Chapter Text
Louis De Pointe Du Lac comes out of his first shared rut not feeling at all like an alpha. He’s sticky between the thighs and his cock keeps giving occasional, twitchy aftershocks in the wake of days of use. Sweat clings to his skin in an unpleasant sheen, forcing him to shove the covers off his overheated body.
When he sits up, Jonah emerges from the restroom with a warm smile resting on his lips. He’s glowing a bit, which Louis finds strange, most of the stories he’d heard made it sound like alphas were the ones who came out of a rut looking smug and victorious, not the omegas.
Louis doesn’t comment, of course. He just sends a small smile back and wipes a hand over his damp face.
“Was wonderin’ where you went.”
Jonah’s smile turns pleased as he crosses the room to the bed, standing over Louis. He’s fully dressed, a nicely tailored suit fitting him snug, smelling faintly of soap and aftershave. Louis smooths a hand down the lapel, aiming a smile upward. The gesture earns him a soft kiss pressed to his lips.
Jonah leans back, worrying at his lip. “You feeling okay? I know it’s natural or whatever, but we kinda went for awhile so I just—”
Louis stretches out a hand to stop his rambling and lets out a weak chuckle.
“It’s fine. You did everything I asked for, so I can’t really complain.”
The words ease some of the tension Jonah’s been carrying. Although Louis’ rut was fairly standard, it was still his first shared one. There’s always more risk with a shared cycle, especially with an unmated partner. Being unmated means no bond to help guide an alpha through the fog in their mind, making sure their omega is okay. It also means no synced cycles, so if one is having their cycle the other isn’t, significantly increasing the chance of something going wrong.
It wouldn’t have been surprising if it had gone poorly. But it didn’t — Louis doesn’t have many complaints. Sure, his skin still buzzes faintly with leftover aggression and he feels restless in that post-rut way, but that can’t be helped.
“That’s good to hear.” Jonah smiles again, then hesitates before speaking. “Look, Louis, I know we haven’t really talked much about mating or anything, but I talked to your mom while you were asleep.”
Louis can’t help the loud sigh that escapes him.
“We already talked about this, Jonah. Neither one of us are in any position to be settlin’ down.”
It’s the third time they’ve had this conversation. The first time, Louis had found it almost endearing, a dreamy omega getting ideas after riding out his heat with an alpha for the first time. The second time, though, there’d been a different look in Jonah’s eyes, something warmer, a flicker of ownership that unsettled Louis. He’d sat him down and explained clearly: he didn’t want to be mated.
Jonah had agreed at the time, not that he had much choice if he wanted to keep Louis around. Then the rut came, and Louis realized there wasn’t anyone else he’d have rather spent it with. Jonah was a good omega, playful and quick to laugh, someone who could keep pace with Louis’ dry wit. And he could suck cock like his life depended on it, which Louis considered a quality worth noting.
But that was about it. Louis didn’t feel that primal pull toward Jonah outside the bed. His skin didn’t flush at the sight of him, no matter how he was dressed. Everything between them felt painfully regular.
“I know we talked, but c’mon, Louis. We’ve been together a year now! My parents mated in less time than that.”
Louis shifts, sitting back against the headboard with his arms crossed. “And when was the last time they could stand in a room together without stinkin’ the place up with their anger?”
Jonah huffs. “They hit a roadblock, most mated couples do. Usually you try to work through it, but my parents decided not to.”
“Is that supposed to be swaying my decision?” Louis arches a brow.
“Look, I’m not tryna pressure you, Louis—”
Louis scoffs. Could’ve fooled him.
“—but I really think we could have something good here. Something better than what our parents had.”
Louis forces himself to stay calm. Jonah wasn’t being malicious, neither of them had grown up with good examples of what a healthy bond could be. Jonah was reaching for something he thought would fix that, and Louis could understand the impulse. Sometimes, even he was tempted by the idea of proving he could do better than his parents.
But he knew better, he was twenty-five. He had no interest in being tied down to one person and settling into some domestic routine so soon.
“Jonah, I get it, really I do. But be realistic, how long you think the honeymoon phase would last for us? A month? Two?”
Jonah rolls his eyes. “You’re not being reasonable, Lou.”
“Fuck being reasonable.” Louis’ voice rises despite himself. “I told you already, it’s a big step I’m not ready to take. I love you, I do, but that husband shit ain’t for me. Not yet.”
Jonah sits on the edge of the bed, taking Louis’ hands in his.
“I’m not asking you to be a husband, I’m asking you to be my partner, my alpha. Someone I can share myself with and come home to at night.”
“That’s soundin’ a lot like a husband to me.”
Jonah releases his hands, sighing. “That’s ‘cause you want it to. Shit, Lou, is the thought of being mated to me really that bad?”
Louis leans away, his jaw tight. He’s thought about mating, about the permanence of it, until his head ached. He’d thought about his mother cooking and cleaning for his father every day, getting nothing back but a quick kiss on the cheek.
He tries to picture himself in a big house, the monotony of routine, the absence of freedom. He tries to picture himself with Jonah in that frame, and he can’t.
His face shutters, closing off.
“It’s nothing about you, Jonah, I just—”
“No, don’t even worry about it, Lou. I don’t know why I expected anything to change. It’s been the same shit for how many years?”
Louis scoffs. “Years? You serious? It’s been one year. One. And I told you from the start mating wasn’t what I wanted. Not my fault you’ve got dumb expectations.”
Jonah stands, running his hands over his head in frustration. Their scents fill the room, thick and heavy — Louis’ own woodsy vanilla pushing sharper now, spiced with irritation, clashing with Jonah’s sweeter, muskier undertone.
“You knew I liked you since we were kids, Lou. All the courting gifts and shit when we were older was just a formality.”
Louis huffs in disbelief, eyes prickling with frustration. “So what, you think you owe it to me? That you’re supposed to roll over and show me your neck ‘cause I bought flowers?”
Jonah lets out a humorless laugh and steps toward the door. “I don’t even know why I try. Lou, we’re not kids anymore, we’re gonna have to settle down at some point.”
Louis doesn’t answer. He keeps his gaze fixed to the side, glaring only out of the corner of his eye.
“Alright,” Jonah says finally. “Let me know when you’re done with all this. I’ll be at my ma’s house.”
The door slams behind him, shaking the floorboards. Louis collapses backward into the bed, staring up at the ceiling with a humorless smile.
Louis always knew he was destined to be an alpha.
There wasn’t a moment of discovery, no dramatic realization that clutched him by the collar and shook him awake. It was more like a fact of the body, as normal as the shape of his hands or the tone of his voice. Everyone knew, of course. His mother first, then his siblings, then the rest of their neighbors, who watched him move with that measured steadiness, the precision in his posture. It was something unspoken but universally understood.
He remembered overhearing a neighbor say, “That one’ll have some omega on his arm before he turns seventeen.” He’d been twelve at the time, and the words had sat on his skin, inescapable and heavy. He hadn’t understood then why it made him feel sick.
Later, he would. Later he’d come to understand that what people admired in him was never him, but what he might one day be for someone else. A provider, a protector; a good match.
His mother, of course, had her own ideas. She was a proud woman, sharp as glass and twice as cold. She had three children, but only one she regarded with open disdain. Not that she ever said it aloud, she didn’t need to. Her disappointment was in the pause between sentences, the tightness of her mouth when she looked at him.
His siblings she touched, hugged, kissed on the cheek. Louis, she corrected. Louis, she steered.
“You walk too soft,” she once told him, straightening his shoulders with hands that didn’t linger. “You make yourself small, like some kinda sissy, that’s not the Lord’s way.”
He was twelve then, too. Twelve seemed to be the age when things began to hurt in earnest.
By fifteen, the whispers around him had thickened. There was no mistaking the scent of an alpha preparing for their first rut, no matter how many cold baths he took or how he forced himself to keep a tight grip on his temper in church. The local omegas began to look at him differently, some with interest, others with mockery. His mother’s disappointment shifted subtly into expectation.
She stopped correcting him then, as if waiting to see if he’d live up to his title. That, he supposed, was something.
The only time she ever looked at him with anything like pride was when she saw him with Jonah.
Jonah had come home from college a year early — tall, sharp-featured, with omega written in the soft slants of his movements. He and Louis had grown up side by side, although he was younger than Louis by a whopping five years, Jonah always seemed to be somewhere close. He was the kind of person that had always seemed to belong more easily in the world than Louis ever could.
They hadn’t spoken in years when they ran into each other one hot summer evening on the street outside Louis’ house. Jonah had just come from the train station, nineteen and new to being an omega. His smell was the talk of the town, many complimenting him as he walked about the neighborhood. Louis saw him walking, and thought nothing of it when Jonah approached him with a greeting at his lips and a smile widening his mouth.
They talked, they walked together, and then Louis, casually, almost without thinking, placed his hand on the small of Jonah’s back. It was nothing, barely a touch. But when his mother saw it — saw Jonah with Louis — her eyes softened. Her mouth twitched into the barest suggestion of a smile.
That was the first time Louis understood that she didn’t care about him being a good alpha. She just wanted him to be a conventional one.
Jonah made him conventional.
That was the kind of omega she could accept her son claiming — a man with breeding worth noting, someone who could make Louis look respectable in her eyes. Someone who could ground him, rein in what she saw as a reckless independence that kept him from settling. She wanted him anchored, respectable, domesticated. She didn’t love him, but she could tolerate him when he fit into a shape she recognized.
Louis didn’t blame her, not really. People like her didn’t have the tools to raise someone like him. People like her wanted alphas to be stoic and decisive, to take charge in ways that made everyone else comfortable. And Louis had too many thoughts, too many questions, too much restless energy that no omega’s hand could soothe away.
And yet he let Jonah be close to him.
He let him because it was easier. Because the way his mother looked at him when Jonah was at his side was kinder than anything she’d given him before. Because when Jonah called him ‘darling’ in front of people, and brushed his knuckles over Louis’ cheek, the rest of the room seemed to relax. They stopped waiting for him to prove himself.
It was exhausting.
Being an alpha wasn’t the problem, it never had been. The problem was the world’s idea of what an alpha should be, and how tightly that box closed around his throat.
Even now, as a grown man running his own business, carrying himself with elegance and restraint, people still looked at him and saw dominance, control, decisiveness. They assumed things about his body, his instincts, his desires.
And sometimes — God help him — he let them. Because fighting it all the time was a different kind of cage, one even harder to leave.
The front door of his mother’s house sticks the same way it always has. Louis presses his palm flat against the warped wood and gives it a firmer push, stepping into the thick quiet of his mother’s foyer. The scent of stale incense clings to the walls like and lingers against the fabric of the furniture.
“Leave your shoes by the door.” Comes his mother’s voice from the kitchen.
He obeys her, slipping off his shoes and fumbling his way into the rest of the house.
She’s standing by the stove in her pressed house dress, moving pots to and from the sink. Louis makes a move to go help her but earns a glare and a hand swatted against his arm. She motions for him to sit down at the table and he relents, crossing one leg over the other as he watches her.
His mother has fluid movements, she’s been doing this her entire life as far as Louis knows. Since young she’s been groomed to become the perfect omega for an equally perfect alpha. Louis’ father had been brought up the same, told exactly how an alpha should behave and took pride in living up to all the expectations.
Louis believes he was doomed from the start.
His mother stands with her back straight, hair pulled taut at the nape. Nothing about her has changed, not even the way she looks at him as if she’s reading a ledger. Tallying him up and to see if he comes out in the red.
“I didn’t expect a visit,” she says, not looking at him as she moves to sit down at the table. “Not with how busy you always are.”
Louis offers a quiet smile. “Yeah, I was just in the neighborhood, wanted to come check on you.”
“You live two blocks away.” She looks him up and down for a second before she continues. “Grace told you to stop by?”
Louis scratches at the back of his head, feeling called out. “Don’t say it like that ma, she doesn’t have to ask me to stop by. I just wanted to see you.”
She sits with perfect posture, hands folded lightly in her lap, and watches him for a moment. She hums at his answer but Louis can tell by his face that she doesn’t believe him.
“I saw Jonah at church last Sunday, he spoke about you plenty.” She says finally, voice casual in that way she uses when she’s already decided the conversation is going somewhere unpleasant.
Louis hums softly, not sure where exactly she wanted to take the discussion.
“He said you’ve been taking him down there to your club,” Her lips twitch, but not into a smile. “You think that’s the typa’ place you should be taking an omega?”
“I own it, ma. It’s not like I’m taking him there to hang out or somethin’, he’s there to support me.” Louis responds evenly, trying not to be defensive.
“That don’t make it respectable. What kinda alpha takes an omega to a place like that? You’re lucky Jonah’s so sweet on you.”
He looks at her. Her face is the same cold mask it’s always been when she talks about anything that isn’t marriage, children, or reputation. She talks about Jonah like he’s a savings bond, like Louis should feel grateful to have him.
“I also heard y’all have been staying nights at each other’s house, comin’ and going all hours of the night.”
Louis doesn’t flinch. “Who’d you hear that from? Grace?”
Her expression tightens. “Doesn’t matter who I heard it from boy, if I heard it, imagine who else has.”
The accusatory tone of her voice has goosebumps crawling across the expanse of his skin. He feels like a child again, waiting to be told what he’s supposed to be doing in order to earn his mother’s favor.
A silence stretches between them. Louis doesn’t make a move to fill it and his mother doesn’t either.
“I won’t shame you for it,” she says at last, the way someone might excuse a child for breaking a dish they weren’t supposed to be touching. “You’re grown and Jonah is a good man, an omega with a future. But think about the precedent you set when you do things like this, taking him out to a club, inviting him to your house all hours of the night. What are the other alphas supposed to think?”
Louis raises an eyebrow. “It’s not like I’m tryna be a role model for alphas ma. The people in this town are just nosy, it doesn’t matter to me what they think.”
“And that’s exactly why you’re in the situation you’re in now. Spending your ruts and heats together without mating, you think Jonah wants that? He could have any alpha and he’s here, wastin’ his time with you.”
Louis scoffs out a tired laugh. He doesn’t have any choice but to let the words sit with him. What can he do, stop and argue with his own mother? That’s never gone well for him before, and Louis doesn’t see it being any different today.
He’s been hearing the same speech and lecture since he decided that dating Jonah wouldn’t be so bad. At first he could brush off the questions, explaining it away as it being too early. Now though, it’s becoming blatantly obvious that Louis is stalling, so obvious in fact that other people are starting to talk. And if there’s one thing Louis’ mother hates, it’s having rumors spread about her family.
The only thing she hates worse is when they’re true.
His mother continues her tangent, undeterred by his silence.
“Look at Levi, he’s the kind of alpha people take notice of; has a house, a solid bond, kids on the way. All without turning heads and feeding into rumors, I just don’t understand why you can’t do the same.”
“He's happy being that for his family.” Louis says, almost to himself. “That’s not everyone’s dream of a perfect life mama.”
His mother meets her gaze now, her eyes narrowing. “Every household has their own perfect life, but it all ends in the same thing, the alpha has to step up. Levi knows what to do with his status. And so do you, you just don’t like it.”
There it is. She says it like it’s simple. Like he’s difficult for sport. Like he isn’t still trying to unpick the way her voice used to sound when she told him to stand taller, to stop questioning everything, to let Jonah soften him because that’s what omegas are for.
“I’m not Levi,” he says.
“No, you’re not.”
Her tone is final, and yet somehow still disappointed. As if she had still been holding out some hope, some fantasy in which Louis suddenly woke up one day ready to fall into line.
He stares down at the table, then raises his eyes until he meets her gaze. The bitterness has settled into the back of his throat, familiar and heavy.
“It doesn’t matter how many times we have this conversation, I’ll never be right in your eyes.”
She scoffs and her lips tighten, like she’s reluctantly amused. “You’re too goddamn sensitive boy, always have been. All in your head like that, making stuff bigger than it is.”
Louis stands, slowly, the chair scraping back against the patterned tile. She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even get up. She looks at him like he’s late to his own life.
“You’re too busy getting lost in your own head to see what’s right in front of you,” she says softly, almost kindly. “You may not like the truth, but sooner or later you’ll thank me.”
He doesn’t respond. There’s nothing to say to a woman who’s already decided who you are. Who was telling you your destiny before you even understood your own body, and expecting you to accept it with no complaints.
Louis leans down to give his mother a hug, then stands slightly to press a kiss to the cheek turned towards him. She’s never allowed him to scent her like Grace and Paul did. She always said that even though Louis was his child, her husband was still an alpha and no alpha wants to smell another on their omega.
She still doesn’t let him even though his father has passed, and Louis wouldn’t dare to ask what the excuse was now.
“I’ll see you at church ma.” He says it quietly.
The door clicks shut behind Louis when he leaves, and the air outside is heavy with heat, thick like it’s trying to hold him in place. Louis steps off the porch and doesn’t look back. The grass along the sidewalk is damp, tugging at the soles of his shoes. He’s not sure where he’s walking to, but his body just needs motion.
His mother’s voice won’t leave him alone. It clings to the inside of his head. Jonah wasting his time? As if it hasn’t been Jonah that pushed for the relationship, Jonah who admitted to Louis that he wanted him.
But that doesn’t fit into his mother’s images of what a ‘good omega’ should be.
God, what was he thinking going there? As if his mother would show him any kindness after all these years, have some kind of mercy on his feelings. There’s a reason he never visits unless Graces requests it. Most days he’s okay, doesn’t feel like he actually has to go speak to her to feel better. But other days, he desperately needs to try. Try for some kind of relationship, or support from his mother.
Louis clenches his jaw, heat building behind his eyes. He tries to will it away. Anger he can handle. Sadness he can bury. But shame, it pulses underneath his skin, it burns behind the ribs and settles low in his gut, twisting until everything starts to feel fragile and raw.
She’d spoken all her insults so casually. As if she hadn’t spent most of his life trying to iron the unpredictability out of him, and now expected him to be grateful for someone — anyone — who’d take him as he was. Not because he was lovable, or full of drive, or good, but because he was legible, because he fit into something; into someone.
He hates how much it still matters to him. What she thinks, how she sees him. He’s a grown man, owns his own business, pays her bills when she won’t admit she needs help, and still, she can make him feel like a boy who stood too close to the stove and got burned.
And God help him, a part of him had wanted her approval. When she talked about Jonah, about Levi, about the way things were supposed to be, he’d felt that old, bitter ache rise up like a bruise. That small, awful hope that if he gave her what she wanted, she’d stop looking at him like a disappointment.
And Jonah, it always comes back to Jonah.
Louis exhales hard, dragging a hand over his face. He’s so tired of the idea of being with someone just to be easier to look at. Tired of Jonah’s touches that always come with expectation, his mouth on Louis' skin like he’s begging to be claimed, not as a kiss. Jonsh loves Louis, there’s no doubt about it. But in these moments, Louis can’t help but to question him, is this what Jonah wants or is it all just some sick version of stability?
Levi knew what to do with his position, she’d said. And Louis hadn’t? What was it, a curse, then? This body? This dominance? This ache to belong on his own terms, not just be fitted like a lock into someone else’s hands?
He feels that familiar pressure behind his sternum. The one that says ‘you’re too much’ and ‘you’re not enough’ , all at the same time. Too proud, too complicated. Too fucking emotional.
He turns down the street, past shuttered shops and iron balconies, his hands buried in his coat pockets to keep from balling them into fists. Some part of him wants to keep walking forever. Outpace the shame, outrun the version of himself they keep trying to drag him back into.
Another part wants to burn the whole idea of bonding down to ash.
He passes by the reflection of himself in a storefront window. Dark suit, clean lines, collar pressed, scent dampened by suppressants he no longer bothers explaining. From the outside, he looks composed, a man who made himself from the ground up.
But inside? Inside he is heat and shame and longing; a hunger that won’t make itself small.
Soft vibrations bring Louis out of his stupor. He lets out a sigh and pulls his phone out of his pocket, glancing at the screen.
Jonah: Sorry abt earlier ik how difficult it’s been for u. I never want to make u feel bad for moving slow ❤️
Louis feels a certain warmth building up, a comfort as he takes in Jonah’s words. The feeling is quickly dashed when he reads the next message that comes through.
Jonah: Also heads up. Investor meeting tonight @ 6:00z. Don’t be late. Dress well. :)
Squinting at the text in confusion, Louis speeds up from his causal stroll as he feels a headache begin to arise. Jonah usually doesn’t have his hand in any of Louis’ business, preferring to be a patron of the bar rather than work there.
An investor meeting from someone Louis doesn’t know about means foul play, someone sticking their nose in something they shouldn’t. Jonah wouldn’t push for anything business wise unless someone’s been in his ear, a problem that Louis was sure he’d resolved early on.
Louis releases another sigh and turns in the direction of his house.
When he pulls into the lot behind his club, the heat’s sticking to the asphalt and making Louis’ skin cling to the fabric of his shirt. He gets out fast, locking the car with a sharp click. He doesn’t linger by the car or acknowledge any of the workers as he walks through the entrance, he’s already on edge.
Jonah’s message annoyed him, a blatant disruption to Louis’ carefully crafted schedule. There were no real specifics, no question of whether Louis had something planned already, just a directive — like Jonah was the one in charge.
As if Louis isn’t the sole owner of the property and deals with everything, from the hiring to the construction. He can’t help but feel undermined by Jonah’s actions.
Inside, the lounge is quiet in that pre-opening lull, bartenders prepping, lights dim, music off, and the dancers not yet arrived. It’s the hour Louis likes best, the only hour of night where he can breathe, fix things, make sure the machine runs without anyone realizing he’s the one keeping it alive.
He spots Jonah at the main booth. Legs stretched out, easy grin, the kind of posture that says welcome to my kingdom. And next to him — an alpha. Blond with an intense gaze and polished, his attention turned toward Jonah, gaze intent. His mouth is curved with a smile that could almost be taken for politeness, but Louis knows it isn’t, it’s blatant interest.
Louis slows his step.
Jonah sees him and waves him over like this is a social call. “There he is,” he says, voice light. “Lestat, meet Louis, owner of the club.”
Lestat stands, shakes Louis’ hand briefly but firmly. “A pleasure.” Then, without missing a beat, he turns back to Jonah. “I wasn’t aware how handsome my acquaintances would be tonight.”
Louis’ eyes narrow, just slightly.
Jonah laughs it off, the faintest flush to his cheeks. “Don’t start.”
“Oh, I haven’t even begun,” Lestat says smoothly, gaze flicking down Jonah’s chest before returning to his face. It’s blatant and deliberate.
Louis slides into the booth opposite them, jaw tight. “You’re looking to invest?” His tone is even, but his eyes are on Lestat.
Lestat glances at him only briefly before answering. “Perhaps. Jonah’s been very persuasive.” His hand rests casually on the table, close enough to Jonah’s that the space between their fingers feels intentional.
Jonah grins, but there’s a twitch of discomfort under it. “I’ve told him about the expansion plans, the numbers—”
“You’ve shown him the books?” Louis cuts in.
Jonah hesitates. “Yeah. Just a bit, he needed context, y’know? See what he’s working with.”
“You needed my permission for that,” Louis says flatly.
That gets Lestat’s attention. His gaze sharpens, flicking between them, clearly enjoying the friction. “You two work together often?”
Jonah leans back, easy. “We’re close.”
Louis doesn’t confirm or deny. Just says, “We’ve known each other a long time.”
Lestat smiles, his eyes trained on Jonah. “Long enough to know how to keep him in line?”
Jonah laughs again, more awkward this time. “He keeps me in line.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Lestat says, gaze lingering on Jonah’s mouth. “You seem like the kind of man who’s difficult to control.”
Louis’ fingers tighten against the table’s edge. “We don’t run this place on control, we run it on respect.”
“Mm,” Lestat hums, but his eyes don’t leave Jonah. “And does respect mean you can’t have a drink with me after this meeting?”
Jonah opens his mouth, but Louis cuts in before he can answer. “He’s busy.”
That gets both their attention.
“Is he?” Lestat asks, amusement curling at the corners of his mouth.
“Yes,” Louis says. “And I’ll be the one handling the next conversation with you.”
Jonah blinks. “What?”
Louis’ gaze stays locked on Lestat. “You want to talk business, you talk to me. You want to flirt, find someone else.”
Lestat leans back, smiling like he’s just been given a better challenge. “A meeting? I don’t see why not, cela semble intéressant.”
Lestat leaves a smile on his face when he speaks and finally keeps a steady gaze on Louis.
Jonah starts to speak again, but Louis stands, sliding out of the booth. “Je te contacterai.”
Jonah looks between the two of them with wide eyes. He opens his mouth to speak, but Louis leaves before he can get his words out. His pulse sharpens in his ears. He’s not sure which part he hates more — the other alpha’s blatant interest in Jonah, or the fact that it bothered him enough to get involved.
Louis barely settles into his office chair when the door swings open again. Jonah steps inside, closing the door softly behind him. His eyes flick to Louis, a mix of apology and something unreadable lingering there.
“I wasn’t trying to push you out,” Jonah begins, voice low. “That, me flirting with Lestat? It was on purpose, I thought it’d make things smoother, easier for him to invest if he felt like he had a foot in the door, y'know?
Louis’ jaw tightens. “So what, you didn’t think I could handle it?”
Jonah swallows, shifts on his feet. “No. Not that. I just… thought it might help. You’ve been carrying everything alone for so long. I wanted to take some weight off. My mom said —“
Louis’ voice is sharp, hurt bleeding through the edges as he cuts him off. “I can represent myself Jonah, I don’t need an om—“
Louis stops himself for a moment, inhales and exhales loudly. “I don’t need you stickin’ your nose in shit, making it look like I can’t be trusted to make a decision about my own business. And I don’t appreciate you talking about our business with your mom. That shit gets back to my mama Jonah, and you know how she is.”
Jonah meets his glare, voice firm but soft. “I trust you, Louis, y’know I do, all of this runs smoothly ’cause of you. But my mom, she knows how this works, hell I know how this works. Sometimes you have to play the game to win it.”
Louis leans forward, hands braced on the desk. “I don’t want to play games with you, Jonah. That’s not what this is about, that’s not what I need from you.”
Jonah steps closer, urgency in his eyes. “Then don’t, just let me do my part, all I want is to take care of you any way I can.”
Jonah finally makes it around Louis’ desk, he pushes the chair a bit so that he can crawl into the expanse of Louis’ lap.
His arms wrap around Louis’ neck as he gets comfortable. “I’m sorry for oversteppin’.” As he speaks, his scent sweetens slightly, a silent plea for forgiveness. “I just wanted to do my part is all, and you never tell me if ‘m doing it right. All you need to do is tell me what you need from me, and I’ll make it happen.”
Louis stares up at the omega and shifts to wrap hands around Jonah’s waist.
“You don’t need to do a lot, I just need you here , right here with me. That’s all I could ever ask from you Jo.”
Jonah’s eyes follow Louis’ lips as he speaks, and he nods softly in agreement. He smiles and leans down until their lips meet.
Truthfully, Louis doesn’t know what he needs. Not from a boyfriend, not from a relationship, and especially not from an omega. Jonah tries his best, and that makes up for a lot, but there’s nothing in this world that fills the gaping hole Louis carries.
Still, Jonah helps where he can and Louis will always be grateful.
Jonah pulls away from their kiss with low eyes, and backs off Louis’ lap. He falls to his knees and moves his hands with practiced ease that always has Louis aching. The sound of the belt buckle coming undone is sharp in the quiet of the office, followed by the tug of fabric. He doesn’t waste time, his fingers curl against Louis’ thighs as he presses forward, his mouth hot and insistent.
Louis throws his head back, baring his throat to the air of the office as he falls into the sensation. Jonah has a hand gripping firmly at the base of his cock, squeezing his deflated knot in a way that has Louis’ thigh jerking. His lips are sealed around the tip, loud slurping noises filling the room.
The scent of Jonah’s arousal hits Louis as he works, sharp and musky, threaded with the sweet slickness that clings to omegas. Louis’ nostrils flare, chest rising as he drags the scent deep into his lungs. Beneath it, faint but still there, is something that makes his jaw tense — Lestat. That bright, infuriating perfume of him, still clinging to Jonah’s skin from earlier, like a taunt.
Louis’ lips pull back over his teeth in something too close to a snarl, though Jonah can’t see it, his mouth working steadily over him. The wet heat surrounds his cock, deliberate and skilled, Jonah’s tongue flicking, circling, and coaxing with slow care.
Louis’ hands come down heavy on the armrests of the chair. His hips roll forward in sharp, involuntary thrusts that make Jonah choke briefly, then steady himself with a muffled moan.
“Louis,” Jonah murmurs around him, one hand sliding up Louis’ thigh to press firmly against his hip. “Gentle, baby.”
The plea is shaky, more turned-on than fearful, his slick scent spiking in the air as he says it. Jonah is wet, Louis can smell it, slick dripping, thighs probably shining with it now. That knowledge only makes his control thinner.
He forces himself to slow, at least for a beat, hand tightening in Jonah’s hair as he pulls him off just long enough to bend down, mouth crashing against Jonah’s in a kiss that tastes of spit and sweat, his own taste musky on the warm tongue. Their teeth clack, tongues pressing, Jonah moaning helplessly into it.
Louis’ mind betrays him. Even in the kiss, even in Jonah’s mouth opening for him, he sees Lestat’s smirk, hears the smooth purr of his voice when he’d leaned in close to Jonah earlier, whispering something Louis hadn’t quite caught but had burned into his gut all the same. The ghost of it is still here, in Jonah’s scent, in the way his lips part with eagerness, and the blush along his throat.
The thought drives Louis harder. He drags Jonah up against the desk, pushing him chest-first across the cool surface, hands braced flat. Louis grabs a hold of Jonah’s pants, tugging roughly until they’re successfully pulled to his knees.
The omega gasps, hips tipping back automatically, slick thighs spreading apart in invitation.
“Louis, baby — shit, ” Jonah breathes out, shaky, “Go slow, ‘m still sore from your cycle.”
“I’ll be careful.” Louis rasps against his ear, though his teeth are bared again, eyes fixed on the reddened curve of Jonah’s neck, old marks from Louis’ rut are still there. He examines the skin as if he may see bite marks from Lestat, overlapping his own.
The thought spurs him on, his hips press forward, lining himself up and pushing in deeply with one smooth stroke.
Heat surrounds him instantly, the tight passage of his opening sucking him in with no hesitation. The spongy opening massages the tip of his cock, his girth pulling the skin taunt and making the omega gape slightly.
Jonah’s cry is high and desperate, body arching into the stretch. He’s so wet, so ready, the sound is obscene. Slick settles at his rim and in the patch of Louis’ pubic hair when he finally sinks all the way in.
Louis grips his hips hard, setting a rhythm that’s steady at first, controlled, but grows sharper with each thrust. The slap of skin on skin echoes in the room, mixing with Jonah’s gasps and the guttural noises tearing from Louis’ throat. He leans over him, fingers wrapping around Jonah’s neck until Jonah is practically on his tip toes.
Jonah clutches at the desk, knuckles white, but his hips push back to meet each thrust despite his words. “Fuck, Lou, not too fast.” He whispers, but his body betrays him, slick pouring from his stretched hole in long trails, thighs trembling with need.
Louis kisses the back of his neck roughly, biting at the skin without breaking it, the taste of salt and sweat on his tongue. His mind keeps spiraling — Lestat, leaning too close, smiling at Jonah, taunting Louis without a word. The image burns hotter than it should, and Louis drives into Jonah harder, chasing the ache.
Jonah shudders beneath him, voice breaking into a moan as his body seizes around Louis. His release comes quickly, slick coating his thighs, soaking the desk beneath him.
Louis groans, the sight and smell of it pushing him over the edge. He yanks out with a sharp, almost violent need, stroking himself, paying close attention to the fat bump of his knot as he swells slightly. It throbs every time his hand comes down to squeeze it, and it only takes three firm pills before he’s spilling hot across Jonah’s back.
Both of them collapse forward, Jonah panting against the desk, Louis pressed against his back, breath harsh in his ear. Sweat slicks their bodies, cooling in the office air, the scent of sex thick around them.
“The next meeting is on Monday,” Jonah’s voice breaks the silence they’d fallen into. “Try not to fight him the moment he speaks.”
Louis nods against Jonah’s back and plants a kiss there. His eyes close right, chest heaving as he pushes his face deeper into the sweaty skin laid before him. Jonah’s smell surrounds him, comforting and pulling him down into relaxation.
But beneath that, the ghost of Lestat’s scent still lingers, clinging stubbornly, refusing to let him go.