He sucks and laves, leaving the skin reddened and tender, until wwx starts rocking his hips mindlessly back down onto lwj’s cock. Lwj's knot has gone down somewhat, so he folds wwx into a mating press and starts to fuck him slowly.

With each thrust, wwx’s cock grows harder. The mess of cum he’d previously made is smeared over his belly and hips. Lwj drags his fingers through it and shoves them in wwx’s mouth.

“Fuck, yes – please,” wwx cries and words are muffled around lwj’s fingers. As lwj thrusts, wwx puts a hand to his own belly, pressing down as though he can feel lwj’s cock from the outside. It snaps something unadvisable and irrevocable in lwj.

“Want to fuck pups into you,” he growls, snapping his hips viciously. “Want to breed you again and again until it takes.” Wwx’s eyes go wide with shock before squeezing shut as he comes dry. Shaking, panting, lwj follows him, knotting wwx deep a second time.

The aftermath reads as it would if a president accidentally elbowed the nuclear launch button.

“I am so sorry.” Lwj has never once rushed in his life, but he is rushing to get the words out now, before this bout of post-orgasm clarity fades. “That was wholly inappropriate and under-negotiated and –"

“Shhhh,” says wwx, smooshing a clumsy finger against lwj’s lips. “Orgasm too big. Need recover. Quiet now.” Wwx’s eyes flutter shut and he, for all intents and purposes, falls asleep.

Utterly baffled, lwj hesitates, still hovering over wwx. He noses concerned at wwx’s cheek and receives a sleepy, unexpected kiss for his efforts. He finds wwx’s scent sweet and untroubled.

Cautiously, lwj readjusts them so they lay on their sides, cradling wwx in his arms. Wwx makes a little content noise and lwj lets his alpha take over. He scents wwx and holds him close, guarding him as he sleeps.

When wwx wakes up, blinking widely as though he did not intend to nap, he quickly appears very appreciative of lwj’s guarding efforts. Riding lwj’s cock, wwx bares his neck and looks down slyly at lwj. “Fuck me hard enough and we might get twins.”

Wwx screams are so loud, both wen ning and hotel management check in on them. While he will undoubtedly be incredibly embarrassed when he is properly lucid, lwj currently can feel nothing but smug.

Once lwj’s rut breaks, as the soft-contact period between them did not work before, they do a full-contact period that gently weans itself off at the end.

Looking and smelling respectable, they venture outside the confines of the hotel room to do normal, regular things that most people are able to do after a rut; they go ice-skating one day, out to dinner the next, and to a pop-up market after that.

By the third day post-rut, wwx is spending full nights away from lwj, although they fall asleep to each other on the phone.

Lwj can still feel the twinges of a heat-bond – a desire to be physically close, the occasional wistful loneliness – but the deep existential sadness is gone.

Some of the other symptoms he typically experiences have also morphed. Rather than just the sex or a general worry about being a good mate, he now finds himself thinking, sometimes a little obsessively, about his rut partner.

It is nothing out of the ordinary, from what he has read: if he has a split-second desire to buy a crispy chili spread he spots that he thinks wwx would like, it is a natural urge to want to court and care for an omega and not cause for concern.

Most importantly, lxc’s kitchen floor has been spared. Mustache vibrating in satisfaction, nmj hums as he polishes lwj’s normal depression-depression. Lxc is ready to send a fruit basket. But then, wwx’s scheduled heat hits.

*kicking down the door* I'm back, team! me looking at this threadfic but also wwx looking at lwj's cock: why is it so fucking big Anyway, I wanna say this will have maybe two more updates. Back up top! https://x.com/SpearmintMimi/st...

It is not like they did not know it was coming. In all truthfulness at the start of their arrangement, lwj had simply calmly blocked out that period of his calendar as time to do something productive and self-gratifying, like a hike.

Currently, lwj is not being very productive. He is also, ironically, trying very hard not to be self-gratifying. Rather annoyingly, thinks he now has an inkling of what possesses people to elect to have sex regularly.

Obviously, the heat bond and its modified symptoms is still playing a role; with wwx being gone this week and next, a steadily crawling anxiety has been rising in lwj with nowhere to go.

With his thoughts of sex and sadness, lwj had half-wondered if he was perhaps going into rut again, but he dismissed it. The timing would be far too soon, even if he had broken through his suppressants.

At lxc’s bequest (lwj feels as though he owes lxc several bequests) and in the interests of both heightened productivity and distraction, he allows himself to be court-martialled to nmj’s little brother’s production of moulin rouge.

“The costumes in this are marvellous,” lxc exclaims, looking wondrously at the myriad of bejewelled corsets, heels, stockings.

Because he both knows his husband and is incorrigibly indulgent when it comes to the people he loves, nmj produces a miniature pair of opera glasses from his many practical pockets. Lxc coos in delight and lwj tries very hard not to regret this.

His suit jacket is stifling; not quite hot, not in the same way he would normally associate with pre-rut. Instead, he just shifts in his seat feeling overstimulated and distracted.

He is still thinking far too much about wwx, and now these thought are trending towards the frustrated and melancholy in a way that has lwj worried that he might be regressing in his treatment.

Half-way through the musical, lwj decides resolutely that he does not share in his brother’s delight.

The lead actress, Satine, curls shining and domestic around her illicit lover. It triggers a deep possessiveness which lwj has never felt before; from what angle the possessiveness comes, he is not entirely sure, but the concept feels hot in his mouth.

A tango plays and the male vocals are guttural, harsh. The chords feel like a personal attack. A vignette of wwx – the calculated fall of his robe down his shoulder – catches in the curve of one dancer’s arched back.

In her lover’s arms, Satine starts coughing up blood. It is too much. Lwj reaches across lxc and downs nmj’s champagne. “Oh dear,” says lxc.

Admittedly, there is a bit of a gap where lwj may have rested his eyes, but he does find himself methodically applauding along with the curtain calls.

The champagne seems to have lodged in his brain. Not in the sense that he does not have all his faculties or that his reasoning is impaired; it merely seems to continually be fizzing away in his synapses and ears.

When they finally leave their seats, it is to greet Nie Huaisang backstage, which is very low on lwj’s Hierarchy of Needs, or even Wants.

Fortunately, lxc drops an earring just before they break free of the crowd. Taking advantage of lxc’s distracted state, lwj swiftly makes for the exit, just temporarily, to get some air.