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Everybody knew alphas didn't mate with alphas. It was alphas and omegas—or, rarely, alphas and betas, which had only become popularised in recent years—and everybody knew that.
Jared was an alpha. Despite his small stature, and almost meek nature, he was. It took him some getting used to, because everybody expected him to present as an omega, even himself. It had come as a shock to his entire family.
Usually, his ruts happened during the offseason. He took hormone blockers until his cycle got accustomed to happening then, and he usually had a late rut anyway.
Usually.
It's the Cup playoffs. They barely have had a fucking second to breathe, what with their six games against Dallas, and now, they go against Colorado. The President's Trophy winners. Jared would be lying if he said he wasn't nervous, about captaining the team through it, about...all of it. He had faith. He had been here for the last run past the first round, but this felt almost different, in a way.
He had been unnaturally snappy as of late. Something that he would end up chalking up to stress, as anybody who was fighting for the goddamn Stanley Cup would.
That was, of course, until he woke up late into the night. Checking his phone, the clock read 2:17 AM. Not an unnatural time for him to wake up, he sometimes struggles sleeping through the night.
No, what struck him as weird, was how hard he was. He barely deals with stuff like that—morning wood, as his teammates occasionally so crudely call it—in any capacity.
A knock at his door. It cracks before he can answer with an annoyed "go the fuck away", and a sickeningly sweet smell washes over him. It's the scent of another alpha, Jared knows it well, he smells the pheromones after goals, after games, it's Marcus.
His soft voice cuts through the room. "Heard you making some noise, wanted to check in— holy shit, Jared, is that you?"
Marcus hasn't ever seen, nor been around Jared during his rut. He wears pheromone blocking patches so nobody can smell him. He doesn't honestly know what he smells like himself, normally too busy trying to ignore it the best he can to focus on it.
A low growl emits from Jared's throat.
"Leave. Please."
Marcus, irritatingly, steps closer. The smell is stronger, now. Like bonfire smoke and maple syrup, and it's savoury and sweet and it fills in all the places inside Jared that he knows another alpha shouldn't slot into.
The door clicks shut and Marcus moves forward again, the oddly comfortable hotel mattress dipping under his weight. Jared wants to kick him out, be more demanding, but the scent of Marcus all around him is doing the opposite of what another alpha should do.
This is wrong. His erection should be flagging, he should be pissed at Marcus for being in his room, his territory, but Jared thinks he'll die if Marcus leaves now.
Before Jared can think himself into a spiral, his sheets are off of him, and he's in Marcus' lap. His nose is in his throat and he's pinning Marcus to the mattress, nearly knocking the wind out of him. Jared is panting, sucking in that scent straight from the gland, and he's scenting another alpha and the thought should make him want to kill himself, but it makes his dick twitch in his boxers instead.
"Shit, Jared," Marcus whispers. "I'm an alpha, too, why are you— f-fuck—"
Jared nips at the skin over Marcus' scent gland. He can smell his own scent now, redolent of petrichor and cedarwood, and he can hear Marcus' breath hitch under him as that scent floods the room instead.
His hindbrain is working overtime, screaming to sink his teeth into Marcus' throat, to mark his territory, to defend it. He almost wants to, almost gives in, almost, almost, almost, but what he does instead is shoves a knee into Marcus' crotch, feeling how hot and hard he is there.
That gets Marcus' attention, his hands now on Jared's hips.
"Are you in rut?"
The question is barely over a whisper, but now this makes sense. His urgency, his territoriality, everything.
"I think so," Jared mutters. His nose is still buried in Marcus' throat, his knee pressed against Marcus' cock through his sleep pants.
"Have you ever knotted another alpha?" Marcus whispers.
"Never even looked at one, not like this."
Marcus' breath hitches, again, and when he breathes out it whistles past his vocal chords in some kind of goddamn whimper and it's so pathetic and omega-like that Jared very nearly loses it then and there.
Jared doesn't process the question. Not in the way Marcus expects him to.
What he does process, is the realisation of how small he is compared to Marcus. This gigantic man, compared to meek, five-eight on a good day Jared, and he's looking up at Jared like he's scared he's about to get eaten alive, and for a beat Jared thinks he just might.
It's then that the question seems to hit Jared, in his cerebrum, like a bullet penetrating his skull, and his pupils visibly dilate as much as possible in the dark room.
"Are you asking—"
"Do you want to knot another alpha?"
The sentences are spoken almost simultaneously, as though Marcus knew that it had properly registered in Jared's rut-addled brain, and the thought of knotting something—someone so much bigger than him, an alpha so much bigger than him, no less—was almost enough to make him cum untouched.
Marcus is on his stomach, legs over the edge of the bed, and his pants are off faster than he can process that Jared is behind him.
He's disgustingly pliant and uncharacteristically wet for an alpha when Jared slides a couple of fingers inside him, and his fingers curl into Jared's sheets, small whimpers emanating from his throat.
"Are you sure you're an alpha, Moose?"
Marcus nods, but the syrupy-sweet scent in the air almost points to something otherwise. Jared's boxers are next, and he's not very thick but he's long, thank fuck. Marcus can faintly see the outline of his knot from the angle he's at, and for a moment, he panics. Jared's hand is on the small of his back, his other around the base of his dick, and he's guiding himself into Marcus and there's no goddamn resistance and Marcus can feel the blunt head pushing against his prostate, can feel the thickness of the knot pressing against his hole, and a thought of that's going to go inside me flashed in his mind and he involuntarily clenched around Jared.
"Gonna make me pop my knot far too quick," Jared gasps. "S-So tight, gonna—"
Jared slams into Marcus, to the hilt, and the base of his knot is already swelling. He's steadily leaking pre-cum into Marcus, has always been leaky, but Marcus is writhing and his back muscles are rippling and he's fisting the sheets and Jared can't hold himself back any longer.
He's nestled completely inside Marcus, now, knot inflating at the base as he cums deep inside his teammate.
The thought that he just knotted an alpha, he's knotting an alpha, surges through Jared's head and he's softly fucking into Marcus.
"I'm gonna cum on your knot if you keep d-doing that," Marcus whines. "S-Shit, alpha."
Jared's hand shoves Marcus into the mattress further, rutting into him.
"Please," Marcus sobs. "Fuck, alpha, g-gonna cum, make me cum on your knot, alpha, please."
"Come on, Moosey," Jared murmurs. "Cum for me."
Marcus obeys his alpha. His dick is trapped between him and the bed, and he's rutting against it with every shallow, almost impossible thrust from Jared, and Jared's words are what send him over.
After thoroughly soiling the sheets, Marcus can't help but look back at Jared.
"Sorry," he half-laughs. "Do, um...was that good?"
Jared nods, blearily wiping his eyes. Marcus and Jared shift slowly, as to not yank his knot out, and tug the sheet off the bed, shimmying under the comforter.
"I've seriously never done anything with another alpha before," Jared whispers into the back of Marcus' neck. "Was always taught it was wrong."
"Really?" Marcus chuckles. "I've been knotted more times than I can count on both hands."
Jared laughs softly. "I still have a few more days left in rut, you know. Do you have a tally going?"
Marcus shrugs, settling into Jared's arms. "Could start one, alpha."
Jared twitches inside Marcus, drawing a laugh out of him. It's oddly intimate, and somehow exactly what Jared wanted, what he needed, what he expected from a man like Marcus.
"I could stay," Marcus offers.
"Okay." Jared breathes the single into the nape of his neck.
"Do you want me to?"
"I don't really want you to leave."
"Okay."
The room falls silent. Maybe Marcus is the first one to fall asleep. Maybe Jared is. Neither of them know, and neither really cares.
But Marcus stays.