Archive of Our Own

Langa hasn’t had a whole lot of experiences with beefs up until this point, but he knows they aren’t all supposed to go like this.

He hasn’t felt this way since the first time he taped his feet to a skateboard, and he’s pretty sure half of that adrenaline was just from jumping into a new sport blind. This - this exhilaration rushing through his veins was something else altogether. He knows everyone at S is talented at skating, but Adam is different. Sure, some of Adam’s actions were peculiar, and he definitely was a little over the top with the whole love thing, but Langa’s never been one to judge. Adam has more than enough reason to be self-assured in his persona, his skill indisputable and frankly mesmerizing. Langa too, finds himself entranced by how close he is to him on this course, a skater of such high caliber.

He didn’t think he’d get to skate with him so soon. But that doesn’t mean he was planning to lose.

The thrill of it lied in the fact that Langa refused to give in, refused to keep at a distance. Adam didn’t seem to want that either. So, the two of them kept up with one another, close enough that he could hear the crowd roaring, coming alive with the thought that it wasn’t going to be a one-sided contest. Langa could feel it too: pure adrenaline, flying high, the intoxication of being in a beef with Adam. Everyone watching - waiting. His heartbeat speeds up wildly when he finally manages to break away from Adam after a turn.

This is why everyone cheered when Adam appeared, why everyone’s watching the cameras with bated breath, just for the chance to see him skate. Langa gets it.

It’s then that Adam sneaks up behind him after a couple of taps on his board, a frenzied yet captivating dance. It doesn’t take too much longer before Langa hears the thump of a skateboard clacking against his, a hand snaking around his waist, another clasped onto his own. Knee against knee, hip against hip, so close that Langa forgets to breathe for a moment.

“Now, Langa-kun…dance with me!”

If the beef was intense before, it just got a whole lot worse. Langa gasps at the sudden intrusion, how he was no longer in control of the route they were going down. Instead, it was now Adam leading him, hooking their limbs together, and Langa couldn’t pull away even if he wanted to. Speeding down corners, it was indeed just like a dance, one that Langa didn’t even know the name of and had zero experience in. One that he was tumbling through, completely at Adam’s mercy.

But as amazing as the technique was, Langa wasn’t going to just let Adam have his way. There would be no fun in that, no excitement, no heat. And this was the most fired up Langa has ever felt, a low burn coiling in his gut that threatened to burst if he didn’t break away from Adam and win.

Adam doesn’t make it easy, maneuvering his body and the skateboard all at once with ease. He hears Adam’s laugh echo in his ear, travel down the nape of his neck, all his hairs standing on edge when Adam drags his leg back in a pose. Then, seconds later, he’s dipping Langa down, one hand firmly gripping onto Langa’s waist. It’s dizzying, each dance move being more complex than the last, each spin sending that incessant mix of heart-pounding shivers and delight coursing through his bloodstream.

Adam pulls him back up, interlaces both their hands together, and freaking spins him in the air. That’s when that dizzying sensation intensifies tenfold. Langa can hear himself screaming even as Adam’s going off about how fun this is.

But he can’t help but admit that Adam’s right. Even in between screams, in between that sinking, nauseating voice in his stomach to get away for his own self-preservation, Langa can’t tear himself away.

Because it is fun. It’s nothing like what he thought skating was capable of being, the airtime and the sheer force of Adam calling him home. He’s staring right up at Adam, face burning hot from their proximity. A small voice inside of him wishes he could see past that mask when Adam asks him if he’s scared.

No, Langa’s not scared at all; he doesn’t want this to stop.

So, Langa grins and brings his plan to life, slamming his body into Adam’s as they go for a tailspin around the corner, their fingers interlaced together. He needs enough momentum to break out of Adam’s hold.

But the second his face hits the crook of Adam’s neck, the voice gets louder, the heat gets worse, and the nausea returns with a vengeance. He’s going to win here, so why was his body fighting him on this? He’s shut down all the fears before, because that’s what he needs to do to win, and yet still –

“Langa-kun,” Adam’s voice drops to a darker whisper, right by Langa’s ear.

It’s not how Adam usually sounds, Langa notes, none of that overexuberant playfulness that comes with his skating persona.

No, this feels raw, real.

But Langa needs the spin to go faster, he needs more of it before the corner ends, more, more. That flame in his belly has since decided to full out explode, sweat dripping down his temple even though he’s used to the wind carrying that all away.

It is intense skating with Adam after all, huh.

Adam.

Adam.

“Langa-kun,” that voice again, this time Langa feels teeth grazing his neck. The motion makes him shudder instantly, his knees buckling down mid-spin. “I admire your tenacity, and there are indeed no rules, but this doesn’t benefit either of us in determining a winner.”

What?

“What are you talking about?” Langa hears himself ask. The words sound so far away, like he was someone else, practically panting out the answer.

“Oh, Eve.” Adam murmurs, sickeningly sweet all of a sudden.

The corner’s over and Langa doesn’t even recollect when they exited out. But he’s still holding onto Adam, boards and legs still tangled up. Adam rolls his hips forward and holy hell, it feels so good it hurts.

“You’re in heat, Langa-kun.” Adam spells out for him, soothing and melodic.

“No, I’m – I’m not,” Langa murmurs, still leaning into him.

He isn’t, right? That’s not why he’s desperate for Adam’s scent, suddenly overwhelming and loud in the forefront of his mind, as familiar as adrenaline from the race. That can’t be why he’s rutting into Adam’s thigh, painfully hard and searching for relief.

“First time for everything, my Eve,” Adam’s voice rings clear through the fog of his hazy brain, hypnotic, like a command. “Can’t have anyone else have you while you’re like this, can I?”

Langa barely registers the meaning of that statement before a wet tongue licks up his neck. He’s only vaguely aware that they’re still racing, the course now feeling years long with the speed at which they’re going.

The beef, right, the cameras, oh god.

But then Adam sucks on a spot on the side of his neck, hard, and Langa’s vision spins. He tosses his head back involuntarily, gasping as Adam takes the extra access with glee, circling the spot with his tongue. Each lick shoots sparks down his body, straight to the straining dick in his pants. Adam’s right there, gripping onto him, covering him in his scent. A hand squeezing his ass, and that’s when Langa notices the slick running down his inner thighs.

Langa never gave any thought to his status before just now, but this was a troublesome time to discover it for the first time, with … everyone looking on.

His face flushes at the thought, though he’s not sure if he could get any hotter at this point. It feels impossible to; it’s too hot everywhere.

“This beef won’t count, Langa-kun,” Adam breathes down his throat, and even that feels incredible, “I can’t wait.”

Langa briefly notes the end of Adam’s sentence transforming into a low growl before a sharp pain hits him. It pierces through all the rest, the fog in his mind, the fire in his gut. Adam bit him, and fuck, oh, fuck, that’s what it is - in heat, fuck, fucked. That’s what his body’s been trying to warn him against, to get away from Adam before that kicked in, before he needed to be fucked.

But that… was that such an awful idea? Mindless sex with someone? It’s supposed to feel good, right? It’s just a physiological reaction, one that omegas have to get out of their system once in a while. Granted, Langa would prefer it not happen here where all the cameras were watching. But even so…

Shit.

Langa lets out another low groan when the pain comes back, doubly as strong now. It seems Adam’s teeth hadn’t left his neck yet, sinking harder into the soft tender flesh there and suddenly Langa’s thoughts morph, changes course. He needs to be fucked, yes, but he needs it to be Adam, Adam whose scent he now wears, whose mark he now bears. Adam, Adam, Adam.

“The police are coming sir, get in.”

What was that?

The slide of the skateboards skirt to a stop and Langa blinks his eyes open, not realizing they were shut in the first place. A pair of strong arms wrap around his waist, and oh, there’s that good friction again, Langa moans softly as he leans into the touch, too overwhelmed to think of anything else. But it’s okay, because that scent that his body’s longing for envelops him, sweeps him into his arms and takes him into the back of the car, curling right into where he belongs, his alpha.  

His memories of the ride are hazy at best. It’s a smooth ride, which at least helps Langa try to gather together scraps of his focus. He thought it would get better without being in motion, that maybe the light-headedness was a side-effect of skating and not – this. But the entire time in the car, he’s torn in between two sides: one that is trying to come terms with the onset of his presentation in a logical manner, trying to calm down his breathing, his heartbeat, his pheromones, and the other that is screaming at him to just let go already, because this is how things are supposed to be. He’s not supposed to think about it, but just let it happen, and everything else will fall into place. Everything will feel better soon, the searing heat underneath his skin, that hollow, emptiness within him begging to be filled, that’s all supposed to disappear soon.

Because he’s been marked, and claimed, and that is all he can detect in this car, enveloping his every sense. A sense that everything’s going to be okay as soon as the car stops and his alpha - Adam - can finally take care of him.

He already is, Langa notes to himself, because there’s a palm rubbing over the bulge of his pants, his erection given just enough attention that it keeps Langa’s newly-found hormones at bay. He can hear himself groaning into Adam’s shoulder, seeking some contact that his body knows much better than his brain. His brain, whose logical side was slowly losing with each drag of Adam’s fingers, barely hanging on.

But in those brief windows of clarity, logically, Langa knows how this is all supposed to go. Logically, he should be a bit upset that he was claimed so quickly, that all of this escalated so fast that he hadn’t had the opportunity to really absorb it. He thinks he should feel scared or something, being whisked away by a man he barely knows, but Langa’s beyond that. It could just be the heat talking, yes, and he’s already knee-deep in this, but he’s not scared at all. The unknown is calling out to him, Adam leading him along like in a trance, and just like the first time he stepped onto a skateboard, Langa leans into the possibility, the intensity, the pleasure of it all.

And when the car door opens and Langa’s carried back out, he leans right into the sturdiness of Adam’s chest. They haven’t said a single word the whole time here and Langa was willing to wait then. However, now, now that the world has stopped moving and it was just the two of them, each step earth-shattering and driving him utterly insane with anticipation, Langa lets the floodgates crash right on open.

“I – I need,” he pauses as his brain whirls to a stop. There’s so much he needs, so much he wants, and he doesn’t know how to even go about it.

The sound of a door opening and closing, then Langa’s back hits a soft surface, a bed.

“I know what you need, Snow, and I’m sorry for making you wait.”

Everything suddenly washes to a calm, his senses tamed, before it all transforms into anticipation. Anticipation for what’s to come, for his every need to be satiated as promised, and Langa jumps in head first, chasing it. A small voice whispers to him how dangerous it is, how omegas can get taken advantage of in unplanned heats, how he barely knows this man, how he may already have bitten off more than he could chew.

That voice disappears the second Langa opens his eyes, sees Adam’s eyes staring back, his mask off and unfiltered desire all over his face.

“T-then, don’t make me wait anymore.” Langa hears himself plead, and closes his eyes.

His heart is pounding fast and hard in his ears, and he finds himself letting his other senses wander, vulnerable to whatever Adam wants to give him. The room is unbearably hot and Langa’s pretty sure he’s never been so aroused in his life, so desperate to rip off his clothes and just jerk off over and over again until that need subsides and trickles out of his system. He could, he could do it himself now that they’re alone and he could come, burn off that energy with a few strokes, he’s sure – but Langa’s skin crawls with a greater need: to obey, to wait, to take.

If he could do this alone, he would have. But nothing in Langa’s life has ever been good when he was left to himself.

No, Langa exhales sharply as the bed dips beneath him, the sensation of Adam’s body hovering over his.

“Open your eyes, Langa-kun.”

The words are feather light and husky, right above Langa’s lips. He blinks open his eyes and meets scarlet red just mere inches from him, the sight sending a full-body shudder rippling through him. The site of the bite on his neck throbs, yearns, and Langa arches his back, his neck to get closer to Adam, to satisfy it. He’s met by a bruising kiss, forceful and hard, shoving his body back down into the mattress.

And that’s it, that sends Langa for a loop. He’s never been kissed before, but he’s seen enough movies to know this isn’t the romantic endgame they usually advertise. No, this is carnal, unrelenting, every sense come alive like a hot wire. Langa can’t breathe with how intense the kiss is, simply forgets how to in the moment, lost in nothing but the small space where he and Adam meet, lip pressed against lip. Langa gasps for more contact and is met with tongue, wet and covering him in that scent he craves. He finds himself clawing at Adam’s bare back, drawing him down, but it’s not enough. So, Langa hooks his legs around Adam too, and oh, the kiss had made him forget how hard he was. Now though, it’s right back at the forefront of his mind, a loud haze, full of white noise and a wretched desire to come.

Their mouths part, and Langa whines at the loss. It’s embarrassing, he knows, but he doesn’t care. He tilts his head up to see why and his reaction time must have downright crashed because Adam had already somehow untangled himself from Langa’s hold. He’d been repositioned on the bed so Langa was now facing the actual foot of the bed as opposed to slanted sideways. Adam looks a bit flushed too, his hair less wild and half-naked from the bottom-up.

Langa’s well aware of Adam’s stature versus his own, the gaps in their experiences, their ages, but it’s the most obvious now, broad shoulders, defined abs, scars on his wrists. Langa can’t stop staring, can’t help but lick his lips, panting, practically salivating. Fuck, there’s attraction and then there’s whatever this is, unbearable and all-encompassing and all too far away.

Langa rises up from his spot on the bed to protest, to ask what was taking so long, what was he doing wrong? Because Adam had been so eager to take him for his own on S where everyone could see, so why was it that now, he was so reluctant, so on and off?

“Snow, you’re too new at this. Lie back down and stay still.” He commands.

To Langa, in that moment, Adam’s requests practically become law. Naturally, he falls flat back onto the bed, wills his body to become pliant, and waits. He holds his breath when Adam gets on top of him again, shielding him, caging him in, and the distance sends Langa’s mind into a mild vertigo. He can satisfy that burn in his chest if he could just get closer, but his alpha told him to stay still. He can do that, he can…

But then Adam’s hands are on him again, undressing him from the top down, button by button. He could just rip it off, get on with it already. Langa doesn’t need it, he has plenty of other shirts just like it.  

“Please,” he gasps, unable to hold it in when Adam’s thumb brushes past an exposed nipple and shocks every nerve in his body. “Fuck me, Adam, alpha -”

“I will, my Eve,” Adam responds in a low tone, cutting him off, “you’ll get what you want because you’re mine, and I take care of what’s mine.” His shirt finally tossed aside, Adam starts to make his way down to his pants, and Langa takes the opportunity to raise his hips shamelessly, his back arching off the bed.

“But I’m the one in charge here, Langa-kun. You need to learn where your place is.”

Langa feels his pants and underwear slide down, Adam carefully avoiding his now exposed erection in the process. He’s fully naked now, a heat-storm buzzing in between his ears, seeking solace in his mate that refuses to touch him.  

“You’re so eager, and that’s great. This isn’t easy for me either.” Hypnotic words, reassuring words. Langa finds himself feeling pleased at them, that he’s not quite irresistible to Adam, but it’s because his partner knows restraint.

And Langa doesn’t, but that thought blinks out of existence when he feels his arms being raised above his head. Then, the sensation of something snaking around one wrist, leathery smooth and cold against his hot skin. The same thing for his other wrist, until he’s raising both arms up wide, spread-eagle.

“But like I said, you’re mine now.”

Fuck, that primal sound, a growl almost, it drives Langa wild with the desire to please too. Yes, Langa is his, and all Langa needs to do is to get closer to show it.

His body doesn’t jerk up the way he wanted to, his wrists holding him down, trapped in the position that Adam wants him to be in. Being tied up like this, at his alpha’s mercy, fuck, it only turns him on more.

“And you’re special, you’re not like the others. You’re my Eve after all. I don’t want you to tire yourself out yet. I want this to last for a long, long time. You never forget your first time, right Langa-kun?”

Langa moans, his eyes fluttering up at the other man, its corners wet with tears. Since when did he start crying? Since when was he so on edge and overwhelmed and oh-so-desperate?

“I won’t forget this, I’ll be good, just please,” he babbles, “just, touch me.”

Adam freezes for a second, and then his smile twists into a smirk. The fire in his eyes is lit up full of lust, running up and down Langa’s naked body on full display. Under that impassioned gaze, Langa can only think yes, yes, take me in, take me, don’t resist me, I’m yours, aren’t I? He’s so hungry and delirious for it, it transcends all the adrenaline rushes he’s ever experienced, his heart working overtime just to keep up.

Langa didn’t even think that was possible.

But he wants to drown in it, this liquid heat, this fire-storm, never wants it to end.  

“No one’s touched you like this, here, hmm?”

His body tenses with that ghostly whisper hovering beside him. One finger drags along the seam of Langa’s inner thigh and then up the crack of his ass. He’s so wet there, a slick mess between his legs and Adam’s touch just makes him wetter, crave to be filled. It feels agonizing, far too slow, and Langa tugs against his restraints in an effort to thrust into the touch, raising his hips off the bed.

“N-no,” Langa stutters out.

He hasn’t, and maybe that’s why it feels so unbelievable, to be touched there so intimately, to be cared for like this. 

And he’s met by a hard pull of his legs up into the air, slung over Adam’s shoulders. The sudden movement yanks him wide awake, but his wrists are still holding him down when Adam’s lowers his head down between his parted thighs. That teasing digit slides into his hole easily, but it doesn’t negate the pleasure of something syncing, snapping into place in the depths of his biology. It’s just one finger, but it’s enough to get Langa even more worked up. When Adam adds another finger and bites down on the soft skin of his inner right thigh, Langa can’t help but cry out louder in pleasure, keen into it.

“Good,” Adam practically purrs, letting out a hot breath over his cock. Langa could only whimper in response, his hips trapped and held down tight, unable to buck into it for more friction.

“And no one ever will.”

It’s the air of finality in which Adam says it that drives the message home, that oh, this is forever, that he’s being used, taken. Just a glimmer of it, a tiny call of sanity perhaps, but that quickly vanishes when Adam roughly scissors him while licking up the entire length of his cock.

And holy shit, Langa’s never felt anything like it, his entire body convulsing from sheer surprise. But he has no excuses when it happens the second time, Adam’s fingers stretching him wider, curling deeper. No, that’s not surprise, that’s just pure toe-curling pleasure, looping through his nerves without rhyme or reason. Another bite above his right hipbone, nails digging into the left, a deliberate curl of fingers within him that makes Langa forget who he was before this very moment. It’s like an insidious ivy has coiled around his core and Langa can’t get away, helpless to its whims, climbing up, up, up.

His orgasm ripples through him without warning, without mercy. His limbs won’t stop trembling even though they’re held in place, his throat raw with the remnants of a scream he doesn’t even recall. It’s the highest high he’s ever felt, and it doesn’t even matter that his wrists feel sore, that the bites along his body will probably bruise (god he wants them to bruise).

No, for Langa, it doesn’t matter if he’s hurt in the process, because fuck, this high is worth it.

The rush of heat settles down and his mind is granted one brief moment of perfect clarity before it gets overridden with a more painful need.

Too empty, too temporary, too soon.

The mark on his neck pulsates like a migraine, one that reminds him that he’s still hard, still not fucked yet, still unclaimed in the only way he wants.

“So pent-up, my, my,” Adam teases him, “I wonder how many times you’ll come by the end of this.”

Langa blinks away a trail of tears, squirming in place helplessly. Before tonight, he couldn’t even get himself off more than once a day, didn’t even have half a mind to. One was enough to reset, like a maintenance routine. Sure, it felt good too, but good was absolutely nothing compared to this.

How many more can this body of his take?

See, Langa’s used to scraped knees, contusions and banged up bruises, wiping out on the hill. He’s used to each scab peeling off and fresh skin appearing in its place, stronger and made anew.

He’s not used to this body, the throbbing of his cock after a full-body orgasm and yet still begging for more. He’s not used to the fever wrecking havoc on him from the inside out, coming back as quickly as it had left. He clenches around Adam’s fingers and it’s not, good, enough.

“As many times as you want, I’ll – ” Langa moans, “anything you want. Just, fuck me, I need you.”

“My Eve,” a ruffle of clothing, a sharp inhale, his ass feeling horribly empty before Langa’s given a nibble along his jaw, teeth grazing his lips. The scent of his alpha wraps him in a stupor, his claim bite stinging with need. And Langa’s lost to it, the pain just enough to ground him and make him yearn for more contact, more than just fingers roughly tangled in his hair and hickeys along his collarbone. Everything’s so hazy, and it leaves him with only one thing to focus on, a primal urge surfacing from deep within him. Seeking a higher high, Langa chants his plea, over and over again against Adam’s mouth, drunk on their bond, the smell of sex in the air.

Fuck me, own me, breed me.

“How can I ever say no to you?”

His hips are suddenly hoisted up again and Langa involuntarily tenses up, his muscles stretched taut and his breath stolen from his lungs when Adam finally, finally lines himself up. It’s then that Langa finally understands why he was warned about restraint. Because it’s easy to stay afloat when he’s right at the edge of it, the border where land and sea meets. But the second he dips his toes in, it’s even easier to drown. And that’s how it feels; each inch of Adam’s cock stretching him is like plummeting another hundred feet into lava, melting him alive.

He’s a skater, a snowboarder. He knows the sky, the earth - the atmosphere above and the ground beneath his feet, how there’s always another step to climb, another summit that rises above the rest. The air up there is freeing, and the air here – Langa moans in pleasure as Adam bottoms out – is suffocating, and he doesn’t know if he will ever float back up, if he ever wants to. Not when every cell in his body is dancing with delight and his alpha’s leaning into him, midnight blue hair in disarray, his mask of control slipping off.

It takes no time before it does. Utterly, completely, and Langa feels it light up his bloodstream with every thrust, every handprint imprinted on his hip, his ribcage. His mind is empty, a snowstorm with zero visibility except for the hotness pulsating inside him, threatening to thaw it all, swallow him whole. Adam’s hips snap back in and Langa meets him, a crescendo that builds and escalates until Langa can’t contain it anymore. He comes again with his right cheek pressed into the mattress, fighting back a muffled cry at how he didn’t even need to be touched.

“Snow, my Eve, tell me,” Adam lures him back, his voice just as mesmerizing as when they skated side by side in that hypnotic trance of a dance.

But there’s a register of something more wrecked here, and the omega part of his brain mewls at the thought.

“Is this how you imagined it? Being fucked so thoroughly you can’t think straight?”

It must be obvious, Langa muses dumbly, but he doesn’t say it. His body talks for him when Adam’s hands reposition him so their chests are flush together, the angle so mind-numbing that Langa almost comes again.

“Now that you know how it feels, now that you’re mine to keep, let me tell you a secret,” Adam breathes against his neck before sinking in another bite just over the first.

It’s so unexpected, so sensitive that Langa wants to beg Adam to stop torturing him there, to make the air so thick with his scent that he could pass out from it alone. But he can’t arch away, can’t move as Adam’s increasingly erratic thrusts stretch him to his limits.

And he’s lost himself long ago in this, but he wants Adam to lose himself too.

So, Langa clenches his ass hard, leans in just far enough to brush his lips against Adam’s cheek and draws a groan from his alpha. One that leads to a few faster, angrier successive thrusts into him, one that gets him another love bite on his ear.

“Tell me…” Langa gasps hoarsely, his voice all worn out.

“I wanted to claim you the first time I saw you. I wanted to obliterate you in skating and see you put up a fight in the way only you, as Snow could. I wanted to obliterate you just, like, this, too, if I got you close enough.” Each punctuated word sends Langa into a frenzy, his thighs and ass trembling wildly, his dick still leaking and desperate for another release. “I wanted you to be my Eve, for you to wear my mark and no one else’s, for you to bear my child.”

Langa’s eyes snap wide open and Adam’s looking straight at him, that seductive, hungry gaze seared right into him, branding him.

He said it first, didn’t he? Langa recollects foggily. To breed him, to own him wholly, to fuck him until that’s all he knows.

Yes, that’s what this is all about, that mating call, that burn deep in his belly, that bewitching smell. Langa hasn’t had much time at all to get used to what being an omega means, not in this first mess of a heat, one that’s on track to dictate his life from here on out.

But that’s just like him, isn’t it?

He rushes in and figures things out later. It’s always worked for him. It’ll be okay, because despite everything, he does want Adam, and there was a magnetic pull between them even before the onset of his heat. He definitely didn’t imagine this, because sex wasn’t something that he gave much thought about. Langa certainly didn’t know how good it would feel. But given everything now, it doesn’t sound so bad. He doesn’t care for getting pregnant, even if his biology is shoving it down his throat as a priority, but that’s a side-effect Langa’s content to leave to the roll of the dice, another danger, another bullet to bite.

As long as that means he could have this, be Adam’s.

“I’m yours, yours – ah - however you want me.” Langa promises, and those are the magic words that sends his mate over the edge, speeding up and fucking into him so fast and rough that it practically extends his orgasm when it hits him a third time, come smeared between their chests.

And that’s when Langa registers Adam coming too, the sensation unmistakable despite him never having felt it before. Because it’s so hot, an endless inferno roaring inside him, filling him up. It’s in the way his body immediately falls pliant, the voices lower to a quiet whisper, how the world grinds to a halt, comes full circle. Even with his mind clearing with each hot pulse inside him, Langa still wants to combust, still doesn’t feel the same as before the heat overtook him. It makes him miss snowy winters and Canada, makes him want to plunge head first into icy waters. It was easier when he was just chasing instinct, when he was following an irresistible pull into orbit, but now that it was gone, Langa was still left hot and bothered and ever so stuck.

Adam brushes Langa’s hair out of his face, shakes his head a little after taking in the dazed look on Langa’s face. They’re still joined together, something holding them in place. But it all slowly begins to unwind, Langa beginning to notice new sensations other than mind-blowing pleasure: sore muscles and twinges of pain where he was bitten, the stretch of his hole. It’s a sluggish descent from the high, and all Langa can bring himself to do as he comes down is to try to breathe through it, unable to grab at any words.

“Don’t look so confused, Langa-kun. It’ll get better again soon.” Adam says against his mouth. While the contact wasn’t as electrifying as it was before, Langa’s still magnetized by it, held in place.

“Soon?” Langa asks, eyes falling half-lidded.

“Your first heat will probably have a few rounds, to get you used to it,” Adam explains. “Just relax. I told you, didn’t I? I want this to last for a long, long time.”

Oh, Langa thinks, right. There’s more at the end of the course, more than just this one dance. There are movements in the song, more races to be ran, more peaks to climb.  

“And now that you know how it goes, you know how to be good, right Snow? In return, I’ll treat you the way you deserve to be treated.”

A kiss placed right at the mark on his neck, singing Adam’s name.

“You’re mine.”

Adam whispers against the corner of his mouth, and Langa melts into it. He’s not atop a summit right now, but even from the ground, Langa still recognizes that there are new worlds only Adam can show him, a sickly compulsion that Langa leans right into.

He doesn’t know what more there is that awaits him with Adam, what it means to really be his.

“You’re special, Langa-kun. Don’t you know that I’m the only one that can keep up with you? The Adam to your Eve. It was meant to be the two of us all along.”

But he somehow trusts Adam’s words all the same, believes in that mesmerizing voice and the pull in his gut.

Langa nods softly to himself before drifting off, more than spent.

And when the fever returns again with a vengeance, Langa doesn’t hesitate, and surrenders to it once more.