Chapter Text
PART 1: THE NEW PRESIDENT
Coriolanus knows a man who owns a nightclub.
This is news to Sejanus. Though he knows there are nightclubs in the Capitol, he’d never really been to any. Their classmates had thrown their parties at their extravagant homes, not little nightclubs with loud music performed by rough-voiced singers on a smoky stage. His father might have visited one or two, but he never would’ve brought Sejanus with him — especially if it was one of the clubs that catered to its clientele with half-dressed servers.
No place for a delicate omega like you, Strabo said. But what he really meant was that he worried Sejanus would get upset, would see those omegas putting on a show and would get indignant, would try to give them more money than they were worth for nothing in return. Or, worse, that Sejanus would get himself taken advantage of in a back room somewhere.
The closest thing to a nightclub he’s been to is the Hob, which feels like a hazy summer memory now. He can remember the press of dancing bodies, the stomping music, the white liquor sliding down his throat, the heat of a young Coryo beside him with his shaved head, Lucy Gray up on stage. Forever perfect, forever young, in his memory. So long ago, it all fades until it’s almost a dream.
But now that Coryo is president, it’s time for celebration.
Martius is dropped off with his grandparents for the evening. Ma is overjoyed, ushering the eight-year-old inside with promises of cookies and ice cream and candies. Sejanus doesn’t envy her getting him to bed. “Don’t have too much fun,” Strabo warns with a sly smirk in Coryo’s direction, “Mister President.”
“One thing I’ve never been accused of being is fun,” Coryo laughs.
The nightclub doesn’t look like much from the outside. It’s discreet, with only a few flashing lights out front. Sejanus can tell it’s definitely been rebuilt in the past decade or so, probably partially destroyed during the war, has that look to it like so much in the Capitol. They’re hustled in through a back door by a laughing old man with lemon-colored glasses and waist-length hair. “This way, Mister President,” his voice is jovial, croaking with pride and excitement.
“Thank you for this, Pluribus,” Coryo shakes his hand with a grin of his own. “There aren’t many I can trust and let loose around. But you’ve always kept my secrets, haven’t you?”
“Who would’ve thought,” the old man says, a hand over his heart, “the little boy I gave a can of beans would be president one day?” He sighs happily. “And this must be your Sejanus! Just as handsome as you said! Where have you been hiding him all these years?”
Coryo’s hand slides up his spine to squeeze the back of his neck once, twice, three times. “Pluribus,” he tells Sejanus, “helped feed my family and I during the Dark Days.”
“It’s very nice to meet you,” Sejanus holds his hand out for a shake and is surprised to have his face taken between withered hands and a kiss pressed to each of his cheeks. “Oh!”
“So lovely to meet our Coriolanus’ young man.” He releases Sejanus. “Keeping him on the straight and narrow, eh? You know, they say behind every great alpha is a great omega.”
“He’s not behind me,” Coryo protests. “He’s beside me.” When Pluribus starts leading them down a long dark hallway, he doesn’t hesitate to follow, pulling Sejanus with him. “I’m glad you’ve been able to get the old place back up and running. No more black market stalls for you, huh?”
“It’s not what it once was,” Pluribus says modestly, then bursts into excited tittering laughter. “It’s better! Just what we always hoped it could be again.”
A door is opened and the nightclub unfolds before them.
Low lights, pulsing and flickering in time with the live music. A dancefloor and moving bodies, like a swarm of locusts in the dark. Velvet couches along the walls, high tables and stools around a neon bar. Drinks passing from hand to hand, mouth to mouth.
“Oh, wow,” Sejanus awes.
“It’s wonderful,” Coriolanus compliments.
They’re quickly absorbed by the crowd, their old classmates and friendlier acquaintances cheering at their presence. A shot glass of something clear is pressed into his hand — and Coryo forces it up to his mouth, tipping his head back until he swallows. It almost hurts on the way down and he thinks briefly of how easy it would be to poison someone in a place like this — but he laughs along with everyone else as they all cringe at the burn.
The dancing in this nightclub is nothing like the Hob. There’s no stomping, no swinging or swaying, no soft side-stepping with your partner. It’s a wild, sweaty press of bodies. There’s a body against Sejanus’ front and back, all grinding together. It’s everything his father ever told him to avoid as a young man, worried his son would somehow manage to develop a worse reputation for himself than he already had. It’s impolite. It’s improper. It’s borderline obscene.
It’s — dare he say it? — fun.
He rests his head back against Coryo’s strong shoulder, those spindly fingers clutching his hip and pulling him back into the cradle of that lean body to grind slowly together. Lysistrata’s braids smack him in the chin as she spins away to dance with Clemensia and Persephone. Tigris shimmies by with more drinks, pressing the glasses into their hands and kisses to their cheeks.
It’s a blurry night of drinks and dancing and impromptu toasting to Panem’s new president, back slaps and shots burning down his throat and trying to sing along to music he’s never heard before. Festus loses his glittering suit jacket, Arachne Crane’s older brother accidentally snaps the heel on his date’s shoe, and Sejanus is welcomed more wholeheartedly into the fold of his peers than he ever has been before. The perks of marrying the president.
He’s not foolish enough think most of them actually like him, but it feels like it. It really feels like it.
Coryo jumps up on stage in a lull between musical sets, raising his glass high. “Friends, Romans, countrymen,” he quotes and everyone cheers. “Tonight we celebrate a victory — not just mine, but all of ours. We suffered together during the Dark Days but we have overcome all the challenges and adversity the world has thrown our way. It’s our world now and I promise you that our children will not know the struggles we have. To your future, to mine, to ours! Panem today! Panem tomorrow! Panem forever!”
The gathered crowd of friends and allies echoes his sentiment, the click of glasses ricocheting through the dark of the club:
Panem today! Panem tomorrow! Panem forever!
When he joins them again on the dancefloor, he sweeps Sejanus up in his arms and plants a passionate kiss on his mouth, going so far as to tip him backwards. In the chaos around them, Sejanus captures the end of Coryo’s tie and tugs him right back into that first dark hallway, the heavy door closing behind them with a thunk and the click of a lock.
Still connected at the mouth, his back hits the wall. Coryo bullies his way between Sejanus’ thighs. He shoves his hands into Coryo’s curls, his tongue into Coryo’s mouth. A hand finds its way under his knee, hoisting his leg up around Coryo’s slim waist.
They rock together like there’s nothing between them until they’re both gasping for air and have to pull away.
“The youngest ever president of Panem. Accomplished Gamemaker. Officer in the Peacekeepers. Winner of the Plinth Prize and Victor of the tenth Hunger Games. Necking in the back of a nightclub.” The wall against his back and Coryo pressed all against his front, Coryo’s spindly fingers at his waist, under his shirt. Coryo is tousled in a way he’s never been in public before, his hair sweaty and curls in disarray, cheeks flushed pretty pink. “What do you have to say for yourself, Mister President?”
Coryo smirks. “Snow lands on top.”
“Of me,” Sejanus says with complete seriousness.
They stare into each other’s eyes for a long moment — and then burst into giddy, ridiculous laughter. Borderline giggles. It’s not very distinguished, but who can blame them, drunk as they are on wine and victory and each other?
“How I love you,” Coryo smooths his hand through Sejanus’ hair. “This is all because of you, you know. My success. My happiness.”
Sejanus swats him on the shoulder. “You’re Coriolanus Snow. You would’ve gotten the presidency without me.”
“Perhaps. But I wouldn’t be this happy.”
“You’re really so happy?”
“Incandescently.” His thumb brushes at the freckle on Sejanus’ cheek. “I have everything I’ve ever wanted.”
Sejanus breathes into his mouth: “Tell me more.”
The first time Sejanus entered the hospital cafeteria, he’d been forced back to primary school.
He looked out at the tables, the people who belonged there, and he stood alone with his tray, eight years old again and feeling like everyone could see what a fraud he was, how much he didn’t belong there. The anxiety bubbled up his throat, threatening to spill out and force him to run —
And then Lysistrata had waved her hand, gesturing him over to her table. “I am so grateful to see you,” she gushed as he sat down across from her. “I was worried I was going to have to eat by myself. Don’t ever make me do that, okay?”
He smiled. “Okay.”
It became a ritual of sorts, the two of them tucking themselves at a table together to eat and gossip.
They’re two of the youngest doctors in the city, Sejanus coming into the role quickly due to his previous training and Lysistrata due to her mother’s position as the hospital’s Director. They have more in common with the training residents than the others in their position, which can earn them a measure of ire. The District omega who forced his way into their circles and the spoiled Capitol beta no one believes earned her spot. They’re a comfort to each other.
Sejanus would go so far as to say they’re actual friends.
“It’s just hard,” Lysistrata says around a dainty bite of her lunch. “Felix has people banging down his door to draw up contracts, even with the scars, the way I hear it. And I’m sitting here all alone.”
“Hey,” Clemensia protests. “We’re here with you.”
“And she doesn’t even work here,” Sejanus points to Clemensia with his fork. “I have to eat lunch with you. She doesn’t.”
“And I appreciate it,” she assures them. “But I want someone who wants me, you know?” Her imploring eyes turn to Sejanus and she misses the longing look Clemensia sends her way. “How do I get what you and Coriolanus have?”
“Marry your best friend,” he instructs with a smile, cutting his eyes towards Clemensia. She ducks her head down to her lunch, dark silk hair falling in a curtain over her shoulder to hide her face. “But, really, Lysistrata, don’t rush it. I waited years for Coryo to really notice me. These things take time.”
It’s said as much to encourage Lysistrata as it is to comfort Clemensia.
“Speaking of taking time, Persephone told me,” Lysistrata lowers her voice and leans in over the cafeteria table, “that she and Festus still haven’t — you know. She says he’s insisting they wait, just because they’re not yet married, even though they’ve had a contract written up since, like, school!”
Sejanus snorts into his juice and both women turn to look at him. He waves them off. “Ignore me. I’m being petty.”
It brings a smile to Clemensia’s face. “No, please be petty. I love to be petty.”
“I’m just,” he shrugs faux-casually, “not surprised Festus wants to wait.”
Lysistrata tilts her head, her braids waterfalling over her shoulder: “And why not? I’ve heard that man talk. There’s no way he’s been saving himself.”
Clemensia barks a laugh. “That ship has long sailed, if we’re to believe half of what he’s bragged about.”
“No, I don’t think he’s saving himself.” Sejanus sighs. “I’m quietly of the opinion that Festus’ desires don’t exactly align with the reality of his marriage contract.”
“You mean he’s unhappy that she’s a beta?”
“Exactly.”
“Well, that’s ridiculous. There were only, what, four omegas in our class? With seven or eight alphas and the rest of us betas, Festus can’t possibly have expected to get an omega when the ratio was so drastically off.”
“You’re right. There were only a handful of us and I don’t think he ever expected to get any of us.”
Clemensia, clever Clemensia, raises an eyebrow. “You don’t mean to imply that the lack of omegas isn’t the problem for him?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you meant it.”
“I would never,” he stresses, “spread rumors that could destroy a friend’s reputation.”
“Of course not,” Clemensia agrees quickly, though at the same time Lysistrata muses: “But can you really call him a friend?”
“He’s Coryo’s friend,” Sejanus says. “That makes him my friend. Apparently that’s how it works for married couples. He doesn’t have friends, I don’t have friends; we have friends.
Lysistrata wrinkles her nose mockingly. “How sweet. But I don’t know if that’s a married couple thing or just a you-and-Coriolanus thing. You’ve kind of always been like that.”
“We have not.”
“You kind of have,” Clemensia, that traitor, places a comforting hand on his forearm. “I don’t think you ever approached any of us in school if Coryo wasn’t already there.”
“Maybe I was just bad at making friends.”
“That, too.”
“We’re not talking about me,” Sejanus protests through his laughter. “We are talking about you,” he uses his fork to point attention back to Lysistrata, “and how you’re too good for Felix anyway. Forget about him. You never liked him.”
“But he would’ve made for a good match,” Lysistrata sounds more like she’s parroting something her parents have said.
“Would he have?” Clemensia asks. “I mean, really, Lyssie, did he ever even look at you twice?”
“No,” Sejanus answers for her. “He didn’t. He only ever cared to talk to other alphas and he ate with his fingers all the time. His only appeal was his father’s position and family name. And, admittedly, silky-looking hair. But what is he even doing with his life? You’re a doctor.”
“A motherfucking doctor,” Clemensia stresses, still looking somewhat giddy at the curse words coming out of her mouth.
“A motherfucking doctor,” Sejanus repeats, slapping a palm to the table. “Who needs him?”
“But—”
“No buts.”
“You want something like what Coryo and I have; would anyone have ever considered me a good match for him? No. But we made each other feel happy and safe. We could rely on each other. We could respect each other, even if we couldn’t always understand each other. That’s what matters. Stop focusing on making a good match. Worry about finding someone who makes you feel happy, someone you feel comfortable around, respected by.”
Lysistrata sighs, rests her head on her hand. “When did you get so wise?”
“It comes free with the baby.”
The little tablet on his belt buzzes, calling him back up to his hall for the day. He groans, accepting the call on the screen to silence the alert, and shovels one last overflowing forkful into his mouth. Two fingers to his temple in a salute. “Duty calls.”
Lysistrata wiggles her fingers. “See ya.”
“Bye, Sejanus!” Clemensia waves — and makes a face when he mouths behind Lysistrata’s back Make! A! Move! and wiggles his shoulders suggestively.
The elevator ride back to his floor is quiet and quick, the numbers ticking by faster than he can ruminate on them. He hopes, desperately, that none of his patients have passed while he was enjoying his lunch and gossiping with his friends.
Friends. Still such an exciting concept.
The attending nurse — Vesta, his favorite attending nurse, an irredeemable flirt older than his Ma — doesn’t point him towards any of their patients. No, instead, she jerks her grey head in the direction of The Office, which is the room they all use to give bad news to patients’ loved ones. When he furrows his brows at her and goes to ask, she just waves him away and points towards The Office again.
There isn’t even a hint of flirtation in it. How ominous.
The door handle clicks open, the light from the hallway spilling in and meeting the natural light from the large windows. He steps in.
There, leaning against the desk casually like summer sunshine in Two, is Coryo. His deep red three-piece suit stands out sharply against the cool neutral grays of the room. He’s handsome, regal, commanding. Sejanus understands why the people of the Panem follow him. Just his presence is enough to fill a room, to overwhelm. And yet he is the same boy who makes Sejanus laugh, who plays rather enthusiastically with their son. His blue eyes flick up to meet his and a smooth smile pulls at his lips.
“Doctor Snow,” he says, pushing himself to his feet, “thank goodness. I have a most urgent matter to discuss.”
Sejanus shuts the door behind himself with a quiet chuckle, more a fond exhale of air through his nose than anything. “What can I do for you, Mister President?”
“You see,” Coryo reaches out, grabs at the lapel of his lab coat, “I’m terribly sick.”
“Are you?”
“Yes, very. Lovesick, in fact.”
“Oh no,” Sejanus says as they fold into each other. Coryo’s strong, straight nose drags along his cheek. “That sounds serious.”
“It is,” Coryo insists. “Is there anything you can do, Doctor?”
Sejanus nods. “I think I have just the treatment.” He captures Coryo’s plush pink mouth and they tumble back against the desk together.
It will be hard, he thinks as he drops to his knees, for Lysistrata to find something like what he and Coryo have. They’re singular, rare, a perfect match.
Maybe not a good match, but a perfect one.
Sejanus’ heats have been few and far between, since that summer back in Twelve. Little more than a persistent itch under his skin and a desire to cling to Coryo’s side.
He sees a doctor. They tell him what he expected to hear. His muffled, blunted heats are a side effect of his longterm use of high-dosage suppressants, they say. Highly unlikely that he’ll ever experience a true, full heat again, but there is always a small hope for a baby. After all, he managed it the once.
Coryo sees a specialist, too. When they were young, he’d prided himself on his clearheadedness, his persistent lack of a regular rut cycle. He saw it as proof that he was better than base biological impulses — he was a Snow. But the doctors, they say a childhood of malnutrition has made it almost impossible that he’ll ever have a healthy cycle, no matter how well-fed he is now, and that his fertility is likely threatened as a result.
They’re told they’re lucky to have ever conceived a child.
They’re told it’s unlikely they’ll ever synch up like that again, in the perfect storm of hormones.
Coryo takes it like a knock to the jaw: stone faced, resolute. He turns the other cheek. Finds something else to focus on. Sits with Sejanus’ Pa and talks business with a smile, eyes tight because he refuses to cry.
And Sejanus — he cries. He cries a lot. He cries to his mother about it, tucked into her arms on the plush couch in the Plinth sitting room. She holds him like he’s still the little boy who screamed and kicked and cried over going home, rocking them side to side and shushing softly into his curls. He didn’t mean to cry about it, only express his frustration, but it feels like his emotions always result in tears.
“I’m sorry, Ma,” he sniffles, wipes at his nose with his sleeve. So unrefined. So District. “I — I know you and Pa were hoping for more grandchildren.”
“Oh, Sejanus,” her palm is warm against his cheek, smudging his tears away. “Don’t worry about us. We have more than we ever dreamed: a beautiful son, a wonderful grandson. But you…” She sighs like her heart is breaking. “It was something you wanted, wasn’t it?”
“I didn’t think so,” he chokes on it. “I didn’t think I cared either way. Not until they said we couldn’t.”
She kisses his forehead. “My poor baby.” A handkerchief is pressed into his hand. “Clean yourself up and we’ll go join our husbands, hm? I’m going to make you a cup of tea. For your nerves.”
He sits there for a long time, staring blankly at the floor. He used to lay on this floor stomach-down, kicking his feet behind him, and do schoolwork while Pa read the newspaper and Ma worked on her knitting. Now, he sits here and mourns. Wipes his eyes. Blows his nose. Stands stiffly and goes to join the others in the dining room.
Something stops him just before the closed door.
“You know,” it’s Pa, speaking quietly but firmly, “when Sejanus first wrote us all those years ago to tell us he was pregnant, I have to admit I was angry with you, Coriolanus. He didn’t say it was you, of course, but I suspected.”
“I would expect nothing else,” and there’s Coryo, equally soft and sincere, maybe a little nasally the way he gets when he’s trying too hard to be unemotional. “I’m sure you never expected to get that letter from him. Especially as a peacekeeper.”
“No,” Pa agrees. “Certainly not. And to hear that my child had been — dishonored, I suppose, in my mind. Well, I was furious with you and with myself.” A pause. He can imagine Pa shaking his head. “I did my best to protect him from himself, from a life chosen in a heightened emotional state.”
A short, tense silence. And then: “The suppressants.”
“Yes.” The click of a glass, like Pa has picked up his cup and set it back down. “Yes. Sejanus has never conformed to the Capitol’s expectation for an omega. He’s always had such temper, gets himself upset, lets his emotions get the better of him. Our fault, I imagine, for spoiling him so.” Another sigh. “He just feels so deeply and I always knew that would get him into trouble.”
“Trouble.” Coryo is chewing over the word. “Like we got into in Twelve.” Trouble, like two peacekeepers falling into one bunk together. Trouble, like Martius.
“One way or another,” Pa says. “Trouble always finds him.” The creak of a chair, like Pa is leaning forward, imploring. “You have to understand, Coriolanus. I was trying to protect him.”
He puts his back to the great wood door. His breath stutters in his chest. He doesn’t want to hear any more.
“Well, I guess you won’t have to worry about that now.” A huff through his nose. “Sejanus and I getting into any more trouble.” He can perfectly picture the twist of Coryo’s lips, the flex of his jaw. So handsome, so resilient. “It seems that no matter how we try, we’ll never have another child.”
And Pa: “I will always be sorry for the consequences my actions have put on him. The sins of the father, as they say. I am terribly sorry, Coriolanus. And I’m incredibly thankful for you and Martius and the influence you’ve had on him.”
“My influence?”
Pa laughs, short and delighted. “You managed what no one else has been able to do. You reeled in his temper. You keep his wild heart calm. You’ve made him into a proper Capitol omega.” The clink of a glass, again. “Doctors and tutors and teachers, but all we needed was Coriolanus Snow.”
He hears the door open, the one the servants use to get from the kitchen to the dining room, the tinkling clatter of his mother’s tea set. There are a few soft jangles as she sets out their saucers, as the spout hits against the side of the cups.
Finally, Coryo’s voice: “I would hate to ever think Sejanus was a proper Capitol omega.” It drips with derision. “He has made sacrifices, yes, for the safety of our family and the good of my career, but don’t ever think that he’s some simpering simpleton happy to be an ornament at dinner parties. Everything that makes Sejanus Sejanus is still there. His temper, his principles, his kindness. And that’s the way I like it.”
“What’s all this?” Ma asks. Like the tension isn’t thick enough to cut with a knife. “Coriolanus, darling, milk or sugar?”
“Just milk for me, Ma, thank you.”
It’s as good a time as any. He pushes open the door, allows it to creak heavily with the force. They all look up when he enters, their wide blinking eyes focused intently on him. He must look particularly pathetic, because Coryo opens his arms and welcomes him into his lap like a lost child, the scent of roses enveloping him.
Ma passes him a cup of tea. Made just how he likes it.
Pa accepts his own cup, too, his crystal glass of pica sitting empty on the table.
Sejanus says nothing. He just drinks the tea his Ma makes him.
The days pass. Sejanus says nothing. Instead, he hugs his son. He sits with him while he works his way through homework. He reads to him before bed each night. He plays tag with him in the courtyard until Coryo arrives home from work and hefts their son over his shoulder to bring them inside for dinner. He watches closely as Coryo teaches him to tend to the Grandma’am’s rose garden.
They live with it. They move on.
Then one day.
He wakes up late in the afternoon, still absolutely exhausted but with an itch to move under his skin. It’s disorienting. His clothes are grating against his skin, the silk of the robe Coryo bought for him.
He invades the kitchen, to the ire of their cook, and starts pulling food from cabinets and shoveling it down his throat. He interrupts the cleaning crew in the sitting room to help mop the floors and pulls on gloves to scrub out the bathrooms. He starts reorganizing their bedroom, pulling blankets and pillows from around their house and piling them on top of himself in bed.
“I’m going to call the president,” Adrian — their head of household staff, was Sejanus’ driver when he was boy — informs him from the doorway, “Master Snow.”
“Sejanus, please,” he corrects, as he always has— and then stops, throw pillow from Coryo’s office hanging limply from his fingers. “Why would you do that, Adrian? Don’t bother him. He’s working.”
“I believe it would be best. You seem to be in pre-heat, Master Snow. Rapidly approaching heat, if I may say so.”
Sejanus sits up on his knees, frowns as the blankets swim around him. “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t — I don’t have heats anymore. The doctors said I can’t.”
“It seems the doctors may have been wrong.” Adrian smiles, face creased like a proud parent. “Would you like me to get the president on the line?”
“No. No, it’s Games season. We — we shouldn’t call him unless we’re really sure.”
“Trust me, sir. I’m sure.”
“Okay.” His voice is small. He sinks into the mountain of comfort around him like a child. “Call him? Please.”
The next time the door opens, it’s Coryo — beautiful, flushed Coryo, who looks like he ran the flights of stairs to the penthouse. And, oh. This is what a proper heat is like. The fresh scent of him, roses and sweat, makes Sejanus gasp. He clutches the blankets piled beneath his head and feels redness creeping up his neck.
“You’re—”
“Yes!” It’s too loud. He doesn’t even care.
“Really?”
“Yes! Coryo, please. I’m — I need you. Now.”
Coryo’s suit jacket hits the floor, followed quickly by his shirt and tie, as he stalks across the room. There’s something unbearably appealing about the way he strips his tie from his neck, efficient and deadly. The sound of his belt buckle coming undone has Sejanus spreading his legs like he’s getting paid for it.
“You smell divine,” Coryo crawls his way over his body, his tailored trousers unbuckled around his waist and slipping down his sharp hipbones. “Like you’re—”
“Like I’m what?”
“Mine.” It’s a snarl. He bites at Sejanus’ collarbone. “Wet and wanting and mine.”
“I am,” Sejanus agrees. His legs wrap around that lean, pale waist without him deciding to do it. “All of it.”
“Oh, but you’ve been such a good boy for me,” Coryo coos. “Waited so patiently for me to come home. Now that I’m here you just can’t help yourself, can you?”
He shakes his head against the blankets — his nest, he realizes. He’s been nesting. “I can’t, I can’t,” his hands are scrambling at Coryo’s shoulders, pulling him in like they can get any closer. His hips keep hitching up without his permission. “Please, Coryo. I can’t remember it ever being like this.”
“Even the first time?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you think about me then? Did you dream about me that first heat, like I dreamed about you?”
It comes out in a whine: “Yeah, yes, I did.”
“Of course you did,” Coryo praises. “Because you were made for me, weren’t you? My gift, my omega. And I was made for you.”
“I was so embarrassed,” Sejanus admits as Coryo’s trousers and underclothes are finally, finally pushed down his thighs, “for wanting you so badly. I don’t think I could look at you in school for weeks.”
“I remember,” Coryo yanks his hips into his lap, eases his way in, pulls a gasp from Sejanus’ panting mouth, “when you came back to school smelling the way you do now, all sweet cinnamon. I — I went home and woke up in my first rut the next day.”
“Oh, fuck.”
“That’s the idea, sweetheart.” He can hear the smile in Coryo’s voice.
Every thrust drives him further into his nest, their scents intertwining. It’s overwhelming in the best of ways, now that Coryo is here. All that frantic energy, that restlessness he couldn’t contain, it’s focused now, locked in on every inch of their skin connecting. They’re together. They’re together and all is right in the world. Nothing could be more perfect than this.
He wants to crawl inside Coryo’s skin, wants to curl up in his chest cavity, safe inside the cage of his ribs, right beside his heart. He wants Coryo to do the same to him, to climb as far inside as he can and never leave.
And Coryo is making a valiant effort, his sharp hips meeting the back of Sejanus’ thick thighs again and again. Forceful enough to bruise. Oh, how he hopes there are bruises left behind.
Coryo’s big hand slides up his chest, glancing off a scar, a nipple, the dip of his collarbone. “Have I ever told you how much I like you this way?” That hand wraps itself loosely around this throat, squeezing just once before planting firmly in the blankets beside his head. “So helpless.”
Sejanus whines.
“So fucking pretty,” Coryo praises. “My pretty omega.” And, despite all the teasing he endured in school for being tall and broad and everything a coveted omega shouldn’t be, he knows Coryo means it. He’s beautiful, in Coryo’s eyes, worthy of care and doting and praise. He’s something to be proud of, something to show off and gloat about having. He’s good. He’s good.
“So good,” he whimpers into Coryo’s mouth, hands lying useless above his head. “S’good.”
Coryo tucks his nose in the dip between his neck and shoulder, presses absentminded kisses there. “It’s good?” He sounds overwhelmed, too, like he’s losing control. Good. Sejanus likes it best when they’re both delirious with want, with pleasure. He thrusts one, two, three more times, groaning in Sejanus’ ear. “Come for me, sweetheart.”
And Sejanus does.