Chapter Text
Gradually, Lohen feels his mind slipping back to reality.
Like a haze lifting, everything slowly comes into focus again. He’s not sure how long his heat lasts this time—only that it feels like forever, an endless cycle of warmth, pain, sex, then relief. There are brief moments of lucidity, spent tending only to his most basic needs, before the next wave hits and he’s crawling back into Varka’s lap.
He’s drawn out of a dream when the heat finally breaks.
Lohen squints his eyes as he comes to. Sunlight streams in the cave entrance, blinding him momentarily before he ducks to avoid it. He pushes himself up off the floor of the cave, shuddering from the cold when it hits him. Looking down at himself reveals he’s actually dressed—though, only in his shirt and underwear.
He’s well aware of where he’s at. Lohen purses his lips when he realizes they’re at Albedo’s campsite. On Dragonspine. While he can’t remember exactly how he got to the camp, he does remember the mission… and the fight he had with Varka. He can only assume that something led them to taking shelter here and that they ended up stuck when his heat hit.
Looking around the cave reveals Varka’s nowhere to be seen.
Lohen frowns at this realization. Before he can even begin to wonder where the hell he’s at, the sound of footsteps approaching the cave meet his ears. Not even a second later does Varka walk in, firewood tucked under his arm. Lohen notes that he’s only half dressed for some reason and seemingly unaware that Lohen is even awake until he turns to face the campfire.
Varka freezes when their eyes meet.
“Hey,” he breathes out, a hint of suspicion in his voice. It’s clear to Lohen that he’s not entirely sure what to expect yet.
But Lohen nods in his direction and shifts a bit where he’s sat, folding his legs under himself. He winces, just slightly, when the action causes his groin to ache before he settles comfortably.
“You… feeling better? Or are you still…” Varka trails off, averting his gaze elsewhere.
Lohen lets the hint of a smile grace his face. “The worst of it is over,” he confirms. “I am a bit sore, though.”
A blush overtakes Varka’s face before he can stop it. He begins to nod sheepishly, clearly knowing exactly why he might be feeling sore. It’s amusing, but Lohen refrains from laughing outright at him.
Instead, he takes in Varka’s appearance. His eyes sweep over his form, studying his uniform—his boots, his pants, his coat… but, strangely, no shirt. Lohen tilts his head, studying Varka’s naked chest with interest for a moment before he just has to ask.
“... What the hell happened to you?”
Varka pauses. He blinks, slowly, before dropping his head to look down at himself.
There’s not a single inch of his chest that isn’t covered with some kind of mark. Some of them are bites, others bruises, and even a few that Lohen think look like claw marks. He honestly looks like he’s been in a fight with some kind of animal.
But Varka only lets out a huff. He lifts his head back up in disbelief. “You happened to me, Lohen.”
Oh.
While Lohen could have said he was surprised, it would have been a lie. He’s more shocked by the fact that Varka had let him go that crazy during his heat. Out of all the partners he’d taken before, none of them had ever been okay with the fact that Lohen had a tendency to get… rough.
He suppresses a purr of satisfaction that threatens to escape his chest. The knowledge that Varka let him do this—maybe even enjoyed it—fans the flames of his heat ever so slightly before Lohen pushes it down. Varka drops the firewood by the entrance to the cave before he approaches Lohen to join him by the fire.
“You hungry?” he asks, settling himself on the ground next to Lohen. “You barely ate anything when I tried feeding you.”
Lohen had failed to notice that the pot above the fire wasn’t actually empty until now. Despite hardly feeling hungry just moments earlier, the minute Varka lifts the lid he feels his stomach growling loudly. The meal is nothing special—honestly, it tastes pretty bland—but Lohen’s far too hungry to care once he’s finally eating it.
“I’m surprised you were even able to cook anything,” Lohen muses once he’s finished—an observation he makes regarding their lack of resources and as a jab at Varka’s cooking abilities.
Varka doesn’t catch the underlying meaning. “Albedo keeps some rations here. Good for emergencies.”
A hum passes Lohen’s lips, like he finds the explanation interesting. In reality, he doesn’t. He’s waiting for the inevitable discussion regarding everything that’s happened over the last few days. Lohen watches Varka clean up around the campsite, unusually focused. It feels deliberate, like he’s definitely avoiding something.
Lohen decides to take the initiative.
“So,” he begins, keeping his voice light, “are you still going to tell me I can’t go home?”
Varka flinches. He drifts his gaze over to Lohen, expression caught between equal parts embarrassed and regretful. Lohen almost feels bad about it, had he not genuinely still been annoyed by what happened.
“Look, I’m really sorry about that,” Varka sighs. “I had no idea, honestly. I wish you would’ve said why you wanted to go home so badly.”
The apology leaves Lohen feeling rather vindicated. Part of him wants to rub it in that he was right, while the other part of him knows that there’s still too much unsaid. While Lohen’s memories are hazy, they’re still there—along with the physical proof on both of them—and they can’t just ignore the fact Varka helped him through his heat.
“You wanted to complete the mission,” Lohen replies. “I understand.”
Varka hardly looks comforted by his words. He turns away from Lohen towards the opening of the cave, studying what lay outside of it as if it interests him. Lohen can’t help but think he looks uncomfortable, almost like he’s restraining himself from speaking further.
Lohen watches him for a moment. Varka doesn't respond.
Eventually, Lohen sighs and raises a hand to his neck. He places his fingers over his scent gland, rubbing absently as he considers how to approach the topic.
The slight movement finally draws Varka’s attention.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t,” Varka says suddenly.
Lohen blinks slowly. “... Didn’t what?”
The expression on Varka’s face shifts from strained to somewhat embarrassed in an instant. Lohen watches him, eyebrow raised, unsure of the issue—until he realizes where his hand is touching.
Ah.
“You didn’t claim me?” Lohen offers after a bout of silence.
Varka manages a robotic nod in response.
Lohen might have smiled at him had he not felt consumed by a momentary wave of resentment. It’s brief, startling him just a bit, and it’s all he can do to not let the emotion show on his face. He should be thankful. For Varka to help him through his heat and show enough restraint to not claim him is an impressive feat.
But he feels bitter. Like he’s been denied something.
“That's good,” Lohen manages to push out. “That might have made things awkward for your future mate.”
Varka doesn’t even nod his head.
An awkward silence settles over them. Lohen remains where he is by the fire while Varka takes up standing at the mouth of the cave, looking out over the landscape to avoid eye contact. Lohen begins to think that maybe this is the end of their talk, that perhaps they’ll leave Dragonspine and never bring this up again.
But, to his surprise, Varka speaks first.
“It wasn’t about anyone else,” he says.
That comment alone forces Lohen to look back up at him.
“Oh?” he says.
There’s an internal struggle happening inside of Varka right now. Almost unnoticeable, but Lohen watches him fight it through the small changes in his expression. He’s clearly working through something, almost debating whether to keep going. Lohen tilts his head, wondering what could possibly be holding him back.
Surprisingly, the answer comes not too long after.
“I really wanted to,” Varka finally admits. “Not just because you were in heat and asking for it. I wanted to claim you, but…”
He trails off.
Whatever Lohen had been expecting from him, it certainly wasn’t anything like this. This was all just starting to feel ridiculous now. Here they were, just hours after Varka’s cock was quite literally buried inside of him, and somehow talking about it was the more awkward part. The laughter comes up Lohen’s throat and out of his mouth before he can stop it.
It’s not even funny. Lohen knows it’s not, and yet he still can’t help himself.
“I’m not laughing at you,” he wheezes. Varka doesn’t look convinced in the slightest.
It takes a full minute for Lohen to get his laughter under control. Even when he manages to calm his breathing, a few giggles here and there still slip out. Lohen wipes at his eyes once he’s finished, letting out a shaky exhale before he gives his attention back to Varka.
“I just— Nevermind, it’s not important,” Lohen pauses to giggle again. “But please go on. You wanted to claim me?”
Varka looks hardly amused. In fact, he seems a little mad.
“I did,” Varka grinds out, averting his gaze. He pauses, teetering on silence, before he dares to add: “I still want to.”
Varka goes silent after the confession, like he’s bracing for something. Be it rejection, teasing, or acceptance, Lohen has no idea. He’s much too consumed with the knowledge that Varka wanted to claim him—still wants to claim him—to care.
The realization makes him feel delirious with joy. Another laugh escapes him—light, teetering on ecstatic.
Varka narrows his eyes at him. “Something funny?”
“Yes,” Lohen replies immediately. He smooths his expression, but the smile lingers. “Sorry, no. Why didn’t you, then?”
Varka doesn’t answer right away.
He begins to fidget uncomfortably, shoulders tensing while he looks away as if he might find a response on one of the cave walls. The answer doesn’t come right away like Lohen expects it to. Instead, he buys time by looking around, working up the courage to answer.
Lohen doesn’t push. Just waits.
“You mean besides the fact you were too delirious to make up your mind?” Varka finally asks.
Lohen gives him a short nod.
Varka sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Then it was because of what we talked about earlier that day,” he says. “When you said you didn’t want a mate. I couldn’t force you into that kind of life.”
“I believe I said a mate wouldn’t want me,” Lohen corrects.
Varka looks wholly unimpressed. Finally, he leaves his spot by the cave to approach the fire. The seat he takes isn’t next to Lohen this time, but across from him so that he’s staring at him over the flames. He still looks flustered, but there’s something else in his face now.
“And I think I made myself clear,” Varka exhales. “That any alpha that wouldn’t choose you isn’t worth your time.”
How very poetic, Lohen thinks.
Varka leaves it at that, turning his attention to the fire between them. There’s a teasing reply building on Lohen’s tongue—one he ultimately swallows back down when he decides he’d rather take a moment to weigh what’s at stake.
He thinks. For a while.
Varka was far from the first partner he’d ever taken during a heat. But, Lohen thinks, he was certainly the best—the biggest, his brain adds—and the most compatible partner by far, among many other stellar qualities. Not to mention they get along, for the most part, and they’d probably make really cute pups too.
That thought pulls a grin onto his face.
If Lohen had to choose a mate, it makes sense to him that Varka would be a good fit for that role. And if Varka was willing to claim him, then… Well.
Lohen just needs to make sure they’re on the same page first.
“Do you plan on forcing me into resignation?” he suddenly asks.
“What?” Varka looks up at him like he’s gone mad. “No. What are you talking about?”
“Good.” Lohen hums, satisfied. “How many times did you knot me?”
“Wha— I don’t— Didn’t keep track—”
“A lot, then,” Lohen nods. “How many pups do you want?”
“Lohen—”
“I want two, at least,” he continues, flicking his gaze down to Varka’s crotch. He smirks. “I’m open to persuasion if you’re aiming higher, though.”
The slight flicker of arousal in Varka’s face tells him he’s hit the nail on the head.
Lohen thinks to himself that there’s probably more that he could ask, but he’s unable to pull any questions from his mind. Nor does Varka look like he wants to answer any more. Satisfied with what he did receive, Lohen pushes himself up from the ground to round the fire slowly.
Varka doesn’t react until Lohen’s right in front of him. He lifts his head up to meet Lohen’s gaze, his expression tight and uncertain, like he doesn’t know what to expect. Lohen offers him another smile, this one softer.
Actually, there is one last thing he wants to know.
“Last one,” Lohen says. “If… I asked you to claim me right now… would you?”
This time, Varka thinks about his answer. Lohen lets him, waiting patiently for the response that slowly works its way out of him. It doesn’t come instantly, but eventually he sees the shift in his eyes.
He answers.
“Yes,” Varka affirms. “I would.”
It's the only thing Lohen needs to hear. He doesn’t bother with a response, nor does Varka look like he expects one. Instead, Lohen steps forward to lower himself into Varka’s lap in one fluid motion, sinking comfortably until he can press their chests together.
Their eyes meet once he’s settled. Silence.
A grin stretches across Lohen’s face. He tilts his head to the side.
“Then go on,” he breathes. “Make me yours.”
Varka doesn’t hesitate.
Five days.
Somehow the two of them are gone for five days in Dragonspine.
Truthfully, five days could have been four. But after the mating bite ends up inadvertently triggering another wave of Lohen’s heat, Varka really has no choice but to stop and take care of it before they go.
Despite the fact that the mission still isn’t done, Varka’s too tired to care anymore. He decides that if their missing girl was really on this mountain then the two of them would have found her before the blizzard rolled in. While it pulls at his conscience to return to Mondstadt without anything to report back, they’ve already spent far too much time away.
They manage to make it back by nightfall. Varka knows he should report immediately to Headquarters to inform everyone that the two of them are fine—only he’s swayed too easily when Lohen pulls him to bed instead. He resolves himself to report first thing the next morning, after he’s had time to tend to himself and get some sleep.
But first thing the next morning ends up being closer to half-past noon when he inevitably sleeps in. Dragging himself out of bed is a struggle, even more so when Lohen clings to him, but eventually Varka manages to break free. Not without a struggle, though. At first he worries Lohen might not actually let him go, until he’s able to pacify him by leaving his coat behind.
Varka has to report back in with essentially half his uniform. It earns him a lot of stares once he arrives, but thankfully no one questions him outright. As he walks down the hallway to his office, he can only imagine the paperwork that's piled up in his departure. Probably stacks of it… in addition to the multiple stacks he’d left behind before they’d departed for the mission...
A sigh passes his lips as he approaches his office, using a hand to push open his door—
—only to find Jean sitting at his desk waiting for him.
“Oh my—” Jean exhales, bolting upright out of Varka’s desk chair. “Where have you been! You were gone for five days!”
Varka freezes in the doorway.
He can see Jean looks absolutely ragged. Her normally neat ponytail is sagging at the base of her neck, in addition to her face being framed by flyaways. If Varka had to guess by the dark circles under her eyes, he would figure she hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep over the last few days.
It takes him a few seconds to reel in his surprise upon seeing her. He forces a smile onto his face, raising his hands up in a gesture of mock surrender.
“Just got caught up in a little blizzard and had to hole up at Albedo’s campsite,” he reassures her. “We’re both fine, made it back last night.”
Jean doesn’t look immediately convinced. Her own discomfort takes the back burner as she begins to survey his appearance from where she’s standing to check for any injuries. Varka stands still and lets her, though his nerves spike a little bit each time her gaze lingers too long.
She eventually locks onto Varka’s face, relief evident in her expression. Thankfully, she seems to miss all of the marks leftover from Lohen’s heat that are barely concealed by his shirt.
“I was about to send out a rescue,” she exhales, slowly coming down from her high. “I’m presuming you didn’t find the missing woman?”
Varka straightens up a little bit. They didn’t. “Yeah. But how did you…?”
He trails off as Jean begins to rummage through some papers atop his desk. Her face deepens into a frown as she pulls out the mission folder and opens it to remove something.
She holds it out for him to take. Varka grabs it, studying it carefully before he realizes what it is—a new photo of the missing girl and a male in what looks like wedding attire.
“Karlina’s family received this photo in the mail the day after you left. It turns out she actually ran off to Fontaine to elope with her lover,” Jean sighs, shaking her head. “They send their deepest apologies for causing our organization so much trouble. ”
The revelation is so annoying that Varka almost twitches.
“Well,” he begins, trying to find a positive in the situation. “As long as she’s safe, I guess that’s good news.”
“Just a waste of resources,” Jean mumbles under her breath. “But I agree that it’s good news.”
The file ends up in the trash can by his desk as she moves on. Immediately, Jean gets to work trying to bring him up to speed on everything that he’s missed. It’s a lot—it’s always a lot—but Varka’s just glad Jean seems none the wiser to what he and Lohen had really been up to on that mountain. He’s willing to count this as a win.
Or at least he is, until he notices the furrow in Jean’s brow when her eye is caught by a piece of paper on his desk.
“Say, Varka,” she mumbles, slowly moving to pick it up.
Varka doesn’t need to look closely at the paper in her hand to know exactly what it was. Dread coils in his stomach. It’s a request for work leave, signed by Lohen and completed with an approval stamp by Jean herself.
Fuck.
Jean frowns deeply as she turns the request toward him. “I forgot Lohen requested leave for this week.”
Varka tries not to let his smile waver, but the corner of his mouth betrays him with a twitch. “Y-Yeah, he changed his mind.”
“Changed his mind,” Jean repeats slowly, her tone fully conveying her disbelief. “That’s strange, because I’m pretty sure he took the whole week off to attend to his heat.”
A cold sweat prickles along the back of Varka’s neck. Jean is far from done investigating. She tosses the paper aside and begins rifling through the desk for something else. Mission reports and letters are swept aside as she searches, creating a growing mess until she picks out what she’s looking for.
This time, it's a thicker file. Varka already has an idea what it’s going to be, but he still cringes when Jean flips it around to show him.
“Now that I’m thinking about it, this weather report from the adventurer camp states the blizzard only lasted the one day,” Jean continues, dropping the page back onto the desk.
Her gaze flickers up to Varka. “But you and Lohen were gone for five?”
“Well, the snow—”
“For that matter, what happened to your uniform?” Jean continues. Her eyes scan him again, this time far more carefully and looking for more than just injuries. “You never come to work without your coat.”
“I-It was, uh, kinda dirty—”
The room is starting to feel a lot warmer now. Without thinking, Varka lifts a hand to tug at the collar of his shirt to try and cool himself off. Only, he realizes near immediately this had to be the stupidest move he possibly could have made. Jean’s gaze locks onto where he pulls his shirt to the side, her eyes slowly widening as she takes in the sight of the marks littering his skin.
Well, shit. Varka tries to clamp his hand over his neck to hide them, but the damage is already done.
If there had been any doubt in her mind about what the two of them were doing on that mountain, it was pretty much gone now.
“Varka…” Jean looks like she might actually faint. “You didn’t.”
Okay. That was his cue to make his escape.
Varka lets a nervous laugh escape him as he begins backing up, hand still clamped over his neck as he babbles half-formed excuses. Unfortunately, Jean is faster. With a sharp flick of her hand, a gust of wind slams the door shut behind him.
Varka pales when his only escape route vanishes, leaving him rooted exactly where he’s at.
“I-It’s really not that bad, Jean,” he tries to reason. Though even he isn’t stupid enough to believe his own nonsense.
“Not that—Varka,” Jean groans, smacking her palm against her forehead. “This is a scandal waiting to happen! The Grand Master mates his only omega subordinate? During a mission, no less!”
“Hey, come on, it was mutual! I swear!” Varka rushes out, hoping to calm her down. “I was handling it fine, but Lohen’s really persuasive—”
“You were seduced?”
Obviously, this conversation was not going anywhere productive.
“Seduced is a strong word, Jean,” Varka says. “It was more like… a mutual agreement… to…”
“Oh, just stop, Varka!”
Varka shuts his mouth instantly.
Jean slumps back into his chair again in defeat, covering her face with her hands as she tries to calm herself. A twinge of guilt tugs at Varka’s conscience when he sees how stressed she is, but it’s not like he really did anything wrong. Though he can see where the morality of it all comes into question.
Hopefully in time she’d realize it wasn’t all that bad.
“You don’t take a mate for years, and then you spend five days in Dragonspine with Lohen and everything changes?” Jean mutters under her breath. “Unbelievable.”
Varka just lets her have her moment, knowing that there’s nothing he can say to make this better. He tries not to think about the fact that he’ll have to have this same conversation with everyone else too. That’s a problem for another day.
Eventually Jean drops her hands from her face to pinch the bridge of her nose. She lets out a long, slow sigh before letting go.
“Alright. What’s done is done,” she says, moving to sit back up. “You’re both adults. If this is mutual, then... It’s not the end of the world.”
Varka feels momentarily relieved. “See?” He smiles. “I told you it’s not that bad. Not a big deal at all.”
Jean nods back at him. “As long as you two had the proper precautions in place, I suppose it’s not.”
Varka’s smile drops. Precautions…? There were definitely no precautions in place. At all. He debates lying and agreeing anyway, but Jean catches his expression faster than he can hide it. The look on her face darkens to a degree he’s never seen before.
“… Varka.”
She sounds much too calm now, he thinks.
“Tell me,” Jean says, “that you are not implying what I think you are.”
Varka can’t.
“On the bright side—”
“Don’t.”
“—you’re going to be an aunt...!”
“VARKA—”