Chapter Text
“Well ain’tcha just glowing, rooster head!”
“Shut your mouth before I knock your broom head off!”
Chou snorted. “And the temperament to match. My mother always warned me about pregnant omegas.”
A strong hand reached across the desk and plucked Chou up by the front of his uniform, bringing the blond close to the burning eyes and snarling grimace of one very pregnant Sanosuke Sagara.
“And what can I help ya with?” Chou quirked an eyebrow, only mildly concerned. It wouldn’t be the first beating he’d taken at the fighter’s hands, not even the first in his present state. Being Saitou’s lieutenant and Sano’s friend had landed the sword collector in the unique position of guardian and go between. Which sucked ass in every possible way.
“Where is he?” Sano growled softly.
“You have to ask? In his office.” And then he remembered. “Ahhh. Trying to keep you at home still?”
The begrudging omega released his friend and let him slide back down into his seat. “He’s gone too far this time! It’s fucking ridiculous.”
“Please don’t do anything that will land me in hot water, huh?”
“Oh don’t worry,” despite which the look in the younger man’s brown eyes claimed the exact opposite. The smirk was no better. “My mate will be pleased; I’m sure, to see me.”
Sanosuke moved further into the building, bee lining for Saitou’s office, leaving Chou behind. He blew out a frustrated breath and stood, gathering up his coat. He made his way out to the front office and looked at the other officers who were staring at him fearfully. Luckily they’d followed their orders to just let Sanosuke pass through without question. Even still, the whirlwind of hormones had left quite an impact.
“Gonna be a long night boys,” and the chorus of groans and gripes rose up immediately in answer, but Chou was already out the door.
*~*~*~*
Saitou didn’t even look up when his door was kicked in and all 5 feet and 9 inches of pissed off mate came rushing through. He did reach out and catch a wrapped fist before it managed to land a Futae No Kiwami and destroy his desk. Only then did he turn amber eyes up to travel the length of his lover’s familiar body, now stretched in the center to accommodate their nearly-full grown pup, to meet his gaze.
“Ahou. What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to tell you I’m fucking through with this shit, Saitou!” The teen jerked his fist back and glared angrily.
“I did tell you that I would protect you and our unborn.”
“I can’t stay locked up in the house all day long, do you know how crazy I’ve been going?! It’s fucking insane!” He pointed an accusing finger at the officer. “I’m not your prisoner!”
“You’re my mate.”
“But not your fucking property!”
Saitou sighed and leaned back, reaching for a cigarette in his desk drawer before he stopped, remembering. The smell made Sanosuke, in his heightened state of senses, sick. Damn. It had been an unconscious movement but one that the other caught. At first it irked the brunette, but seeing his Alpha toss the nearly full pack into the trashcan by his desk did a lot to ease his fury.
“I’ve never thought of you as my property. You’re not a thing to own.” Saitou was good at calm. Calm without sounding condescending, like he was explaining himself to a child, or deadpan, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, were a bit trickier. “It’s my job to watch over you. But I still have a job to do here as well. What would you have me do, Ahou, let you walk around in a town that knows you to be a man willing to fight with just about anyone for anything?”
“I can win any fight put in front of me!”
“And one wrong hit, which you are certain to take because you take every hit, and you’ll lose him.” Saitou looked pointedly to the bulging stomach that so worried him, the stomach that Sano’s hands immediately flew to protectively at the very idea. “I don’t want to lose our child.”
“We could make another.”
Saitou’s eyes narrowed and he stood, hearing the fear and posturing in Sano’s voice. He rounded his desk and approached his mate, who stood very still, hands still guarding their unborn. Saitou reached out and stepped in, pulling Sano into a tight embrace, nuzzling into his neck, his Alpha instincts driving him to soothe away the brackish taint of terror in his mate’s scent. Not that he needed the instincts to tell him to.
“Ahou, it would kill us both along with him,” the older man murmured, resting a hand over his mate’s and feeling the warmth of life resting there. “You know it yourself; you couldn’t bear to lose the baby. And I couldn’t bear to lose you.”
“Saitou…” Sano lowered his head, his body shaking a bit, from the worry or the open declaration of affection from his usually colder Alpha he wasn’t too sure. “I’m not trying to put myself in danger. I’m not trying to put him in danger, but I can’t stand to be cooped up. I’m not this delicate china thing you seem to think I am. I protect what’s important to me.”
“At what cost, Ahou?” Saitou asked. “You give too much of yourself. Having a pup is meaningless without you there beside me.”
“I meant what I said, Saitou. I’m through. Don’t do it again, cuz I won’t be there when you come home. Or ever again.” Sano looked into his mate’s eyes, seriousness etched across his face.
Saitou stepped back and met his look with one of his own, features sharp and cold once more.
“Yeah,” Sano turned and headed out the door. “That’s what I thought.”
*~*~*~*
The policeman couldn’t even act surprised as he stepped into their house that night to find it empty. His inner Alpha was howling, the absence of their pregnant mate driving it crazy. Saitou was just as agitated on the inside, but of course presented a calm exterior for the lifeless home around him to see. He forced himself through the routine of changing out of his uniform and into a yukata, then going to lay out the futon only to find it rumpled and smelling of Sanosuke. And fear.
Fuck, he’d had another nightmare.
That, at least, explained part of the above average anger.
Sanosuke had always been prone to them, no one who lived through the wars got out without a few traumas that haunted them in their sleep when they were most vulnerable. Despite his happy-go-lucky nature, his Ahou spent a lot of nights awake. Drinking had been his cure at one point, but of course the child had put an end to that particular prescription. It had only taken a night after the heat for Saitou to be roused by a flailing Sanosuke. After a very hunted and roundabout conversation he had admitted that the nightmares had always been there, mostly featuring seeing the man he’d so worshipped’s head mounted as a warning.
The trip to the fox woman had been when they changed.
They had both known that Sano’s body was sick from the years of suppressant abuse. Most of the powders used to achieve the effect would kill anyone whose persuasion wasn’t Omega already. The prognosis was grim to begin with; the fighter’s body was likely too polluted to carry a child to full term. Saitou had walked away hating himself for the level of importance he’d seemingly placed on children to bring his omega-in-denial mate around.
Sanosuke had walked away with a new nightmare scenario to haunt him.
They had been getting better though, as the pregnancy went on and the child grew. Saitou was still woken up to his mate shaking and panting, tears in his wide eyes at the images of their child being stillborn. He did his best to soothe what he could, and support what he couldn’t. The rest of the day after a nightmare was tinged in shades of grey and red, anger flaring up at any little thing. Saitou had expected as much from a pregnancy anyway, but it hurt him to see someone he genuinely cared about suffering from enemies that he couldn’t cut down for them.
It left both of them in an edgy state, Sanosuke rapidly switching between normal, angry, and morose. Saitou just became increasingly protective, to-he admitted-the point of excess. But it became clear from the moment they’d realized his seed had taken and Sano was pregnant that the teen’s mental health directly tied to the wellbeing of their child.
Saitou stepped out of his home into the warm night air of Tokyo and took a deep breath. Then he set off down the road, determined to bring his mate home.