Work Text:
When Daryl learned Jesus was an omega—only the second male, besides himself, he’d ever met—it appeared he was struck with an overpowering curiosity, catching himself following the slighter omega around in secret and stealth, observing him in quieter moments, and sticking close enough to scent him as if he still couldn’t quite wrap his head around the fact. Jesus caught on quickly, not just because while Daryl was a keen tracker and surreptitious hunter out-of-doors, he hadn’t quite gotten the hang of the Suburban Espionage (concealing himself properly inside buildings, rather than sticking out like a sore thumb) with which Jesus was expertly familiar; but also because up until not long ago, their positions had been reversed, with Jesus chasing Daryl around in the shadows, trying to get a read on him.
“Are you really that fascinated with me, Daryl?” Jesus called without even glancing over his shoulder when he entered Alexandria’s home base—Deanna’s home, transformed into the war room—and made to deposit his latest bounty: a book of road maps of the northern part of the state, and a set of urban planning pamphlets he’d found tucked in between the seats of an mutilated Sedan. He could sense the hunter in the room, even without his subtle scent, made more intense by Daryl’s apparent reluctance to bathe, splashing across his senses like a warm breeze. “Because I feel like you have better things to do with your day than to spend it following me around.”
Daryl crept from the shadows between the floor-length curtains and the standing lamp in the edge of the room, as if slipping from between two white-skinned birches somewhere out in the wood. He sniffled with feigned disinterest, shrugging his broad shoulders.
“Someone’s gotta keep an eye on you,” Daryl mumbled, bringing his thumb to his lip and nibble at the skin beside the nail. Jesus had been given pretty much free-roam of Alexandria, going between the settlement and his own as he pleased, continuing to act as liaison and occasional provider of decent loot. Maybe it wasn’t the smartest move, or the safest, but with Negan’s group looming near Rick considered any ally even remotely knowledgeable about the illusive Saviours an important asset, and besides, he seemed to be doubtful of the harm a small, unassuming omega could do. One would’ve thought Rick’d learned his lesson by now as to of how much damage an omega was capable, after knowing both Daryl and Carol.
Jesus peered over his shoulder and looked at Daryl in an endearing way, cheeks rounding with a wide smile. He knew anything other than outright disregard was the closest Daryl came to showing respect, or even, daresay, affection, so he gladly accepted any amount of interaction with the stoic hunter. He was a mystery to Jesus as well: a large, physically imposing, unmated omega, living with a pack made up of almost all alphas, and in the beta role, right hand to the impassive and aggressive leader? That was a feat in itself. Jesus eyed Daryl up and down, taking note of the shabby clothes and messy brown hair, and the way he was looking around the room.
“I’m touched,” Jesus said, taking a piece of paper in his hands and folding it neatly between his fingers, pocketing it for later. Daryl was looking at him from his inter-curtain vantage point like Jesus was an entirely new species, somehow still oblivious to his own uniqueness. “But really, what is it you want?”
“How do you deal with it?” Daryl spouted suddenly, narrow eyes alight. His hormones blushed with anxiety, a pungently sweet note colouring the rose-scented subtlety of his smell. Jesus took a whiff, committing the taste to memory, picking apart the notes of cherry and molasses as he did.
“With being an omega?” Jesus clarified. A male omega, with a slight build, no mate and no clinical suppressants to speak of, is what Daryl meant, more specifically, but Jesus let those somewhat dangerous details of reality hang in the air rather than mention them. Male omegas had it hard even before the Outbreak, ostracized for their lack of utility and uncertain mix of gentle and powerful, a dichotomy of gender which rather than admired for its uniqueness, was slightly feared. “It’s tough, it’s true. Mostly I feel like I have to prove myself over and over, but I’m sure you know how that feels.”
Daryl reddened and looked at his boots, scuffing them despondently on the well-worn carpet of the living room. His memory flickered with images of his father and brother lording over him their statuses—of course both at separate times; there was nothing like alpha competitiveness to really get the blood pumping…and spilling—talking down to him, calling him soft, weak, guileless. Jesus echoed the unspoken sentiment, scrubbing a little at the side of his head, distracted by difficult memories.
Jesus surveyed the distance between them and made to close it, approaching Daryl with near-silent strides, until he was close enough he had to look just up at the taller omega through his eyebrows. He took a whiff of Daryl’s smell, itself so rare, even mixed with the grime of his clothes and the tangy flavour of his sweat, it shone practically as a beacon, alerting anyone near as to his eligibility. The only thing keeping local alphas from snooping around him was they were clearly afraid of the omega in question. But Jesus was not.
“There are, of course, other ways to cope,” Jesus explained suggestively, tilting his head a little and revealing a scar on the side of his neck. Oval-shaped and obnoxious white, raised in a little ring of slippery bumps, it was a mating mark, about a decade old or older.
Keeping an eye on Daryl’s bewildered expression he drew his hair away from his neck with one hand, and then pulled down his collar with the other, revealing a second mark further down on his shoulder. Then next to it, a third. As he peeled his jacket down, three more marks came into view, overlapping each other. Six marks, each a different age, some faded and others still dark and fresh-looking, jagged with teeth-holes and the size of ripe strawberries. “Though those ways don’t always help.”
Memories bubbled up like the air in soda, gathering speed before breaking the surface, of past loves and mates lost to the ages. Some long gone and others surely dead, each having left their testimonial vestiges on his skin, along with their promises, before departing forever. Daryl ran his eyes across Jesus’s heavily-marked neck, glancing wordlessly from one to the next, offering nothing with his stoic gaze. Daryl’s neck, on the other hand, was completely naked.
“I wouldn’t suggest it,” Jesus explained, fixing his collar and letting his hair fall over his shoulders again, “I’ve found ways to make it on my own. I can show you, if you want.”
“Don’t need your help,” Daryl snapped back reflexively, the image of Jesus’s scarred neck clearly remaining bright in his mind. Jesus’d seen Carol’s, the mark a deep, nasty thing, which she now wore proudly as a memento of what she used to have, what she’d lost, and what she’d gotten rid of.
“I know,” Jesus replied, raising a gloved hand in defense. He let out a sigh, recalling past mates, the mulishness of alphas. He’d always had a soft spot for stubborn, emotionally-unavailable men. “Just…” he thought for a moment about the phrasing, testing different words in his mouth like sipping expensive wine. “Put it this way: maybe we don’t need alphas. Maybe we never did. We should stick together, respect each other, help each other out. Surely you’re not against working together, Daryl?”
Daryl shook his head minutely. “Rick trusts you,” he offered, by way of reasoning, leading Jesus to believe he was very much missing the point. He’d get it eventually. He might.
“Alright,” Jesus said pragmatically, “Rick trusts me, and I trust you. It’s a start.”
As he turned to go, Jesus thought he saw the faintest hint of a blush on Daryl Dixon’s cheek, but maybe it was just a trick of the light, a mistake of a chemical nature, influenced by the gentle, saffron scent he was giving off, which Jesus hoped he was mimicking with his own placid pheromones. Either way, he grinned in secret as he went from the war room, leaving Daryl on his own, though not really.
Their relationship to developed like a steadily growing garden, and while it was one of the slowest-burning that Jesus had ever experienced, something still felt too much, too deep. He was becoming too attached. He always fell too quickly.
If this was normal life, Jesus (well, more likely “Paul”) would ask Daryl to come over one evening for a drink, shoot the shit, maybe sit close to each other on the sofa and if the feeling was right, take his hand. But this wasn’t normal life, or at least not what used to pass for “normal”. This was life post-Outbreak, and instead they bonded over freshly gutted walkers, the fastest way to get from the abandoned suburb to the burned-out convenience store, and the wonder of finding socks without holes in them. It would never be clean, and maybe never peaceful, but it was…a thing they could make happen, if they tried. And Daryl’s shy smiles and sharp witticisms, shared under the waning light of a mid-Atlantic sun while they walked shoulder-to-shoulder through the spiny underbrush, were worth all the heartache in the world.
But it all seemed to come apart one day during a daytrip with Heath, Aaron and Daryl, where Jesus had found himself trapped in a tunnel (don’t ask) with two walkers, the pair of undead fiends fortunately pinned beneath a colossal cement pipe, but with their gnashing teeth and clawing fingers still very much intact. Heath had calmly sniped them from afar, Aaron had distracted the noise-weary stragglers with a flare thrown down the opposite end of the tunnel, and Daryl had leapt in to wrench Jesus out of the mud, grumbling all the while like a disgruntled superhero.
The foursome basically ran all the way back to the safety of Alexandria, panting and exhausted when they made it through the gates. Close-calls had different effects on different people: Aaron went to see Eric immediately and uncommonly without a word, Heath stood silently collecting himself against the wall of corrugated tin, and Daryl dragged Jesus with him into the nearest empty yard, swearing under his breath and uttering threats the whole while.
“Little shit,” Daryl snarled, holding Jesus by the collar of his coat and throttling him. He’d slid them into an open space between two homes, growling and pacing like an angered beast, throwing his crossbow to the ground where it bounced once before falling over still. “The hell you think you’re doin’?! Coulda got us all killed!”
“Well, sorry!” Jesus barked back, trying his best to maintain his patience, and the light cadence of his voice. He smacked his hands around Daryl’s wrist when the man shook him again, like a puma with his prey, unsure what to do next. “I didn’t ask you to come down and help me! I could’ve handled it, and if I didn’t, well, there was no need to get the rest of you involved!”
That seemed to horrify Daryl more, and he gnashed his teeth before spouting, “knew I shouldn’t’ve brought you along. Done with you.”
In turn, the prospect of losing Daryl’s company on hunts drew something deep and dark out of Jesus, and he snapped, taking Daryl’s vest in his curled fingers and reversing their positions, spinning and restraining Daryl against the wall of the house. The vinyl siding snapped its annoyance as Daryl hit it, eyes going wide with shock before narrowing again in vicious anger.
“I never asked you to come with me,” Jesus hissed, leaning near enough to Daryl’s face he could feel his breath on his neck. The few inches of height he maintained over Jesus afforded him undue confidence in the face of Jesus’s rare anger. “I never asked for you. You just do whatever you goddamn please, no matter…”
Jesus trailed off, as he realized how closely they were pressed together, chest-to-chest and nose-to-nose. From here, Jesus could sense Daryl’s subtle scent, smell his breath, see the highlights in his irises. Dammit. This wasn’t exactly what he’d planned, but Jesus was nothing if not good at improvising.
He leaned nearer, but then reconsidered. This was moving too fast. Post-apocalypse, it’s as if everything was going too fast, but this wasn’t something that should be rushed. Daryl seemed to disagree, however, and to Jesus’s surprise, closed the tiny gap between them with a kiss.
Jesus let out a little moan of shock, releasing Daryl’s shirt to put his hands flat on the man’s chest, over his heart, to feel it beating wildly as they met lips, Daryl’s tongue darting out to test Jesus’s bottom lip before departing. Beards scratching and tangling, Jesus lunged in to deepen the kiss, startled when Daryl met his insistence with even more force.
The kiss went back and forth, long enough that Jesus started to forget they were basically out in the open, too occupied with Daryl’s hot mouth nipping at his own, strong fingers winding tentatively in the weave of his coat at his waist as Daryl held him close. Not pulling him closer, just holding him there, like he was afraid Jesus was going to go. Jesus met the sentiment by diving a tongue inside the hot, pulling cave of Daryl’s mouth, lapping up the taste of him, his saliva, the salt on his lips, the sweat gathered in his stubble. It was…good, desperate and sudden as it was, and Jesus felt himself melting in places while he hardened elsewhere, lifting a hand to cup Daryl’s jaw while he kissed him, hard and sultry as he could make it, until he was drifting away in a swirl of scent and warmth and intimacy and…
Jesus pulled away with a smack, leaning back and holding Daryl at an arm’s distance. Daryl looked flushed, his forehead glossy with sweat, cheeks rosy like peaches, eyes dark. Nothing out of the ordinary, but his scent…it had changed, gone caramel-rich like brown sugar roasting in a pan. Where before he was roses and yellow plums, now Daryl was molasses and fresh, pure tobacco right from the bush. Jesus leaned in to take a testing whiff behind Daryl’s ears.
“What?” Daryl panted, winded and more than a little irritated at being interrupted.
“You’re…in heat,” Jesus mumbled.
“What?” Daryl repeated, before going silent with dawning realization. He obviously wasn’t very familiar with the feeling, because an omega his age and this deep into their cycle would typically realize it the second it started, but Daryl just looked puzzled, or annoyed. It was probably the reason for his sudden close behaviour, since until now the most intimate touches they’d shared were pats on the shoulder, through the fabric (and a punch to the face, if that counts). “Shit,” Daryl mumbled, looking at his feet.
Jesus stroked a few strands of dark brown behind Daryl’s ear with a gloved finger, revealing more of his flushed skin, the whitest of it plum-dark in some places. “It’s okay. We stick together, right?”
Daryl nodded minutely, attending his shoes. Maybe this was a good start.
In the bedroom of Daryl’s home in Alexandria, they stripped separately, the humidity of late summer worsening the depth of Daryl’s heat. The scent of him was so thick it was making Jesus feel a little steamy, too, though his own heat wasn’t expected for at least another two weeks, if he was counting correctly. He was old enough now that the regular bout of hormonal assault only really served to make him more visible to his enemies, and less the simpering, sobbing, desperate-for-an-alpha mess popularized by pre-outbreak fetish magazines. He pulled out of his coat, hat and gloves, discarding his shirt and wandering to the bed in his briefs, climbing atop the mattress to watch Daryl.
The older omega slid out of his vest and jeans but kept his ratty button-down on, biceps practically pouring out the sides and making Jesus glad he was seated. He wanted those arms to hold him, to cling to him, squeeze him tight. Daryl stood in the middle of the carpet until Jesus beckoned him over with a tip of his chin.
As he approached Jesus could see Daryl was nervous, but trying not to be, his fingers trembling ever-so slightly at his sides. He shook like a scared calf until Jesus reached out to take his hands, merely providing his touch, not holding. Daryl went still, and the breath he was holding swept out of him like a breeze. He looked at the bedspread.
“When was your last…?” Jesus asked gently, and Daryl shrugged.
“Don’t know,” he mumbled, looking at the floor.
“That long, huh?” Jesus knew if an omega’s body was too anxious, too weak, or too thin, it wouldn’t bring on heats, to conserve energy. Since Daryl didn’t look the latter two—as his immensely broad shoulders, thick arms, and firm thighs attested—it was clearly the former. Jesus tried his best not to pity him, as he knew the man would scarcely appreciate it.
Jesus let his hands glide up Daryl’s forearms, soothing the blond-furred skin, stroking up and down. He could practically taste the denseness of Daryl’s heat-scent in the air. It was butter-rich, pithily sweet like overripe fruit. As a fellow omega, it didn’t rouse feelings of possessiveness, competitiveness or mindless magnetism in Jesus, but instead a sense of…intimacy. Comfort. A desire to protect, and hold. He pulled Daryl gently towards him and guided him to the bed, backing him up towards the headboard.
Daryl went quietly, leaning back on a pillow—single, Jesus noted—and opened his legs. Slick was dousing his underwear and his arousal was poking against his white briefs, making Jesus’s mouth water. He leaned over Daryl and kissed him, this kiss short and sweet, in contrast to their desperation outside. He wasn’t going to rush this, wasn’t going to push too far or too fast, even if the persistence of biology was pressing in on them like an overfamiliar spectator. Daryl kissed back, lips warm and honeyed perfection, circled by light-brown fuzz.
Jesus led a hand down Daryl’s stomach, settling between his hip bones, pressing the heel down against the bulge just beneath. He steadied his grip when Daryl pulled in a sharp breath through his nose, drawing his knees a little together. He was nervous, but the persistent arousal of his cycle pushed him towards the touch, Jesus’s hand gentle on him, sliding up and down his damp briefs, kneading the shape inside.
“When were you last…?” Jesus trailed off, unable to say the words after not only just telling Daryl they didn’t need alphas, but because the simple memory of being mated sent shivers up his spine and down to his toes. A heavy warmth spread through his belly at the dream-like recollection of being held down and taken by an alpha, filled by his knot and seed, entered by his teeth on his skin claiming his neck. He pressed hard into Daryl’s groin, making him gasp and bite his lip against an issuing groan, sliding the opposite hand up his belly, beneath his shirt. He leaned over to nip here and there at Daryl’s exposed knees and thighs, if nothing else but to give his mouth something to do to save himself suggesting something rightfully embarrassing.
Daryl didn’t answer, biting down on his bottom lip and chewing it restlessly. He made a whining sound in his throat when Jesus kissed his inner thigh, the nerve jumping like a firework.
“Was it…unwelcome?” Jesus continued, and the way Daryl shrunk back from his touch just slightly gave him a hint that he was rounding the corner on the mystery of a never-mated omega nearing middle age. “Would it be safe to say,” Jesus whispered, surging forward, back bowing as he leaned in to place a kiss on Daryl’s cheek, lips, lower jaw, “that your last alpha was someone…you don’t want to remember?”
Daryl didn’t say a word, looking away from Jesus’s seeking gaze. His face was flushed beet-red with a mix of heat and some fear that couldn’t be faced nor spoken…Jesus planted a few comforting caresses on Daryl’s nose, high on his ruddy cheekbones, low on his stubble-furred jaw. He swept a hand through Daryl’s thin hair, gentling it from his ear to kiss the heated lobe.
“It’s okay if I never know, you know,” Jesus assured, “I’d be okay if I never knew a thing about you. Your past…” he soothed a hand down Daryl’s arm, squeezing the thick bicep, petting the sinewy forearm, “or anything else that’s on your back.”
Daryl’s eyes went a little wide as he realized he’d been found out, but he continued not to speak. There was no opening him up, not now, but Jesus didn’t mind, especially when there were more important things to attend to. He reached down and gave Daryl a hard squeeze through his underwear, making him gasp and draw his thighs together.
Jesus pulled Daryl from his shorts, then worked his briefs down over his thighs, eyes widening at the amount of slick that poured from them, spoiling the coverlet. The clear fluid was hot and viscous, and Daryl reached down to touch experimentally, the hand he drew away trembling. It was quite a sight, the omega deep into his heat, flushed from cheeks to chest, spreading his knees. Jesus swallowed a lump in his throat the size of a golf ball and settled on his haunches at the end of the bed.
He reached forward and slid a pair of digits around Daryl’s hole, circling the pulsing flesh, navigating by touch while he watched Daryl intently, pursuing his gaze, to tell him what words could not. He stuck his middle finger inside the omega’s trembling body, seeking the little spot that would make him feel all better, and finding it slippery and throbbing.
“That okay?” Jesus whispered, experimentally dipping in a second finger before withdrawing it and leaving only the first, gently thrusting it back and forth, rubbing his prostate. The depth of Daryl’s heat was staggering—he was right in the throes of it, his body wracking with spasms of lust and want. Thin brown strands stuck at his forehead with sweat as Jesus sat up to kiss him, stepping over Daryl’s spread knees to plant his on either side of his waist, and press down against him.
Jesus pulled himself from his briefs tenderly, gingerly cradling his hurting member, reluctant to touch and end this all too quickly. If the heat-scent wasn’t making him woozy already, seeing Daryl’s normally stoic face turned burnt caramel-sweet with lust would throw him right over the edge and into the staggering depths beyond. He lowered his hips, bowing his back and grinding himself against Daryl, bringing their bodies together. He scooped a handful of slick and slathered himself with it, the clear ooze dribbling onto Daryl’s twitching hardness as well.
“Take us in your hand,” Jesus whispered, digging in with two fingers and making Daryl yelp and tip back his head, biting down on his lip to silence a cry. Shakily his hand rose, long fingers circling around both of their cocks, making a limp fist and pulling from shaft to tip. The action made Jesus’s chest rise, tipping back his head with a gasp. He sunk his fingers deep in Daryl’s ass, right to the webbing, feeling how ready he was to accept the intrusion, his body fluttering and opening around the slim digits.
“T-together,” Jesus breathed. As Daryl pumped their cocks together, slowly, tentatively, like he thought they would break—and honesty Jesus didn’t know what might happen at this point, the feeling was totally unreal; so long since he’d been held, so long since someone else’s touch he’d almost forgotten that other people were warm, they breathed, their hearts beat—Daryl’s body opened further, allowing a third finger to slip inside, and Jesus to fuck him with his hand.
“That’s it, that’s it,” Jesus encouraged, but Daryl appeared to need little prompting. He tightened his grip, thighs trembling while Jesus massaged his prostate, slick dribbling from between his legs in a steady stream. His breathing grew quick and shallow, and to Jesus’s surprise he reached up with his other hand and cupped the back of his head to pull Jesus into a kiss, sloppy and off-centre, open-mouthed while they panted in tandem, breaths joining the rhythm of their hands. Daryl stroked faster and Jesus met his speed, pumping his three fingers back and forth while Daryl started to lift his hips and meet the thrusts, muscles clenching and pulling him deeper, Jesus lowering his pelvis to grind down close against him.
Close, they were so close Jesus could taste the impending climax in Daryl’s breath as he shakily broke the kiss and brought Jesus’s forehead against his own, holding firm with the hand around his head, fingers twitching with strain as he drew closer to cumming, knees jumping into the movement. Shaking, panting, letting out an sky-rending groan Daryl came, and Jesus hurriedly pressed his fingers in deep, pushing up on the button to milk everything out of him, following him swiftly over the verge in a few more strokes.
Daryl rolled his hips up into the last meandering thrusts, pumping a few last times until his abdominal muscles quaked, protesting the overstimulation and he released his grip on both of their cocks, looking down between them to see his belly coated in their shared loads. Heat still pulsed inside him, coating the roof of his mouth, between his thighs, curling his toes, but it had subsided, and he relaxed into the feeling of Jesus’s fingers slowly slipping out of him, his muscles relaxing in their absence.
Jesus looked at his palm to see it soaked in slick, spreading and closing his fingers and watching the way the viscous liquid spread and congealed. He had never touched another omega’s spend, and brought a fingertip to his tongue for a taste.
“Gross,” Daryl remarked, grimace on his flushed face, narrowing his knife-sharp eyes. Jesus balked, half-surprised to hear the first thing out of Daryl’s lips post-coitus.
“You’re gross!” he snapped back, though with no venom, chuckling as Daryl smirked. He sat up and encouraged Daryl to do the same so they could toss the soiled coverlet to the floor and lie on the naked sheets instead, but not before taking his boxers off and encouraging Daryl, with some trouble, out of his shirt, after wordlessly promising to be the “little spoon”. The sheets had been warmed by their body heat through the layers of down now piled messily on the floor, but unconscionably comfortable as they curled into them, lying on their sides, Jesus with his back pressed to Daryl’s front.
Jesus sighed blithely as he started to drift in the late-afternoon afterglow, feeling Daryl wrap an arm cautiously around him. He smiled at the intimacy. There was a lot less pressure to this than being with an alpha, being allowed to go his own pace, goaded neither by unrelenting hormones nor society’s mores, and he could tell by the soft swell of Daryl’s chest behind him that he felt the same contentedness in their coupling. He felt like instead of the million nervous queries and myriad supplications he would normally have chambered-up after an encounter with an alpha, with Daryl he could communicate through touch, through razor-sharp sapphire stares and nods across the meandering spaces of home.
As he nodded off he felt Daryl’s gaze on his neck, nosing down the scarred row, his old, worn-down marks, kissing every single one.
Jesus awoke just as the evening was giving way to night, the strange, pointed grey brightness of the sun’s last glimpse lighting the settlement. He felt a body behind his back for the first time in months, Daryl restless behind him, stiff and strangely distant and…very warm.
He turned around, mood broken immediately and replaced with concern as he sat up on one elbow and saw Daryl struggling against the pillow. He was still flushed, and when Jesus pulled back the covers heat-scent billowed out like a crackling thunderstorm, thick and electric. He looked down to see Daryl gripping his hardness, squeezing desperately over the head, fresh spend dribbling out between his clenching fingers.
“Oh no,” Jesus whispered, trailing his hand down over Daryl’s, met by the absolute flood of slick that poured out when he parted his clenched thighs. “Has it been like this all this time?”
Daryl nodded, “it got worse a while back,” he explained, too shaken and desperate with arousal to be embarrassed, and Jesus faltered when he realized Daryl didn’t wake him, brow crinkling with concern. He reached out and took Daryl’s erection in his fist, carefully prying the clenched hand from the tip and stroking up and down the shaft.
“Here,” he whispered to Daryl’s protestations, kissing his upper lip when Daryl let out a distressed moan, “just relax. Breathe out. I know what it’s like, remember?”
Seemingly comforted by a fellow omega’s empathy, Daryl breathed carefully into the ministrations of Jesus’s hand, let the smooth, oft glove-swaddled fingertips sooth the crown, bringing him quickly to completion. Daryl panted hard into the intimate space between them, but his heat no more died down than the flush on his cheeks.
“Shit,” Jesus mumbled, reaching up and testing Daryl’s fever with his clean hand. This was getting bad. Suppressants were basically hen’s teeth for scavengers—not to mention some gangs of alphas had taken to burning all the ones they found—and any Jesus did come across were long-expired, anyway, and while Dr. Carson might be able to help, Daryl was too far out to make the trip, especially with the Saviours lingering so close to the roads. As his mind cycled through the possibilities, each more bleak than the last, Daryl watched him with a desperate sort of unease.
He pulled Daryl by the arm and encouraged him carefully from the bed, leading him to the bathroom and setting him down in the tub in a few inches of cool water, where Daryl knelt with his bottom in the water and elbows resting on the rim, head bleary against his wrists. His mom’s old method for bringing down a fever ought to work as well as any home remedy, and they were low on options, he realized as he squatted down beside the tub and reached out a hand for Daryl’s shoulder.
There, Jesus realized what Daryl was trying to hide. Huge scars, old, long strips of reddened flesh crossing his back from side to side. They denoted a violent past on his pale skin, the hidden portions unused to the sun, and Jesus realized with darkening clarity that while they both had scars, they were very different. He didn’t say a word, speaking through his touch instead, bringing gentle fingertips to trace one ragged, dreadful mark. Daryl flinched but didn’t retreat, couldn’t move if he wanted, his entire body leaden with fever, burying his face against his wrists instead.
After ten miserable minutes it seemed the water had done nothing. The brightness of the spotlighting in the ceiling counteracted the cool grey of night outside, coming in through the high frosted light of the bathroom. Jesus stroked Daryl’s back while he quivered.
“It this bad for you?” Daryl asked desperately, seeking refuge in another omega’s shared plight. Jesus had to disappoint him with a quiet no.
“How come?!” the hunter then complained, voice drawn and frustrated as squirmed in the tub, sloshing water against the eggshell-smooth sides.
“I don’t know,” Jesus explained, watching the way sweat turned Daryl’s skin silvery with the reflection of moonlight off his shoulder blades. “I guess because I was mated early.” He was just a teen when his first heat hit full-blast and he didn’t know what to do but to run to the nearest alpha for help. Unfortunately, his aforementioned tendency towards obstinate, emotionally-crippled men made their coupling short-lived. Jesus remembered distinctly having to go to school the next day and sit in one of those stiff plastic chairs while his ass still ached from knotting.
But his own heats were nothing like this. Daryl was trembling, shivering with fever, valiantly trying to stave off his desire, the urge to exhaust himself with endless stimulation, running to the nearest alpha for deliverance. His body trusted Jesus’s gentle touches, even against the most private parts of him, ghosting across the lines on his back like the folds of an organza curtain, but his senses needed something else. As much as Jesus hated to admit it, something he couldn’t give.
“I’ll be right back,” Jesus muttered, climbing to his feet and tossing on enough clothes in the adjacent bedroom to look presentable when he went out into the cool night.
Nearly all of Daryl’s group were alphas, or at least lived like them, after long months of brutality and survival had turned them fierce and insatiable. There were a few Jesus couldn’t place merely by scent, but Rick was alpha to the bone, so much so it was like a razor he’d swallowed was tearing him up from gullet to gut every time he snapped at his family, or made some brash decision in the name of survival. Jesus knew that much from knowing him just this long, but he also knew Rick was the one Daryl trusted most. The alpha was just climbing into bed with his new mate when Jesus came to make his case, and despite casting a fervent glance at Michonne, who dismissed him, she too well aware of an alpha’s burden, went easily.
Jesus was almost disappointed at how quickly Rick had agreed, but didn’t question his motivations as he led him down the street. He stuck a few good strides ahead, feeling vulnerable with the alpha on his heels, knowing well he could smell joined heat and slick all over him, if everyone in the whole town wasn’t sensing it by now. Jesus half-expected alphas to start howling out their windows as he made the return trip.
“He in there?” Rick asked, tilting his chin at the door of the ensuite bathroom, once they’d made it inside, his voice low and husky with lust, eyes blown black with midnight heat. The smell of a scenting omega travelled through wood and drywall and tile the same, like a knife through butter.
Jesus mumbled his confirmation, and felt Rick beginning to charge at the door, the alpha’s drive to get at a heating omega voracious despite his higher reasoning. Jesus stopped firm and turned to him, blocking the way with hands crossed over his chest.
“This is a temporary measure,” Jesus imparted, Rick pausing before him with a look of surprise. “I’m not giving him to you.”
“I know, and I don’t wanna take him from you,” Rick assured, with a bit of an indignant chuckle. His tone was light, but the way he squared his shoulders showed he was willing to fight. He circled Jesus and bypassed him, Jesus flinching automatically under the alpha’s leering gaze and heady scent and hating himself for it.
“Sure you ain’t got some alpha in you?” Rick teased, and pushed the door ajar.
The polished pine swung open and the scent of heat roiled out of the narrow space like a plume of pollen, heavy as fog in the air and sweet as burnt sugar. Jesus watched as the full blast of pheromones penetrated Rick’s pores, soaking him until he was sopping with it, irises widening navy blue. He started forward single-mindedly, heading straight for the omega in need like his biological programming insisted.
“Rick?!” Daryl yelped, looking back and forth between the two other men, backing away in the tub, sloshing water noisily up the sides. He pressed his back into the wall, instinctively slinking away from the needy alpha’s reaching arms.
“S’alright,” Rick assured, dropping down to the edge of the tub on his knees and reaching out for Daryl. He pet his cheek like one might a scared pup, stroking his fingers down the heated flesh, the curly stubble. “Let’s get you out here.”
Daryl squirmed and Jesus had to keep himself from leaping forward and biting Rick, sinking teeth into the forearms that encircled his mate, pulling Daryl from the tub by the arms so Daryl was forced to step out of the tub and onto the smattering of towels left on the floor. He lifted Daryl by the hips as easily as if he weighed nothing, hormonal strength surging in his core, swirling about in him like a fire whirl, and placed him on his hands and knees with his rear to the alpha’s front.
Jesus watched with a mix of fascination and miserable lust as the alpha handled Daryl effortlessly, with ease unknown to the omega. He didn’t like having to compromise like this, but sometimes there was no escaping nature. And besides, his own systems were slowly starting to catch up to Daryl’s level of desperation, it seemed; just smelling the alpha’s pungent pheromones was awakening something primal within him, making his chest heat up and his temple sweat.
“Rick, Rick…” Daryl mumbled, somewhere between begging and protesting, trembling finally calmed only to worsen by multitudes when Rick touched his ass, giving it a hard squeeze and dipping a thumb into his dripping hole. A torrent of clear slick rushed out across the water-dampened skin and soaked the towel beneath him, making Daryl shudder and Rick swoon.
“S’okay, I gotcha,” Rick muttered, his very tone easing something in both omegas. Jesus knelt in front of Daryl, watching the scene with seeking eyes. “You got it bad, huh?” He shot a look over at Jesus, addressing him with mild amusement. “Congrats.”
Jesus knew he was being derided, but his vision was too clouded by instinct to complain. He watched as Daryl moaned and gripped the towel beneath him, knuckles going white when Rick slid a finger slowly inside him, all the way to the end, before withdrawing it with even more excruciating deliberation. He took Daryl’s ass in both hands and examined the clenching skin before tipping forward and putting his mouth over the dribbling hole.
Daryl shouted and Jesus lunged forward, before catching himself and settling back, though wired like a cat ready to spring. Rick chuckled through a mouthful of flesh, pulling back to reveal cheeks shiny with fresh slick.
“Hey, you’re at least going to let me have some fun with this, aren’t you?” he tantalized, shooting Jesus a glance before diving his tongue in to circle Daryl’s hole then plunge straight down the middle. He spread his hole wider with his thumbs, digging deep with little scoops of stiffened flesh, eyes black as oil as he sucked and slurped.
Daryl shivered and moaned as he was fucked by Rick’s tongue, though it wasn’t what he really wanted, his belly aching for something bigger, something more. His easy acceptance—though the alpha hadn’t given him much choice—of Rick’s presence spoke to a closeness Jesus had long expected but knew little about. There was a lot he didn’t know about Daryl, and it seemed to be piling up on him like layers of autumn leaves, choking him out.
Suddenly, Daryl’s reached out for him as a particularly deep stroke penetrated him, gripping Jesus’s arm and lowering his head. Squeezed so hard it hurt but Jesus was too surprised to protest, seeing the way Daryl was holding onto him so desperately, his shoulders shaking and straining against the frantic pleasure while Rick ate him out.
“He likes you a lot,” Rick mumbled, impressed, licking his lips, “he’s reaching for you. Look.”
Hands trembling, Jesus crept forward, taking Daryl’s hands and putting them on his shoulders to hold onto for support, as Rick pulled away and left the omega whining and shaking. Daryl clung hard to Jesus, wrapping his arms around him as Rick pulled him back and down against his lap, grinding Daryl’s sopping ass against his jeans.
“Almost there, sweetheart,” Rick whispered in Daryl’s ear, anxiously undoing his fly and revealing his cock, replete with dormant knot bulging just slightly around the base. Jesus’s mouth watered despite himself, but he held firm to Daryl, lowering the brunet head against his shoulder, cradling him while watching over his back at the alpha’s movements.
Rick thumbed the head of his cock, lining Daryl’s hips up with one hand on his waist, then pulled him down. He sunk the head of his cock into Daryl’s hole, the pucker resisting the girth then giving way to slip just over the crown, Rick letting out a deep breath while Daryl drew in a gasp. The alpha kept pushing, then he was sliding all the way in, Daryl jolting forward with the shock of it and gripping Jesus tight, and it was like Jesus was being entered, too, vision going hazy and heat flaring low between his legs as he held Daryl as tight as he could.
“Ah-haa…” Daryl gasped out into Jesus’s shoulder, holding to the smaller man like an anchor in the storm, while violet-white static crackled across his vision and his cock jumped to life between his legs. His body was singing for it, the cock of an alpha, thick and virile to fill him deep, and finally he felt it as Rick thrust up inside him, retreating only to slam forward again.
“Good, so good,” Rick murmured blearily, pumping his hips up and sliding back, Daryl’s slick channel accepting his thick member as he drove in harder as soon as he thought Daryl could take it. The omega was clinging to his new mate, and was held tight in return.
“Good, you’re doing good,” Jesus echoed the sentiment, whispering placating verses of his own into Daryl’s hair, smoothing it down. As strange as this should have been, he was too focused on comforting Daryl to care about the propriety of such an odd pairing. Rick fucked Daryl like he was meant to, was born to, the sight of it making pleasure blare loudly across Jesus’s body, flooding his nerves, heating his blood. Daryl’s scent saturated the air like a curtain of beads, each one bursting with perfume and pheromonal intrigue.
Daryl cried out and Jesus jumped with surprise as suddenly Daryl was pulled from his arms, wrenched back against Rick’s chest. The new angle allowed Rick’s knot to breech Daryl’s hole in its entirety and the omega keened and trembled, falling back against Rick and reaching over his head to grip the alpha’s twisted curls, looking for anything to keep purchase as his body was rocked with powerful thrusts.
“Rick—!” Jesus called as he saw the alpha’s knot start to swell, widening where it was connected with Daryl’s body, his muscles straining to pull it into place before it slipped out again. Daryl was shaking, panting, insensate as his cock grew to welcome another climax, his heat showing no sign of stopping, building to a peak with the alpha between his legs.
“I know, I said I wasn’t gonna take him from ya, but maybe I’ll keep him, huh?” Rick whispered, breathless with instinct, “maybe he’s too good to pass up?” He thrust up hard, so deep inside Daryl’s knees lifted from the ground and he let out a yell towards the unhearing ceiling, eyes watering with the intensity.
Jesus swallowed hard, terrified for the first time in the evening. His eyes darted between the two men, recounting the promise Rick had made—but there was no stopping an alpha once he was coupled to an omega. The need to breed was stronger than ever, now that the earth’s population had dipped low. He was half worried that after knotting Daryl, Rick would move onto him, and it would take little force at this point to convince him to go, his cock weeping for completion thanks to the alpha’s heady pheromones cutting through the air like a sword.
The two watched each other for a tense moment, Jesus’s eyes wide with desperation he hoped would garner the sympathy of an alpha, but sharp with contest. He would fight for Daryl if he needed to.
Thankfully, Rick pulled away, not without some monumental effort, holding tight to the base of his cock to keep his knot down, Daryl whining miserably as he was left empty. Jesus leapt forward to take him into his arms again, slipping his cock from his waistband and surging forward to quickly replace Rick’s, sliding into the loose heat immediately. He let Daryl lean back and rest against Rick, the alpha securing him with a firm arm around his chest, jacking himself languidly while he watched the two omegas fuck.
Jesus hissed against Daryl’s bare chest, inhaling deep of his sugar-rich scent, pulsing right from the heart of him, his skin, his hair, his sweat. He reached and picked up Daryl’s knees, lifting them high around his waist, the sturdy omega leaned against Rick’s chest, moaning and whining a steady stream of sounds, hips bucking into Jesus’s thrusts. Jesus reached and wrapped a hand around Daryl’s cock to pull him off, Daryl coming within a few hasty strokes, crying out, sobbing with it, thighs twitching as he rode his orgasm.
Gasping, Jesus hurried to catch his lover, finding hands wrapping around his head, Daryl gripping handfuls of his hair and pulling him up for a deep, possessing kiss. With Daryl pulling his hair and their pheromones mixing like a storm of sultry potpourri, drugged smoke and whiskey burns, Jesus came, releasing deep inside Daryl’s pulsing channel, the muscles clenching down to hold him tight.
Panting down from orgasm, Jesus stayed inside, letting Daryl balance in his lap for a long moment while he breathed into his chest, his shoulder, gently sucking at his collarbone with wet, soft kisses. Daryl kneaded his hair in his hands, combing through the straight locks with his fingers and pulling them over one shoulder to expose his marked side. He seemed to consider the bites again, placing comforting kisses down the line, breathing hard through his nose as he calmed down.
“Whew,” Rick was the first to break the silence, the room filled until then only with panting breaths and smacking lips. The room stank, ripe with the sex and sweat of two omegas, and Rick’s spend coated his fingers as he gripped his knot, applying the pressure an omega’s body would normally accord. He slicked back his messy curls with his clean hand, sweat dappling his red forehead.
Jesus pulled gingerly out, giving way to a gush of slick and spend, though it seemed to be slowing down. Daryl’s fever was slowly lowering, and he climbed out of Jesus’s lap to lie on the towels, tugging Jesus down beside him with a hand on his sleeve. Jesus joined him, sprawled out on the floor, but not before taking off his shirt and the rest of the clothes he’d hastily pulled on.
It looked like it was working, his plan to trick Daryl’s body into thinking he’d been mated by replacing an alpha’s seed with an omega’s in the last frenzied moments; Daryl was calming with every breath, well-sated, chest rising and falling slowly. Jesus lay his head down on the lightly-furred chest, and Daryl reached straightaway for his hair, starting to stroke and tug at the long locks while he drifted off.
Rick stood to leave, zipping himself back up and dusting off his jeans, sensing his presence unwelcome between the dozing mates. Before he left, however, Jesus cracked an eye at him, intense cyan gaze leering from his horizontal perspective.
“Much obliged,” he mumbled, but Rick shook his head.
“Any time,” he assured, a small smile on his face, licking his lips. “Supposin’ you can just owe me one.”
Jesus nodded, the agreement sealed, before Rick left, the creak of his footsteps and clunk of his boots at the door following in his wake. He nuzzled closer into Daryl’s chest, feeling the hand go still in his hair, Daryl’s breathing slow until he was asleep. The worst of his heat was over, though he still had another three days at least to go, and Jesus looked forward to an extended stay in Alexandria to join him in it.
Two weeks later, the affair was not forgotten, especially in the bashful glances Daryl gave Rick as they passed in the road, or the tenderness of the touches Rick placed on Jesus’s wrists by way of friendly reception. Though Jesus went home to Daryl every evening, extending his “diplomatic stay” far longer than intended, but Daryl’s subtle smiles and fond touches made up for every minute for strategizing lost.
Slowly but surely, the tell-tale sensitivity of his nerves, the heat of his skin and the fog in his mind rose up in him, until his own cycle caught up to him like a hurricane chasing the shore. When Daryl spotted him and smelled the air, stopping dead in his tracks as he noticed another omega’s heat for the first time, Jesus realized that his trip was going to go on just a little bit longer.