Chapter Text
The air of the bedroom was absolutely fucking frigid. Which, truly, seemed absolutely impossible. The window was firmly shut AND latched, the furnace was running full tilt, and fucking hell, even the heated floors cranked up as high as they could go.
All of this, and Hinata was still shivering away, wrapped in his blanket cocoon as tight as it could go.
It was times like this that Brazil always seemed especially appealing. Phantom memories of burying his feet into the warm sand still lingered, the crashing of waves always seeming like they were just out of earshot.
It had only been weeks since he had last stepped foot on those beaches. The remnants of the sun still lingered on Hinata’s skin, even if the tan faded day by day. From the minute Hinata had stepped off of the plane, met with the biting cold of Japan, he couldn’t help but feel homesick for a place that had never been his home - but a place that had earned that title nonetheless.
From deeper in the apartment, there was the faint click of a lock, followed by the dull thud of the front door hitting the wall. Almost immediately Hinata could hear a stream of muttered swears, paired with various crinkling sounds. Amidst it all, the familiar scent of black currant and pine rolled through the apartment, dull but steady. Overwhelmingly Kageyama.
Right as Hinata popped his head up, he could see Kageyama awkwardly attempting to tip toe through the apartment with armfuls of bags. When their eyes met he froze, the very picture of a deer in headlights. Hinata couldn’t help but snort.
Yeah, Brazil had been amazing, but maybe it wasn’t home after all. How could it ever compare to this?
“You were supposed to be asleep.”
Fondness crinkled the edges of Hinata’s eyes. “Bakageyama, am I supposed to sleep forever?”
In response, Tobio only gave a soft grunt. He took his final few steps forward, before finally dumping all the bags onto the counter unceremoniously - followed in rapid succession by yet another panicked curse as something sloshed onto the counter. As he scrambled for a paper towel, a new scent swirled in amongst the bitterness of black currant, something savoury and tangible. As if on cue, Hinata’s stomach let out a low growl.
“Miso soup?!”
“Yeah. I mean- kinda. Half of it is on the counter, fuck- Uh, rice porridge, too.”
The words sparked something in Hinata, bursting out of the nest with a passion. Something twinged in the back of his mind at the pillows toppling over behind him, something primal and dismayed. However, the instinct lost out to the hunger that tore its way through Hinata.
He popped his way out of bed, only for his foot to catch on the blankets and send him toppling to the floor. From the kitchen, Kageyama jolted back to attention, calling out to make sure Hinata hadn’t died or something. Yet Hinata was entirely unfazed, scrambling right back up to continue his sprint.
Once he finally got to the counter, Kageyama shot him a dry look.
“What the hell just happened.”
“Mm?” The words only seemed to half register as Hinata pounced on the rice porridge, forgoing a spoon in favour of scooping some up with his fingers and popping them into his mouth. “Oh. Fell.”
“Jesus- cutlery, dumbass! I don’t want to eat porridge that’s had your fingers all in it.” Indignantly, Kageyama yanked the drawer open, yanking a spoon out and shoving it into the container. It barely even had time for the handle to hit the plastic edge of the container before Hinata was snatching it, shoveling another heaping scoop into his mouth. He spoke through his mouthful.
“Didn’t have a problem with my fingers last night, Bakayama.”
It was as if Kageyama went through a hard reboot at that, face flushing all while a vein in his temple throbbed. He said nothing in response, to which Hinata silently celebrated his victory.
After a beat though, the fluster seemed to fade away, replaced by a gentler look in Kageyama’s eyes. He moved behind Hinata, hands lacing around him to rest on his hips. If he was still put off about Hinata’s inhalation of the food, he said nothing.
“How are you feeling?”
The soft words sent a pang through Hinata. It felt entirely too dramatic for what the situation actually was, but he appreciated the sentiment nonetheless. He finally paused eating, if only for a moment, to lean his head back against his mate's shoulder.
“Dumbass. You worry too much.”
Kageyama clicked his tongue. “You don’t worry enough.”
A low sigh slipped from Hinata’s lips, truly letting the words roll over him. In a sense, it really did feel like there was a certain dread sitting in the air. An impending doom.
Hinata’s heat was coming.
In itself, a heat cycle wasn’t a terrible thing. For most omegas, it was second nature. A way of life.
But…. yeah, no. Hinata was not most omegas - and Jesus Christ, that was such a cheesy way to put it, but he digressed.
Hinata had always been a late bloomer. Late to grow (some people would argue that it never happened at all), late to get his first chest hair (that was fucking embarassing), and late to present. Most people had presented as their secondary gender in second year, and Hinata had waited. And waited. And waited.
Yeah, it had definitely tormented him when Yamaguchi presented. Then Tsukishima. But the real salt in the wound was when Kageyama had presented, and once again Hinata was being left behind. It sucked. Really fucking sucked.
Of course, the alpha had tried to soothe him. ‘It will happen when it happens’, he had repeated time and time again.
Only once had Kageyama said anything else, some time in the middle of their third year. A whispered question, one that had come after one of Kageyama’s ruts. It had been rough, and the fact that Hinata couldn’t properly help him through it only made it rougher.
“What if it doesn’t happen? What if I’m only ever this?”
The two of them had been on clean-up duty in the gym. The question had slipped out before Hinata even realized his lips were moving. It felt almost offensive to ask there, in the silence of the gym. A place that brought them so much joy shouldn’t bear such heavy words.
For once, it wasn’t those six pesky words that had greeted him.
Instead, it was only five.
“Why would that change anything?”
It was spoken so casually. So matter-of-factly. Like everything else out of Kageyama’s mouth, Hinata knew it was the whole, entire truth.
And suddenly, presenting hadn’t felt like such a big deal anymore.
When it had happened, it wasn’t this big, revolutionary thing. There wasn’t quite as much relief as there might’ve once been. Because Hinata knew that it hadn’t changed much of anything.
Kageyama didn’t love his secondary gender. He loved him. That was all that he needed.
Though, it was great as hell to have an alpha around for his first heat. Really, REALLY fucking great.
And then it was gone.
Okay, gone was a bit of an exaggeration. More like shunned. Because Hinata’s presentation had happened at the worst possible time. With only a couple months left before graduation. A few months before Brazil. The most important adventure of his life.
Sure, many omegas made it work. Like he had said, it really was just a way of life. But that one singular heat was enough for Hinata to know that he couldn’t do that regularly. At least, not by himself, in a country all by himself.
So, he did what needed to be done. Heat suppressants. Lots and LOTS of heat suppressants.
Over the years, every doctor that he ever told about this routine nearly had a stroke. “You can’t abuse them,” they had said time and time again. “You’ll regret it if you do.”
Hinata, of course, had always been stubborn.
And man, did he hate it when other people were right.
Now, here he was. Years down the line, with only a single heat under his belt. And now, heat suppressants were no longer an option.
They had been fine for the beach matches, but in the leagues that Hinata was entering, they simply weren’t allowed. The type of shit that you could get banned for, like he was some steroid user and not some omega who wasn’t particularly fond of being out of commission for a week just to be desperately masturbating the entire time.
The soft arms around his middle brought Hinata back to reality, even if only somewhat.
At least now, it wouldn’t be desperately masturbating. It would be desperate marathon sex. Which like, didn’t seem like the WORST thing ever….
If it wasn’t for the intensity of what the heat would be.
Each time a heat was denied, it built. It was like a snowball, trailing down the slope of a cliff. What once was a small mound of snow had long since become a towering boulder. One that was going to utterly destroy Hinata.
Even now, when the heat wasn’t even here yet, he could feel it on the edges of his consciousness. It was like the swirl of your vision before a particularly debilitating migraine, or the receding of the tide before a tsunami. A sign of impending disaster.
Red hot heat prickled deep beneath Hinata’s skin. His stomach already tensed with cramps, paired with an emptiness right to his core. As if he was a half of a puzzle, the missing piece currently pressed to his back.
The fatigue was rough, too. After a solid fourteen hours of sleep still hadn’t felt like enough. And god, the fucking hunger. Hinata was always a bottomless pit, but now he was closer to a black hole. Both of which he knew were his body preparing for what was to come (or who was to come. Ha ha). He was about to be run ragged, pulled apart at the very whims of what was meant to be a normal bodily function.
It didn’t feel normal. It felt deadly.
However, that felt like entirely too much to enunciate when asked how he felt. So instead, Hinata opted for “I don’t know. I’m feeling… gwaaahhh.”
“...gwaahh.” Kageyama really had a talent for sounding entirely deadpan, didn’t he? Still, Hinata offered up nothing more than a nod, instead opting to scoop up more porridge. Though, Kageyama flicked him in the back of the head before he could shove it into his mouth.
“That’s not an answer, dumbass.”
“Hey!” Hinata let out a loud squawk, elbow jolting back to elbow Kageyama right in the gut. He let out a soft ‘oof’, though his hands didn’t drop away. Hinata shot him a glare. “I don’t have an answer. I’m just… gwaaahhh.”
“Gwaahh..” Kageyama repeated once again, more pensively this time. Hinata’s gaze only soured further. “Stop that. What are you, a parrot?”
“I’m trying to figure out what gwah means.”
In the end, Hinata was the one to break away from the hold. He spun around so he could look Kageyama straight in the eyes. Despite what some people said, Brazil had brought a good few inches of growth. Still, their height difference lingered.
Hinata crossed his arms over his chest indignantly.
“It means that I feel gwaaahhh!!!.”
“Is gwah… bad?” Kageyama prompted.
“No.”
“Weird?”
“Kinda.”
“Then what, Shouyou?”
“A lot!” The words practically snapped from him, entirely too loud for the quiet of the kitchen. Forcing himself to quiet down a few decibels, Hinata tried again. “It’s a lot! Like my skin is all electric! And itchy! It’s like I’m gonna explode any minute, like some weird firework! I’m a FIREWORK!”
“A-.. firework.”
“Parroting, Bakayama!”
Kageyama huffed a breath through his nose. “I’m just trying to understand.”
“Well, stop that!”
Hinata let himself collapse forward, faceplanting onto Kageyama’s chest so he didn’t have to look at him anymore. In response, gentle, calloused hands trailed up, gently curling through Hinata’s hair.
“Sorry.” The word was entirely too quiet for Kageyama. “I’m just-...”
“Worried.” Hinata finished for him.
“Yeah.”
“Well, stop that.”
“You said that already.”
Even with his face buried in Kageyama’s chest, Hinata still brought a hand up to swat at his arm. The fingers in his hair didn’t stop their gentle combing. “It’s like you don’t even want marathon sex…”
Okay, yeah, that was what stopped Kageyama mid-movement. He made a strangled sound, drawing a snorting laugh from Hinata. In response, Kageyama yanked at his hair. “You know what I mean.”
“I do.” Hinata sighed, drawing himself back to peer up to Kageyama once more. “I’m not saying that this is gonna be easy.”
“Then what are you saying?”
It was Hinata’s turn to click his tongue. “I’m saying that I’m like, not gonna die or anything! It’ll suck, but maybe it’ll be fun too! Who’s to say!”
“I guess.”
A long sigh slipped from Hinata’s lips. He pushed up on his toes, moving to meet Kageyama for a soft kiss. It was nothing more than something tender and sweet, a silent promise.
“Aannnnddd I have the best alpha to take care of me. You’ll take care of me, won’t you bakayama?”
“Of course I will.” The words were grumbled. Still, Hinata pressed another soft kiss to Kageyama’s pouted lips.
“I know you will. Now - can I please eat this? It’s almost definitely cold. And I’m pretty sure some of the miso soup dripped onto me.”
“Shit-”
Moonlight spilled across the room when Hinata woke. The moon still sat high in the sky, having crept up there some time in between when Hinata fell asleep and now. He had barely had time to fix up his nest before he had passed the fuck out, rearranging the various pillows, blankets, and clothes with heavy eyes.
At the time, it had made the buzzing part of Hinata’s brain quiet ever so slightly - which, hey, he’d take what he could get.
Yet, as Hinata woke up with a start, the nest was the last thing on his mind.
In fact, there wasn’t much of anything. Not the hollow, empty blankness that had filled his mind during his high school classes. No, this was closer to intoxication. It was as if Hinata was stuffed to the very brim with cotton, eyes glassy and unseeing. His stomach churned with cramp after violent cramp, the emptiness inside of him suffocating. From the way his boxers and sleep shorts were absolutely drenched, it seemed that his body had ached with that emptiness long before he woke.
But worst of all was the heat.
The actual, physical, tangible heat. It seemed to radiate off of Hinata, practically blurring the air around him. The very act of being awake had him panting like some feral dog.
Deep beneath everything, there was one single semblance of a thought. The final lingering thread of coherence that this was it. This was hell. The firework inside of him had exploded, leaving mere bits and pieces behind.
Maybe this wouldn’t be fine.
Maybe the heat would roast him alive, to be found dead by Kageyama the next morning.
But all of that was so muffled. So distant.
Because above it all, one thought screamed above the rest.
Breed.