The taxi hasn't fully stopped before Phuwin is out of it, one hand fisted in the hem of his hoodie, the other slapping a crumpled wad of bills through the driver's window. He doesn't wait for change. He doesn't look back at the man who turned the radio up and said nothing. He just walks—fast, wrong, half-folded—toward the lit lobby of Fourth's building, every step a negotiation with his own legs.

The sliding doors swallow him into cold air and recessed lighting. He presses the back of his wrist against his mouth and breathes through the fabric of his mask, which is useless now, soaked through with honey and cinnamon, ruined. A security guard looks up from the desk. Phuwin makes it to the counter and gets one word out—"Fourth"—and the guard's nostrils flare, just slightly, before he slides a keycard across the marble without comment. He's done this before. He's seen Phuwin stumble in like this before.

The elevator is the worst part. Phuwin jams the button for the twenth floor and then his knees give, and he slides down the brushed-steel wall until he's sitting on the floor of the car, thighs pressed together, palms flat on the cold metal, counting floors by the soft chime. The numbers climb. The air in here is his own. He's marinating in it—sweet, thick, spiked with something that isn't his usual scent, something the suppressants should have buried and didn't. His hand drifts toward his waistband again and he snatches it back and presses it flat against the floor until his knuckles ache.

He drops the keycard twice. Once at the door, once in the lock. The second time his fingers are shaking so hard he has to crouch to pick it up, and crouching is a mistake, because the pressure of his own thighs against his cock makes him whine into his sleeve, a thin, humiliating sound he'd deny under oath. He gets the card in. The lock blinks green. The door swings.

Fourth is already there, in a cream knit sweater with his hair still damp from the shower, and he catches Phuwin before Phuwin's legs can finish the job of quitting on him. Phuwin goes down into his arms and clutches the front of that soft sweater like a child, face buried in Fourth's shoulder, breathing him in—jasmine, clean and calm, the opposite of everything screaming under his own skin.

"I can't," Phuwin gasps into the wool. "Fourth, I can't, I can't, it's not—it's not supposed to be like this, I took them this morning, I took them—"

"I know. I know. Breathe." Fourth's hand is steady on the back of his neck, thumb rubbing a slow circle at the base of his skull. "You're here now. Come on, up. Bathroom."

Phuwin gets his feet under him. Fourth keeps one arm around his waist and steers him down the short hall, past the kitchen counter where two glasses of water sit untouched, past the couch with a folded blanket on the arm. The bathroom door is already open. Steam curls out of it—Fourth must have run the shower hot before Phuwin arrived, must have known, because of course he knew, because Fourth always knows. The mirror is fogged. The tile is white and cold and Phuwin wants to lie down on it and never get up.

Fourth sits him on the closed lid of the toilet and crouches in front of him, reaching up to peel the mask off Phuwin's face. Phuwin flinches—the air hits his cheeks, his mouth, and he knows what he must look like, flushed and wild-eyed and wrecked—but Fourth just folds the mask and sets it aside and doesn't say a word about the state of him.

"Suppressants are on the counter," Fourth says, nodding toward a blister pack and a small amber bottle. "Take two of the pills. Don't argue with me. And—" He hesitates for half a second, then reaches into the cabinet under the sink and comes out with a matte silicone toy, still in its box, unopened. He sets it on the counter next to the pills without ceremony. "That's for after. Don't look at me like that. You're not going to make it through this on willpower, and I'm not letting you hurt yourself."

Phuwin stares at the box. His whole face burns. "Fourth—"

"I'm going to go sit in the living room with headphones on and the TV loud," Fourth says, already standing, already backing toward the door. "There's water. There's towels. I'll check on you in an hour. If it gets worse—if it gets scary—you text me one word and I'm in here. Okay?"

"Okay," Phuwin whispers.

"Okay." Fourth's face softens, just for a moment, that boyish warmth breaking through the practicality. "You're not dying. It just feels like it."

The door clicks shut. The lock doesn't turn—Fourth wouldn't—and Phuwin is alone with the steam and the fogged mirror and the sound of his own ragged breathing bouncing off the tile.

He takes the pills first, because Fourth asked, because it's the one thing in this room he can do that makes any sense. Two dry, bitter tablets that scrape down his throat. They won't work fast enough. He knows that. He's been an Omega long enough to know that once a heat crests like this, suppressants are just a promise for tomorrow. Today is already lost.

The tile is cold under his bare feet. He pulls his hoodie off over his head and drops it on the floor, then his shirt, then everything else, until he's standing naked in the steam, and the air hits his skin and he shivers hard, and the shiver runs straight down between his legs and leaves him weak-kneed and gasping against the edge of the sink.

He catches his own reflection in a clear patch of the fogged mirror. Flushed cheeks. Sweat at his temples. His lips bitten red. His eyes don't look like his own—too dark, too hungry. He looks away first.

The floor. He needs to be on the floor. He lowers himself onto the cold marble, back against the cabinet under the sink, and the shock of the tile against his spine makes him hiss through his teeth. But the cold is good. The cold is the only thing in the world that isn't asking him for something. He presses his palms flat against it and lets it steady him for one breath, two, three.

Then his hand finds the box.

He opens it with his teeth, spits cardboard aside, and the silicone is cool and smooth in his palm—a simple thing, ridged along the shaft, flared at the base, with a knot toward the bottom that's softer than the real thing and somehow worse for it. He holds it for a second and just looks at it. Then he turns it over, and his own slick is already smeared across his inner thighs, already dripping onto the marble in a thin, shining line, and he doesn't have it in him to be embarrassed anymore. He's past embarrassed. He's past everything but the ache.

He spreads his legs on the cold tile, heels sliding until his knees fall open, and the position alone—the openness of it, the way the cool air moves against the wet heat of him—pulls a low moan out of his chest before he's even touched himself. His free hand curls around his own thigh, nails digging in, and he watches the muscle jump under his skin.

He reaches down between his legs and pushes two fingers into himself first, just to check, just to feel—and he's so wet that they slide in to the knuckle without resistance, and his hips jerk up off the floor and his head falls back against the cabinet with a dull thud. "Oh," he breathes, to no one, to the steam. "Oh, god."

He works his fingers in slow, curling them, spreading himself open, and his own slick runs down over his wrist, warm and thick. The sound of it is obscene in the small tiled room—wet, rhythmic, unmistakable. He pulls his fingers out and they come away glistening, strings of slick breaking between them, and he drags them over the head of the toy, coating it, watching the silicone shine.

Then he lines it up.

The first push is slow. The head of it presses against his rim, blunt and cool, and he holds it there for a second and just breathes through the anticipation, thighs trembling, the cold tile biting into his heels. Then he pushes, and the stretch opens him up, and his mouth falls open around a sound that isn't quite a word.

It goes in easier than it should. His body takes it, hungry for it, clenching down around the smooth ridges, and the fullness is so good it makes his eyes water. He pushes until the base is flush against his palm, until he can feel the flared lip of it pressed against the outside of him, and he holds it there, breathing hard, hand shaking against the base.

"Okay," he whispers. "Okay. Okay."

He pulls it back—slow, so slow—and the drag of every ridge along his inner walls makes his toes curl against the marble. The knot catches at his rim on the way out, a fat tug of resistance, and he cries out, a sharp little sound that echoes off the tile and comes back to him doubled.

He pushes it back in. Harder this time. His hips roll up to meet his own hand, and the wet sound of it fills the room, and he's fucking himself now, no pretense left, one hand braced flat on the cold floor and the other working the toy in and out of him in a slow, deep rhythm that he can feel all the way up in his ribs.

The steam has thickened. He can barely see the far wall. His reflection is a ghost in the fogged mirror, a blurred shape on the floor with its legs spread wide, and he catches a glimpse of it and has to look away, because the shape of himself like this—open, desperate, taking it—is too much to hold in his own eyes.

His free hand finds his cock, finally, and the first stroke nearly ends him. He's so hard it hurts, leaking onto his own stomach, and every stroke of his palm pulls a fresh sound out of him—low, broken, nothing like the polished voice he uses on camera. He fucks himself in time with his hand, the toy sinking deep and dragging out slow, and the rhythm builds until his heels are skidding on the wet marble and he can't keep the pace steady anymore.

And then the thought comes. Uninvited. Sandalwood. Cedar. Clean sweat and something like rain on hot stone.

Phuwin's whole body clenches around the toy, a hard, involuntary grip, and he moans out loud—really moans, loud enough that Fourth might hear it through the door, and he doesn't care, he can't care, because the scent is in his head now and it won't leave. The hand that caught him by the waist. The spread of fingers over his hip, wide and certain, like they belonged there. The low voice saying you owe me a meal for that, and the way it had dropped at the end, almost a growl, almost a promise.

He imagines it's Pond's hand on him. Pond's weight pressing him down into the cold tile. Pond's knot catching at his rim the way the toy does, but real—thick and hot and impossible to take, and Pond not letting him pull away from it either, holding him there, making him feel every inch of the stretch until he sobs with it.

"Please," he gasps, and he doesn't know if he's talking to the empty room or to the man who isn't here. "Please, please—"

He fucks himself harder, driving the toy deep, and his ass is so wet now that the base slips against his palm with every thrust, slick running down between his cheeks and pooling on the marble beneath him. The knot catches again, dragging at his rim on the pull-out, and this time he doesn't slow down—he takes it, pushes through the resistance, and the burn of it makes his vision white at the edges.

His thighs are shaking. His breath is coming in short, broken pieces. He's so close he can taste it, a tight, coiling heat low in his belly that winds tighter with every stroke of his hand and every drag of the toy inside him, and he imagines Pond's mouth at his throat, Pond's voice in his ear, Pond's knot swelling inside him and locking them together, and he wants it so badly it's a physical pain, a hollow ache behind his ribs that no amount of silicone is ever going to fill.

"Pond," he breathes, and the name is barely a sound, barely a shape on his tongue, but it's enough. It's the thing that tips him over.

The orgasm rips through him hard and fast, and his whole body bows off the floor—back arching, head thrown back against the cabinet, heels sliding out from under him on the wet tile—and he comes across his own stomach in thick, hot pulses, his ass clenching down around the toy so hard it's almost painful, wave after wave of it until his throat is raw from sounds he doesn't remember making.

He rides it out. Keeps the toy pressed deep, keeps his hand moving slow on his cock, wringing every last shiver out of himself until it tips over into too much and he has to let go. His hand falls away. The toy stays seated inside him, thick and full, and he can feel his own pulse around it, a slow, fluttering grip.

The bathroom is very quiet now. Just the drip of the showerhead. Just his breathing, ragged and slowing. The steam hangs in the air, softening everything, and the mirror is a blank white fog with no reflection in it at all. He's glad. He doesn't want to see himself right now.

He sits there on the cold marble with his legs still spread and his hands loose at his sides and the toy still buried in him, and he lets his head rest back against the cabinet and closes his eyes. His thighs are trembling. There's slick and come drying on his skin, and the tile beneath him is a mess, and he's going to have to clean this up before Fourth comes back, and he can't imagine moving yet. Not yet.

The relief is real, but it's thin. It's a shallow breath taken above water before the next wave pulls him under. He can already feel it coiling again, down low, patient and hungry—the heat isn't done with him. It's only paused. And the thing it wants isn't silicone. The thing it wants is a knot, and a hand spread wide over his hip, and a low voice saying his name like it's owed something.

Phuwin opens his eyes and looks at the fogged mirror, and somewhere behind all that white there's a shape that might be him, and he doesn't reach for it. He just breathes. And waits for the next wave.