Chapter Text
Gale's first thought, when he felt his body begin those telltale changes, was Tara.
She hadn’t taken to their new home very well. It had been months, now, since they’d made their move to the Underdark, and she still complained of its hunting fare, of its dank bats and its moldering fishes. It was his one regret since agreeing to make the move with Astarion; that she would not be able to continue her languid naps in the sun or her regular pigeon hunts.
Though, he supposed, neither could Astarion, anymore. They at least had that in common.
She did try to make the best of it. Tara had always been a bit of a homebody, after all. The repurposed tower of Lenore De Hurst suited her well, even if its strange decor didn’t quite align with their original home in Waterdeep. Her relationship with Astarion was also a delight to behold, the two becoming fast friends and bickering like an old married couple within days of officially moving her in.
All the same, though, he had worried when she first made the trek and found that at least some of his worries were, regrettably, well founded. And he was worried again, now. Because…
Well. Because he was an omega. An omega whose body had finally settled after the stressors of being invaded by not one, but two strange and otherworldly occupants for quite some time.
An omega who was about to go into heat.
He first noticed the changes while he was tending to Lenore’s garden. It had grown wild in the decades since her disappearance; to help bring it under control, he had created a rotating care schedule with the spawn that attended his book club sessions. Only the Sussur tree flowers were truly dangerous, after all, and even then they weren’t dangerous in the way a fireball was dangerous. Plus, he found the act of tending to the plants to be calming. Especially so for the spawn that struggled with controlling their darker urges . Want more blood than you really should? Come prune a bush and you’ll feel better by the end of it.
Even with the plentiful help, though, Gale found himself still spending much of his extra time in the little patch. The Sussur flowers especially had a way of making his mind… quiet. Quieter than it had ever felt before, and probably would again, for that matter, outside of his own death. Those shining flowers tore away his access to the Weave and left behind… Gale. Just Gale. No Mystra in sight.
Maybe some of the care he put into it made its way back to him, in the end.
Because in that blessed silence, with the soft leaves of the Sussur tree in his hands, he felt it clear as day as that first bit of warmth began to spread.
‘Gods,’ he thought, aghast. ‘What is Tara going to think?’
Astarion found Gale pacing the top floor of the tower, the tressym trailing behind like a bad omen.
“ Mr. Dekarios,” Tara said as she went, her voice shrill, both fur and feathers ruffled. “You knew this was a potential outcome and took none of the necessary precautions. Now you want to kick me out of both house and home? Out in the cold? With nary a soul for comfort?”
Gale sighed like he was on the verge of losing his mind. Or crying. Or both. “Tara, please. It’ll only be for a few days. And I’m hardly kicking you out, just asking you to stay with Alyssa on the first floor. She’s well versed on tressyms and will be able to look after you as much or as little as you need until all of this is over.”
Tara harrumphed, then harrumphed again, louder, when she saw Astarion standing at the top of the stairs. “Just once, I will do you this favor, Mr. Dekarios,” she sniffed, turning her nose up. “But next time I expect you to have a plan that doesn’t involve displacing me.” She padded closer to Astarion, then, and narrowed her eyes at him until he’d moved enough for her to descend the stairs. She paused at the crest to look up at him.
“And you. Do take care of him. I would hate to see him come out of this the way he did after her .”
With that, she descended the stairs and was gone.
There was a moment of silence, then. A beat where Gale didn’t look at the man standing across the room but was very aware of his eyes on him. He held his hands behind his back. Changed his mind. Crossed his arms across his chest. Stared at the floor.
“I apologize for not seeking you out sooner,” Gale said, finally. “I admit, I thought I had more time. Foolish of me, really. After all, it’s been almost a year, and biological clocks wait for no man. Or wizard, for that matter. However much one would quite like them to.”
He looked at Astarion, then, and despite already having an idea of how it would go, what he would see, how his body would react, he was floored.
Astarion was staring .
Gale had never seen Astarion with the expression on his face now. Not when he was hunting. Not during any of their many battles. Not even when Gale had first offered him his neck, the day Mystra had removed the orb from his chest.
But here, now, Astarion was staring. Like a predator waiting for its prey to make a move, to run, so it could pounce .
Or, rather, like he wanted to cry. Gale found wasn’t sure which.
They stood looking at each other like that for a moment. Quiet.
“My love,” Astarion murmured, finally, finally. “Are you sure you want to go through with this? Is there not any magic that could delay it further?”
Gale let out a shaky breath and looked at the floor again. “Nothing that would be good for me in the long run, I’m afraid,” he admitted, curling in a bit on himself. “Many have tried coming up with spells that would do what you suggested, of course, or even to get rid of heats entirely, for those that no longer want to go through them. In a pinch there are a great many spells that could push it off until a later time, but every single one has long term consequences. Trust me, I’ve checked. Even tried a few.”
He paused here. Chewed on his lip. Considered his next words.
“Also. I thought…” He trailed off, quiet. “I thought maybe a heat wouldn’t be so bad. If I spent it with you.”
Astarion made a broken sound, then, a soft little ‘Oh’ that wasn’t quite a sob, and Gale had to fight the urge to go to him.
He’d never spent a true heat with anyone, not really, even with Mystra. Her love was… metaphysical, and the changes his body was rapidly undergoing now were very much of the physical sense. However, he was well read on the phenomenon of heats. He understood that even though he probably still had several hours to perhaps a day left before his heat truly started, his body was already pumping out pheromones to attract an alpha.
Right now, to a human’s nose like his, it would be faint. Perhaps only noticeable if someone were standing next to him.
But to an elf? A vampire?
An alpha?
He had his answer in the way Astarion was standing. Still, like a statue. Betraying so few of his emotions so that, presumably, he would not influence Gale’s. Astarion was funny that way; if he asked, the man would probably stay with him through his entire heat without so much as touching him a single time. He would complain, yes, make his snide little remarks. But he would not break Gale’s boundaries.
So Gale would do his best to not break his.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as Astarion finally turned his head away and dragged a shaky hand down his face. He looked… well, Gale had no idea how to interpret the way he looked, currently. It certainly wasn’t good. Nervous, he found himself beginning to ramble.
“Of course, it was only a suggestion, Astarion. One I’m realizing now I should have brought up before starting my heat. Haha. Not that it’s started, mind you! You can be rest assured that anything I’m saying now is entirely without influence from my baser self. However. I do apologize if my presence here is causing you any sort of undo harm. While I, myself, have never had a chance to speak with an alpha about what they may have experienced while with an omega during their heat, I have heard tell that it is very overwhelming indeed. So all of this happening now, without warning, must be coming as quite a shock.”
“Darling,” Astarion interrupted with a laugh. “You have no idea.”
Well. That shut Gale right up.
“If this is what you want,” Astarion continued slowly, “what you truly want, I would be honored, my love. There is nothing in this world that would keep me from you.”
But here Astarion paused, and oh, oh, how anguished his lover looked, then. They still were new to this, weren’t they? Married, yes, lovestruck fools, the both of them, but at the end of the day they carried the broken pieces of themselves carefully and were forever slotting them back into place. Piece by piece. Waiting for the next time it would be their turn to shatter again.
Oh, he had done them both a disservice by trying to pretend this entire situation away.
Astaron let out a shaky breath. “But I want to make sure this is what you want . You told me once that you had never been through a heat with anyone before. It is… intense, to put it mildly, and I want to make sure you are entirely sure this is what you want, my love. Because…” And here he paused again. Unsure. “Because once it begins, neither of us will truly be in control anymore.”
“Astarion,” Gale replied quietly, “while I may have always taken my heats alone, need I remind you, I am no budding flower. I know just how terrible they can sometimes be. And even knowing all of that, I know I can trust you to be there for me. Besides,” and here he tried to lighten the mood, his voice teasing, “it’s not like we haven’t… known each other in that sense before. It will just be more of that, won’t it? A couple days of fucking like rabbits. What more could anyone want?”
When Astarion still looked unsure, Gale smiled and held out his hand.
“I promise you. There is nothing in this world I could ever be more certain of.”
Then Astarion was moving, walking right at him, and Gale took a sharp breath in just in time to think, ‘Oh, perhaps my nose is better than I thought,’ because all he could smell was alpha, alpha, alpha. And then he found he couldn’t think of much at all, really, because Astarion had wrapped him up into a tight hug. Gale had never been much of a ‘scenter’, never been the type to carry around momentos of his lover purely for their smell, but he could see the appeal now. Astarion smelled simply incredible .
“I love you,” Gale said, then, and Astarion laughed (cried?) into the crook of his neck. “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone, Astarion. And you’ve proven your love to me in more ways than I can even hope to count. I can think of no one else I would rather be with.”
“Ah, good,” Astarion said with a soft laugh, “because, selfless as I am, I really did not want to let you go.”
And so they were, both of them holding on to each other like they hadn’t since the end of the world.
They spent the rest of the day making preparations.
Gale’s status as an omega was an open secret around the collective. When he told the spawn he’d entrusted with some of their group’s overarching tasks that he would be gone for a few days, they simply nodded along and focused on ironing out the details. Maybe they could see it in him. Maybe they could smell it.
He tried very hard not to think about either option.
Everything after that was hazier. He retired to his and Astarion’s room on the top floor of the tower and set about making his ‘nest’. The nesting urge, for him, was never as strong as his friends back in Blackstaff had described when they were younger, or the way it was written in his books on heats. It still pleased some little part of him, though, to arrange the extra pillows and blankets Astarion had gotten him on their shared bed.
Astarion came in at some point while he was working, carrying jugs of water and a covered basket. Probably a gift from one of the spawn, which was tooth-achingly sweet. Gale wandered over to inspect what was inside, but found himself distracted by something altogether sweeter, indeed.
“You smell amazing, Astarion,” he breathed, shamelessly gluing himself to the other man’s front before he’d even gotten a moment to put anything down. “My word, is it always like this? All I want to do is just curl up on you like a cat. Or a tressym, I suppose” Gale giggled, slotting his face under Astarion’s chin and inhaling .
Astarion tittered, holding the jugs he’d brought in high over Gale’s head so they wouldn’t get knocked over. “I always smell like a treat, love,” he joked, and lightly nudged the other man with the basket. “Move. I need to put these away.” But Gale couldn’t hear him, not really, and now his hands were sliding under Astarion’s shirt, gripping his hips to get a better angle, to get closer .
Astarion sucked on his teeth for a moment, like he was deciding something, then spoke.
“ Gale. ”
His voice was like a splash of cold water, or a misdirected zap of lightning on the battlefield; it traveled in him and through him and for the first time ever, Gale’s body did something decidedly strange; it froze .
“There you are, my sweet. Go back to your nest, okay? Let me put this down.”
Gale paused, his mind suddenly hazy, thoughts coming to him thick like honey. He shivered, as if trying to fight it… then turned on his heel and walked back to their bed.
The room was quiet as Astarion began to put his things away.
“That was… different,” Gale mused softly, plopping down hard on the edge of the bed. “How did you do that? I didn’t detect even the slightest hint of Weave when you spoke, and yet, my body obeyed all the same. Command, no, that’s right out. Dominate Human–? no, that would have taken too much prep–”
Astarion sighed theatrically from across the room.
“Darling, please don’t think so hard, you’re liable to spontaneously combust,” he said daintily, his back to him as he parsed through their cabinets. He paused after a moment though, turned to glance behind him, and Gale was struck with how worried he suddenly looked. “It was just your body reacting to me, my love, nothing more. You’re about to start your heat and are practically drowning in my pheromones. I apologize for not telling you before I–”
“Nonsense,” Gale cut him off with a snort, waving his hand. “If I had a problem with it I’d have told you, Astarion, believe you me. And besides, I haven’t been this wet since–”
His mouth snapped shut, too late.
Astarion grinned. Gale prayed for the ground to swallow him up.
“Um,” he said, eloquently, and Astarion only laughed and blessedly returned to what he was doing.
It was quiet again, then, the only sounds around them the movement of distant machinery and things being sorted.
Gale stared down at his hands. They were really going to do this. He could still back out, of course, tell Astarion he’d changed his mind, that he wanted to do it alone, after all. But he wasn’t worried about his husband. Not like that, at least. Astarion had told him before that he’d helped others through heats. His friends, at first, then… clients . He was experienced.
But maybe that was the problem.
“Astarion,” he said, quietly, and watched as his husband turned to look at him from the other side of the room. He hesitated. “I– I wanted make sure that this is actually what you want. And before you say anything, I already know what you’re going to say. I know . You’re going to say ‘yes’, you’re going to say,” and here he did an absolutely horrible impersonation, “ ‘yes, darling, of course, darling, anything for you, darling’.”
Astarion laughed.
“But I want you to know that you don’t have to say yes.” And here Gale was serious, frowning. “It’s okay to– not be okay, I guess. I can go through this just fine on my own. I have been, twice a year now, for 20 years , mind you, barring any Netherese or illithid passengers pushing it off. It’ll happen the way it always has and I’ll get through it the way I always have. I would be happy to have you, but not if it will hurt you.”
He folded his hands in his lap, nervously, and Astarion raised an eyebrow. “Are you quite done, darling?” he asked, and Gale sighed.
“Yes. Quite.”
“Good.”
Astarion stalked his way over to Gale, a serious look on his face. Gale’s head was still hazy and a small part of him wanted to crawl into the pile of blankets on the bed, hide . But he stood his ground and Astarion stopped in front of him, crossing his arms.
“Listen close, love, because I’m not going to repeat myself,” he huffed, frowning. “Others have controlled me, controlled my body, for years . But we’re free , now, you and I. Free . Mystra no longer has a hold on you; Cazador is dead . The past is gone but the present is here , it is ours , and I intend to enjoy it to the fullest .”
Here, he held out his hands, and as Gale reached out to hold them a fond smile lighted across Astarion’s face.
“I love you,” he said, “and there is nothing in this world that would keep me from you.” And they kissed, softly, gently, like they had all the time in the world.
“Now, is this your ungraceful excuse for a nest?” Astarion wrinkled his nose, eyeing the bed. “Get up, I’m redoing the entire thing.”
They went to bed, eventually. Slept.
And when Gale woke up, he was on fire.
Every inch of his skin burned. He groaned, tried to get up, to grind himself against the bed, but there was someone on him. Hands were touching him, cool as they ran down his sides, and a quiet voice was shushing him.
“ Astarion, ” he breathed, and was rewarded with a kiss.
It was small, almost innocent, and any other time it would have been welcome; but here, now, the gentle pressure of it chafed . Gale surged up into it ruthlessly, catching Astarion by surprise. The other man grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him down into the bed, hard .
Gale’s reaction was instantaneous. He shook, like he was seconds from falling apart, and spread his legs wide . If he hadn’t been so far gone he would have been scandalized; as it were, he shamelessly pulled at Astarion until the other man was seated between them. “You need to slow down , darling,” Astarion panted, grabbing both of Gale’s hands when they went to grab him again. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
But there was no response; at least, not an intelligible one. Gale only wrapped his legs around him, breathing hard, his heels digging painfully into Astarion’s lower back as he canted his hips up into him. Astarion tsk ed and let himself be pulled down, hissing a little as the new position allowed Gale to grind harder against him.
Omegas were always so needy .
In their new position, he easily pinned both of Gale’s hands above his head with one of his. Gale, already so far gone, didn’t put up a fight; he was more focused on the friction that was happening lower down. Good. Astarion’s free hand slipped between them and into Gale’s pants.
“I’m going to give you what you need, my sweet,” he breathed into his ear, and Gale whined like he’d been struck. “Be good and stay still for me, okay?”
He ignored Gale’s cock and continued further down. And if Astarion hadn’t been hard already, he would have been, then, because Gale was wet . No, not just wet; soaked through, to the point where it completely coated his ass and thighs. Now that they were moving he could smell it, too, concentrated and heady and Gale . All Gale.
He slipped two fingers easily into the slick hole waiting there for him. His lover gasped, bucking into the sensation. “Please– I can’t–,” Gale whimpered, twisting under him. Astarion kissed his neck, listening to the rapid thrum of his heart under his skin, and began to move his hand. This part was easy, so easy; his omega’s body was adjusting itself to accept something much larger than a few fingers from him, after all, and Astarion was able to set a punishing pace very quickly.
Gale writhed underneath him, his back arching deliciously. Every movement he made was accented with small gasps and moans. Astarion let go of his hands to slip an arm under him, holding him in that position, flush with his body, and let out a strangled laugh when he felt those same hands tangle in his hair. “Don’t pull anything out, love,” he tried to tease, but Gale didn’t respond.
His poor omega. An entire year without heats… this one had to be hitting him harder than normal.
To prolong the inevitable any longer would almost be cruel.
Below him, Gale was lost. Even with those clever fingers inside him, taking him apart with a practiced ease, his body wanted, no, needed more. His skin burned for it and his teeth ached and, desperate for something his addled mind couldn’t put into words, he pulled Astarion’s face to his and kissed him like he was drowning. Maybe he was, in a way.
But then those fingers were gone and Gale was horrifyingly empty . His body cramped and he tried to grab at Astarion, panicking, but he was being pushed away. Strong hands grabbed his legs, pushed him open, and oh yes, yes, he liked that , but then his world turned upside down. He was on his belly, now, those clever fingers undoing the rest of the laces on his pants as Gale clumsily tried to get his knees under him.
“ Stay down, ” his alpha warned, and Gale shuddered at the edge in his voice, whined, obeyed . He rutted shamelessly into the bed, instead, until his pants were gone, and then he was really able to get a good rhythm going. But there was a weight on his thighs, then, and something large and heavy and cool sliding against his ass.
“Oh, love,” Astarion breathed above him, and Gale could feel his hands smoothing up his sides again, gentle and reverant. “I’m going to take it as slow as I can. I’ll make it good, okay?” But Gale couldn’t understand him, not really. He tried to pull his arms under him, to arch up, to rush and get what his body sang for, but Astarion kept him down with a hand between his shoulder blades. He whined, tried to fight it.
But then there was a deliciously painful pressure as Astarion pushed into him, sweet and incessant, and he keened .
All he wanted was for that cock to fuck him deeper, faster, harder , but the weight on his thighs and upper back kept him from moving the way he wanted. He was forced to accept Astarion’s pace, and the alpha was pressing into him so carefully, so gently, so painfully slowly.
Gale panted. Begged for more with words he wasn’t even sure were real.
Above him, Astarion laughed, but it sounded more like he was choking.
That first slow slide felt endless, a euphoric infinity, but it ended with another delicious bit of pressure; the first small swell of his alpha’s knot, snagging against muscle as Astarion pushed his way inside. Gale had never felt anything like it before. He’d had aids, yes, magical and non-magical creations that helped ease some of the pain of his heats, but nothing even came close to this . To the way his alpha moved inside him, that burgeoning knot pressing against every piece of him, already filling him the way his body begged to be filled.
Astarion sat there for a moment, allowing them both to adjust, but Gale’s body was on fire . He arched under the hand that held him down, just enough to pull against that little knot.
Astarion sucked in a breath. “Needy thing,” he hissed, but then he was moving , pressing long, slow thrusts into the omega that had his knot popping in and out of him. Gale shattered. He was delirious with pleasure, unable to do anything from where he was pinned but tangle his hands in the blankets underneath them and take it. “Astarion,” Gale whimpered, the only coherent thing he’d said since he’d been flipped, and Astarion gave in.
His thrusts were rougher now, coming faster and shallower. The knot at the base of his alpha’s cock was becoming too large to slip in and out easily, and Gale couldn’t help but make small, punched out noises as it pressed against him with every thrust . It was big . It was going to get bigger . And it was going to go inside him. Gale was delirious with want, with fear , his addled brain imagining, unbidden, how it would split him open and fill him in a way he’d never felt before.
He was going to be knotted. He was going to be knotted.
“Gale,” Astarion choked out above him, “you’re doing so well, my love, just a little more.”
There was one last thrust; then that impossibly large knot was pressing into him, pushing in, and despite all of his alpha’s preparations it fucking hurt. Tears welled up in Gale’s eyes and he groaned, but he didn’t pull away; even through the pain, the pleasure was indescribable. There was a moment where he truly thought it wouldn’t fit, that he would be trapped there under his alpha with the knot halfway inside him, but then it popped in, all at once, and his entire body seized.
The knot was pressing on every single part of him, splitting him in two, taking up more space inside of him than he could have ever imagined. The insane pressure activated some biological mechanism that Gale had never felt before and his body bore down onto the knot, locking it in place, a cramping, blissful mixture of agony and pleasure.
Astarion made a sound like he’d been stabbed and collapsed on top of him, his hips moving involuntarily, forcing the knot even deeper. There was a sublime, terrifying moment where Gale realized it was getting bigger inside him, so large it would have been impossible to remove. They were well and truly locked together.
A strange, heavy coolness spread inside him as Astarion came. His alpha kissed him, softly, gently, where his shoulder met his neck, and reached a hand underneath them to palm Gale’s neglected cock.
Gale came wordlessly, then, as Astarion held him, and cried.