[There are words for what alphas are supposed to be, ones he's heard so often they're practically a mantra for the expectations on his behavior — powerful, strong, bold, fierce. The fact that Tseng chooses none of them, even when praising him for his conduct, makes him shiver so visibly that he almost loses control of himself altogether. It's the sort of affection, the attention, that he'd dreamed of even long before his designation had ever manifested: to be wanted, to be worthy, to be beautiful and prized for himself and not just what he represented.]
I'm wearing your claim.
[The cadence of his remark is a perfect match for Tseng's, right up until that last word. It carries something of that hypnotic quality to it, the same as when he'd spoken earlier in the stairwell — the call-and-response of following his chosen alpha's lead, dancing on the outskirts of obedience without ever quite submitting to it. But Tseng says scent and Rufus says claim, and in practice they might as well be one and the same, but for the affirmation that the latter offers up like a reward.
Claimed. His. Unambiguously so.
Rufus's legs are already uncrossing as the weight of it hangs in the air between them, as his pupils blow wide and dark and his hands on the armrests are suddenly more about giving him the leverage to move out of his seat than to keep him secured in it.]
And I know what you want to do to me.
[He lets out a slow, shuddering breath. The next one he sucks in is rich with all the scent markers of Tseng's imminent rut — the rut he caused, he must have, the one triggered especially for him — and it finally proves too much even for Rufus's iron control; he lunges from his seat and into Tseng's lap, straddling his hips with a knee on either side as he drapes his arms about Tseng's shoulders and shoves his nose against his neck to pant hot and heavy against his skin.]
— it hurts, Tseng, it hurts — make it stop — make it better —
[And maybe it is, in its way, as manipulative as when he'd purred to bend his alpha to his will — but there's a note of honesty in it, too, glimmering behind the fractures in his control; it's giving out, he's going mad, and all the alpha conditioning in the world can't extinguish the force of his need as it rages like a wildfire in his blood.]
no subject
I'm wearing your claim.
[The cadence of his remark is a perfect match for Tseng's, right up until that last word. It carries something of that hypnotic quality to it, the same as when he'd spoken earlier in the stairwell — the call-and-response of following his chosen alpha's lead, dancing on the outskirts of obedience without ever quite submitting to it. But Tseng says scent and Rufus says claim, and in practice they might as well be one and the same, but for the affirmation that the latter offers up like a reward.
Claimed. His. Unambiguously so.
Rufus's legs are already uncrossing as the weight of it hangs in the air between them, as his pupils blow wide and dark and his hands on the armrests are suddenly more about giving him the leverage to move out of his seat than to keep him secured in it.]
And I know what you want to do to me.
[He lets out a slow, shuddering breath. The next one he sucks in is rich with all the scent markers of Tseng's imminent rut — the rut he caused, he must have, the one triggered especially for him — and it finally proves too much even for Rufus's iron control; he lunges from his seat and into Tseng's lap, straddling his hips with a knee on either side as he drapes his arms about Tseng's shoulders and shoves his nose against his neck to pant hot and heavy against his skin.]
— it hurts, Tseng, it hurts — make it stop — make it better —
[And maybe it is, in its way, as manipulative as when he'd purred to bend his alpha to his will — but there's a note of honesty in it, too, glimmering behind the fractures in his control; it's giving out, he's going mad, and all the alpha conditioning in the world can't extinguish the force of his need as it rages like a wildfire in his blood.]