by Apollo Surge
"Fuck, yes," Sawyer begged. "Please don't stop."
"I'm not sure I could if I wanted to," Elliot confessed, kissing Sawyer's shoulder as Sawyer listened to the familiar sound of the other man shedding his belt. His heart jumped as he felt the leather of that belt circling his wrists, pulling his hands back behind him.
"Is this all right?" Elliot asked, checking the tightness to make sure it wasn't cutting off circulation.
"Yeah," Sawyer said immediately, breathless and more turned on than he could confidently explain. "Yes. Definitely."
"Tell me the second it hurts or if you want it off," Elliot said, and kissed Sawyer's bound hands almost reverently.
With his hands tied and his ass in the air Sawyer couldn't do much to lift his head from the couch cushions, and that was fine with him. He felt Elliot's hands on his ass, squeezing lightly through his underwear, taking his time.
"Enjoying the view?" he asked, a note of teasing in his voice.
Elliot answered with a sharp slap to Sawyer's behind that made him yelp.
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I am," Elliot replied, and pulled Sawyer's underwear down slowly. He spread Sawyer's cheeks and Sawyer hid his face in the seat of the couch, weirdly embarrassed by being examined this way.
"You're wet," Elliot commented, pressing a thumb against Sawyer's entrance. Sawyer jumped, and flushed with humiliation, trying to lower his hips. Natural lubrication was a weird side effect of being an omega. It wasn't nearly as bad as when he'd been in heat and he couldn't wear pants without soaking through them, but it still happened when he was turned on even now. He hated it just a bit.
Elliot pulled his hips up again.
"It's nothing to be embarrassed about," Elliot said, and Sawyer could hear the smile in his voice. "I like that I excite you that much. Or is it being tied up that's turning you on?"
Sawyer's breath caught as he felt the unmistakable heat of Elliot's cock moving between his cheeks, grazing his entrance, sliding easily in the slick.
"Is that it?" Elliot asked as he rocked his hips, grinding against Sawyer's ass. "Have you just been desperate for me to tie you up and ravish you all this time? You could have just said so, you know."
"Actually," Sawyer said through gritted teeth, trying to hide the moans that were caught in his throat. "I'm not enjoying this at all."
Elliot stopped immediately.
"Really?" he asked, frowning in concern as he leaned over to see Sawyer's face, ready to drop everything on a word from the other man.
"Yeah," Sawyer answered, grinning playfully. "I'm actually a top."
Elliot snorted, and smacked Sawyer's ass again, hard enough to leave the imprint radiating warmth and his dick bouncing against his stomach.
"Don't scare me like that," Elliot scolded, taking hold of Sawyer's legs to push his thighs together.
"What? I'm serious. Next time I'll tie you up and we'll see who enjoys it more."
"You'll have to catch me first," Elliot replied and pushed his cock into Sawyer's thighs, wet with Sawyer's slick and snug underneath the omega's own needy erection.
"You want to race for it?" Sawyer gasped, shivering at the first graze of Elliot's cock against his. "We both know I'm faster than you."
Elliot snickered.
"Well, we can prove that right now."
"You son of a bitch. I didn't mean-"
He cut himself off with a needy gasp as Elliot pulled back and thrust hard into his thighs, skin meeting with a smack. The alpha reached under Sawyer to wrap a hand around both of their cocks, squeezing them tightly together as his hips began to move, setting up a rough, quick rhythm that had Sawyer swearing into the couch cushions. Elliot didn't bother to hide his own voice, even as he grabbed Sawyer's bound hands and used them to drag Sawyer back harder into his thrusts.
Elliot's cock was hot against Sawyer's thighs and the underside of his dick and the wet friction of the other man sliding against him was enough to leave Sawyer panting, rocking back into the thrusts greedily, but not enough to get him off. Despite Elliot's jokes about Sawyer being fast, orgasm lingered close but not quite close enough, his toes curling as he reached for just a little more stimulation. He strained against the belt binding his wrists, knowing if he could just touch himself it would be over. Somehow, knowing and not being able to do anything about it only made the pleasure all the sharper, all the more frantic.
"Fuck, Elliot, please," Sawyer begged, barely able to find the words. He could feel Elliot's knot hitting the back of his thighs and by the size of it the other man wasn't far off either.
"Wait for it," Elliot ordered, and Sawyer shivered, feeling the weight of an Alpha's authority behind it. Alpha's couldn't influence omegas, but Sawyer could still hear the power in it, the confidence, and it made him ache.
Elliot thrust harder into Sawyer's thighs, impact hard enough to leave his skin red and stinging and still Sawyer just wanted more. He wasn't quite there yet, to that over stimulated white-out ecstasy he wanted.
Elliot's pace stuttered and for a moment Sawyer thought he was about to finish. Instead, he reached for the belt around Sawyer's wrists and undid it quickly with shaking fingers. He grabbed one of Sawyer's slightly numb hands and dragged it to their joined cocks. Sawyer didn't need much more of a hint to wrap both his hands around the two shafts, stroking in time with Elliot's frantic thrusts. Elliot reached a fever pitch, whispering Sawyer's name and rising to a shout as he thrust past Sawyer's warm thighs to the tight channel of his hands.
Sawyer felt the hot rush of cum over his fingers as Elliot finished, the other man pushing deep and pressing his face to Sawyer's back.
Sawyer kept stroking, on the cusp of his own orgasm and thinking of nothing else. Imagine his surprise then when Elliot grabbed his hands, pulling them away from himself. He made a wordless sound of confusion and disappointment as Elliot flipped him over to look him in the eye, pinning his hands by his head.
"Elliot, I haven't-" Sawyer pleaded, hips moving, searching for any kind of friction.
"I know," Elliot said. "Wait for it."
He kissed Sawyer, hard and sloppy, Sawyer disoriented and desperate. When Sawyer was breathless and dizzy from kissing as well, Elliot finally let him go. Sawyer reached for himself immediately, but Elliot stopped him.
"I want to be the one that makes you cum," Elliot said, golden eyes intense. Sawyer swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry.
Elliot was between his thighs again a moment later, wrapping his lips around Sawyer's cock. He wasted no time on teasing and Sawyer grabbed him by the head with a shout as the intense sensation overwhelmed him after the earlier weak stimulation. Pleasure coiled like a spring within him, his thighs tight around Elliot's head as the other man devoured him. The heat of his mouth was relentless, his technique less than perfect but his enthusiasm more than enough to make up for it. Sawyer had already been close and rushed toward his end now at dangerous speed.
"Elliot," Sawyer gasped, trying to find the words to warn the other man but finding only his name. "Elliot, Elliot!"
If Elliot guessed how close Sawyer was, he didn't care, taking the other man as deep as he could. It broke over Sawyer like a wave, banishing vision and sense and voice, unable to even cry Elliot's name as he hung on, shaking through the aftershocks. Elliot's throat squeezed around the head of Sawyer's cock as he milked him dry and finally let him go only after Sawyer had stopped shivering and lay still.
As Elliot sat up, wiping his mouth, Sawyer tried to fix a somewhat unfocused glare on him.
"Who's... fastest... now?" he asked between panted breaths.
Elliot laughed and leaned down to kiss the other man, grinning from ear to ear.
"Still you."
Elliot carried him to the shower where cleaning each other led to round two, and finally they made it to bed, thoroughly worn out.
Sawyer curled up against Elliot's chest, the other man out like a light in minutes. Sawyer watched his sleeping face and thought about how much he still want
ed to do with the other man. How much he still wanted to experience and talk about. The fear of never getting to do any of that, of losing Elliot now, just when everything was finally starting to work out all right… He couldn’t risk it.
He rolled onto his back, a hand on his stomach. He still hadn’t decided what to do about the baby. If he decided to keep it, he’d tell Elliot then. If not… then there was no reason to take the chance that it might drive Elliot away from him.
Chapter Four
February and March came with heavy snowfall, blanketing the farm in a thick mantle of white which Jingle plowed eager corridors through every time he was let out of the house. Sawyer came down with a 'persistent cold' that neither shifting nor Alicia's carefully measured cold medicine could shake, which had Alicia tentatively declaring it Seasonal Affective Disorder.
Sawyer didn't doubt that the winter weather was also contributing to how crappy he felt, but he had a feeling it was mostly the nausea and fatigue. Not to mention the gnawing guilt and anxiety about hiding this from Elliot and the possible terrifying consequences when it eventually came out, if it did at all, if he didn’t make up his mind to end it.
But mostly the nausea.
He learned quickly how to hide it, or blame it on something else when he couldn't, but it seemed to be practically constant. He'd thought it was supposed to happen in the mornings, and not EVERY morning. But it seemed to come at any time of day it felt like, every day. He'd wake up feeling fine, then catch a whiff of Jacob making breakfast and have to run to the bathroom. He started bargaining to avoid mucking out the animal pens. He was already more sensitive to smells than most people because of being a shifter. Now he seemed to be under a constant assault from too harsh smells that felt designed to torture him.
By the end of March the world had softened a little. Spring returned touches of color to the black and white landscape. April brought new life and increased focus on getting the garden ready.
And the stupidest thing, the worst thing about it all, was that Sawyer was actually happy. When he wasn't getting hit with nausea or migraines, he could forget for hours at a time what he was hiding. And he was surrounded by people who genuinely cared about him in a way he'd never experienced before. Jacob was making some well-intentioned but ultimately doomed attempts to teach him how to cook. He traded stupid jokes and traveling stories with Mateo when they worked together in the garden. He and Paul had drawn the short straws when it was decided that someone should learn how to take care of the bees now that Craig wasn't around to handle it. They commiserated together as they scratched their heads over the apiary information Alicia had dug up for them and nervously contemplated the hive.
And Elliot. He'd never been more wonderful than he was now. The nervous caution Sawyer had sensed in him before had melted away as they settled into a comfortable domestic routine. On the mornings he woke first, Elliot kissed him awake. When the first snow drops appeared Elliot went out early in the morning to bring Sawyer as many as he could find. When Sawyer was up to his elbows in the garden getting the beds mulched and ready, Elliot snuck up on him, kissed him on the cheek, and presented him with a glass of ice water and a pocketful of lemon cookies stolen from the kitchen, which Jacob would tell them both off for later. But lying in the dirt, sharing cookies and laughing, troubles forgotten, was absolutely worth it. It was worth far worse things than that. Which was why the fear of losing it paralyzed Sawyer so utterly.
He was starting to get the hang of knitting, he thought, though it was still unbearably tedious. He tried to treat it like the work it was and just power through it. At least when the heartburn kept him up at night and the headaches made sunlight hurt he could hide out in the craft room without someone noticing he was avoiding work. Unfortunately, sitting in the comfortable chair in the craft room where it was warm and the only sound was the rhythmic shuffle of Alicia’s papers as she worked on her research or the rush of the wheel as she turned wool from the rabbits into yarn- half for sale, half for more of the endless, interminable knitting- dozing became a problem.
He didn’t notice he’d nodded off until Alicia was snapping her fingers under his nose.
He jerked awake, slightly dazed, and she put a hand to his forehead.
"Heartburn kept you up again?" she asked, and Sawyer nodded, too out of it to lie. "You don't have a fever. You were looking green at breakfast. Again. How long have you been feeling nauseous?"
"Uh," Sawyer scrubbed at his eyes, trying to come up with a lie. He hesitated too long and suddenly Alicia's hands were on his stomach, pressing lightly on his lower abdomen. "Hey!"
He tried to push her away but she glared at him and he froze.
"So how long were you going to wait before you told me?" she asked, still gently probing his stomach.
"Told you what?" Sawyer asked evasively, guilt tying him in knots.
"Don't 'told you what' me," Alicia snapped. "Even you're not that dense. You've known since January, haven't you? I should have guessed when you asked about it."
She released his stomach and stood, stomping off to the desk where she kept her limited little cache of medical supplies.
Sawyer debated denying it, weighing his chances of getting away with it. But she already knew, and he wouldn't be able to convince her to help him hide it if he kept lying to her.
"...The Moon told me," he confessed.
"The Moon!" Alicia repeated in a slightly hysterical tone, digging through her first aid kit. "How nice! Did the Moon happen to mention what pre-natal supplements you should be on? Did the Moon do your blood work or give you an ultrasound? Did the fucking Moon discuss the many and varied and occasionally fatal complications that can accompany any pregnancy, especially those undertaken with zero informed medical care? Jesus Christ, Sawyer!"
She slammed the first aid kit shut and stood over it with her eyes closed, taking deep breaths. Sawyer stayed where he was, holding very still. He knew Alicia would never hurt him, but something about the particular shape of her anger, concerned and accusatory, made the urge to run buzz at the edge of his awareness, remembering dangers long past. But Alicia calmed herself down, picking up the kit and bringing it to sit beside him.
"Have you at least told Elliot?" she asked as she took his blood pressure. Sawyer shook his head and saw her jaw tense briefly before she controlled herself again.
"You remember how he reacted to the omega thing," Sawyer said quietly. "I just don't want to risk scaring him off when I might not even... When I might not go through with it."
Alicia hesitated, looking up at him to gauge how serious he was.
"You're thinking of aborting?" she asked.
"I haven't made up my mind," Sawyer admitted with a shrug, worried she was judging him. Though whether it was judgment for considering abortion at all, or for specifically denying his purpose as an omega he couldn't guess.
But Alicia just shook her head.
"You're almost twelve weeks by my best guess," Alicia said. "Most people have made up their minds by now. The vast majority of abortions- Pretty much all of them that aren't due to health risks for the mother or fatal defects in the fetus- have already been performed before this point in the pregnancy. I'm pretty sure you've made a decision, even if you aren't willing to admit it."
"No, I haven't," Sawyer said, hunching his shoulders defensively. "I don't... I don't know anything about how this works, all right? I don't know how long I have to decide or- or how this might turn out. I'm just... I haven't decided."
Alicia sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose like she could feel a migraine coming on. She grabbed a notebook, filled with dense, handwritten notes which comprised all Alicia's mother had passed down about shifter health, history, and culture.
"Well, you'd better make up your mind soon," she said. "You're already too late for the pill abortion, which is the only one I could safely perform. And you're coming up on the deadline for the surgical abortion too. You've got two, maybe four weeks. And we'll have to find a
legitimate doctor. And presumably Influence them, or get Serena to help alter their memory. If they can do it at all, considering how different your biology is from anything they'll have experience with."
"We can't just tell them I'm, I don't know, trans or something?" Sawyer asked, fear squeezing his heart as he realized how little time he had. He hadn't realized the cut off was so soon! He was barely even showing!
"Honey," Alicia said seriously, looking him in the eye. "No human in the world, trans or otherwise, has a set up like yours. Omega reproductive organs aren't just a transplanted uterus and cervix, you know. They're a unique system made to integrate with your existing structures as seamlessly as possible. Omegas are, essentially, a third biological sex. That's what makes this so complicated, which is why you should have told me the minute you found out."
"I'm sorry!" Sawyer said a bit too sharply, panic raising the hair on the back of his neck. "I'm sorry, all right? I'm not dealing with this well, I know! It's not something I ever thought I'd have to deal with before last year."
"Pro tip," Alicia replied a bit harshly. "Ignoring it and hoping it goes away is not the way to deal with an unexpected pregnancy."
Sawyer flashed between anger and distraught fear until the confusion swelled up in his throat and stung his eyes with tears.
"Fuck," he whispered, grinding the heels of his palms in his eyes in an attempt to stop it before it started. It didn't work, his shoulders shaking as he tried to strangle a sob before it burst out of him like an alien out of John Hurt, foreign and painful and tearing him open. He'd never been the type to cry a lot. He didn't want to be crying now. He didn't know where this was coming from and that made it all the more frightening. He felt completely out of control of his own body.
"Oh, jeez, Sawyer," Alicia whispered as he sobbed. She put a hand on his shoulder, then gradually pulled him into a hug. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have freaked out. I don't have any right to be getting indignant. I'm sorry."
