of people whose personalities, preferences, and relationships he knows very little of.

Alphinaud, at least, he knew. A fledgling Alpha on the cusp of adulthood. When they had traveled together years ago, he’d been a precocious pup who still had the scent of his dam’s milk about him. According to the Warrior he had been worse before his arrival in Ishgard – walking around acting like he’d scented the head of every table. Estinien has kept an eye on him from a distance, and a distance is where he likes best to be from everyone he knows.

The Warrior, of course – a steady-scented Beta of decisive action and few words, equally as good at handing over the reins as they are at driving the cart. The journey through Dravania would have ended up with proper brawls and bites for dominance between the two adult Alphas and the uppity pup without their calming, unflappable presence. (He still doesn’t know who would have come out on top between him and Ysayle.)

So yes, Estinien knows the Warrior and Alphinaud. Big huzzah. That still leaves five or more people (he isn’t sure how many are in the Scions – shouldn’t there be seven? It’s in the name) that he’s heard of through hearsay and seen from a distance. There’s the Omega coinkeeper and the Beta Baldesion woman, who wield their social skills with violence and are more ruthless and manipulative as the vipers in Ishgard’s nobility. Then there’s… well, Alphinaud mentioned a sister. There’s the rogue that Gaius mentioned was possessed by that Ascian. There’s the witch. There’s… probably some other people too. The point is – Estinien does not like dealing with people. There’s a reason he’s spent his adulthood as a lone Alpha patrolling an expansive definition of “his territory.” Dealing with new people is doubly worse.

But here he is, in the Rising Stones, because he is an idiot.

The room is all stone, reminiscent of much of Ishgard. There are too many random tables and chairs and screens scattered around. There’s a bar, praise the Fury, although why they need their own bar when there is one right outside escapes him, but he won’t complain. It’s all flush with mismatched rugs and tapestries.

And the smell – Fury, the smell. There’s a strong scent of pack that permeates the room, floods his brain with there is an in-group here, and you are not part of it. The scent of den is much weaker, he notes – but present, like it’s still being established. Quite different from the old manors of Ishgard, where the House’s scent has been beaten into the rooms over centuries, and the ever-changing loose-pack stench of the barracks. The Taru woman had mentioned that the majority of the core Scions had been “somewhere else” for the last few months, and then not provided much detail. Perhaps that was the cause of the weak den scent.

Speak of the voidsent – there she is, scribbling away at her desk. She sits in the heart of the room, between two doors leading to inner sanctums. Her desk is decorated with baubles and contraptions and what looks like some half-finished crafting projects, an aetheric heater thrumming next to her. The chair has a cushion on the seat and the back, along with a footrest on the floor. She’s humming to herself as she shuffles the papers and gets to work on another. She looks as at home as a dragon in a volcano.

At the sight of her, he realizes with even greater urgency what an absolute idiot he is. He should not be here. This is a terrible idea. He does not want to get involved in any pack this woman is a part of. It will only lead to trouble.

And of course, at that moment, her head snaps up.

“Estinien!” she cries, clasping her hands under her chin. “I’m so delighted you were able to make it!” She hops down from her chair, and he barely restrains the instinct to back away as this three fulm tall Omega advances on him. “I’m in the middle of some rather important and time-sensitive paperwork right now, otherwise I’d show you around myself. The living quarters are just through there–” (she points to the door to the left) “--so make yourself at home in a free one. Some of the pack have been cohabitating more since they got back from the First, so there are more empty rooms than there used to. You’ll probably be able to smell for yourself.” She raises her jaw, scenting the air, then nods to herself in apparent satisfaction.

Then she looks him up and down – then looks behind him, then back to him, raising an eyebrow. “I would tell you to put your things in there, but it seems you travel light, hm? No matter – there’s a storeroom with things for everyone to use. G’raha – redheaded Miqo’te, you’ll know him when you see him – he’s been in and out of there, so he can show you where it is. And I’ll get around to making you something presentable, so you have something to wear beyond this ghastly tunic and that armor of yours. You’ll be comfortable here at the Rising Stones, if I have anything to say about it!”

He’s about to grumble comfort is not a high priority for me when she grabs his hand and rubs her cheek on the back of it, a pack-scenting that would be outrageous in an Ishgardian public square. People in southern Eorzea are more open about these sorts of things, he’s found, which is both helpful (they’re more clear in what they mean) and appalling (he’s from Coerthas). He’s too shocked to pull his hand back, and it’s a quick platonic scenting anyhow – casual but confident.

He hasn’t been pack-scented in years. This kind of scenting was common between soldiers in the same unit during private moments, after they had escaped death together. The closer among them had rubbed cheeks, and he had heard of bonded pairs forming from packmates-in-arms. As he’d grown more independent as the Azure Dragoon, he’d lived apart from the other lancers and dragoons, until he’d carried only his own scent.

(Aymeric had tried, for a time, but scent only lingers for so long, especially when not properly blended. He had faded. For the best, anyroad.)

(There had been a moment, in the hospital, the last time they’d been alone, where Aymeric almost put his face to his neck – but Estinien had rolled over, pulled the blanket over himself, scrunching his eyes tight, and Aymeric had leaned away with a rustle of fine velvet, and departed without another word. Estinien had left the next morning. Wouldn’t do for an Alpha in Aymeric’s position to smell of another Alpha like that.)

She pulls away and winks at him. She pats the back of his hand and chirps out, “Make yourself at home!” And then she goes back to her secretarial scheming like she hadn’t just brought him, a lone Alpha, into her den like it was nothing. She looks perfectly pleased with herself for bringing another into the pack (although he’s agreed to no such thing). An archetypal Omega at the heart of her den, in control of the bonds and the hearth.

She makes sense to him. She’s still terrifying.

The door into the inner rooms emits an astonishingly loud creak, and it makes Estinien freeze. He glances over his shoulder, but Tataru is humming as if a noise like an injured and insulted chocobo had not echoed throughout the building. It must be by design, then – an early alarm when someone enters the living quarters. He files that away and resolves to never use this door again.

He passes through some sort of infirmary – empty, but recently used, from the smell of healing magic and herbal remedies still in the air – and then another door leads him up a flight of stairs. The further he goes, the more muffled the sounds of the bar out front become. He takes a moment to appreciate the silence – only to notice that the sounds of recreation have been replaced by the noise of people moving quietly about their home. Domestic noises, low rustling and murmuring, a bit of quiet laughter. And the smell – the Omega was correct, the scent of den is much stronger back here. He can smell Alphinaud, and something close to Alphinaud, and the Warrior, but intertwined with several other scents – sweet Omega, musky Alpha, clean Beta, all together in a unique, distinct, and harmonious fragrance. Pack. Of course. This is their den, after all.

He feels sick. He shouldn’t be here. Such a place isn’t for him. He is a wild dog that someone let inside off the street. He cannot live within such a scent, such a pack – it is easier to be on the outside when you are not trapped within.

He sees a window across the room. There. That will be his out. Not the creaky door next to the most fiendish Omega on any continent – a good old-fashioned window. He strides across the room with it, already planning his escape across the rooftops of Mor Dhona, when–

“Estinien! You made it!”

He stares at the window for another moment before he tears his eyes away and turns to Alphinaud. The boy’s uncurling himself from an overly plush armchair, setting a slim volume aside as he stands. He’s shed his robes for a lighter jacket – makes sense, considering he’s in his den. And then there’s his scent. In Ishgardian public squares, one tends to keep their personal scent to themself, and the boy’s always been a stickler for etiquette, so Estinien didn’t get a good sense of his personal scent when they met a sennight prior. But it’s… different. Of course it is, the boy’s almost a full adult now. An Alpha, as he’d guessed those years ago, but without the slight mint scent the boy’d had when he was young. Instead he smells something like those fruits they sell in Ala Mhigo in late summer, the ones from the plants with the spikes. Sweet, with a pleasantly sour edge to it. Warm and sharp in general. Not something that really suits him.

“... Alisaie,” he says cautiously. “Alisaie.”

The Elezen squints at him, and then their mouth draws thin. “You thought I was Alphinaud again, didn’t you,” Alisaie says flatly.

“No,” he lies. “Alisaie.”

“I can’t believe you,” she huffs, rolling her eyes. “We’ve been through this bit already. We look different, we sound different, we smell different, we behave different, we dress different–”

“Not much,” he mutters, and she snarls, showing her stubby little pup teeth.

“Alphinaud and the Warrior never mentioned how you apparently need spectacles, you simpleton! You–”

“Ah! You’ve finally arrived!”

The smell – yes. Different.

The mint is still there, somewhere between sharp spearmint and sweet peppermint. It’s cool and smooth, the opposite of his sister’s. And especially different, because –

“You’re a Beta,” he comments in surprise.

Alphinaud pauses for just a moment as he walks across the room toward them, a slight skip in his step that is gracefully moved beyond. He’s dressed down as well, in his shirtsleeves and house slippers. His hair is loose about his shoulders, and he’s a Beta. He stops at Alisaie’s side, and she shifts so that she’s slightly in front of him (unconsciously, from what he can tell). “Ah, yes, I suppose when we last met properly I was not far into developing my adult scent,” he replies with a bashful (yet seemingly practiced) smile. “But the two of us have now presented. Some people were… surprised,” (Estinien wonders what the parents who named him Alphinaud think of this) “But there’s a reason our natures wait until we grow to show themselves.”

Estinien thinks back to the pup he’d known. Alphinaud had been full of himself – but how much of that had been an emerging Alpha, and how much had just been the self-assurance of a rich young man with a fancy degree in politics? All the latter, it seems. To be frank, Estinien and Ysayle had had their hackles up so much back then that the Warrior and Alphinaud could have been any gender and seemed calmer than them. Estinien had been a young Alpha once, surrounded by others like him; the typical Alphan resistance to yielding showed in rough ways at that age. Some Alphas deal with it by figuring out how to be leaders and rising to the top; some deal with it by leaving all others behind. Alphinaud had not seemed to have had that kind of conflict among his struggles – how like a Beta, to flourish comfortably in the middle. There wasn’t the fire in his blood that drove many Alphas to burn themselves or those around them. He was a diplomat, happy and able to speak for the group, but humble and calm in ways Alphas often have trouble with.

Speaking of. There’s another teenager glaring at him with eyes that show a clear refusal to ever back down, but the look in them was more calculating now. “So that’s why you thought I was him, back in Ishgard,” Alisaie notes. “You thought he’d turn out an Alpha!”

“Many people did, sister,” Alphinaud comments.

“Anyone who properly knows you didn’t. Mother and I knew you'd be a Beta and I'd be an Alpha since we could read. You were a little arsehole purely because of your personality, not because of stereotypical Alpha behavior.”

“At least I’ve been able to grow out of it.”

“Excuse me–”

Enough of this. He does not want to deal with squabbles between two pups with their adult incisors still growing in. “Your coinkeeper told me to find the Miqo’te man,” he interrupts.

The two silence abruptly and share a sidelong glance. Alisaie raises an eyebrow. Alphinaud lifts a shoulder. Alisaie snorts.

“What,” he says flatly.

“Tataru tends to be rather forward with regards to the pack, but that is…” Alphinaud trails off.

Alisaie shrugs. “Well, who are we to interfere? She knows best. Estinien, go through that door, then turn right.” She gestures to the door on the other side of the room from the window. “Alphinaud and I are staying out here for now. You’re welcome to join us if you’d rather not be breathing in all that.” And then, like it’s nothing, she grabs for his hand. He almost pulls it back, but Alphinaud lights up, and he can’t find it in himself to snuff out Alphinaud’s delight at his sibling and his… adult friend (not packmate) getting along. So he huffs, and bears it. It’s a quick swipe across Alisaie’s cheek, anyhow, decisive and effective. Then she leaps back to her chair, giving him a cursory wave (and an… eyebrow wiggle) before throwing her legs over an arm and burrowing her nose in her book.

Alphinaud does actually bother to ask “May I?”, and waits for Estinien to stiltedly nod before taking his other hand and rubbing it against his cheek with gentle purpose. Back and forth, for a long moment. He squeezes his hand before letting go, and smiles up at him with satisfaction. “It is good to have you back, Estinien,” he says softly. “I have missed your presence in my life. You were a very meaningful mentor to me when I was younger. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without our paths intersecting as they did. I do hope you stay for a while, if you can.”

There’s a sudden lump in his throat. He should go. He needs to leave, soon. This is not somewhere he can be. He cannot be the person these people want.

He had borne Alphinaud’s scent once before, for a short time. After Nidhogg’s last song, when the war was finally, finally over, he had awoken to the boy weeping over him in the Convocation infirmary, clutching his hand to his face and blubbering about how worried he’d been. Estinien had almost teased him about it, but… the boy had lost enough. One of his last clear memories before Nidhogg had overtaken him was seeing Ysayle’s body plummet in the sky like a stone. The boy already knew that he couldn’t keep people. No need for Estinien to grind it in further, not when the boy had managed to bring him back. So he’d just grunted, and pulled his hand away when the grip had loosened. The scent was a non-pack pup’s, anyroad. It was weak, and it had worn off quick.

Now he bears the scent of Alphinaud on one hand, and Alisaie on the other. He’s in a room saturated with the smell of them. Both not full adults yet, but grown enough that they can scent-mark packmates. And… Estinien.

Before he can think better of it, he snags Alphinaud’s hand and brings it up to bump his cheek against it. It sends Alphinaud to his tip-toes, and the boy laughs in surprise and delight. He walks swiftly to the door Alisaie had indicated, not wanting to deal with any further emotions from the pup. Or any attempted intimidation from Alisaie on behalf of her brother. He tunes out the gracious babbling from the boy and the jabs from the girl, and slips through the door.

The next hallway is dark, but for one lone lantern down towards the end – from what he could tell from the outside, much of the building was built into the side of a massive chunk of crystal-infused rock, with the portion owned by the Scions nestled in the center of the structure. This deep in the den, the pack scent is even stronger – he reflexively lifts his nose to take it in. He can discern the twins’ scents, especially with how familiar he is with Alphinaud’s, as well as the coinkeeper’s and the Baldesion woman’s. He notices the unknown scents more, though – they seem stronger, probably due to his brain focusing on the unfamiliar as a more potential threat. The majority of the scent here is Alpha, and his mind dwells on that – but the Omega is vivid as well.

It’s warm and quiet back here. He heads right, stopping at the door with the lantern, which seems as good a guess as any. Disturbing sleeping people in their den is a quick way to cause a scene, and while Estinien has never cared overmuch for manners, he does care to not get a headache. He’ll talk to the Miqo’te man, get what he needs, drop his traveling pack on an available bed, and then… be by himself for a minute. In quiet. With no one scenting him or displaying emotions that he has to interpret and respond to. Yes. That sounds quite nice.

He opens the door and is greeted with, in order:

Another absurdly loud creak.

Such a strong wave of pack heat Alpha sex mates rut sex Omega sex pack that he staggers back.

A tangle of bodies. Naked bodies.

A savage snarl ripping through the air, wrapped in a chest-deep growl.

A woman snapping, “Get out!”, also laden with a growl.

And a red-headed Miqo’te man pushing him gently right back out the door (he’d barely opened it) and closing it behind them.

Estinien nearly falls against the wall, steadying himself at the last moment. The scent is still so much. His cock is half-hard in his trousers in instinctual reaction to the deluge of sex pheromones he just got flooded by, and that’s not helped by the Miqo’te pressing close to him and patting his chest with one hand, the other holding a silk robe closed around himself. There’s a smell of Alpha around him, but Estinien couldn’t parse if that was his actual scent or from someone inside, considering he bears the scents of at least three people, possibly four. “Probably shouldn’t go in there,” he says, seeming to be trying to usher him further away from the door. “Our mated pair are having their heat and rut synchronously, and some of us are helping them, so this isn’t a great time for visitors – oh?” The Miqo’te’s ears flick, his nose flares, and his eyes, pupils blown wide, zero in on him. Then he gasps. “Ser Estinien!”

“Aye,” he replies, because he has no idea what else to say. Whatever he was meant to be seeking back here has abruptly fled his brain, shoved out by the pheromones that are still whirling around the hallway and pouring from the Miqo’te.

“Oh, goodness – with all the commotion, I’m fairly sure it slipped our minds that you were meant to arrive today.” He smooths back his hair, looking bashful. “G’raha Tia, at your service.”

Right, that was his name. A Tia… Miqo’te weren’t common in Ishgard, aside from some few who had fled north from Gridania and tended to settle in the lowlands. From what he understood from traveling in Gyr Abania, rather than the adults mostly being split into mated pairs (as with Hyur, Roegadyn, and especially Elezen – and exclusively so, with Lalafells), in Miqo’te tribes there was one head Alpha who mate-claim all the tribe’s Omegas (sounds exhausting), while lower-rung Alphas either paired off with Betas or challenged for leadership of the pack. A Tia meant that this short, sheepish young man was a secondary Alpha. At least in a Miqo’te tribe. Seems that hasn’t changed much for him, since he was the one to leave the heat nest and deal with the intruder.

“And I know your name, for… various reasons, but mostly because I was told you’d be joining us,” G’raha is saying. He’s standing very close to Estinien, swaying towards him. He still bears the scents of the others inside the room, including the Omega (Omegas?), but his own is becoming clearer. Like a dry, hot wind in a desert – or the ambient aether that pervades Mor Dhona. It’s strange, but warm, and if Estinien had any inclination towards poetry he might compare it to something involving the feeling of sunshine. But he isn’t, so he doesn’t. It smells – good, he supposes. He puts that thought in the box in his head where such thoughts go, only it’s difficult because the other Alpha has his hand on his chest now.

“You certainly picked a day to come – to arrive,” G’raha says, tripping over his own word choice. Estinien would not have noticed the accidental entendre. “Not your fault! Not anyone’s fault. Maybe mine – but that’s much too much to explain at present, I think. Being newly back in one’s proper physical body makes biological affairs rather more pressing, it seems. And sudden. And more intense than usual, although that’s just from what Y’shtola told me, I’ve never been a part of a pack heat like this – have you?”

Over the course of his chattering, he has taken the steps necessary to press himself flush against Estinien. He is not wearing anything under that robe. He is much shorter than Estinien, but his height belies that his torso is a solid pack of muscle. G’raha looks up at him with huge scarlet eyes, and Estinien manages to say, “No. Haven’t.”

“It’s certainly an experience,” G’raha chuckles. “It’s just the four of us in there. Urianger and Thancred, of course–” (he’s heard of the latter, saw him as they both skulked around Ala Mhigo, but the former is a complete unknown) “–and Y’shtola and I are the other adult packmates that can be spared right now.”

Estinien tries to connect the one dot he already knows. "The Warrior–"

"Is out gathering supplies," G'raha finishes. Makes sense. A traditional and necessary duty of Betas during heats, when Omegas are too busy (and addled) to tend to such things and Alphas refuse to leave the heart of the den (or the insides of the Omega). And the Warrior did love to gather – oftentimes Estinien would look up from oiling his armor to find the Warrior collecting herbs or pebbles some distance away. In the Churning Mists, he woke up in the middle of the night and found the Warrior, in their sleepclothes, returning to camp with their arms full of little jars of moraine. He has no idea how he's thinking about this insipid memory when this other Alpha’s erection is pressing against his leg, nothing but a flimsy layer of silk separating them. He should move away. He should. He’s frozen where he stands.

“Ser Estinien–” G’raha begins, and Estinien has to cut him off, because this can’t become a habit.

“Drop the Ser.”

G’raha opens his mouth, as if to argue or explain himself, but then shuts his mouth with an easy smile. “Just Estinien it is, then,” he agrees. And then the other Alpha leans up to rub his cheek against Estinien’s, and Estinien lurches back and flattens himself back against the wall.

G’raha blinks at him for a moment before stepping back himself, face blanching, both hands going to his robe. “Oh hells – I apologize, it’s no excuse but I’m still – ah – affected by the pheromones, and I’m also new to the Scion pack, and you smell like pack a bit already, I’m still forming bonds with everyone – I behaved instinctually, and it caused me to overstep. I am so deeply, deeply sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Estinien says, because he won’t admit he was caught off guard by the sudden attempt at scenting (for the third time in an hour – he’s lived outside of Ishgard for years now, but he has not lived with other people). And then he… tilts down, just a little bit, because – well. G’raha Tia’s scent is not unappealing. He would not mind carrying it.

G’raha’s face melts from shame into glowing joy. He rises to his toes, and bumps their faces together once, twice, thrice. His scent is much stronger and clearer now – there’s the sunshine and aether, as well as something… spiced. Cinnamon, if he had to guess.

Fury. To dwell on another Alpha’s scent like this. He has to get ahold of himself. The pheromones truly are addling his brain.

“G’raha Tia,” the female voice from earlier calls imperiously, loud enough to be heard through the door.

It acts almost as a scruff on the man – his body tenses, then relaxes. He's never seen an Alpha do such a thing so easily before. He'd think the man a Beta if not for his unmistakable scent. G'raha goes to the door, leans against it, and replies, “Yes, Y’shtola?”

“If that is Estinien, you may bring him in. No time like the present to integrate him into the fold.”

G’raha looks to him, with a gentle smile, in silent question. In offer.

To be let into a heat nest of a pack he could barely be said to be in is – reckless. Insane. The stories the others have heard of him from Alphinaud and the Warrior and the coinkeeper cannot be enough to build the trust needed for that. They should do the opposite. Estinien is not made for packs, or a mate, or anything but solitude. He has left vengeance behind, and he knows his place in the world now. He has flaws, deficiencies, that make him ill-suited for what the Scions are offering him.

But there’s the feeling of just before a high jump, and a long fall.

Let it not be said that Estinien is afraid of heights.

Halone help him – he nods. G’raha’s smile grows, and he takes Estinien’s hand, and he opens the door.

Estinien told G’raha that he has never participated in a pack heat. This is true. He did not feel the need to mention that he has never participated in any heat whatsoever. Ruts, aye – his own, of course (but also, when he was younger – a hand in a hidden corner, until his comrade could make it home to their mate. No eye contact, no teeth, as little scent-marking as possible, never talked about again). He knew the scent of it, from himself and from barracks life. He knew the scent of heat from that as well. One grew to know by scent when one of the cooks or healers would soon be sent home from the front on medical leave to take care of their cycle in the privacy of their family den (or, if they were one of the city’s orphans, in the spare rooms kept in the Congregation for such needs). But never has he been in one of those places for the actual event, especially a consummated heat.

The room is ten degrees warmer than the hallway outside. The lights are low, the windows are drawn. The scent is –

The scent is incredible. Intoxicating. Warm and rich. His mouth waters involuntarily. It’s pouring out from the nest that is sprawling out from the far corner and the three people within it.

There’s two Alphas and an Omega, identifiable by their positions and their scents. One Alpha, a Hyur man, is mounting the Omega in the soft blanketed base of the nest, a leg braced forward so he can keep his teeth fastened on the Omega’s neck. The other Alpha, a Miqo’te woman, is sitting upon a wide, mattress-like cushion, perched high enough that her cock can occupy the mouth of the Elezen Omega on his hands and knees between the two of them. They’re all naked as the day they were born, muscled backs and heaving chests and carnal movements.

The first person he’s able to identify is the mounting Alpha: Thancred, who is cleaner-cut than he was in Ala Mhigo those moons ago, and is currently pouring out Alpha pheromones that scream rut and mine. The other Alpha should be Y’shtola, if voices match appearances. Estinien can sense no hint of rut from her, just arousal and confidence, dominance, control. And the Omega must be Urianger, who is emitting heat and need and pay attention to me.

Estinien is so fixated on the sight in front of him (Thancred’s hips working as his lower back tenses and shows his strength, Y’shtola’s hands fisted in Urianger’s hair as she lounges against the pillows) that he walks into a table set in front of the door. A table, some chairs, and crates full of seemingly random junk, all stacked into a low wall.

“I’m fairly certain Thancred put all that there, as a fortification of sorts,” G’raha tells him in a low voice. “I also ran into it when I was allowed in.” Then he shrugs off the robe and circles around to Y’shtola’s side, crawling onto the higher part of the nest and pressing up against her. She rubs their cheeks together languorously, but her hands do not leave the Omega’s head, carding through his hair, scratching behind his ears, stroking his temples and cheeks.

This focus on the Omega does not preclude her from saying, "Apologies for our territorial welcome earlier, Estinien. You understand."

It is not a question. To continue this conversation, Estinien must understand these Alphas' defensiveness over this vulnerability, over the Omega between them.

“Aye,” he responds. He does. He knows how protective and possessive Alphas can get over their packs, especially their mates – even now, Thancred glares up at him with rut-wild eyes. Estinien has no doubt that if he attempted to touch Urianger at this moment, he’d get another fierce growl, and those teeth would dig in to draw blood from his mate. Urianger’s neck is already bitten and bruised to each of the seven hells, the marks extending to his shoulders and collarbones. Something more commonly found in newly-bonded pairs – but if this was their first cycle together as mates (that mating scar certainly looks on the newer side), shouldn’t it be just the two of them? Hyur were not as mate-pair focused as Elezen, true, but the way Thancred was glued to Urianger spoke to his dedicated ardor. Their body language is distinct from Y’shtola’s, who while comfortable with them both is rather more self-possessed. Why include her, not to mention a pack newcomer, and now a stranger as well? And all of them Alphas, too. It makes no sense. But Estinien has little experience with these more complicated, solidified pack dynamics.

Y’shtola’s moves a hand to pat Thancred’s head, tucking some strands of hair behind an ear. Estinien expects a growl, but Thancred just bumps his head against her hand, closing his eyes and fully pressing his front to his mate’s back. His teeth detach from Urianger’s neck to lick and kiss at the skin there, rumbling as he does so. Urianger purrs in response, mouth still on Y’shtola’s cock, and she gives a gasping sigh in response to the sensation.

“Good boy,” she croons, and Urianger’s purr intensifies. More surprisingly, G’raha lets out a quiet moan from next to Y’shtola and rests his head against her shoulder. She doesn’t shove him off, she – chuckles. Allows this other Alpha encroaching into her space as she fucks an Omega.

It must be a Miqo’te thing.

He looks to the other two. Thancred is plastered to Urianger, hips thrusting shallowly and slowly to stay as deep within his mate as possible. The scent of rut pours off of him in equal intensity to Urianger’s heat scent – it’s plain that he craves more to stay within the warmth of his mate than to hurry to completion. He grinds his cock in Urianger after each thrust, circling his hips. One hand is braced on the mattress next to Y’shtola, while the other is wrapped around Urianger’s chest. His breathing is ragged, every exhale and inhale carrying a rumble of satisfaction. Estinien can hear him muttering into Urianger’s ear in between the attention he’s paying to his neck, but the words are unintelligible from where Estinien is standing, and are almost certainly erotic drivel.

Urianger seems to be doing his best to stay where he’s been put. There’s a cushion beneath his knees, and his elegant hands are fisted in the blankets puddled beneath him. His back is arched, arse high in the air. Estinien can’t see his cunt from where he stands, not with Thancred in the way, but his thighs are covered with slick and the vulgar wet sounds of him taking his mate fill the air. His eyes are half-open, but Estinien is sure he’s not truly seeing anything. He sucks at Y’shtola’s cock, enjoying having something in his mouth, and Thancred’s occasional harder thrusts move him up and down her shaft – suddenly, he gets jolted far enough that his purr is cut off by a gag. Y’shtola moans, and Thancred too lets out a low groan. Urianger doesn’t even pull off to recover – he moves back for a moment, panting around the cock still in his mouth. Then Thancred whispers something in his ear, and Urianger dives back down, sucking wetly, causing Y’shtola’s breathing to rise to a ragged, rumbling pant. Thancred moans again, and bites back down on Urianger’s nape.

Y’shtola’s gasps do not abate. She lets out little mms and unhs, enjoying Urianger’s attentions. A satisfied smile growing on her face, her teeth exposed with it, eyelids heavy. A hand slides to touch Urianger’s stretched lips and hollowed cheeks, then his ears, then back to his hair. Until finally: "Urianger, dear, I'm about to finish. G'raha – hold my knot," she orders him, urgently but still with control. G'raha groans, and quickly does as she commands. Estinien's eyes nearly fall out of his skull at the ease with which the two perform such an action. G'raha's strong, broad hand wraps around the base of her cock, rubbing the quickly growing flesh there as her hands in Urianger's hair grow tighter to hold his head still, as her breath grows more ragged, as her hips begin to thrust – and then, with a snarl, she comes down Urianger's throat, and he greedily swallows it all down with a deep moan, lips kissing at G'raha's hand, which clutches tightly at Y'shtola's knot. The scent of pleasure and satisfaction suffuses the air, largely from Y’shtola, but he can smell Urianger as well, and even Thancred and G’raha.

Estinien is transfixed by G’raha’s broad hand massaging Y’shtola’s cock. He feels his mouth start to water, and forces his attention to Urianger’s throat, gulping down Y’shtola’s seed.

“Oh, don’t look so surprised, Estinien,” Y’shtola pants, savage smile still on her face as she grinds her hips into Urianger’s lips and G’raha’s fist. “This is what packs are for. Urianger, like many Omegas, can become… overly eager during heat. He enjoys having something in his mouth during his heats, but I won't have him trying to take my knot orally, not today. That reminds me, actually – bring us a glass of water, would you?" She flaps a hand in his direction.

He realizes that he has just been standing there by the pile of furniture, gawping like an idiot pup with his prick erect in his trousers. In an effort to flee that position, he goes where Y’shtola gestured: a table laden with food and drink, simple fare that can be eaten by hand and will not go bad if left to sit for a while, mostly crackers, grapes, salted meats, and cheeses. There are two pitchers of water there as well, and some wooden mugs. He pours from the half-empty pitcher and brings the cup of water to the nest.

Thancred has not stopped his attentions, but is currently just circling his hips, letting Urianger savor Y’shtola’s release without jostling him too much. Urianger is milking the last of the spend from Y’shtola until she grips him firmly and removes him from her (G’raha takes that as his cue to let go of her knot), having Urianger rest his head upon her thick thigh. He mouths idly at her cock, kissing and licking it, eyes still dazed and drool starting to leak from his mouth. She gently tugs at his hair to have him tilt his head back, then moves the mug for him to drink from it. He takes a few distracted sips – Y’shtola has to urge him to swallow more, and Thancred rumbles “Drink, sweetheart,” until the mug is empty and the Alphas are satisfied.

“Very good. So good for us, Urianger,” she croons, stroking his hair and scratching behind his ears. “Wonderful job, darling. Perfect.” She continues the stream of praise, and Thancred purrs in agreement, kissing up Urianger’s neck and rubbing his torso. Urianger sighs in dazed pleasure at the attention, nuzzling into her thigh.

G’raha looks up at Estinien and pats the space next to him with a hopeful smile. Estinien ignores the suggestion and continues to stand just outside of the nest. He shouldn’t be part of this moment, as this Omega is coddled and pampered by his mate and pack. He’s not one for such things. But he can’t make himself walk away. Thancred glances at him once, but doesn’t seem to find his presence a threat to his mate anymore, and stays focused on lavishing affection and praise on Urianger.

That focus doesn’t last for too long, however. The kissing gets wetter, with more teeth, until Thancred is leaving sucking bites across Urianger’s shoulders. His hips start up their thrusting again, growing wilder and harder with no need to hold back anymore. As his cock slams into Urianger’s cunt, Urianger begins to let out high, hitching gasps in time with the sound of their hips smacking together. Drool leaves his mouth more freely, and his eyes start to roll up.

“So hot, so tight, so wet for me,” Thancred rumbles into Urianger’s neck, now loud enough for Estinien to understand. “Perfect, you’re perfect, Urianger, you’re mine, mine…”

“Yes – yes…!” Urianger replies in a low, frantic whine. The force of Thancred’s thrusts are moving him back and forth on the edge of the mattress, Urianger’s forehead bumping up against Y’shtola’s thigh. She presides over them with a heated, appreciative smile. G’raha watches as well, but with wide eyes and his mouth slightly ajar. One of his hands falls to Y’shtola’s knee, and she drops a kiss on the crown of his head. Their focus never leaves the pair in front of them.

Thancred, though, looks up for a moment to make eye contact with Estinien, teeth bared in a grin of fierce pride. Estinien’s breath catches in his throat despite himself – and he remembers, with a swoop of relief, that the overwhelming heat and rut pheromones filling the room will drown out anything that might be misconstrued. So instead he rolls his eyes, because he has no interest in stealing away Thancred’s mate.

But Thancred’s focus is firmly back on Urianger now. His hips are slamming into Urianger’s now, the sounds of their sweat-coated and slick-soaked joining echoing in the room. “Gonna knot you, sweetheart,” he groans. “You want that? You want me to fill you up, give you what you need?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Urianger chants. He looks like he’s about to rip the fabric beneath him with his bare hands, and his mouth is fully agape. His hair is a mess, and his expression one of desperate bliss. He's fully in the grip of his heat. “I beg thee – Thancred – finish within me – knot me, knot me–”

“Of course, angel, whatever you want, I’ll give you,” he pants (what a great burden for Thancred, how charitable, Estinien comments dryly to himself). Then he groans: “Oh, fuck–”

Thancred’s hips stutter once – once more – and then grind deep, deep into Urianger as he comes, knot fully catching within Urianger. His teeth sink deep once more into the side of Urianger’s neck where the bruises and bitemarks are thickest – the mating gland. He groans into his mate’s skin as Urianger lets out a whining gasp, and the Omega’s body tightens and shakes in shared orgasm with his mate. That’s one of the benefits of a mated pair having synced cycles (or so he understands) – when one comes, the other will almost certainly finish by way of shared pleasure and their bond. The knot in his cunt and the teeth in his neck probably helped Urianger along, though.

The moment hangs there, suspended – Thancred and Urianger tied together and riding out their orgasm on the floor, Y’shtola and G’raha drinking in the view from above them, and Estinien watching to the side, removed. The only sound in the room is heavy breathing.

And then – Thancred nudges at Urianger, gently moving them to lay down together on their sides. Thancred doesn’t attempt to pull out – in a mated rut, it’s unlikely the knot will die down for a while. Urianger shudders and whines at the movements, and Thancred rumbles and hums soothingly, rough scarred hands stroking his sides and thighs. They don’t fully cuddle against each other – to do so with their height difference and current attachment would necessitate the removal of Thancred’s teeth from Urianger’s neck, which neither seems to want – but while the position should look awkward, it instead looks comfortable, easy.

Estinien doesn’t feel envious – Urianger is lovely, and Thancred is objectively handsome, but Urianger is thoroughly taken, and Thancred is an Alpha – and he has never imagined himself having a mate – but. But seeing them there in the nest, close and comfortable as their packmates watch over them –

He can understand the appeal, for those who like this kind of thing.

The hanging, quiet moment is concluded by Y’shtola rising from her seat in the nest. She stretches her arms and cracks her neck, letting out a mmh as she does. Her breasts shift with the movement and her cock is soft between her legs, but her nudity doesn’t detract from her air of dignity. She picks her way out of the nest, stepping over the pair on the floor, and brushes past Estinien to the food table.

“Do you know what we were occupied with prior to this, Estinien?” she asks, pouring her own mug of water.

“Having sex,” he answers. Obviously.

She chuckles. Not obviously, then. “I meant before our current status quo. We were… how to put this…”

“I could explain!” G’raha chimes in.

She raises an eyebrow, then nods. “Keep it light on magical theory for Estinien’s sake, please.”

Estinien feels no need to protest his intelligence because he genuinely has no desire to hear about magical theory at the level these Sharlayan scholars probably practice it at.

Y’shtola starts cutting herself some slices of fruit, and G’raha starts explaining. There’s something about another world, and how the Scions weren’t in their physical bodies, but instead were in pseudo-bodies that their souls created to house themselves, and something to do with G’raha himself – thank the Fury the Miqo’te is dumbing it down, because this is already incoherent and also probably mostly irrelevant to Estinien.

G’raha is fully in his element elaborating on interdimensional travel and the substance of a soul, but when he starts explaining things that are actually relevant to the situation at hand he becomes more bashful. His hands, rather than moving with purpose, flutter about restlessly. “Urianger and Thancred – they became mates on the First, and reportedly they – ah – spent some time together, so to speak. But – true mating bonds, and heats, and such, they don’t – well, their souls approximated their bodies, which worked functionally for them to travel in, and they could get injured and such, but, ah–”

“Such constructed vessels are less complex dwellings than our true, entire bodies,” says a deep, raspy voice from the floor. Urianger is pushing himself up on one elbow. Thancred grunts at the disturbance; he slings his arm over Urianger’s waist and tangles their ankles together. “Tis logically simple that where a blade pierces or a blow bludgeons, physical pain should erupt: our facsimile forms were quite able to handle interpreting such injury, for better or for worse.” He absently lays a hand upon Thancred’s side. “And emotions, being purely of the heart… aye, those were ripe to bloom upon that other world, within a safe haven kept for a devoted protector and beloved charge.” A besotted smile grows on his face. Ugh. “Intimate relations were indeed possible, and they were, ah, had. But such ineffable experiences as bonds, heats, and ruts – such things can only truly happen when hearts and bodies are properly intertwined.”

“I’ll intertwine with your heart and body,” Thancred mutters from the floor. G’raha lets out a sharp surprised bark of a laugh, and Urianger gives Thancred a pinch on the arm in retaliation, though one corner of his mouth is lifted.

“It’s as Urianger so eloquently described,” G’raha continues with a grateful look to the Omega. “Now that they’ve returned to their real bodies, their biology has a lot of… catching up to do.”

“You could have said just that,” Estinien comments. “The rest of it doesn’t really matter.”

“Estinien, you give off the impression of being a fundamentally incurious person,” Y’shtola says, wandering back over with two plates of food. One she passes down to Urianger, and the other she keeps for herself as she sits back down next to G’raha. She puts her feet up on Thancred’s shin. He moves them off. She puts them back on.

Estinien shrugs. “I know what I need to know. Or what someone decides to tell me.”

Urianger takes a small slice of some type of dense brown bread and takes a bite, giving a contented hum. He tries to feed the other half to Thancred, who opens his mouth, but upon smelling it he goes, “Urgh, no, the loaf’s all yours.” Urianger shrugs, and retracts his hand.

He then looks over at Estinien. “Ser Estinien–”

“He doesn’t want us calling him Ser,” G’raha interrupts.

“Estinien,” Urianger continues, “Tis a pleasure to finally meet thee. Master Alphinaud hath spoken of thee at great length.” Oh, Halone. “I regret that we make our formal introductions in such… intimate circumstances, and I apologize for not greeting thee properly upon thy arrival.”

“It’s fine,” Estinien says, because what else is he supposed to say? Oh, Serah Urianger, what a dreadful affront to etiquette that thou didst not cease getting plowed to stand at attention and curtsey at me?

“But upon thy entrance to the room, a faint part of my mind was able to discern that thou didst bear the scents of the young Masters Leveilleurs and our esteemed Mistress Tataru – and I swiftly ascertained that all was well.”

Estinien sees Y’shtola nudge Thancred with her foot, and he nudges her back with his. Tch.

Urianger doesn’t acknowledge the two Alphas’ behavior, staying focused on the newcomer. “For now, however, may I suggest sitting beside Y’shtola and G’raha within the nest? ‘Twill let us get used to thy scent in this lull, if thou dost not wish to participate in the next round of activity.”

A reasonable proposition. Finally, someone who doesn’t just assume things of him. He still doesn't know if he wants to participate in an Omega's heat – he can't say he dislikes being in a room with these people, but a heat is... well. Still, it’s an invitation from an Omega to enter their nest, which isn’t to be scorned lightly. He sits beside G’raha, leaving a respectable few ilms of space between them that G’raha immediately closes to lean his cheek against Estinien’s arm, placing his scent upon him once more.

“Despite the inelegant initial entrance, in many ways this is a rather fortuitous time to join the Scions,” Y’shtola says, patting G’raha’s knee. “Being in the den during a heat certainly speeds up the pack-bonding process. Especially during one like this, where we’re all very… invested in sensation.” She absentmindedly gropes her breast, fiddling with her dark metal piercing. G’raha glances down at the motion, then his eyes snap back to Estinien. “Though I am not in rut, it has been enjoyable feeling such things fully once again. And G’raha, with his new lease on life, has been very eager.”

G’raha laughs self-effacingly, rubbing the back of his neck (which makes his scent flood Estinien’s senses again). ‘Eager’ – Estinien supposes that the Warrior, as an adult Beta, has been receiving some attention from G’raha, since one pack Omega is thoroughly taken and the other is a Lalafell (and in any case, she gives off the impression of being too busy for such things).

“I’ll admit, I’m… surprised you’re letting another Alpha in,” Estinien ventures. “Over half your pack is Alphas. And no Head.”

The rest of them take a moment to think this over, seeming to do the math in their heads. “Thou art correct in thy observations,” Urianger agrees. “From what I understand, such a pack would be most uncommon in Ishgard.”

Without moving his face from Urianger’s skin, Thancred recites, “Most Ishgardian packs are composed of Alphilineally-related mated pairs and their pups, with a dominant Alpha for every generation. Very complicated pack-tree diagrams woven into tapestries for the higher houses, and very little scent socialization outside of the pack in general, with exceptions for certain long-term military units. Close-knit, rigidly hierarchical, and insider-versus-outsider focused, although that’s all levels of Ishgardian society, not just the packs. And then there’s the traditionally gender-segregated professions and forms of address and different types of etiquette… makes it all very hard to infiltrate, from what I’ve heard, though luckily that was never my job.”

Estinien resists the urge to squirm at hearing it all laid out so… academically. For all that Thancred seems more rough around the edges, the man does have the same hometown as the boy.

“But this is not Ishgard,” Y’shtola says. Her strange pale eyes slide over to him. It feels like she’s looking right through him. “We’re all our own people. We can reach accords through discussion and compromise. And when you’ve been through what we’ve been through together, such things matter much less.”

“Caring for one another, in body and in soul, til the bonds betwixt us are so strong as to transcend the fabric of worlds… what do we care for hierarchy?” Urianger’s eyes close. Estinien is getting the sense that the other Elezen is naturally long-winded and flowery, even more than Alphinaud (is Estinien the only Elezen in the world that knows how to be succinct? Wait, shit, he forgot Alisaie again). “All of us have traits that allow us to thrive where another may stumble, or those that necessitate support from those we can trust. I am proud of what we have built, and most humbled by my inclusion in it. ‘Tis a lovely pack to have.”

Thancred mutters something that sounds a lot like It also helps that we’re not in a conservative military setting. Then, at a proper volume, “All that to say – these things are only difficult if you make them difficult. Hard, sometimes, like right now, ha–” he gives a small thrust where he's still within Urianger, who gasps and drops the bit of food he was holding. Y’shtola rolls her eyes. G’raha also drops his piece of food. “–But us Scions do rather well for ourselves. Most nation-states agree.”

“All nation-states but one,” Y’shtola says. “You two would be passing through Ala Mhigo right now, according to your original schedule.”

Thancred shrugs. “Well, better for our cycle to start here in the den then in Garlemald. Warmer, for one thing, and not being able to keep our hands off each other isn’t conducive to stealth. And our plans are as flexible as we are, which you’ve all seen for yourselves.” He gives a dirty grin. Urianger’s ears color at the innuendo, but then he does something that makes Thancred grunt and squeeze Urianger's hip.

Y’shtola hums, then comments with a wicked smile, “You know, Estinien, being back in their bodies isn’t the only reason they’re so frenzied.” Urianger busies himself with pulling a pillow closer to him, adjusting his nest. Thancred sighs aggrievedly, and reaches across Urianger to take a bit of dried meat with one hand, stroking Urianger's hip and thigh with the other. “You should have heard the filth they were spouting earlier but an hour ago. Breeding this, pups that. I’ve never seen such a case of empty den syndrome.”

“Y’shtola…” Thancred growls.

“Thou speak as though thou art not feeling the absence of the pack that thou didst affiliate with in the Greatwood,” Urianger retorts with a raised eyebrow, in spite of the flush on his entire face.

Y’shtola’s brow furrows and she opens her mouth to fire back, but G’raha slips in, saying warmly, “I think we’re all finding something here we sorely miss or need. To feel you all near me – with my body how it was for so long and the isolation I maintained, the sensation of togetherness is – I can hardly describe how wonderful it is.” The other three melt into fond smiles, probably because they have more context than Estinien does.

Even without that knowledge, though, G’raha’s words… resonate. Estinien has not been this close to others in years. Since he left Ishgard at the end of the war, definitely. The time he spent with van Baelsar and his crew was as hunters, focused entirely on their prey, and Garleans were at best uncomfortable with or fetishistically fascinated by the rest of the world’s biology, and at worst viscerally disgusted. (Estinien got the impression that Gaius had some rather strange ideas about how Estinien’s cock worked, but it was never something they discussed in detail while skulking about the capital’s streets. He’d seen some incredibly vulgar illustrations in some profoundly racist propaganda pamphlets, though.) Just to be in a proper den where touch was given freely and scents weaved together in the air…

“Ah – hm. I hate to interrupt the moment,” Thancred says, “Very sweet and all, but my cock’s telling me our intermission is fast coming to an end.”

They certainly smell ready to go again. He hasn't gotten a good read on Thancred and Urianger’s personal scents yet, only those two are a happily mated Alpha and Omega.

Y’shtola scents the air as well. “So it would seem. Do you want our participation for this round?”

The mated pair lean their heads together and murmur quietly, and it takes maybe thirty seconds for Urianger to nod to the group, Thancred following suit.

Y’shtola leans back against the pillows. “I’m spent a while longer, unfortunately, but…” she turns to the Alphas beside her with a dangerous smirk. “I have an idea for these two, if you’d all like to hear it.”

G’raha’s attention is immediately fixed on Y’shtola, ears flicking with interest. Estinien almost opens his mouth to say No, because he has no interest in sticking his cock in this Omega, even for the sake of bonding. Also (he reminds himself) what does he care about pack bonding with these people?

Then he glances at Y’shtola, which was a mistake. She’s giving him a challenging, provoking smile that bares her sharp canines. And Fury help him, but what comes out of his mouth is, “Go on.”

“I wouldn’t dare ask those two to separate,” she begins with a flick of her hand to the pair on the floor, who are shifting around in the blankets. Thancred’s hand has snuck between Urianger’s thighs, rubbing at his cunt. His cock has finally left his mate – Estinien can see its head between Urianger’s thighs, already mostly hard again. Estinien has heard from lurid barrack gossip that a rut’s already short refractory period shrinks even further when synced with an Omega’s heat, keeping an Alpha erect for the vast majority of the cycle, and while the reality isn’t exactly the nonstop swiving the virgin peers of his youth made it out to be, it’s still impressive. And probably exhausting. Estinien can’t believe more Alphas don’t drop dead of blood pressure problems. “That leaves Urianger’s poor mouth unoccupied. Our previous positions satisfied Urianger quite well, wouldn’t you say so, dear?”

Urianger glances up. “Hm? A-ah, indeed.”

“Thanks for satisfying his oral fixation,” Thancred adds, not looking away from his work. He must be good with his hands, considering Urianger is too distracted to launch into yet more repartee, only into little sighs and moans.

“It was my pleasure. But even Urianger’s clever mouth can’t fit the both of you at once.” She turns back to Estinien and G’raha. “So in the interest of pleasing all of you – G’raha, you shall fill Urianger’s mouth from Estinien’s lap.” G’raha’s eyes widen and his pupils blow. He bites his lip. The scent of his arousal floods Estinien’s senses, and it makes him lightheaded.

Then Y’shtola continues: “And Estinien, from there, you shall fill our G’raha Tia.”

“No,” he says aloud, harsh, his mouth moving from the depths of his psyche. It’s hard to see, all of a sudden. Hard to hear, past a roaring. Everything has - stopped. Split.

Y’shtola raises an eyebrow. “It was merely a suggestion.”

G’raha’s brow furrows. “Estinien…” He reaches out a hand. Estinien – steps back. Away. Out of the nest. Away from the hand. Away from their eyes.

“What the fuck are you talking about,” he demands. “That’s disgusting.”

Y’shtola’s eyes narrow. “What’s disgusting, Estinien.” Her tone is suddenly dangerous, ice-cold, and her scent hardens into protect and power and threat, but that sort of hostility is what Estinien knows best, is what he’s suited for. It’s nearly a relief, how it feels like the right sort of thing, when she just suggested something that rips open Estinien’s skin. Too exposed. Too damning.

He can’t pry his teeth apart. They’re all staring at him, even the two on the ground. All of them, walked in on and vulnerable, naked and sweaty and covered in slick and come, and they still exert all the power in the room. Because they’re all in a pack together. Because they think they know better than him. He’s some sort of unknown animal to them, something to guard against and eject from the core, to keep around on a chain as a guard dog because they know better than to let him in so that he can’t taint them, because something’s bone deep wrong with him. Many things. Too many. Born and built.

He’s growling. G’raha is standing between him and the nest, hand still held out. Y’shtola remains on her throne, but her face is an imperious glare, her ears are low against her head, and the air around her near crackles. Thancred is near pinning Urianger to the ground in an effort to cover him. Urianger runs his hand up and down Thancred’s side, but even his eyes are trained on Estinien.

It’s a long, tense, painful pause. The seconds drag past like knives on his skin. Every hair on his body is standing up.

G’raha is the one to break the silence. “I apologize on behalf of this pack for any misunderstandings,” he says slowly, firmly, letting just enough Alpha into his tone and scent to give him unbreachable authority but not so much that Estinien would feel compelled to start a physical fight. “I think Y’shtola’s question is a good place to start. What’s ‘disgusting,’ Estinien?”

Estinien forces out, “Two Alphas doing that.”

G’raha’s brow lifts nearly imperceptibly. “Is it the act itself, or the participants?”

“Fuck off,” he snarls. He’s being handled. He fucking hates it. This little Alpha, weak enough to be ordered around by the others, is trying to pin him through words, and it’s all too humiliating, and he can’t stand it. He wants out. He doesn’t know what he was thinking. He should never have come here. He should leave, scrub off all the damn scents smeared on him, trek to the furthest corner of the star where no one can see through him or touch him or know too much of him ever again. But G’raha Tia’s red eyes hold him in place.

“This isn’t Ishgard, Estinien.” Y’shtola’s posture is still tense, ready to spring up at a moment, but her face has softened just a little, and the pity – the pity is even worse. It feels like scalding water, like flames on his skin, like – “We’re not going to send you to be whipped for preferring Alphas.”

His first impulse is to deny the accusation, but that’s too obvious. But staying silent is as well. He learned that lesson long ago. There’s nothing he can do.

The pity is worse than the anger, aye, but the complete lack of surprise from everyone in the room is the real spear in the gut.

“Estinien,” Urianger says in a low, soothing voice, doing that thing some Omegas can do with their undertone to try to relax people. He moves out from under Thancred and pushes up on his elbows. He’s pouring out pure Omega pheromones of warm and care and everything’s all right, enough to be sensed through the scents of heat and rut and tension permeating the room. His weakness is enough to jolt an Omega from sinking back into heat with his Alpha above him. “I know not thy past experiences, but I promise that in this place, thy desires are not seen as – strange, or out of the ordinary, or cause for revulsion or shame. The only shame to be felt is upon us, for speaking without taking into account the sensitivity of certain topics in your homeland. I believe we all took our assumptions as unspoken fact, when such personal intimacies are best handled with more delicacy with a newfound colleague.”

“I absolutely agree with Urianger,” G’raha says, calmly. His hand is still outstretched, palm up, the whole time. “I too assumed, and I have let my eagerness override your comfort the entire time you’ve been here, Estinien. I apologize for overstepping.”

Something deep in him whines at the idea of G’raha regretting touching him. But that wretched something is the cause of all this mess.

“I apologize as well for getting carried away,” Y’shtola says. “I–”

“How did you know,” he whispers hoarsely.

The room falls silent once more. The four of them glance at each other without moving their heads. They all knew. Fury, they knew the moment he walked in the door.

Thancred is the one to finally speak. “Once I wasn’t in the middle of things, it was fairly obvious that you have little to no interest in Omegas. Yours is not the typical reaction of an Alpha entering a heat nest, especially when compared to these two.” He points at the Miqo’tes. “They’ve been very interested in all the proceedings, emitting a baseline flow of arousal pheromones, whereas you’ve been rather more… selective.”

“And you were able to notice that,” he says stiffly. How many others have noticed, over his life? How many have seen right through him?

“I don’t know if most people would,” Thancred responds, and the bit of sympathy in his voice stings. “I have a degree in this sort of thing. Er, in social group dynamics and the political applications thereof, not just pheromones and swiving.” He taps the tattoo on his neck, which means he also taps the lower end of the bruised scar from his mating bite. From an Omega. Like a proper Alpha.

“Estinien, you should know – you are not alone in feeling such things,” G’raha ventures, seemingly reading his mind. “It is not merely our teamwork and shared pasts that allow our pack to cohere so well. I – that is to say, we – share intimacies between two Alphas.”

“You can’t tell me you didn’t notice me tell G’raha to milk my knot, and him jumping to do so,” Y’shtola says. The wry humor in her voice helps, strangely. Perhaps because it invites him to find something in this situation besides shame. “This is not the first time we’ve shared a nest. Or a bed, a floor – a table, even. And you said yourself that the Scions are mostly Alphas. Of those of us who partake in this sort of pack bonding, we have Urianger, of course, and the Warrior, usually, but sexual contact between Alphas is more common than not around here.”

There is this tangle, this tug-of-war inside Estinien’s head, one that has been there ever since he was a youth. One that has watched Alphas struggle and grapple and pin each other, flesh pressing closer than ever allowed elsewhere, teeth digging into napes of necks in fights for dominance as two unstoppable forces met in a snarl of aggression and violence. Oftentimes it seemed close to sex: one person atop the other as bodies collided out of pure instinct. But of course it wasn’t. Even those that were less violent, the contests and the displays, were carried out with the knowledge that everyone who bore witness knew it was not sexual, that it was merely an exhibition of power. Knowledge that Estinien felt he had to remind himself of twice as many times as everyone else.

Estinien had participated in many such fights, and the majority of them were for the sake of letting loose the aggression and anger that dwelled within him. Outlets for that roaring beast within him, that demanded he go further, that he rip their throats out with his teeth. And the other creature, the wretched thing he has always tried to ignore, who cried out for contact, and that was the closest it ever thought it would get. There were many reasons he had left living among others behind, and if he were to reflect, he might acknowledge that those core, barely-controlled things within his soul were two of the most significant.

Urianger hums, a low, steady note in his Omegan register. “Upon this opportunity to reflect, I admit I feel quite fortunate that where the majority of our company spent our youngest years, society doth not place as many rigidities upon different genders.” He rolls onto his back and rests his head on a pillow, looking up past Thancred to the stone ceiling. “Certain cultures, including many in Eorzea, place a host of burdens and expectations upon the people, creating various types of violence from others and from themselves. In Sharlayan, however, where I was raised, we strive for equality among our people, with sex and gender largely private things that have little place in public society. Indeed, the placements of our archon marks–” he taps the tattoo on his cheek, the one that the other three have on their necks “–Traditionally impart the triumph of rational thinking over base instinct. Of course, there must be balance in all things, and such instincts cannot be denied – but we can treat each other well as a society and as individuals regardless of differences in body, behavior, and need. It is something that can be lost if not constantly strived for, but on the whole I felt safe.”

Urianger’s voice is measured, steady, deep. Soothing. “Culture often gawks at what it is afraid of. Tales of barbarity in ‘uncivilized’ Eorzea would reach our shores: dominance and submission displays performed in broad daylight in front of onlookers; Alphas murdering each other in dominance struggles; Omegas forced into arranged unions upon their first proper heat; statistics in certain dangerous professions skewing one way or the other; people who were taken advantage of, and those with the power to take advantage. I paid most attention to the ones concerning the oppression of my gender – those did constitute the majority of the tales. How many of these accounts were true, I know not – but I know that not all were false. Most were not.

“For the majority of my time in Eorzea, I scarcely left the Scions’ headquarters, and never without smothering myself in scent-cloaking fabrics. The others will readily tell thee what an affront to sartorial sensibilities they found those robes.” He smiles wryly – pauses for one such comment – but Thancred just strokes his hair. Urianger’s eyes flick around the room, as if trying to see if any of them are waiting for him to be done – but the others are giving him time to speak, and Estinien finds his impromptu tale soothing, not merely because of his voice. Urianger continues. “One of the reasons for my hermitage was that I was… overwhelmed with fear and anxiety. The world had been upended. The land had barely been saved from annihilation, and yet cruelty ran rampant, lawless and lawful both. I was a newcomer to these shores, even more sheltered than many of my Sharlayan peers, and without urgent purpose and patient mentor to guide me, I retreated to the closest thing I had to a den, and stayed there. My concerns were not wholly invalid. Eorzea is quite different from Sharlayan, especially for one born and raised there such as I. I hid myself because I felt that doing so wouldst keep me safe. And I did indeed stay safe – here I am, whole before thee. But doing so also hid the world from mine own eyes and heart. Stranger and friend were distant from me, and could not hurt me – nor help me. And thus I stayed, focused on the tasks I set myself and buried in my books, unable to move. Unable to connect.

“I am now far wiser in the world and know how to keep myself from danger.” He lifts a hand above his head, and magic shimmers at his fingertips. “But more importantly – I have a pack that I trust with my body, heart, and soul. The world may be uncertain and frightening, wholly different from what I expected it to be when I was young, plunging further into chaos with each day – but it is all bearable when I have loved ones at my side.” He smiles gently at Estinien. “It can be difficult to trust others with the tenderest, most vulnerable depths of one’s heart. But it is necessary. Having strong bonds of trust and love within and without the heart is more effective in helping a person walk tall than any succor a healer may offer. Each person here can attest to this – of the terror, the difficulty, and the necessity of it all. I hope thou may know such blessings during thy life. I hope the Scions may bestow some unto thee.” He holds eye contact with Estinien for a long moment, communicating almost unbearable sympathy, but Estinien cannot look away.

Then Urianger chuckles, diffusing the weight of the moment like a child with a dandelion. “If, of course, thou can forgive us for failing to consider that not every person was brought up in the social mores of Sharlayan.”

Estinien… doesn’t know what to say. It’s all so much. It’s all so, so much. He remembers watching Ishgard’s great stone walls crumble under claw and flame, the bricks plummeting into the abyss that surrounds the city – the terror at the structure of the world collapsing. He remembers the moment he lost control, the moment he loosened that tight grip on his heart he has always, always kept on it – he became a monster, one that soared on the wind and sunk its claws into the stonework. He remembers the clear blue sky as he walked away from Ishgard, from what he had and what he had never had. The wind in his hair. He couldn’t stay there. To stay would be to be something he no longer could bear to be. And he had wanted…

He had wanted to go out into the world, and see what there was beyond what he had known. To see what place there might be for him.

In this moment, in this den, in this nest, he manages to move numb lips to say, “Aye.” And he’s not quite sure what he means by that, beyond I heard you. But in the air – the tension is starting to leak away. He can tell his own scent is calming down, and the others are responding in kind. Urianger’s pheromones are warm, all pack calm happiness bonding, and with the panic clearing, Estinien can properly notice what he's done, in words and body, to ease the room. Ease him. There’s no stink of fear in the room besides his own – he has smelled those calming pheromones before when an Omega is trying to dissipate a conflict, but they’re often mixed in with fright over the potential of a fight. But they weren’t scared of him. They had no need to be. There is nothing to be scared of here.

G’raha takes a step forward, neck slightly tilted to show he is no threat, and Estinien allows him to approach. And then the other Alpha places that open hand on his bicep. He clears his throat. “For my part, I feel very fortunate that I have spent most of my life in places that do not place as many harsh boundaries on desires in that way. Ah, not to be too personal, but perhaps you might like to know – it usually takes heat pheromones for me to have much interest in Omegas,” he says steadily, despite the blush staining his face. “Most of the time, Betas and Alphas are the ones who turn my head.” He squeezes Estinien’s arm, and then retreats a few steps towards the nest. Y’shtola raises an eyebrow at Estinien with a knowing smile. At G’raha or at him, he isn’t sure, but now that the nest has settled, now that there is harmony and peace, the pheromones are beginning to turn to the matter actually at hand.

Thancred, down in the heart of the nest, raises his hand and volunteers, “I've fucked – and been fucked by – a good few Alphas before, for work and for pleasure. Hells, Y'shtola and I fooled around off and on when we were younger – oh, don't be like that, Urianger.”

Urianger narrows his eyes. “I know not what thou art referring to. Thou knowest as well as I that I spoke true, I have nothing against–”

Thancred smiles like a dog that spied a rabbit. “Not that. I caught that little whiff of jealousy.”

“As did I.” Y’shtola leans forward and grins. “Terrible habit. I thought us Alphas were supposed to be the possessive ones.”

“Pray forgive me for my feelings being somewhat uncontrollable during heat, especially one that hath become so emotionally charged,” Urianger replies tartly, and drags Thancred forward to sloppily kiss him. Thancred lets out a surprised mmph! but quickly gives as good as he's getting.

Estinien shifts, uncertain where to look. "Don’t worry about them," Y’shtola tells him in a knowing undertone, back to smug mischief as if she had not been poised to tackle him five minutes ago. The pheromones aren't getting to just him, it seems. "Tis a strange method of flirting left over from before they bonded. They’re having too much fun as it is.”

Thancred is now fingering his spend back into Urianger’s cunt where it had leaked out, and Urianger has his legs spread, rocking his hips up towards Thancred. (Estinien is vaguely aware that if it wasn’t for his primary concern of having a minor personal crisis, he would have been much more scandalized with how shameless these people are). He wants to be sure, before he gets any more invested – because he knows what he is, and what he isn’t, and what he can't and won't do. “Aren’t heats for giving the Omega attention?”

Urianger looks away once more from his mate. Thancred, seeming unsurprised that he was so easily put aside for the opportunity to answer a question, keeps at it. “One of the main social purposes of a heat, ahhh ccording to recent research, is to reinforce and prove the stability of the pack. Harmonious adults within a pack indicates safety and security, as well as a more opportune environment for the group rearing of pups – oh,” he breaks off as Thancred does something particularly intentional. “Overall, I believe that heats are a wonderful – mm – opportunity for pack bonding, and in the throes of my delirium I would simply be – ah! – delighted that all were in pleasurable accord with each other, so to speak.”

“And you’ve helped ensure that, Urianger,” Y’shtola croons, hungrily focused on the pair in front of her. “You’ve done a very good job with all your lovely words. Now it’s time to let go again, and let us take care of you.” Urianger moans, and melts under her words and Thancred’s hands, and the room is suffused with heat once more.

“Perhaps in a non-synchronous heat or rut, there would have been more of, ah – rotation of positions and partners between the members of the pack,” G’raha says quietly, trying to stay looking at Estinien but unable to keep his eyes from flicking back over to the heart of nest. “But I think the attention we’ve been giving this particular Omega suits our current situation the best.”

“I heartily agree,” Thancred adds, watching Urianger’s face contort with pleasure and rubbing his free hand over his mate’s stomach. “Estinien, you joining the…” he supplements with some rude but evocative gestures from his free hand, “...with G’raha would make both of us much happier than you standing there watching. Only if you want to, of course.”

And that’s the worst part. He does want to. He wants to get his hands all over G’raha Tia, wants to grip his cock, wants to breathe in his Alpha arousal – wants to cause it. Wants to grab his arms in turn – the casual strength and the unashamed willingness of his touch had stoked something in him. That same something that he had muzzled for his entire life, that is now straining at the sight of freedom.

His dick is also straining in his trousers. G’raha can’t keep his eyes from glancing at that either and he’s doing a poor job of hiding it.

No one in this room is really interested in concealing their desires, he thinks. He has long hated the overly-complicated twists and turns people create to perform and lie and waste time – and here he is, the only one in the room doing that. Why the hell is he still clinging to it? It’s fucking exhausting.

“Whatever you like, Estinien, be it what Y’shtola suggested or not – I’d be happy to.” G’raha bites his full lower lip. Here’s an Alpha who desires him as much as he desires him, telling him that whatever he wants to do with him is more than alright.

Estinien may be a depressed, traumatized, formerly-possessed hick, but he’s not fucking stupid. He darts forward and seizes G’raha’s face in his hands and leans down and damn kisses him.

G’raha gasps into his mouth, and it quickly turns into a low groan. He stands on his tiptoes to reach him, and firmly pulls Estinien down by his shoulders.

He will not be telling the Scions, but this is his first proper kiss. There had been kisses on his cheek and his forehead, back in the farthest reaches of his memory. There had been moments, when he had thought, feared, hoped… but those were lost chances of the past. There had never been anything like this, open-mouthed and voracious. He does his best to keep up, to match G’raha’s motion and rhythm. He nearly bites down in surprise when G’raha licks into his mouth. His tongue is slightly rough, which is different but not bad. Good, really – good in the same way as how G’raha is gently biting and nipping his lip. His canines are sharper than Estinien’s, and it makes his blood thrum. G’raha is eager and energetic, fluid and comfortable to counter Estinien’s lingering stiffness and inexperience.

Without pulling away from him, G’raha plucks his hands from where they had been hovering in the air and guides them to rest on his shoulders. He's built in the way that Estinien recalls archers being, and he can’t stop himself from sliding his hands down G’raha’s back, feeling the solid expanse of muscle there. Estinien quickly loses himself in their kissing, feeling a thrill of achievement every time he hears a sigh or mm from G’raha. He hadn’t known it could be like this. He can’t get enough.

G’raha moves them to the nest, walking backwards until his legs hit the higher mattress without breaking the kiss. Then he nudges – shoves, really – Estinien to turn with him, and now Estinien is being pushed onto the mattress and G’raha is straddling his lap, naked and beautiful. Like this, neither of them have to stretch to reach each other’s mouths, and G’raha presses in close. Estinien wishes had taken his shirt off, to feel their bare skin against each other, but he’s unwilling to stop. G’raha holds him by the base of his head, fingers weaving through his hair, thumbs stroking behind his ears. His aroused scent is incredible this close, nearly addicting, and Estinien's kisses turn even messier with how his mouth hangs open to breathe more of him in.

A loud groan snags his attention. Thancred is kneeling behind Urianger, who is once again on his knees, fully presenting for Thancred with his shoulders to the floor, whining and sighing as Thancred slides into him. Y’shtola is kneeling next to Urianger’s face, cupping his chin to have him suck on her fingers. He treats them with almost as much adoration as he had her cock, his tongue sliding and flickering along them. Thancred’s eyes close for a moment once he hilts Urianger, and he lets out another one of those moans that had grabbed Estinien's attention. Deep, throaty, through gritted teeth – pleased with what he’s gotten yet desperate for more. Just how Estinien feels at this moment.

G’raha rocks into Estinien’s lap with a growl at his inattention. The other Alpha’s cock is hard and flushed and thick, and Estinien wants to touch it so badly, but he can’t bring himself to. He just moves his hands to G’raha’s hips, stopping before he gets too close, letting his thumbs stray down those hipbones.

G’raha gasps into his mouth, his eyelids fluttering. His lips go slack against Estinien’s, and when Estinien looks, he sees that Y’shtola has stood up from the floor and her hand, wet with Urianger’s spit, is underneath G’raha’s arse. She has a pleased smirk directed right at Estinien. It’s plainly a challenge, and it riles him in more ways than one, but what –

You shall fill our G’raha.

Oh. She’s – getting him ready. Stretching him with her fingers, so he can take Estinien’s cock in a hole not built to be fucked – not without people wanting to make it so. Estinien’s going to be inside him. He nearly comes in his trousers like a child at the thought, groaning and pressing his head to G’raha’s shoulder as G’raha pants in his ear, fingers pulling at his hair, and that feels good too.

Then Y’shtola’s free hand is on his cheek, guiding his face over G’raha’s shoulder, and then she’s kissing him. She’s much more direct than G’raha, in complete control of the kiss, and when Estinien tries to take some of that control, she leans into him, forcing him back and squishing G’raha between them, and the feeling of their bodies touching is incredible, and he wishes he could see Y’shtola’s breasts pressed against G’raha’s back. He can feel G’raha writhe and rub against both of them, enjoying the surrounding contact, and Estinien can feel the rhythm of him taking Y’shtola’s fingers in his movements.

Estinien lets out a growl into her mouth, and she laughs back at him, and it makes his head spin. Her lips, much like G’raha’s, are soft and plush. Quite the opposite of his. When she pulls away, she quirks an eyebrow in good humor and murmurs, “We’ll need to requisition you some lip balm.” She rubs her thumb over his lower lip, and his mouth hangs slightly open, and then she slips her thumb into his mouth and presses down on his tongue for a moment. They stare at each other, neither backing down – Y’shtola clearly waiting on him to do something that Estinien can only guess at. He tries closing his lips around her thumb and sucking, and that has her giving the scent of approval that he drinks in.

Thancred is talking now, down on the floor. “So fucking good for me,” he’s saying, thrusting slowly, the sound of him in Urianger’s cunt loud and sloppy in the humid air of the room. “So warm and wet for me, so tight, too, still – even after all the times I’ve knotted you, you still hold onto me so well.”

“I need thee,” Urianger pants from the floor. He raises his head for a moment, and there’s a line of drool going down his chin. His eyes are barely open, lashes fluttering as he shakes, as his eyes roll back. He loses his strength, and his head flops back down onto its pillow, and he nuzzles into it, blindly seeking even more comforting sensation. “Ardently, desperately, please, please…”

“You have me,” Thancred replies fervently, leaning forward to kiss at Urianger’s back. His thrusts pick up speed, and the movement jolts the pair forward, rubbing Urianger’s jaw in his own spittle. “You have me, and you’ll have our child as well. Gods, I can’t wait to see you knocked up – you’ll be even more beautiful, somehow – can’t wait for your tits to grow in – ” His speech is roughening and deepening, each phrase separated by rumbling, gasping inhales. “You’ll make such a good dam – my mate, mine, so lovely – you feel so perfect around me – ”

Urianger, for his part, seems unable to do anything but chant please, please, please as he kneels there and gets fucked. The scent and heat of their bonding makes the room humid and hot – almost akin to fever if it didn’t feel so intoxicating.

Y’shtola takes her hand from Estinien’s face, trailing her nails down his jaw, his neck, his shoulder, his arm, all the way to his hand on G’raha’s side. Everywhere she touches lights up with sensation, and he can’t fight back the shiver she causes. She wraps her fingers around his wrist and draws it forward, and the part of him that usually rails at being told what to do is completely drowning in the arousal he’s swimming in. His hand meets her other hand at G’raha’s arse, and there’s a rush of warm, wet aether around his fingers.

G’raha lets out a low whine as Y’shtola withdraws her fingers from his hole, and mumbles, “Why’d you stop?”

“I thought Estinien should learn by doing,” Y’shtola replies, stroking his arse with a hand, though she holds eye contact with Estinien. “Although I assume you have already figured most of this out yourself, Estinien, it’s in everyone’s best interests if an Alpha’s arsehole is stretched and lubricated before penetration. We don’t produce our own slick, and it’s best to avoid as much discomfort as one can.”

“Just let him finger me already, Y’shtola,” G’raha growls.

“Quiet,” she responds calmly, and slaps him on the arse with enough force (or with enough surprise) to send him flinching up against Estinien with a sharp inhale. Then she tilts her head and taps him on the wrist. “Well, you heard the man.”

He can’t see what he’s doing, but she put his hand where it needed to be. It isn’t hard to slip a finger into G’raha’s hole, which tightens around him at the same time G’raha gasps in Estinien’s ear. He’s warm inside, and tight, very tight. He imagines how it’ll feel around his cock, and while half his brain is excited in a very base way at warm and tight hole to fuck, some of him balks, still wrapping itself around the reality of this being something that two Alphas can do – that the people around him know how to do, are comfortable and eager to do. But this is meant to prepare for that, although Estinien isn’t sure what to do, so he just – waits, for a moment, until G’raha relaxes around him enough. He then thrusts his finger in and out, like one would a cock, because again, he isn’t sure what to do.

G’raha shifts in his lap. “Make circles,” he says. “Stretch me. Your next goal is to have me ready to take another one.”

From where she’s leaning up against his other side, Y’shtola quietly chuckles, and Estinien lets out a hrm in embarrassment, but acts on the advice. Soon enough, G’raha murmurs, “Good job. Another.”

The praise sends an unexpected thrill through him, and he begins to press another wet finger into him. G’raha takes a breath and holds it, his back arching as Estinien works both digits into him, his eyes closed and brow furrowed slightly. “You have – rather big hands,” he exhales, his body slowly, carefully relaxing against him.

Estinien must look uncertain, because Y’shtola chimes in, “It’s just an observation, Estinien. And probably a compliment as well.”

“Certainly a compli-hh-ment,” G’raha says, interrupted by a hitch of breath. “Mm. Keep going, please.”

So he does. He can feel G’raha getting used to the stretch and the motions of his hand, and he can hear the way his sounds transform from stifled acclimation to genuine pleasure. Then Y’shtola whispers in his ear, “Crook your fingers,” and he does, and G’raha lets out a low ohhhhh right in his other ear, his head lolling against Estinien’s shoulder, and Y’shtola gives him a pleased purr, and he’s sandwiched between them, their scents of arousal flooding his senses and mixing with his own, and it’s better than the shameful handjobs of his youth – he had never dreamed anything could be like this, so intense, and not even a hand on his own cock –

And there’s Y’shtola’s hand on his cock, through his trousers, and he lets out a startled hngh as she rubs and strokes at his erection. Even through cloth it feels good – slow and intentional and practiced, squeezing at certain places that have him groaning and bucking his hips, jostling G’raha in his lap, who yelps at the uncontrolled, uncoordinated movement of the fingers inside him.

“Oh, for heavens' sake,” he hears G’raha mumble, and then G’raha reaches back and grasps his wrist and holds his hand where he wants it, and he starts riding Estinien’s fingers like a toy, giving a steady stream of mh, mh, mh as he takes his pleasure from him. Estinien glances down, and sees G’raha’s cock bumping against the back of Y’shtola’s knuckles, smearing precum on her skin. He stares at the sight, entranced by the visual of the three of them, messy and uncoordinated and incredible.

Estinien needs – he takes his free hand from G’raha’s hip and fumbles with the fastening of his trousers, his hand bumping against Y’shtola, who does not stop her stroking, making it somewhat difficult to stay coordinated, but when his trousers are finally open, she draws his cock out and continues. And her skin on him feels even better, so much so that he lets out a moan – and it’s louder and longer than he thought it would be, and he’d be embarrassed except for how G’raha moans back with an audible smile, Y’shtola lets out an approving purr, and the two on the floor have been disgustingly noisy the entire time he’s been in here, so he can’t bring himself to care.

They continue on like this for a few moments that all feel long with how Estinien gets lost in them, the three of them intertwined in a way that should be clumsy and strange but is instead perfect –

Perfect, except for how they want more.

Y’shtola stops stroking him, and his grunt in protest quickly turns into a startled groan as starts again, only this time with G’raha’s cock in her palm as well, pressing their shafts together. G’raha’s noise in unison is nearly in harmony with his own (if he had an ear for such things), and their hips stutter against each other. They would fall entirely out of rhythm were it not for Y’shtola’s other hand on G’raha’s hip, keeping them moving in strict, perfect time.

Then G’raha sucks in a long, tremulous breath, and Y’shtola releases their cocks. “Close, close,” he hisses, and Y’shtola is still ahead of both of them, tugging Estinien’s hand from G’raha’s arse. G’raha clambers off Estinien with shaky legs, and Estinien’s hands trail after him pathetically, instinctually not wanting to let go. G’raha catches one of them with his own, and squeezes it with a smile. “Soon, soon, we just need to – get all the way situated,” he promises.

“Quite right. You’re far too overdressed,” Y’shtola comments, going to tug down the waist of Estinien’s trousers. Her hands pause, making eye contact with him, and he answers by lifting his hips and yanking his shirt over his head. G’raha takes it from him and tucks it into the nest – not too close to the heart, which makes sense (he’s not well-established here, and the main architect of the nest is currently preoccupied with keeping his head down and arse up), but woven in all the same. He can barely discern his own smell from the larger scent of the room – there’s just arousal, pack, lust, want, need.

He sits at the edge of the mattress, and G’raha slings a leg over his lap, his back facing Estinien. He almost leans forward to kiss at the expanse of skin in front of him, but he doesn’t. It’s a foolish thought. Imagining doing something like that feels like touching a hot oven, which is an even more foolish thought considering all that he and G’raha have already done and are about to do. The whole thing feels stupid to think about. He shoves it all aside and focuses on what’s happening in front of him.

Y’shtola has stood from where she was perched next to him and is enjoying a sip of water. She combs her hair back away from her face, and then stretches her shoulders. Her breasts move with her, and when she releases the stretch they bounce slightly. If G’raha were not settling himself on his lap he would try to suck her tit into his mouth, feel the metal of her piercing against his teeth, see if he could make the other Alpha sigh. Unlikely, given how coolly calm she’s kept herself throughout, but a man can dream.

“Go on, then,” she urges. “Take him.”

He’s not sure which of them she’s talking to, and that thought lights up his mind as G’raha lowers himself onto Estinien’s cock. His hole is tight, nearly too tight, and Estinien is glad G’raha is in control of the penetration, what with how the other Alpha is already letting out hissed exhalations with the stretch, because Estinien isn’t sure he could restrain himself. He feels like a newly presented pup, wanting to rut into hotwarmtight quickly and shallowly – his mind is drenched in this new, incredible sensation. He has never understood other Alphas’ obsession with penetration until now, because it was always Omegas this, Omegas that, but this, this is so – this is leagues better than his hand – the feel of G’raha, his scent, the way he sounds – distantly he can sense that he’s ripping the blankets with how desperately he’s trying not to grab G’raha’s hips and just shove in – he shouldn’t, but by the Fury does he want to – he wants it all, he wants it now –

“Focus, Estinien.” His attention snaps to Y’shtola like a man dying of thirst. She’s barely his height even while he’s sitting, but she looks down her chin at him anyway, and it makes him groan, fist the sheets tighter.

“Almost there,” G’raha pants, working his hips up and down carefully, in control of Estinien’s cock. “Stay still, good job, Estinien, you’re doing so well…”

And then there’s something about being praised by him, right now – G’raha above him, keeping him still and pinned down with nothing but his hips and his words, his desert-hot arousal pouring off of him, telling Estinien good job, all while taking Estinien’s cock inside of him, is so overwhelming to his addled mind that he nearly finishes right there, before G’raha is even fully seated on him. It’s only through Y’shtola’s imperious gaze that he manages to hold back until finally, finally, G’raha’s arse touches Estinien’s thighs. G’raha moans in relief, in accomplishment, and Estinien leans forward to press his forehead against his back, because he needs that – he doesn’t know why, but he does.

Y’shtola smiles at them approvingly (which makes his dick twitch inside G’raha, which makes G’raha chuckle breathily), and then reaches down and takes Urianger by the scruff. Urianger immediately melts with a whine, tilting his head as much as he can for her, bonelessly letting her drag his head up, long arms fumbling to get underneath himself in order to obey.

Thancred, however, snarls at her, biting at her fingers on Urianger’s neck. He manages to sink his teeth into her wrist, and though she hisses in pain she keeps her hand where she put it. She slaps him with her free hand, not too hard, but not lightly, either. “As we agreed,” she growls.

Thancred’s baring his teeth, and loud growling rumbles from his chest. His pupils are blown out to the point that there’s no color left in his eyes – he’s fully lost in the rut now, halfway to animal. “Mine.” His hips keep moving in Urianger, harder and more forceful, proving his claim. He tries to bite her again, but that free hand comes back and covers his mouth. He still tries again, seeming to just be trying to scratch her palm with his incisors, and she starts growling, her tail starting to puff out. Urianger hangs between them, hiccupping moans with each hit of Thancred’s hips, doing his best to stay where Y’shtola has dragged him – trying to obey both of them. Nearly invisible, with how the two of them are glaring into each other’s eyes, their growling drowning out his moaning in a strange almost-harmony.

“Goodness me,” G’raha murmurs breathlessly above him. Estinien can’t bring himself to blink. He could never keep his eyes off of dominance fights before, but this – all the bare skin, the pheromones of the room, the knowledge that the two of them have ‘fooled around’ before – was it like this? Snarling, biting, bare skin, savage aggression, pushing against each other all the way to the edge – all the things that Estinien sought out from his repressed brawls but could never conceive of, not like this, not with arousal so plain between them.

The stalemate is broken by Urianger managing to lunge forward to get his elbows on either side of Estinien’s thighs, resting his forehead on G’raha’s knees. The movement shook off Thancred and Y’shtola’s hands, and Urianger pants with the effort it must have taken – Estinien is aware that heats tend to put Omegas in a syrupy, slow, pliable state, with most of their energy going into the physical processes of the heat itself, which is why a fortified, comfortable nest and a trusted pack (and mate) are good things to have on hand. His pants have a keening to them – take care of me, I need help – and G’raha pets Urianger’s hair with praising murmurs. Estinien clumsily pats his shoulder, and feels a strange gratification when Urianger tips his head an ilm towards his hand.

Thancred and Y’shtola drop their contest and rush to press close to Urianger. Thancred kisses at his upper back and strokes his sides, humming apologetically, his thrusts slowed and gentle, and Y’shtola’s lips are pulled thin with a hint of embarrassment, brow furrowed as she twines her fingers with Urianger’s. Gently, now, she guides Urianger’s head to G’raha’s lap, giving murmurs of there we go, darling, you know what to do, and Thancred does nothing to object or obstruct.

G’raha rumbles as he cradles Urianger’s head in his hands, bringing him to rest more comfortably on his thighs. He doesn’t stick his dick in Urianger’s mouth yet, though, even when Urianger rubs his cheek against it – he keeps petting Urianger’s hair, looking over his shoulder at Estinien. “Ready?” he asks in a deep, wanting tone.

“If you are,” Estinien replies. His voice shakes, but only barely.

G’raha smiles kindly at him, and then lifts his hips enough for Y’shtola to reach between them and take hold of Estinien’s cock, holding it steady for G’raha to sink down onto.

The head of Estinien’s cock presses against him, and G’raha wiggles his hips once, twice – and he accepts Estinien into him, slowly, gradually, and thank the Fury G’raha’s going as slow as he is because Estinien’s already losing his mind at the amount of sensation he’s currently processing, he doesn’t think he could handle all of it at once. G’raha’s breathing is gravelly as he grips Estinien’s thigh with one hand and fists in Urianger’s hair with the other as he works his way down. There’s this resistance and stretch in him that makes Estinien want to take more, push more, see what will happen when he pushes too much and G’raha pushes back – but he makes himself freeze instead. He’s never been one for manners, but even he knows that would be bad form for a first lay. He sits and waits and feels.

Finally, after sweet perfect torture, G’raha sits down fully on his lap, and Estinien gasps involuntarily when his hole goes over the base of his cock where his knot forms. He isn’t sure about other Alphas, but for him, that’s – well, it’s where his hand spends a lot of its time, when the mood arises. The skin there is tougher than the skin of the rest of his shaft and his balls, but more sensitive. There’s a reason Alphas are so desperate to knot. Estinien has always been able to put two and two together, but now that he’s actually inside of someone –

“Mmmmm,” G’raha groans, slowly and deliberately rotating his hips and grinding down luxuriously into his seat on Estinien’s lap. On Estinien’s cock. Estinien’s body jolts with pleasure, his eyes rolling back. Y’shtola purrs laughter into his ear.

“Does it feel good, G’raha?” she asks him, trailing a thumb down the man’s spine, making his back arch further and pressing his pelvis even more against Estinien’s. Estinien’s nails dig into the flesh of his hips.

“Yesss,” he hisses. “He’s so deep inside of me, so, so deep.”

“You like it? You like Estinien’s cock?” she asks him. Her fingers rub against his hole where it’s stretched around Estinien, and he can feel her, can feel it all, the tight ring around his sensitive base, and her touch rubs him there as well, and it’s all so much. For a moment, a finger seems to be about to push into G’raha’s hole alongside Estinien – but then it retreats, going back to massaging both of them. G’raha makes a garbled noise at that, and she says, “Answer me.”

He whines, “Yes, yes, I do, I love it!” Y’shtola makes a noise of satisfaction, biting at G’raha’s shoulder, leaving round rings of teeth marks.

The exchange is nothing Estinien’s ever seen before between two Alphas outside of violence – it’s not a struggle for dominance, and there’s no sense of real humiliation. There have always been Alphas who fall lower on the biting orders that Estinien’s been in and around, but they have always struck Estinien as ashamed of it, as willing to shoot up the ranks whenever there’s an opportunity. G’raha, in comparison, seems to slide under Y’shtola’s assertion of power like one would a warm blanket. And then there’s the fact that he’s got Estinien’s cock inside of him.

He wraps his arms around G’raha’s waist – he doesn’t know if he should start thrusting up yet, but he needs – he needs to do something. “You’re… rather submissive for an Alpha,” he murmurs in G’raha’s ear. It’s probably rude, but it’s what’s on his mind, and in a way it’s thrilling to bring up G’raha’s deviance this plainly.

G’raha blinks slowly at him, seeming to take a moment to process his question as he rocks his hips. “...Yes?” he eventually replies. If G’raha were a less polite man, there’d be an undertone of no shit, Hildibrand in his reply, but he simply answers, which Estinien appreciates. “It’s just what I enjoy.” He smiles, then tightens around Estinien’s cock, making him jolt and tighten his arms around G’raha’s waist.

Y’shtola comments, “Where we were raised, people tend to posture less with their dynamics and scents and dominance displays, and more with structured public debates and snippy little introductions to their papers.” It's hard to listen to her when he has to focus on not thrusting up into G'raha, on not doing anything before G'raha gives the go-ahead, because he's not done this before, and G'raha's the one giving him this (and there's something in him that's thrilled by how he's weighed down more by word than by weight of the smaller man above him). She circles a finger around the top of G’raha’s dick, causing him to whimper and arch his back, and when he settles – it's almost like a thrust, and Estinien shudders at the taste of what's to come. She smiles wickedly. “The Ishgardian way is quicker, I’ll grant you that, but we still manage to get the job done.”

“Y-you certainly do, Y’shtola Nunh,” G’raha says. Nunh. Where has Estinien heard that before…

At that, Y’shtola looks him dead in the eyes, and he holds her gaze for a moment before cutting his eyes away and turning his head aside just an ilm. Estinien can barely see a little smile curl up the side of his mouth. Estinien finds he desperately wishes it was him that she was staring down – he’d hold on for longer, let her stare into him, feel her power pressing him down beneath her –

Then Y’shtola lets out a tolerant hmph, and says, “All right, little Tia. If you need a Nunh so badly.” She takes him by the throat, gently but firmly, and his breath catches against her hand, and she pushes him back against Estinien, and G’raha melts into the movement, hips bucking and causing Estinien to let out a loud grunt of surprised pleasure. She chases him to lick into his mouth, over his cheeks.

Over their shoulders, Estinien finds that he can see Urianger, still cradled on G’raha’s lap, his head jolting forward with each of Thancred’s thrusts and further jostled by the movements of G’raha’s hips. The Omega’s been drooling onto G’raha’s thighs, and there’s a smear of precum on his cheek. And Estinien realizes – even after all that drama, G’raha and Y’shtola have been concentrating on their Miqo’te thing and Thancred and Estinien have been enjoying the warm tight holes they’re in – Urianger has been waiting, desperate and pliant, for the prize he was promised, that he lunged for. The Omega in heat has been ignored yet again, as all the Alphas focus on themselves and each other and their pack hierarchy. The last five to ten minutes would make a good pornographic satire of Ishgardian society, if one were inclined to get arrested for several breaches of morality laws.

Estinien would have demanded what he was promised or just left entirely, but Urianger’s face is content, happy with the warm scent of sex and pack (and Estinien – though the separation has been thoroughly blurred by now). As if he’s alright with being ignored, as long as everyone else has the nest swirling with harmony. Estinien, seized by something he’s rarely felt before, unfolds an arm from around G’raha and clumsily pats Urianger on the cheek. Urianger hums, opening an eye to see who touched him – and then, upon seeing it’s Estinien, sighs happily, and lolls his head into Estinien’s palm with a purr, licking and kissing at his palm. It’s not… not sexual – Urianger’s in the depths of heat, it’s very unlikely he can behave otherwise right now with another adult – but it’s an expression of soft satisfied vulnerability the likes of which Estinien has never been on the receiving end of before. Urianger’s personal scent is on the sweeter side, like most Omegas, but not overly sugary. Even laden with heat pheromones, Urianger’s natural scent is cool and light, like the wind in the mountain valleys in spring – there’s something almost floral to it, but not any flower he’s smelled before. Something herbal. It’s unusual. It's... nice.

Y’shtola places her hand on Urianger’s other cheek, and with a few clicks of her tongue, she brings his head forward to G’raha’s bobbing cock. Estinien’s hand goes with them, and he feels Urianger’s jaw open to take in the head. His wrist bumps against G’raha’s cock – G’raha stills himself on Estinien’s lap – Estinien can feel the hollowing of Urianger’s cheek as he sucks G’raha into his mouth, Thancred’s movements behind him bobbing him up and down, as he takes him further, further, until there’s a little choking sound and he moves back up a bit, trying to find a comfortable place to keep himself, settling into his task as best he can with all the jostling. G’raha holds the base of his cock steady for him, and Urianger’s hand joins it there, and their fingers touch and intertwine for a moment before G’raha removes his to wrap his arm back around Estinien’s neck, stretching and exposing his compact body, his underbelly. A purr of satisfaction begins emitting from him, and he starts to gently rock to the same rhythm as Thancred’s thrusts, connected by Urianger between them.

Y’shtola brings Estinien’s hand to Urianger’s throat, and gods, he can feel G’raha move in and out, the bulge in Urianger’s neck as he takes him in. It makes him suck in a stuttering breath, and he rubs at the skin there. G’raha moans and rocks in his lap, and Urianger’s eyes go unfocused as he accepts the touch and the movement. They’re joined together so intimately, so tangibly, that Estinien cannot help but to bury his face in G’raha’s hair to smell that warm dry scent again, to rub his cheek on him, to leave part of himself behind (he barely knows what his own scent is like, like most people, beyond it being his – do the Scions like it? Do they think he smells good?), and he rubs his thumb underneath Urianger’s ear to get some of that cool, sweet smell on him too.

His hand is grabbed, and not by Y’shtola this time. It’s Thancred, scarred and calloused, and Estinien’s hand instinctively goes rigid in his hold. Stupid. He had a front row seat to how Thancred reacted to Y’shtola scruffing his mate; he’s not even trying to get himself a piece of the other Elezen (the man’s lovely, but, well, he’s busy) – he just got caught up in things, in being in this nest, this den, with these people who included him so readily. Stupid.

He tries to retract his hand, but surprisingly, Thancred does not let go. They make eye contact, and though Thancred’s eyes are still unfocused and dark and wild, their eye contact is not a challenge but a recognition. Thancred tugs his hand, drawing Estinien’s torso forward a bit as well, squishing him closer to G’raha, and he rubs Estinien’s thumb on his own cheek as well, mingling his scent with Urianger’s, before releasing him. Estinien brings his hand back to himself and, driven by base instinct, rubs his thumb across his face, on his cheeks, on his lips.

Thancred smells good. From the stories the Warrior and Alphinaud had shared, he was dimly aware that the other Alpha had a reputation as a cad, and with a scent like this it must have been easily obtained. Rich, dark, like smoky wood, like the trees they strip for their bark in the lowlands. It’s classic, archetypal Alpha – it would be too much, if it wasn’t eased by the moderation that a mating bond brings. He recognizes it as the scent left around the perimeter of the Rising Stones. It’s easy to imagine him restlessly circling on patrol, as he had been in Ala Mhigo when Estinien had glimpsed him – watching over his packmates and ensuring no harm came to them. This is the most present Alpha scent in the room, now given to him more distinctly – although still mixed with Urianger’s scent. The two scents balance each other out, mixing together to something uniquely them, something good and solid. Their melded scent is the strongest in the room: only by smelling them more separately is he able to discern how the scents of heat and rut that permeate the air are tinged by them. And from there he can pick out G’raha, and then there’s Y’shtola.

He leans over, presses his cheek to her shoulder in a wordless ask, and she doesn’t hesitate, but she does pause, considering him. He doesn’t know if she’s ascertaining his surety or her own. But in the end, she brings him up and rubs their cheeks together.

If Thancred’s scent had been low, Y’shtola’s is high. It smells of the earth after a thunderstorm, the soil scorched, the herbs unfolding with the water, sharp and severe and fluid. It grabs your attention once you have it in your head. But she’s kept it tightly restrained – only upon agreeing to give it to him has he felt the sheer power of it. No wonder G’raha rolled over so readily. He gasps, inhaling more, rubbing their faces until their mouths smear against each other and they’re kissing. He’s sloppy, he knows it, but she grabs him by the jaw and takes control once again. She licks into his mouth, running her tongue recklessly along his incisors – and there’s the taste of blood, just a drop, but enough that he starts sucking on her tongue. Her thumb digs into the hollow of his cheek as she bears down on him, forcing him to take her in his mouth.

His sudden flood of arousal is what probably spurs G’raha into bouncing more fervently on his cock. Urianger chokes and splutters as G’raha picks up the pace, and G’raha pants something like “You can do it, there you go, so good,” and gods Estinien is envious of Urianger right now – he wishes he had G’raha’s cock in his mouth – no, he wishes he had Y’shtola’s cock in his mouth, somehow, he doesn’t care how they’d manage it, would she stand over him, look down at him – is she ready again, please, please –

She forces him back by her grip on his face for a moment, keeping their faces close together as she promises, “Later, we’ll get even better acquainted.” He whines, desperate for it, even as she returns to kissing him.

He can’t be too cut up about it, not when G’raha is so incredible around him – his hole tight around where his knot is starting to stiffen, his depths warm and wet around his head. Estinien’s hips buck up into him involuntarily, and G’raha shouts at the feeling, back arching, head tipping back against Estinien’s chest, looking up through half-open eyes at the other two Alphas kissing above him. Estinien wants to kiss him too, but he doesn’t want to stop kissing Y’shtola, so he presses his thumb into G’raha’s mouth. He doesn’t know why his hindbrain finds that equivalent, but G’raha seems to appreciate it, sucking eagerly, and Estinien can feel the points of his teeth behind the soft wetness of his lips.

He’s assaulted with sensation from all sides, and his head is swimming with it in the best of ways. This is better than any rut he’s ever suffered out on his own – gods, what will it be like with these people when his rut does hit? It’s a given to his instincts that of course he’ll be here when his rut hits, that they’ll help him through it, that it will be good. His rational self from a half hour ago, stunned at their easy familiarity, has melted away to his more base animal self, that knows what feels good and wants more. He feels wild – not the bloodlust that had been his constant companion, but something of a cousin to it. Like he could do anything at all, so long as it meant more pleasure, more warmth, more this.

He has wanted so much for so long, but run from it, and now it’s all flooding his mind as his body is drowning in physical sensation, in the clutch of G’raha around him and the weight of him on top of him, of Y’shtola next to him and the pair in front of him, of all their scents in the air together, this cloud of arousal and desire. He wants more. Wants to watch Thancred's muscled torso work as he thrusts over and over again into his mate. Wants to smell Urianger's ecstasy as Thancred takes him, fills him, satisfies their basest needs. He wants to see their bodies fit together perfectly and fill the nest with the scent of this is how we should be. He wants to do to Thancred what he's currently doing to G’raha. He wants to be between Thancred and Y’shtola like Urianger was. He wants to see what G’raha is like in his rut, if he’d be even more desperate or if he’d take. He wants to fight him, to lose, to have G’raha take his pleasure from him like Estinien is now. He wants the Warrior in here, to see what they would do – G’raha said he tended to prefer Alphas and Betas, would he roll over for a Beta too?

If this is how he’s feeling, he can barely imagine the heights Thancred is at with his rut. He’s thrusting hard and deliberate now, an arm around Urianger’s waist and the other on his shoulder, pulling him back onto him. There’s no grey left in his eyes, only his blown out pupils. He’s littered Urianger’s back and neck and shoulders and hips – his whole body – with bruises and bite marks, all stakes of claim. Ragged, growling gasps are torn from him with each movement – his filthy chatter about possession and breeding long since abandoned in favor of focusing on railing his mate. Urianger is limp underneath him, lost to everything but touch and scent, his body buffeted by the movements of the Alphas around him. His mouth is kept on G’raha’s cock by G’raha and Y’shtola’s hands on his head. His eyes are closed, his cheeks flushed, his lips red and swollen, his chin wet with saliva. His fancy words have flown from him, leaving him as animal as the rest of them.

G’raha starts to writhe and buck even more intensely, his sounds growing louder and more fervent. Y’shtola darts from Estinien and pulls his hand from G'raha's mouth and she scruffs G’raha – and if Estinien got scruffed near his peak, he would probably go soft, get violent, or both, but G’raha just arches up even more, begging “Please, please, please! Oh, gods, oh gods, ohhhh please–”

“You do not have permission to knot Urianger,” she commands, her voice rough with authority and urgency.

He writhes in pleasured agony at the denial. “Ple-hease–” he sobs, “Please, I need–”

“You do not need, you want,” she snarls, getting in his face. His moan rises in pitch, and he clenches hard around Estinien, which makes the base of his knot throb, which shoves G’raha even closer to the edge. “This is Urianger’s first heat with you, Thancred’s first rut. We have every reason to deny you Urianger’s mouth, considering what you’ve had him do with it in the past. We forgave you, he forgave you, and you have your place here, but if you want the privilege of knotting your new pack’s Omega, you earn it, little Tia.”

G’raha sobs as Y’shtola pulls Urianger back from G’raha’s cock, only letting him keep the head in – Urianger melts to her direction, even as he is bent by the force of Thancred's thrusts against her insistent hand – G’raha writhes and squirms and his hips chase Urianger’s mouth – but he does not force himself back in. He sits there on Estinien’s lap, whining and shaking, paralyzed by Y’shtola’s scruff and scolding. Estinien doesn’t know what exactly happened there, what history there is between G’raha and the others, but he does know that this isn’t enough for him. Not as good as G’raha rocking his hips had been – not as good as G’raha melting with pleasure upon him – he wants to be the one to –

He grips G’raha’s waist, his hands so much bigger that he swears that if he tried, he could get his thumbs to touch around him, and he lifts G’raha up, then drops him down. The movement and the power feel so damn good. G’raha chokes on a gasp, and Estinien is seized with worry that he has overstepped, but then G’raha brings his arms back to clutch at Estinien’s hair, wheezing, “Again.” So Estinien does it again, lifting him and bringing him back down, like a toy, and gods, does the other Alpha feel so good around his cock, tight and warm, small but so solid in his hands – Estinien rubs his cheek on G’raha’s shoulder, biting his lips to keep from biting him, snarling with each lift, each thrust. With his nose right near G’raha’s neck, the other Alpha’s scent floods his mind, and the smell of Alpha arousal is incredible, it’s driving him crazy – the bare tastes he’s gotten before this, all by accident, taken in secret (given in secret), are nothing, nothing compared to this, right in his face and unashamed and for him  – G’raha tightens every time Estinien drops him down, perfect around him – he chases that, bringing him down over and over again, driving his own fever higher and higher, until he is barely lifting G’raha at all, just thrusting up into him, desperate for the feeling of his hole clutching around his length, for his entrance around his swelling base –

The part of his brain that has taken note of and curled around the Scions’ scents and dynamics has him hazily glance at Y’shtola, who is holding Urianger’s head steady among the fevered movement on all sides, her hand holding his chin so G’raha’s knees don’t hurt him or shake him too much, giving him a bit of slack so that his neck isn't hurt by the push-and-pull. G’raha’s cock has slipped out of his mouth at this point, and Y’shtola has replaced it with her four fingers bunched together, muffling his whining and moaning. Urianger sucks and licks and worships her hand, his lips stretched and wet, and her thumb strokes his cheek. She nods to Estinien, and says, “G’raha Tia, Estinien wants to knot you. Do you object?”

“N-no, Y’shtola Nunh,” G’raha moans. “Please, I want it – want him inside – please Estinien, finish inside – want it all –”

A guttural groan escapes Estinien at those words, and he wraps his arms around G’raha, feels the strong muscle of his torso, the heaving of his chest as he gasps, the sweat slicking his body, and Estinien pulls him down, thrusts up, and keeps them there, pressed together, as close as he can manage, as his knot swells and he starts coming inside the other Alpha.

G’raha’s body is quivering and shaking, almost thrashing – Estinien is glad he’s got such a firm hold on him – he looks like a string about to snap from tension – and then Y’shtola brings Urianger forward, feeds the head of G’raha’s cock between his lips, Urianger kisses and licks at it, and then G’raha yells, starts to come, and Y’shtola holds his knot and aims his cock up, so his come spurts up onto his own torso rather than in Urianger’s mouth or face. He tightens incredibly around Estinien’s knot, and Estinien curses, the rest of his seed spilling so much easier. His vision blurs, his mind filling with the feel of G’raha around his knot – he’s only ever knotted his hand before – this is warm, soft, holding him perfectly, so much, so good – the smell of G’raha’s come, of the entire pack’s arousal, has him floating further away than any orgasm has before. He could stay here forever. He wants to stay here forever – a strange thought for him to have, considering the reputation he has for leaving, but hells, he’s knotting a fellow Alpha, something he could never have truly comprehended ever being able to do half an hour ago. His brain’s resetting.

When he can think anything but yesssss again, he takes stock of his surroundings. G’raha is limp and warm in his lap. He’s leaning back against Estinien’s chest, stuck on Estinien’s knot. He doesn’t seem overly concerned about it. With each panting breath, it feels like he lets out another wave of pheromones that croon satisfied and happy and pack-bonding directly into Estinien’s hindbrain. It’s hard to want to fight the soothing intoxication of them, not when his own body agrees on all points.

As the ringing in his ears abates, he hears Urianger’s cries grow louder and louder. He watches the mates lazily, less out of lingering arousal and more out of interest in what the others in the nest (the pack ) are doing. Urianger had slid off of G'raha's lap at some point when Estinien was too blissed out to pay attention, his head resting on a pillow at G'raha and Estinien's feet. His thighs shake with keeping his hips up. Thancred’s bent over him, plastering his front against his back, thrusting quick and shallow now. Neither of them are saying any coherent words, reduced to groaning and gasping. And then Urianger stiffens – keens – his knuckles go white around G’raha – his back arches, jolts –

And Thancred snarls and sinks his teeth into the side of Urianger’s neck, right on the scar at his mating gland, and, dragged over the edge once more by way of their bond, he slams once more into Urianger and goes still – his knot must have caught. He wraps his arms around Urianger, a hand at his chest and a hand at his lower stomach (it’s obvious where his instinctual priorities lie), and presses himself as tight and close to Urianger as he can. Their bodies shake together, riding out their simultaneous releases, fulfilling the demands of their cycles.

There’s movement outside of the boundaries of the nest. His eyes flick over – oh, there’s Y’shtola, back by the table with all the food on it. He hadn’t even noticed her get up, he was so caught up in things. She’s pouring a few cups of water, she’s shrugged on a shawl, and her cock is soft between her thighs. She looks utterly content. If Estinien strains his ears, he can hear her quietly purring.

She returns to the nest bearing the cups on a tray, and settles down next to the pair in the core of the nest. She doesn’t touch either of them – not now, when they’re in the middle of affirming their bond – she just weaves herself back into the cushions and blankets and other myriad soft things that Urianger had gathered before Estinien set foot in the Rising Stones. She hands a cup to G’raha, and G’raha passes it to Estinien. He’s surprised, but he accepts it. He is fairly thirsty. Thankfully, Y’shtola hands G’raha his own, and then takes her own. She doesn’t offer the remaining two to the pair next to her, setting the cups aside for later. She simply watches her packmates with a fond, proud expression.

Thancred releases his bite. He licks at his claim, purring deep in his chest, and Urianger joins him in matching pitch. It’s a good sound – it feels like someone scratching his scalp, like sinking into a warm bath after a hard day. He’s not alone in the effect the mates’ purr has on him – Y’shtola stretches out languorously, her imperious face softening a bit, and G’raha melts even further, his entire body relaxing in Estinien’s lap, turning his head and pressing a kiss to Estinien’s chest. The nest is full with the sound, with all five of their scents, with the warmth of their bodies.

(It feels good, to be in a place where love is. He’s old enough now to admit that to himself. He sends an apology to his younger self, who couldn't have that place.)

The pair ease down to Urianger lying on his front and Thancred covering him with his body, pressing his face into Urianger’s shoulderblades. They’re still knotted and will be for a good while longer, with Thancred in rut – Estinien’s knot in G’raha is already mostly down, but those two will untie when they're fast asleep. Urianger’s already mostly there, exhausted from all that had transpired and lulled by the weight of his mate above him. Thancred blindly gropes around for something, and Estinien acts on a guess and tosses one of the blankets down to them. Thancred’s purr gets louder for a second, and he tugs the blanket on top of them, tucking the corners in around Urianger. Y’shtola gives him an approving smile, then pats the blankets next to her.

G’raha, as ever, obeys, sliding off of Estinien with one last shiver. Estinien catches a glance of his hole, wet with Estinien's come, but looks away before his brain can get any ideas his body is too tired to act on. And outside of sex, it feels too intimate to look there. Abruptly, he is aware of his own nakedness. By the Fury, he met these people maybe half a bell ago. This is, by the standards of all that he once knew, insanity.

But it’s hard to summon up feeling scandalized at this point. He has thoroughly crossed that line and did a merry jig with G’raha Tia on top of it for good measure. Maybe this should be when he enters another stage of his sexuality crisis: he’s done the act, now he deals with the aftermath. But to be honest, that sounds fucking stupid. He’s not doing that. He’d be the only person making it difficult, and he sees no reason to, not with G’raha cuddling up to Y’shtola, their tails twining together, both of them looking up at him with expectant eyes. There’s a better option here, one that keeps the room warm and content. One that’s being offered to him on a silver platter. One that he actually wants.

He follows them down into the heart of the nest. They both smile at him – G’raha with relief, Y’shtola with satisfaction. He doesn’t join their embrace, since he’s never been able to fall asleep while being held, but he settles in close enough that he can feel their warmth as well as the pair’s. He thinks about grabbing a blanket, but decides that he’s fine as-is. The room is the perfect temperature. Everyone else is comfortable with their nudity, and it’d be far too much effort to pull his smalls back on.

There’s a bit of murmuring from the two Miqo’te – something about “tomorrow’s schedule” and “we’ll see how we’re all feeling” – but not for long, both of them succumbing to the afterglow and the nigh-soporific pheromones that the pair are releasing. Thancred mumbles something that sounds very soppy and romantic that Estinien doubts Urianger is awake to hear, but that peters off as well.

Soon, everyone’s breathing evens out, and Estinien isn’t trying to fight how heavy his eyelids are. He’s damn tired. It’s been a long day. He has no idea what time it is, but the day is over for him. He knows that if he follows the rest of them into slumber, he’s going to have some of the best sleep of his –

A creak. His eyes shoot open and his head jerks toward the source.

It’s the Warrior. Standing stock-still at the door to the room. Holding a large canvas bag full of more loaves of that dense brown bread.

They look at him. He looks at them.

“Hey, Estinien.” The Warrior says. Their eyes are firmly fixed on his face. “Nice cock.”