Rating: Very soft M
I've always had this head canon for one of the pitfalls of living with an Alpha, because my brain always wants to overthink the 'how' of things. This is what came of it.
She loved him, Emma reminded herself as she dug the small, sharp piece of enamel from the couch cushion, dropping it onto the coffee table before sweeping her palm over the fabric, checking for any more. She loved him, so she could live with finding remnants of his rut-induced fangs stuck to everything – the comforter, the couch, lost in the shag rug in front of the bathroom sink, clinging to her hair after a night of him nuzzling her curls.
She loved him, so it wasn't really that big of a deal that they were basically everywhere the week following his rut, and it's not like having to wash every absorbent surface in the house after her heat was a picnic either...
And besides that, it was normal – of course they shed, he didn't walk around with sharp canines every day of his life. It just wasn't something she'd really known was a thing until she'd already signed up for a committed relationship with an alpha that included sharing an apartment. She wasn't even sure they'd touched on the secretions that led to rapid enamel formation during high school biology, but it didn't matter. It wouldn't have changed anything, she knew that. It just would have been nice to know ahead of time that she was going to spend the rest of her life picking sharp pieces of tooth from everything...
Emma stopped, her hand dropping to her side.
The rest of her life.
Well, that hadn't been a thought she was expecting her subconscious to embrace quite so soon.
She waited for the panic to kick in, staring at that tiny, glimmering fragment of enamel resting on the coffee table, waiting to feel the urge to run, to toss some clothes into a bag and scribble a note that would be left on the counter – I'm sorry, it was too much, too soon.
There was a time that routine was familiar, even the more ordinary pressure put on her by the betas she'd dated in the past becoming too much, too soon. There had been Neal, who just assumed she would follow along with whatever he had going on. Whether or not it was because she was an omega, or just younger than him, she never really stuck around to find out. He'd been almost too easy to run from, and she'd never looked back. Then there was Graham, and even though he'd never said anything out loud, every time he'd looked at her, there was that wordless plea for her to feel something that she just didn't. Walsh had been the last, eager and sweet, if a little overbearing, but the ring had come out of nowhere, much like his temper when she'd turned him down – and it didn't take her long after that to disappear.
So she stared at the little piece of tooth on the coffee table that had prompted her trip down memory lane, and she waited for the panic, but it never came – not even when she thought about all the other little things she hadn't expected from her relationship with Killian, like how often she needed to replace her underwear because an alpha in rut didn't take kindly to anything in his way, or how his hand always found some part of her to touch, or even the way he slept curled around her when she always used to prefer sleeping on her back. In fact, where those things would have driven her crazy if it were any of her exes doing them, with Killian she craved them, needed them. They never felt suffocating, they just felt like home.
The thought of running back to her life before they met, to never having any of those moments with him again, it just left her feeling sick and empty.
The rest of her life.
TV forgotten, Emma kept staring at that little piece of shrapnel sitting on the edge of the coffee table, pictured picking it up for the next forty years – and then in a moment of painful clarity – pictured never picking up another one – visions of an empty home, a cold bed, no soft murmur of his breath against her neck as they slept. Suddenly she was absolutely certain, cleaning them up for the rest of her life would be just perfect.
She told him as much a few weeks later, his sharp canines grazing her skin as he bent over her, lips gliding across her sweat dampened back as he slid into her slick sheath again and again, whispering urgent promises that echoed in her chest – please, she'd begged, make me yours, Alpha. I want this – you, Killian, always.
Her release washed through her, neck rolling in ecstasy as she keened at the overwhelming tidal wave of sensations – the feel of his knot pushing into her willing body, sealing them together as he filled her with his essence, hot and stretching her walls, the feel of his teeth puncturing deep into her scent gland and clamping down.
It was too much, but she knew that somehow it would also never be enough, that she would always want more of him, of this thing she'd been waiting to find all of those lonely years when she didn't know what the rest of her life could possibly be.