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You noticed it your second week, when you were shelving holds. It was the first time you spoke to him outside of your introduction when you were hired.

Back then, Theron appeared beside you suddenly and without warning. A creature his size - broad and tall, with three heads and six pairs of yellowish eyes - should not be able to move so quietly. But you'd learned early on that he wasn't called The Warden for nothing. Not just because he has Cerberus blood, though that's certainly part of it, and not because he's the Custodian of the Restricted Texts, and therefore very much a literal warden of books. No, the students call him The Warden because he moves like a sentry: silent, unchanging, and always watching.

"Archivist," the center head said, without greeting. "You reorganized the restricted access requests."

His voice is calm and level, but not unfriendly. You will learn this is common for the middle head, who may be the best with people of the three.

"A few things," you'd said, because it was true. They had been a mess. Then, because Theron was tall, and silent, and still watching, you continued, "Is that a problem?"

"No," the center head said, after a moment, his eyes not leaving yours. Not even when the left head said, at almost the same time, "It's better."

You looked at the left head. He didn't meet your eyes. You didn't yet know this was normal for him.

"You said... something different," you'd said.

You also did not yet know this was normal, too. The left head, which you've come to think of now as the Scholar, is softer, slower, and more appreciative of order than the other two.

At least, it seems that way from the outside.

Those with Cerberus blood aren't actually three different people, though it looks like that at first glance. There are many theories of personality development and mind associated with these rare wolf-headed men, but the main truth is this: each head represents some part of a complicated whole, like all humans. Cerberi are simply unlucky enough to have three times the opportunity to show it.

"I did," he said.

"Is that a compliment?" you'd asked.

"No," the right head had growled, defensively, just as the left had murmured, "Yes."

"...Right. Okay."

Now, months later, you haven't spoken much more than that. You're actually half convinced Theron hates you, though that wouldn't make you special. You're pretty sure Theron hates everyone.

It's not that he's unfriendly. He's more than capable of friendliness. The middle head is actually very personable. (You call it The Diplomat, in your head.) But he doesn't seek anyone out. He never eats with anyone, or joins in discussions when everyone else is having coffee, chatting about the latest faculty gossip or television show.

On top of his usual standoffishness, he seems to avoid you almost entirely. Until today.

You're sorting through old tomes in the Unseen Archives. Strictly speaking, they're dangerous texts, and you should be handling them with gloves. However, they're also old, many of them irreplaceable, and gloves risk more damage to the paper. So instead, you tell yourself, you'll just be careful. Very, very careful.

You're not careful enough.

You don't know if it's a papercut or some ward you triggered accidentally - it could be either, with these kinds of volumes - but the blood blooms on your finger and drips onto the paper before you can even gasp at the pain. It trickles down fast and red and shining, and you push the books out of the way before it can do more damage to them.

And then Theron is there.

You do not hear him arrive. (Naturally.) He is simply beside you, tall and sudden.

"Oh, no--" the Scholar breathes first. His eyes are, as usual, on your hands, but they do not linger there for long. Instead, they dart to the page where your blood has fallen, sinking into ancient fibers like raindrops into soil. He speaks with a panic you've never heard in his voice before. "No, no, not..."

He reaches out to swipe the bead of red off of the page as the Diplomat focuses on you.

"What," he starts, with his trademark calm, "exactly... happened here?"

You blink. You've never seen the middle head lose his cool before, and perhaps that is why, right at that moment, the right head, the quiet one you've labelled The Beast, growls.

"I cut--"

"I can see that," he snaps, composure breaking.

"It isn't that bad," you say over the low sound, half alarmed. "I'll just--"

"No," all three heads say at once.

You've never heard him do that before. Speak as one voice. It's strange, the way they crash and collide into one another, even when they ostensibly agree. The Scholar's voice is thin and nervous; the Diplomat sharp and irritated; and the Beast is a low snarl, scraping as if the word is being ripped from his considerable throat.

Theron's hand drops the book he'd been holding just a moment ago, the left head examining it like it might bite him, and it reaches out instead to grab your wrist. His hand is warm, even against your pulse, which pounds under his thumb as he twists your arm around to get a better look at the wound.

The motion is so abrupt, your breath catches in your throat for a moment. His grip is not painful. In fact, it's nearly careful, despite the urgency, but that only makes the situation feel stranger, not safer, as though his restraint is something that must be deployed, rather than something that comes naturally. The Scholar's eyes are still focused on the bloodstain, while the Diplomat's are flicking between you and the right head. The Beast.

The Beast won't stop looking at your finger.

He lowers his head slowly, breath ghosting over your skin, hot and damp. At first, you can't tell if he's even trying to control himself, but after a moment, you decide he must be. His breathing is shallow but steady, and he keeps closing his eyes slowly before opening them again. But then his snout dips, just a hair's breadth away from the blood sticky and damp on your skin, and inhales. His nostrils flare.

"Stop--" the middle head begins, but the Scholar speaks over him.

"What was that book?" he asks, head snapping around to you. "Does it consume vitae? We need to look. If the volume has developed a taste for their blood--"

"Silence," the Diplomat barks, but it's too late. The Beast lets out a soft, helpless whimper at the word blood, and your attention snaps back to him. He opens his mouth slowly, his long, cherry red tongue escaping past his long rows of sharp teeth. Slowly but surely, as inevitable as a tectonic shift, he licks at your cut.

Oh.

Oh.

You suck in a breath and then release it like a gasp, your body tensing and shuddering at the touch of warm, wet muscle. The Beast's eyes dart up to watch you, his ears flicking your way. Attuned as always. Slowly, almost as if testing your reaction again, he strokes over the same spot with his tongue.

Your whole body trembles. You can't help it. His tongue is rougher than you've ever experienced, and warm, and it sends a sharp jolt of pleasure from your finger all the way to the base of your spine.

"Don't--" the Diplomat snarls. Or tries to. In reality, his voice is almost pleading, and when his eyes flutter shut, you can't tell if he's talking to the Beast or himself. Probably both.

It doesn't matter. The right head ignores him, lapping at your finger in earnest now: short little flicks of his tongue that lick the cut clean before dipping into the creases of your palm or between your fingers. Anywhere the blood has accumulated and begun to dry, becoming tacky and dark. He works at your hand in three or four long strokes before the blood beads again on your finger. Your increase pulse doesn't help, and the blood surfaces and trickles down again and again, and Theron drags his tongue back up to meet it, starting over each time.

"Theron," you try to say, but it's a bit of a whimper.

All three heads practically flinch, and he shudders at the sound of his name.

"The book," the Scholar whispers, but his eyes aren't looking at the book anymore. Half lidded and glazed, they're staring at your lips. "We need to-- we need-- I need--"

"--more," the Beast growls.

And then all three heads are on you.

The three heads descend at once: three sets of muzzles stealing your air, three sets of jaws and teeth and fangs hungering for your taste. You're shoved back roughly into the table, your back bowing against brittle manuscripts. The Scholar's eyes find them and brush them out of the way, gentle and cautious, just enough to keep them safe before he returns to you; the other two heads barely notice at all, too busy sniffing at your skin, licking the sweat from your neck.

When the right head sinks his teeth into the space between your neck and shoulder, you let out a cry of surprise. Of pain. Of pleasure. You buck into the body leaning over you, trapped and panting and desperate. This continues for several minutes of biting and kissing, the heads jockeying for positions along your jaw and neck while you squirm to get comfortable.

The Diplomat breaks away first.

"Wait," he pants - literally pants, his mouth parted, deep red tongue visible behind his teeth. "Wait, wait... need... I can't just... I need..."

But The Beast isn't stopping, instead choosing to tug at the collar of your shirt, licking the spot he just brutalized with his fangs.

"Can," he counters. "Mine. Can."

"Ours," the scholar corrects, voice slurred with want.

"--Consent," the middle head grits out, eyes flashing toward the one on his right. "We need consent."

You exhale, unsure how you could even give such a thing in this state. If it's even possible. If you can even speak.

The left head leans in, nuzzling your right ear.

"Please," he whispers, breath hot over sensitive skin. "Just nod if this is okay. If you want us... me... to keep going."

The Beast whimpers.

But Theron is holding back.

You can feel it all. The way his body shudders as all three heads heave heavy breaths. His arms bracing against the ancient table behind you, strong and secure on either side. His hips are pressed flush against your stomach. He's hard, pressing into you hot and insistent like a branding iron, heart pumping so strongly you can feel it in your own chest.

And still, he holds back. All three hold back.

You nod, slowly at first, and then faster. Desperate.

"Please," you manage, finally.

Control evaporates.

You can't keep track anymore, which is which, who is where. One is at your mouth, shoving a tongue down your throat so thick your can barely breathe. Another nibbles at your collarbone before licking at it, pleasure and pain in equal measure. The third whispers something in your ear; poetry or filth, you can't tell. Both. Neither. All the while, two hands are grabbing and grasping and pulling.

It doesn't matter. They're all Theron. They're all this incredible creature, all feral and control, instinct and logic in equal measure. And they all want you.

You don't know when he gets you onto the table properly, or when he gets onto his knees, but at a certain point it becomes clear that a Cerberus between your legs is going to be a unique experience. You brace yourself on your elbows back against the wood of the table, probably one hundred years old and made of some extinct lumber. You can't be bothered to care, even as it groans beneath the shared weight of you. Theron's heads are devouring you; one in the hot, wet meeting of your thighs, and the other two suckling and licking and whining. You groan, rolling your hips up into his mouths, ass lifting from the table as you make a mess against his tongues, your own thighs.

Three heads. Three tongues. Three sets of teeth. All greedy. At one point, two of the heads fight for dominance, for the prime spot, to be the one licking up what you're leaking all over their tongues; they snap and growl at each other, and you have to pet at them, shushing and soothing them until they share the work, licking at the same time. Up and down. Your hands remain, gripping in their fur until the dual stimulation becomes too much. Soon you lose track of all of it; what's a tongue and what's teeth and what's a hand stroking against you. It just builds, all hot. All wet. All sweet. All achingly, unbearably good, until finally, finally, with a needy cry, you tip over the edge into their mouths.

They drink it all in. The Beast continues to consume, jaw working, mouth never stopping. He takes it all while he holds you open: the sweat of you, your release, lapping while you buck and squirm and try to escape. Your overstimulation burns, white hot and then banking to an ache, even as the Diplomat presses nuzzling kisses to your thigh and the Scholar whispers soft praise against your skin. ("So well, you're doing so, so well for us...")

When you collapse back, finally, boneless and spent, all three heads nuzzle into your trembling belly. Possessive. Worshipful.

"That was..." you start, gasping.

"It was," the middle head agrees. The left head nods.

The right head, The Beast, does not. Instead, he shakes his head.