Chapter Text
The first few hours of Minho’s ruts aren’t the worst. They’re mostly just boring—the arousal building steadily, hot under his skin, but not annoying enough yet to do anything about. He usually spends most of it on his phone.
This time, because he feels like torturing himself, he lies there on his air mattress on the tiny office floor and thinks about Jisung.
His hands. They’re always so warm on his skin, always all over him, touching him—his face, his hair, his back. Holding tight to his body as Minho fucks him, rubbing soothingly over his shoulder while they talk, intertwining with his own at all times of the day because Jisung just feels like it.
His face. Sweet and soft and attractive no matter what, beautiful with a grin or a smirk or a round-mouthed moan. He thinks of his mouth and aches to kiss him; wants to say something stupid just to feel him laugh against his mouth.
His body. God, he’s so, so hot. He’s actually exactly the type of guy Minho would’ve tried to hit on at a party back in college, except he wouldn’t have expected him to be sweet and cute and funny all on top of that. He misses touching his skin already, smooth and flushed, pliant beneath his hands; he misses climbing on top of him and kissing him slow, hearing his tiny whimpers while he presses deep inside of him—
Mate, his alpha thinks, sounding disgruntled. Upset. Need mate!
I know, Minho thinks, mouth dipping into a frown of its own accord, because for once they’re in agreement. He misses Jisung, too.
He lies there, his heart in lonely agony—and then the next stage of his rut hits, and his body is in agony too.
Fuck. Fuck. He needs. God. He needs—
He shoves recklessly out of his boxers, kicking them off and grabbing for the fleshlight and lube he’d set in here earlier. Already, though, he has the instinctive, sinking feeling that it’s not going to be enough. He’d been minimizing the fact that his fucked-up ruts were the entire reason he’d gone to meet Jisung in the first place, and now he’s going to have to face another one, fuck—
He slicks his cock, the pleasure only vaguely registering as his mind yells for him to take and take and take. Then he rolls over, onto his hands and knees, and sinks his dick deep into the fleshlight, pounds into it hard as he shuts his eyes and imagines Jisung’s tiny body under him.
It’s not enough.
The fleshlight is too cold, too lifeless, and there’s no warm Jisung body, no warm Jisung scent.
Still, his rut urges him on.
His knot is expanding but it feels wrong, wrong, wrong without Jisung there, the touch making him violently oversensitive; he tosses the fleshlight to the side and takes himself in hand instead, clutching at the mattress and nearly howling in agony as he comes painfully, for the first of many times, without Jisung there to make it better.
Without his mate.
It burns.
He collapses, panting. For some reason he’s slowly sinking, and when he musters the energy to look up, he realizes he’d been clawing at the air mattress hard enough to puncture it.
God fucking damnit.
It’s going to be a long couple of nights.
He curls up on his side, feeling shaky and worn out, his knot swollen, throbbing even still. He wants to cry. It hurts.
He squeezes his eyes shut and, just for a few moments, allows himself to think of Jisung. Stroking his hand through his hair. Holding him.
Then the need intrudes rudely, prodding at the forefront of his mind, and he groans. Picks himself up. Crawls over and finds the fleshlight.
God.
--
The only breaks he gets are when his body exhausts itself enough that he can’t physically get it up anymore. Then, usually, he passes the fuck out.
When he wakes after a few hours of restless sleep, he knows immediately that something is different.
Jisung, he thinks, his heart pounding suddenly in his chest—in nervousness. Fear. Because—suddenly he can smell him.
He sits up, whips his head around the room, but he’s not there.
Good. Thank God. He can’t. He can’t hurt him.
He breathes a sigh of relief, but his heart feels like it’s tearing in two. Part of him wanted him to be there, even just—for Jisung to hug him. To rub his back. To tell him it was going to be all right.
He breathes a shaky sigh and shoves a hand through his unkempt hair.
Then he heaves himself up off the floor to go use the bathroom.
He’s two feet from the door when hears a noise outside of it and freezes.
Oh, he thinks, his heart stuttering. Oh.
He takes a breath. “Sung-ah?”
There’s a pause. Then Jisung’s voice, sounding very small. “Sorry, I can—go.”
Minho’s heart fractures. He can’t stop himself from going to the door, leaning up against it; he breathes deep and there, there’s Jisung’s scent, wafting from around the edges. God, he missed him. He missed him so fucking much. “You don’t have to,” he says, voice hoarse, ragged. “I just. Have to piss.”
“Okay,” Jisung says, and Minho hears him shuffling—presumably out of the way of the door..
“Don’t… move, okay?” Minho says, just as a precaution. His alpha is quiet, for now, but there’s no telling when it’ll wake back up again. Probably soon.
“Yeah,” Jisung says. “Yeah. I won’t.”
Minho takes a deep breath. Then he opens the door.
Immediately, Jisung’s scent is all he knows. He’s drenched in the sweetness of it; it fills him with a warm, heady arousal, nothing like the terrible, empty desire of his rut, and he groans, clutching at the doorknob, still in his hand.
Fuck. Fuck.
He can’t look at him or he’ll break.
He darts out of the room, down to the bathroom, and slams the door shut behind him. He’s half-hard already, making it difficult to piss, and he washes his hands with bitter need overflowing in his gut.
He wants him so, so much.
He steels himself, switches to breathing through his mouth so maybe Jisung’s scent won’t affect him quite so badly on the way back. His stomach clenches and unclenches as he opens the door.
His eyes fall immediately to Jisung, down the hallway. He’s sitting outside the office door, still, wrapped up in a blanket; he’s wearing only Minho’s boxers and curled in on himself, looking so guilty it hurts.
Minho staggers all the way over to him. “Jagi,” he says, nearly a whisper, “what’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry,” Jisung spills out, looking up at him with a pout. “I know I’m—not supposed to be out here, but. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop thinking about you, I just…” He swallows. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Minho says, “You’re okay.” He wants to lean down and hold him so bad it burns. He bites his lip, glances inside the room, trying to think about how much time he has left. In doing so, he accidentally takes a breath through his nose; instantly, Jisung’s scent floods his senses, and he lets out a low groan. Fuck.
“Sorry!” Jisung says quickly, curling tighter in on himself. “I can leave, I’m so sorry—”
“No, no, hey,” Minho says, clutching the door, willing himself to calm down. His alpha is awake again, stirring, rumbling in approval at Jisung’s presence, but he shoves it away for now. He needs to make sure Jisung is okay. Everything else can fucking wait. “Just. How—how long have you been out here?”
“Um,” Jisung says, tilting his head. “I dunno. A couple of hours, maybe?”
“Jagiya,” Minho says, gasping. “God, aren’t you uncomfortable? It’s cold here—and your nest…”
“It’s okay,” Jisung says quickly. “I just. I…” His pout returns, deepens. “I heard you. Hurting. I couldn’t, just. Stay there. I needed to be… close.”
Oh. Oh Jisung. Minho’s chest burns. “But you—your heat. Doesn’t it… still?”
Jisung shrugs, and the blanket slips off his shoulder. Minho aches to bend down and wrap it back around him, to kiss his forehead, to pick him up and take him back to bed and lie down with him and, and—
But he can’t.
“I guess,” Jisung says, something like defeat in his eyes. “I… tried. It. It wasn’t the same, without you. This way, at least I can smell you, even if I can’t… you know.” He shrugs, feebly. He looks so, so tired—just like Minho feels.
It’s only been hours of forcibly staying apart.
It feels like days.
His dick is starting to thicken again. He’d barely given a thought to the fact that he’s stark naked, but now he’s a little embarrassed; he lets out a sigh full of resentment for his rut and pushes off of the doorframe. “Gonna be right back,” he tells Jisung.
He goes to the kitchen, chugs a water bottle. Forces down half of one of those nutritional shakes before he starts to feel like he might throw up, so he stops. Then he heads to his room, head swimming from how drenched with Jisung’s scent it is, to grab a couple of things before going back.
“Here,” he says, handing Jisung a spare pillow, another blanket—and then also, something he likes to use when he has a long day off of work and he’s horny, working himself up, teasing. It’s a plug, girthy, and made to angle directly into his prostate; maybe it’ll help, he thinks, if Minho can’t be there to touch Jisung himself.
Jisung’s eyes widen. “Oh,” he says, adjusting his position, curling up with the pillow in a way that looks much more comfortable, accepting the plug, fiddling with it. “Thank you.”
“Sorry I can’t put it in,” Minho says, taking a ragged breath. He shuts his eyes, just for a moment. God, he’d love to turn Jisung around, to finger open his slick hole—to fuck the toy in slow, just to watch him clench and gape around it—fuck. Fuck.
“It’s okay,” Jisung says, his eyes going all half-lidded, and Minho knows he’s thinking about it too.
“I have to…” Minho jerks his thumb back toward the room—back toward the unsatisfying orgasms that only serve to make his dick rawer, his alpha more frustrated. God. He sighs. “Sorry.”
“It’s really okay. I get it,” Jisung says, makes as if to pat his leg—then remembers he shouldn’t, and flinches back. It hurts. “I know I can’t… undo all the pain from your past. I only wish I could. You know?”
“Sung-ah…” Minho whispers, lip trembling.
“Someday,” Jisung says, softly. “Someday I’ll make you feel so good and safe, hyung. Yeah?”
Minho wants to cry, again, for the second time in as many days. He never cries. He forces himself to hold it back, swiping at his eyes roughly. “God,” he mutters, taking a step backwards into the room. “You’re… fuck. Okay.”
Jisung’s mouth twitches into a smile. “Think of me?” he says, and Minho’s heart clenches because it’s stupid and romantic and. And God.
“Of course I will,” he says, because it’s true, and fuck.
He shuts the door before he can do something stupid like kiss him.
He should go back over to the air mattress. It’s deflated, but at least it helps keep him from the cold wood of the floor. But Jisung is right there, on the other side of the door, and his scent is strongest here. Maybe it will help.
He picks up the lube and the fleshlight before sinking down, his back against the door. Behind it, he can hear Jisung shifting around—and then he hears him gasp.
Fuck, he thinks. Fuck. The plug.
Hurriedly, he slicks up his cock, fucks up into the fleshlight, breathing in deep, thinking that maybe, maybe it’ll help—
And it does help for a moment; Jisung’s scent is warm, sweet, caressing his senses and warming him where he’d previously felt cold. He turns onto his knees, braces a hand on the door and fucks harder, harder—
Jisung whimpers, from behind the door.
All at once, it’s not enough.
Minho needs to be touching him.
He lets out a dismayed wail, slumping against the door, breath ragged. Mate, his alpha urges. Need mate.
He can’t. He can’t.
“Hyung,” Jisung cries out, from the other side of the door. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t,” Minho whines out. He puts a hand to his cock and hisses. It feels like fire, sandpaper, the touch all wrong—but if he takes it away, every atom in his body screams for him to put it back.
He can’t win.
He forces himself to jack off, sticky and hot and unfulfilling; he chokes out a sob as he comes, his knot not even bothering to swell. Distantly, he hears Jisung whimpering, shifting on the plug.
“Does…” He has to clear his throat, his voice is so hoarse. “Does it feel good?”
“Yeah,” Jisung says. “Yeah. ‘S’nice.”
“Good,” Minho says, relieved. He’s surprised when his alpha rumbles in approval as well; he pauses to think about it and only comes away with a feeling of satisfaction, of protection. Mate, his alpha thinks. Mine.
His alpha wants Jisung to feel good. Well, great—that’s something they can agree on, for once, even if it’s for vastly different reasons.
He hears Jisung let out a soft sigh and thinks, he could feel better, couldn’t he? God, Minho could make him feel better, but. He can’t. Not right now. Fuck. “Rock back and forth a little on the plug, jagi,” he tells him instead, letting his eyes slip shut as he slumps forward against the door, focusing just for a moment on Jisung—only Jisung.
There’s a pause. Then Jisung groans. “Ohh.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, fuck—hngh…”
“Thinking about me?” Minho asks. He’s already hard again, but just for a moment, it doesn’t feel so bad.
“Yes,” Jisung sighs out. “You… you feel so good, baby.”
“Gonna come like that?” Minho’s voice comes out gravelly with need. He aches to tear the door open. Instead, he reaches up and locks it.
“Hnn. Yeah. Yeah—fuck me, please, Minho?”
Minho takes a shaky breath. “Okay,” he says, knocking his head against the door. Then he frowns down at his own erection, lets out a sigh full of dread, and picks up the lube.
--
Everything hurts.
He doesn’t know how long it’s been, but he gets the feeling that he’s not nearly as close to done as he’d like. He’s so fucking tired, covered in his own sweat and semen, and every muscle in his body is sore.
He just wants to see Jisung.
He fumbles with his cock, his hand slick, bringing himself off with a stuttering rhythm. It stopped feeling good a long, long time ago.
He comes. The tiniest bit of fluid trickles out; he’s dehydrated as fuck, probably. Still, he’s hard. Still, his body tells him to take and take and take. He aches to take a break, but every moment he’s not touching himself he feels like he’s in a frenzied agony.
It hurts. It hurts so much.
He needs Jisung.
It hurts.
“Fuck,” he swears, loudly, slumping down on the floor. Then, quieter, lip trembling. “Sung-ah?”
“Yeah?”
“How… long?” he asks, cautiously. Brokenly. “Do I have left?”
There’s a pause. “I think, um. Probably at least another day.”
Minho nearly sobs.
His stomach clenches as he curls in on himself. A whole day. He can’t do this, he can’t, he can’t—
He doesn’t realize he’s wailing until he hears Jisung panicking on the other side of the door. “Baby—baby, please, let me help—please, can I—do something? Please?”
Minho can’t do this anymore. He can’t, not without Jisung—and fuck, he doesn’t want to hurt him, but he can’t do this anymore—
He gives in and reaches up, fumbling, to unlock the door.
Then he falls straight into Jisung’s arms.
“Baby,” Jisung is saying, tucking him in close right there on their knees, and Minho noses into his scent gland and breathes and God. God. This is where he’s supposed to be, this is what he was missing, what he needed—why had he kept himself away?
“Jisung,” he whines, his voice hoarse. Take, his alpha thinks, and take, and take. He’s so fucking hard, and Jisung is right there. “I. I need. I can’t. Hold back anymore, I’m sorry—”
“Yes,” Jisung says, “Yes, I know, baby, it’s okay, go ahead—”
Minho is so very glad he’d given Jisung his own boxers to wear, because he doesn’t have to feel guilty when he rips the fabric literally in half to get them off of him.
Jisung gasps, his pupils dilating with arousal. “Fuck,” he mumbles, falling back onto his elbows on one of the blankets from earlier, watching as Minho pulls the scraps of the fabric away, then shoves his thighs up and apart, revealing the slick knob of the plug, still inside him.
It’s just as sexy as he thought it would be, and he takes a moment to pull it out, fuck it in, listening to Jisung groan as he presses it into his prostate.
Then his rut takes over, and he can’t wait anymore.
Take, his mind says. Mate.
He lets out a possessive growl, yanking the plug out and tossing it to the side, dick throbbing with need as he catches sight of Jisung’s fucked out expression. Then he flips Jisung over and manhandles him onto his hands and knees, grabbing at his hips hard enough to bruise.
“Fuck,” Jisung swears. “Please.”
Minho pries open his cheeks, arousal flooding his veins at the sight of how slick he is, even still. Then he spits, just to see it drip down into his hole; hears Jisung whimper, bend down further, arching his ass into the air. For him. Just for him.
Good, Minho thinks. His.
He presses a hand onto Jisung’s back, taps at his entrance with his cock once, twice, watching it flutter, leak more slick.
Then he slams in.
“Mmmphnngh—” It takes him a moment to realize the sound is coming from his own mouth. He’d spent the whole first part of Jisung’s heat fucking him and it never, ever felt like this, like Jisung was the softest, tightest hole he’d ever been in, like he could fuck him forever and never get enough, like he wanted to fill him up, over and over and over—
“Yes, yes, yes,” Jisung is chanting, his voice cracking every other word. “Baby. Minho-yah. Hnn.”
Minho fucks into him harder.
He must be hurting him, he thinks; his hands are leaving marks where he grabs at his skin, at his hips, at his waist, on his back, and the sound of their skin slapping together is loud enough it’s almost deafening. But Jisung only arches his back for more, panting, and when halfway through he shifts positions, Minho realizes it’s because he’s leaning down to jerk himself off.
Fuck. He. He likes it. He really—likes it.
Minho could cry.
“Jagi,” he breathes, and slams into him, rolls his hips in just the way he knows Jisung likes, reaching down to yank at his hair for a better grip.
“OhmyGod. Minho. Minho,” Jisung groans, clenching and fluttering in the familiar way that means he’s about to come. And then he does, crying out Minho’s name, shaking—and Minho’s knot swells all at once, locking them together as he has the most blinding orgasm of his life. It’s a carnal release of pressure, all that pent up energy from years of heats spent alone, and he screams through it, trembling, collapsing over Jisung’s body as soon as he’s done.
Jisung shoves a little, rolls them onto their sides, pulls Minho’s arm snug around him. “Fuck, baby,” he whispers. “You did so good. So good.”
“Hnghh.” Minho is half asleep. He can’t think.
Jisung grabs Minho’s hand. Kisses the back of it. “God, I love you.”
Later, Minho can’t remember if he dreamed that part or not.
--
Minho wakes cold, curled around Jisung in the hallway floor, and for a moment he can’t quite remember how he got there.
Then all at once, he does.
God. Fuck. Jisung.
Sour guilt coats the inside of his throat, his lungs, his stomach as he slowly sits up to assess the damage. He’s sore all over, so he can’t imagine how Jisung feels, were he awake; he’s still sleeping, warm body and puffy face and slick ass from where Minho had just pulled out of him and the bruises, all over his hips and up his back, oh God—
Minho reaches out with the gentlest touch and strokes down his side, following the trail of bruises down. They’re all over his body. He wants to cry.
Jisung stirs, and Minho feels like he’s been knocked in the chest with a bowling ball. Apologies fill his brain, aching to burst out of his mouth, but in the end there’s so much he wants to say that he doesn’t know where to start. So he just watches, crestfallen, as Jisung sits up, sleepily rubbing his eyes, and turns to look at him.
Then Jisung’s eyes widen.
“Baby,” he says immediately, “what’s wrong?”
Minho opens his mouth, but still, nothing comes out. He ends up shaking his head, gesturing weakly at the bruises on Jisung’s hips, the ones he’d put there—he’d hurt him—
“Oh,” Jisung says, and his expression turns to one of gentle understanding. “Minho-yah,” he says quietly. “Look at me.”
Minho kind of wants to be stubborn and disobey. He kind of also wants to run and hide, to lock himself in the closet for the rest of his rut so he never has to deal with this again, but he knows that won’t solve anything. Unfortunately.
So he looks at him, and immediately has to take a shaky breath, because Jisung’s eyes are so wide and serious and fond—fuck. Fuck. What. He doesn’t deserve Jisung looking at him like this, not after that, fuck—
“Minho-yah,” Jisung says again. “Did you want that, what we did? Did you want to fuck me like that?”
That’s the worst part, Minho thinks, his thoughts starting to spiral. The worst thing Jisung could’ve asked.
Because he did.
Underneath all the guilt and repression and self-doubt is the part of him that looks at those bruises on Jisung’s skin and wants to leave more.
To mark him. Brand him as his own.
It’s not just his alpha. Minho wanted it too. It disgusts him; he wishes he could rip the desire out of his body and cast it onto the floor, sweep it into the trash like all of the other thoughts and dreams he used to have that he’s since given up on. But his rut won’t let him. It brings the desire back, puts it in the forefront of his mind every few months so that he can’t ignore it long enough for it to fade.
And now there are bruises on Jisung’s hips, and the shame is trying to eat him alive.
He’s staring at the floor, taking shaky breaths, when Jisung takes his hand. Curls both of his own warm around it, clasping gently, just to remind him he’s there.
“Look at me,” Jisung says again, quiet, more of a request than a command.
Minho does, meets his eyes, terrified. Then, because he can’t hide it anymore—because it’s written all over Jisung’s body already anyway—he takes a trembling breath and nods his head.
“Good,” Jisung says, squeezing his hand with both of his own. “That’s good. Because I did too. You knew that, right?”
Minho swallows, his throat tight. Then he nods again.
“But you didn’t believe me?” Jisung asks, tilting his head.
“I…” Minho clears his throat. Looks down at their clasped hands, and back up. The hallway is cold, the floor hard beneath the blanket, but Jisung is very single-mindedly having this conversation with him anyway, because that’s what Minho needed. Fuck. Minho adores him. He sighs. “I thought you’d… change your mind.”
“Well, I haven’t,” Jisung says, and smiles a little. “I liked it. A lot. Did you know that?”
Slowly, Minho shakes his head. “I don’t know. I thought maybe you did, but. But the bruises...”
“I like them,” Jisung says, leaning in closer, knocking their foreheads together just briefly. “You know—I’m in heat, hyung. That’s kind of, like. What my body wants. Being manhandled, like—oh God. Uh. You know. Like I’m being… bred. You know. Until my body can’t take it anymore. Just like, marked up and filled with your—your, um. Holy shit, please tell me you’re not listening to this anymore—with your pups, and just. Wrecked. I want you to wreck me. Fuck, I’m so horny. I kinda don’t remember what we were talking about—oh. Wait. Yeah, so. I liked it. A lot. And if you couldn’t tell already, I want to do it again, but only if you want to do it again and aren’t gonna look all guilty like this afterwards, because it hurts to see you all sad, and… yeah I’m gonna. Shut up now.”
Minho is half hard. He’s also staring at Jisung with so much fondness it hurts. He bites his lip, hard. “Swear you mean all that?”
“Yeah,” Jisung says, and nods rapidly. “Or, well, I mean. I don’t actually wanna be pregnant right now. But! The other stuff, yeah.”
The corners of Minho’s mouth twitch. He lets out a long, slow sigh. “Okay,” he says quietly. “I’ll believe you.”
Jisung smiles, looking relieved. “Good. Because did I mention I’m really horny?”
Minho laughs. “You might have said it once.”
“Seriously, though,” Jisung says, looking more pensive. “Only if you want to. It was driving me crazy because you were hurting—God, I could like, smell it on you, I seriously wanted to tear the door down—but… you knotted me already. So your rut shouldn’t be as bad anymore… right?”
“In theory,” Minho says, but the thought of letting Jisung go again makes him want to scream. Mine, his alpha says. For once, Minho wholeheartedly wants to agree.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” Jisung says, the tiniest of pouts on his mouth, like he’s trying very hard for it not to show.
Minho huffs a laugh, reaches up to smooth out the corners of his pout. “Jisung-ah,” he says, choosing his words carefully. “I can’t promise I’m not going to feel a little guilty, still. You might have to… reassure me, some. But. I’d like to spend the rest of my rut with you—if that’s… really okay?”
“Yes,” Jisung says, and his eyes crinkle when he smiles. “It’s really okay. Anything you need.”
Need, Minho thinks, his heart beating warm, syrupy slow as he looks at Jisung.
Need, he thinks, and his eyes flit down over the soft skin of Jisung’s neck, the invisible mating gland that draws him like a drug.
Need, his alpha thinks, and he shivers.
Jisung sees him looking, of course he does. He takes Minho’s hand, the one that was clasped in his own, and brings it up to his neck, presses it to the gland. Jisung’s scent grows stronger, thickens, until Minho’s going dizzy with it; his cock throbs, and he falls forward, pressing his face into Jisung’s neck.
Fuck. He wants to bite him so bad. Mine, his alpha thinks. Mine.
“You can,” Jisung says, catching him, wrapping his arms around him, smoothing his hands up and down his back.
Fuck. Fuck.
“It might hurt,” Minho says, forcing himself to pull away. “And it’s—it’s a big deal. You shouldn’t. I shouldn’t…”
“I don’t mind,” Jisung says, cupping his face. “If it happens, don’t worry, okay?”
Minho shuts his eyes and swallows. “Okay,” he says, very quietly. “If. If I need to.”
“Good, baby,” Jisung says, smiling softly at him. “Now. Please fuck me again?”
Minho groans. He’s about three seconds from taking him on the floor another time, the rut flaring in his body, saturating his senses with desire. Already he’s so hard he can barely think. “Fuck,” he chokes out, blinking at Jisung, dazed, unsteady. “We should—the bedroom…”
“That might be better than the floor, now that you mention it,” Jisung says, grinning, standing, pulling Minho up with him. Then a mischievous look appears in his eyes. He cocks a brow. “Race you there?”
They don’t make it to the bed.
Jisung takes off sprinting, and Minho’s alpha rips out of him, demands that he run, chase—
So he does. He gives in, darts after him, catching Jisung just inside the door of the bedroom as Jisung laughs and laughs; he spins him around and bends him roughly over the desk, shoving papers and knick-knacks out of the way so he can slam Jisung’s body into the wooden surface.
Jisung gasps. “Fuck,” he says, and immediately starts to squirm.
Minho shoves him lower, lower, until his cheek is pressed to the wood of the desk, his hands flat beside his face, his ass in the air.
Then he kicks his legs apart.
“Hnghhh,” Jisung whines, high and reedy. He doesn’t move, but Minho watches as slick trickles out of him, as he trembles slightly, waiting for Minho’s touch.
He looks like a fucking wet dream, bent over and open and dripping for him. Minho has to pinch at the base of his cock for a moment. He wants to eat him up.
And why not, he thinks? They have all day.
He bends down and parts Jisung’s ass with his thumbs, and then he just leans forward and breathes for a moment, hot air against the slick of his ass.
“Hyung,” Jisung says, scrabbling at the desk—“Hyung, what are you doing, ah—”
Minho licks up the side of one cheek, then the other, groaning at the sweet taste of him. Teasing. Avoiding his hole. Under his hands, Jisung shakes. He trails his tongue in a large circle around his hole, lapping at the slick there, never quite reaching where Jisung needs him most.
“Please,” Jisung says, “Please—”
Minho dips his tongue in, just once.
Jisung’s entire body goes still, waiting.
Minho grins. Leans in. Flicks his tongue at the hole, the tiniest of touches—then again, again, until Jisung is whimpering, bucking his hips back for more.
“Hyung, stop teasing,” Jisung finally complains. He’s leaking so much slick you can barely tell Minho’s tongue has been there.
Minho relents. Good boy, he thinks, and his alpha thinks, Good mate, and when he slides his tongue in for the first time he’s very glad his walls are well-insulated from his neighbors because Jisung screams, clutching at the desk, fluttering around his tongue. Minho’s knot nearly pops from the sound, the smell, the taste alone, and he groans, pressing his tongue in deep again, again, wet and messy, covering his face with slick. He pulls out to flick back and forth at the entrance, lightning fast, then presses in again long and slow, and Jisung is barely making coherent sounds anymore, his body limp against the desk as he shakes in Minho’s arms.
It's when Jisung starts getting squirmy again, hips bucking harder against his tongue, that Minho knows he wants more. Slowly, he pulls away, standing up and haphazardly wiping his mouth on the back of his arm.
Then he hitches one of Jisung’s knees up onto the desk and slams his cock straight in, sheathes it into hot, wet pleasure, so perfect it must’ve been made for him, God, God—
“Min-ho,” Jisung chokes out, and comes untouched, spurting across the desk.
Fuck. Holy shit. Minho fucks him through it, faster, faster, his own dick threatening to expand as Jisung tightens around him in pleasure, crying out beneath him.
Then, though his whole body is throbbing with need—he forces himself to pull out.
“Wha—?” Jisung asks, dazed, as Minho helps him up, turns him around, and then kisses him, deeply.
Then he picks him up, tosses him over his shoulder, and carries him over to the bed.
“Wanted to knot you somewhere comfortable,” he mumbles, setting Jisung up onto his knees, then sitting up on his own knees behind him so that Jisung’s calves bracket his own.
“Mm,” Jisung hums, pleased, craning his neck back to catch him in a kiss. “My alpha, so good to me.”
Minho nearly chokes. His cock, trapped between them, throbs. He slides an arm around Jisung’s chest to hold him close, pulling their bodies flush together, and whispers, “Your alpha, hm?”
“My alpha,” Jisung whines, just a hint of possessiveness to it, rutting the slick cleft of his ass up against Minho’s cock.
Minho’s alpha likes that—but so does Minho.
Very much.
He noses at Jisung’s scent gland, just breathing him in for now. Then he reaches down to position his cock and slides straight inside of him.
“Shit,” Jisung groans, reaching backwards to grab at Minho’s hips, urging him to move. “Feels so good every fucking time, baby…”
“I know,” Minho nearly growls, rolling his hips slow, just once, before he starts snapping them in and out at a frantic pace. “God. Fucking perfect.”
“For you,” Jisung mumbles, half garbled, leaning back against Minho. One hand moving to jerk his own cock. Tilting his head. Neck bared, scent gland exposed—for you, he’s saying. “Only you, Minho-yah.”
“Fuck,” Minho moans, and he’s shaking a little as he presses a kiss to Jisung’s neck, then another. He’s fucking terrified, but he’s also… safe. He feels safe, he realizes, with Jisung.
He mouths at Jisung’s scent gland, sucks a little, and Jisung whines, high and needy. “Hnn. Are you. Are you… gonna?”
Minho shudders, fucks into him a little faster. His knot is growing. He kisses Jisung’s neck again. “Want me to?”
It’s at that point that he realizes that he’s entirely in control.
Because he knows, totally and completely, that if Jisung says no—if Jisung has any doubt in his voice whatsoever—Minho will stop himself.
He won’t hurt Jisung. He won’t. If Jisung is okay with bruises and roughness that’s one thing, but if Jisung isn’t okay with being claimed—then Minho isn’t okay with it. And he’s not going to let his fucking alpha make him do it.
Relief floods him, so all-encompassing that he sags against Jisung for a brief moment, pressing another kiss to his neck. “Oh my God,” he mumbles.
“Hm?” Jisung hums. Minho realizes he’s not actually sure if he ever answered or not.
“I don’t have to,” Minho says, and adjusts the rhythm of his hips so he can fuck into him slow and deep. “I just realized.”
“Oh,” Jisung says. He sounds disappointed, and Minho shifts his grip to hug him tighter.
“Doesn’t mean I won’t, though,” Minho says, and kisses his neck again. Because he doesn’t have to. But he does want to. He really, really wants to. “If you want it?”
Jisung’s body relaxes against him; Minho thrusts up against his prostate and he jolts, keening. “Hahh. Do. Do that again.”
So Minho does, again, again.
“I do… want. Fuck. I want.” Jisung tilts his neck further, lolls his head back onto Minho’s other shoulder. “If you want. Then. Please?”
“Yeah,” Minho breathes, holding him close, clutching his hip steady with one hand as he nails into the spot that’s driving Jisung mad. “Want you. My jagi. My… mate?”
“Hnn. Please, please,” Jisung sobs out, trembling in his arms.
Minho breaks. He gives in, lets his alpha take over, fully—he licks over the skin of Jisung’s neck and thinks, Mine, thinks, my mate—and then he bites.
The taste is metallic, salty, sweet, Jisung—dizzying. He’s drunk on it, mouth clamped around the wound, grabbing desperately at Jisung’s body as he comes, knots him, groans and spills deep inside—and something must feel good because Jisung is coming too, the both of them shuddering in tandem, bodies quaking, linked together inextricably for what feels like an eternity. Minho nearly blacks out.
They slump over on the bed, sideways, and Minho groans and licks over the wound on pure instinct. He’s still dizzy, fading in and out from the sheer intensity of the claiming, and thank God, he thinks, they’d moved from the desk.
Then he does black out.
--
When he wakes, half-hazy from sleep, Jisung is squirming, whimpering in his arms. Mate, Minho’s alpha says. Mate.
Minho holds Jisung tight and slides inside him again, and Jisung quiets, then grows loud. Tenses in his arms. Minho finds that spot on his neck and sucks on it until he can taste blood again, comes deep inside him, fills him up.
They drift back to sleep.
--
When Minho wakes again, Jisung is still sleeping. Minho is achingly hard.
“Sung,” he mumbles, shaking Jisung’s shoulder gently, but Jisung doesn’t rouse.
Fuck. He doesn’t want to wake him. He could just jack off, but he’s had enough of that—it won’t be terrible, anymore, but he also knows it won’t feel nearly as good as Jisung would. He bites his lip, nudges Jisung’s shoulder again.
“Sung-ah,” he says, voice deepening with need. His body is pressed up against Jisung’s back. He can feel Jisung’s slick against his cock. “Jagi, please…”
“Mmph…” Jisung mumbles, finally.
“Need you,” Minho says. “Sung-ah. Need you.”
Jisung blinks sleepily, turns his head to look at him. “Hm? Oh—yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Gonna sleep s’me more.”
“But—huh?”
“It’s okay,” Jisung says, smiling a little. “It’s my heat. It’ll feel good. Even if I’m…” He yawns. “Sleeping.” He curls back up, pressing his ass into Minho’s cock. “Fuck me, jagiya.”
“Oh my God.” Minho is blindingly hard. He presses a kiss to Jisung’s shoulder, then the back of his neck.
Jisung lets out a long sigh and burrows further into the pillow. Then he doesn’t move.
Fuck. Fuck—he’s asleep again. But he said it was okay? And Minho—Minho wants him. Needs him.
It’s. Kind of hot. Fuck.
Breath coming fast, he reaches down and positions his cock, pressing until he finds the slick, hot entrance to Jisung’s ass.
Then he slides in, taking care not to jostle Jisung’s body too much.
Fuck.
He’s perfect.
Minho rolls partially over him and fucks into him slow, gentle, muffling his moans into the skin of Jisung’s shoulder. Jisung lies there, still with sleep, and takes and takes and takes.
Holy shit. Minho wonders if he could make him come in his sleep. He slicks a hand between Jisung’s thighs and then reaches around to take hold of Jisung’s half-hard cock, strokes gently it to hardness as he fucks into him. Then, slowly, he changes the angle of his hips until he’s at the one he’s pretty sure will slide his cock against Jisung’s prostate.
Jisung lets out a tiny groan.
God. That’s so hot.
Minho’s much more on edge than he thought he was. His hips stutter as he fucks into Jisung’s pliant body, and he has to hold back a groan, focusing on keeping his hand steady as he strokes Jisung’s cock.
Beneath him, Jisung shudders, groans. Then, on a particularly strong thrust, his breath hitches. “Hhhhhngh—ohfuck.”
Suddenly, Jisung is moving, reaching behind him to grip at Minho’s hip, and oh. He’s awake again. Minho has to hold back a shuddery laugh. “Morning.”
“Hi,” Jisung says, laughing, then groans a little. “Hahh. Feels good. Can go harder.”
“Fuck, okay,” Minho says, and lets go of Jisung’s cock so he can take hold of his hips and slam into him.
“Yeah, baby, like that—oh—”
It doesn’t take long for Jisung to spill all over himself. Minho’s knot pops not long after, and he works them through both of their orgasms, holding Jisung close in the aftermath, panting. “God.”
“That was sexy,” Jisung says, and laughs a little. “To wake up, with you in me. God. I thought you might not do it.”
“I almost didn’t,” Minho admits. “Felt weird.”
“I mean. How would you feel if it was you, in your rut? And I needed you?” Jisung asks, craning his neck to look back at him for a moment.
If Jisung needed him—“You could have anything you needed,” Minho says, and then flushes, because what the fuck. “I mean. Ugh. What am I saying.”
Jisung laughs. “Oh, baby.”
Minho shoves his face into the nape of Jisung’s neck. “Shut up.”
“Could I ride you while you were sleeping, then?” Jisung hitches his hips back, just a little, onto Minho’s knot. “During your rut, and my heat?”
Minho groans. “Fuck, Sung. Yeah. You can do that.”
So when he wakes up several hours later on his back, Jisung grinding down on top of him, whimpering and wet and desperate, he’s not surprised.
He is, however, very, very turned on.
“Jagi,” he breathes out, voice raspy, just before he pulls Jisung off, flips them over, and fucks Jisung into the mattress until he screams.
-
It continues.
They fuck and fuck and fuck.
At some point Jisung’s stomach gurgles and Minho’s alpha says, insistently, Food! Food for mate! So Minho ends up half-naked in the kitchen, cooking them the ramen Jisung brought that first night. Both of them eat it, huddled together in their boxers at the kitchen island—and then Minho fucks Jisung over the kitchen counter for good measure when they’re done.
Mostly though, they stay in bed.
Minho leaves more bruises—across Jisung’s hips, his legs, his waist. He claws down Jisung’s spine once so hard he nearly draws blood, and he would have recoiled in horror after if not for the fact that Jisung came immediately, sobbing in pleasure, clenching down on his cock.
“So good, baby,” Jisung tells him, pressing his face into Minho’s scent gland as they curl together, cuddling close. “So good. Needed this.”
“Should’ve told me before,” Minho says, thinking about their first night, trailing his hand up and down Jisung’s back. “If I was being… too soft. Before my rut.”
“Huh?” Jisung asks, pulling back to look at him.
“I mean. If this is how you liked it…” Minho bites his lip. He doesn’t know if he could’ve done it like this, from the beginning. He would’ve felt too afraid of breaking him—of breaking himself.
“No—no, baby,” Jisung says, and laughs a little. “No, that was perfect, too. It’s like.” He pauses to think about it, drawing an indiscernible pattern on Minho’s waist with his fingertips. “It’s like—because that was so good, I trusted you to do this. You know?”
“You said you’d let me be rough with you in the first place,” Minho points out, frowning. Suspicious. “When we talked about it on the couch.”
“Oh. I did, didn’t I?” Jisung says, and laughs again. “I mean—I could tell you didn’t want to. But then. I guess I might’ve let you do anything to me, at that point.” He looks highly embarrassed. “You were being so nice to me and you smelled so fucking good, and like. Every time we kissed, I wanted you so bad… I mean, you bought me cheesecake. So yeah.”
“So all it takes is cheesecake to let someone bend you over?” Minho asks, ignoring the way his hackles want to raise at the thought of someone else touching his Jisung, fuck—
“Maybe,” Jisung says, raising an eyebrow. Smug. Goading. “What would you think about that, hyung?”
Minho fights, very hard, to keep his expression neutral, because all he wants to do is snarl. “I think we should change your safeword if we’re going to keep talking about cheesecake in bed,” is what he says first, very evenly, and inwardly smirks when Jisung pouts at him for not taking the bait. “Also,” he says, and looks away, because he can’t say this sort of thing while making eye contact—“I think sex with you is worth a lot more than a piece of cheesecake.”
When he looks back at him, Jisung is smiling at him, wide and soft and fond. “Hyung?” he asks.
“Hm?” Minho hums back, suddenly, inexplicably nervous.
Jisung bites his lip. Then he smooths his hand up Minho’s waist, his chest, to his neck; he taps at Minho’s scent gland, just lightly, making his skin tingle. “Could I…” He swallows audibly. “I don’t have to. I just thought, maybe. Maybe I could also… If you—if you wanted to be mine, too—could I…?”
Minho’s heart pounds, loudly, in his ears. He doesn’t have to say yes, if he’s not ready. He could stop here.
If he’s being honest, they’ve been living in a fever dream. He doesn’t know how their relationship is going to work when real life comes hurtling back in, when their jobs and friends and families collide; he doesn’t know what kind of people they’ll even be, five, ten, twenty years down the road.
But Jisung is his mate. Jisung has committed, at the very least, to spending at least some of their rut and heat cycles together for the rest of their lives. Jisung has his mark on his neck, tying him symbolically to Minho, forever.
Sure, in theory, Minho could go out and rut with someone else. But he won’t. The thought of touching anyone but Jisung like this fills him with pure dread.
So if he can give this to Jisung… he will. Because Jisung deserves the same commitment he’s given Minho—and because, pure and simple, he wants to.
He rolls onto his back. “Come here,” he says, heart thrumming in his chest as he pulls Jisung onto his lap. Jisung reaches behind himself, fits Minho’s cock into his slick hole—and Minho hadn’t even realized he was that hard again, but seeing Jisung’s eyes roll back as he slowly slides onto him makes him let out a breathy groan. “God, Sung-ah,” he mumbles, running a hand up and down Jisung’s thigh. “Look at you.”
“Wait, was that—ah—was that a yes?”
In answer, Minho pulls him down close for a deep, long kiss. Then he tips his neck to the side, shivering at the feeling of Jisung’s quick, nervous breath on his skin. “Yeah,” he says, quietly. “For you.”
“Baby,” Jisung sighs, and leans down to scent him. He rolls his hips, slow and steady, making Minho groan as he rides him; then he moves his mouth to Minho’s neck and laves his tongue over the sensitive skin of his gland.
Minho feels like he’s going to explode. He scrabbles at Jisung’s back, bucking his hips up into him; Jisung whimpers, right near his ear, and starts to suck, hard. He’s not biting. Fuck. “Sung-ah,” Minho gasps, rolling his hips up into that tight heat. “What are you doing?”
“Revenge, maybe?” Jisung says, and starts to suckle another hickey. “Should I make you beg?”
Minho groans. He feels so fucking pent up, at Jisung’s mercy. “Jisung. I could have you bent over in a second, you know.”
“You could,” Jisung says, and lifts up to kiss him, soft and slow. When he pulls away, he’s grinning. “But then I wouldn’t be biting you.”
Minho glares at him. Then, because this is Jisung, he lets out a long sigh and gives in. “Please,” he says quietly, refusing to look at him.
Jisung swivels his hips, lazily reaching a hand behind himself to gather some of his own slick, using it to slide his hand over his cock. He really is too attractive for his own good like this, sitting there bent over Minho, one hand on the bed, the other on his cock; his golden skin flushed from his heat and exertion, his lips spread into a grin. Smug bastard. “Please what?”
Minho bucks his hips up unexpectedly, managing to make Jisung groan. Good. “Please claim me,” he says quickly, while Jisung is distracted, so maybe he won’t realize that Minho’s voice has gone a touch too soft.
He notices, because of course he does; his smile turns all dopey and fond, and he leans down and presses a kiss to the corner of Minho’s mouth. “Yeah, okay. Fuck, baby. Gonna make you mine, okay?”
“You sound so sleazy,” Minho mumbles, even though his ears are going hot with the way Jisung’s looking at him. Fuck. He likes him so much.
“As if you’re not gonna bust when I get my mouth on you,” Jisung says, smug, against his jaw. He kisses, lower, down his neck, and Minho’s breath hitches.
“You did the same thing!”
“Exactly,” Jisung says, and licks over his gland again, hot and wet, grinding down on his cock. Minho really is close, he realizes. Damnit. “Because it feels fucking good.”
“Is that why… you’re teasing me?” Minho asks, his breath coming out in gasps now. He wants it so fucking bad and he didn’t realize; he’s craning his neck so hard to the side that it hurts.
“Maybe a little,” Jisung says, rolling his hips. “Also—think my heat’s almost over. Might be my last time. Wanted to… make the most of it.”
“Mm,” Minho hums, nodding. He’d noticed it too—the urge to fuck, to mate, to devour is receding slowly, displaced more and more by the exhaustion in every limb. He’s not even sure if his knot will come up this time. “Getting… close, though.”
“Yeah,” Jisung breathes, bouncing more on his cock as Minho’s hips roll up to meet him. “Fuck. Yeah, me too.” He speaks the words right up against Minho’s neck, and then he sucks another hickey there, sending Minho’s pulse racing with want, want—Minho clutches at his back and fucks up into him and thinks God, please.
“Sung-ah,” he gasps, feeling his orgasm closing in on him. “Sung-ah—”
Jisung bites.
The sting is a shock to his system, but behind it is a feeling so indescribably good he does come immediately, keening loudly, sounds escaping his throat that he didn’t even know he could make as Jisung’s tongue moves over the wound. Then Jisung is whining too, sucking down harder as he clenches and spills over Minho’s stomach, and Minho sees fucking stars.
His knot doesn’t come up, but that’s okay—his orgasm ebbs gently, this time, as Jisung licks over the wound, gentle, warm. I might love him, Minho thinks involuntarily, and then mentally curses. Fuck.
Then, slowly, Jisung pulls off of him, falling to the side as their breath starts to slow.
“I think…” Minho says, clinging to Jisung, feeling the most tired he’s ever been in his life. “I think I’m done.”
Jisung nods. “Yeah,” he says, blinking slowly. “Yeah. Me too.”
Despite the exhaustion filling every bone in his body, Minho refuses to sleep on top of the fluid-soaked towels again. He herds a sleepy, complaining Jisung into the kitchen to grab some snacks while he throws all of the towels and sheets in the wash and remakes the bed. Then he downs a nutritional shake and pulls Jisung into the shower with him.
“Feel like I got hit by a truck,” Jisung mumbles, as Minho washes him, and Minho winces; soaps carefully over the bruises on his skin.
“Sorry,” he breathes, turning him around, taking extra care with the delicate skin of his ass, washing all that slick down the drain.
“Nah, that’s pretty normal for my heats,” Jisung says, leaning against the wall as Minho gives himself a quick wash as well. “At least this time it was a fun, sexy truck.”
Minho bursts into startled laughter. “Can’t I at least be, like. A sports car?”
“I don’t think a sports car would fuck me up enough,” Jisung muses, grinning. “Would it help if it was one of those hybrid electric trucks? Those are probably sexier.”
“No,” Minho says, deadpan, and then laughs again at Jisung’s overplayed pout as he turns off the water.
They towel off and dress in pajamas and crawl into a bed that is, for the first time in a while, clean and completely dry.
“I took apart your nest,” Minho says, frowning as he realizes. “Sorry, I didn’t ask—was that okay?”
“It’s fine, my heat’s done,” Jisung says, curling up close to him as Minho pulls the blankets over both of them. “Oh, can I be the big spoon now?”
Minho snorts, already rolling to his other side. “If you want to.”
“Yeah, I like switching it up. We just couldn’t really do it before with your dick up my ass all the time,” Jisung points out, and Minho laughs as Jisung slides his arm around him, tucking his legs up behind Minho’s. It feels warm, comfortable. Safe.
Minho checks the time. It’s late Monday night. “I took a couple more days off of work,” he says, because usually he absolutely needs them to recuperate from his hell ruts. This time, he’s exhausted, but it’s the kind of exhaustion that feels like it can fix itself with a good night’s sleep. A wave of relief passes over him. It’s done. It worked. Thank fucking God.
“Me too,” Jisung says, thumbing over Minho’s chest through his sleep shirt. His voice is tentative when he speaks again. “I was planning on leaving tomorrow morning—figured you might want some alone time?”
Minho thinks about it. Truly, he wouldn’t mind being alone for a bit, just to sort out some things—running some errands, taking a much longer shower, lying on his couch mindlessly on his phone for a while.
But he also has two more days off of work and brand a new mating mark on his neck. Also, he really, really wants to spend more time with Jisung.
“I think it’d be good if you left for a little while, just so I can get some things done,” he says carefully, and feels Jisung deflate behind him. “But then,” he adds quickly—“Maybe, after that. You could come back over for dinner?”
Jisung is quiet for a second. Then he holds him closer, pressing a kiss to the back of his neck. “Yeah,” he says, “I’d like that.”
They drift off to sleep, Jisung holding him close, and Minho’s heart beats slow and steady and fond.
--
It’s been a week and a half.
Minho feels much more anxious than he’d thought he’d be when he pulls into the parking lot of Jisung’s apartment complex to pick him up for… well. He’s not sure if this is technically their first date, or their third or fourth. It’s the first time they’re actually calling it a date, but also they’ve fucked more times than he can remember and, okay, yeah, after sitting on it for a while even without being doused in hormones he’s pretty damn sure he’s in love with him, so that’s kind of skewed the lines of ‘dating’ beyond recognition.
But, whatever. It’s a date, and he’s picking Jisung up, and he hasn’t seen him in a week and a half because they’ve both been so fucking busy, and—and he’s missed him. A lot.
They’d spent the two days after their cycles mostly just cuddling and talking, watching movies and curled up in honeymoon-like bliss. It was good and yet so, so strange, mostly because Minho’s never been this infatuated with anyone in his entire life. Then again, he’s never met anyone he’s liked as much as Jisung—who gets him like Jisung does, who makes him laugh like Jisung does, who makes him want to cry happy fucking tears when he sees him smile like Jisung does.
He’s, like. Fantasizing about getting married and buying a house and having kids and shit. He never does that.
God.
He’s just… worried. What if things have changed since then? What if things are different, now that their cycles are over, and it’s awkward, or weird? It’s not like they haven’t been texting, but things can be different in person, and—and he’s just really, really missed him. He wants to hold him.
He really hopes Jisung still wants to hold him too.
He presses his fingers into the mating mark, just over his scent gland, a nervous habit he’s picked up recently and tries his hardest to only do when he’s alone. Then, because he’s pretty sure Jisung’s running late, he turns the car off and heads up to Jisung’s apartment to knock.
“Hi,” Jisung says, breathless as he lets him in, messy haired and one sock on and generally looking frazzled. “I’m so sorry, I know we’ve got a reservation and I’m literally always running late to everything, I promise I’ll just be a minute, just some stuff happened at work today and it was a lot and—”
“Jisung-ah,” Minho interrupts, mildly overwhelmed just from the thought of all that. “It’s okay. You don’t have to rush. This isn’t a super busy restaurant—I only made the reservation just in case.”
Jisung takes a long, slow breath. “Okay,” he says, slumping a little. “Actually…” He stops. “Never mind. I’m gonna finish getting ready, okay?”
“Wait, what is it?” Minho asks, frowning.
Jisung’s lips purse, and he looks down, as if he’s arguing internally about something. Then he bites his lip. “Would it be… okay, if we skipped dinner tonight? We can still hang out! I just—I don’t really want to be around a lot of other people right now, after today.”
“Yeah, of course,” Minho says, already pulling out his phone. “Let me just call to cancel the reservation, okay?”
Jisung breathes a sigh of relief. “Okay.”
By the time Minho’s done making his call, Jisung has both socks on and seems a lot less anxious than before.
“Sorry,” Jisung says, a tiny, self-conscious smile on his face as he heads toward Minho for a hug. “I didn’t mean to ruin our first real date.”
Minho holds him close, can’t help leaning in to scent him, sighing at the warm, sweet smell of his mate—his Jisung. He can’t believe it’s been over a week since he touched him last. God, why had he been worried about this being awkward? This is Jisung. His Jisung. It’s fine. “You didn’t ruin it,” he says honestly, pulling back to look at him. “I was thinking maybe we’d pick up takeout and go back to my place instead? We can watch a movie. You can tell me all about your bad day—that can be our date.”
Jisung’s mouth tugs upwards into a smile. “Oh—that. That sounds really, really great.”
“Good,” Minho says, and pulls out his phone to look for a restaurant to order food from.
“Hyung,” Jisung says, blinking a little, then leaning in to sniff him. “Are you… you’re not wearing your scent-blockers?”
“Mm,” Minho hums, and reddens, looking up from his phone. “I, um. Stopped wearing them.” He doesn’t see the need, nowadays. He’s claimed now, and anyway, Jisung likes him better without them.
Jisung grins. “Oh,” he says, and leans closer to scent him. “For me?” he says, lips on Minho’s neck, and Minho’s breath hitches.
“Nah. Just felt like it,” Minho lies, his ears going very warm.
“Liar,” Jisung says, pulling back, grinning smugly. “I think you want me to scent you. And you’re inviting me back to your apartment. It’s almost like you’re trying to seduce me…”
Minho snorts. “Are you saying you’d be opposed?”
“No.” Jisung grins. “I just wanted to know if I needed to bring a change of clothes, really.”
Laughter bubbles from Minho’s lungs, and he can’t resist leaning forward and kissing Jisung, their lips sliding soft together for the first time in a long while. “Just wear mine,” he says, pulse racing as they pull apart. Already he wants to kiss him again.
“Mm. Possessive. I like it,” Jisung says, snickering when Minho rolls his eyes.
“Efficient.”
“You just like me in your clothes.
“I like you out of them better.”
“Should I just strip now?” Jisung asks, and slowly starts to lift his shirt, exposing his abs.
Embarrassingly, even though he’s seen him naked so many times before, Minho’s ears go hot. “Jisung.”
Jisung laughs, loudly. Then he curls his arms around Minho’s neck and kisses him. “You’re perfect.”
Minho’s ears, if possible, go even hotter. “Sung-ah.”
“You are,” Jisung insists, and kisses him again.
“I’m literally not,” Minho grumbles. “I don’t deserve you.”
“What?” Jisung asks, frowning. “Lee Minho, I am not going to tell you exactly how much I like you, because frankly it’s embarrassing, but—fuck, I like you. I like you so much. You make me feel so normal even when I feel like I’m going insane, and I like you so much for it. I just want to like, marry you and have your babies. Oh. Um. Shit, take that last part back. Goddamnit, the point is, I’m in love with you and—oh, fuck, please pretend you didn’t hear that, okay? Hhhh.” He buries his face into Minho’s shoulder. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry. We’re not even boyfriends yet. I’m being so embarrassing…”
Minho pets his hair, a little stunned. Then he laughs softly, shaking his head. “You want to be boyfriends, Sung-ah? We can be boyfriends.”
Jisung peeks one eye out from where he’s hiding in Minho’s shoulder. “We can?”
Minho’s heart goes all dumb and fluttery. “Mm.”
“Cool,” Jisung says, his mouth spreading into a grin. “I just—wanted you all to myself, really.”
“You’re the only person I’ve kissed in three years,” Minho says, giving him a strange look. “I have your mating mark. I think it’s pretty clear I wasn’t going to be dating anyone else.”
“But you’re, like…” Jisung waves a hand at him, pouting. “I don’t know. You’re hard to read. You know that! So I just had to—to make sure. Because I really, really like you.”
Minho swallows. He did say he was going to work harder on that—on telling Jisung his feelings. So when he tips his head forward, knocking their foreheads together, it comes out much easier than he’d thought it would when he says, “I love you, you know?”
Jisung takes a little, gaspy breath. He blinks, wide-eyed, several times. “I didn’t know,” he says, and has suddenly he’s wiping at his eyes. “I didn’t.”
“So now you do,” Minho says, and leans in to kiss him, soft, just once.
“I do,” Jisung says, and gives him a watery grin.
Minho kisses him again, then holds him tight. God. Jisung. Jisung.
They stand there in the entryway for a long time.
Finally, when they disentangle, Minho holds up his phone, heart beating slow and warm and deep. “Let’s order food, and then we’ll pick a movie to watch on the way back, hm?”
“Okay,” Jisung says, brightly. Slowly, he grins. “And then I get to cleverly interrupt the movie in a way that ends up with us making out and me bending you over the couch?”
Arousal briefly stirs in Minho’s gut. His lips twitch. “Depends on just how clever your interruption is.”
“Oh, I’ve been told I have a way with words,” Jisung says, grinning. “Or maybe just with my mouth?”
Minho focuses very hard on scrolling through his takeout app and not on thinking about Jisung on his knees in front of him, mouth open wide, ready to suck on his cock—
Yeah. He’s not thinking about that.
Jisung laughs in a way that means he knows Minho is very much thinking about that, getting absolutely in the way of his phone to kiss him.
And Minho lets him.