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"Did you know that, across every continent on Earth, there's a thin gray line that appears in the sediment?" Adam mused, eyes turning from the skies above them to the earth below, eyes catching upon the mountains. "It's made up of an incredibly high concentration of iridium, which is a chemical element that is otherwise considered to be very rare on Earth. It doesn't naturally appear in these quantities on this planet, except for this line."
They had moved up north, into the secluded mountain ranges of Oregon, fleeing to escape the heat of California. Neither of them had been particularly well-suited for it, so he supposed it must have been some work of divine intervention that drew them together on that August afternoon. Nigel had been in town on business, smuggling in drugs at the order of his boss, though Adam hadn't known that at the time. The planetarium had been a mere whim, drawn in by the architecture and the artwork splattered across the side of the building. The angel working inside was prettier than all the stars above, though, Nigel always insisted.
The rest was history, really. It had been such a simple sort of love story, coffee dates and nights spent wrapped in projector lights, evenings at the orchestra, making love for the first time. Nigel had been so gentle with him, holding his body with a rare sort of reverence, the sort only offered up by devotees and religious fanatics. Adam had never understood those people, how people could hold such faith in things unseen; but he understood this.
The first heat they'd spent together, Adam found himself counting constellations behind his eyelids. It came so easily, to surrender to his lover's will, to offer up that tightly-held control for the sake of sex, for the sake of pleasure. Such sweet surrender had been so foreign to him before, but Nigel made it feel easy. It had taken them a few months to work up to it, Adam always so wary of change, but the distance let the heart grow fonder. And in the release, in that moment of such divine submission, Adam saw stars.
He'd had sex before, sure, but his heats had always been something so strictly private, to never be shared with anyone unless he was sure. His father had taught him that much, ensuring that he knew it was better to take care of himself than to be taken advantage of. His father had been a beta, but he knew the horror stories, had seen the statistics; he knew the way that omegas were treated, especially the men. So when Adam finally presented, a little later than most of his peers, that fear nestled in alongside the fear that came with the autism diagnosis. His father had always tried so hard to protect him, even if it left him suffering.
And so he'd suffered. For over ten years, he'd suffered every heat alone, too fearful of any alpha that might offer him some semblance of relief. Until Nigel stumbled upon his planetarium, Adam Raki had suffered alone. Frantic fingers pressing desperately into his own body, the slick-stained sheets beneath him, the sweat beaded across his body, it had been its own special sort of hell. But hellish as it might have been, it was familiar. It was safe.
But Nigel, patient and foul-mouthed and so relentlessly adoring, waited until he was ready without a word of complaint. Even in the throes of his own rut, he never once begged, never once pressured him for anything more than he was ready to give. And when Adam granted him the permission, Nigel offered him something more than mere relief. He offered him euphoria.
They'd left scars upon one another's throats the very first time, needing no further confirmation of what they had between them. Adam already knew; as surely as the sun rises in the east, as it sets in the west, Nigel was his alpha. If soulmates existed, he'd found his own in the form of a swearing Romanian, with messy silver hair and cigarette stains on the edges of his fingers. From then on, they lived heat to heat, rut to rut, falling into such an easy rhythm, the routine as natural as the breath between their lungs.
It had been enough to make Adam feel more normal than he'd ever felt before.
Nigel never made him feel different, never made him feel odd or stilted or misplaced. Neither one of them fit in so particularly well, Nigel and his foul mouth, Adam and his autism. With such a rough upbringing, and even rougher adulthood, it seemed almost miraculous that their jagged edges would fit so perfectly together. But like the scattered pieces of a mosaic, this mingling of their souls had created something beautiful.
Adam had secured a job at a planetarium, and Nigel had settled into a more respectable line of work. He still smoked weed, still drank a few beers on the weekend, but he'd left the harder drugs behind him. They had an apartment just outside of Sunriver, nestled in the mountains of a national forest, where Adam worked at a quiet little observatory. Most days, Nigel dropped him off in the mornings and picked him up again in the evenings; and at least once a week, he took Adam out to their favorite spot in the park with dinner from their favorite Italian place, and he let Adam talk about the stars for as long as he wanted.
"Everywhere beneath that line of iridium, there is always evidence of life. And incredibly diverse life, at that. Dinosaurs, of course, but also birds, and insects, and mammals like wolves and mammoths and sabre tooth cats," Adam rambled on, leaning against Nigel's shoulder. The alpha served as a sort of tether, keeping him grounded to the earth when his head was somewhere in the stars. "There's evidence of swamps, and forests, and megafauna like we have never seen. Fossils in the rock left evidence of this strange, almost alien planet. Except it wasn't alien, because it was here. Below that line, the world was like nothing we have ever known, and above that line, there's nothing. It's like something not of this world came in and ended it all in an instant. Violently and abruptly, something fell from the stars and changed the earth forever."
"Is that where the meteor hit?" Nigel asked, taking another puff of his cigarette. "The one that took out all the fucking dinosaurs?"
"It's not where it hit, it's when it hit. That impact scarred the Earth forever, left something foreign embedded in the stone. It came from the stars, fell down from the sky, and collided with our planet so hard that it left marks." Adam could feel a warmth rising to his skin, not so unusual when he started to get excited. Beneath the cool light of the moon and the milky way, though, he couldn't tell if his skin was flushing pink. "And not just this line in the rock, either. The iridium anomaly is just the proof we have of it now, millions of years later, but the impact of that asteroid changed the way the whole world looked for months, probably years after it hit."
Nigel's hand reached up to press beneath his shirt, rubbing circles against the base of his spine. It was a soothing gesture, not so uncommon, as though meant to tether him to the earth below. A soft sigh escaped his parted lips, instinct taking control as he leaned deeper into his alpha's touch, his body more responsive than his mind. No, his mind was somewhere far away, drifting between asteroids and extinction events, between the heavens and the earth.
Falling in love with him had been so easy, so simple, as natural as the breath between his lungs. Adam had brought light to his darkness, peace in the midst of his god-given chaos. Picking up on all his little quirks and idiosyncrasies, falling into his habits and routines, Nigel considered it a blessing. It was a blessing to learn all his favorite constellations, to memorize the names of the nebulas projected against their bedroom walls. It was a blessing to know all of his favorite colors, to know his scent as well as he knew his own.
And it was a blessing to know when his omega was on the verge of heat.
"Sparrow," Nigel whispered, the pet name falling like honey from his cooing tongue. Pulling himself deeper in turn, his lips grazed against Adam's ear, pressed against his temple, peppering kisses through his hair. "Fuck, baby…"
"Did you know that it rained glass?" Adam asked, his question not in the least bit rhetorical, even when he left no time for Nigel to answer. "Millions of tons of molten rock, dust, and debris were ejected up into the atmosphere at the point of impact, and it all came back down as glass — tektite, technically. It's formed in the impact of meteorites, and after the asteroid crashed into earth, it rained down across the whole world."
Leaning deeper into his touch, Nigel buried his nose into the crook of Adam's neck, inhaling him in deep, as though seeking confirmation of something. Always such a keen sense of smell, Nigel had described every note of his scent in great detail a thousand times before, sought it out like a sweeter type of drug. Amber and sandalwood, vanilla and starflower, underpinned with a fevered sweetness; all the first burgeoning signs of heat.
"Adam, sweetheart," Nigel murmured, pressing a kiss to the side of his neck, a hand slipping further up his shirt. "Are you feeling okay?"
"I'm feeling fine. Did you know that is was most likely springtime?" Adam continued on, hardly acknowledging the words spilling from Nigel's tongue. They tended to fall into this easy rhythm of Adam's rambling, Nigel's listening, and how could anything be wrong? "We — scientists, I mean, not me specifically — have managed to find a small fossil deposit of lake fish that died in the impact. In their final breaths, their gills took in these deposits of solidified rock that had been previously vaporized into the atmosphere in the wake of this meteorite. So in their last breaths, they breathed in these spherules of debris, and in those same last breaths, they took in pollen. Across the northern hemisphere, flowers were blooming."
Those broad hands splayed across his spine, pressing against his skin in the way a nurse might search for signs of a fever. "Sparrow, darling, can't you fucking feel that?"
"Feel what?"
Nigel's eyes searched his own in a brief moment of contact, as though searching for some confirmation that he was telling the truth. Of course he was telling the truth, Adam never lied. Through incredulous eyes, he found no hint of deception or downplaying, no recognition of the implication. Even with the fever burning just beneath his palm, Adam seemed wholly unaware.
He wondered if he should mention it, or if he should simply usher Adam to the car. It would be a short hike out of the woods if he could usher him out without alarm, and then thirty minutes until they stumbled across the threshold of their home. All in all, it would take them nearly an hour before they made it back. But Nigel could already smell it on him, could already feel the heat rising against his palm, could already tell.
He knew Adam's rhythm, the way his body slipped into the throes of instinct and pleasure. He knew how quickly it could take him, how fast he could slip beneath the influence of his pheromones. Nigel had watched him disappear in a matter of moments, all rationale spilling from his tongue as he loosed his grasp on his surroundings. It could all happen so quickly, without rhyme or reason, without warning or alarm. There was no way in hell that Adam would make it all the way back without noticing, without suffering the whole ride home.
That wasn't even considering the response of his own body, his own rising temperature, his own threat of rut. Nigel knew better than to get behind the wheel like this.
Interoception had never been Adam's strong suit, never fully aware of what was happening in his own body, even through the first burgeoning hours of heat. The arousal lit in his belly never felt too much different than the arousal he felt outside of heat, never so different from his natural, yearning inclinations. The fever in the pit of his belly, at the base of his spine, it all just felt like warmth to him. Against the cool night breeze, the scent of oak and moss high on the wind, he hadn't noticed his own scent begin to change, seeping thick with amber and vanilla. And even still, as Nigel reached up to cup his face, he could barely discern the concern etched across his alpha's features.
"I think you're going into heat, sweetheart," Nigel warned softly, as though there were anyone around to overhear them, as though he might startle and run like a wild animal. Fingers reaching up to softly comb through his curls, he found his blue-eyed gaze and held it there. "Are you sure you're feeling alright?"
With the sudden realization, the sensation slammed into him all at once. Sweat beading along his brow, Adam could feel the insistent tugging in the pit of his belly, the familiar weight of dread settling in his core. It was a feeling that always came on the third of the month, when he was curled up in the nest of clothes and blankets, sheets and stuffies, safe within the confines of their home. It was his body's routine, his cycle falling on a strict schedule; it wasn't meant to come on the thirtieth, a full four days ahead of schedule. He wasn't meant to feel the fever burning up his spine yet, wasn't meant to feel that undeniable ache and yearn between his thighs, not not, not yet. But called back down from the clouds above, forced back into his body, it was unmistakable.
Adam was in heat.
That fear had been ingrained in him since he'd first presented, drilled into his skull with his father's desperate warnings. That fear was old, burned into his bones until it was his instinctive reaction to the first symptoms of heat. Nigel had taught him that there was pleasure to be found in the throes heat, in the controlled environment of their home, safe behind locked doors. But here, exposed beneath the open skies, he felt that old, dying fear ignite between his ribs again.
"I want to go inside." Panic surged through his body as he pulled himself away from Nigel, struggling to gather himself together enough to get up and go. The hike back to the car was nearly half a mile, but if they hurried… "I want to go home."
It was stated like a fact, serious as the grave, face draining of color as he staggered to his feet, Nigel's hands reaching up to steady him and follow. Only half upright, kneeling like a man proposing to his would-be lover, Adam's feet faltered in the grass as he turned back to face him. Sweat beading across his brow, he wondered if Nigel was beginning to feel it too. They had been together long enough to fall in sync with one another, their cycles of heat and rut rising to meet the other. Adam wondered if the fever was settling in Nigel's bones too, if it hurt him too.
Nigel reached up to trace along the underside of his jaw, to thread his fingers through his soft brown curls, coaxing Adam back onto the blanket laid out beneath them. Somewhere in the distance, Nigel could hear the call of an owl, the chitter of bats, the blessed assurance found in nocturnal creatures. As a thumb swept across his cheek, in a rare act of submission from such a stubborn omega, Adam fell back down on trembling knees.
"I don't know if we can make it home like this, sparrow," Nigel confessed softly. Shame rose up to flush hot against his cheeks, regretful that he hadn't caught the signs sooner. If he'd just brought Adam home instead, if he'd just insisted they go home a little earlier… "I don't know if I can make it home, I don't think I can drive like this. You smell so fucking good, Adam."
Adam didn't know what to do with his hands. He could feel the slick gathering between his legs, dripping down his shaking thighs. Part of him wanted to reach down his pants, pry the slick-soaked cotton from his skin and insert a finger, then two, then three. He wanted to press insistently against that sweet spot just inside, crook his fingers and chase the relief of orgasm. He wanted to fuck himself until he was full, until this primal need was satisfied, until the ache was appeased.
He knew better than to believe that fingers might satiate him, though. No, there was only one thing that could truly satisfy him these days.
The other part of himself wanted to reach out and cling to his alpha, bury his face into the crook of Nigel's neck and seek sweet refuge. Adam wanted to tear the clothes from his body, strip him bare and count the scars that lined his skin. He wanted to surrender to his most animalistic of instincts, lay himself down against the grass and present himself like a dog. He wanted to abandon his every lingering fear for the sake of satisfaction, for the sake of carnal pleasure, for the sake of natural instinct, for sake of breeding.
Mostly, though, he just wanted to flap his hands until he calmed down, until he could breathe again. He wanted to bounce on the balls of his feet and pace the length of the forest, wanted to walk until the fever had burned itself out. He wanted to scream, wanted to bury his face in his knees, wanted to rock back and forth and cover his ears, wanted to drown out the sound of his own slamming pulse.
Instead, he crossed his arms across his chest, just like Harlan had taught him. It kept him from hurting himself, from clawing at his skin or smashing his fists against his skull. Spine locked beneath the flesh, Adam balled his hands into fists and pressed them hard beneath his arms, until the bones threatened to break beneath the force. But it was enough to distract from the pain in his head, the throbbing between his temples, the pulsing blood in his ears…
"I don't know what to do," Adam squeaked out, fighting the urge to curl in on himself entirely. He cursed himself for noticing, wanted to curse Nigel for calling it to his attention — he'd felt fine. "It hurts, and I'm scared, and I want to go home, Nigel."
Nigel reached up to cradle Adam between his arms, drawing him tight into his chest. Amber and sandalwood, vanilla and starflower, that fevered sweetness spilled into the night air between them. Adam surrendered to his embrace without objection, without the usual thrashing that accompanied a meltdown. Nigel could still feel him shaking, trembling beneath his touch, but there was comfort to be offered, solace to be taken.
Burying his face into the collar of Nigel's shirt, Adam inhaled deep, taking the scent of his alpha between his open lungs. He smelled like bourbon and cigarette smoke, like cardamom and oak, like mahogany and home. He'd always found peace within the scent of his alpha, even when his anxiety rose up like a tidal wave to overwhelm him. His body recognized Nigel's body pressed against him, collapsing into him like a dying star as he found the safety to do so. Even beneath the buzzing in his ears, Adam knew two things with absolute certainty; he was in heat, and he was safe.
"We'll make it home tonight, I promise," Nigel vowed, pressing a kiss against his forehead, pushing the sweat-drenched curls from his eyes. "I just need to knot, sweetheart. Just once, just to clear my fucking head."
"Out here?" Adam asked incredulously, brow tightening at the prospect. His eyes turned back toward the stars above him, considering how they might look as they made love beneath them. Constellations dipping and swaying in the sky, he wondered if it might be worth the risk. "Isn't that illegal?"
"Who's around to catch us?" Nigel shrugged, fingers combing through the omega's hair. He'd done so much illegal shit over the years, this seemed inconsequential in comparison. "How many fucking times have we been out here? We've never crossed paths with another living soul out here, and I'll be really fucking surprised if we run into anyone tonight."
Nigel could still see the discomfort etched across his features, the uncertainty written in the lines across his face. Reaching up to trace along the creases in the skin, he couldn't help but notice how fucking angelic Adam looked in the moonlight. Even so worried, even so feverishly handsome, he looked like a goddamn angel beneath these starry skies. Sent down from heaven unto a sinner like him, Nigel cradled his whole world in the palm of his hand. And with the sincerity of heaven's soldier, he would protect all he had with all that was in him.
"I can make it stop hurting, sweetheart," Nigel coaxed, spoken like a vow as he tugged his omega tighter against his body. "I can make it all go away, and you can just lay back and watch your stars. I'll take care of it all, and you don't have to worry about a fucking thing."
Despite his own selfish motivations, Nigel spoke every word with a sincerity that calmed Adam's fraying nerves. Against every better judgment, he needed this just as much. The fever was burning just beneath his skin, the hunger settling in the pit of his belly; Adam knew himself well enough to understand what it meant, and what was surely soon to follow. The fire would consume him until he was a simpering, whining wreck, until he could no longer recognize himself. The heat would burn away at the edges of his mind, strip him of anything outside of his desire to be fucked, to be knotted, to be bred. He'd be dangerous to drive with in such a state, even more so beneath the haze of Nigel's rut, if they could even make it out of the forest now. They had waited too long, ignored too many signs…
But Nigel's gentle words wrapped around his shoulders, swaddling his body to stop his violent trembling. Nose buried deep into the soft cotton of his shirt, Adam breathed in the familiar scent of him and sighed, finding solace in his open arms. Against his every better judgment, Adam trusted Nigel with all that was in him.
"Okay," Adam whispered, a one-word vow spoken with holy reverence, his utmost sincerity.
Nigel couldn’t suppress the growl that rumbled up from the pit of his chest, the sound escaping from between his starving lungs. Amber and vanilla, starflower and sandalwood, he could have drowned himself in the scent of his boy. He could feel the rut fraying at the corners of his mind, burning away at his every inhibition, demanding that he pin his omega down into the dirt and fuck him like an animal.
But still, his first priority was making damn certain that his sparrow was safe and sound.
He had not been such a good man in the days of his youth, never quite so considerate. Nigel had always thought of himself as a bad man through and through, hands stained red with all the blood he'd spilled. But Adam had never seen him in such a cruel light, had always seen the very best in him. It was better than he deserved, that was for damn certain. But for Adam's sake, it made him want to be a better man, a better alpha. So he held his lover's pleasure as paramount, and he took good care of his omega.
"Just tell me what you need from me, sparrow," Nigel whispered, breath growing heavy between his heaving lungs, fighting to hold his composure. "Anything you want, it's yours. I'll take good care of you tonight, I fucking promise."
Adam swallowed the words he wanted to say, clinging to the remnants of his rationality. He wanted to lay himself down against the blanket and bare himself to the open skies, wanted to present like a good omega for Nigel to take. He wanted a knot between his legs, wanted to feel the pop and release, the lock and spill. He wanted to take his seed deep inside his body, wanted to leak and drip with Nigel's scent for days after his heat ended. He wanted to be fucked and knotted and bred; and somewhere deep down, he wanted it to take.
But Adam knew better. That last dangling shred of coherence knew better. They had always used protection during heat, always assumed it the wiser. Children had always seemed like such a distant, unattainable dream, neither of them quite well-suited for fatherhood. Such changes to his body would surely be too much for him to handle, and his autism would almost certainly be passed down to any offspring they would produce. He was prone to overwhelm as it was, how could he ever handle having a baby of his own? He could hardly take care of himself, how could he take care of another living, breathing soul? There were a million reasons why the condoms were the safest bet, a million reasons why they shouldn't.
But beneath the haze of heat, his reasoning grew more unclear, blurring with the corners of his vision.
"We don't have condoms," he squeaked out, clinging to that one and only thought. It rolled around his head, swimming between his ears, pounding against his skull. Unpleasant and tempting, Adam fought to find his reasoning, fought to remember why that was a bad thing. "I could get pregnant."
"Would that be such a bad thing?" Nigel asked, musing at the prospect. In better light, without the haze of rut fogging up his mind, Nigel knew better than to press him. Through every other heat, he'd never once thought to press him on it, never once thought to question. But beneath the starry skies above them, his mind couldn't help but wander. "Don't get me wrong, I don't want to make you feel pressured or any of that shit. I mean, at the end of the fucking day, it's all up to you; it's not my body going through all that. I can knot your mouth, or in between your thighs, or my own fucking hand if I need to; I just don't want you hurting the whole way home. And I just thought… I don't fucking know, sweetheart, but I wouldn't mind building a family with you. I mean, if our kids turn out anything like you—"
"That's what I'm afraid of," Adam confessed, the words spilling from his unrestrained tongue. His mind was slipping from between his sweating palms, but he knew this much like he knew the names of the constellations above. "Autism is highly genetic, they'll most likely turn out a lot like me. Meltdowns, anxiety, ugly parts and all."
Nigel furrowed his brow and paused, pulling just far enough away to study Adam's face, to catch every fleeting emotion as it passed across his features. There was bitterness beneath the truth, brutality bloody and bruised against his honest lips. It was uncharacteristic, to hold himself in such a disparaging light. Adam always held his autism in the same light as the greats, founding fathers and scientific geniuses; to hold the ugly parts to the light, to acknowledge the pain was unlike him.
But Adam knew the pain all too well, even if he kept it tucked close against his chest. The pain of rejection still rattled between his ribs on bad days, the sensory overwhelm of bright lights and loud noises still pierced through the bone. And how could he risk subjecting their child to the same fate?
"Hey, hey, that's okay. I'm not scared of our kids being autistic, if that's your only reason. The world needs more people like you, right?" Nigel coaxed softly, peppering kisses across his salty skin. "More Einsteins, more Mozarts, more Adam fucking Rakis. I can only hope they turn out like you, sweetheart. Out of the two of us, you're the better man. I'd be so fucking lucky if our babies were to take after you."
Kids had always seemed like such a distant dream, like a fantasy that he could only touch in the moments between waking and sleep. Nigel had considered himself doomed by the age of seventeen, already running drugs and sleeping with whoever lacked enough self-respect to give him the time of day. He could have never brought children into that life, could have never risked their lives like that; but having left it all behind him now, he could picture it all so clearly. And fuck, he liked the view.
Adam's body would swell, grow to accommodate the life forming between his parted hips. He would carry it well, of that much Nigel was damn certain. He would savor every last moment, worship his omega's body as he went through this divine transformation, as they settled into a new sort of routine. He'd linger upon every kick against his palm, every quiet soothing of his little discomforts, try to capture every moment and hold it like water between his fingers. And when his waters finally broke, Nigel would cradle their children like the universe between his open hands. He might have been a bad man, but fuck, he could make a good dad.
A hand reached to hold across his belly as Adam clung to that last shred of rationality before the reckless abandon, turning the thought over again and again in his mind. All of his reasonings blurred together in the background, a warning siren drowned out beneath the storm. As Nigel met his gaze and held it, Adam let out a breath and nodded. Spoken like a vow, he whispered, "Okay."
Nigel could have cried out in his relief, in his ecstasy, in his joyous fucking rhapsody. Cupping his omega's face between his hands, he brought Adam close enough to kiss, to leave kisses peppered across every inch of that pretty fucking face.
"You can always change your mind, sweetheart," Nigel reassured, kisses trailing down Adam's throat, his collarbones. Fuck, he could have drowned in the scent of his omega and died a happy man, swimming in the golden waves of amber. "Just tell me to, and I'll pull out before I knot. We can get Plan B when you're heat's over, I'll pay for the fucking abortion if it comes to that. I'll do whatever you say, and I'll love you all the same." It was assurance offered on both ends, an oath that this conversation would change nothing between them once his heat ended. "You can change your mind, but if you want to have my baby, it would be the greatest fucking honor of my life."
The constellations dipped and swayed in the skies above them as Adam slipped back down onto the blanket, his mind returned again to the heavens as he surrendered to the fever. Nigel cleared their little mess of paper plates and plastic forks, telescopes and maps of the stars above, making space for him in their makeshift nest. It wasn't quite so soft as their shared bed, as the nest of well-worn pajamas and the soft cotton blankets, but it would suit them well enough. Beneath the blanket of stars overhead, Adam eased himself against the ground.
Even through the haze of heat, the omega’s mind was in the stars, pointing out stars and constellations, consumed by the vast infinity of the cosmos as he laid down beneath it. He was faintly aware of the ache of his yearning somewhere in the distance, the fever burning just below the skin, but Adam could hardly feel it. No, in the recesses of what remained of his mind, he considered the stories written in the flecks of light, the myths and legends to precede them. He considered the prospect of legacy, of what might remain when he was long forgotten. He considered the proof of their love and what it might serve, what it might manifest.
Softly, the words spilled from his tongue, like sweet wine dripping from his open mouth. Adam never lied, but the sincerity in his tone was the rare and unbreakable sort. And without doubt or suspicion, Nigel believed him when he said it.
"I want to have your baby."
And he meant it. God, he meant it, with every fiber of his being. All his reasons flown to the heavens above him, Adam wanted this little bit of normalcy. He wanted to make love to his alpha, wanted to build a life and a home and a family together, wanted to carry the proof of their love in the front of his belly, heavy and low with the weight of it. He wanted to sit with their children and teach them the names of the planets, tell them all those myths and legends painted within the constellations. He wanted to make Nigel proud, wanted to carve out their space in the sky, to live on in the impressions they would make. Adam didn't curse as much as Nigel, but fuck, he wanted it.
Nigel could have wept at the very prospect, could have cried out for joy in the very thought of it. His omega loved him enough to offer him the gift of life, the first crying breaths of a newborn in his arms. Adam Raki wanted to have his baby.
Every single muscle in his body was pulled taut with the superhuman effort to quell the primal urges clawing at his ribcage. Split apart at the fraying seams of his mind, Nigel could hardly hold hold himself back. Part of him wanted to press his omega against the soft earth, work through his rut and give Adam Raki the baby he wanted. Pawing hands wrapped around his lover's body, grazing along the bare skin just beneath his shirt, pheromones demanding that he strip his omega bare before him.
But that other part of his mind, the part that still clung to his better judgment, just needed to make sure. Even lost to the throes of his rising rut, Nigel held his omega's comfort as paramount. He loved Adam Raki above all else, with all the fire that burned within him. He wouldn't want him to regret this come morning.
Fuck, he hoped Adam didn't regret this come morning.
"Are you sure, sweetheart?" Nigel whispered, voice cracking around his little endearment. He cursed to himself at how broken he sounded. This man who had watched men crumple and fall, who had taken life at the back end of a bullet, where was he now? Who was this desperate, bewildered, weepy man that stood in his place? "I mean, I know pregnancy is a big fucking deal, and I don't want to put you through that if you're not ready."
Seeking all blessed assurance, Adam could only find peace within himself. There was simply a calm sense of knowing, an understanding within himself that could not be formed in words. The rising tides of panic had returned again to the ocean, drowned beneath the wracking waves of desire that crashed up against his bones. As sure as the sun would rise in the east, as sure as it would set in the west, as sure as the moon would take its place against the night sky, Adam simply knew.
"I'm ready," Adam said, pulling himself tighter against his alpha's yearning body. "I know I can do this. Please, Nigel, let me do this for you."
"Not just for me," Nigel pushed, against his every carnal instinct. "For us, okay? If this isn't what you want, then I don't want it either. I want you more than anything, more than any fucking fantasy. I just thought—"
"I want it, Nigel," he insisted, turning to meet his gaze and hold it, such rarities holding all deserved gravity. "I know what I want, this is what I want. For me. For us." The fever was burning hotter, sweat beading along his brow as the hunger settled in his bones. "Please, Nigel."
"Fuck, sparrow," Nigel growled, a groan rolling up from the pit of his chest. "I'll give you anything you want, just ask and it's yours. If you wanna have my baby, then I'm gonna put my fucking baby in your belly."
A small smile tugged at the corners of Adam's mouth as the stars twinkled and danced above them, as Nigel found his place on the sheet beside him. His fingers worked deftly at the buttons of his own shirt first, stripping himself of his baby blues before turning his attentions toward the omega. Adam held no objection as Nigel's hand slipped beneath the hem of his shirt, tugging his sweater up over his head. It was a well-loved sweater, worn until it was fraying at the seams, the alpha's scent ingrained within the fabric, smoke and mahogany woven between the threads. Laid as a pillow beneath his head, it almost felt like a nest. And laid beneath his blanket of stars, it almost felt like floating.
Dipping and swaying with the stars above, Adam leaned deeper into Nigel's touch as he peppered kisses along the exposed flesh, until they were both bared one to the other. If not for the haze of heat, the fever burning at his temples, he might have felt more exposed, more wary of the strangers that might stumble upon them here. But drowned beneath the scent of amber and vanilla, the desire building in the pit of his belly, he couldn't think straight enough to care.
Nigel sighed softly, pressing kisses along the bare flesh of his shoulder, down along his collarbones, between the soft fat of his breasts. Adam wasn't as rail-thin as he'd been when they'd first met, surviving off of freezer meals and cold cereal; no, since Nigel had moved in, the omega's edges had softened, his curves just a little more pronounced. In this body, he could carry a pregnancy well, hips wide set enough now to bear his children easily. And Nigel would worship him all the more.
Adam letting out a contented hum as Nigel kissed every inch of exposed skin, paying no mind to the breeze as it rustled through the leaves, ruffled through his hair. He hardly noticed as the wind dusted across the bare flesh, as the goosebumps prickled up along his arms. All he could feel was the warmth of his alpha's breath, the heat of his hands caressing along his sides, the tender brush of his lips against his belly. Kissing down the strip of downy hair that dipped between his legs, Adam threaded his fingers through Nigel's silvery waves of hair and savored in his every touch.
He would savor in it for as long as his body would allow him, enjoy it for as long as his body could stave off the heat. The fever would consume him, and he would beg for nothing but his alpha's knot; but until then, he would simply revel in his lover's worship.
"Nigel," Adam breathed, voice escaping low and sultry from his lips. Nigel's face pressed down between his thighs, tongue probing between the twitching folds of slick-soaked flesh. A cry dragged itself up from his throat, a fresh pulse of slick spilling into his alpha's eager mouth. "Alpha, please."
He felt the hot slick pulse out of him again, gushing hot against his lover's tongue. Nigel greedily lapped up every drop, flowing into his open mouth like milk and honey, like the grace of heaven above. Bucking up against his eager lips, Adam couldn't help but ache for more.
He needed the pressure between his legs, needed to feel the breach and give, the push and release. His heat was demanding, hungry and insatiable, gnawing in the pit of his belly. He would find no reprieve or relief until there was a knot tugging at the brim of his body, spilling deep inside of his womb. The ache between his legs was nearly unbearable as he hitched and bucked into his alpha's mouth, praying that he might find mercy upon his tongue.
His mind was fraying at the edges with the heat of his desperation, the fever rising to a boiling point against his sweating brow. All that his mind could hold to was his need, his every biological instinct and demand. He needed Nigel to press inside, needed to feel the give of his body as his cock kissed against his cervix. He needed to take the full weight of his rut, needed to feel the fire of his lover's name in the back of his throat. Adam needed to be bred.
Desperation rising against the flat of his tongue, Adam reached down to thread his fingers through Nigel's hair, tethering himself to the earth below. Above him, the stars dipped and swayed, the celestial light awash over his pale skin.
“Nigel, please,” Adam begged, voice escaping pitifully from his whining tongue. Hips rolling up to press deeper into his mouth, Nigel's tongue pressed between the folds of flesh, suckling at that bundle of nerves that could have been his cock, if it could even count as that much. Soaked at the mercy of his mouth, he couldn't help himself but cry out for "more, please, more."
Nigel didn't dare torture him any longer, another gush of slick pulsing like vanilla on his tongue. Pressing a finger in alongside his tongue, he reached inside his omega to press against that sweet spot inside, that place that always made him fucking scream. Adam let out a small whine and pushed deeper into his touch, the yearning ache of his body soothing at the intrusion.
"Tell me what you want, sweetheart," Nigel coaxed, eyes turning up to lock on that soft blue gaze staring down at him. "I want to hear it from your own mouth."
Nigel let out a low, possessive growl as he buried his face deeper between his thighs, hoping to drown in the scent of sandalwood and starflowers.
Pushing deeper into his weeping hole, Adam let out a wrecked sort of whine, searching for the words in the constellations above him. He found no answers written in the stars, found no way to describe what he wanted beyond that innate, screaming biological impulse ringing against his ears. A dissatisfied sound rising to his lips with his loss for words, Nigel targeted that sensitive little bundle of nerves just inside of him, drawing a cry from his lips.
"You can do it," Nigel growled, coaxing the words up from his tongue before diving back between his legs, suckling harder at his little cock, pressing harder against his g-spot. "Just say it for me. Just a few fucking words, that's all I want."
“I want you, Nigel. I want your cock inside of me, and I want the fever to break, and I want to go home, and I want your knot," Adam rambled, voice hitching with every other word. "Please, Nigel."
Pressed against his leg, he could feel Nigel's erection thrust up against him, proof of his own urges and instincts. Bared and rutting against his body, it served as a reminder of his alpha's restraint, of his own paramount pleasure. His cock was thick and heavy between his thighs, ruddy and leaking at the tip, his knot forming hard at the base. It was obvious; Nigel craved, wanted, needed him just as desperately.
"Keep going, sparrow," Nigel encouraged, hoping just to keep him talking a little while longer. He wanted to savor in his body opening up for him, wanted to listen to him whimper and whine through his words, wanted to swallow him fucking whole. "Keep talking for me."
Nigel offered him the sweet reprieve of a second added finger, rewarding him for each word that spilled from his wanton tongue. His reward was returned in another pulse of slick around his fingers, soaking down his palm, sweet like honey in his open mouth. Adam hardly seemed to register it, rocking down against his palm for more, like he'd take his entire fucking fist if the alpha would let him.
As Nigel slipped in another finger alongside his tongue, Adam let out a long, unrestrained moan as he tugged harder at the silver waves of hair. Distantly, he could feel the vibrations of Nigel's voice, the sound of his moan muffled between the soft folds of flesh. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Nigel reaching down to touch himself with his free hand, relieving the pressure of his own cock straining between his thighs. He ached and strained against his palm, like he could hardly restrain himself from reaching up and sheathing himself inside the omega's greedy hole. And as Nigel whet his appetite, Adam would have laid himself up as a feast before him, eager to be so wholly devoured.
"I want you to knot inside of me, and I want to feel you fill me up, for real this time," Adam mused on, his eyes turning toward the heavens above as he found some semblance of satiation in the added girth, the crook of his fingers against that sweet spot inside. "I want to finally feel you breed me, I want you to get me pregnant and I want to have your baby, Nigel."
Melting beneath his every word, Adam could have made a devotee out of a sinner like him.
Nigel's cock strained thick and heavy between his thighs, aching to sheathe himself inside; he was so aroused he feared that his heart might seize up in his chest, that he might stroke out right here, that he might pop a fucking blood vessel. He couldn't deny himself any longer, couldn't deny Adam any longer, couldn't keep this teasing up for another fucking second.
Kissing his way up the flesh, Nigel let his fingers slip free of Adam's weeping hole, opting instead to tighten around his waist. He tightened his hold around his boy, grinding up into the wet heat of his body, sinking against the wet folds of flesh as he nipped and sucked at Adam's throat. If he was lucky, he'd leave a bruise that would linger long after his heat ended, marking him as bred and owned.
He took another deep whiff of Adam’s scent, drowning in amber and starflower, in vanilla and sandalwood, in that sweet scent of fever. With a guttural growl rising up from the depths of his lungs, Nigel spread him apart as he pinned him down against the soft grass, grinding deeper against that soft, wet flesh.
“My omega, my good fucking boy,” Nigel groaned, the words falling half-incoherent from his rutting tongue. "I'm gonna stuff you fucking full, make you fucking scream. And when I'm done with you, you'll be waddling with my fucking pups inside your belly."
Adam let out a whine at the mere suggestion, hips bucking up to meet Nigel's cock. He craved it, enough to beg and whine and plead, enough to whimper and moan and abandon his every last shred of dignity. Whether it was the mere dictation of his biology, or a desire ingrained deep within his bones, Adam couldn't quite tell, and he didn't think he cared either way. As long as Nigel stood by him at the end of it, he would be happy in the aftermath.
He almost could have been satisfied with the mere necking and gyrating until they both climaxed, spilling hot and sticky between the open skin. Blinded by the sensation, he could have chased his ecstasy all the way to its peak, but it would've brought him no real satiation. No, the only way that they to break the fever was to simply feed it.
Adam's legs wrapped instinctively around his waist, falling into place against the base of his spine. Nigel reached down into the space between, cock hard and begging for friction as he gave himself a few cursory pumps, lining himself up against his omega's weeping hole. Catching that blue-eyed gaze, Adam's body twitched and fluttered, the slick pulsing from his body in desperate, needy gushes. Pushing himself in down to the hilt, their lungs heaved with little whimpers and possessive growls, fever abetting as Nigel thrust into the soft, wet give of Adam's cunt.
As heat and rut burned away at the softer edges of their minds, Nigel's mind could cling only to his euphoria, the ecstasy of filling him so deeply to the brim. Every heat before this, they'd had the barrier of a condom, the protection ensured by such a flimsy piece of rubber. But to take him against the soft and dying grass of autumn, bare and raw to one another, he found heaven, nirvana, every other fucking place of elation and enlightenment in existence.
Adam's eyes, instead, turned up to see the heavens above them, watching as they unveiled beneath the fever and fire. Splitting apart and coming together, like nebulas and supernovas, like dying and rebirth, the universe itself unfurling in the reflection of his iris.
It was beautiful in ways that Adam didn’t know how to explain or understand or express. He had never been particularly good at expressing himself in so many words, could never gather the thoughts into anything so coherent, couldn't quite identify. But as his voice rang out into the heavens, he needed no words to say how he felt. The night sky seemed to somehow mingle with the feeling, feelings that he couldn’t articulate in words; the feeling of euphoria, the feeling of Nigel’s cock moving slowly and determinedly inside of him, it all collided into him with the full force of gravity.
Drifting somewhere between the sky and the soft earth beneath him, Adam breathed him in, the scent of cardamom and vanilla, oak and starflower, amber and cigarette smoke.
In a moment, Nigel's hips would start moving, thrusting at a brutal pace as he chased after his satiation, feeding the fever of his own rutting mind. Adam would lose himself to his own biological impulses, his hormone-clouded brain begging for his alpha to fuck and knot and breed him. The words would fall without thought or care from his babbling tongue, begging to be filled with Nigel's seed, pushed to the point of groveling as the heat took his mind. And for the first time, his alpha would sate his need without the constriction of a condom around his cock; for the first time, Nigel was going to try to put a baby inside of him.
Adam had begged for this so many times, fueled only by the fever, all his worries forgotten and sacrificed to the fire. But in his flickering clarity, he reckoned with the possibility, the reality offered up at his feet, and he smiled. His heart hammered between his ribs, a high-pitched ringing rattling between his ears as his muscles clenching around Nigel's cock. Rising from the ocean he had drowned himself in, breaching from his anxieties to rise up for air, Adam was excited.
Adam had never been so good at putting his feelings into words, struggled to even identify the emotion as it rose up to overwhelm him. Alexithymia had stolen his own internal understanding, had always made it all so confusing, too much of a mess to make any sense of. Too far to touch, or too big to quantify, it battered against his skull in those moments of overload. But in a rare moment of perfect clarity, he knew exactly how he felt.
Adam Raki was excited.
It all unfolded so clearly in the stars above him, this life that they could build together. Stars born at the moment of conception, supernovas erupting across the night sky as he gave birth. Adam would fall into that eternal rhythm of life and death, of sex and birth, that cycle that had filled their universe with light and life, and he would count himself as grateful for it. Their stories would be written in the constellations to echo on for eternity, millions of light years away from them now. Maybe the light from distant stars could reach them here, cradled between his arms, tucked against his breast. Maybe they could burn brighter than the void trying to swallow them up, maybe they could leave a legacy behind them.
Adam took in another breath, face buried in the crook of his neck to chase the scent of his alpha. He could feel every inch of Nigel’s cock buried deep inside of him, knot grinding up against the entrance of his body. Hot breath spilled down his throat, teeth nibbling at his skin. He could feel his own hot slick seeping around Nigel's cock, staining against the blanket beneath them. The overpowering need fell away, if only for a moment, bodies draped in such warm, sweet starlight.
Curling himself tight around Adam's shoulders, Nigel pressed himself in slow and deep, holding himself back against the will of his rut. Instinct would not rule him here, not tonight. Most of the time, heat sex was rough and fast and desperate, all frantic humping and animalistic need until they were both fucked out and sated, knotted against the mattress. They moved in accordance to their bodies' demands, let it rule against all logic, all reason, all sweetness or sentimentality.
But this time, Nigel wanted to go slow, make it last for his Adam, didn’t want to fuck him so hard that he couldn’t watch his stars. He wanted to go slow, wanted to watch the wonder build between his blue eyes, wanted to savor every moment against his rut-fueled brain. His body would demand more, and maybe Adam would too; but for just a passing moment, he didn't just want to fuck and rut down into his omega, bury himself in the damp heat of his body. Nigel wanted to make love.
"Are you okay, sparrow?" Nigel asked, clinging to what was left of his clarity to push the curls from his eyes, the sweat from his brow. Always so concerned, always so protective over his omega, it came to him like instinct. "You feel nice and comfortable?"
Nigel always had such pretty ways of asking if he was ready, if he had braced himself enough for the onslaught. Adam's blue eyes pulled themselves down from the heavens, if only for a moment, to meet his warm, hazel gaze. Reaching up with a trembling hand, he cupped the corner of the alpha's jaw against his palm, thumb sweeping along the scar that marked his cheekbone. And with utmost sincerity, eyes fixed upon his lover, Adam nodded.
"Yes," he whispered, eyes turning back to the stars above, the last of his clarity slipping like sand between his fingers. "I'm ready, Nigel."
A smile etched itself across Adam's lips as Nigel unsheathed himself, nothing but the bulbous head of his cock pressed inside, before snapping his hips and burying himself deep. A sharp cry escaped from between his ribs, the force sending shock waves through his body as he dug his fingernails into the skin, leaving raised trails of red up the expanse of his back. He'd leave constellations across the alpha's flesh, mark him in the little crescent moon indentations that would fade come morning, just like the stars above. But with every falling sun, Adam would come back to return his constellations to the pale expanse.
The small cry drew a hoarse chuckle from Nigel’s throat, the alpha wrapping himself tighter around his boy. Fighting against the instinct to take him hard and fast, to plow into his body and take him apart at the seams, Nigel threaded a hand through his soft brown curls. Clutching handfuls of them between his fingers, he used Adam as a tether to reality, holding him tight against the soft earth below.
He pressed a small kiss against the mating scar on the side of Adam's neck as he delivered another thrust into his body, hips positioned to press insistently against that sweet spot inside of him; that place that always made him shudder and come, that place that made him cry out for sweet mercy. Tenderly kissing down his collarbones, Nigel settled into a steady, unsparing rhythm, savoring in each little whimper and moan that he pulled up from the pit of Adam's belly. Christ, he was so fucking pretty…
Adam fought to keep his eyes open as Nigel rutted into his eager body, those few fragments spared from heat turning to count the constellations. Ursa Major, Virgo, Canis Majoris, Taurus, Cassiopeia, Sagittarius, Perseus, Scorpius, Orion…
Against his every fight for focus, Adam's vision began to blur, the night sky reaching down to consume him in void and flecks of light.
As his ecstasy reached down to cradle him in his arms, Adam tried to count the stars, wondering if it could ever be any reflection of this life here below, of the love cradled between his ribs. He had felt so much love before, in Beth and in his father and even in Harlan, but it had never been anything like this before Nigel; never had he known a love so overwhelming that he couldn’t begin to fathom it in a tangible way, quantifiable and cradled between his fingers. Adam's love was like the universe — infinite, and ever-expanding.
Adam wondered if he could list all the reasons why he so deeply adored him, why he'd fallen in love, one for every star; but he found that his reasons quickly outnumbered the celestial lights of heaven. His thoughts became like the stars that straggled just outside of constellations, all disarray and unorganized, but beautiful all the same. He watched the arc of the milky way stretch out overhead, expanding infinitely across the sky. And even still, it was only a fraction of the light within their universe, a speck standing upon a speck standing upon a speck. He considered the light of Andromeda, 2.5 million light years from their tiny little planet, stretching across time and space to one day collide against their night sky. They stood as a fragment of one tiny little galaxy against the infinitely expanding cosmos.
And even still, all that light and void could not capture his adoration.
The night sky seemed to somehow reach down and swim in the hollow of his skull, conjuring up feelings that he couldn’t articulate in words; the feeling of euphoria, of sweet rhapsody, of Nigel's cock moving slowly and pointedly inside of him… It was all too much to capture, all too much to hold, all too much to keep tucked between his lungs as he let out a cry for sweet mercy.
Between his thighs, Nigel could already feel his knot beginning to swell, threatening to catch at the rim of his body and spill inside. They had always been so careful before, this sort of exquisite heat only wrapping around his body so fully outside of the throes of heat. But this was different, this simple display of affection and adoration becoming an act of creation. This act of creation, this little offering from heaven to engage in such divine alchemy, to become godlike in the moonlight, Nigel could have lost himself in the sensation.
But he was determined to make this last, determined to make slow, sweet love to his omega beneath this blanket of stars. Rut had always made a selfish lover out of him before, but with Adam, these little acts of self-sacrifice came as as natural to him as breathing. How could he offer his little prince anything less than what he deserved? Sliding in again to the hilt, slowing just long enough to regain his composure, Nigel kept his focus trained on Adam, holding his boy's pleasure as paramount. He deserved nothing less.
Nigel could only catch sight of the universe unfolding before them through the reflection in Adam's awestruck eyes, the constellations captured in the swirling blue. Like light hitting the water as the tears streaked salty down his cheeks, he cried unto the heavens. His face filled with such pure wonder, so wholly mesmerized, trapped between his ecstasy and the expanse of his universe.
Galaxies colliding across the iris, he looked so sweet and starry-eyed beneath him, and Nigel could have gazed down upon him forever. Like a masterpiece laid out against the soft ground, like a sculpture bending to the will of its sculptor, Adam Raki was fucking beautiful.
Nigel had never looked at the sky with such awe and amazement as his boy, could never comprehend it in the way that Adam did. Distant lights, mostly void and partially stars, they never meant as much to him as they did to Adam. He couldn't point out the constellations, couldn't recall the myths and legends that were written in the skies above. He could stare up into the heavens with contempt, with regret, with despair, and find no reason within it all, find no reason to gaze up and find god amidst the stars.
No, that sort of amazement only crossed Nigel’s face when he was looking at Adam.
"Nigel," Adam moaned, vision blurring as the heavens reached down to touch him, to leave kisses just beneath his lashes, to paint his body in starlight. "Please, Nigel, I— I want—" The words sputtered and failed in his mouth, breath stuttering between his open lungs as he buried himself deeper into his alpha's chest. Steeling his resolve, gathering his thoughts into coherent constellations, Adam choked out, "I want you to breed me."
The growl that rumbled through Nigel's chest teetered off into a strangled moan at the words tumbling from his boy's fevered tongue. Lucidity had left him here, mind succumbing to his most primal of urges, surrendered to his most carnal of instincts. Fingernails biting into the soft flesh of his hips, the gentle curvature of his body, Nigel nuzzled himself up against his omega’s throat, chasing the scent of him, hoping to drown.
Hips stuttering as he struggled to keep up this brutal pace, Adam's legs locked tight around his waist, pulling him in deeper into that breathtaking heat. Clinging to his resolve, Nigel redoubled his efforts, drawing up a sharp cry from the omega's throat.
"Anything you fucking want, sparrow," Nigel growled, nipping at the soft skin of his neck, lapping at the amber and vanilla until he could almost taste it; sweetness once reserved for kings and royalty spilling out onto his tongue. "If you want a baby in your belly, then I'm gonna put a fucking baby in your belly. If you want me to fill you up and breed you, then I'm gonna breed you fucking full."
Tucked between his nipping teeth, Adam's voice rose up into the trees, his little grunts and moans ringing beneath a chorus of crickets. He couldn't keep his eyes open any longer, consumed by the pleasure overtaking him in waves now, but he could still see the stars dancing behind the soft, lidded blue. In such sweet surrender to his most innate desires, his most primal of urges, Adam found the birthplace of the universe unfolding all around him.
"I'm gonna make your belly swell with my pups, sweetheart," Nigel groaned, losing himself to the rut, his pace picking up speed as he fucked deep into Adam's weeping cunt. Slick spilling around his cock, smearing down the fronts of his thighs, drawing little noises up from his omega's chest, it was nearly enough to make Nigel's knot pop. "Gonna knot you until it takes, gonna put my fucking twins inside of you."
A sharp whine dragged itself up from Adam's throat as Nigel's hips thrust furiously, succumbing to the carnal call of rut. His knot was swelling at the base of his cock, tugging at the edges of his weeping hole, slowing his speed but not his force. Burying himself deeper inside, he was trying to latch, trying his damnedest to stay true to his every word. Soon, Nigel would catch at his rim, flooding his body with seed and plugging it all inside, linked until his knot eventually deflated. And in those crucial moments, as they would lay tied together against the soft earth, Adam's fate would be decided for him.
In a rare and fleeting moment of perfect clarity, Adam hoped that it would take. If there were any gods above to hear him, he prayed that he might conceive.
"My angel, my sparrow, my sweetheart," Nigel babbled, distantly registering that his words were becoming less and less coherent. He was far gone, consumed wholly by base instinct, but every word still rang true, the rut enough to make an honest man of him. "My perfect fucking omega, you're gonna look so pretty with my babies in your belly."
Nigel had never given much thought to the idea of having kids, could never foresee it being in the cards for him. All the blood he'd spilled, all the violence that had been wrought at his hand, he'd never considered it any sort of life for a mate, much less a child. Such ideas were too dangerous to linger upon, such desires too pure for men like him, such vulnerabilities too easily exploited by worse men than him. He'd pushed it from his mind, drowned himself in liquor and strippers and cocaine, and tried not to consider all the possibilities.
But Adam, Adam, Adam, Adam, he’d do anything for his Adam; he'd give him as many kids as he wanted, he'd work like a good and honest man to provide for this family he didn't deserve, he'd follow Adam to the fucking moon if he asked.
Whether they had twelve kids or none, for richer or poorer, better or worse, Nigel could have been happy all the same. He could settle himself down where he stood, stop chasing the next fucking high, stop searching for satisfaction in places where he would never find it. He could be a fucking family man, and he could find contentment in that role. As long as he had Adam Raki, he could have died a happy man.
"Nigel," Adam whimpered, hips bucking up to meet him in some blind and frantic hope of pulling him in deeper, hoping to make his knot pop and catch inside of him. "Alpha, please."
Succumbing to the fever, there was no rational thought left to be had, no petty anxieties to obsess over, nothing beyond Nigel and the stars above him. For a moment, lost within the throes of his heat, Adam forgot about all the pain that accompanied being autistic, being anxious, being alive. For a moment, he was baptized beneath the cosmos and reborn as a man who had never known suffering.
Nigel found his heavens in the embrace of his lover, found nirvana in the sound of his whimpered little pleas. Arms tucked tight around his lithe figure, he buried himself deeper into Adam's body, searching for the words that might convey just how infatuated, besotted, fucking in love he was. Adam was the one who was good with words, the one with a vocabulary wider than the fucking Atlantic, but Nigel wasn't sure that it mattered. How could words ever capture how he felt about Adam Raki?
There were no words in any language he knew that could describe that pull and ache that settled deep in his chest whenever he saw his omega. There were no words that could sufficiently express the yearning in his body, the fire in his soul that could only be tamed at his lover's hand. No scribe or poet could compose the peace that came alongside loving Adam.
'Love' couldn’t even cover a fraction of the adoration and affection that he felt for Adam fucking Raki.
“My omega," Nigel groaned, knot threatening to catch with every fervid thrust. He must have sounded fucking delirious, but his tongue could not be so easily controlled. "My gorgeous boy, my sweet little prince, my perfect fucking omega, my Adam."
The holy combination of Adam’s whimpers and moans, his kiss-swollen lips and filthy whines, the way his greedy hole clenched around him so fucking perfectly; it was drawing Nigel dangerously close to the edge, threatening to catch at his rim and spill deep inside. Squirming and bucking up to meet his thrusting hips, his every carnal instinct demanded that the omega milk him dry. It was like he was fucking made for this.
And maybe he was; maybe the omega had been divinely crafted by the universe to be laid down upon the grass and fucked, bred until he conceived. Maybe Adam could be part of some grand design, woven into the fabric of the universe, his threads weaving color into the void. Maybe all the people that had sneered and scorned him had been wrong, maybe he was worthy of just as much. Maybe he wasn't too damaged, maybe his edges weren't too frayed. Maybe this was what he was made for.
Adam decided that he could find peace in that purpose, joy in what he was meant to do. This was what he was designed to do, to engage in this act of perfect creation. And how could he deny himself this little divinity any longer?
He'd clung so long to this logic, to this understanding of his place in the world, to this pain that had embedded itself into his bones. He knew well enough to know that if he had children, they would likely inherit his autism, pushed into a cold and angry world that would not understand them. They would inherit his role on this stage he'd never meant to step onto, expectations hung upon their little heads. It would demand so much, just as it had demanded of him, ostracizing them when they dared to step out of line.
That wasn't even mentioning everything else.
His body would undergo transformation unlike anything he'd experienced before, changing and molding itself around another life growing in his womb. His body would no longer be solely his own, a host to this little creation of theirs. He would swell and grow to accommodate that spark of divinity, feel it move and kick and squirm just below his ribcage. His center of gravity would shift, and with it his whole world.
Birth would be the inevitable conclusion of such a transformation, knees buckling with the excruciation. His body would squeeze and contract, burn and stretch around the crown until it finally gave way to crying, screaming life. It would almost certainly overwhelm him, push him to the point of meltdown as his body surrendered to its basest impulse. Maybe his own cries would echo beneath the cries of his child, maybe he would be too torn apart to cradle them in his weary arms.
But maybe it could be worth it.
Maybe his logic was not some coat of armor to protect himself, but rather a leash around his throat. Maybe it was mere self-deprecation, the fear that he might not deserve such a life, the hatred that he'd been taught to carry toward himself. Maybe he deserved just as much as everyone else, and maybe he was selling himself short. Maybe he could do this.
Overcome by his lust and his desperation and his fever and his want, Adam could find no fault in his logic, no reason to deny himself any longer. The fear lingered somewhere low beneath the fever, but it was too far away to touch him here. He wanted it all, bloody and bruised and screaming. Adam was more stubborn than brave; he could find it within himself to face it, could accept this new purpose with pride, and he could do it afraid.
Adam wanted to face the transformation, wanted to feel his body change, wanted to feel the gravity shift around him. He wanted Nigel to look at him with that rare and beautiful pride that filled the eyes of expectant fathers. He wanted to feel himself split apart, his own rebirth found in the labor and delivery room. He wanted to cradle their creation to his chest, wanted to raise them up beneath the wide night sky, wanted to pass down the cosmos in the way that men had done since the dawn of mankind.
"Alpha," Adam groaned, squeezing down tight around him, his feverish focus suddenly steadfast and demanding. "Please — please, alpha — please knot me, breed me, get me pregnant." The words fell deliriously from his tongue as he cried, "Nigel!"
Nigel groaned, feeling his knot swell and throb at such pretty, pleading cries. It took all of his waning self control not to come, to delay his satisfaction just a moment longer. Nipping down against Adam's shoulder, muffling his own crying voice, he redoubled his efforts inside of him, pinned insistent and incessant against that sweet spot. He wanted more than to simply breed his omega, more than to simply flood his womb with seed and put a baby inside of him.
No, he wanted to feel Adam come.
Nigel could feel him getting close, registering his approaching orgasm before Adam seemed to. Through all the nights they'd spent together, wrapped in one another's embrace, he'd learned to pick up on all the little signs and signals, the tells of his impending orgasm. That thin layer of sweat beading at his forehead, the hitching of his breath, the spasms around his cock; Nigel had come to chase after all those little signs, savoring in the sweat between their bodies.
Distantly, Adam could feel himself beginning to tremble with the force of his pleasure, his arousal burning like a fire in the pit of his belly. He could barely register the sound of his own breath beneath the chirping of the crickets, the night birds' song. Knot swelling at the base of Nigel's cock, he could feel him stutter and slow, threatening to catch and spill inside of his eager body.
His hole always twitched and contracted around him, like he was trying to milk the alpha's orgasm from him, trying to fulfill some biological demand to procreate. And as they surrendered to the fever, feeding the fire between their thighs, Nigel was going to give Adam exactly what he wanted.
“You’re getting so close, sweetheart, I can feel it,” Nigel whispered, almost like a warning. "I'm gonna fill you fucking full, don't you worry about that."
Something between a whine and a sigh escaped from Adam's lips, reprieve found in the promise, blessed by his assurance. Nigel was going to breed him, Nigel was going to fill him fucking full, Nigel was going to put a baby inside of him…
Propping himself up on one hand, Nigel let his fingers trail along his omega's collarbones, down the flat expanse of his chest, over the belly that he would make fucking bloom. A groan rolled up from the pit of his chest at the very idea of it, to watch his boy transform at his hand, at the mercy of his cock. Teeming with life, kicking and rolling just beneath the surface, Adam Raki was going to make such a pretty, pregnant omega.
"Don't worry about anything else right now; I just want you to come for me."
Adam let out a cry for sweet reprieve as his body bowed to his alpha's command, overtaken by his orgasm as the stars reached down to kiss his cheeks, just below his heavy-falling lashes. As his body succumbed to its ecstasy, tightening around the cock sheathed inside, Nigel let out a choked groan. The pleasure was fucking blinding as his knot pressed deep into his body, finally catching at the rim of his hole, swelling shut as he spilled deep into Adam's belly.
A low moan escaped past his lips, Nigel's name spilling from his tongue with the reverence reserved for gods. Adam fluttered around his knot, the warmth spilling into his womb as his eyes clenched shut, the constellations still burning bright against his irises.
A small smile quirked up at the corners of Nigel's mouth as the force of his orgasm slowly subsided, satisfied as he collapsed over his boy's lithe frame. A contented sort of sigh escaped past Adam's kiss-swollen lips as he nuzzled deeper into his alpha's chest, safe and warm beneath the weight of his lover.
"I hope it takes," Adam whispered, voice hazy and hardly coherent, mumbling into the patch of hair across his alpha's chest.
"Hmm?" Nigel hummed softly, nuzzling into his omega's soft curls, not quite catching the words through the wind rustling in the leaves.
"I hope I get pregnant," he clarified, voice escaping soft and high from his raw and ragged throat. The heat was easing its hold over his mind as he yawned, but the fever still simmered beneath the surface. "I want to have your baby."
Nigel smiled, pressing a kiss firm against his temple. "If you want to have my baby, then I'll breed you through every heat until it takes, sweetheart." An unfamiliar warmth blossomed in the center of his chest, Adam Raki once again daring to make an honest man of him. Against everything he'd ever thought he'd wanted for himself, he meant every fucking word.
Adam's gaze turned back up toward the skies as the pleasure eased its hold, the fever ebbing and flowing from the back of his skull. There was contentment here, peace as his body drew in his lover's seed, the heat settled low in his belly. How romantic it might have been, to conceive beneath starlight, to engage in such godlike acts of creation out here amidst nature and all its beauty. He could have stayed here until the skies turned light, until the sun broke up over the rocky mountain ranges.
Colliding and collapsing into him again and again, Nigel's cock sputtered and spilled inside of him again, knot slowly deflating. It would be awhile yet before it deflated enough to unlatch and slip out, enough to carry him back to the car and drive him home. Until then, Adam would savor the warmth in his belly, and pray to all those gods that he'd never believed in that he might be blessed beneath this starlight.
In the afterglow, a low rumble rose up between his ribs, purring beneath his alpha as his eyes drifted shut, the clouds and constellations still drifting in his mind's eye.
Falling limp beneath him, Nigel pressed kisses through his curls, savoring in his little purring sounds. That sweet fucking sound, the one that meant that Adam, for once in his anxious existence, felt so wholly and entirely calm. That sound, the one that only escaped his lips when he was tucked safe in Nigel's arms.
Through his own hazy eyes, Nigel turned to look down at his boy, to gaze upon him and simply behold, to memorize precisely how he looked in this moment. He wanted to capture this moment within his fingerprints, wanted to hold it in his palms, wanted to come back to this whenever he so pleased. He wanted it ingrained into the skin, burned against his brain, branded into his flesh. Anything to keep Adam Raki right here, as perfect as he was now.
Tears still stained his cheeks, tears he couldn't remember crying. Captured in the reflection, Nigel watched the stars dance across the saltwater, captured within the clear blue of his iris. Adam wasn't here, tethered to the earth; he was up there, floating so far away, suspended in star dust.
And for a moment, Nigel was floating there with him.