Archive of Our Own

***

9:07pm. Thursday evening. Chan’s apartment. Chan sat as he did most often in an awkward scrunch, phone in hand, frowning at it. Probably in search of some game achievement or something. He was blissfully unaware of Minho’s inspection, because that was what they did sometimes. The companionable silence. Granted Chan could chatter an ear off if necessary but they both got the company part of the equation down which was important. Sometimes they cooked, or ordered in, watched a movie, whatever. Sometimes they just communed. It was not something to be studied for science, not like Minho was studying Chan. Chan was, in the common parlance, an alpha. He was prone to cheeriness, and the occasional mood, generally like a sheepdog keeping their group ticking.

Chan made a disgusted sound, sucking air through his teeth and making Minho wary so he didn’t get caught looking. They’d been friends for two years and a half, give or take. The last half, also give or take, Chan had only gotten laid once. Chan was very bad at hiding it when he found someone to meet his lofty standards, and he was almost never out without someone Minho knew. Everyone was nosy as next door’s grandma all up in everyone else’s business, so even if Minho hadn’t been there to witness the miracle himself he’d have heard about it. Chan had been in, to his impeccable investigative knowledge, two relationships long enough to be considered that. One that preceded Minho by timeline, one that ended shortly after they’d gotten to be friends. There’d been a handful of hookups after that, and most of those in whatever nook or cranny the clubs afforded. He’d always come back looking pleased by whatever the ten minute escapade had afforded him. And then the dry spell.

It could have been asked what spurred Minho to care. Or bother wasting a single brain cell or second on the sex life of his friend. No one else expressed an interest or concern. Though there were some of them getting some and probably unaware not everyone else was. And that was fine. Minho had been a little more ambitious and thus successful over the same period of time, and that was fine, too. One reason he really took a personal interest was the belly chains. It really wasn’t any deeper than that. He had no overt opinions about them. They’d been a novelty at first, tucked under a longer shirt that Chan gave him a peek under. His little secret. Then the shirts got shorter, and the chains got sparklier. It was as common to see one on Chan when they went out as it was for him to exist with eyelashes. Meaning. Always. He wasn’t sure what they were exactly. Asking Chan was fruitless. He shrugged and said he liked how they looked. And they showed off all the work on his abs, which wasn’t inconsiderable.

A cry for help. A fishing lure, maybe. Certainly Minho had caught any number of eligible people ogling Chan’s stomach, among other things, and summarily getting pleasantly rejected after dancing as Chan went back to sit and nurse his drink and complain with some delight that he was smeared with glitter. It was like Chan didn’t notice or care that any of them would’ve given almost anything to get a sweaty hand on the chain much less the belly it went with. So maybe it wasn’t the chains, exactly, it was the deviation. And even if there wasn’t a problem, yet, he wanted to figure it out. And it wasn’t knowledge he could spread around, because while there was no shortage of wingmen, getting Chan laid was just the tip of the iceberg. He wasn’t even sure that was his goal, either.

Really, his way of stumbling into the conversation topic happened to him by accident. In searching for his next book to read, feet jammed into the small of Chan’s back as the couch wasn’t long enough and behind Chan was safer than getting them in easy reach of Chan absently petting him. Or, intentionally tickling and almost getting kicked in the face. But a review of a book caught his eye, one of those reviews that was half delight, half horror. A surprisingly entertaining read but keep your brain in your pocket because whatever alpha wrote this has never been in the presence of an omega in their lives. You’ll either get hot and bothered or pee your pants laughing. You’ll see what I mean.

Well. He had an alpha space heater across from him who’d definitely been in the presence of an omega and otherwise, and that absence was the whole point.

He downloaded the book immediately.

And indeed, the author of the review was correct. The beginning of the book was fairly well written, all things considered. A little too dry in spots, and a little fast and unbelievable to the hooking up - not sure who he was to judge - but he didn’t want to erase the whole of human language from his brain getting there. But ah, getting to the hooking up, that was a new and delicate challenge. The omega was, it seemed, a smart and otherwise rational man, and Minho couldn’t blame him for getting a little weak in the knees for the so-described sexy and knowledgeable alpha.

However instead of staying strong, he all but folded into a puddle. Maybe literally.

“This guy,” Minho said loudly without reason or context, “is an omega in this book and his pants are literally dripping off the ankle cuffs because of how much the alpha is getting him bothered.”

Chan was adorably confused from that non sequitur as they went from silence to porn.

“Is he drinking water?”

Yes, Chan would be concerned about the omega’s hydration status rather than the unrealistic level of slick. In five minutes?

“I don’t think I could soak a pair of jeans in an hour, much less two seconds after an alpha took off his shirt. Impressive.”

“Huh,” was Chan’s contribution to the conversation.

“He’s now tearing up because he can’t get all of the alpha’s cock in his mouth. Buddy’s going to have a problem soon even if he is wetter than a rainstorm. I could do better than that.”

He was delighted by Chan’s reluctant, “Oh?” They were getting somewhere.

“Ever had that problem?” Minho prompted. Maybe he’d been missing out.

“Not that I know of,” Chan said. Which, fair.

“I think the review was right. I don’t think the alpha who wrote this has seen an— He… ‘He was slick and ready for cock. The alpha parted his cheeks and drank from his pert and flowing spigot.’ Pert! And flowing!”

He’d lost his cool. He was delighted. It was terrible. Implausible. So purple it made eggplants look pale. Chan looked like Minho had offered him a pickled spider or something.

“I didn’t know people had spigots,” Minho said, calm enough again to speak conversationally. Adding offhand, “Wow, that line was so hot I think it put me in heat.”

“Oh?”

There it was, the tone as though Minho had told him he was a unicorn or something. Cautious. A little wild. Minho wasn’t sure what victory was but he was pretty sure he was getting it.

“No! You would know it,” Minho said with some internal glee. He was just impressed Chan hadn’t yet pushed his legs off the couch as he could tell he was probably vibrating Chan’s kidneys out of place in his delight at how awful the book was.

“If it involves a spigot, I don’t own that many towels,” Chan said.

“I’ll warn you, then,” Minho promised. Chan reluctantly fist-bumped him, as though that sealed the bargain of completely other-worldly actions. He almost looked like he had questions before shaking his head and going back to his phone. Minho observed him for another few seconds before skimming for more things to be horrified by. Unfortunately, fortunately, he found it within another two paragraphs.

“Oh, fuck,” Minho said, reading the sentence twice to be sure he’d actually read it correctly. And he had, and Chan was looking at him again with mixed curiosity and resignation. “The alpha just stated he was fully knotted and…pulled out all the way and pushed back in. Multiple times. Rapidly”

It made him clench just thinking about it as Chan processed that.

“I don’t think that’s physically possible,” Chan said.

It was, he supposed, if someone’s anus was made of putty. Or the knot and associated cock was made of iron, which was somehow worse.

“You just have no imagination,” Minho said airily, holding his phone close. “They are running free of the bounds of human limits.”

“It doesn’t even…sound pleasant.”

“They want everyone to aspire to greatness,” Minho insisted.

The greatness that was making everyone cross their legs and sit more firmly to protect themselves. Chan’s amusement was more at his insistence it was all normal, rudely if nicely rolling his eyes as he went back to his own phone. It wasn’t like they talked about their respective sex lives all the time. But he knew some of the major things. In those ten minute escapades, he’d absolutely teased Chan that the knot had gone fast. The thing was, Chan was one of “those” alphas. One that didn’t knot at the drop of a hat. It didn’t require anyone particular, just that it happened when it was someone who was trusted, or long-term. Minho had heard of alphas like that, but didn’t know he’d been in the presence of one.

“Doesn’t happen with someone else. When I’m alone, sometimes, but otherwise, no,” Chan said.

“Not even when you dated?” Minho asked.

“No. I don’t know,” Chan said, shrugging sloppily. “Just need more of a connection, I guess.”

The only way to have more of a connection was to have any connection in the first place.

Knowing Chan, he guessed he shouldn’t have been surprised by it. Things went more normally in book-land for a little while, but he couldn’t help his delighted little snigger at the omega’s dick hopping around. Like a rabbit? Unfair, as his could not hop. He looked up to share, only to see Chan’s pained little “oh no, what now” expression.

“Let me guess the alpha has two dicks this time.”

“No!” He paused to think about that for a second. “That might be interesting, but no.”

“Why do you do this to yourself?” Chan asked. And Minho blinked at his screen, because he didn’t really have an answer for that. Apparently that was suspicious or something because Chan’s next question was a bit of a whine, “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Well, you haven’t gotten laid in a while,” Minho said, assuming Chan would take it as a joke.

Chan’s mouth opened, closed, and he frowned like someone’s disapproving dad. “I don’t think this is the guidebook on how to do that.”

Oh, but in fact, maybe it was. They just didn’t know it yet. Minho figured they were going to find out, because to his joy, there were two more books.

***

Minho enjoyed their nights out. Usually it was once a week or so, not always clubbing, but sometimes. He couldn’t say he was a club person exactly, but they frequented the less eardrum-shattering ones so they could actually hear themselves talk and think between dancing adventures or otherwise. It had food, drinks, usually decent music. And good company, if not sometimes challenging. Changbin was observing Jisung building some kind of house out of square coasters. Hyunjin was already sweaty, Seungmin was missing, Jeongin and Felix were talking. And Minho, newly returned, was trying to protest as Chan boosted him up. He’d just sat down! Just from going to the bathroom, but it’d still just happened.

“The next song should be good,” Chan promised.

How he could know that, Minho didn’t know. Why Minho should care, likewise. However, Minho still capitulated, following Chan as at least a few of their friends waved like he was heading off to war. Which, he supposed, in a way he was. It was a different experience dancing with each of them. Hyunjin drew watchers as they tended to challenge each other, but usually most of them were a little intimidated. Seungmin had a style that was a…style. Jisung could somehow end up with them dancing with a dozen people all moving together around in a sweaty clutch if he didn’t evade it. Chan was different. He wasn’t a flashy dancer, wearing black, no surprise. A bit of eyeliner, tousled hair, tight pants, cropped shirt that definitely showed off what he wanted when Chan’s arms were over Minho’s shoulders. Belly chain, yes, that Minho was mostly ignorant of, as close as they were. But he drew eyes, not always the eyes he wanted or that Minho approved of, but Minho saw all of them. Whether it was with him, or if Chan was dancing with one of the others, people just looked. Some approached if Chan was dancing with someone else, which was how the hookups happened. Probably that meant Minho ought to dance with him less, but he also didn’t see why, either. Chan could have picked out anyone he wanted and went after them, whether he was trying to be an octopus around Minho or not. He wouldn’t have been offended.

No, that was a lie, he’d have been very offended, because Chan could’ve waited until the song was over at least. He didn’t have to like Chan running off on any of the others, either, but at least it wasn’t him. And it wasn’t like he was running off on Chan either, so they were even. So maybe it was looking after Chan, and looking after himself, too. He didn’t go off to dance to get left like a shopping cart mid-store. Whether he knew why people looked at Chan or not, he didn’t really care about their disappointment. Wasn’t his problem.

It was like he had some kind of sixth sense, feeling someone watching Chan, and waiting for the pleasure of the kill. That night wasn’t any different. He couldn’t tell from a distance what the man was, but Chan had any variety of human approach so it didn’t matter in the end. Some weren’t choosy. He was intent enough that it rose Minho’s hackles. Chan’s skin was hot, it almost always was, as Minho slid his hands up Chan’s sides. If the chain wasn’t tight, sometimes it slid down over the course of the night, melding with his waistband like some kind of low and sparkly belt. It wasn’t low that night, Minho’s fingers spreading, his thumbs pressing into Chan’s skin to be able to slip under the edge of the chain. It held his hands closer, and he knew Chan felt it from the way he hummed. He could imagine how it sparkled, knew the man watching could see that, too. But Minho saw his eyes slip lower, following the movement of Chan’s hips, and undoubtedly seeing just how well Chan’s pants fit his thighs. Very well, personally confirmed. But Minho’s eyes sharped at movement, a visual lock from afar on Chan’s ass as the man moved forward. Chan had certainly never indicated an aversion to that. He’d always been on the edge of being Not That Kind of Alpha from the moment they’d met anyway. He knew the lure, as he pulled Chan a little closer, keeping Chan’s back to the man and his chin almost on Chan’s shoulder and waiting. Waiting.

The man nearly screeched to a stop when he realized Minho was staring at him. He’d certainly had success with that. Sometimes it took a shake of his head, slow and purposeful. Sometimes they shook their head back at him just as slowly, like he was some kind of snake charmer convincing them. But ultimately they left. And, as well, so did the man. It made him want to wiggle or woohoo, or something. His streak of successful obstructions was unbroken. He hadn’t been counting, so it could’ve been ten or a hundred. Somewhere in between. Chan was just vibing, unaware and taking full advantage of Minho having been the one to pull him closer instead of the other way around. Dancing with Chan was nice. If it was upbeat, maybe he got a little sweaty as he laughed at the faces Chan made. Or, if they just moved like they did that night, it was people watching, propping each other up, enjoying the music. It felt more like chilling at Chan’s apartment, only noisier. They definitely didn’t dance there, unless moving Chan out of his way in the kitchen counted.

“My drink’s calling my name,” Chan said, as the music changed to something that definitely didn’t fit the vibe.

“Chaaan,” Minho intoned, smacking Chan back when Chan got him on the hip. Minho slid in ahead of Chan into the booth, Jeongin, Hyunjin, and Felix gone that time, and everyone else chilling.

“Did that guy burst into flames?” Changbin asked.

“Who?” Minho asked, genuinely having forgotten in favor of getting his drink back.

“The guy you glared off Chan’s backside. He looked like he was going to pee himself.”

“What guy?” Chan asked.

“Don’t see him now, but he was hot,” Jisung said. “He looked like he was going to try and cut in and Minho cut him off at the knees.”

Minho took a sip of his drink. “He was approaching me, too.”

“Unless you were in Chan’s ass, pretty sure he was beelining that way.”

“Who said he wasn’t?” Chan asked, laughing in response to everyone else’s laughter as Minho side-eyed him. “Wanted me all to yourself?”

“Always,” Minho said.

No one took him seriously, as that was his go-to response, dry as a piece of paper. It wasn’t like he danced with Chan exclusively, or the other way around. He probably chased people off the others, too. If he thought about it a while, he’d definitely remember it happening. Definitely. He could think of exactly one instance of it happening over the next hour, nursing his drink and rifling through his brain. It’d been Hyunjin, but it’d been some guy bothering him and Hyunjin had asked Minho to buzz the guy off. Chan had never asked for that assistance. Minho offered it free of charge, voluntarily, looking out for him like he’d have wanted to be looked out for if he’d ever needed it. Chan was just nicer than he was.

Minho glanced over, eyes narrowing when someone came up to talk to Chan as he waited for a drink, and his instinct was to smile, all dimples, and a faint sheen of sweat on his neck. If Chan found a hookup, it wasn’t anything to him. When his mind took it a step further, though… If Chan started dating, things would probably change. Chan would still be the type to make time for his friends even so. But it’d be inevitable there’d be less time for meandering evenings, or aimless dances. Maybe it’d be good, for Chan. What Minho didn’t get from him, he could patch in with the others. He wasn’t dependent on Chan, though what he offered as a package was different than anyone else. He was a fan of how things were right then, without adding someone else to the mix.

It made him consider that maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe getting Chan laid by some kind of stranger wasn’t it, as it had the potential to introduce a variable that couldn’t be factored for. Chan never hit on his friends, not beyond friendly jokes and compliments. Same thing he’d given Minho, the once-overs, the whistles and thumbs up. But he also could see sometimes, when Chan looked at him. He’d never paid much mind to it, because Chan was prone to absent staring. But there was that, and there was something else like when Chan saw something he very much liked. Or sometimes, very much wanted to eat.

He was moving before he had a chance to think twice about it, and Chan turned his head moments later at motion approaching him. The smile at him was different.

“The next song’s going to be good,” Minho said.

Chan’s drink was left at the table with Hyunjin still recovering from…something. Minho didn’t ask with Chan’s hand on his wrist.

“Saved me again,” Chan said, pulling Minho closer when they got to a spot that didn’t feel too claustrophobic. It was still mid-song, but Chan hadn’t called him out too badly anyway. Chan was a curious person. Genial, a dick when he put his mind to it, but a generally good guy. He marched to his own alpha code, Minho guessed. Was he hot? To the point where Chan almost didn’t know it. He was just Chan. Maybe that was part of the problem. Maybe he wouldn’t care about Chan’s poor options and just let him have at it, if they just got it out of their systems. They certainly had the chemistry for it, and if he was right about anything it was that.

It wasn’t like the books, though it certainly happened. Chan didn’t smell like a roasted butternut squash on a snowy day in February with kitten purrs, or anything like that. He smelled like himself, like the faded scent of his cologne, sweat, and probably some of his previous drink that he’d nearly spit on himself laughing at something Changbin said. Just something familiar. Something that belonged. He danced like that, too, fingers moving like he was trying to write the music into the skin of Minho’s back.

And he feared he’d let his tell go when he saw someone watching them, watching Chan, when Chan seemed to understand what was happening immediately. Two of them, watching.

“What kind of cretin is after you this time?” Chan asked.

It wasn’t any cretin focused on Minho that was for sure. He just didn’t like their vibes. What were they going to do, arm wrestle for Chan? No.

“Worst kind,” Minho said, and on impulse added, “Doesn’t even have a spigot.”

It took Chan a second before that sank in, half-yelping “Fuck!” as Minho began laughing. They struggled for a second as Chan shook him before bringing Minho close again.

“No more of that book,” Chan said, resigned. “Just don’t put your hands in my back pockets.”

He’d probably break his fingers if he tried as tight as Chan’s pants were.

“Deal,” Minho said, sliding his hands over the top of the pockets instead. He could feel Chan’s helpless laugh against his neck. If his smile was satisfied it was because of that, and the fact the cretins were giving up the hunt. Success, as Chan all but hugged the air out of him.

“They can’t have you, you’re mine,” Chan teased.

But it was just the slight burr of his voice from the edge of being tipsy, Chan’s hands on him, that almost gave him a chill. He didn’t have a comeback immediately for it, aside from squeezing Chan’s ass in what he hoped was retaliation and not acceptance. He was blank against Chan’s shoulder, and when he finally started toward words, whatever he was about to say was erased from his brain as someone goosed him. He was too slow looking around, the crowd closing around whoever did it, but the giggle from Chan made it clear it hadn’t been a stranger. He tried turning to leap after them, but Chan had too good a grip and was immune to the stink eye Minho sent him after their entire second-long struggle. He had steel for arms, Minho swore.

“Who was that?” he asked.

“Uh-uh,” Chan got out, still laughing as he reeled Minho back even closer. “I won’t be responsible for bloodshed.”

“You’ll be responsible for appropriate punishment. The anarchy that will happen if they think they can get away with anything if you have your hands on me is unimaginable. Come on, who was it?”

“Do I have my hands on you that often?”

“It’s not infrequent. We could make it never.”

“Scary,” Chan said, and sounded like that threat really had fallen as flat as it had felt.

“Chan.”

The sound of denial was extended, and the second one after that was half an octave higher. They probably could’ve gone back and forth like that until Chan’s voice was out of the range of human hearing but Minho sighed. Not because he’d given up, but because there were ways around Chan being stubborn. Like when they got back to the table, and there were a bunch of varied expressions from innocent to confused as to why Minho was staring.

“If you think I won’t punish all of you because I don’t know which of you it is, you’re wrong,” Minho said as he let Chan slide in to sit ahead of him.

Chan accepted his drink from Changbin and let out a low whistle. He only flinched a little as Minho’s knuckles met his leg, and somehow got back at him with a squeeze to Minho’s thigh. Not because it hurt, but because his brain had nothing but static for a good thirty seconds in the middle of the not-me’s and how-strange’s and what-happened’s. Anarchy. Chan was promoting anarchy from the group and from within.

***

Dinner had been eaten, and Chan flopped down on the couch, on the middle cushion for some reason, leaning back against one of his knees since one of his legs had been bent. He wasn’t sure about that, except maybe he’d left an opening that Chan was taking advantage of. Minho eyed him, and just went with it, stretching his free leg out over Chan’s thighs. It was Chan’s couch, so he could sit wherever he wanted. If he didn’t want Minho to use him as a leg rest, he’d have sat further down, so it wasn’t Minho’s fault.

“Anything new happening in your book?” Chan asked.

“This alpha just finished knotting him and he’s hard and going five minutes later,” Minho mused. “Maybe he’s an alien.”

“That could be a book,” Chan agreed. “Help, My Alpha is an Alien, and other stories.”

“Who needs aliens if alphas just spring up like daisies. Are you an alien?”

Chan chuckled, patting Minho’s ankle, which was partially not the response Minho had been after. “Five minutes? That’s a little much even depending on how long it’s been.”

Well, it never hurt to ask. For science. “There also seemed to be some sort of explosion happening when he came that seems suspect. There was a kaboom. Do you kaboom?”

They stared at each other for a second after Minho asked the question very seriously as though he was expecting Chan to give him a serious answer.

“Yeah, yeah sure. I…do not. Why? When did this become about me?”

“You’re the only alpha here. I can’t consult myself. Maybe there are secret alpha things that have been hidden from delicate omega ears. Whole canons, and alien stamina. Pity, the alpha gods have rejected you. It’ll never work out, I’m sorry.”

“I’m being rejected because I can’t kaboom?” Chan touched his forehead. “That’s really…cruel.”

“That’s life,” Minho said. “Kaboom or get off the pot. Hey!”

He probably deserved those spanks to his leg as Chan laughed. What could he do about it after all? He took a break from the reading when Chan got up again to get snacks to eat while they watched TV, since the shock factor lessened with constant exposure. When Chan sat back down, he pulled Minho’s leg right back over his lap. Food, TV, Chan laughing hysterically at the TV. All the usual suspects of a Friday night in.

When the show was over, there were other random things in the book he commented on, just seeing which made Chan laugh. Chan read to him from the news, dry as a desert, probably as a call back to reality. Minho was undeterred.

“Well, it’s a good thing he can get it up again every five seconds. I think they just filled up a bathtub with semen. That’s…a virile alpha.”

Was that too far? Chan’s mouth opened, closed. “No one would write that.”

“Alien dicks, and that’s the hill you’re going to die on?” Minho asked.

“That’s not even… Was he just a skeleton left after that?”

“Now it’s running over! The apartment downstairs is going to hate them! So stinky—“

“How— Let me see that.”

It was his phone! His precious book! He jerked it out of Chan’s reach and didn’t count on the fact that Chan was literally sitting between his legs so that when he fell off towards Minho, Minho’s defenses were compromised. Chan was also quick like a cat and too damn strong, so no amount of squawking kept his phone out of Chan’s hand. All he could do was lie there and glower as Chan pinned him and scrolled forward and back through the book and sent a judging look at him.

“That’s not in there,” Chan said, finally sure of himself in that as he dropped Minho’s phone on the cushion.

“It could have been,” Minho said.

“Could have been,” Chan said, turning his head so they were face to face. He wasn’t sure if Chan was aware he was on top of Minho or not, as he couldn’t quite evict the thought out of his head. “Is that a kink of yours then? You want to drown in…what was it? A bathtub of come?”

“I think a normal amount would be fine.”

All of Minho’s focus slowly fizzled when he realized he could feel the slow exhale against his face before Chan said, “Yeah? What’s your preferred way of…obtaining it?”

Were they having this conversation with Chan on top of him? It sure seemed like they were.

“Ideally…free range, organic. Straight from the source.”

Chan’s lips twitched. “So like, uh…groin to…trap?”

If someone could be on fire from the force of judgement, he’d have had a flaming man on top of him, but instead Chan was only giggling almost silently.

“You tried,” Minho said. A fifth of a tarnished gold star for effort.

“Does apartment living count as free range?” Chan asked.

He was all coy with it, too, for being between Minho’s legs and breathing on his face. Half of his brain was trying to formulate some kind of witty response, the other half was sending his hand out as a chaos agent to curl in Chan’s collar. When his teeth slipped off of his lower lip, Chan’s focus slipped with it. The only thought left in his brain as Chan kissed him was finally. Finally. Chan almost paused, their lips still touching, and the traitorous hand suddenly had a purpose, pulling Chan imperceptibly closer. If he’d had a theory of how Chan kissed, it was like that, nothing rough, nothing rushed, thorough, the same steady focus he danced with. Like all that existed to him was his connection to Minho’s mouth, and keeping that through a series of kisses, all but melting into him. That was all that was in his mind, on a loop, kissing Chan, all of Chan’s mouth, the way Minho’s fingers caught in his curls. But then Chan moved, shifted a little maybe, and Minho’s thigh responded on instinct against Chan’s hip, and the sound in his throat was a little like a moan absolutely muffled against Chan’s mouth.

Or maybe, swallowed by it. Because sure there was the shift, and the heat, and his head pressing back against the arm of the couch as Chan met his tongue and just— Kissed him. Not touching in hardly any other way, not counting the bulk of his body just barely keeping from flattening Minho onto the cushions. No teasing, on the edge of filthy, just learning that Chan just kissed like that, sensual, making Minho feel like he was sinking. Having Chan on top of him made him aware of just what other kinds of sinking they could get up to.

But that wasn’t what they’d been teasing about. He had a curiosity, and there was a way to solve it.

“Sit up,” Minho urged him, and it barely sounded like his own voice.

It took Chan a moment, blinking at him as they performed a little dance that was Minho trying to get his leg free from being trapped against the back of the couch, and Chan sitting back. He settled easy on Chan’s lap, Chan’s hands immediately at Minho’s waist as Chan’s head fell back against the cushion. He was dazzled for a moment by Chan’s wet mouth, the faint daze in his eyes as he tried to focus on Minho’s face. And he liked Chan on top of him kissing him, but being on top of Chan kissing him was threatening that for first place. He could see a little more, knees sliding a little wider as Chan’s eyes closed and he hummed against Minho’s lips.

It was heady, almost overtaking his better judgement to give in. He teased, pressing kisses to Chan’s mouth and pulling away almost immediately, calculating how many kisses it would take for Chan to get impatient with it. He thought five. It took four, Chan’s eyelashes lifting as he peeked to see just what exactly Minho was up to. Maybe his grin gave it away, Chan almost squirming under him, hands tightening at Minho’s waist. He didn’t make Chan whine for it, much as it amused him. Another time, maybe he would have, but the thing was, he tempted himself, too, with Chan’s mouth right there. And all of the rest of him, too. It wasn’t just Minho’s pants feeling damp and tight. He could feel it wasn’t just kissing to Chan, too. Feeling Chan hard for him, it was another new thing, and one he took advantage of as he nipped at Chan’s lower lip.

He could tell when Chan’s lizard brain caught up to the slow grind, the resulting gasp and subsequent groan. He knew the ways they’d teased each other had been entertaining, but reaching the edge of payoff was a different kind of satisfying. The heaviness of Chan’s eyelids, the flush of his cheeks, mouth red because of him. They’d never kissed, not like that anyway. Sure, Chan had dramatically bussed his cheek in anticipation of Minho going limp as though he’d been murdered. Which sometimes he complied with that expectation, others not. He’d certainly never had Chan’s tongue against his, or felt him hum into a kiss, or had the way Chan held Minho against him be quite that knowing.

When he pulled back a little, sitting back on Chan’s thighs and giving him - them - space to think, Chan was slow to respond, almost trying to reel Minho back. If he’d been intent on it, he could have, with the muscles Minho was feeling up but he licked his lips and saw he’d gotten Chan’s attention.

“I’ve seen how you eat, so I’m open to negotiating down from organic. Free range is still fine,” Minho said.

“As long as you’re satisfied,” Chan agreed.

Oh, he thought he would be as he tugged at the button of Chan’s pants with his eyes still on Chan’s. Chan exhaled as Minho slid the zipper slowly down, hitching all that air back in as Minho half stood, getting himself first between Chan’s legs, and then on his knees. It’d been a while since he’d sucked someone off, but he’d forgotten less about how to do that than he had about riding a bicycle.

Chan was watching him, and laughed as Minho let out a soft, “ooh,” as he got Chan’s cock free. Free range, and all that. Chan’s pants hadn’t hidden everything over the years, so Minho wasn’t particularly surprised or impressed. Appreciative, he supposed was a good way of putting it. He was very deliberate with his fingers, wrapping them around Chan in a very obvious show of measuring. There was definitely going to be no swallowing him whole.

“What’s that for,” Chan probed, looking for compliments.

“Adorable,” Minho said, meeting Chan’s eyes and fighting the smile. “Sure you’re not an alien?”

The easiest way not to get teased was for Minho to have other things to do with his mouth, and that was what he did. Tasting for a moment, before letting his lips slide and stretch. Not big enough to make it impossible, just enough to make him work for it. That made it interesting because he had to readjust, getting closer between Chan’s thighs and discovering if he sat just right he could grind against the couch. A perfect counterpoint to Chan breathing so carefully above him. He glanced up once and changed his mind because of the jolt it sent straight to his own cock. He’d seen horny Chan and lived. The heavy eyes, the tilt of his head— It seemed like danger.

“That’s good,” Chan nearly breathed. Chan was prone to talking with his hands, sometimes with his whole body depending on how serious, how excited, how comfortable he was. He had some kind of pathological need to keep his hands somewhere on Minho’s skin, and no wonder that didn’t change, touching Minho’s neck, his hair. He was tactile, always had been, somehow knowing where Minho’s boundaries were, knowing when to back off and give Minho space. When he was blowing someone he didn’t mind it. It let him know it was being enjoyed, and he was all about that. Praise was welcome, too. And the low moans as Minho determinedly sucked around him was praise Minho needed.

He pulled off for a second, giving his jaw a break as his tongue did the work, licking in long, even lines as he also stroked with his thumb. A whole meal. It wouldn’t take a bathtub to be satisfied, or any other limiting descriptor. The sounds Chan made altered as Minho’s mouth wrapped around him again, his free hand making the cushion squeak like he was trying to restrain himself. He wasn’t one to shun a challenge. Every problem had a way around it and it certainly wasn’t a problem he regretted having.

He was discovering the nexus between Chan the man, and Chan the alpha. No matter what quirks biology left them, people were pretty similar. Minho moaned around him, rutting with the jut of the couch, and using everything, the pull of his mouth, the slide of his tongue. He wasn’t teasing, mouth getting more wet as he stroked Chan with his hand as well, moaning around him. He didn’t think he’d ever gotten off while blowing someone but he was going to with Chan. He endeavored like he could get himself off with his mouth, sucking in desperate breaths as his knees widened. It was Chan. Chan was about to come for him. His eyelashes fluttered as the thought of the belly chain crossed his mind. If they’d done that in the club he’d have been staring right at it, the thump of bass, the ghost of Chan’s hands all over him.

That was what pushed him over the edge, tensing as he came in his pants at the thought of kneeling for Chan like that. He still had to be sure of his teeth, but he didn’t mind that. The pleasure perfused everything anyway as he tried to suck Chan deeper. If he hadn’t been there, hadn’t had his mouth on him, he’d have still known Chan was coming by the way he vocalized it, fingers tensing on the back of Minho’s neck. It made him shudder, swallowing quickly. The moan then wasn’t anticipation but celebration. He’d gotten what he wanted. Even if he hadn’t known it was exactly what he wanted when he’d started reading the book. He’d process all of that later as he wiped his bottom lip with the back of his hand.

“Here, come here,” Chan urged, half lifting Minho into his lap. Chan kissed him like he was trying to experience the blow job secondhand. Against his mouth, Chan muttered, “You came, didn’t you?”

And when Minho’s sound was agreement, he more felt than heard the, “Fuck.”

Chan kissed him gentler then, taking into account his tired lips, before kissing along his jaw, his neck.

“I knew you’d be good at that,” Chan said, pulling back far enough so they could see each other. And somehow managed to make even sounding out of breath attractive.

“Is it because I have a mouth on me?”

He’d heard that a time or two but not quite in that way.

“Something like that,” Chan said. “I’ve seen you work a straw.”

Minho’s eyes widened, thinking that through a little as he scrutinized Chan’s face. “Have you been evaluating my technique over drinks?”

“I see things.”

Saw things about Minho, apparently. He guessed they were similar there. He shifted and regretted it. It felt like he was wet and cold in every way possible and none of them were pleasant. Chan glanced down and then nodded, stroking against Minho’s neck with his thumb.

“Want to throw those in the washing machine?”

Chan kissed him again, helped him to stand up.

“I’ll get you some shorts,” Chan said.

Minho changed in the bathroom, cleaning up and getting Chan’s shorts off the doorknob when Chan knocked to let him know they were there. Chan was put back together too by the time Minho got out, helping him get his clothes set in the washing machine and getting Minho a drink. After he’d taken a long pull off his water, he realized Chan was watching him. His mouth still looked like they’d been kissing, a little rumpled. Soft, but also sexy. Minho set the water down, taking a step toward him.

“So we’ve established you’re not an alien. How long does it take for round two?”

Chan’s curious look at Minho’s first sentence turned into a dirty grin at the second as he backed toward his bedroom expecting Minho to follow him.

Turned out, he didn’t keep the shorts on long.

***

Minho had absolutely no idea what time it was when he woke up. The overhead light was still on, there was a blanket over him, and there was Chan wrapped around him like Minho was his newfound body pillow. There wasn’t one stitch of clothes between them. Minho hadn’t really thought about it while blowing him, but it’d been Chan bringing up the issue of the knot - or lack thereof - before fucking.

“It’s never happened with a partner, so we shouldn’t have to worry,” was what he’d said.

Worry about it had been the last thing on Minho’s mind, really. Had Chan fucked him to a very satisfying orgasm? Absolutely. With a cock like that, a knot wasn’t necessary. Especially not with Chan being very, very determined that Minho enjoyed every facet of it. Enough to knock him out entirely, to where it could have been a year later or maybe another country entirely for as much as he knew. He was pretty sure he was on some sort of blanket that felt a little like it was sticking to him. The offer to get a towel had been rejected in favor of expediency, and that was the situation they were in. But, all things came to an end with his body insisting he trek the wilds to the bathroom.

Which meant exiting Bang Constrictor Incorporated.

An elbow and a mutter later, and Minho got out of his grip, after a promise to be back. What was he going to do? Sneak out the door in his wet clothes? Right, his clothes. He put them in the dryer first, turning it on and getting cleaned up yet again. To his surprise, Chan had moved while he was gone. The blanket he’d peeled off of was gone, a different blanket in its place and that and the sheet turned down. He wasn’t oblivious to the way Chan looked him over, or to the way he was doing the same. A glance at the clock told him they’d been out for a good five hours. It was almost four in the morning.

“Cleaned up a little,” Chan said, almost irritatingly cheerful for it being the middle of the night. “It’s pretty late. Want to stay over?”

He had before, on that same bed a few times. On the couch a few other times. Not like that. It ought to have freaked him out a little. He didn’t have the brain to think about it too much, just flipping off the overhead light and hearing Chan laugh. It felt as normal as it ever did. Chan was…Chan. Chan was in bed by the time Minho got in, and he was in Minho’s space by the time Minho was barely horizontal.

“You want me to be safe staying over, or you want to be handsy?” Minho asked.

“Both?” Chan said beside his cheek.

It wasn’t like he was unwilling.

“Who knew I’d been sleeping next to a horn dog all this time,” Minho said, turning so he could get a firm grip on Chan’s ass.

“I know, right,” Chan agreed.

Minho scoffed, kissing Chan back in no sort of admission.

“We don’t have to,” Chan said, almost sweetly like he was going to offer to tuck Minho in next.

“Yes we do, now that you made me want it.”

And he bodied Chan on top of him so Chan didn’t have the chance to laugh at him further. It didn’t deviate from the first time so much, except that Chan didn’t have anything pesky like a refractory period holding him back from being ready. No, he was hard as his fingers sank into Minho. No need to get him into it, he was perfectly slick, perfectly ready. But he wasn’t going to deny Chan his fun when it felt that nice. He could almost see Chan’s brain working as he tried out various moves to see what got Minho to react. It shouldn’t have been hot but apparently Chan had the corner on bizarre things Minho found attractive. His hair was wild? Hot, mostly because Minho’s hands had destroyed it to that point. Sweaty? He’d offer himself up as Chan’s workout any day. Loud? It just meant Chan was going to cause Minho to be louder.

And on a bitten curse at another stroke of Chan’s fingers, he threw out, “Cock, now.”

Chan could also laugh all day as long as he did what Minho asked, lifting Minho’s hips with his fingers still wet and fitting himself to slide in deep. Minho’s head fell back as he groaned, finally getting what he wanted. Not a tease like his fingers, Chan humming as his hips rolled a little to let Minho relax around him. That worked for a hot second because as soon as Chan began moving he was right back to trying to clutch Chan’s cock to death. Luckily he wasn’t able to, because he needed Chan to keep moving. Chan held his hips down, grinding up into him and— Chan’s neighbors were going to hate him but there was no holding back the sounds Chan was fucking out of him. It was involuntary, like the way his hands gripped Chan’s wrists, wanting to touch himself and unable to coordinate himself to try, eyes unfocused as Chan leaned closer, teasing his lips and absorbing the sound as Minho arched and keened. His fucking cock. His fucking cock, if he’d known—

To be honest, he wasn’t aware of anything changing at first, either, just knowing everything started feeling more intense. He’d just thought it was getting close to coming, and there was that, too. But it was just that tug as Chan moved, like he was getting thicker the longer he moved inside Minho. His brain didn’t have the power to figure out why it felt so good, why it was changing, until it clicked in.

“Chan. Chan—“ He hitched in a breath, fingers spasming on Chan’s arms as Chan looked like he was coming out of some kind of trance, still and focusing on Minho’s face. “Knot.”

“Knot?” Chan asked, like it was some kind of foreign word. An experimental movement had his eyes widening. “Oh, fuck.”

He might’ve laughed if he had the breath for it. The alpha who didn’t knot was halfway to an Olympic sized one right that second and Minho wanted every bit of it.

“If you don’t want to stop, don’t stop,” Minho told him. They hadn’t navigated it beforehand because they’d been too busy joking about why it wouldn’t happen, not about what if it did.

“Sure?”

“Come in me,” Minho said.

And Chan groaned, kissing Minho, as his hips told Minho just exactly what Chan thought of it. He wanted, that was what Minho knew. The intense by easy movement of before took an edge of desperation.

“No need to rush. Enjoy it,” Minho said. The gloat that it was with him was enormous. It could have lifted him straight off the bed except for Chan holding him down. And knotting him.

So there was every need to rush. His cock was aching and Chan’s movements got slower, the knot nudging deeper. When he opened his eyes, he almost jolted because Chan was staring at him, and Minho’s mouth parted, trying to draw a breath and only a moan coming out as Chan began to stroke his cock.

“Come,” Chan said, voice rough.

He’d never come on command before, but orgasm rolled him, trying to move against Chan’s fingers, trying to squeeze around his cock. A whole rush of nonsense babbled out of his mouth as he came all over his stomach, gasping between moans, trying to grab at Chan’s arms, his shoulders.

“Fuck,” he heard Chan say near his face. “Fuck, Minho.”

He’d already heard Chan come twice. But there was something to that time, something that embellished it. He didn’t grab Minho’s hips, didn’t hurt him by trying to thrust hard, he just let the knot do what it was supposed to, hold him still while he came as deep in Minho as it was possible. Flushed, panting, face so serious and so lost in pleasure that it gave Minho some kind of contact high.

A knot wasn’t some magical pleasure device. It had just as much potential to cause pain. It could be an inconvenience, uncomfortable, or just exist prolonging a mediocre experience. The working of it required compatible biology on two sides, or at least a knowledge of how to make disparate biology work. There wasn’t much movement to be had after the fact, and in his experience the pleasure in it was more mental than overtly physical.

His body didn’t get the memo. Like he was trying to track it, the shape of it, the press of it after Chan had come. The problem was, every little clutch had stars dancing behind his eyes, one of his heels catching on the sheet as he tried to drag air into his lungs. He wasn’t even fully hard but he shuddered from it, coming in a warm pulse instead of a peak, eyelashes fluttering as he groaned. There were a few last flashes, feeling like he was coming back to his body somehow. And again when he opened his eyes to find Chan watching him.

“That looked like it felt good,” Chan said.

If he hadn’t already been flushed, he probably would’ve been then. Chan watching him had been the very last thing on his mind, though if it had been, he wasn’t sure if he’d have come out the other side.

“It did.”

“Does that…usually happen?”

No. Far from it. He shook his head anyway, still trying to get his brain back together.

“You okay?” Chan asked.

“Mm,” Minho said. Maybe too warm, but definitely not in any pain. He leaned into the touch as Chan stroked against his hair. They breathed together like that, several minutes of it, and Chan lifted a little, just looking at him.

“I swear all the things I learned about flew out of my head. They really drilled it into us about making sure everyone consented, and to inquire about how they are after, and— First time I had sex, I had a whole speech planned out like I was addressing a CEO to pitch a deal or something. And then a knot never happened.”

The thought of younger Chan eagerly rehearsing how to take care of whoever he was with was endearing.

“If that’s what happens every time, I probably would’ve never even made it to your apartment. Would’ve been people twenty deep outside.”

“Good thing it hadn’t yet, then,” Chan teased, rubbing a thumb against his arm to get his attention. “Hey.”

“What? I’m communing with your dick.”

“Thank you,” Chan said softly.

Thank him for what? For being someone trustworthy enough for Chan to get knotty with? He was just doing his duty for the world. A knot like that couldn’t be hidden. The next person to experience it would thank him.

And he ignored the whole gallop his insides encountered at the thought of that. He needed those lungs to keep working, as Chan kept kissing him. But oh, he felt it when they did get separated. A deep and mostly pleasant ache as he cleaned up a third time. He didn’t even protest when Chan reeled him in, pulling Minho against him like he needed to know he was there, safe. Or maybe, just for the comfort of it. He wasn’t too warm, then, just right in fact as all the tension in him seemed to melt as Chan breathed against his hair. He was asleep, before he could consider that gallop, or anything else at all.

***

One good knot deserved another, but after a break. A significant one. He wasn’t a machine. He couldn’t speak for Chan, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t either. His stomach had ideas when he woke up but the light of day also made him acknowledge yes, he’d slept with Chan. More than once. And he was being cuddled like he was a man-sized teddy bear. And yet somehow, that didn’t feel wrong? He wasn’t wanting to slither out and pretend nothing had happened. It just felt like an extension of what was already there, which was…interesting.

“Good morning,” Chan murmured.

“Morning. I should probably go home at some point,” Minho said, rolling his neck against Chan’s upper arm.

“Why?”

“Didn’t bring any clothes with me.” Not that he was using them, much, but even though they’d washed what was compromised, there wasn’t any telling if it’d get re-compromised at the rate they were going.

All Chan did was chuckle, all but nuzzling against the side of Minho’s head. “I have clothes you can use. If you need to go, that’s fine, but… Don’t let clothes chase you off.”

Minho hummed, considering that as Chan seemed to reach another thought plateau.

“What do you need clothes for anyway?”

Sure, he just wanted to keep Minho naked in bed, that was it, laughing as Minho elbowed at him.

“Fine, I’ll use your clothes.” Though Minho squinted at the ceiling. “Belly chains don’t count as clothes.”

The laugh was a warm gust against his face, Chan kissing his cheek as his hand moved across Minho’s stomach. “Might be nice to see you in one anyway.”

“Not before you feed me. I need room.”

“Deal, what do you want?”

They agreed on what to order after Chan retrieved his phone. There were perks, he supposed, to being shacked up in Chan’s apartment. There definitely wasn’t any naked men traversing his bedroom to purchase food at Minho’s behest. Though, he basked in Chan’s regret that he had to get dressed to wait for the food.

“I’m going to shower while you’re waiting,” Minho said, and tried to hide his glee at the immediate look of betrayal. “You can use your imagination.”

He needed every second in the shower. He felt it before he got under the water, and even more so after. Even with interim cleaning, he was sticky and flakey in places he didn’t want to think about. The hot water soothed the muscles that’d gotten strained even with it being a good time. He let it beat on him as long he dared before getting out and half drying his hair. He could smell the food when he got out of the bathroom, pulling out one of Chan’s hoodies, getting back into the pair of shorts, and pouring himself onto the couch beside Chan as Chan opened up the boxes. Chan glanced over him once before handing him a plate. Chan didn’t have to say anything. He knew what it was like. He was in Chan’s clothes, smelled like him undoubtedly even with the shower, and even more so because he smelled like his soap, and shampoo.

For a few minutes there were just sounds of satisfaction as they refueled. Dinner had been a hundred hours before it seemed like.

“Why haven’t we done this before?”

“Eat?” Minho asked innocently, knowing exactly what Chan meant as Chan stared at him. “Well, you don’t sleep with friends, so that was probably most of it.”

Chan gawked at him like he’d just said he was actually an alien with spigot. “Huh?”

“That was like the third thing out of your mouth when we met. Hi, I’m an alpha, my name is Chan, and I do not sleep with my friends, soup?”

“I didn’t!”

“You did,” Minho insisted. “Not like you saw some timid omega you needed to protect, just you needed to assure everyone you weren’t like those other alphas.”

“I—What?”

“Would I lie?” Minho asked. And didn’t wait for a response because, actually, yes. “You were dating someone so you were just trying to frontload the trustworthiness. I wasn’t sure if you were dating someone jealous or not.”

“Oh,” Chan said, thinking about that again. “I mean… That’s possible. I also never did want to be the kind of alpha who went around grazing through my friend groups either.”

“I don’t think you’d have been that person alpha or not,” Minho said.

“I’d like to think so,” Chan said, and frowned. “Though, I keep thinking about the knot.”

“Me too,” Minho said with relish and beeped in protest when Chan poked him. What? He was. Maybe not the way Chan meant, but he was. “What about it?”

“Just…that it happened. Why now?”

“I”m comfortable, maybe?” Minho mused, shrugging. “A lot of sex is mental, so maybe you’re just geared to know someone well before it happens. Anyway, a knot doesn’t make the alpha.”

“Some people think so. If that’s right, that it takes really knowing someone well, with no sort of guarantee it’ll happen. Some people wouldn’t be willing to just hang around for years for just-in-case.”

Minho’s eyes narrowed as his brain chomped right onto the end of that. Too real to be something offhand out of Chan’s brain. “Is that why your last relationship ended?”

“Part of it. They felt it was too much like being with an omega.”

Minho wondered if he could eject himself back in time to speak some words to that particular human. He didn’t remember their name or face after over two years.

“Is that why you haven’t dated since?”

“Maybe part of it? I’ve been to doctors. Nothing’s wrong. Obviously nothing’s wrong. They just said some alphas are different like that. If it’s really important to someone, then at least if they knew that right at the start, it wouldn’t be an expectation. I just haven’t been ready, not just that. Dating’s complicated. Sex can be, too.”

“It was great without it,” Minho said. Did he want to have to expound? No. But it was hanging out there like a piñata needing hit. “Knots are fun, like toys. They’re just not…necessary. What was the name of the person you dated again?”

Chan laughed. “You can’t scold them now. They’re married now to an alpha I’m sure gave them what they needed. I mean, that’s part of why everyone knows. It’s a pretty personal thing, but I figured if someone was going to really… Not just laugh with me, but mock me for it, I wanted to know what kind of person they were, I guess.”

“And none of our friends has,” Minho said. Partially because he’d never heard it, partially because he needed to be sure it hadn’t happened when he wasn’t there.

“No, they haven’t. You’re good people.”

“Well, good. Now that you’ve started on your friend group, you’re doomed.”

“Am I? Who’s next then?” Chan asked.

A tumbleweed blew across his brain as he tried to imagine Chan going after any one of their friends.

“Jeongin is basically a baby!” he blustered.

“I didn’t say anyone’s name,” Chan protested, holding up his hands. “I don’t think that’s happening!”

That was all he wanted to hear. And it wasn’t like some kind of dear diary sort of day. They rented a movie to watch, and then another with a late lunch. Another knot, just to be sure it still worked clearly, a nap. Or, most of a nap as Minho heard his phone going off like a set of castanets from the living room.

“Ugh,” he mumbled into Chan’s shoulder. “Who’s texting me that fast? Damn, Jisung.”

“Want me to get it?” Chan asked.

Was he going to say no to not moving? He waved his hand or something like it and Chan obeyed, returning seconds later as Minho’s mind was still half goo to read Minho the texts. Chan knew his unlock code. There wasn’t anything salacious to be hiding anyway. Cat pictures, maybe. But Jisung’s 47 messages were apparently a super exciting opportunity! Getting people together for dinner!

“Ugh,” he got out again.

“Guessing that’s a no,” Chan said, chuckling. “Want me to text him back?”

“Just tell him we won’t be there,” Minho said.

“Done.”

Human space heater re-entered the chat, and Minho melted against him for the rest of that well-earned nap.

***

That led to dinner. Or a late dinner, anyway. Minho ordered that, ate that as they watched TV, and finally sated, went back into his messages to see what Jisung had said. And pausing.

He read it through four or five times before it finally clicked what had happened, barking out a laugh and getting up to stand in front of Chan on the couch. He smoothed Chan’s hair back as Chan peered at him.

“I’m just checking to see if we fucked your brain out. You didn’t respond to Jisung earlier.”

“I did?” Chan said.

“No. You responded to the entire group chat. ‘Won’t be there,’ you sent. And then, ‘Minho either.’ So they know I didn’t send that, and you did. You didn’t indicate my hands were broken. No one responded other than a single acknowledgement, so I’m assuming they hopped into their own group chat with speculation and five rounds of gossip that we’re fucking.”

“I was a little distracted. You could’ve been driving?”

“Yeah, escorting you around the city on my pogo stick.” Minho flopped back down and let his head rest back on the couch, staring at him. “I don’t really care, because if they ask me I’m going to tell them to ask you. It’s not going to bother me, but you’re the one who’s going to have to deal with them teasing you about it until the next ice age.”

“As though they don’t already,” Chan said, which was fair. Still, Chan kicked at his foot, looming at him across the back of the couch, or trying valiantly to.

“What?” Minho asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

“How long have you wanted me?” Chan probed. And Minho frowned, making a face like he wasn’t sure that was quite accurate even as Chan poked at him physically. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Where’s the fun in that? Though if I knew what I know now, I could’ve asked you to check my malfunctioning spigot.”

Chan’s head fell back as he laughed. “I’d maybe have asked if you need a doctor.”

“Yes,” Minho said, changing his voice, all serious like he was in a doctor’s office. “I need a Bang…doctor.”

Chan just judged him as he smirked.

It probably would’ve been humiliating if he’d made a move and Chan hadn’t been interested. Though, he supposed he had made a move in a way. It’d gotten them where they were a day later and several bangs also.

“Though, speaking of that,” Chan said, and Minho again peered at him. Speaking of…what. “We’ve been working you pretty hard. Don’t want you getting sore, so if you want a turn…?”

There was a note in that almost like Chan wasn’t sure Minho would agree. Oh, needing a bang, that was what they were speaking of. It turned out, he was in fact very interested.

“I’m equal opportunity,” Minho said, as Chan’s grin got a little sharper. “Your place or mine?”

“I have my own…spigot, but it needs a little help running over,” Chan said.

“You’re gross,” Minho said, at the same time he was off the couch and Chan’s hand was already cupping the back of his head. Between kisses he said, “Store bought is fine. Come here.”

He wasn’t sure where here was except that leftovers were abandoned in favor of returning to Chan’s room. He was nose blind to it, if the room reeked of them. There’d been at least two changes of sheets with Chan washing more as they spoke, but that didn’t clear the air. If it did smell, it wasn’t enough to bother them. And he’d have said he shed his clothes, but oops, he was still wearing Chan’s.

“Let me get you ready,” Chan said, kissing him onto the mattress.

It turned out that Chan’s oral talents went beyond being distracting people with candy, teasing, or talking. Minho was people. Knowingly or unknowingly, didn’t matter. When Chan had nicely offered to “get him ready” he’d expected Chan to get him hard, not spending the next ten minutes apparently trying to get Minho to beg. Which he hadn’t. Barely. Why hadn’t they done that before, was what he wanted to know. When the urge to grab Chan’s head and fuck his mouth began to get too much to bear, though, he was out.

“If you don’t want this to last 30 seconds, you’d better stop,” he warned.

Chan smiled up at him with his eyes, thankfully because his mouth was still full, but seconds later he was taking a deep breath and saying, “I don’t mind.”

Yeah, well. He did. He wasn’t a competitive person, but Chan had gotten his chance to show his prowess, and Minho deserved his chance, too. He half wanted to turn Chan over to see his ass in all its glory but the way Chan settled it was obvious he meant to stay on his back. Minho could work with that, too. There was a lot to be appreciated from that direction. It also meant he got to see Chan’s face when Minho’s fingers pressed into him. Something like relief? Which Minho didn’t quite get. He certainly hadn’t been going to change his mind. Chan purring, his teeth all over his bottom lip as Minho fingered him was imminently acceptable. Sure he’d had his hands all over that ass, but given the advent of the knot, he got why Chan would be a little invested in giving it a test drive. He’d have done the same.

A gust of wondering sent him back to Chan asking if he wanted a turn. Like maybe he was getting ready to laugh it off. He shook it off, as he laughed at a strangled sound Chan made.

“Oh, like that, huh?” he asked, and Chan mouthed the same thing but in impatient and horny, his head falling back in defeat. “What did you want?”

“Did I tease you like this?”

“Did you?” Minho marveled at him. It was a good thing that he did actually have his fingers in Chan or he might’ve found himself being dragged closer from the wild look Chan directed at him. Oh, he liked that. The wild, the desperate, the confused look like he couldn’t figure out how to make his face express what he was feeling. That face was an athlete itself, and while he wanted to see what else he could draw out, his own patience wasn’t infinite. Another day. “Feel ready?”

One of the sounds in the unintelligible mumble was yes. He was also fairly sure he’d just been cursed at, which was rude. And satisfactory. He was prepared for Chan to feel good. Probably even great. He wasn’t sure why Chan watching him then was what made him feel exposed, though Chan was the one with the face going through it. He was going to make some kind of joke, half formed thoughts in his head as he leaned closer to Chan’s face. He had an alpha on his back, and there had to be a terrible book joke in there somewhere, but Chan derailed him entirely.

“Hi handsome,” Chan almost drawled.

Wasn’t there some kind of rule against trying to end someone mid-fuck? It felt like his whole brain went offline for a second from the extreme amount of cheese. Chan knew exactly what he was doing, too, from the shit-eating grin as he reeled Minho closer.

“You suck,” Minho told him.

“You’d know how well, too, wouldn’t you?”

The only way apparently to stop his mouth was to kiss him so he couldn’t talk. It wasn’t a trial exactly but it was what he had to sacrifice himself to do so they didn’t start wrestling in a less pleasing fashion. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t punish Chan in his own way. Or, maybe it didn’t turn out that way. The second the movement, the angle, changed, Chan did too. He gasped into the kiss, hands seizing on Minho’s sides.

“Again,” Minho was pretty sure he said.

So he did that again. And again, as the man under him began to contort - almost began to writhe as Minho was clearly scratching an itch. He’d have almost thought it was pain but the moans weren’t pain. They were desperate, hitching a little at the end occasionally higher. It was fascinating. Gorgeous. Sexy. He wanted to see what other sounds he could draw out. There wasn’t any mischief left, and very little that Chan’s face could hide. Chan’s hands were all over him, his hair, his sides, his hips - like Chan was trying to feel the movement of them from that angle also. Each of those little hitches of breath were caused by his cock. What a rush that was. It wasn’t like he’d just lay there and let Chan do whatever he wanted - Chan should be so lucky - but there was a different spin on being the one doing the majority of the movement. It wasn’t necessarily more control, but it was different.

The thought of saying something back like “hey sexy,” made him want to cringe. And yet, he absolutely would have done it if he’d have been guaranteed any response other than amusement or even faint pleasure. While Chan bursting out laughing in the best of times was certainly satisfying, that wasn’t the response he wanted. Pleasure wasn’t enough either. Chan had been half serious and half fucking with him, and Minho’s response had been Chan’s reward. Minho wanted more than that. He wanted to know what would short Chan’s brain out. Made him go static and think of nothing else. To level up, basically. He wasn’t sure he’d find it right then. He didn’t have to, because even if it took months he wasn’t going to forget.

“You’re good,” Chan murmured against his mouth, and some other words Minho lost between kisses. He could have said that he knew, but he supposed that he did. He couldn’t say he’d fucked many alphas, but he was remembering the perk of knowing when said alphas were getting pretty close to getting off. There wasn’t any happy home for the knot, but it sure was there as evidenced by Chan’s moan when he touched it.

“Where’s that go?” he teased, and the resulting giggle was a little more breathy than usual. It’d been longer than 30 seconds, and that was all that really mattered. He couldn’t just take long strokes like he might have done for himself, so he settled the knot against his palm, squeezing it with his last two fingers, stroking with his thumb. He didn’t stop as Chan tensed under him, and Chan didn’t come on the first groan, or the second. But the third was longer, desperate, and Minho watched him come, watched him writhe, felt everything as the air caught in his lungs. It was like watching a force of nature, waves crashing against the rocks. It made it hard to remember to breathe, a little high pitched whine ringing in his ears as Chan came around him. He fucked Chan through it and that might’ve been a little discomfort by the time Minho came but Chan didn’t look bothered by it. Minho certainly wasn’t. Why hadn’t they done that before, too? He was running out of fingers to tick those off on as the satisfaction, physical, merged with the knowledge he’d just come in Chan. Yeah, he’d done that. And Chan, his eyes were heavy as he stroked along Minho’s back.

“That was satisfying,” Chan murmured.

“I’d hope so,” Minho said, sucking in a deeper breath. “Your spigot was entirely adequate.”

The giggles were so stupid, biting at Chan’s collarbone even though he was the one who’d instigated them laughing. It got him to roll off, no knot to worry about there. Chan groaned when he got out of bed, but he could deal being alone for a whole thirty seconds. Chan had helped him clean up too, so he did his best, getting a hot wash cloth and at least getting the worst of things mopped up. Mostly Chan’s own mess, but Chan didn’t seem bothered by that as Minho took care of him. That was nice, too, Chan’s hand on Minho’s knee as Minho sat on the bed beside him.

“You don’t want to know how long it’s been,” Chan said, laughing a little as he wiggled back a little against the pillow.

No, he was discovering he didn’t want to know at all. Even the thought of knowing had him wanting to ask who it’d been who’d felt Chan come, seen Chan like that. Though even as that irrational thought rose, he realized a worse one, which was that no one had. No one had seen Chan exactly like that. Maybe they’d fucked him, maybe he’d come, but it hadn’t been with a knot. Just like the knot itself, no one had had that before, and the satisfaction settled deep.

“Don’t tell me, jerk ex wasn’t into that either.”

Chan just looked at him, pressing his lips together. And after Minho stared at him a little longer, he said, “What? You said not to tell you.”

“What a jackass. And he broke up with you? The trash took itself out.”

Chan laughed, sitting up and wrestling him into a sideways hug. “If I’d known you better, you’d have gotten my head out of my ass faster.”

“Had to get something up there,” Minho muttered, only making Chan laugh harder. “At least he didn’t traumatize you too badly since you were able to ask for it with me.”

“I trust you, though,” Chan said.

Well, and he should, probably. He wouldn’t get all puffed up about it.

“Maybe that’s what the knot thing is too. Not just comfort, but trust?”

“Maybe. I can hear you contemplating murder from here,” Chan said, wrapping an arm a little tighter around Minho’s body.

“Contemplating makes it sound like I wouldn’t succeed,” Minho said.

“You’re the last person I’d bet against when it comes to that,” Chan said. And his voice dropped, softened, taking on a honeyed tone. “I’d just rather you come back to bed now.”

“Let me go toss these,” Minho said, lifting the wet cloth and towel. Chan made a sound of agreement, kissing Minho’s jaw and letting him go. He got those into the hamper and washed his hands, and Chan had the blanket all set so Minho could just crawl right in.

“He just wanted something else,” Chan said. “I guess I did, too.”

He supposed. There were people like that, and he guessed they were valid, too. Himself, he liked getting fucked and fucking, depending on the mood or who he was with. He didn’t care about some petty 50/50 bean counting bullshit like he knots x times, gets fucked y times, whatever. It could be 60/40, hell, 80/20. It didn’t care if it fluctuated as long as it was all enjoyable and wanted. So he guessed he was right, as usual, that Chan had been well rid of the guy. If both of them had settled, it probably would’ve ended eventually anyway but with more hurt. And Chan wasn’t pining, so there was that. Didn’t still mean he was okay with the guy, but he could be satisfied as he grunted and rolled over a little.

“What do you want?” Chan asked, pressing several soft kisses against Minho’s neck and draping himself against his back.

“A nap.”

Minho wasn’t even sure what time it was. Close enough to midnight.

“Fair,” Chan said. He apparently turned off the light because the next time Minho was half awake it was still dark, and Chan was deeply asleep and breathing against his neck. It took only moments to sink back into dreams.

***

A couple of things Minho acknowledged when he woke was that it was the second morning he was waking up in Chan’s bed. Or mostly morning. They’d woken up, filled up on cereal, and— Well, more sex. It was closer to noon than morning any more. Chan was plastered against his back like a space heater, lightly stirring which was probably what woke Minho up to begin with. Spending another day there was a possibility. The chores waiting for him at the apartment, however, were not going to do themselves, and Monday loomed. They were all gross again from that round a few hours previous, and Minho’s urge was to leave and do whatever minimal processing necessary. Leave Chan to his wrecked bed, and whatever he needed to accomplish, too. There hadn’t been any weekend social media gym pictures but he supposed he’d had all those beamed directly into his brain since he’d been Chan’s gym.

“Uh-uh,” Chan muttered, when Minho wiggled to see just how tight Chan’s hold was.

He stared at the ceiling hoping he would be beamed strength somehow, and sighed, peeling up Chan’s arm and getting moderately free. He turned back and one of Chan’s eyes cracked open, considering him when Minho poked his cheek.

“I have to get home. My boss won’t be amused if I show up reeking of you and dressed in your sweatpants.”

Chan mumbled something that sounded like, “I wouldn’t mind.” But Chan also wasn’t his boss and didn’t pay his bills.

“I’ll lock up on my way out. See you Thursday,” Minho said, and didn’t resist when Chan reeled him back for a second to press a kiss half against Minho’s mouth. He wiggled away after that, before Chan could turn into a constrictor again. He supposed it wasn’t surprising that Chan, who was prone to touch anyway, would turn into a kissing addict given the liberty.

Minho looked back after he’d dressed and pulled on another one of Chan’s hoodies, and regretted it for a moment. Chan had curled over onto his side a little further, toward where Minho had been, arm out on top of the blanket like he was missing Minho being there. He let his mind empty on the taxi ride home. A small part of him was pretty sure he ought to have left after the blow job. Or, after the first knot. It probably would’ve been easier. There wasn’t anything that changed, at a base level. Spending most of the weekend in bed with Chan, it had happened.

He ignored the half a dozen text messages from their friends in various stages of speculation. Clearly he’d fucked Chan’s brain into goo for him to text their friends from Minho’s phone. He’d let Chan do the explaining. That was just how that worked. After he’d showered and smelled like himself again, he put the hoodie back on because he was cold. He caught up on chores, reading, feeling Chan missing after being in his radius for the most of two whole days. One of the last thoughts before he slept was that the hoodie smelled like Chan’s hair. Somehow it irritated and comforted him at the same time.

***

People weren’t like sharks, swimming around in a sea of air sensing molecules of scent. Sure there were the obvious ones. Minho could detect an alpha from an omega, and really strong associated scents. There were some who could smell more. He’d heard of them, and apparently he worked with one. Apparently he was “friends” with one. When Seungmin walked into Minho’s little office he stopped dead for a second before sitting down, and Minho was none the wiser.

“Good weekend?” Seungmin asked.

“Pretty relaxing,” Minho said.

“Doesn’t smell like Chan got much relaxing in.”

Seungmin didn’t flinch when Minho looked up and met his eyes. “What?” Minho asked, he thought very pleasantly.

“You smell like Chan more often than not anyway, which is…whatever. Though, this is new, unless you’re wearing his dirty underwear.”

“That’s…very specific.” There was a small possibility Seungmin was inferring from Chan’s texting mistake. Knowing Seungmin, though, he was saying it just like it was.“You’re a super smeller? How inconvenient for you.”

“To say the least,” Seungmin said, his mouth flattening for a moment. “Anyway, don’t worry, I won’t spread anything around while you’re figuring things out.”

Figuring things out? They’d figured out the sex part pretty well. They hadn’t had any deep conversations about what it meant and if it was going to happen again. If he polled himself, he mostly assumed that it would at some point. It’d been too good not to. If Chan was going to find someone else who was trustworthy or comfortable enough, he wasn’t sure how he figured in. Side piece wasn’t really his speed while Chan grazed the depths of humanity. Though it was equally as possible that once Chan got the whole knot thing figured out that whatever hangups he’d had before went out the window. Hard to tell. Not something he was going to discuss with Seungmin whatever it was.

He put it out of his mind after Seungmin got his question answered, and got back to work.

***

Minho was right, that nothing had changed. They texted like normal. The only things that really indicated anything had happened was a picture of the blanket and Chan’s lament. Minho had told him to put down a towel. Though, even that might not’ve been enough.

Did you wash it? Minho asked.

I’m not an animal.

Minho didn’t argue back, but the gif he sent questioned that a little.

Their Thursday hangout happened without fanfare. The food showed up ten minutes after he did. Chan hadn’t greeted him at the door like they’d been apart for twenty years, and definitely not with a kiss or anything like it. They exchanged what new dickishness their bosses had managed to get up to that week, and that was that. The only thing that really changed was when Chan sat back down, and he didn’t leave room for Minho to stretch out. In fact, he was close enough that the back of Minho’s thighs met Chan’s when he brought his legs up onto the cushions. Chan seemed unbothered by that, working the remote to find something to watch.

Chan’s hand on his leg didn’t raise any alarms, it was so normal. The incremental advance of Chan’s hand up his thigh over the course of the next thirty minutes was not.

“I have to go to work tomorrow,” Minho said.

Chan’s face was so innocent as to be unbelievable. “What?”

Maybe Chan just wanted to fool around. It wasn’t like it was late. They did technically have time for that. He thought that, right up to the point where he squirmed with Chan knotted in him, Chan’s mouth exploring his neck, with Minho’s hand tangled in his hair.

Maybe that was just a thing they did. It seemed like Chan’s body definitely remembered everything they’d learned over the weekend. He couldn’t say he had complaints, but at least they’d gotten his pants off early that time so his journey home wouldn’t be a journey of shame. He wasn’t some book-level faucet. Though the wet he was resting on made him sort of question that fact. There was a towel that time, at least.

“Shower?” Chan asked, after they’d both hissed a little with the knot coming free.

“Sure,” Minho said, still one with the mattress.

“No,” Chan laughed, getting his face closer to Minho’s so that it was faintly blurry when Minho cracked one eyelid open. “Want to shower with me?”

He remembered that pout when Minho had showered alone over the weekend, so apparently he wanted to make up for it. Disgusting. Tempting.

“Requires moving?”

“A little,” Chan agreed. “I’ll get the water warm. Come on. Come on.”

The cajoling was working, getting Minho to move, following the lure of Chan’s bare back into the bathroom. The water was indeed warm even though Minho was there just seconds after. Chan steadied him on the way in, turning so that the water was more against Minho and warming his skin. Not moving from the bed had been good, but that was better. He was pretty sure washing was going to happen at some point, but the water was all that was needed as his chin met Chan’s shoulder. Chan stroked against his back like he did when they were dancing. Swaying together, no heat of the crowd against them, just the hot water and steam. He searched for some kind of awkwardness, embarrassment, something. To be just cradled, wet and naked, mostly quiet except for Chan’s shower thoughts and random giggles. Maybe he was right, it was like they were dancing. The privacy and lack of clothes hadn’t changed anything about that. He wasn’t sure what to do with that fact. Be grateful for it, maybe. There’d been times after sex with others where the awkward had been so crushing that he had to immediately dress and go. Trying to be awkward with Chan was like trying to be awkward about a hibernating bear draped over him. He just couldn’t come up with it.

It definitely wasn’t awkward when Chan found his wet neck and blew a raspberry into it but Chan’s protesting little squeak when Minho’s response to it squished him back against cold tile. Chan kissed right back there against the same spot, and the chill against his skin had nothing to do with the temperature of the air. He was above any kind of retaliation that Chan would be soon expecting. But Chan was the very smallest bit cute as he pouted his way into a kiss.

Half his brain had thought that Chan was in it to be horny again, but that wasn’t how it turned out. Washing happened, towels happened. He was watching Chan toweling off his hair through the mirror when a thought occurred to him. He’d forgotten to pass along the information, so far out of his head until that moment that it hadn’t mattered.

“Seungmin knows about this, by the way,” Minho said.

“This?” Chan asked, like Seungmin had invaded the bathroom with them.

“Not this shower. He can’t smell us from his apartment.”

Chan blinked at him in the mirror, head tilting before the light dawned. “Ohhh. You saw him at work? He’s a super smeller? I didn’t know that.”

“Mm,” Minho agreed. “Walked into my office and pointed it out like I hadn’t had a shower.”

“And since you’re going to work tomorrow, he‘ll know it happened again.”

“Too bad for him. He said it was either this or I had some sort of fetish for wearing your dirty underwear.”

Chan burst out laughing at first before considering that. “Does that mean I don’t smell pleasant to him? You don’t smell like dirty underwear to me.”

Minho snorted. “I think it was allusion, not judgement.”

“Huh,” Chan said. “And you’re okay with him knowing?”

“Not much I can do about it. He said he wasn’t going to spread it around, before I could get much out.”

“Huh,” Chan said, searching Minho’s face. “What if he’d gone and told everyone immediately anyway?”

Seungmin? After telling Minho he wouldn’t? Not likely. He didn’t really care if they all knew at a base level. He could just imagine the questions, concerns, suggestions, most of which he was ignoring thinking about. Trying to keep that kind of secret in that friend group would’ve required he and Chan were each other’s only friends.

“I’d let you answer those questions, too,” Minho said lightly.

“You wouldn’t be upset?”

“Not unless you have a memory erase power and I don’t know about it,” Minho said. “I don’t know why I would be.”

“But you wanted me to deal with the fallout of the texting,” Chan said. He turned to Minho directly then.

Like he was going to catch Minho in a contradiction? Not a chance. “It’s different if someone knows or if they’re guessing.”

Chan’s expression said he wasn’t sure he quite understood or agreed. “I’ll take your word on that.”

It took a second for Chan to realize that Minho had still stuck everything right back on him, but by then Minho had already escaped to find his clothes, laughing when Chan thought to protest. Chan was even partly dressed by the time Minho’s hair was dry enough to leave, standing by the door like some kind of sentinel.

“See you tomorrow,” Chan said, and held up a finger when Minho was about to retort. “At the restaurant.”

Well, fine. That was fine. They’d see if Chan was attacked by questions and all, since last he checked everyone was meeting up. Did that keep Chan from kissing him again before he got out the door? No. Half of that was his fault, as he’d stood there and let it happen. Twice actually before he pinched Chan’s stomach and got away before Chan could try and tempt him into a third or worse. He was a menace. Minho had known that, but his eyes were truly opened then. He had Chan’s number.

His text messages were a mess on the way home as Chan tried to get him to tell him what he was going to order at the restaurant. None of his business. No pouting, no how.

***

Minho was early to the restaurant everyone was meeting at. Semi-surprisingly, so was Hyunjin, who apparently had been nearby already and hadn’t wanted to loiter somewhere to wait. It was half a belated thought, as Hyunjin joked about some alpha he’d seen earlier. Minho had one question in his mind, even though part of the answer had already been obtained from Chan. The impact, that was what he was looking for. Anyone else would’ve asked why he was asking before giving him the answer he needed, so he chose the low hanging fruit.

“You knew the guy Chan was dating last, right?” Minho asked casually. So casually as Hyunjin nodded. “Do you know why they broke up?”

“Yeah, the guy was a dick who didn’t—“ Hyunjin paused like the words about to come out of his mouth had hit an obstacle. “He was a dick who didn’t want to date Chan any more.”

Not the words that he was going to say originally. Safeguarding a secret. Sure Minho had been integrating into the group at the time, and Chan could be friendly and prone to over sharing. But there was friendly and there was hey near-stranger, my boyfriend dumped me because I couldn’t knot him friendly. He wasn’t going to pry any more. Hyunjin’s reaction had told him Hyunjin bore a deeper grudge which meant Chan had definitely spent some time hurting and leaning on his friends. Not just from a normal breakup.

“You’re a good friend,” Minho said.

“I am,” Hyunjin agreed. And of course, that was what Hyunjin got suspicious about. “Why? What do you want?”

He’d already gotten it. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with the information but it was in his possession anyway. Everyone else trickled in before Hyunjin could follow that thought back to the beginning, Seungmin wrinkling his nose at him very subtly, and Minho resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He hadn’t seen Seungmin at work that day, so yeah, Seungmin knew more than he wanted to and way more than Minho wanted him to. Minho was squished between Felix and Jisung, Chan on the other side with Changbin, and Jeongin, Seungmin, and Hyunjin on the other end. And look at them, carrying on as normal because it was.

“Nice of you to join us this time,” Jisung said, eyeing him.

“Yeah, what were you guys doing last weekend?” Hyunjin asked, piping up. “Why didn’t you invite us?”

Chan let out a little high pitched squawk of a laugh and Minho silently snorted. There hadn’t been enough room in Chan’s bed for one thing. For another, they hadn’t needed an audience. He just smiled at Chan, because that was all on him.

“Oh, you know,” Chan started, and that told Minho he had spent exactly zero seconds planning what to say when the inevitable happened. “We were hanging out. We missed you! Next time—”

Changbin was having none of Chan trying to muscle him into a distraction. Next time what? They were going to continue missing them indefinitely. Minho studiously didn’t look at Seungmin, or he might have just started laughing and that would’ve only drawn more attention to Chan’s floundering. Even when leaving him to the wolves, Chan sent him home with his jacket as Minho had left his at home. Though he knew that wasn’t going to be the end of that, and he was right, because Jisung had nothing but questions.

“Chan answered already, didn’t he?” Minho said, fiddling with his drink at the cafe Jisung had chosen the next afternoon. Did he care if they knew? He’d settled on seeing how long it took them to realize, or until Chan spilled it on their behalf.

“But weird about it,” Jisung said, frowning a little. “Changbin thinks you were hooking up."

Well, that was two of seven who were on the right track then, Changbin and Seungmin in their little pedestal.

“Is Changbin here? Hello?” Minho asked, looking around.

“Were you planning a surprise party for someone?”

Jisung and Felix’s birthdays were coming up, so he supposed that did make sense in some abstract sort of adorable self-absorbed way. How they’d gotten from hooking up to that— Unless Jisung was trying to weasel the truth out of him.

“That’d be a terrible secret, wouldn’t it? No, he was rescuing me from a pile of attacking hedgehogs.”

As a bullshit answer, he thought it was a fine one. He’d already suggested Jisung go ask Chan so he had done his job. Jisung peered at him, taking a pull off his drink.

“That doesn’t make me less curious, you know?”

“That’s terrible for you. Less terrible for me.”

“A hint? A little one?”

“A little one? Okay,” Minho said, thinking for a moment, leaning forward and resting his chin on his hand. And as seriously as he knew how said, “I fucked Chan’s brains out for two days straight.”

The grimace Jisung pulled wasn’t for the thought of that actually happening but because he thought Minho was fucking with him. Which, he was. With truth. It did stop the follow-up questions, anyway, for a minute. How long it took Jisung to realize that was actually the truth, it was hard to say. He’d be waiting with bated breath.

Did Chan end up wrestling him onto his mattress again the next time they hung out? Yes. Minho ended up leaving that night with one of Chan’s hoodies. The next time everyone met up, Minho ended up with Chan’s jacket - again. For a man prone more to stripping than to layering to be carrying around that much extra clothing, Minho was beginning to get a little whisper in the back of his mind. Maybe Chan wasn’t following him home like a stray pup, but he sure was sending Minho off around the city Chan-scented. If he hadn’t known Chan better, especially with Chan not inviting him over more often even when he could have… He’d have almost thought it was some sort of reverse psychology. Don’t ask, hoping Minho would show his hand and make the suggestion himself. It wasn’t that the thought hadn’t crossed his mind. More sex was almost always better than less. But that first weekend had been something different. Like they’d slipped on a banana peel and ended up mated for a decade. No, he hoped he was still having that much sex after a decade of commitment.

If Chan had been intending to make Minho think about it, he’d succeeded there at least. He wasn’t sure what that meant, exactly, or what Chan wanted from it. In the short term, he wanted more of Minho. No need to fast forward any further than that. After all, the only one suffering for it was Seungmin. He could live with that.

***

“Are you scenting me?”

Chan, to his credit, didn’t pause at all as they danced together. Everyone else was off doing whatever. They’d been there an hour before Chan had pulled him out, and Minho generously waited a whole song before prodding to see what came out.

“What do you mean?” Chan asked.

“I mean I seem to wear your outerwear more than you do. You want me to smell like you?”

Chan hummed, thinking about it as he met Minho’s eyes.

“I definitely don’t mind it. I guess I’d never thought about it like that. I did want you to stay warm. If you get sick, that’s inconvenient.”

And Chan grinned when Minho laughed out loud at that. Right, a side effect of thinking with his dick, that made sense. Minho raised his eyebrows as Chan got even more up into his space, but Chan didn’t leave him wondering.

“So I’m accidentally scenting you. Want to show me how you chase guys off?” Chan asked.

His eyebrows couldn’t get any higher. “You’ve been there when I did.”

“Yeah, but you described it for me, I didn’t see it. Please?”

“Not like I can summon dumbasses on command,” Minho said. The puppy eyes shouldn’t have worked, but it was Chan who was one plea away from starting to wiggle. Maybe Minho couldn’t summon them, but Chan could. The only way Chan could watch was not to watch Minho, but to see what he hoped would be Minho’s effect on whoever Chan managed to lure. Too bad they weren’t fishing, or the freezer would be full.

“Turn around,” Minho said, and Chan complied, nesting right back against Minho with an easy relaxation. Minho tugged down on the back of his shirt, exposing the belly chain a little more. His ass wasn’t the only thing that drew people. But it was something Minho took advantage of, tracing along the chain, feeling the way Chan’s abs tightened as Minho skimmed down to his waistband. They’d danced like that multiple times but not with Minho having a quite so much a blank check to feel up the merchandise. He half did so then because he wanted to, the other half because it was going to draw attention. And it was, he could see that. He skimmed his nose along Chan’s neck, inhaling at his nape and pressing kisses back down as Chan shivered against him, head falling back a little to give Minho more access. He filed that away, pulling his hands up against Chan’s ribs, and reeling in the anticipation as he flicked his thumbs against Chan’s nipples. That reaction he felt, the inhale, the groan, and the way Chan’s hands flew back to grip Minho’s hips and pull Minho against him.

Chan turned his head, and Minho tilted his so Chan could see him. “Much more of that and I’m going to say fuck this and we can just go.”

Warning or promise? Sure felt like the latter, but he let his hands fall back to Chan’s waist anyway because he’d spotted his prey.

“There, to the left,” Minho said, casually kissing against Chan’s neck again and hiding himself a little further. Wouldn’t work if they were scared off too early.

It was a nice looking guy, who definitely thought Chan looked good. Minho encouraged Chan’s hips to sway a little more, just adding to it.

“Why do I feel like a piece of meat?” Chan asked.

“Shh, just look pretty,” Minho said.

Ah, and the man was on the move, wanting Minho’s hands to be replaced with his, to get those hips all over him instead. He was about to be sorely disappointed. When he was close enough to see Minho clearly, Minho made his move, covering Chan’s belly with his hands and moving his head so it was fully over Chan’s shoulder instead of mostly hidden. The combination of those movements drew the man’s eyes upward, and Minho let all his years of absent glowering work for him. There was a stuttered step, almost stopping in surprise, and then suddenly the man was looking off beyond Chan’s right shoulder, face brightening in what surely was fake recognition as he suddenly decided he had somewhere else to be. When he was out of sight, Minho snickered into Chan’s shoulder, but Chan was turning, snugging Minho up against him immediately.

“That was amazing. You’re a menace,” Chan said. “I see what Changbin meant when he said you made someone almost pee their pants. Can I ask a question?”

“You can ask,” Minho allowed.

“How many guys have you chased off that were after me, versus after you?”

Minho didn’t have to think about that one long. The ratio was almost entirely skewed in Chan’s favor. He didn’t need to answer, though, because Chan could see it in his face.

“You’ve been doing that for me?” Chan asked. For him? Something like that. “I wish I’d seen that sooner. That’s really…hot.”

The last word was said mostly against Minho’s mouth. And Minho could do hot as Chan cupped his head, could very much do that as Chan kept kissing him. He’d never really been one for PDA. Dancing was different. But the whole crowd could’ve fallen into a pit and Minho wouldn’t have known about it as he met Chan’s tongue, and— He couldn’t climb Chan in the club, though his moan was lost in the music as Chan kneaded his hip.

“Time to go now,” Chan said. And Minho agreed.

After a quick debate, the questions were less, Minho was the one who went to the table.

“Two days straight?” Jisung asked faintly when Minho collected their things. Ah, so someone had seen. Minho flashed him a thumbs up and Chan had no idea why he was laughing when Minho joined him by the door.

They were above playing footsie in the back of the taxi. Instead their knees kept bumping, Chan tracing between his fingers. They were at least polite, not making out and causing trauma to the driver, but it was a close thing. He might not have cared, but Chan was sensitive to those things, even though Chan seemed like he was barely alive. He’d hardly had anything to drink, so the buzz wasn’t from that. If he’d known Chan got weak in the knees for possessiveness, he’d— He’d have what? Made it more obvious what he was doing? They could have been fucking for months instead of weeks. Chan would’ve been like putty for him. It almost made him want to laugh looking over at Chan. He’d rarely seen him so tense.

“You have to still be breathing when we get there,” Minho teased him.

“I will be,” Chan said, squeezing as he stroked down Minho’s fingers.

It wasn’t like they staggered into Chan’s apartment. They did, but it wasn’t entirely their fault. Chan kissed him all the way into the bedroom.

“Want you to fuck me,” Chan muttered against his mouth as they almost bumped into the bed.

Minho’s eyebrows twitched up and that wasn’t all as their knees met the floor. Like they had been at the club. Like Chan was wanting to relive Minho behind him, possessing him.

“That’s good,” Chan said, when Minho had just barely finished getting him slick.

Chan felt good, too. It was definitely nothing like the club, no music obscuring the sound of panted breaths and moans. They couldn’t have done that there. Maybe a quick blowjob in the back somewhere, but all that happened was that clothes got pushed aside in favor of need.

“You want me to leave a mark here?” Minho asked, his teeth grazing Chan’s neck. “Let everyone know where I’ve been. What we did. How you wanted me.”

The sound Chan made was barely human as Minho made good on that, biting gently, sucking less so, feeling Chan’s back arch as he tightened desperately around Minho. The fingers of his right hand tangled with the belly chain, left hand stroking Chan’s cock. It wasn’t going to take long from the sounds Chan was making, and he hoped he was helping that by sucking another mark against Chan’s neck. He hadn’t done that in the club, but he wanted Chan to feel it, biting again and feeling the tensing of Chan’s ribs.

“What did you want me to say to them?” Minho asked against his neck, struggling to keep his voice anywhere close to even. “I don’t mind if they look, but they can’t touch.”

Chan shook his head, but in agreement. No, they couldn’t touch him. Only Minho.

“They’ll never see you like this. Never see you come for me.”

Minho didn’t see it that night, but he felt it, came because of it. He stayed there just like that, inside Chan, draped against him and feeling Chan slowly coming back to himself. There were pink marks where Minho had worried Chan’s skin, and he kissed one of them as he pulled back a little. Chan didn’t immediately collapse, so that drove Minho to his feet.

“Be right back,” he said.

Minho paused when he came back into the room. Chan had struggled out of his shirt, but he was still kneeling there, bent over the edge of the bed almost like he was praying. Still awake, though, Minho saw with relief. Chan nearly staggered when he got to his feet, and Minho caught at him. They both reached for it, and though Minho fumbled mightily, he got the chain undone. It fell to the floor in a heap.

It wasn’t any kind of magic cleaning job, but they got Chan peeled out of his pants together, and then resting heavily on the mattress. For a moment, Minho looked to the door. There hadn’t been any expectations of sleeping over. Fucking, sure. But Minho was undressing even before Chan looked back to see where he was. There was something off, something that had Chan exhaling, relaxing, as Minho leaned against his back.

“You okay?”

“Think so? When my brain comes back, I’ll let you know.”

Minho laughed against the back of his neck at the mumbled words, sitting up for a second to turn off the light. Some of the outdated literature they foisted on kids in high school floated by. Your alpha will take care of you. Yeah, Chan did. For all his friends platonically, no matter what biology they had. Had for him, sexually. Emotionally, he could admit that, too. That was a night that the alpha in front of him needed more care than the average. Chan found his hand, squeezing it, leaning back into Minho for as much contact as possible. That took them straight to morning.

***

Chan bought him breakfast, not even hastily eaten half naked before running back to bed, but an actual breakfast at a physical cafe with all their clothes on. The benefit of being friends with benefits was the friends part. An intense fuck like the day before might’ve left someone feeling weird, but aside from the unexpected breakfast invite, Chan was just Chan. Hair a little fluffy under his hat - a sly look at Minho as he offered him a jacket before they left - and utterly normal. They swapped part of their food, chatting as though nothing had happened. Nothing had, he guessed, except for him finally finding that thing that would short out Chan’s brain. Even if it had been an accidental find, he was pleased by that. It was something he could pull out sometimes, since it was in his pocket. Using it for the most effect. Chan seemed no worse for the wear by it, whatever the form.

They ended up in some kind of sportswear store after that, which was of some limited interest to Minho. Sure, he worked out, but his idea of workout clothes wasn’t…whatever they were surrounded by. It was a little more Chan’s lane. Minho browsed anyway as Chan poked at shoes. There were a pair that were some shade of puce green, with neon accents, and Chan cackled as Minho held one up.

“Club wear?” Chan asked, coming up behind him.

“I’m sure there’s someone out there into that,” Minho said.

“You wouldn’t go after me wearing that?” Chan made some kind of sound like he was going to bite his ear as Minho chortled, moving his head away in protest. Sensing movement, he looked up and his face froze. Maybe the last person he expected was standing there staring at them like he was trying to figure out if a piece of bread was moldy. While his brain was trying to figure out why Seungmin of all people was in an athletics store on a Sunday morning. Ah, Changbin appeared a second later, browsing. That explained it.

“Oh hey,” Chan said, waving, and getting Changbin’s attention.

It wasn’t as though he could just phase out the door without saying hello. And Seungmin was the very last person to maintain a polite fiction as Minho deigned to move closer.

“You left early last night,” Seungmin said.

“Things to do,” Minho said.

“One thing by the look of Chan’s neck.”

Yeah, Minho had noticed that. The marks had faded, mostly. Figured Seungmin would see them. Changbin probably had no idea, and he was nearer to Chan for a longer period of time. It wasn’t like Seungmin had been there, so all he could do was shrug.

“The grab-ass isn’t new. Chan trying to eat your face off is.” At Minho’s squint, Seungmin nodded. “Everyone saw.”

So, not just Jisung then.

“I haven’t received ten thousand messages.”

“A few need extensive therapy before addressing it. Some of them find it cute and don’t want to chase you off.”

Cute?

“Chase me off from what?”

Seungmin snorted. “From being stubborn about whatever it is you and Chan are doing.”

Minho shook his head. “To be determined.”

“Does Chan do undetermined?” Seungmin asked.

Minho loudly ignored him as he waited for Chan to check out. The answer was no, in fact. Chan might wallow in blissful ignorance indefinitely, but denial in the midst wasn’t exactly his brand. And of course, Chan caught Minho examining him, shooting him a grin. He wasn’t sure how he could loudly ignore the look Seungmin aimed at him but he tried.

***

“Well, that’s one step below everyone finding out by walking in on us actually naked in bed,” Chan said, after they’d escaped to the outside world.

He’d been a little distracted by Seungmin, so he’d missed any possible interrogation. Pity, as he might’ve liked to have seen Chan’s face. “Did Changbin say something?”

“He tried to act like he was offended we hadn’t said anything.”

Minho snorted. “Like he can talk.”

“Right?” Though Chan seemed to realize something as they stopped by the subway entrance. “The others are going to have questions, too.”

“Definitely. You ready for it?”

“I’ll have to be. Have a good visit.”

Chan glanced around them for a second, leaning in and pausing for a half second before kissing Minho. There and gone. And why not, as Chan wrinkled his nose right back at his expression. Minho shooed him off. Everyone knew anyway. Minho’s plans for the day was going to see his parents, which meant the subway was where they parted.

Chan went off to whatever Chans needed to do after they left the store, which seemed to be shopping and the gym from the pictures he got later - not that he wasn’t a danger as he was. It wasn’t the first, the fifth, or the 105th time that Chan had sent him a workout picture. Well, to him, or the group. It was however the first time it felt like that much of a personal insult. The photo posted to social media had Chan’s shirt down. The one sent to Minho had his shirt pulled up and displaying his abs. At first Minho wondered why he was being attacked, but then he saw that Chan was pointing to something on the picture. A red streak on his belly. He realized what it was just before Chan sent an explanatory, chain burn. Followed by, don’t apologize.

Which was a significant clue that Chan wasn’t bothered by it in the least. Minho thought about it for a second before sending, I’m sorry it’s not right in front of me right now.

And he snorted when Chan immediately replied, I’ll allow that one.

***

Laundryyy??? Minho texted ahead of their weekly meetup.

Machine’s empty, Chan wrote back.

Minho had had to do laundry there once before, and it was again his illustrious landlord’s fault. He hadn’t had the time to seek out an apartment with an ensuite machine, but he sure was taking advantage of knowing someone with one. Clothes did not wash themselves, more the pity. He was waiting for self-cleaning dishes, too. He got one load in immediately after he got there, before they debated the varied merits of various restaurants before ordering from one they’d ordered from a dozen times already. Sometimes the familiar just worked. Minho trudged into the trenches when the washing machine chimed to say the cycle was done.

Work, never over. But Chan trailed with him, continuing their conversation from a polite distance at least until the clothes were in the dryer. He leaned back as Chan wrapped his arms around him, and let Chan nose along his neck and shoulder.

“Smells like I need to loan you another hoodie,” Chan said.

“You don’t think you’re going to succeed in scenting me yourself tonight?”

“We don’t have to hook up every time you come over,” Chan said. He could hear the pout and the edge of guilt, like yes, that was what he was thinking of. Considering their track record, it wasn’t all that surprising. Certainly it had occurred to him as Chan cuddled him a little closer. “Anyone give you a hard time?”

“Mostly curiosity.” It wasn’t like the “secret” had been secret for long, so there wasn’t any outrage of being left in the dark. And Jisung had been told explicitly. It wasn’t Minho’s fault - mostly - that he hadn’t believed him. “You?”

“Some congratulations. Asking what took us so long. Yes, I know, my fault,” Chan said, laughing as Minho snorted. “I’m kind of glad they know anyway. I was doing a bad job at being subtle anyway.”

“No comment,” Minho said.

Chan huffed a little laugh against his neck, pressing the softest kiss there. And they both startled at the sound of Chan’s door buzzer.

“Gotta go brave the wilds to bring home food,” Chan said, giggling as Minho swatted at him.

“Don’t get lost,” Minho said, and got back to putting more clothes in the washing machine.

If Chan’s goal had been scenting him, then there was success. Food, more laundry, TV, sex, nap, and the glaring numbers on the clock. Much as Chan acting as a shawl was nice, he did not have the capability to teleport. There was a little sound of denial when Minho made to move.

“Work,” he said, patting more firmly to get Chan to let go.

“Gonna have to take you shopping to get clothes to keep here you can wear to work,” Chan said, but did let him get out of his orbit.

Keep clothes there? Sleeping over midweek. He made a face, and Chan made one back, not hiding at all that he was watching Minho get dressed again.

“Come over after work tomorrow?” Chan suggested.

“Can’t, working late. Then it’s club day, remember?”

He almost snorted at the put-upon sigh. Poor guy would have to wait to get laid again.

“Can’t see what else is out there if you stay in all the time,” Minho said airily.

“I can see what’s already here.”

“And I’m off,” Minho said.

His brain half gave him the urge to blow a kiss, but Chan was laughing at him anyway. If there was a Minho-shaped space left behind, it was because he and his laundry had gone home. Most of his laundry. On the table was a small stack, a couple pairs of pants and a couple shirts. He considered them for a long moment, and left them.

***

His head felt mostly empty as he got ready to go to the club. He’d showered after work, eaten, slept, and spent the whole of the next day sleeping it felt like. He hadn’t even woken up groggy. A little shadow to his eyes, some gloss on his lips, and he dressed himself. That was usually the hardest part. He picked a shirt, dark and silky, but almost iridescent, nearly see-through but for him wearing a black tank underneath. The last time he’d worn it, Chan had practically been unable to stop touching it, feeling the cloth between his fingers, stroking along Minho’s arms or back. With some of his newfound knowledge, he wondered how much of it was the shirt, and how much was him. He hadn’t yet come out and asked if all that pent-up want had been hanging around for a while. It felt a little cocky to imagine Chan had been wanting him until he realized Minho might’ve been open to it. He’d never gotten that impression, though if Chan had been hiding it either he’d done a good job or Minho had been impervious to the hints.

He added on a belt, not quite a belly chain but it made it complete, and more so when he met up with everyone. He saw the barely-there smirk when Chan looked him over.

Then he proceeded to barely see Chan for the next hour and a half. Oh, he was at the table, but Minho was buried in people, jammed in mostly on purpose as Chan flitted in and out. They didn’t have to be actually joined at the hip. He got why Chan was into things continuing. He’d lived his whole mature life never experiencing a knot, and there was Minho making it happen. Didn’t mean no one else could. He wasn’t some paragon of omega pheromones or whatever. None of that meant that he minded it. He didn’t mind Chan’s pants, or the deep v in his wrapped shirt. His hair was almost glossed and styled to the point where Minho wanted to muss it up, so it looked more like the fluff that happened after his hands had been in it. At some point, his hand strayed to his neck, touching where there was no external mark, but the spot where Chan had kissed a couple nights before. Why that made his brain hurt more than any of the dirty things, he had no idea. Maybe it was the simplicity. No lust around it. Just simple affection.

As it was, he was only half listening when Hyunjin slid into sit, complaining. “That guy cut in like Chan’s ass was getting served up on a platter.”

It made his eyelids dip a moment, eyes darting to another spot on the table as his brain processed that. Looking wouldn’t do any good. There were too many people. And yet when he casually, so casually, rolled his neck and looked, he almost immediately saw Chan smiling. And an impudent hand splayed on Chan’s hip.

“What?” he asked, when he realized that Jisung had said something to him.

“How did you like your drink?” Jisung asked, his face half in his hand as he looked at Minho.

“It was fine,” Minho said. That drink, some other drink, it didn’t matter. The crowd had closed in again, mostly obscuring Chan and whoever he was with from view. Somehow that was worse. He hadn’t actually meant for Chan to hook up with any random, willing jackass. Dancing wasn’t hooking up, he’d danced with someone else earlier. But dancing had historically led to hooking up. He knew the look in Chan’s eyes when he grabbed Chan’s hips. Even before they’d hooked up, there’d been…something. He’d thought he’d been just teasing, a thing that they did. What he’d read in the moment as helpless, frustrated amusement. Chan teased him back. They were both grown men. It was entertaining. Provoking. Different than what he did with any of the others. He hadn’t realized all those moments were building up like teetering bricks.

“I’ll be back,” Minho said, easing out of the booth.

“See you,” Jisung said cheerily behind him.

It took a little searching, finding the buckles on Chan’s boots and following it. He was fairly sure he didn’t glide into their space like a thundercloud, and Chan wasn’t nowhere near as close to the guy as he had been a few minutes before, barely in arm’s length, actually. But Chan smiled as soon as he saw Minho, holding out his arm, making a space, and turning away from the man in front of him.

“This one’s taken,” Minho told the guy, notching directly against Chan’s side. He didn’t bother watching to see the man’s reaction. He didn’t care if he was disappointed, when Chan was wrapping around him, nuzzling into his neck and stroking his sides.

“I love this shirt. Been waiting for this.”

“Seemed like you were passing the time all right,” Minho said.

“Sorry to make you worry,” Chan said, though he sounded anything but sorry. More like a little bit of glee at Minho being…jealous. Yeah, he was. And what they had, it was undefined. Friends with benefits was a thing, but whatever was running through Chan’s brain when he looked at Minho, it wasn’t that. There wasn’t any averting his eyes, because he could admit that to himself. It wasn’t just a convenient fuck. It wasn’t, maybe hadn’t ever been, undetermined.

So, he squeezed at Chan’s hips and got all of Chan’s focus on him. “This knot is mine until I don’t want it any more.”

Chan pulled him closer, abrupt, but the kiss he pressed to Minho’s mouth was softness itself. “Does that mean I belong to you then?”

He was so flustered from it, all that came out was a weak sounding, “You have a problem with that?”

“No,” Chan said, looking like he was part of some kind of conspiracy when he smiled. “I hope that means you’ll come home with me tonight.”

“You mean you don’t just want a quickie here?” Minho prodded.

“Whatever you want from me, and to come home with me,” Chan said. The way Chan said it made his skin feel like it was going to melt off his body. “You left so fast I didn’t get to ask what you wanted me to do with your clothes. So I cleared out a drawer for you.”

“A drawer?” Minho asked, his brain stuttering.

“I’ll buy you a whole dresser if you want.”

Minho could barely hear him above the music, but that was okay. He could barely hear his own brain above it. It wasn’t really a conversation meant for the dance floor. Not undetermined. Not undefined.

***

Minho had acquired one of Chan’s hoodies, for once not naked with their ankles tangled under the covers. He’d been fed. His clothes were safe in Chan’s dresser, and Chan tugged Minho a little closer. The superficial conversation, the natural slant of it, faded as Chan rested his head against Minho’s.

“Should we put a sign on it?” Chan wondered, gesturing at the dresser that was facing them.

“What kind of sign?”

“Minho was here?”

Should tattoo that on his ass, Minho thought. And then said.

“Is that a challenge?”

“Don’t you dare,” Minho muttered as Chan giggled.

“No, I wouldn’t do that. I heard you talking to one of the others once. You said he has the perfect body,” and Chan paused as Minho considered that he probably had said something like that at some point, probably. “Then you added…too bad about his face, though.”

Minho jolted, turning and glaring. “I did not.”

Not tipsy, not ever. Also Chan was a terrible liar, his voice rising on the last words like a kid telling a tale to his teacher.

“No, you didn’t. So you do like my face?” Chan teased, but continued before Minho could find a pillow to bop said face with. “No, you said something like… But he’s out of reach. I didn’t know what you meant then. I mean. I was pretty deep in not even thinking it was a possibility with us, so… I didn’t know if you meant sleeping together or what.”

“Sex is easy,” Minho said. “We could’ve fucked at any point we wanted and it wouldn’t have mattered. It was more what you needed out of someone permanent.”

“A drawer kind of person,” Chan said.

“Something like that.” As the owner of now two of Chan’s drawers. It was something like that. It seemed unreal like the whole passage of time scam.

“I wish I’d thought about it more. I mean, it seems stupid to say I didn’t realize. I knew you were gorgeous and that we were close friends and that I felt bad when you left after we hung out. I thought it was just post hangout letdown but it was always a little different looking back on it. It’s not like I was off conceitedly pining.”

“You wanted to touch me and scent me,” Minho said with no little amount of glee at Chan’s lament.

“I know. I should’ve known. Anyway. None of me is out of reach. Just as long as it’s you. Someone inevitably is going to ask, hey are you guys dating each other?” Though Chan asked it in a funny voice clearly meant to imitate a friend not to be named.

“Does this feel like dating?” Minho mused.

“Feels better than that, if I’m being honest. Not like that,” Chan scolded before Minho’s face could even form a mock-shocked expression. “Does it feel like dating to you?”

Minho hummed as though he were really thinking hard. “No, it doesn’t feel like dating,” he said, drawing it out a little and watching Chan’s eyebrows raise as he clearly wasn’t done speaking. “Does feel like dating you.”

The grin only came out when Chan gave him a quick shake. That was basically what Chan had said, he knew that. He couldn’t put too many brain cells to when things had changed, why it seemed like dating Chan also felt like a lot of what they’d already done. It was the same, but different. Putting a name to it also meant learning what Chan needed from something more than just a quick fuck here and there. The times even the concept had crossed his mind, he had thought Chan needed someone different. It couldn’t be that complicated, not if they didn’t let it be. When he inhaled against Chan’s neck, it wasn’t something new as much as it was something he could place. Chan smelled like sunshine in the deep forest after rain. Vital and…his? He didn’t know what to do with that. How to process it, how to live in it. It all made sense in some logical way, but in others none at all.

“You smell happy,” Chan said softly, like he could read Minho’s mind.

He was a fucking cliche of an omega. Though he guessed, if there had to be anything to be a cliche about, And he supposed in some things that was okay.

“What do I smell like to you?” Minho asked.

Chan thought for exactly half a second before answering, “Spite.” And Minho both internally applauded and despaired of him for a second as he stared at him, before Chan shook his head. “Because I— Come here.”

Against his ear, Chan murmured things Minho already knew, but some in ways he absolutely didn’t.

“Buh,” was Minho’s brilliant answer as he tried to parse that. He smelled like— Chan wasn’t shy with his affection with his friends. He didn’t remember the first time Chan had said he’d loved him and Minho had definitely said it back. But there were knots involved. Whole spigots.

“Don’t think about it too hard,” Chan said, laughing and tucking Minho closer against him. “It’s still yours.”

It, the knot. And it, the man. Two could play at that game, though. When he got his mouth close to Chan’s ear and whispered, at first Chan held his breath, and then shivered. And Minho grinned in satisfaction. Success was sweetness itself.

***

***

Minho let himself into Chan’s apartment after he got free from work. Chan had been cagey half the day, hyping up a “surprise” and being entirely cagey about it. No amount of blunt questions, cajoling, pouting, or otherwise had gotten Chan to cough up what it was or even a hint. That was unusual for Chan, who usually folded pretty quickly. A truly enormous softy. So Minho was roaringly curious and vaguely annoyed and then really confused when the first thing he heard on entering was Chan baby talking.

“Oh yes, you’re cute. Eat it all up, good boy, yes.”

It was his cutesy voice used for babies, small animals, or Jeongin, and he knew Jeongin wasn’t in the apartment. Chan was cozy, sitting on his couch, but in his hand was a kitten, orange and white. Not even quite as big as Chan’s hand, guzzling out of a bottle. Chan looked up, smiling at him.

“Hey, we have a visitor,” Chan said softly, like the kitten was going to even remotely care if he talked normally.

“Looks like a tiny one,” Minho said. His bag was abandoned, sitting gingerly next to Chan on the couch.

“My coworker found him. Something had happened to his mother, and he’s too little to just eat regular food yet. He couldn’t take him in, and I figured…Well, I work from home, so I offered to foster him until he gets bigger. Big enough for a new family, if—“

Chan stopped talking as Minho made a sound of half-protest. The kitten was rejecting the bottle, tiny tongue licking his lips.

“You want to hold him?” Chan asked.

The kitten’s eyes were open, almost impossibly soft as he nuzzled and curled in Minho’s hands.

“Hi baby,” he said softly. “Has Chan been taking good care of you? What a cutie you are.”

“You don’t talk to me like that,” Chan said near his shoulder.

“You’re a grown man. Or do you want that? Does Channie want a kiss? What a sweet alpha you are.”

Chan grimaced, clearly rethinking that one. As Minho had intended. He used one finger to stroke the kitten’s spine, feeling the tiny rumble of the kitten’s purr. He didn’t doubt that Chan would take good care of the kitten. He always did when he put his mind to something.

“We have to make sure you’re getting the best care,” Minho cooed. “How old is he?”

“Three to four weeks. Ah, he’s too cute,” Chan protested as the kitten yawned.

“Okay, I’ll move in with you,” Minho said, letting the kitten knead his fingers.

Chan’s lips parted, blinking at him for a couple of seconds before Minho’s words sank in. The dimples got a workout, glancing down at the kitten and back up at Minho. He wasn’t going to tease Minho for Minho inviting himself to move in. Not right then, anyway, though there was no guarantee if he wouldn’t in the future. Minho, eight months in, already had his own dresser and part of the closet. And the bathroom. And fridge. An oven. He was over three or four nights a week anyway.

Chan kissed him, leaning in to kiss his neck softly too and leaning into Minho’s shoulder.

“He’ll need a name,” Chan said.

“Maybe—“

The kitten derailed the conversation with the tiniest, most precious burp.

They looked at each other, as Minho’s soul maybe left to turn into a cat-shaped cloud. It turned out he wasn’t entirely hopeless. He could pinpoint the exact moment he fell in love with something. He couldn’t be too hard on himself, though. One of those creatures, vaguely human shaped, alpha-inclined, was infinitely more complicated - but worth it.

***