Work Text:
Touya is nervous.
He doesn’t like to admit that when snapping some idiot’s neck is usually much, much easier, but—
Shouto’s delicate, perfectly manicured fingers are undoing the annoyingly even ribbon wrapped around the eighteenth birthday present Touya got custom-made just for him, and—
“Oh,” says Shouto, staring at the gift in the box before his eyes dart up to meet Touya’s, and he blinks, pretty and confused, and asks, “Nii-san?”
Touya’s palms are sweating. He shoves both hands in his pockets. “It’s for you, brat,” he says, trying for nonchalance and failing miserably. The word itself is fucking—unsuited to what it implies, actually. Because—Touya does very much care about what Shouto intends to do with the stupid thing in that stupid box. “You like your present or not?”
He watches as Shouto carefully traces the dark lace with the tip of a finger, only to then slide it over one of the sapphires embedded in the center like—well, it’s flashy. That’s what it’s for. To be shown. For an omega to wear it proudly and show the entire world he’s got an alpha’s claim.
“You got me a collar?” Shouto says, awed. “For—for my eighteenth birthday?”
“Yeah,” Touya says. He did, because—well. The offers were sure to come pouring in now that Endeavor’s prized omega son was of mating age. So. Touya did a very stupid thing. Because of fucking course Shouto would want better than his own brother for a mate. But his teeth had ached at the mere thought of not trying, so.
“The—the traditional way or…?” Shouto says, maybe hopeful. (Maybe Touya is just delirious, though.)
Touya laughs humorlessly. “You know any other ways to give an unmated omega a collar, sweetheart?”
And Shouto—
Shouto smiles the same way a flower blooms when touched by the sun. “So—I could take your knot?” he asks. “I could—it could be me? Is—is that why you haven’t chosen an omega yet? Because you were—because you wanted me?”
Touya must’ve really done a bad job at it, all these years. Or maybe not, depending on what the end goal was. But—he thought he was obvious. Pathetically so, if how much Enji liked to glare at the dinner table when Touya slung an arm over the back of Shouto’s chair was anything to go by. He thought everyone knew, Shouto and his pretty little empty head included. He thought—he thought the little brat was trying to be nice by ignoring how badly Touya wanted to raw him until he could barely hold himself up without Touya’s help.
But apparently—
Apparently not.
“That’s what you think about?” he asks. “Taking my knot?”
Shouto goes red, red, red all the way down to that pretty, unmarked neck. “Sometimes,” he admits, like he’s confessing. “Sometimes I just think about—I don’t know. I haven’t been on that many dates, you know. My big brother scares them off. But I think I’d like to hold your hand. Maybe go watch a movie and let you pay for my ticket, or something.”
Touya growls. It’s childish. And yet—, “I don’t scare them off,” he hisses. “Your little school friends are just useless.”
“Should I get a real alpha?” Shouto asks, and—he’s teasing, the little brat. Has to be, even when he takes his shiny new birthday present out of the box just to press it into Touya’s palms, and say, “Shouldn’t you put it on? Isn’t—isn’t that how the old traditions go?”
Yeah, actually. That’s how it used to go. Not that Touya has ever seen a traditional mating ceremony, but from what he gathers, putting the collar you picked out for them on the omega is symbolic. A willing surrender, or something.
“You sure, kid?”
Shouto huffs. “I thought the whole point of this was that I’m not a kid anymore,” he says. “My hand cramps up during my heats, you know.”
Just barely, by sheer willpower and years of practice sitting in boring meetings so he could learn and one day take over the family business from daddy dearest, Touya avoids choking on air. “Yeah?” he asks. “And you want me to do something about that?”
Shouto shrugs. “I mean,” he says, “I could always buy bigger heat toys. But—the old man gets this look on his face when he checks his credit card statements. And then I have to—well. I’m still not over the trauma of that one time he happened to be over when the, uh, when the delivery got here. So you would, uh—be helpful, actually.”
Touya laughs. “That’s good to know.”
“Touya-nii,” Shouto whines. Touya expects him to stomp his foot. Maybe pout a little too, just for good measure. Bat those long eyelashes he got from mom at Touya until Touya caves and gives him what he wants, even if that happens to be the damn sun. (Not that—not that he’d need much coercion, if they’re being honest. Or, you know, any at all.)
“What, baby?”
“Put it on already.”
Touya sighs. He should be happy the kid likes it enough to wear it, to want it, to want Touya, and not—not messing up the kind of thing he didn’t think he’d even get to have but asked for anyway because he’s stubborn and selfish and not—not what Shouto deserves, either way. But, again, apparently Shouto wants him. Wants him anyway. Or maybe it’s more that—
Maybe they’re just both fucked up the same way.
It doesn’t matter much. Not when Shouto leans into it while Touya strokes his soft cheek before unclasping—well, collar is a bit much for it, maybe. It’s more a choker than anything. Because Touya wasn’t about to be that big of a bastard as to get the kinds that actually need a key. Fuck’s sake.
But still. Shouto holds still. Bares his neck obediently for it. For Touya to lay his claim on him. It makes his cock twitch in his underwear. How the same Shouto who used to bare those pointy little omega teeth and snarl at dad during dinner if he started acting like a dick now holds still for Touya. Because he wants this. Wants ownership if Touya’s the one holding his pretty, expensive leash. And it would be an expensive leash, no question about it. God, dad would wring anyone who dared ask for Shouto dry just for the principle of the thing.
And it’s not—
He’s probably not going to take it well. But he doesn’t get a say in it. That’s nice, honestly. The added bonus of getting to rub his face in it. In the fact that Shouto wants Touya more than he will ever care about being a good, obedient little son.
(That he wants Touya enough to let him lick his way between those soft thighs and stretch out Shouto’s tiny little hole on his knot.)
“It’s pretty,” says Shouto, just as Touya finishes fastening the clasp at the back of his neck. “I like it.”
“Not too tight?”
Shouto shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Not too tight. Besides—I like it a bit tight anyway. Knowing what it means.”
“Aren’t you cute?” Touya coos. “Gonna let me choke you if I ask?”
Shouto turns to look at him. “If it’s you, I don’t mind,” he says. Like it’s that simple. Like lacking oxygen could be fine as long as Touya presses his chapped lips to Shouto’s and breathes some of it back into his straining lungs. Like—like the very act of breathing could be secondary to Touya touching him, to Touya’s hands methodically shaping his pleasure. And it should be Touya’s job. Making Shouto feel good. Touya should be the only person in charge of it. Nobody else should get to touch or look or even think about what Shouto might need in the throes of a heat. He should just open that pretty, spit-slick mouth, and whisper his filthiest dreams into Touya’s sweat-soaked skin while Touya holds him steady through the worst of it.
“That easy, huh?”
Shouto nods. “Oh, that’s just for my Touya-nii,” he says, leaning in just to fleetingly press his mouth to the edge of Touya’s lips. “Can’t go around giving everyone the same treatment. Word might spread. Especially now that I have an alpha.”
It’s stupid instinct, but Touya can’t do much to help it. He growls. “You’ve always had an alpha,” he tells Shouto, the grip he’s got on his arm too tight. “You think I was gonna let dad mate you off? I would have killed whoever tried to touch you.”
“Oh,” says Shouto, somewhere between a gasp and a moan. “Oh, nii-san.”
Touya kisses him. Seals his mouth over Shouto’s soft lips like a promise. Like the collar on Shouto’s neck.
“You’re mine,” he says. “Got it?”
Shouto looks vaguely dazed. It’s cute. He’s so fucking precious and he’s all Touya’s, now. No need to drive off those smitten little boys with hearts in their eyes hoping that maybe, maybe, maybe they might get a second alone to pull him into a dark corner and touch him all over. Might get to try and steal what has always been Touya’s first.
Touya rubs his thumb back and forth against the swell of Shouto’s lower lip. “You okay there, pretty omega?”
Shouto shivers visibly. “I’m, uh—Touya-nii, I think—I think I want, you know.”
Touya laughs. “What?”
“I want a bite,” says sweet little Shouto, dad’s pride and joy. That’s— “I want you to bite me.”
“That’s cute.”
“I’m serious.”
“You’re eighteen.”
Shouto huffs. “And you still want to fuck me,” he says. “I bet—I bet you can’t even get through a rut without thinking about it.”
Touya grips his chin, makes him meet his eyes. “Yeah,” he spits. “That’s the point. I think about it, but I don’t do it.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t act cute, Shou.”
“No,” says Shouto, pulling away, arms crossed over his chest. “You should tell me. What is it you’re oh so honorably abstaining from? Grabbing me by the hips just to push it in? I could take it, you know. I think about it.” Then, softer, “I get really wet thinking about you, Touya-nii.”
Touya closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath. It doesn’t help, not really. Not when all he can smell is raw honesty and open need and how slick Shouto is for him between those thighs he’s unsubtly pressing together.
“Is that really what you want for your birthday?” Touya asks, resigned. (He started it. He always starts it, and then doesn’t know what to do with the fire in his palms. The fire that needs oxygen to burn. But—Shouto’s worth burning for, obviously.) “To be—to be chained to me for life?”
Shouto nods resolutely. “I just want you,” he says. “I thought—I figured I’d have to keep coming up with excuses not to pick an alpha and then, maybe, if one day you decided to get mated I could—I could swallow this thing I wasn’t supposed to want in the first place and—and pick the first alpha who asked and I could, like, see you during the holidays, maybe. If you weren’t too busy with your omega.” He laughs, more wet than anything else. “That’s silly, right?”
It stings. The dull image of Shouto letting some unworthy, faceless alpha wrap an arm around his waist and take him home and keep him safe, and—and give him pups. Just because Touya was too much of a coward to reach for what was already his. For what Shouto is offering up willingly.
“No,” Touya says. “No, I just. I can’t take it. The—the thought of you getting mated to someone else. Makes me want to lock you away so nobody looks at you.”
“So bite me,” says Shouto, like Touya could scrape sharp teeth over his tender throat and he wouldn’t worry one bit. “What? Are you scared, alpha?”
“C’mere, you little brat,” says Touya.
Shouto’s laughter when Touya lifts him up by the backs of his thighs just to tease at the idea of biting him for real—biting him forever—is light and airy andandand—
It’s enough to make Touya forget what he was worried about in the first place.
“Here?” he asks, and Shouto’s neatly trimmed nails dig into the back of his jacket.
“Please,” he says. “Please, Touya-nii.”
So Touya does something very stupid for the second time in an embarrassingly short time span. It’s not—that bad, though. (Especially not with Shouto’s breathy little satisfied whines by his ear.)