Archive of Our Own

Three days. Soobin’s been gone much longer than three days before. He was gone for almost a week once, during the coldest days of winter, and it was fine. No one had broken through the locks. No one had found them.

Knowing that doesn’t make it easier, though. Nothing makes it easier. It doesn’t matter how good his haul is, or how efficient he was gathering it. Every hour he’s gone, the ache gets a little deeper. The fear grows a little fiercer. 

If only he had friends he could trust to help look after them, but the risk is too large for anyone to know. Maybe other alphas would be able to resist, would keep them secret, but nothing is worth it. Soobin can handle the ache, the fear, if it means keeping them safe. He has to protect them on his own.

Soobin rushes up the warehouse stairs two at a time. They’re decrepit, almost caving in, and overrun with the smell of rot and mold. His nose is totally overwhelmed by the putrid aroma, and it’s just what they need. No one has even come close to finding them here, tucked away in the far corner of the fifth floor of an abandoned textile warehouse. And if anyone did, maybe they’d fall through the stairs on the way up. Soobin knows the safe ones to step on, but it’s not easy to pick them out. 

He rounds the corner on the fifth floor, slipping through the door and taking a deep sniff. Just mold, still. Nothing out of place. He races through the rows of machinery, deserted sewing machines and pallets of disintegrating fabric, smelling periodically. His heart races manically. It never gets easier, this part. Knowing that he should be smelling him at any second, and that he could be bad. He could be sick, or injured, or scared. He could be in pain, crying, starving. Worse, he could be…not alone. 

And then he takes one more step towards their corner, and smells it. Rain. Simple, gentle rain. A spring rain, watering the perennial bulbs. Maybe rain on the afternoon of April seventh.

He smells asleep, and Soobin almost cries. He’s safe. 

Soobin squeezes past the pallet of purple velvet, tiptoeing through the piece they’ve draped across the narrow passageway that serves as their front door, and he’s home. He’s stepped into the most beautiful thundercloud, that smell washing through him and leaving him totally bare. 

Beomgyu is curled up in his nest with a piece of sewing resting loosely in one of his hands, his head lolling towards one of his shoulders. The most beautiful omega Soobin has ever seen, and it strikes him anew every time he sees him again. Soft and warm and swelling, his left hand loosely cradling his bump, an inch of it visible through the opening of his oversized terrycloth robe. Soobin’s robe. 

Soobin hoists his backpack higher on his shoulder. 

“Beomgyu,” he whispers, taking a step forward and almost colliding with their dining table. They’ve been hiding out here for almost a year, long enough to accumulate enough furnishings for Beomgyu to start calling it their “starter apartment,” but it still feels like Soobin’s big limbs don’t fit in it right. Like the only thing he fits into is Beomgyu’s body. 

Beomgyu shifts, letting out a soft sound, and doesn’t wake up. Dangerous, Soobin thinks. What if there was an intruder? He shouldn’t sleep so deeply. But then Beomgyu stretches out his neck in his sleep, and Soobin can’t think of anything at all. Nothing but the storm hitting him, raindrops pelting his face. 

He steps to the edge of the nest, falling to his knees next to the pile of fabric scraps. “Baby, I’m here,” he whispers again, reaching out a hand to rest it on Beomgyu’s foot, on the hole in the big toe of his sock. 

Finally, Beomgyu cracks an eye open. His lashes flutter, and Soobin suppresses a groan. The most delicate thing about him. Irresistible. 

“Hyung,” Beomgyu mumbles, bringing a small hand to his eye and rubbing it open. “You’re back so soon?”

“Not soon enough, babe,” Soobin says. “Are they good?”

He knows they are. He’d smell it if they weren’t. But he needs to know for sure, and Beomgyu drops the sewing out of his hand, bringing both hands to his bump now. He caresses it through the crack in his robe, dragging his little fingertips down the dark line streaking down from his navel.

“Doing great,” he says sleepily. 

“And you?”

“Feeling massive,” Beomgyu grumbles, “and my back aches.”

“I’ll rub it all night,” Soobin says in relief, holding out his arms. “Come.” He doesn’t need to use his alpha voice. Beomgyu is already flinging himself towards him, falling to his knees right at the edge of the nest to mirror Soobin’s pose. 

“Fuck, we missed you,” he murmurs, taking both of Soobin’s hands, and tilts his neck to the side for him to scent him. 

Every alpha thinks their omega is perfect. Well, every alpha who has an omega, and Soobin knows they’re a rare find these days, mated pairs. There weren’t many omegas even before the war, and now they might as well be mythological.  

He doesn’t know what he did to get so lucky, to find Beomgyu the way he did. To make a wrong turn on the way home from dinner with a friend and stumble into Beomgyu playing his guitar on the back stoop of his family home, hidden in a private courtyard with a door that should have been locked. Alphas aren’t supposed to be here, Beomgyu had said, terrified, but it was too late. It was like their eyes couldn’t look away from each other, blind to anyone else, and Soobin was drowning in the rain already. He came back the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, until Beomgyu’s family gave in to both of their pleas and gave him to Soobin. Beomgyu wasn’t so terrified by then. 

That was only a few months before the war had started. Soobin tries not to think about what might have happened to Beomgyu if he hadn’t mated him before that, if he hadn’t been there to hide him and smuggle him out of the central city. If he’d been rounded up with all the other omegas, the most perfect of them all. 

He is. He’s perfect. He’s rosy pink, the daintiest boy in the world. He’s miles of eyelashes and infinite round eyes and rubies for lips. He’s soft everywhere, strong underneath. Perfect to bite and bruise and knot and perfect, perfect to pup. Fuck, Soobin shouldn’t have, but Beomgyu is perfect, and he thinks Soobin is perfect, too. He thinks he’s the perfect alpha, strong and brave and willing to do whatever it takes to keep him safe and happy. And Beomgyu begged him, begged him. How could Soobin say no to his perfect, beautiful omega, begging? 

The memory haunts him, sometimes in the best way, sometimes in the worst way. Beomgyu presenting the way Soobin likes it most, pinning his wrists together on the small of his back and arching so far his spine cracked. The smell of petrichor making Soobin scent-drunk as Beomgyu whimpered with a clear voice through the fog of his heat. Pup me, pup me, I’m ready, you’re ready. They weren’t ready, but Soobin’s alpha was too hungry to deny him, and it’s eight months too late to regret it. 

It was inevitable, anyway. Birth control is a thing of the past these days. Even if Soobin could find a pharmacy on his foraging trips that wasn’t totally burnt out, he’d never collect enough of a supply to keep Beomgyu on it long-term. And without scent blockers or suppressants to help tamp down the swell of hormones, Beomgyu’s heats are intolerable, unbearable. Don’t even start on Soobin’s ruts; Beomgyu basically has to live on his cock for four days to get him through them. So, yeah. Inevitable.

It’s been three days since Beomgyu’s been with his mate, and Soobin can smell the anxiety collected under his skin. He knows he should scent him, soothe it out of him. But first, his hand shakes out of Beomgyu’s as if acting on its own and comes to rest on the swell of his bump. So hot and firm, the skin pulled smooth over their growing pups. 

“They’re safe,” Beomgyu says, smiling. “Almost there, papa.”

Soobin drops his eyes to compose himself. One more month. 

“Almost there,” he whispers back, and lifts his eyes to Beomgyu’s turned neck, to the thick black leather collar hiding his scent gland. 

“One day, you’ll take it off for me,” Soobin says, reaching for it. “You won’t make me work so hard.”

“Not such a strong alpha, then, are you?” Beomgyu teases, as Soobin’s big hands fumble with the clasp of the collar. “Can’t manage a little buckle?”

“Fuck it,” Soobin grumbles, giving up. He leaves the collar on, pushing it up towards the thinner part of Beomgyu’s neck to expose the bottom corner of his scent gland, just enough to nose into. He traces his thumb over the engraving on the front of the collar, the letters of his own name, and something rumbles out of his chest. 

“Like a kitten,” Beomgyu says, closing his eyes. He loves it when Soobin purrs.

Beomgyu doesn’t need to wear a collar. Collars are for other alphas to see, and no one will ever see him in here, by design. Soobin would rather fight a country full of alphas than let a single one know he’s hiding a pregnant omega and put Beomgyu and their pups at risk. 

They don’t live in a safe world for omegas anymore, and it doesn’t matter that Beomgyu proudly sports a mating bite, or that he’s always wearing his collar and matching cuffs around his slender wrists. It’s alpha-eat-alpha out there after a year of the war, which means omegas are all fair game, mated or not. A collar wouldn’t stop the wrong alpha from throwing Beomgyu over his back and disappearing with him, not when the streets are lawless and most alphas haven’t smelled an omega in over a year. Even the tinge of Soobin’s scent that hovers in Beomgyu’s as a result of his mating bite wouldn’t be enough to ward them off, the way it would have before the war. 

The collar is just for Beomgyu’s happiness, really. Beomgyu likes to imagine that one day, Soobin will show him off again, like he did in those months before it all went to shit. That Soobin will take him to the opera, all dressed up in the velvets from their warehouse and a matching velvet collar, proudly showing the world his pretty omega on his arm. That one day, Beomgyu will be able to walk himself down the street bouncing a pup on each hip, and that alphas will step back from him, bowing their heads in jealous deference to whichever powerful alpha managed to collar such a pristine omega. It’ll never happen, but Beomgyu likes to pretend, and Soobin will never take that from him. So the collar stays. 

Plus, it blocks his scent gland, and if that keeps his scent from permeating even a few extra feet down into the warehouse below them, it’s worth it. Anything to keep him hidden. 

Soobin likes to take his time, the first time he scents Beomgyu after a foraging trip. It makes him squirm so prettily. He drags his nose along Beomgyu’s collarbone, and Beomgyu whines. 

“Hyung, don’t tease me,” he whimpers.

“I’m not teasing,” Soobin says, inhaling. He’s absolutely teasing, working his way up as slowly as he can. Even here, two inches from Beomgyu’s scent gland, it’s a torrent. His scent is like grass waking up in the morning dew, like pure freshness, and all Soobin has smelled for three days is destruction and decay. He feels reborn. 

Beomgyu stiffens, dropping his head back even further, pushing the collar up another precious inch. “Please, Soobin hyung,” he whispers, shaking his overgrown hair back from his face and trembling. 

“Almost, baby,” Soobin says, snaking a hand up the back of Beomgyu’s neck, gripping him by the collar and forcing him to arch backwards almost instinctively. Beomgyu is fragile these days, he remembers immediately, but Beomgyu is already leaning into his hand before Soobin can loosen his grip. Pregnancy doesn’t mix well with Beomgyu’s taste for being thrown around, bent and bruised and ravaged from top to bottom. It’s so easy to forget how fragile he is.

Soobin licks up Beomgyu’s neck, darting the tip of his tongue out from his lips to trace the thin vein running up to his scent gland. Beomgyu is quivering desperately, his anxiety peaking, and Soobin is the only thing that’ll do. 

“How lucky am I?” Soobin murmurs, tracing a circle around Beomgyu’s navel with his thumb. It pops out these days.

“The luckiest,” Beomgyu says haltingly.

“That’s right,” Soobin says. “The luckiest.” In so many ways. That he’s his. That they’re safe. That no one found them this time. 

Soobin presses his nose into Beomgyu’s scent gland, and Beomgyu turns to liquid in his arms. 

“Hyung,” Beomgyu breathes, a wave crashing over Soobin. Small hands fist themselves into Soobin’s hair and Soobin is weak, the weakest. He presses in deeper, nudging the collar out of the way with his nose to make enough room for his lips there, too. He has to taste him to quench his thirst, and he nips into Beomgyu’s tender skin, sucks right at the source of his scent. It’s like drinking from a spring. 

“Fuck,” Beomgyu whimpers, and Soobin slides the collar as far up on Beomgyu’s neck as he can, positively burying his face in his scent gland. 

Beomgyu climbs forward into his lap, straddling his thighs and pressing his bump hard into Soobin’s torso. His slick is soaking through Soobin’s pant leg. Beomgyu can’t fit into his underwear anymore, and Soobin likes him naked under the robe, anyway. Easier access, and there’s not much else to do in their hideaway but touch him. 

“That was fast,” Soobin murmurs, sucking a mark into the squishy spot just below Beomgyu’s ear and thrusting his thigh gently against the wetness between Beomgyu’s thighs, making him wiggle.

“I missed you,” Beomgyu says simply, thumbing along Soobin’s own scent gland now, and Soobin pulls his head away, sighing as if it pains him to leave Beomgyu’s neck. But it’s Beomgyu’s turn. It’s only fair. 

Beomgyu always scents him like Soobin is made of glass. It’s so adorable, the way he noses into him timidly, scattering him with a row of little raindrop kisses as if it’s the first time they’ve touched. He says it helps wake up the smell slowly, and that if he plowed in nose-first the way Soobin does to him, he’d pass out from the weight of it all hitting him at once. Soobin struggles to describe his own scent; it smells muddled to him, not fresh and clear, like Beomgyu’s. But Beomgyu says it’s the richest chocolate, the blackest coffee, the most full-bodied, smokiest whiskey. It’s all of them at once, he says, and that helps Soobin understand. It does sound like a lot to jam your nose into.

Beomgyu’s fingers twist deeper into the back of Soobin’s hair as he nips his neck, and his other hand drops to Soobin’s crotch at the sound of the growl it draws out of him. “I need you to fuck me,” he murmurs, pressing his palm flat against Soobin’s growing cock through his pants and rutting his own crotch against his leg again.

“So soon?” Soobin asks, feeling his cock throb. “Don’t you want to hear about my trip?” He’s still wearing his backpack, for fuck’s sake, although if Beomgyu wants him now, he’ll get him now. He never denies him. 

“You’ll tell me later,” Beomgyu says, burrowing his nose in again.

“I found a few special things,” Soobin says, running one hand over Beomgyu’s belly, the other stroking down his bare thigh. “I think you’ll like one of them in particular.”

“Oh?” Beomgyu pulls away, curious. “Something for me?”

“Something for them.” Both of them drop their eyes to the bump. 

“I got a lot of sewing done for them while you were gone,” Beomgyu says. “I finally feel like I’m getting good at it.”

It had been an easy hobby for Beomgyu to take up while living in a fucking textile warehouse. And importantly, it’s a quiet one. His guitar has been gathering dust for months now. It’s too risky to make all that noise, especially when Beomgyu likes to leave the windows cracked to let in the birdsong in the morning. The birds that roost in the warehouse roof hadn’t noticed the war.

“Tell me what you made,” Soobin says, smiling, and Beomgyu leans away from him on his lap, letting Soobin hold him up with his hands linked around the small of his back.

“Onesies,” he says. “Four of them. Two pink, two blue.”

“Never took you for one who’d be into that gender essentialist shit,” Soobin teases, squeezing him, and Beomgyu laughs. 

“No need to put the pink ones on the girl,” he says.

“You don’t even know that there is a girl,” Soobin reminds him. They know there are two; that much is obvious from the mix of scents and the size of Beomgyu’s swollen belly. But neither of them has tried to parse out a gender from their aromas yet. All that matters is that they’re growing, kicking Beomgyu in the kidneys and giving him heartburn.

“There’s definitely a girl,” Beomgyu insists. “The one on the left. She’s much gentler.”

“Well, I have something for her, whether she’s on the left or the right,” Soobin says, letting go of Beomgyu’s back to reach behind him for his backpack. Beomgyu crawls back into his nest, watching interestedly as Soobin pulls out cans of vegetables and bags of rice salvaged from a grocery store, two bottles of shampoo from a ransacked spa, a stack of books from an abandoned school (“Thank god, the sewing has been getting so boring,” Beomgyu exclaims, lunging for them). It had been a good haul; he’d even found an unbroken bottle of wine, which Beomgyu eyes longingly.

“For when they arrive,” Soobin scolds him. “Behave yourself.”

“So what did you get for them?” Beomgyu asks, rocking back on his heels, getting antsy. He tightens Soobin’s robe around his belly, fidgeting with the knot.

Soobin reaches into the bottom of his backpack, where he always hides his best finds. 

“Here,” he says, pulling out the two cans of powdered baby formula. “For the stockpile.”

Beomgyu reaches his hands out for them, silently, and Soobin gives them to him. He turns them over, reading over the labels on the back, as if he hadn’t memorized every detail on the back of the precious three cans they already have. Soobin has been trying to bring some back each time, scouring the city for it, but he’d only made three finds of one can each over the last eight months. He wonders how many other alphas are hiding pregnant omegas, newly off their birth control, for formula to be such a hot item. He couldn’t even find any to purchase on the black market, when he managed to scrounge up some money for it.

“How did you…” Beomgyu looks up at him, his eyes big and round. His cheeks are so pink Soobin feels like he can smell the blood rushing to them.

“Doesn’t matter,” Soobin says. 

“No, tell me,” Beomgyu says, letting his eyes fall to Soobin’s shirt, cataloging its rips and stains.

Soobin never wants to worry him with the details of what it’s like out there on his foraging missions. All that matters is that he’ll always come back, no matter how bad it gets. 

“I got lucky in the grocery store,” he says, shrugging.

Beomgyu purses his ruby lips. Before Soobin can stop him, he lunges forward, ripping the top three buttons of Soobin’s shirt open with his quick hands, as if suddenly noticing the new crescent-shaped red stain hidden in the pattern of its dark gray fabric.

“Oh, hyung,” he says, exhaling. “Don’t get hurt for us.”

“Just a bite,” Soobin says, gripping Beomgyu’s shoulder to keep him from lunging forward to get a better look at the ring of tooth marks in his pec. “You should have seen the other guy.”

“Don’t you dare,” Beomgyu says fiercely, looking up at him. “You got this over the formula?”

Soobin shrugs again. “Just two old alphas posted up around a stack of it,” he says. “I would have gone back for more the next day, but they’d moved it already.”

“You got into a fight? For…” Beomgyu doesn’t finish. He doesn’t have to, seeing the look on Soobin’s face. Soobin would fight anyone standing between himself and something for their pups. Anyone.

Beomgyu wiggles out of Soobin’s grasp and drops his head, nuzzling it into Soobin’s bare chest. He laps over the wound with his tongue, hot and just rough enough, and it feels like he’s injecting pain relief straight into Soobin’s veins. 

“Beoms,” he chokes out, swaying on his knees. “Feels…”

Beomgyu hums, lapping the flat of his tongue over the marks again, and Soobin smells it: the hot, heady scent of his slick, slamming into his nostrils. He hadn’t noticed it before, when Beomgyu had been grinding on his leg. The scent from his neck had been too strong then. But now it’s overwhelming, almost sharp in his brain, as if all that pure, fresh rain has been laced with something tooth-achingly sweet. Liquid sugar pours into Soobin’s senses, and he chokes on his breath, digging his hands into Beomgyu’s sides.

“Hyung,” Beomgyu moans throatily, kissing his wound. “Hyung, you love them.”

“I love them,” he gasps, trying to stay lucid. “You know I do.”

“What would you do for us?” Beomgyu pulls his head up, level with Soobin’s, and Soobin feels like he’s going to pass out from the rush of arousal hitting him. It’s a joke that alphas are supposed to be the strong ones when Beomgyu can shatter him with just a look. The prettiest boy in the world, blinking up at him, round with his pups, and Soobin is helpless.

Soobin yanks on the knot of Beomgyu’s robe, letting it fall open around his bump. Beomgyu is nesting hardcore these days, and Soobin should have expected this. Nothing gets him wetter lately than Soobin being a good dad. Is that fucked up, or just biology?

“I’d do anything you asked,” Soobin murmurs, leaning in. “Before you asked for it.”

Beomgyu lunges for Soobin’s lips, falling into his body, and Soobin grabs for his collar again, fumbling with the buckle on the nape of his neck as they kiss. He needs it off, needs to feel the line of Beomgyu’s delicate neck under his big hands. 

Finally, finally, the buckle pops open, and he wraps his hands around Beomgyu’s blissfully bare neck, feeling how easily his fingers can swallow up its slim circumference. Beomgyu moans, diving his little tongue into Soobin’s mouth as far as he can, and Soobin drops his hands to the back of the robe now, easing it down Beomgyu’s narrow shoulders. Like clockwork, Beomgyu whimpers into his lips as the cool air of the warehouse collides with his exposed skin. 

“So sensitive, sweetness,” Soobin murmurs, pulling away. Beomgyu has a tiny temperature range that he can tolerate before he starts whining. It means he clings extra tightly onto Soobin’s body at night in the winter, practically smothering him to inhale his warmth no matter how many blankets Soobin tucks him in with. Another way Soobin gets to take care of him, another ways their bodies complement each other. Soobin runs hot enough for both of them. 

“Warm me up,” Beomgyu whispers, and it’s all Soobin needs to hear. Touch him. He will. Whatever his omega wants.

It’s not far from the nest to the bed, and though Beomgyu might be heavier these days, he’s still nothing for Soobin to lift. He does it easily, hooking his arms under Beomgyu’s rear and carrying him over to their bed, a salvaged mattress piled high with Beomgyu’s quilted creations. 

Maybe one day, Beomgyu will let him fuck him in his nest, but Soobin won’t ask. It’s the one place where Beomgyu is in control, and Soobin can keep his alpha germs out of it. Beomgyu’s been building it up for months, getting it ready for the pups to arrive. And maybe when they’re here, he’ll invite Soobin into it, so he can hold all three of them in his arms in their safe place. He’s never been in the nest, and he wants to, so badly. But it’s not for him. It’s for them.

Beomgyu kicks his little feet helplessly in the air the whole trip to the mattress. “You’re so big,” he murmurs, as if it weren’t obvious. Beomgyu isn’t that small for an omega, but Soobin towers over him anyway, dwarfing his slight frame. It’s just subgender science, but it turns Beomgyu on so much, and Soobin takes advantage of that knowledge regularly. 

He throws Beomgyu down on the bed like a sack of potatoes, making him squeal. Too late, he remembers that Beomgyu is eight months pregnant. He curses himself internally, immediately shooting out a hand to rest on Beomgyu’s stomach as if checking it. Beomgyu is so fragile these days, but he doesn’t seem to mind the rough treatment. 

“So big,” Beomgyu whimpers again, looking up at him with his fluttery eyelashes, and Soobin pounces over his naked body. He grazes his teeth over the light pink scar of his mating bite on Beomgyu’s neck, practically drooling. He’ll bite it again today, but not yet. It’ll be better once he’s inside him. 

“Big enough to keep you safe,” Soobin purrs instead, walking his hand up Beomgyu’s inner thigh to dive his fingers between his legs. They both moan in unison, and Soobin needs to take a deep, bracing breath, overcome by the feeling of Beomgyu’s drenched slit, slippery on his rough skin. 

Soobin hasn’t even really looked at him yet, hasn’t even taken a second to savor an inch of his flawless body, ready to be marked up again. Slow down, he tells himself, pulling his fingers out to trace back down Beomgyu’s other thigh. He tries to ignore the cloyingly sweet smell of Beomgyu’s slick drenching his nostrils, the way it’s making his cock throb in his pants. Don’t rush it. Give him what he deserves. 

Beomgyu deserves to be worshipped, exalted, and he knows it. He drags a finger delicately along the scar on his neck, working it down to one of his swollen, puffy nipples, and Soobin’s eyes track its movement as if shackled to his fingertip. 

“It’s safe here, hyung,” Beomgyu says. “Safe for you, too.”

Soobin doesn’t need safety. He’s their alpha. He needs to absorb all the dangers around them, suck them up like a sponge, so Beomgyu can grow softer and rounder, content and cozy in his nest. Soobin is the safety. 

“Don’t I keep you safe?” Beomgyu asks, as if listening in, and he pinches his own nipple. “Don’t I, hyung?”

“Of course you do,” Soobin says, humoring him. 

Beomgyu giggles. “Look,” he says, and bares his tiny teeth, a row of cute little pearls. They couldn’t cut anything but his food. 

“So fierce,” Soobin says, rearing his head back as if he were suddenly frightened, and Beomgyu does it again, adding a high-pitched growl. 

“No one touches us,” he says, licking his lips. “Not with me here. I’ll fight them off.”

He’s pink and naked and pregnant and the least threatening thing Soobin has ever seen, and Soobin is so, so helpless. Weak inside, his bulging muscles useless, his sharp teeth dulled. Beomgyu is his fatal flaw. 

“You’re scaring me,” Soobin says in a hushed voice, cupping one of Beomgyu’s tender nipples and squeezing the swollen tissue. Beomgyu gasps, his jaw falling open, the cutely ferocious expression gone. “What are you, a brand new alpha?”

“Y-yes,” Beomgyu moans as Soobin rolls his nipple between his fingers. 

“So why haven’t you bitten me yet?” Soobin says, dropping his head to Beomgyu’s navel, rolling out a row of kisses to cover the dark line plunging down from it. 

“I will,” Beomgyu whispers, flinging his head back on the mattress, letting his hair fall in a black halo around his head. “I’ll mate you.”

“Oh, am I your omega?” Soobin teases, grazing his incisors up the underside of his bump again. He brings his thumb to the crest of Beomgyu’s cunt, rolling it gently over his swollen clit. 

“Mine, whatever,” Beomgyu breathes. “Hyung, please.”

Soobin is so hungry. This is when his alpha is most in control of him, when he’s about to feast. When he’s thought about the taste of Beomgyu’s slick for days, leaning on the memory to get him through the shit of the outside world. He lowers his head and presses his teeth into Beomgyu’s inner thigh, just enough to leave a mark and draw a pitched breath out of him, another whimper of please. 

“Show me,” he says, and Beomgyu obliges instantly, opening himself up for Soobin. He’s glistening, dripping slick out of both holes, his body ready for Soobin to take however he wants. It’s the lewdest thing Soobin can imagine, Beomgyu leaking and swelling and begging, legs spread wide, and Soobin feels a roar building up in his chest. 

“Who’s?” Soobin is already dropping his head, bringing his lips to meet his thumb, still circling Beomgyu’s clit. No more roleplay. Back to reality. 

“Yours, alpha,” Beomgyu breathes. “Holy…”

Soobin licks him from bottom to top, drinking in the sweet taste of his slick, finally, finally. Like honey falling from the rainclouds. He closes his eyes and lets Beomgyu’s whine wash over him, tracing his tongue back over his labia, burying it in Beomgyu’s cunt and grinding against his clit with his thumb again. 

“Lick me, lick me, please, alpha,” Beomgyu begs, and Soobin replaces his thumb with the tip of his tongue, flicking it slowly, and then less so, and less so. Beomgyu squirms, clutching his hands around his bump and wrapping his legs around the back of Soobin’s head, and Soobin can’t see his pretty face anymore. The bump is just too big. But he doesn’t need to. He has it memorized, the perfect round O that Beomgyu’s lips form, the tiny wrinkles that appear under his eyes as he scrunches them closed. Beomgyu’s sex faces are Soobin’s favorite thing to look at, even more than his naked body. 

And the noises, fuck. Beomgyu isn’t one of those quiet, meek omegas Soobin was taught he should desire. He’s loud and bold like omegas are in porn, like every teenage alpha’s fantasy. He lets out a devastating mewl, tightening his thighs around Soobin’s head as if trying to drown him in his slick. I’m doing this to him, Soobin thinks, and his alpha purrs. 

He strokes his index finger down Beomgyu’s slit, plunging it into his hole. A high-pitched moan rips out of Beomgyu’s throat as Soobin crooks his finger, and he winds his hands into Soobin’s hair, his breathing growing shallow. It’s his tell that he’s close—the first one never takes long. 

Soobin nuzzles his head from side to side, burrowing in deeper, keeping up the pace. Feasting. He feels half drunk on the taste of him, flushed from the heat of Beomgyu’s thighs against his cheeks. He presses in a second finger, still lapping doggedly at Beomgyu’s clit, and Beomgyu sucks in a deep breath and holds it. He always holds his own breath right before he comes. It’s the only time he’s silent during sex. 

Soobin’s tongue is tiring, but he won’t stop. He won’t until—Beomgyu’s legs begin to go limp, his arms collapsing. A gush of slick cascades down Soobin’s chin as Beomgyu moans through his orgasm, letting out all the air in his lungs, all the pent-up tension in his core. “Hyung,” he whimpers as the aftershocks ricochet through him, “hyung hyung I can’t I—”

He can. Soobin draws up for air, letting his full lips hang open as he pants above Beomgyu’s bump. Beomgyu’s face is still tensed up, his eyebrows barely settling back into place, and Soobin watches his glassy eyes focus on the shine all over Soobin’s chin. 

“Another,” Soobin commands, and dives back in before Beomgyu can pretend to resist. He’ll give him two more like this before he’ll even think about letting Beomgyu touch him, one for each day he was gone. It melts away the tiniest bit of Soobin’s guilt about leaving him alone and in danger, the way no alpha ever should leave their omega. Maybe he has to leave him, but when he comes back, he’ll make him feel like this every time. 

By the time Beomgyu’s third orgasm peaks, the collar of Soobin’s shirt is drenched in slick. Beomgyu’s legs are splayed uselessly out to the sides, his cunt easily swallowing three of Soobin’s fingers. So fucked out, and he hasn’t even been fucked. “Hyung, hyung,” he sobs, reaching another crest, “hyu—fuck, mm—”

He falls silent again, and Soobin works him through it with his fingers. Fuck, he wishes he could see Beomgyu’s face all wracked up and twitching, but the bump makes that impossible. He’ll settle for feeling his cunt clenching, his thighs seizing up desperately as his orgasm hits him. It’s like it’s too powerful for Beomgyu’s slim body, and Soobin groans into his clit. The ache in his cock is getting impossible to ignore. 

“What do you need?” he chokes out through the cloud of Beomgyu’s scent, throttling his ability to think straight. Omega first. He has to check on his omega. “What can I do for you, babe?”

“Take me,” Beomgyu pants, struggling to press himself up on his palms. “Oh my god, I need you. Need you.”

“Water? Bathroom break?” Beomgyu’s stamina isn’t what it was before, and Soobin worries. 

“Shut up,” Beomgyu whines. “Take your shirt off.”

Soobin shuts up. He sits up and tears it over his head, and Beomgyu lets out a wounded noise as his muscles and scars come into view. “Pants?” he asks, and Soobin obeys, standing up to drop them. He’ll give him whatever he needs. 

Beomgyu’s face melts as his eyes fall on Soobin’s bulging cock, almost fully hard. He whimpers and starts to move, rolling onto his side, making to get onto his knees. It’s an instinct. 

“No,” Soobin says. “No, not yet.”

“Want to,” Beomgyu says in a tiny, needy voice. He can’t help it, the need to present. Instinct. “It hurts.”

“I’ll take you like that later,” Soobin says gently, leaning over Beomgyu’s body, trailing a hand down his side and gripping onto his hip bone to keep him from rolling over more. “When I knot you. But not yet.” 

It’s hard, now, for Beomgyu to present on his knees the way they both prefer it. It’s hard on his joints, aching from carrying around two almost-full-term pups. Much easier for him this way, spooning, although he’d never admit it. He cares too much about pleasing Soobin. But Soobin couldn’t care less how he fucks him, as long as Beomgyu is comfortable. Omega comes first. 

Soobin slides in behind Beomgyu on the bed, tucking an arm under his neck and clutching his back against him. They fit together like nesting dolls, Soobin’s long limbs wrapping around Beomgyu’s slender ones, his broad hand falling automatically to cup his round belly. 

“Did you dream about this while I was gone?” he murmurs into Beomgyu’s ear, brushing tendrils of hair off the nape of his neck with his chin. Soobin always does, in the fitful moments of sleep he can steal out there. Always dreams of Beomgyu’s scent, of his pouty lips and the tiny waist hidden under his pregnant belly.

Beomgyu drops his head onto the pillow, stretching out his neck for Soobin to burrow into. “You know I did,” he breathes. “And I fucked myself, trying to pretend.”

“How did it feel?” Soobin flicks his eyes over to the corner, to the rough workman’s sink that mercifully still gets a strong-enough trickle of water, the whole reason living here is possible. Beomgyu’s two most precious possessions are resting along the edge of it, clearly just washed and left out to dry. The two dildos Soobin found for him the first time he had to leave him to forage. Pretend they’re me, and that I’m making you feel good, but Soobin knows they aren’t good enough. 

“Not good enough,” Beomgyu says, plunging a hand behind him to fondle the base of Soobin’s dick, tugging at the loose skin where his knot forms. Soobin shudders, his guilt growing along with his erection. He has to leave him to keep him fed and healthy. He knows he has to, but it never gets easier to leave his omega alone and wanting. It goes against every alpha instinct in his body. 

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers to Beomgyu’s neck. 

“Show me how sorry,” Beomgyu says, arching his back to thrust his ass against Soobin’s cock. He rubs it against his ass cheek, smearing his precum over it. “Show me there.”

“When I knot you,” Soobin promises him. “Later. Soon.”

Soobin can’t ever pop a knot the first time they fuck outside of heat or rut. He needs to warm up first, get himself going, and then he can pull it off for round two. Beomgyu grumbles about it, but he loves it. It means he always gets dicked down twice, and Soobin usually saves pounding his ass for the time when he can pull off the knot. Beomgyu fucking loves it up the ass, and Soobin loves to knot it. It’s even warmer and snugger around him than Beomgyu’s pussy. He’s just the luckiest alpha in the world, isn’t he?

If only they’d done it that way eight months ago, but it’s too late. No point regretting it. Inevitable, anyway. 

Beomgyu lifts his top leg and Soobin catches it, pulling it up towards the ceiling. “Please, alpha,” Beomgyu breathes, and Soobin can’t hold off any longer. He twists his hips, rubbing the head of his cock along Beomgyu’s slit, and Beomgyu grabs it roughly, pushing it into his cunt unceremoniously. 

“Fuck, fuck,” he gasps, and Soobin forgets to breathe for a moment. So slick, so warm, made for him. It takes all of his willpower to not reopen Beomgyu’s mating bite right then and there. He drenches it in his spit instead, licking at it frantically as he pushes slowly into Beomgyu’s pussy. Beomgyu’s scent is pouring, the rain waking up the bright smells of the earth. 

“Faster,” Beomgyu begs him, but Soobin doesn’t speed up his slide. He knows he’s a specimen of an alpha: too tall, too broad, hung heavily between the thighs — a stud, Beomgyu calls him, when he wants to make Soobin flush. And Beomgyu is a delicate omega, tiny, tight as fuck even after being fingered for a half hour. It means that Soobin always feels like he might literally tear him apart when he enters him, and so he has to be careful. 

Later, he won’t care. Later he’ll be hazy with slick, and scent, and need, and he’ll pound Beomgyu with abandon, without restraint. He’ll tear at his skin with his teeth and nails and Beomgyu will cry and scream and plead for more. But for now, Soobin is still careful. 

“Show me you can take it, first,” he whispers, nibbling on Beomgyu’s ear. The omega moans, lifting his leg an inch higher to make more room. Soobin smiles into his skin, pressing in deeper, feeling Beomgyu’s body shifting around him. He wiggles his pelvis, finding space for him, and Soobin closes his eyes, digging his nose into the hollow of Beomgyu’s ear. 

“Home?” he asks, and Beomgyu nods. 

“Please,” he stammers.

Soobin thrusts home with one last jerk, and Beomgyu doubles over as the last inch of Soobin’s cock sinks into his cunt, a shrill whine tearing from his lips. Soobin wants to bite bite bite him everywhere, rip at his scar, devour his spine. Instead he clutches his leg closer and starts to pound, slamming his hips into Beomgyu’s ass cheeks, almost choking as his thrusts pump the smell of sweet, syrupy slick up towards his nose. Beomgyu feels like a mold for him more and more every time they fuck, hot and dripping and skin-tight and his. His mate, just for him. 

“Soobin hyung, Soob…ohhhhh, fuck,” Beomgyu wails. Soobin grits his teeth, digging his nails into Beomgyu’s inner thigh, and works up a blissful, pounding rhythm into Beomgyu’s tight hole.

Fuck, he wishes he could show Beomgyu off. Wishes he could take him to a party and bend him over a table, showing off the noises he can rip from his throat, how perfectly his tiny pussy stretches to fit Soobin’s thick knot. Wishes he could carry a photo of him everywhere he goes, dangle it in front of the alphas he pins to the ground as he steals the best items from their hauls. I need this food more than you, because it’s for him, and any alpha would understand, seeing Beomgyu’s dainty face. 

And their pups…god, their pups. Soobin tucks his arm under Beomgyu’s inner thigh to clutch it higher as his hand feels for the roundness of Beomgyu’s bump, and Beomgyu piles his own small hand on top of his. Their pups will be the most beautiful babies in the world, and they’ll want for nothing, spoiled and pampered and safe in their mother’s nest while their father brings home everything they need. So strong, because they’re Beomgyu’s, and Beomgyu wouldn’t bear weak pups. They’ll survive the war, the four of them, and they’ll get out of the city, and they’ll find a pretty cottage in the woods where the kids can run free outside while Soobin locks the door and breeds Beomgyu again, and again…

“Harder,” Beomgyu cries, “alpha, harder, fuck me harder…”

Soobin can’t hold back anymore. He sinks his teeth into the scar of the mating bite, wrapped delicately around the side of Beomgyu’s neck just over his shoulder, grazing the edge of his scent gland. Beomgyu screams, and Soobin claps a hand over his mouth to muffle it. He can feel Beomgyu’s muscles tensing all over as a wave of feeling shoots through him, radiating out from the bite. He thinks he drew blood from the saltiness spilling into his mouth, but it doesn’t matter. Mine, mine, and Beomgyu starts going slack, his body giving itself over to his mate. Soobin rips his teeth away to lap over the bloody bite mark with his tongue, and Beomgyu gasps. 

“Feels, feels…” so good, Soobin can fill in. 

“So good,” he moans back. “Beomgyu, fuck, ‘m— I need to—”

“I know, I know,” Beomgyu chokes out, his words broken up by the rhythm of Soobin’s thrusts shaking him. “Please, want it.”

Beomgyu sucks in a deep breath, and Soobin bends the arm tucked under his neck, gripping his slender throat in the crook of his elbow as tightly as he can. “Fuck, babe—take, ahh—” His brain is stuttering, and Beomgyu is limp in his arms, all wrapped up and pliant and safe. Ready to be fucked the way he deserves, and Soobin drives into him deep and hard, yanking his body back down on his cock with the arm around his neck, meeting each thrust. 

Beomgyu’s delicate fingers are glued to Soobin’s forearm, gripping tight to brace himself. He can’t speak. He just whimpers out a series of stifled, wounded sounds, letting Soobin have his way with him, barely breathing. He’s leaking so much slick that Soobin feels like his cock is swimming in him more than fucking him. 

“Beomgyu, babe, perfect,” Soobin hisses into the back of his neck, nipping his nape too hard. Beomgyu just chokes on a moan in response, digging his nails into Soobin’s arm, arching his back as best he can. Presenting, and the sight of it lights a fire in Soobin’s belly.

Soobin is the only one who’s had Beomgyu like this, the only one who’s ever taken him apart and made him beg. The only one Beomgyu has ever presented for. He was a virgin when they met, protected by his family and locked up in their home, away from all the alphas who might corrupt him. So timid and eager, barely even knew what a knot was. 

He’s still eager now, but not so timid anymore. He’s learned what he likes and how to get it from Soobin in an instant. It makes Soobin feel a rush of possessive pride to plow him with his cock and feel Beomgyu buck right back onto him, to thrust through his soft lips and watch Beomgyu eagerly suck down every drop of his load. All these things that Soobin got to teach him, and no one will ever know what a needy slut his sheltered little omega has blossomed into. How he chokes on Soobin’s cock until he can’t speak, how he moans for another knot before Soobin’s last one has even gone down, how his eyes water when Soobin slaps him and he whispers more, again —

“Fuck, fuck, Beomgyu,” Soobin groans, dropping Beomgyu’s leg and plunging his hand under his bump to graze his cunt again. Fuck, fuck, he’s falling under. That fire is spilling out from his belly into his chest, into his thighs, and he rubs circles into Beomgyu’s swollen clit, fast and frenzied. Beomgyu squeals, barely able to breathe, his fingers on Soobin’s arm finally going as limp as the rest of his body. 

Soobin feels that itch around the base of his cock, his body wanting to knot but not quite able to. He needs to cum desperately, but omega first, and he angles his hips as he thrusts, grinds his fingers. Push him push him push him over the edge make him cum omega first Beomgyu first—

Beomgyu exhales, letting out all his air, deflating. Holding his breath. “Cum for me,” Soobin growls, keeping up his pace, “be good, my omega, be good for your alpha…what do I want, baby?”

Beomgyu is so fragile these days. He gives himself over, gives Soobin what he wants. He fractures, his limbs quivering ferociously, trying to squirm away from Soobin’s hand as he plummets into overstimulation. Soobin lets up on his neck and Beomgyu gulps in a squealing breath. 

“Fill me fill me fill me alpha—”

The fire is white hot all down Soobin’s legs, flooding his brain. Soobin shoots up to kneeling before he can stop himself, rolling Beomgyu’s back flat onto the bed and bending his slim legs up onto his shoulders. Beomgyu is still flexible enough to accommodate it, just barely, and he wails, flinging both hands together above his head as if the leather cuffs around his wrists were bound together. Soobin slams back into him, groaning, and he knows Beomgyu’s gonna do it, he’s gonna say it. Always does, now, because he’s learned that it gets him what he wants. 

“Pup me,” he whispers, beautiful features blissfully relaxed. “Pup me, alpha, breed me.” 

Fuck, Beomgyu is already so pregnant, but Soobin’s alpha doesn’t care. He needs to fill his soft, sweet, glowing omega. He needs to prove that he’s strong enough for him, alpha enough to pup him and make it stick. 

Soobin flings his broad hands around the front of Beomgyu’s throat, where his own name would be if Beomgyu were wearing his collar. He digs his fingertips into his plush skin and pounds, pounds his cunt, letting Beomgyu’s scent overwhelm his senses. He wants to knot him, needs to knot him, but too soon, he’s bursting. It pours out of his cock, growls out of his throat. He plunges in as he cums, gripping Beomgyu’s neck like he’s engraving his name right into his skin. 

“Yes, yes,” Beomgyu sobs, his feet twitching on Soobin’s shoulders. He’s so little, and Soobin’s load is dripping out of him already, no knot to hold it in place. “Yes, baby, fuck…”

Soobin groans, body spent, muscles beginning to collapse. He manages to aim himself to the side to avoid crushing Beomgyu’s tender stomach as he falls, slamming his heavy body to the bed alongside Beomgyu’s frame instead and slinging an arm across his narrow chest. Beomgyu squeaks, one of his legs trapped under Soobin’s weight, but he doesn’t complain. They lay there, coming back to earth, heart rates still soaring. 

Soobin feels a stream of cum and slick trickling out of Beomgyu’s cunt as he slips out, softening. He wonders with a start if the plastic cover is on the mattress, or if Beomgyu had taken it off while Soobin was away. It’s not the most comfortable thing to sleep on, if you don’t have to. But if it’s not on, the mattress will be damp and gross and Beomgyu won’t sleep well and he needs to sleep so the pups can grow…

Beomgyu sniffs deeply, detecting something in Soobin’s scent. “Cover’s on,” he says, sleepily. “Relax. I’ve got you.”

Beomgyu is everything to Soobin. The perfect omega, the perfect mate, the perfect…partner. And he’s happy. His scent is sated, a peaceful morning mist. He turns his head to press his lips to the side of Soobin’s face, to the scar hidden under his hairline from a fight gone a bit wrong. 

“I love you,” Beomgyu breathes, and Soobin starts to cry. 

He shouldn’t. He’s an alpha. He shouldn’t cry, ever. The first time he did, he thought he was broken, that he must have hit his head escaping from the pack he had stolen from on the way home. Beomgyu had just kissed his teary cheeks and told him he was the strongest alpha in the world, stronger and stronger the more he cried. Soobin doesn’t try to hold it in anymore. 

“Oh, hyung,” Beomgyu whispers. “You’re safe.” 

Soobin is, when he holds Beomgyu. He was right. 

Beomgyu licks at his scent gland, tickling his small fingers along Soobin’s collarbone. Soobin just sniffs into the mattress, letting Beomgyu chip at his hard shell, lap away his anguish with his soft kisses, baby touches.

“You’re the only good thing left,” Soobin chokes, and Beomgyu hushes him, grabbing Soobin’s broad hand from across his chest and bringing it to his belly instead. 

“Not the only,” he says.

“I don’t know if I can…”

“You can,” Beomgyu says firmly. “You’re doing it.”

What if he can’t, though? He’ll never say it out loud. He’s too proud to admit that he might fail. To say how much bleaker it’s gotten out there, how few and far between the good finds have been. 

“Hyung, you’re not alone,” Beomgyu says, weaving their fingers together on his belly. “Look at me.”

Soobin turns his head, and Beomgyu’s angel face is set firm, resolute. His narrow jaw is tense, his pink lips in a line. 

“You’ll bring me whatever you can, and I’ll make it work,” Beomgyu says. “I won’t let them down either. Would I let them down?”

“No,” Soobin whispers. “Fuck, no. You’re going to be the best.”

“I will,” Beomgyu says confidently. “And so will you.”

He rolls onto his side, prodding Soobin until he rolls to face him, too. Soobin scoots in as close as he can, flush to Beomgyu’s belly, and Beomgyu drops his arm over Soobin’s back, the leather of his wrist cuff cutting into Soobin’s skin. 

“If it wasn’t you, it would be someone else,” Beomgyu says. He hooks his knee around Soobin’s thigh, pulling his leg between his own, and Soobin feels the wetness of cum and slick painting the insides of Beomgyu’s thighs. “Do you think some other alpha could do a better job?”

Beomgyu knows what he’s doing, cocking an eyebrow slyly, and Soobin growls involuntarily. 

“Absolutely fucking not,” he hisses. No alpha could take better care of his mate, of his pups. God, the fucking thought of Beomgyu mated to someone else, presenting for some shitty, show-off alpha who doesn’t deserve him…

“Exactly,” Beomgyu says, sounding so smug that Soobin is tempted to pinch his cheeks and put him in his place. “You’re the best one out there. You’re all we need, hyung.”

“We only have five cans,” Soobin says. He can’t meet Beomgyu’s eyes. 

“That’s two more than we had three days ago,” Beomgyu says insistently, leaning his face closer in until Soobin meets his gaze again. “You’ll find more. And who knows? Maybe we won’t need it. Maybe I’ll be enough.”

“You’ll be enough,” Soobin says immediately. It feels good to let himself think it. “Especially for the girl.”

“Oh? You think she’ll be an easy baby? Small appetite?”

“She’ll be perfect,” Soobin says, although he has no idea what that even means. He’s barely touched a pup before. Alphas rarely do, before their own. “She’ll be like you.”

“And what does that mean?” Beomgyu teases, leaning in more. He walks his fingers up Soobin’s hard chest, flicking his small nipple on the way to his clavicle. “You mean…docile? Gentle?”

Beomgyu isn’t docile and gentle. He should be, maybe, but he isn’t, and Soobin doesn’t want him to be. Not when Beomgyu lets him cry into his arms as much as he wants. 

“Exactly,” Soobin says anyway, taking a deep breath and shaking the tears out of his mind. “Well-behaved.”

“And what will our son be like?” Beomgyu asks, breaking into a dazzling, ear-to-ear grin. 

His favorite thing to do: dream about the future, as if it will be normal. 

“A rascal,” Soobin says, catching Beomgyu’s hand again. “A troublemaker. Sounds like you too, actually.”

“I want to put them both in ballet classes,” Beomgyu says, dreamily. “It’s such a good way to learn discipline. And it’s so pretty.”

“You could teach them guitar,” Soobin says, stomach turning over at the thought of the burnt-out theater downtown where the ballet used to perform. He’d taken Beomgyu there once before the war, and watched his face instead of the dancers. Radiant. Beomgyu doesn’t know that it’s a shell now. 

“Maybe,” Beomgyu says thoughtfully. “They probably should learn to eat solid food first, though. Then extracurriculars.”

“You’re the one already getting them into university,” Soobin laughs, and Beomgyu smiles at him. 

“I want them to be omegas,” Beomgyu says. “So one day, someone will love them the way you love me.”

“No, baby,” Soobin says before he can help himself. “No, it’s…” not safe for omegas anymore. He doesn’t want to scare him, though. He can’t say it out loud, that it will never go back to the way it was. 

“Why not?” Beomgyu says determinedly, daring him to say it. “It’s beautiful, being an omega. I wouldn’t give it up for anything.” He tries to shake his hand free, tries to cradle his bump, but Soobin won’t let go of it, his heart fluttering. Beomgyu’s beautiful hand, beautiful face. Safe and soft and beautiful.

“No, you’re right,” Soobin says quietly. “Fuck, it’s the most beautiful thing. You’re right.”

“I don’t want them to be alphas, and have to suffer the way you do,” Beomgyu says, letting his eyes fall to the fresh bite mark on Soobin’s chest. His left eye twitches. 

As if it counts as suffering, Soobin thinks, when it’s the only thing giving him purpose: using his body to provide for them. But of course Beomgyu wouldn’t see it that way. He’s too loving, too protective of his alpha, too worried for his safety. He’s too bold for his own good, and Soobin wonders just how fiercely Beomgyu would fight if he could go out there too. How many cans of formula he would have nicked from the stack before those two alphas went for his throat, the way they did to Soobin. Probably more than the two cans Soobin managed to steal. 

Soobin grits his teeth and summons his strength. No more tears. 

“Betas, then,” he says. “They’ll be betas. Fuck all this drama. Betas are much easier.” 

He combs through Beomgyu’s long, shaggy hair with his fingers, and Beomgyu giggles. 

“So much easier,” he agrees. “Although the sex can’t be as good for them, can it?”

“Don’t fucking talk about our kids’ sex lives,” Soobin groans. “Shit, Beomgyu. Don’t make me think about that, ever.”

“Why not?” Beomgyu laughs gleefully. “It’s a beautiful thing, right? Sexuality?” The word rolls over his tongue fluidly, and he presses his palm flat to Soobin’s chest to hold him back as Soobin makes a dive for his neck, trying to bite him. 

“Beautiful when it’s yours,” Soobin breathes, making another weak pass at Beomgyu’s scent gland and letting him hold him off again, giggling madly. It makes Beomgyu feel strong, when Soobin lets him win at play-fighting. It turns him on. 

“Or yours,” Beomgyu breathes back, digging his little nails into Soobin’s thick skin, barely making a dent. “Or ours. Alpha and omega. Beautiful, right?”

So painful, that Soobin can’t show him off. It’s beautiful, being an omega, Beomgyu had said, and it’s beautiful to have one, too. It’s all-consuming these days, being mated. Soobin knows they’ve both been feeling more… feral, more animal, the longer they’ve been holed up here together without suppressants and scent blockers, no friends or jobs or rules of human society to distract them from their primal sides. He remembers a time when he would have called himself a man first and an alpha second, but now everything is alpha omega alpha omega. Feed his omega, fight for his omega, fuck his omega. 

He thinks he hated it at first, feeling so alpha all the time. He remembers throwing up in the middle of Beomgyu’s first heat off his suppressants, completely depleted and nearly delirious after days of knotting, knotting, knotting. But Beomgyu was still crying for him, burning up from the heat fever he’d never fully felt before, and Soobin had to keep going. There were no medications to turn to, no omega friends for Beomgyu to nest with. And now they’re used to it, existing as a lonely pair in this strange new state of nature. Beautiful, in a way. Just alpha and omega, no one else.

Beomgyu is looking at him oddly, blinking very fast. His chest is heaving as if he’s out of breath.

“What’s wrong?” Soobin asks, alarmed. He lifts his hand to the bite on Beomgyu’s neck, soothing his fingers over it. He knows he gets too caught up in his own thoughts sometimes, stuck in his introverted reveries. It makes him miss Beomgyu’s more subtle cues, so Beomgyu has stopped being subtle. 

“Let’s go to the nest,” Beomgyu says suddenly. 

“What?” Soobin says, taken aback. “You don’t have to.”

“I want to,” Beomgyu says. “I want you in the nest. It’s yours too.”

“But it’s not mine,” Soobin says quietly. God, he wants to. It would mean so much, but… “You’ve worked so hard, baby. I might ruin it.”

“You won’t, hyung,” Beomgyu says, more urgently. “It…it won’t be ready for them until it’s yours, too. I just know it.”

Ready for the pups. Beomgyu wants Soobin’s scent there for the pups, wants the nest they arrive into to smell like their father, too. Soobin might cry again, but Beomgyu’s scent is too calming for his tears to fall. It’s like he’s fighting to swim upstream, his emotions battling against Beomgyu’s complete and utter peace. 

“You’re sure?” he asks, voice trembling. 

“I want you to take me in the nest,” Beomgyu whispers, letting his pretty eyelashes fall closed. “Knot me there. It’s the safest place.”

Maybe it is for Beomgyu, but Soobin doesn’t belong in an omega nest. He’s too big, too harsh, too sharp around the edges. It’s too easy for his body to disrupt the careful order of clothing and fabric and pillows and scavenged objects that Beomgyu has been working on for months. It’s such a sign of trust for Beomgyu to let him in, and it’s why Soobin wants to be asked in so badly. He’s wanted it for so long, but Beomgyu would always have to be the one to ask first. Soobin would never push him. That would ruin it. 

“You trust me?” he asks faintly, and Beomgyu opens his eyes, rolling them. 

“Hyung, it’s you and me, forever,” he says. “Don’t overthink it. Let’s just go to the nest.”

Beomgyu’s nest fills a whole corner of the little room, piled up on a foundation of sleeping bags and blankets that Soobin dragged back for him over trip after trip. It’s ringed with cozy layers of the prettiest, softest fabrics Beomgyu could scrounge from around the fifth floor of the warehouse, the only floor Soobin will let him explore on his own when he’s out foraging. And on top of all that is anything soft that Beomgyu’s laid claim to, from his socks to a stack of napkins to the embroidered tablecloth that Soobin’s grandmother passed to Beomgyu as a mating gift, a generation-to-generation omega heirloom that Beomgyu refused to flee the central city without. Soobin spots his own winter coat tucked into one corner, balled up as if Beomgyu had been hugging it while he was gone. All of Soobin’s coziest shirts seem to have ended up in the nest, too, wrapped around pillows so that Beomgyu can nuzzle his face into them more easily while he naps. 

It smells so overwhelmingly omega — new, bright, open. Ready for new life, in just a month. Safe, and Beomgyu falls backwards into the center of the nest, holding out his arms. 

“I want you here,” he says simply. 

Soobin is too afraid to cross the boundary. What if he ruins Beomgyu’s safest place? What if he makes it smell like danger, and conflict, and Beomgyu has nowhere left for himself? Alphas have taken everything from Beomgyu. No more nights at the ballet, no more playing guitar on his stoop. No more life out there, and the least Soobin can do is let him have this place in here. 

Beomgyu leans back on one palm, floating the other across his bare belly. “Don’t make me force you to come in,” he teases, shaking his hair back. Because he can. He can get Soobin to do anything he wants, with just a flutter of his eyelashes. 

Soobin falls to his knees and crawls into the nest. It’s like smothering himself in Beomgyu’s scent, sewing it into his skin. Everywhere he turns, a flood of Beomgyu, cascading down his spine and pooling in his knees. He breathes deeply, flexing his neck, rolling his hands on his wrists. He feels like he’s acclimating to being in here, rising slowly to the surface so he doesn’t get the bends, and Beomgyu just watches him.

“Too much?” Beomgyu asks carefully, breathing deeply as if he’s controlling himself, too. 

Soobin stretches his back, feeling it snap all down his vertebrae. “No,” he says tentatively, trying to assess how he’s feeling. He runs his hands over the soft fabrics piled underneath him, charting their textures. He eyes Beomgyu warily, still sitting cross-legged, leaning back on one palm two feet in front of him. Why does Soobin feel so on edge, fidgety? Beomgyu’s scent normally calms him, but now it feels like it’s activating his nervous system, setting off alarms in his brain. 

“You look so scared,” Beomgyu says softly. “You can’t break it, hyung. You’re only making it better.”

Scared. Soobin is scared, out of his element. It’s hard to believe anything about Soobin could make this place better, when it’s already so soft. When it’s fully Beomgyu’s, and Beomgyu is the only good thing left. 

He leans forward, bringing his hands to rest on Beomgyu’s cheeks, and tips Beomgyu’s pretty face backwards on his neck like a bobblehead. Beomgyu holds his breath, sitting ramrod straight, his hair raining from his scalp. 

“I’m weak,” Soobin whispers to Beomgyu’s lips, hovering millimeters away. 

Beomgyu darts out his pink kitten tongue, moistening his bottom lip, and Soobin can smell his anticipation, his bubbling need. “You’re strong,” he says. “Prove it, alpha.”

“Prove what?” Soobin grips his face tighter, and Beomgyu gasps. He’s a peach, bruisable. 

“How strong you are,” he says so faintly he’s almost mouthing it. “How can you prove it?” 

Soobin’s alpha rears its head inside his chest. 

“I want to knot your ass,” Soobin says under his breath, and Beomgyu whimpers, his straight posture beginning to cave in. “I want you to present for me like a good boy and take every inch of my cock up your ass.”

“Right here?” Beomgyu trembles, and Soobin can smell his slick dripping out of him again, even sweeter than before. He knows what’s coming, and he wants it desperately. 

“Right here, just like you want,” Soobin says. “That’s what you want, right? You want your alpha to plow you in your own nest? You want it to smell like my cum in here the next time I leave, so you can fuck yourself with your toys right where I knotted you?”

“Fuck yeah,” Beomgyu breathes, nearly salivating.

“You’re so filthy, sweetness,” Soobin says, licking his own lips and tightening his hands around Beomgyu’s rosy cheeks. Just the right amount of filthy. “So horny for me. I’m not even supposed to be in here. Doesn’t it hurt?” He’s heard that it does, sometimes; that omegas can feel the intrusion of an alpha into their nest as if it were a physical injury. It’s part of why he’s always been so careful not to breach that boundary, to stay just on the other side. 

“Feels right,” Beomgyu whispers, “like you’re inside me already.” 

Soobin moans, bringing their lips together and pressing his tongue through the seam of Beomgyu’s. Inside him. He needs to be inside him, tongue and hands and cock, as deep as he can. He laps into Beomgyu’s lips, and Beomgyu’s scent spills into Soobin’s mouth, a shock of ice water so cold that it numbs Soobin from the inside out. Tastes like nothing and everything, cool and crisp and clean, and Soobin can’t remember tasting anything else.

Beomgyu’s hands fly up to Soobin’s chest, and he pushes, just hard enough for Soobin to understand what he wants him to do. Soobin is too strong and heavy for Beomgyu to move his body on his own. He has to listen to him instead, to read his soft touches and pointed pushes and act accordingly. He never wants Beomgyu to have to ask twice.

Soobin pulls away from Beomgyu’s lips, and Beomgyu walks his hands down Soobin’s body, bringing them to the base of his cock. 

“Thought about this all day yesterday,” he says, eyeing it hungrily. 

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Soobin rumbles, watching his dick visibly swell in Beomgyu’s delicate fingers. Beomgyu just shakes his head, bringing his lips down to meet the tip. 

Soobin can barely watch. Beomgyu is playing shy tonight, being coy with it. Kissing his cock and licking all the cum and slick off of it and giving the head of it little sucks, allowing it to fall from his lips with grotesquely wet noises. He doubles over his bump on his knees, and Soobin lets his eyes skate down his bare back, landing on the little dimples that sit around his tailbone. Beomgyu twists his hands around the loose skin where Soobin’s knot forms, almost wringing it between his fingers, and Soobin can’t keep his eyes off his face anymore. He bends in half, clutching Beomgyu’s pretty head. 

“More,” he orders, wavering on his knees. But he doesn’t use his command tone, and so Beomgyu shakes his head around Soobin’s cock. No, no, he’s playing innocent tonight. No, how could he take more, when he’s so small? He peers up at Soobin through his eyelashes, unblinking, as he lets Soobin’s cock overflow out of his mouth, and Soobin feels his tongue push a bead of drool out of the corner of his lips. It spills down Beomgyu’s chin, dripping into the nest, and he gags, even though Soobin’s cock is barely filling his mouth. He can take so much more, if he wants to, but he doesn’t want to yet. He wants to be small and innocent, and it’s torture. 

“Beoms, Beomgyu…” Soobin whines, and Beomgyu sighs, drawing off Soobin’s cock and staring up at him with just the very tip of his tongue lapping at his slit. Soobin could end this in just a second, could tell him in his alpha voice to swallow down his cock, and Beomgyu would do it in a heartbeat. But he’s in Beomgyu’s nest, and he wants it to go Beomgyu’s way, and if Beomgyu wants to torment him…

“Hyung,” Beomgyu says, the word coming out garbled with his tongue still hanging through his lips. “Hyung, ‘ook.” He purses his lips into a tiny pink circle, bouncing the tip of Soobin’s cock off them like a trampoline. He fixes his eyes on Soobin’s twitching face, barely containing his gleeful smile. The corners of his mouth fight against the confines of his little pout. 

“Trying to kill me,” Soobin breathes. 

“I think you deserve it, when you’re about to impale me,” Beomgyu says seriously, now rubbing Soobin’s cock on his cheek, as if it were something to cuddle with. 

Soobin groans. “Suck it, now,” he says, his voice starting to deepen, and Beomgyu giggles. 

“Maybe you are weak,” he teases, and dives down to slam Soobin’s cock into the back of his throat. Only he doesn’t do it. He pauses with just the thick, round tip through his lips, and squeezes tight around its base with his hands, tracing his tongue daintily along the ridge of its head inside his mouth. 

“Fuck,” Soobin curses. “Beomgyu…”

Funny how such a slight, soft person can be crueler than any of the bloodthirsty, starving alphas Soobin has run from on the streets. God, what Soobin would give for a meek, demure omega right now, a textbook omega who lives to obey… and then Beomgyu wiggles his little round ass as he kisses down the length of Soobin’s shaft, and Soobin wants to suffer at his small hands forever. 

“I’m in charge in here,” Beomgyu whispers to Soobin’s cock, as if trying out the concept. In charge, something the world doesn’t want him to be. His own biology doesn’t want him to be, but here they are, and he is. 

“Sweetness,” Soobin chokes, combing his hands through Beomgyu’s soft hair obsessively, one hand after the other after the other. Waves of nectar slam into his nostrils as Beomgyu arches his ass up, tempting him to do it, to say it. To command him. 

“You won’t do it,” Beomgyu says, cupping Soobin’s balls. “You’re not gonna tell me to stop this. You like this.”

“Hate it,” Soobin gulps. Energy is building in his core, and it feels like he’s getting tenser and tenser with every second his omega teases and tempts and defies him. Getting stronger, his voice getting ready to fire off the word at any moment and restore the natural order of things.  

“You love it,” Beomgyu says slowly, rolling his balls  gently between his thin fingers. “You love when I’m a little monster to you.” He nips at the skin of Soobin’s knot to accentuate the word, and Soobin growls. It comes from his alpha, and Beomgyu freezes for a moment, his scent full of arousal as he waits for the command. 

Soobin doesn’t give it. He forces his alpha back down inside him. Let Beomgyu play a little longer. Beomgyu deserves it. Just a little longer. 

“So submissive,” Beomgyu whispers, his eyes sparkling. He drops Soobin’s balls to poke him in the navel, his finger bouncing off his firm abs. The opposite of Beomgyu’s eight-months-pregnant outie belly button. “I like this, us fucking in the nest. You’re such a docile little pup in here.” As if to prove the point, he pets his hand through Soobin’s pubic hair, winding his fingers through the black wisps tucked around his cock. His hand wraps around its base, stabilizing it, and he leans in to rub one swollen nipple across its slit, experimentally. Fuck, it shoots a bullet up Soobin’s spine. 

Soobin yanks him up by the hair. “Too much,” he growls.

“So make me stop,” Beomgyu taunts him. He stares him boldly in the eyes, though his hands grab feebly at Soobin’s broad shoulders and his breath is growing floaty. 

Soobin tugs his head back further, and Beomgyu leans into him, his belly the only thing between them. His neck is open for Soobin to bite, his chest is ready for him to bruise. A stain of slick lingers behind him on the blanket he’d been kneeling over. All Soobin has to do is say it. 

“Are you enough for us?” Beomgyu whispers. 

Soobin lets go of his hair and grabs him by the neck, enveloping it in his big hands. “Present,” he orders, and it comes out in two tones, like he’s echoing his own soft voice with a harsh one that cuts like a knife. He’s more than enough. He’s all Beomgyu will ever need, and he’ll leave him sated and sloppy and spent every time, and he’ll keep them all safe and warm and fed in this nest. And he’ll fucking prove it. He’ll prove it. 

Beomgyu's eyes go wide and vacant. He tears himself out of Soobin’s hands and spins around on his knees, dropping to all fours. He says something in a syrupy, irresistible voice, but Soobin doesn’t hear it. All he hears is the rush of Beomgyu’s scent rushing over rapids, a plummeting waterfall. 

Beomgyu’s legs are spread just enough, and Soobin pulls him apart more, swiping two fingers through the slick dripping between them. Before Beomgyu can react, he presses his fingertips through the rim of his asshole, scraping the nails of his other hand sharply down his back to palm Beomgyu’s tailbone. He’s so narrow under Soobin’s broad hand, even with his pregnant belly making him swell around the middle. It makes Soobin even thirstier. 

He isn’t supposed to want Beomgyu this way as much as he does, is he? He’s supposed to want to breed him, breed him, breed him. And he does want that, to be fair. He wants to keep him round and full of cum, his cunt dripping and knotted every heat, just like he should. He’s got all the right alpha urges — he isn’t broken. But fuck, it’s different like this. Maybe it’s because he can’t pup him like this that makes it so special. They want it because they want it, not because their subgenders make them want it. It’s pointless to fuck Beomgyu up the ass, and that’s exactly the point. 

And why would Soobin fit into his asshole so nicely if he wasn’t meant to want it? Why would Beomgyu drip honey-sweet slick out of both holes, the tight walls of his ass stretching just enough for Soobin’s knot? No, they’re meant to make love like this too. They must be. And if they’re not, fuck it. Soobin’s going to knot Beomgyu’s ass anyway. No one can stop him. 

Soobin had been with a handful of omegas before Beomgyu. A few prostitutes when he was a curious young alpha, newly presented. A boyfriend in college, and a rebound when they broke up. None of them got as wet as Beomgyu. Maybe it’s because they’re mated, and their bodies just work right together. But Beomgyu has always been like this, even before he had bared his neck for Soobin. Just dripping slick right off the bat, and it gets Soobin so fucking hard. 

He digs his fingers deeper into Beomgyu’s asshole and it positively squelches, drawing a throaty noise out of Beomgyu’s mouth, now buried in the blankets of his nest. Soobin’s brain is slipping into something lusty and mindless, and he drags his other hand across Beomgyu’s pussy, coating it in slick. The best lube in existence. He strokes down his cock with his slicked up hand, pairing his rhythm up with the motion of his hand inside Beomgyu’s ass. It’s nowhere near as good as it’s about to feel, but he’s so goddamn horny he can’t not touch himself. 

It’s always like this the second time. He feels electric, hypersensitive. A buzzing is building around the base of his cock already, like he’s going to erupt at the drop of a hat. The world has narrowed to just Beomgyu’s sounds and scents and tender skin. 

“More, more,” Beomgyu whimpers, and Soobin gives him another finger. Another finger closer to fucking him. He lets go of his cock — it’s just not enough — and digs his fingertips back into Beomgyu’s back, pressing white marks into his skin with his nails. Sometimes he leaves little round bruises splayed out across his skin, and then Beomgyu lets him coat them in cum the next day. He presses his nails in harder, hoping. 

The world is hazy, smudged together. Beomgyu thrusts back against Soobin’s fingers, trying to stretch himself out faster. It never seems like he’ll be able to fit him, and Soobin pulls fully up on his knees so he can drape his cock over the curve of Beomgyu’s ass, resting it on the table of his body. He groans, Beomgyu… It’s just…it’s big, so big next to Beomgyu’s hole. He loves seeing this, how deep his cock is about to plunge into his omega, his mate. Holy shit, he loves being an alpha. 

“You gonna fit me?” Soobin says mindlessly, and Beomgyu stutters something affirmative into the bed. Soobin slaps his cock down on Beomgyu’s ass, shuddering at the heavy, wet noise. “You sure?”

“Gonna fit you, alpha,” Beomgyu promises, lifting his head. His forearms are down on the nest, his belly grazing the blankets.

Beomgyu will fit him. It’ll be snug and wet and deep and he’ll fit him like he’s a glove. Beomgyu bucks back again, shuddering, and he’s ready, even though he still feels unreasonably tight around Soobin’s fingers. Soobin just knows when he’s ready, like a bell is going off in his head. Mate instinct, maybe. 

Soobin pulls his fingers out and presses the head of his cock up against Beomgyu’s asshole before it can close up around the emptiness. Beomgyu squeals as it parts him, his hole stretching out around Soobin’s thickness, and Soobin pauses, breathing deeply. 

“So pretty, baby,” he groans, inking the sight into his brain: half of his cock buried in Beomgyu’s ass, unfathomably cozy. Beomgyu’s head drops back down to the blankets as he moans, a valley forming between his shoulder blades, and he clenches around Soobin’s cock. 

“Fucking move,” Beomgyu chokes. “Not deep enough.”

Soobin leans over his body, wrapping his hands around the middle of Beomgyu’s bump. “Don’t give me cheek,” he scolds, although it makes him feel hot around the jaw in the best way. Makes him want to break him in, bend him to his will. 

“I’ll… I’ll give you whatever I…”

Soobin thrusts in all the way, and Beomgyu is all his. He’s instantly sent shaking, his words melting into a whine. Fuck, it’s so good to be an alpha. 

“Take it, baby,” Soobin growls, a hint of alpha slipping out in his rough voice, though he doesn’t need it to. He knows Beomgyu is done being a brat. He’s gone full omega, fully feral. Beomgyu lets out the cutest little howl, and he’s arching again in Soobin’s arms, trying to present, present, present for him. For both of them. 

Soobin withdraws almost all the way, feeling the sudden loss of Beomgyu’s warmth, and plunges back in, cloaked in it again. He clutches Beomgyu around the belly, holding up his limp body, and his alpha takes over, finally. 

Maybe he could pup him like this, he thinks, driving into Beomgyu with his vision fiery and red around the edges. Maybe he could pound his ass hard enough, pump him full enough, knot him enough times that science would roll over for them. Maybe Beomgyu’s body is so pristine, so fertile, so omega that it transcends nature. Fuck, he knows it’s stupid to think it, but it doesn’t matter. He’s not really thinking anymore. Oh god, he’s gonna pup him again, somehow, somehow, doesn’t matter. His alpha roars, and he slams his cock in, and he needs to feel more. He needs to drop a hand to cup Beomgyu’s crotch, plunging his middle finger into his cunt so it’s not so lonely. He needs to walk his fingertips up Beomgyu’s velvety chest, pinching and kneading his nipple, feeling it harden under his touch. Needs more more more Beomgyu, and he clutches him up against his torso, clinging to his body like a floatation device to get him through the storm. 

Beomgyu wails. “Hyung, fuck fuck hyung—” 

Beomgyu has drowned Soobin enough today. It’s time to pay it back, and Soobin sinks his teeth into Beomgyu’s ear, his neck, his scent gland. Nails into his tender nipple, his soft skin. Palm grinding hard into his clit, fingers bent into that spot inside him, and Soobin fucks him into a blur. Everything’s a blur except for the weak sounds Beomgyu lets out as his body turns useless. Everything except for the buzzing in Soobin’s cock, a swarm of feeling tightening up and swelling—

“Gonna,” he moans, “gonna knot you, babe, gonna—”

Beomgyu is ready. He flings his arms back over their heads, bending them to twist his fingers into the crown of Soobin’s hair. He yanks, gripping on tight, locked in. The pose pushes him back even more on Soobin’s cock, but Soobin barely reacts. He’s as deep as he can be in Beomgyu’s body, and he can’t pull out again to keep fucking him, because he’s starting to swell. 

It always happens so fast. One moment it’s just Soobin fucking Beomgyu, and the next it’s his alpha pouring cum into his mate, trying desperately to breed him. His knot pops into place, fully swollen and bulging, stretching Beomgyu to his limit. He keeps trying to thrust instinctively, but Beomgyu’s too tight for him to move, and so he gives in, nestling all the way in and letting himself go. And once he lets go, it won’t stop. A downpour is rushing through him, and he’s coming, coming, still coming. 

Beomgyu screams as the knot swells, and then the words bubble out of him, “God god oh alpha, hyung hyung ohhhhh…”

Soobin has never had a knot in his ass, but he can imagine the line between pleasure and pain is nearly imaginary when something that big is in something that small. Beomgyu tells him he’s made for it, physically, that his body craves it just as much as Soobin craves knotting him. The idea of it hurting doesn’t even make sense, he says, and he refuses to let Soobin worry. And so Soobin doesn’t. Instead, he works his hand up from Beomgyu’s nipple to his pretty face, wiping his tears, giving him a finger to bite down on as the knot settles into place inside his rim. He finds the presence of mind somehow to keep up the gentle pressure of his palm on Beomgyu’s clit, to push another finger into his pussy. He isn’t done with him yet, not until Beomgyu’s finished, too. 

“Baby,” Soobin groans, “you’re so full, so full of me, so…” It’s all he can think about, the overwhelming sensation of his cum still flowing out of him, a release so total that he feels drained of all his energy. 

“Soobin,” Beomgyu whimpers, “close. Close…”

Soobin grinds his knot deeper into Beomgyu, and the omega falls silent. He does it again, fucking the knot into his hole, working his palm in circles into Beomgyu’s clit, and he can tell it’s the golden ticket. Sometimes all Beomgyu needs to cum is the knot popping into place; sometimes he needs a little more. But either way it’s magical, Beomgyu’s head falling limp onto Soobin’s shoulder as he chokes out ragged breaths, his face frozen in ecstasy. He clenches tight around Soobin’s knot, his ass full of cum that’s going nowhere, and his scent gland is right there. Too tempting. Soobin bites it again, and Beomgyu squeals.

“Hyung,” he whispers, spitting out Soobin’s fingers. “Think you pupped me twice.”

Soobin just bites down harder, digging deeper into the euphoria of Beomgyu’s scent. Ice cold water on a burning hot day. 

Beomgyu shudders, and his hands slip out of Soobin’s hair. Soobin’s bite is calming him against his will. His body is going slack, ready to wait the knot out, and Soobin needs to make him comfortable before he can think about himself again. Omega first. 

He clutches Beomgyu tight to his front, dragging him to the edge of the nest where it meets the wall. Beomgyu squeaks out a series of sensitive, pained noises as the knot twitches and pulls inside him, but Soobin has to ignore them. 

“Just a second, sweetness,” Soobin murmurs through his haze, leaning back against the wall and pulling Beomgyu into his lap. “Let me get you comfy.” He wraps his arms around Beomgyu’s chest, letting them rest on his belly, and Beomgyu settles down on the knot, caged in by Soobin’s arms. His scent is contented, and Soobin closes his eyes, mouthing gently at Beomgyu’s neck. Omega is happy, omega is safe. He can relax now and just enjoy him. His soft hair, his warm belly, his thin legs stacked on top of Soobin’s longer ones. So much to enjoy about him. 

“You smell like you love me,” Beomgyu slurs, his head lolling backwards again. He brings his hands to his belly too, and Soobin wraps his fingers around the cuffs on his wrists, fingering the metal rings built into them. They’ll use them again, when he isn’t so pregnant. One day when the pups are both napping, Soobin will tie him down over the table by his wrists and spank him until his ass glows red, like they used to do.

“Now you smell like you want me,” Beomgyu sighs. 

“Both,” Soobin purrs, nosing his scent gland. “Both. All the time.”

Beomgyu shifts his pelvis so that the knot tugs at his ass, and Soobin feels a sudden grip of tightness around his cock. It makes them both groan. Nothing is quite like these minutes when Beomgyu is knotted, when they’re locked together and every action is matched with an equal reaction from the other. Poetry, really. If their subgender urges are primal, primitive, at least they lead to this, the most intimate, personal thing Soobin has ever experienced. 

Intimate, like their home, like the nest. Beomgyu settles back down, gasping a little, and he lets his feet roll off of Soobin’s shins to tuck his toes into the pile of blankets. It’s so soft here. 

“Is it ready for them? The nest?” Soobin asks, circling his thumbs and forefingers around Beomgyu’s wrists and lifting them, playing with them. 

“It’s almost there,” Beongyu says. “It’s closer now. Smells like coffee now. Like you.”

“No caffeine for the babies,” Soobin teases, kissing his jaw. “I’m a dumb alpha, and even I know that.”

“Well, tough,” Beomgyu says, his cheek lifting as he smiles. “They’ll have to work up a tolerance fast, ‘cause you make this whole place smell like a Starbucks. Unless you're not sticking around?”

Soobin can’t stomach jokes about that. He rumbles, dropping Beomgyu’s wrists to hug his belly again. The thought of leaving them for real causes him physical pain, an ache in his chest ten times worse than the one he feels when he forages. Beomgyu is his mate. For life. No leaving. 

“Sorry, hyung,” Beomgyu says, quickly. “I forgot you don’t—oh—oh, she’s sorry for me, too...”

A quiver shakes the left side of Beomgyu’s belly under Soobin’s broad hand, and Soobin freezes up. It’s overwhelming, Beomgyu on his knot, their pups kicking under his hands, and he’s gonna fucking cry again. It’s too much emotion for his brain to handle. He isn’t wired right for it. 

“It’s okay,” Beomgyu whispers. “Let it out.”

“How are you not scared?” Soobin chokes, trying to breathe in more of Beomgyu’s calm. But it’s waning, tinged with anxiety now. 

“I am,” he says, twisting in Soobin’s arms, on his body. His face is anxious, now that Soobin can see it. “I’m so scared. Just…not of after they get here. Not after. Just of…”

“Oh, babe,” Soobin says instantly, squeezing him tighter. “Babe, it will go perfectly. Quick and easy.” He believes it. He can’t know it, but he believes it, and he has faith in his beliefs. What’s the point of holding them if he doesn’t have faith in them?

“You can’t know that,” Beomgyu says quietly, looking down. 

“I believe it,” Soobin says. “You’re made for it. You’re strong enough.” He presses down on the bump and bucks his knot up a centimeter at the same time, a reminder of what Beomgyu’s body is capable of. What he is. 

“I’m scared that you won’t be here,” Beomgyu blurts out, and Soobin aches, aches. He brings his hand to Beogmyu’s jaw and turns it back around to the front, away from Soobin, so he can ease him fully back into his arms, tuck him back into his cage. 

“I won’t leave for more than a day at a time anymore,” he promises. “Not until they’re here. We’ve got a good stockpile.”

“What will you bring back, the next time you go?” Beomgyu asks, and Soobin breathes easier. The dreaming, again. A world where Soobin can bring him anything. 

“A box full of baby formula,” he says. “And something for you. Something you need.”

“No, bring me something I want,” Beomgyu murmurs, gyrating on the knot. “Something you want for me.”

“Lingerie,” Soobin says instantly. “Garter belt. A teddy.”

Beomgyu laughs. “The one thing I might be able to make for myself,” he says. “Or find in this fucking warehouse, even.”

“I don’t care,” Soobin says. “I’ll find you the good shit.”

“It won’t look as good, anyway,” Beomgyu says, his voice dropping in volume. “Afterwards. I won’t look…”

Soobin grips him tight, his hands flying to Beomgyu’s nipples, to the little red marks he pressed around them earlier. “Don’t you fucking dare,” he scolds, and he pictures it: Beomgyu’s slight frame, a little softer, a little rounder, more to hold onto when he fucks him. Pretty lines all down his belly, marks that Soobin left there, reminders of what Beomgyu’s body did for him… Holy fuck, if he wasn’t already knotting him, he’d need to, now. He doesn’t think anything has ever turned him on more.

“I can’t wait,” Soobin whispers to Beomgyu’s scent gland. “I can’t wait to fuck you, after. You’re gonna be a fucking milf.”

“Jesus, never say that again,” Beomgyu says, but Soobin can see the flush spreading down the side of his cheek. 

They fall silent, breathing into each other. The knot is starting to deflate, and Soobin can feel his cum beginning to slide down his shaft, to drip through Beomgyu’s hole. There will be a fuck ton of it, but Beomgyu doesn’t seem to mind. He’s got enough layers of blankets in the nest to peel off the top one to wash. 

“I’ll be safe if you’re here, when it’s time,” Beomgyu says softly. “They’ll be safe.”

“I’ll be here,” Soobin says, fighting back the heaviness in his throat. “I’ll always be here. I’m here even when I’m not.”

“I know you are,” Beomgyu says. “You know it, too, right?”

Soobin won’t have to forage for at least another two weeks, he thinks. They’re well stocked with provisions, with cans of food and dried goods and new books to read together. All they need is more baby formula. But they’ll make it work, even if all they have is the five cans. Beomgyu promised they would. 

He won’t stay away for more than a day. Not again, not until the pups are here. And maybe not then, either. Maybe not until they leave for good, for that pretty cottage in the woods where they’ll always be safe.