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Life was hard on Eden. Everything was hard. But sex? Sex was even harder.
Simon was an alpha, quite a dominant one at that so naturally even before his imprisonment things had been hard. From the moment he presented as an alpha; young, fevered, sweating buckets in the medical bay his life had gotten substantially more complicated. When alphas are trapped in the very finite space of the station with no room to grow their packs or migrate away from rivals they get aggressive for lack of a better word.
Even as a teenager Simon was seen as a challenger by the adult alphas around him. There was no escape from the constant dominance displays, and power struggle scuffles. He had learnt quickly, quicker than others, quick enough to carve out his own territory in the station and manage to keep other alphas the fuck away from him.
The prison had been worse. And better.
It was nearly entirely inhabited by alphas, they were aggressive after all.
Simon had fought hard to climb the dominance ladder, placing himself squarely on the top of it. Who cares what they say about him, at least he had that security. Not that he really needed it. Everything and everyone was dying. The stars were gone. The planets and stations and the wide expanse of nothing driving him made. And then there was Filament station. He had enough ghosts haunting him without Ava and everyone else sentencing him to die in the blood ocean. The COI had been all too happy to throw another alpha into a sub.
Because alphas were a problem. And sex was hard.
Like everything on Eden; love was fast. There was precious little time for real courting or anything even pretending to resemble courting. Simon had never pursued a mate. Sex, yes, duh. It would be embarrassing if an alpha as dominant as Simon couldn’t score when he wanted. But not a mate, never a mate. He’d watched as alphas docked a new station and immediately scrambled to secure any unclaimed omegas for their packs or harems, barely presented teenagers, omegas freshly widowed in territory disputes, anyone who even might be an omega was crowded to submission and they were normally pregnant within weeks. It made him feel sick. That was life though. It was survival. Humans were going extinct, reproduction had to happen and with so few resources, so little space, well people got desperate.
But it wasn’t like that now so why did Simon still feel so, so,, pent-up. If not more so.
Sex was hard. Grace was not.
Simon had never met anyone like Grace, and not just because they were from different universes. Or at least that was the running theory. Grace was an omega, which horrified Simon. He was furious that Grace’s people would send an omega to die alone in space and he didn’t care how much Grace tried to excuse it all away. He could see the hurt in him, all the time. How Grace could see the hurt in Simon.
Sent to die against their will. But they were alive.
Grace had tried to be cool about it for a while, about being alive when he didn’t expect to be. Seems a weird thing to struggle to get your head around, you’d think it would be good with no bad, but that isn’t how human brains work. And Grace was not cool about it. Simon had cradled him when he woke from night terrors, pleading that he didn’t want to go, that he couldn’t do it. Simon had watched on while the omega trashed the hail mary, smashing the computer screens and tearing up the never ending mission goal reports, filled with grief and utter rage, screaming that they had taken everything from him. He had patched him up from his outbursts while Grace refused to talk about it, silent tears running down his face and neck. Simon didn’t complain, didn’t shame him, didn’t offer advice or try to help. He couldn’t. What could he even say? He felt the same.
And Grace had done the same for him. Because Simon wasn’t cool about it either.
Grace had stood solemn when Simon threw his own tantrums, punching the walls of their home hard enough to fracture bone. Grace had woken Simon from his own blood soaked nightmares, his hands wrapped around the scientist’s throat, snarling that he was going to kill him before they sent him down again. Grace had dragged Simon kicking and screaming out of the biodome’s sea when he had tried to drown himself in it, swearing to no one that he would just finish the job for them. He’d forgiven Simon for more far violence than was acceptable.
They understood each other. But sex was still hard.
Understanding didn’t make it softer, sleeping in the same bed didn’t make it easier. Simon had let Grace run so many tests to try and figure out what was wrong with him. There had to be something. But Grace said he was just an alpha. Just an alpha. That was an oxymoron. Simon had never been just an alpha. He’d been a problem alpha, an aggressive alpha, a dominant alpha. To be just an alpha didn’t make it easier either. He’d pushed Grace, pushed for more tests, more scans, more needles, more blood, more,, just more.
Finally they had found something, and it still made sex hard.
Simon’s mutations. The mutations had arguably saved his life, though Simon was still unsure if he would want them to save him if he had the option on another go round. But the mutations complicated things, just like his alpha status did. Grace called him hot-blooded. Simon called himself a monster. A red eye that seemed to glow when he was wound up, sharp teeth that adorned one side of his face and split his mouth open to the joint, bulkier muscle, thicker sharper claw like nails, gills. It was all complicated. But none of it was necessarily wrong.
None of those were what made him pent-up and hot-blooded, no, instead his mutations had caused some kind of testosterone issue, hormone fluctuations with peaks far exceeding a typical alpha’s. That made him hot-blooded. That made him more than hot-blooded.
Simon was an animal, a near constant mantra in his head of Breed Breed Breed. Almost any time he had when he wasn’t busy with chores or trying to pretend to be normal was spent rutting hopelessly against their bedding. Snarling, desperate and needy. His knot was heavy and inflated with blood almost constantly. His scent glands were inflamed and irritated with overexertion. He spent a lot of time showering with freezing water or submerged in the sea of the biodome just to try and keep his hot-blood under control.
Because sex was hard. And Grace was not his omega.
Simon was exceptionally lucky that Grace’s isolation from other human beings meant he cared little for social etiquette like keeping your feet off of the coffee table or not jerking off to the scent on your roommate’s favourite cardigan thirty times a day. He was luckier still that Grace tolerated such a volatile and unstable alpha sharing his space, in his nest. Simon had been careful not to accidentally claim the hail mary or the house Rocky had built for Grace as his own, opting instead to covet the little budding orchard Grace had grown for him and the stretch of beach Grace rarely made the trek to as his territory.
The water washed away the pheromones of his claim and it gave him something to do to remark it all on the days he wasn’t whining into his pillow and crushing his knot in his fist for some sort of relief. Still. Simon really did try to make sure Grace was given plenty of space, plenty of opportunities to snap his teeth and Simon or hiss and tell him off if he did anything over the line.
But the line was hard to distinguish. Because, say it with me; sex was hard.
And Grace wasn’t a typical omega. It had barely taken Simon a week to notice. Even still delirious from blood loss and adjusting to the new reality he was dropped into he had clocked it immediately. Something was wrong with Grace. Beyond the obvious; social isolation, suicide mission, and the cane he tapped around the house with. No, it was deeper than that. It had taken a few weeks more for Simon’s blood-addled brain to click the pieces together. His scent wasn’t strong enough. It had dawned on him while they were having breakfast one morning, Simon still drooling at the sight of real food. He had noticed the soothing scent Grace had bloomed when Simon had tried to snatch the food like a rabid animal wasn’t strong enough for their proximity. A few hours later and more oddities had become clear, Grace’s house had his scent but Simon’s flooded over it far too easily. His freshly laundered clothes had absolutely no residual scent to them, and given they were using detergent synthesized from the cheap stuff the hail mary was stocked with there should have been something there. Grace’s scent glands were also very small when Simon had gotten close enough to really notice them.
So. Simon had asked.
Those motherfuckers had sterilised him.
Simon had been lost for words, and absolutely, unthinkably, unbearably, furious. Grace had tried to calm him down, tried to placate him, tried to promise it didn’t matter anymore, that it was for safety in space travel. He had tried to explain it away with logic. Simon did not care for logic. In the end it had been Simon’s turn to calm Grace down. He had pushed too far, too loud, too aggressive, too,, just too much. Grace had crumpled into tears, stopping Simon’s ranting short.
The omega had collapsed into sobs that wracked his whole body, babbling about teaching and children, and someone called Mark who his old partner had left him for. He had sniffled for hours about losing his future, never seeing his students again, about Eva betraying him by taking away something so critical to his identity. Simon had learnt a lot about Grace that day. When he’d eventually calmed down, his head in Simon’s lap in the holodeck room, watching projections of the beach, he had told Simon all about when he was drugged and put in a coma, his appendix removed and as he had said before; he was sterilized. Simon had in turn told Grace about how where he was from there were so few humans left that sterilization was illegal. It wasn’t even just illegal, it was genuinely unheard of. Grace had sighed and said he was trying to make his peace with it.
Simon did not want to make his peace with it.
His biology in reaction to this, already in overdrive, went haywire and threw him headfirst into a rut unlike anything he had ever experienced and he had nearly hurt Grace.
He had woken up hard, his knot already popped, growling down at Grace pinned below him, begging to put a baby in him, grinding against him, sweat and precum soaking the sheets. It was lucky Rocky didn’t bother to knock on the door anymore.
He had woken up days later, the increasingly familiar ache of a sedative behind his eyes. When Simon remembered what he’d done he felt shame unlike anything he had before, not even filament station had made him feel like such shit. Grace had been all too forgiving about the whole thing even though he strategically put space between the two of them for a few days. Rocky had not been so charitable and honestly? Simon was glad for it. The Eridians didn’t have a secondary gender, Simon wasn’t even sure they had a primary gender honestly. But that lack of status meant Rocky was perfectly capable of telling Simon the fuck off and thank the last tree for that. Simon had decided that even if Grace said he was fine, they needed space apart and he hadn’t come home for days, sleeping on the simulated seabed, trying to cool his core down. It barely had any effect.
When he’d finally come back home Grace wasn’t there. He’d found him in the Hail Mary, asleep on top of pages and pages of new research. When he’d woken up at Simon’s touch on his shoulder he’d immediately started rambling about pheromone reactions, hyper presentation and semelparity. Whatever that was. He’d gotten the poor exhausted omega to bed and had crashed down next to him without thinking about it.
Rocky and Adrian had initially welcomed another human wholeheartedly but for some time after the rut incident they and the other Eridians had been clearly apprehensive about him. They had slowly warmed back up but sometimes Simon felt like they were watching him like a caged dog or like how the COI had watched The Butcher in his cell.
His overloaded instincts were getting worse, and he was starting to get sick from it all. Simon had allowed the scientist to poke and prod at him endlessly, blood tests, biopsies, sedatives, vitamin infusions, hormone therapy, you name it. Armando was apparently an invaluable colleague in these things but Simon was finding it harder and harder to remember much. As time went on he was sicker and sicker even with his hyperarousal as constant as ever; partly the after effects of being subjected to so much radiation inside the submarine, partly his body being at its limit, exhausted and worn out. Rocky, and the other Eridians had been fearful of his death because of the radiation. Grace had quietly explained to him one night that Rocky had been the only one to survive the radiation sickness in his ship. Though it was horribly sad, it gave Simon and Rocky something to actually talk about, and Simon got the impression it was helping Rocky come to terms with it all. Adrian especially seemed to appreciate that, and the two had become quite close like how Grace and Rocky were. It was nice. To have friends.
But Simon only got brief moments of relief from the all consuming burn, he could only interact like a half normal person for maybe an hour or two at a time before he had to douse himself with cold water or retreat into the ocean again. Simon had once made an off handed joke about jerking off to death. Grace had not laughed. Instead Grace had sat him down and told him that he did seem to be dying despite all their efforts. He could tell the scientist was very distressed by this, the prospect of losing the only other human here. Simon had promised him he would fight to his very last breath. Their eyes had met, and Simon’s chest had ached.
Life was easy in the biodome. Even if sex was hard. But it sort of wasn’t.
Not when waking up every morning to Grace handing him a cup of coffee was so lovely. Not when he had clean water to drink and more than enough food not only for survival but just for the hell of eating something that tastes good. Not when he could have a hot shower with real soap anytime he wanted. Not when his wrists weren’t weighed down by cuffs anymore. Not when the Eridians and their pebbles especially adored Simon for all his flaws, insisting he play with them, that he teach them to swim, their parents trusting him not to hurt him. Not when Adrian had tweaked the very ocean itself to make him more comfortable when he swam in it.Not when Grace had grown trees for him. It didn’t matter that Simon was dying, he was happy.
He had everything he’d ever dreamed. And that made sex hard.
It was a normal morning, domestic even. Simon was scrubbing plates and mugs in the sink, Grace had been drying the wet dishes Simon had cleaned and going on about how one of the pebbles had tried to claim an earth dog had eaten their homework. He was smiling, and Simon thought he could get sunburn looking at him. He wasn’t sure when exactly he’d fallen for the omega, when it had gone from sexual attraction born from proximity to something more, but he had fallen hard regardless. His entire soul craved for Grace’s, everytime the omega looked at him his chest ached, every movie night with 12 Eridians piled on top of them, every walk along the beach, every afternoon in the orchard planted just for him. He doesn’t even remember what he said to Grace. But he’d have to thank himself later. Because whatever he said had made Grace blush all shy and cute, stuttering through a rambly response.
Simon had grinned at him and leant over to kiss him, and Grace had kissed back.
Simon was not a reserved man, he very rarely felt insecure and was generally very confident. But. He maybe might have felt a little nervous when he kissed Grace for the first time. Just a bit though!
After that first kiss it had escalated pretty quickly. Simon was not complaining.
Grace somehow seemed even more touch starved than Simon. Simon wasn’t complaining about that either.
Barely minutes went past between their first kiss and Simon pushing Grace down onto their shared bed, Grace’s nest, their nest, stripping the omega off and setting to work. He relished every gasp, every whine that Grace let out as he kissed him, devoured his mouth and drank down each moan his partner gave him. Strangely despite his near constant hyperarousal he was able to ignore the roaring blood in his ears for long enough to undress without ripping anything and get his fingers into Grace’s perfect pussy. Grace’s head had snapped back against the mattress and he’d given Simon a shriek that made his knot throb and his vision go grey.
Sex was hard. And that’s exactly how Simon liked it.
He liked how Grace’s fingernails dug into the skin of his shoulders, dragging him in. He liked the wet, vulgar, squelching sound Grace’s cunt made when Simon fingered him fast enough to make his hand ache. He loved how perfect Grace felt when he finally pushed into him, unable to hold back any longer. He had been worried he’d hurt him, scare him off, but the omega liked to take it just as hard as Simon liked to give it. He wanted to stay inside him forever. He wanted to push so deep into him they fused together. Blood rushed behind his eyes, his heart pounding, a deep unending growl in his throat. And when Simon finally, finally gets his knot lodged into his omega, sharp mutated teeth cutting cleanly into his shoulder, spilling his fucked up seed into him, Grace screams. It’s a beautiful sound, high up and wrung out with pleasure. His omega whimpers as the two of them go still, catching their breath. Simon leans his forehead against Grace’s shoulder and pants, chest heaving, entire body covered in a sheen of sweat.
Grace looks up at him, a wide smile shining up at Simon, “phew, that was hard.”
Simon laughs. Hard.