Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Good luck. You’ve got this.” 

If you’d told Minho even just a couple of days before that he’d be hugging Felix in front of his apartment building, for anyone to walk by and see, he would have flicked your forehead and told you you were dumb.  

It doesn’t feel dumb now.

Felix smiles at him softly when released from their embrace, but Minho can’t help but think there’s something off about it. It’s like it lost some of its brightness somehow, like it doesn’t reach his eyes. Felix has been adamant, though, that this will be good. That it’s a good thing. That he’s happy for Minho. So maybe Felix is just tired and Minho is reading into it because he’s nervous. 

“Thank you. I’ll let you know how things go.”

“Great.” 

Great. Yeah, this is great, right? 

Minho stays until Felix is out of sight inside his building and then he reluctantly starts walking back home. Not because he doesn’t want to be home, he loves it there, even with all the usual shenanigans. 

But now that he’s officially told Felix about his plans to ask the pups if they want to be mated, things are no longer a fuzzy conversation in his head that he doesn’t really have to worry about until the time comes.

Because the time came. 

Whoever decided that he had to be so bad at these things? It’s not fair. It’s a hassle and makes him annoyed almost immediately, because he just doesn’t know how to do things like these. Not like Felix, who is almost too skilled at talking about deeply rooted emotions and worries and solutions and what have you. 

Maybe he could make Felix do this for him somehow? 

No. That’s stupid. 

He’s been rehearsing different angles to start these conversations, but none of them feel quite right. How do you even ask someone to stay with you forever? Or, at least until you both decide forever means. It’s not like it’s a death sentence…

It’s more about asking someone to be his, and to accept being theirs in the same breath. But some part of him still questions why they would really wanna be his. 

It’s about asking them. The people Minho never planned for, never imagined in his life, but that have brought so much to it, he just couldn’t imagine what the world would look like without them now. 

God, Bang Chan has made him sappy. He knew this was going to happen. 

When he gets home there’s food on the table and they all ask him how his walk went. He’d told them he’d go with Felix and they always seem so happy when he talks about Felix, so they didn’t really question much.

“He’s been talking about this park near his place, so we went there.” Minho tries not to let it show that he feels irrationally nervous. It’s not like they will somehow manage to guess what he and Felix had talked about. And he’s definitely not planning on popping the questions today, so…

“Felix hyung started following me on insta,” Jeongin mentions before he stuffs two dumplings into his mouth at once, ears twitching. 

“He spends far too much time looking at videos there,” Minho says, thinking that Felix and Jeongin could probably communicate on internet slang alone if they wanted to.

“Okay, Mr. 3 Hours on the Sofa Watching Cooking Shows,” Seungmin snickers. 

“I don’t see you complaining when I make you food.” Minho steals a piece of pork off Seungmin’s plate and earns an eye-roll. Chan replaces the piece on Seungmin’s plate with one from his own and giggles. 

“I think it’s nice you hung out with Felix. We should all go out together again!”

“Have you heard anything from Changbin hyung lately?” Seungmin asks quietly, making Minho frown. They all have their respective friends in Felix’s pack, sure, but last he checked, Seungmin’s had been Hyunjin. 

“Oh yeah, we still get together at the gym sometimes. When the weather was nice last weekend we went for a jog outside and had ice cream at the end of it,” Chan beams. 

Minho doesn’t believe his own eyes when a little blush blooms to life on the back of Seungmin’s neck. What the hell is going on? And why hasn’t he heard about any of this?

His head hurts. 

“You guys eat ice cream after the gym?” Jeongin asks, clearly judgy but teasing. “Is that what you do when I don’t go with you?”

“You should stop coming to the gym, actually. You’re getting too strong for your own good.”

“Aish, hyung,” Jeongin waves this off as if it’s a joke, but Minho is pretty sure Chan is being sincere. And he is very sure that he is correct. 

“You mean too strong for your own good?” Seungmin asks Chan, leering. Chan huffs and blushes.

Minho would say that, yes, too strong for anyone’s good. Jeongin is supposed to be the maknae, this isn’t good for Minho's health. Or his reputation for that matter, because even he can tell that hugging Jeongin would be an experience for sure, right now. 

“Anyway! What’s up with Felix and the gang?” Chan tries to change the subject, still smiling, completely unaware of the huge pile of complicated things he is dropping onto Minho’s head like a cartoon piano. 

“Oh,” Minho opens his mouth but just as quickly closes it again. This could technically be his chance to bridge the subject, couldn’t it? It worked well for him to just blurt it out before, when he had to tell them he was presenting as an alpha. Maybe it could work again? 

But he really wants to ask them one on one. It feels more right.

“Not much, from what I could tell,” he settles for something truthful, yet broad. “Yongbok says things are pretty normal.”

“Things can be normal in that household?” Seungmin jokes, and despite it all, it tugs on the corners of Minho’s mouth. It also makes him wonder how much Seungmin really knows about them, if he and Hyunjin are talking a lot these days.

And… he’s feeling insecure again.

“Well, as normal as it gets for them.” He clears his throat and starts picking up dirty dishes to take back into the kitchen.

“Need help, Minho-ya?” Chan jumps to his feet immediately, almost swiping the vase off the end table in the corner next to him with his tail. 

“Help breaking the decorations in the house? I’m good, thanks.” He hip-checks Chan out of the way, which only makes Chan laugh and swing his tail harder. Jeongin snorts and helps carry things too, ignoring Minho’s silent warning about being careful. They’ve had to buy two new sets of dinnerware since Jeongin moved in.

But Minho has to admit, at least to himself, that he’s come to like these moments. The times he goes about the chores, just existing in their general vicinity as they either help him or linger nearby to talk or watch him quietly. The pleasant energy that filled that empty space that had made him place out the roommate ads in the first place. 

It feels right. 

He’s making the right choice. He wants to ask them. 

The evening doesn’t extend too much. They’ve all had busy weeks, they’re all tired, and Minho’s lingering headache doesn’t want to go away so he calls it an early night. 

It doesn’t take long before he hears the others follow suit through the crack of his door. Shuffling feet, doors closing, silence settling over the house. But no matter how much he stares at the backs of his eyelids, sleep doesn’t seem to want to come to him. 

Instead, it paints pictures of them. What would they look like if he asked, what would they say? Would they be happy? 

“You’re gonna do so well. And they’re gonna say yes.”

Minho isn’t so sure. Won’t be until he actually goes through with it, but he hopes Felix is right.  

When another half hour goes by and the hopes of sleeping still seem too far away, Minho sighs and pushes off his blanket. He’s too hot for it anyway. In fact, his throat feels a little dry as well.  

It’s not surprising that Jeongin’s light is the only one still on when Minho goes to pour himself some water. How that man manages to rawdog daily life after playing video games all night is truly beyond Minho. At least Chan stays up while worrying the whole time, but Jeongin truly just lives like that.

He is a little surprised by the way he stops by the door on his way back, though. Just looking at the light hitting the floor of the dark hallway for a few seconds. Suddenly hit with the urge to open it and step inside. It’s not like he hasn’t done it before. 

He sniffs absentmindedly, and regrets it almost immediately, because what was only a half-realised thought becomes a genuine idea as soon as the peppermint scent tingles in his nose. And before he knows it his hand is on the handle, but before he can even push it down, Jeongin’s voice joins the mix of sensations. 

“Minho hyung?” 

Might as well, now that he’s caught.

Minho opens the door and stands there, still waiting to be invited further. “Yes?” 

Jeongin gives him an amused look, pauses his game and removes his earplugs. “You okay? You can come in, you know you can.”

“I know.” Minho does. He just isn’t sure why he wants to in the first place or what he will do once he does. “What are you up to?” 

“Same old. If you want I can talk you through a game, but I know you find it boring.”

Minho isn’t sure what he wants, but this has happened before and things tend to work themselves out with Jeongin. They know they can go to each other when words are difficult and somehow they manage to understand each other. 

Jeongin catches wind of this pretty quickly, pushing away from his desk chair. “Or we can get into bed.”

Minho runs on pure instinct when his hands find their way to Jeongin’s hips, hooking his fingers into the belt loops of his jeans, that he hasn’t taken off for some reason, and tugging him closer. Close enough to seek his neck with his nose and get at his scent at the source. 

Jeongin gasps softly, but his hands are steady when he holds Minho too. Lets him indulge with no explanation but the pleased waft of his scent when it mingles with Jeongin’s.  

They make it to bed without barely unsticking from one another, only making sure to remove Jeongin’s jeans and push some of the heavier blankets he keeps around to the side. It smells so much like Jeongin in here, but also some of Chan and Seungmin is blended there, potentially from clothes or just them hanging out with Jeongin here too. 

Jeongin doesn’t ask him what’s wrong, just breathes slowly in and out, lets Minho come to him when and if he’s ready, the way Minho does for him too. He feels warm just knowing that they don’t have to ask to know this is what they need.

He doesn’t know what to say for a long while, but eventually he settles for muttering into Jeongin’s neck, “I feel weird.” 

Jeongin hums and tightens his arm around him. “Weird?” 

“Headachy. Hot. Restless. Distracted.” 

“Sounds exhausting.” 

Minho nods. “I’m also thinking too much.”

“I’ve noticed, yeah.” 

Shit. Okay, maybe Minho isn’t as mysterious as he likes to think he is. He pushes away a little so he can breathe properly without overdosing on peppermint. Jeongin, however, keeps his nose firmly over Minho’s head, breathing him in. “Yeah?” 

“Mhm. You look like you’re far away a lot lately.” Minho guesses he is. Far into the depths of his imagination and running about 40 different scenarios at once in the hopes of determining how to ask them if they want him to mate them. “Do you wanna talk about it? What you’re thinking about?” Jeongin mumbles carefully. “I mean, you don’t… have to, I know we don’t usually, uh. Yeah, just. If you wanna, we could.” 

In theory, Minho does. He needs to, eventually. He can’t keep putting it off because his teeth ache just thinking about not having a future in which they’re his mates. 

In practice, though, it’s much harder.

“Are you happy with your life?” Minho asks, which is probably one of the weirdest questions he’s ever asked anyone. 

“Oh,” Jeongin doesn’t answer him right away, and Minho knows he is also the kind to think things over before speaking, but it’s still scary to be trapped in the silence. “That’s deep.”

Minho huffs a laugh, mostly at himself for being so weird. “I guess, yeah. Would you change anything?”

Jeongin finally pulls back too, so they can look at each other, and Minho kind of wishes he wouldn’t because Jeongin is frowning and the expression on his face is so worried it makes Minho’s heart ache. 

“Are you not..? Would you change anything, hyung? Are you unhappy with us–”

Minho shakes his head, not wanting to worry Jeongin. “No. Definitely not.” He tightens his hold on Jeongin and Jeongin’s tail relaxes.

“Then, why?” 

“I just keep thinking–” he sighs and takes to fiddling with Jeongin’s tail while he builds up the courage to go on. No plan, no reason, none of them felt right anyway, but he can’t leave it like this with Jeongin. “Yongbok-ah keeps calling us a pack.” 

As if this in itself could possibly explain everything. 

It does something, though, because Jeongin looks at him more softly the next time he speaks. “Yeah. Honestly, everyone I know does too.”

“Do you correct them?”

Jeongin shrugs. “Sometimes. Depends on the situation.”

A sudden memory makes itself known in Minho’s head. Jisung asking Jeongin if he really did meet his mate way back when; Jeongin hadn’t corrected him then. 

“Does it bother you?” Jeongin asks, and there’s a tinge of sadness when he does. “Because we can be more clear about that, or–”

“Honestly, yes.” Minho sighs, because he has a foot and most of his leg into the mess now, nothing to do but to plant both feet in it and live with the consequences. Fast, because Jeongin looks even sadder now. “Because… I haven’t mated any of you, and I don’t even know if you want that as much as I do.” 

Jeongin’s expression changes so fast, moving to surprise and then relief and then…

Something Minho can only describe as ‘fond’, as much as he hates to admit it.

“You wanna mate us, hyung?”

Minho swallows and tries to keep his voice steady. “Yes. I do.” He hurries to clarify again because he can’t deal with the silence even though it probably only lasts a second. “If you want, of course. If… I mean, I would understand if not. Maybe this is selfish, but I just… I wanted to ask you first. But I don’t want you to feel pressured to say yes. You’re young. You haven’t really been with any other alphas…” 

“Why would I need to, though?” Jeongin asks quietly, throwing Minho off his rant when he tentatively cups Minho’s cheek. “I mean, if I’ve already found… you?” 

It’s almost overwhelming the way his heart squeezes, making his chest too tight. “Iyen-ah… You know what I mean.”

“Well, then you should know what I mean. If I wanted to find other alphas I would have done it a long time ago. You don’t think I could?” 

Minho doesn’t like to think about Jeongin meeting a random alpha he doesn’t know. 

“I’m not saying I want you to, just that I don’t want you to rush into this and then some day regret not sowing your wild oats, or whatever, when you were young…” 

Jeongin nods. “You do realise I’m only five months younger than Seungmin hyung, though? Do you feel this way about asking him?” 

Minho feels a whole lot of other ways about talking to Kim Seungmin about this, but he supposes it’s not the same. He’s pretty sure Seungmin knows exactly what he wants. 

“I just want you to be sure.” 

Jeongin kisses him gently. A rare feat, as he is hardly ever the one to make the first move. “Honestly, hyung… I already think of all of you as my packmates.” 

Minho stares, a little more settled thanks to Jeongin’s pheromones. “Really?”

“It’s sweet of you to think about this, and to want that for me, but… I already found my alpha.” 

Minho has to swallow again. This entire conversation makes his teeth ache even more and his mouth fills with saliva. The headache isn’t getting any better either, and he’s still hot. It probably doesn’t help that he is tangled with Jeongin from top to bottom. 

But his chest feels more settled. Full in a good way when Jeongin smiles at him with dimpled cheeks and narrow eyes.

“So… You’re gonna bite me?”

Minho huffs into Jeongin’s skin and tightens his hold almost punishingly. “I guess. But first, I’m going to talk to the other dogs.”

Jeongin doesn’t let him off the hook. “Where are you gonna bite me, though?” he muses. Minho can hear the smile in his voice. 

“You’re supposed to choose, you brat.”

“Me? So you’ll give me whatever I want?” 

As if Minho doesn’t do that already. He’s not about to admit that though. 

“Careful, or I’ll choose somewhere embarrassing for you.” 

Jeongin buries his nose in Minho’s hair again. “I’ll think about it. And I wouldn’t worry too much about the others, hyung, okay?” 

“What if everything changes..?” he can’t help but mutter. “I think we’re good now, so what if this ruins it somehow?” 

Jeongin shakes his head without removing his nose from Minho’s hair. “Just ask them. We all want to be together.” 

Minho sighs. He knows Jeongin is right, but it doesn’t mean he’s not gonna suffer through this whole thing. 

But at least he’s finally getting sleepy from the relief and the knowledge that he has Jeongin so close. Jeongin, who smells so divinely fresh, and who wants to be Minho’s.   

“Thank you,” he says simply. Cuddles closer. He knows Jeongin understands what it means to him. Knows how full his heart is when he drifts off to sleep, taking with him the sound of Jeongin’s unique voice. 

“I love you, hyung.” 

Waking up isn’t nearly as nice as falling asleep. 

His throbbing headache is even worse in the morning, no matter how comfortable Jeongin’s pillow is, or how sweet his scent when it invades Minho’s nose.

Minho can’t remember the last time he slept this well, so there is no reason for the headache to even be there, pummeling his temples annoyingly. And what’s worse is he realises he didn’t bring his phone in here yesterday. 

Which means no alarm.

What time is it?

He sits up with a start and Jeongin groans beside him, curling up the other way and wrapping his tail around himself. Minho sees the time on Jeongin’s computer, screensaver bumping around the screen. 

He’s very late. 

So late he doesn’t even swing by the kitchen to get something to eat, just heads straight for his room to throw on the first clothes he can find, squinting against the bright light streaming in through every fucking window. 

“Urgh,” he groans just from crouching to pick up his pants. He really feels terrible. And kind of dizzy. 

“Minho?”

Minho spins around too fast and his head swims. Shit. 

“Huh?” Chan is standing by his door, towel wrapped around his middle, hair wet. “Hi, hyung.” Minho keeps trying to find some fucking socks, where are all his socks?

“Why are you up?”

“What does it look like?” Minho snaps. God, Chan asks such stupid questions sometimes, doesn’t he? And why is he always naked? And doesn’t he understand that Minho is too short on time for this right now? 

“It looks like you’re a fool.” Chan walks into his room tries to approach him, but Minho moves to try and find the other fucking sock. “You’re sick.” 

“What?” Minho scoffs. That’s ridiculous, he just needs to get dressed and go, that’s all. “No, I’m fine, I’m just late, I gotta–”

“I could practically smell how awful you were feeling yesterday, and this morning Seungmin realised you were not up for your usual coffee and breakfast and decided to let you sleep in.”

“So it’s Kim Seungmin’s fault I’m late.” 

Chan ignores that and gets even closer, trying to feel Minho’s forehead with his palm. “He woke me up to tell me you were sick. So I’m staying home to take care of you.” 

Minho huffs again and spins away from Chan’s touch, he still hasn’t found that damned sock because the world apparently hates him. “I’m not si–” 

His balance falters when black spots swim in front of his eyes again, and for once he doesn’t protest Chan’s arms locking around him securely. 

“You’re not going anywhere.”

Minho wants to cry a little. He hates being sick, even more so in front of other people. He can’t help but inhale deeply, try to calm himself down, and in doing so he takes in Chan’s clean scent, deep chocolate buried just under the surface. “Did you shower to stay home with me?”

Chan grins. “Yeah! You’re always saying I stink.”

Minho would never admit that Chan, and thus also Seungmin and Jeongin, stink in the best way possible. He likes to tease them about it but right now he would have rather Chan hadn’t showered at all. “Was that not..? Is something wrong about that? Should I not have?”

Minho shakes his head a little. “I just have a headache and the soap scent is a little…” He leaves out the rest for Chan to figure out. He’s smart. 

“Oh.” 

Well, decently smart. 

“It’s okay.”

“If you want, I can do some push ups and start sweating right away.” He smirks and Minho doesn’t like the way it makes his stomach swoop. 

Chan is a menace, because he probably knows Minho is picturing it now. It isn’t hard, he had seen Chan do push ups just earlier this week, so the mental image is fresh enough to conjure up very clearly. 

“But before anything else, we need to get you into bed. Come on.”

Chan spins Minho around to face his own bed, and it does look inviting, but there’s something that makes him feel a little itchy about it.

“No.” Minho digs his heels in when Chan tries to steer him forward, body stiff and tight under the touch. 

“You need rest,” Chan insists, but Minho’s muscles won’t budge even a little. 

“Yes, fine, I have accepted that, but… not here.”

Chan stops pushing and moves to the side a little to look at Minho’s face. “Okay.” He always has good instincts about Minho, this one, and it makes Minho’s skin prickle. “Wanna go to my room?”

Minho just nods, feeling defeated despite the fact that he got what he wanted. “I just need my phone. I gotta call in sick.”

“I’ll get it!” Chan strides over to Minho’s nightstand before he even gets a chance to react because his brain feels like it’s filled with molasses that his every thought has to force their way through. “Should I dial Felix for you?”

Minho freezes up. Things were just back to normal with Felix after their conversation yesterday. Minho should maybe talk to him at one point, but not right now. “No, San has seniority. He should take over.”

It doesn’t take too long, calling San up and telling him what to do, advising him to ask Felix for help should he need it, but in the short time Minho spends on the phone, Chan has rushed past his open bedroom door probably five times, always carrying a bundle of different clothing items in his arms, towel still securely wrapped around his waist. 

When Minho is finally ready to accept his fate, he finds a pretty nest at the foot of Chan’s bed, clearly not the most elaborate one he’s seen from Chan, but so tempting it has Minho’s legs feeling like lead with the need to lie down on it. 

“I can make it better,” Chan insists, gesturing to his mattress. “You could rest here in the meantime, and I’ll– Woah!” 

Minho doesn’t bother to answer him. Words are a hassle to dig through his brain for and even an impromptu nest feels like just what he needs right now. He slumps into it unceremoniously, not bothering to let go of Chan, who had insisted on holding his hand like usual, and thus pulls him down with him. 

“You look very cute,” Chan notes, foolish smile and tail swishing behind him where he looks down at Minho from his position on all fours.

Minho merely affords him an annoyed glance before he sighs in relief, relaxing a little. As if the tenseness in his body is released with every breath filled with the scent of the others’ clothes. 

“What else do you need? I’ll order food for later and I can get you a tea or coffee. It won’t be as good as Seungmin’s, though.”

Minho shakes his head. “‘M good.”

“What about soup? Oh, I know, I’ll get the good blanket from Seungmin’s–” 

“Channie hyung.” Chan’s ears perk, pointed straight at Minho with rapt attention, just like his eyes. Minho gets the sudden urge to get him closer. “I don’t need anything. Just stay.” 

Chan seems to like that. He melts into an easy smile, untensing, and he lies down to hold Minho close. Minho grunts, but it’s half-hearted, and so is the little shrug he does when Chan’s breath hits the side of his neck. Because despite himself he has to admit that it feels… nice. Chan’s skin is hot and soft and his presence soothes that something that made Minho feel stressed earlier. 

But his scent is still... Wrong. 

Minho turns his head, noses his way into making Chan bare his neck and then rubs over his scent gland, getting to where his natural essence is stronger. Chan hums, pleased, tail wagging and his scent sweetening a little. Good. But it could be even better. 

His limbs move on their own accord, twisting him more to face Chan better, to get closer and more urgent when he smooths his cheek over Chan’s neck and shoulder, leaving his own scent behind.

Chan doesn’t mind, quite the contrary, he makes it easier for Minho to handle him even when he’s not feeling all that strong. The nest smells heavenly, like Chan, the others, a little like Minho, and definitely not like soap. Perfect. Just what Minho needs, no perfumes to aid his headache in its quest to dig a hole through his temples from the inside. 

Finally, after rolling Chan over and settling more comfortably in the nest, Minho relaxes again, head on Chan’s (naked, always naked) chest. Chan has always been comfortable like this. He never minds the closeness, rather, he actively seeks it, always favouring someone else’s personal space over his own. Minho can feel him relax as well, like this, even his heart where it thumps calmly against his ribcage, directly under Minho’s head.

Yeah, Chan has always been comfortable. For better or worse and in a lot of different areas since that day he signed the papers and moved into Minho’s house. 

The memory of last night’s conversation with Jeongin replays in Minho’s head. He was so nervous, and part of him still can’t believe Jeongin just agreed so easily, so readily.

I wouldn’t worry too much about the others, hyung, okay?

Minho doesn’t feel like he has the energy to worry right now, so maybe he should make use of that. Chan has never made any effort hiding the fact that he cares about all of them, in fact, he shows it so often Minho has had to get used to it, even when his heart feels like it tumbles down a hill almost every time. In a good way.

Minho never worries about Chan. 

“Hyung,” he says, too quietly at first in case Chan has fallen asleep. His heart is really calm. 

Chan hums. His heart speeds up a little.

“I talked to Jeongin about something yesterday.”

Chan’s heart speeds way up. “Is everything okay?”

Minho nods, remaining calm because it will calm Chan down. “Yes. Everything’s okay. I just wanted to talk about something and well, I discussed it with Jeongin first.”

Chan nods and the movement jostles Minho minutely. “Alright. Was it… I mean, did it go well? Your talk with Innie?” 

And if Minho’s mouth pulls into a smile because his chest tickles from butterflies, that’s his business. “Yeah.”

“I’m glad.” 

A slow wave of fondness washes over Minho when Chan’s hand squeezes his shoulder gently. Chan doesn’t even know what this is about, and still… Still he is happy for him, and for Jeongin. Minho forces himself more upright so he can see Chan better, propping his torso up on his elbow. “But I wanted to ask you too, if–” 

“Yes.” 

Minho narrows his eyes at him. “Hyung.”

Chan smiles. “Sorry, sorry. Ask me again.”

“I never even got to ask you the first time,” Minho chuckles, helpless to stop the smile widening on his face as well. His immune system must be too weak to fight off his smile muscles, like it usually can. 

Chan waits patiently for Minho to speak again. He’s too soft, too earnest, edges round enough for Minho to want to sharpen them a little himself. 

“I was wondering if– Do you want to be mated? By me?” Minho mentally grimaces at the awkward wording, but he’s never been good at this kind of thing. 

Chan’s eyes widen, and for a second the fondness is replaced by a cold strike of fear. The tiny voice in Minho’s head that makes him question whether or not he was right prodding at his insides. 

“You want to… I didn’t expect– You want me to–?” Chan stutters, but the tremble in his voice sounds suspiciously close to when he is too excited to produce full sentences, and it makes Minho’s bravery return. 

“I’ve been thinking about it. But I don’t want anyone to feel pressured to say yes…”

“Pressured?” Chan frowns. 

“You can take as long as you need to think about it. And just because someone else agreed it doesn’t mean we all have to–”

“Yes.”

“Hyung,” Minho tries again. “This is serious.”

“Yes,” Chan repeats, unwavering in his touch, in his voice, in his eyes. “Of course, yes, Minho-ya, you know–”

“Are you sure?” He kind of expected Chan to say yes, but he still has to try to make sure he knows what all this means. “It’s kind of a big deal.”

“I know!” Chan’s tail wiggles free from under his thigh and makes itself known with a soft thump against the pillows. “It’s exciting!”

Minho wouldn’t put it like that out loud, but it is. He feels his heart melt a little, the look Chan gives him cutting through him like a hot butter knife.

“Really? You’re sure you want to shackle yourself to me forever?” He lowers his weight back down because his arm is getting tired, and because Chan’s neck is right there and so tempting. The smell of it so rich when Minho takes a steadying breath. 

“As long as you’ll have me,” Chan says, his smile cheeky, but Minho knows he means it. He nods, feeling better but only mentally. His cold is still trying to destroy him. That doesn’t seem to deter Chan though, he’s still wagging like a crazy person and smiling so brightly it’s almost blinding. 

He also doesn’t seem to care that Minho is sweaty and probably looks like shit, he just noses his way up Minho’s jaw until he can plant a perfectly placed kiss to Minho’s mouth, pump bottom lip slotting in between Minho’s. Minho can’t help but sigh into it, follow Chan’s lead and warm mouth to deepen the kiss until his brain comes back online.

“Hyung, you’ll get sick too,” Minho protests, though only in words, his body reciprocating as if it’s been disconnected from his brain during the shut-down and paired up with Chan’s instead. 

Chan shakes his head minutely, rubbing his nose against Minho’s in the process. “I don’t care. If I do, it’s totally worth it.” And then he’s kissing Minho again. 

Minho hums against Chan’s lips and kisses him again because, well, he’s there and it’s always so nice. Chan smiles into it, probably internally gloating about the fact that Minho doesn’t fight back further.

Minho will let him have this one, just because Chan was nice enough to say yes. And Minho is tired. So it’s okay.

They kiss lazily for a little while, eventually shifting to just lying close, enjoying the contact while talking quietly. 

“Did Jeongin say yes too? He did, didn’t he?” 

“Yep.” Minho still can’t believe it. Jeongin and Chan. All that’s left is…

“Are you worried about Seungminnie?” 

“Didn’t you say I needed rest?” Minho pushes his face into Chan’s neck and tightens his arm around him. He is very worried about Seungmin, in fact. Enough that he doesn’t really want to talk about it or think about it right now when his head feels like it’s about to explode. 

Chan holds him tighter. Almost too much. “It’s gonna be fine, trust me.”

“You always think everything will be fine, hyung.” 

“Hasn’t it been, though?” 

Minho sighs. His limbs feel heavy and they’re starting to ache. He hopes he isn’t getting a fever, but it certainly feels like that is where he is headed. “Go to sleep. Things will feel better when you wake up.”

It’s almost too easy to obey Chan’s words, even more so with his calming pheromones filtering through the air around them. Minho closes his eyes and forgets about everything that isn’t Chan’s weight pressed close to him, the warmth of his tail draping over him.

“Thank you, hyung.” 

“Not for this,” Chan murmurs into his hair softly. “You know I love you, Minho-ya.” 

Things do not feel better when Minho wakes up. He’s hot, but too cold at the same time, starkly aware that Chan isn’t next to him anymore from the second he regains consciousness. Which feels very unfair. He is sick after all, why would Chan leave him like this?

He smells the air, thick with the scent of food that certainly no one in the house made, but it doesn’t matter because he’s suddenly very hungry. 

He drags himself out of the nest reluctantly, sure he looks like an absolute mess. Luckily, no one seems to mind when he steps out into the living room.

Somehow, Minho feels like he always finds Seungmin in his kitchen whenever he goes there. Which isn’t usually a problem, but the teasing smile and the exaggerated proclamation that leaves his lips is uncalled for. “It’s alive!” 

He hrmphs , eyes still bleary. “You’re back. Did I sleep all day?”

“Indeed,” Seungmin tells him, and just then Jeongin walks out of his room as well, looking very fresh and fashionable. 

“Ah, hyung. How are you feeling?”

“For god’s sake at least put some sweatpants on, Jeongin-ah, why are you in jeans when you work from home!” 

Jeongin ignores him as he helps Seungmin separate the take-out containers. 

“Dinner is almost ready, so I was just about to come wake you up. Just go get comfortable, Minho hyung,” Seungmin nods in the direction of the living room. 

Chan choses this moment to walk out as well, and at least he has managed to find some shorts since he left Minho who knows how many hours ago. 

“Minho-ya! You look better,” Chan says, passing by and smelling Minho’s head. Minho most definitely does not look better but he isn’t in the mood to argue, just lets Chan snatch his wrist and lead him along.  

“I feel terrible. You all shouldn’t be near me, you’re gonna catch this bug too.”

“I think that ship sailed a long time ago,” Jeongin chuckles.

“You didn’t complain about me being too close when you asked me to cuddle you to sleep!” Chan says in a singsong voice and pokes Minho’s side far too gently.

Minho blushes and tries to hide it by looking away from Chan, but when he does he takes in the view of the living room and it only gets worse. “You guys… You made a nest? Here?” 

For him?

The coffee table is moved from its usual position between the couches again, and the space between them is completely covered in blankets and pillows and clothes. Minho hasn’t seen a nest this big in his life, he thinks, it’s even bigger than last time, when he had presented. 

“You’re sick,” Chan says as if that’s explanation enough. And maybe for him it is, but Minho still feels something in his chest pushing insistently.

“You didn’t have to do this.” 

“Well, we did,” Seungmin suddenly says right behind him, then passes Minho and Chan by with Jeongin in tow and a huge tray of food. “Come on, it’s gonna get cold.” 

Minho sits, too many emotions and feelings raging at once. His body is certainly too weak, still. “Thank you.”

It feels weird, sitting here like this now, even though the four of them have shared countless meals, something is different, something that makes Minho’s eyes flick between the others constantly. 

Jeongin, with his narrow-eyed smile and his goofy expressions when he talks. 

Chan, with his animated excitement over every little thing.

His. Both willing to be his. Both happy to be mated and to become a pack. 

And then there’s Seungmin. 

“Yes?” Seungmin’s floppy ears perk and he tilts his head, and it isn’t until he does that Minho realises he has muttered his name out loud. Shit. 

“Oh, I just… I’m sure this will help me feel much better tomorrow.”

Seungmin smiles and his tail wags a few times before it settles behind Minho’s lower back. 

Despite everyone’s best efforts, which included watching Minho take a shower in case he slipped (unnecessary), offer him different presentations of painkillers (helpful), and sleeping all together in the big nest (extremely helpful no matter how much Minho doesn’t want to admit it) Minho is not ready to go back to work the next day.

In fact, he might be getting worse.

His headache is so bad he has to give up trying to use his phone or the TV to kill time while he waits for it to pass. He hopes there are no emergencies at work he is missing with San and Felix on the case, but even if there were, he doesn’t think he would be much help at all. 

Jeongin stays home with him since Chan has things to do, and Seungmin heads to work as well. It’s much quieter than with either of those two around, but Minho can appreciate the silence, as well as Jeongin’s brand of caring for him.

It makes Minho remember Felix’s words about being an alpha. About knowing when others need to take care of you, even if you don’t feel like you need them to. Jeongin looks very happy just getting a ‘thanks’ for getting Minho some water or getting him a sweater because he’s cold. 

He even wore sweats.

And he doesn’t make a big deal when Minho all but climbs on top of him because some deeply buried part of him manages to claw its way to the surface and needs the closeness right fucking now. 

He huffs a bit when Minho’s whole body-weight lands on top of him, but it turns into a chuckle and then his hands are in Minho’s hair. “Oh, hi.” 

“Hey.” 

It’s that simple between them. 

“Did you talk to Chan hyung yesterday?” 

Minho raises his head a little to give him a curious look. “How did you know?”

“He seemed… waggier than usual. Happier, if that’s even possible.”

Minho huffs a laugh. “I guess so. Yes. He… he also said yes.”

“I knew it. That he would.” Jeongin sighs deeply, and Minho is about to ask him if he’s too heavy but then he goes on. “I’m happy I was right.” 

Minho lets himself relax in Jeongin’s hold. He’s happy too. “I’ll talk to Kim Seungmin soon.” 

Jeongin nods. “No rush, hyung.”

Minho doesn’t think he could hurry with anything today, even if there was a rush. He definitely has a fever now and time seems meaningless, lost between time spent awake and hoping for it to pass and naps that there are no apparent structure to. 

Before he knows it it’s evening again and no matter how coddled, cuddled and well taken care of he is, he doesn’t feel any better when he wakes up this time either.

Seungmin must have arrived with dinner again, judging by the way Minho’s stomach growls when he smells the still-warm food in the air. He opens his eyes and finds the lot of them in the kitchen, standing close to each other and talking quietly.

“... just don’t think he should be alone like this,” he catches the tail-end of Chan’s mutter, and immediately understands that they are discussing him. 

“Me neither, I’m sorry, but I can’t move this meeting–” Jeongin sounds distressed.

“I’ll stay,” Seungmin says, an easy shrug. “I haven’t taken a day off in forever. They’ll understand.”

Minho grunts when he tries to push up on his arms to get his legs under himself. Was getting up always this hard? 

“No one needs to stay,” Minho speaks up, or as much as he can after so much disorienting sleep. “I’ll be okay.”

All their ears perk up and three heads move to watch him struggle.  

“Then get up,” Seungmin raises an eyebrow. 

Chan slaps Seungmin’s arm lightly, but still smiles. “Seungmin-ah!”

Minho sends him a death glare. “You don’t need to stay.”

“Too bad, I’m gonna.” 

“Hyung,” Jeongin walks over before Minho can reply, and kneels next to him. “It’s not that we don’t think you could, you know that. It just makes us feel better to know you’re not alone when you feel this bad.” 

Once again, Felix’s words echo in Minho’s mind when he looks between them all. He guesses this is one of those moments where he should let them take care of him because it will make them feel better. 

“What’s for dinner?” he asks instead, accepting his fate, trying to tell his heart it’s okay. 

“Samgyetang,” Seungmin says and starts taking out bowls.

So maybe Minho can let Seungmin serve him samgyetang, and maybe he can allow them all to cuddle him again that night. Maybe he can accept the fact that Seungmin wants to stay home from work to be with him.

But he can’t seem to find his peace with it completely. 

It’s tenser than normal when Seungmin makes him coffee in the morning. It’s quiet, but not in a comfortable way, when they exist in the same room. That thing inside of Minho that wants to pull his omega closer goes unsated. He feels too hot, and his teeth ache, and his temples throb, whenever Seungmin gets too close. 

But Seungmin is already making sacrifices just by being here with Minho today. Minho can’t just hog his presence every time he wants to just because he’s sick. Seungmin still has things to do around the house, or just whatever he wants that isn’t being glued to Minho.

And then, of course, Seungmin puts extra care in everything he does for Minho that day. It’s infuriating. It’s reluctantly endearing. Sometimes he reminds Minho of Felix in some small ways and that makes him want to immediately close that can of worms lest his head start hurting even more.

“Here,” Seungmin hands him a glass of water and some painkillers, and even the soft tone in his voice sets Minho on edge. “You should drink something, and the fever seems like it’s getting worse. 

“I’m fine,” Minho snaps. He didn’t necessarily mean to, but everything feels terrible and not acting on his impulses to drag Seungmin down to the nest with him and keep him from doing anything else useful around the house is taking a toll on him.

“Well, you don’t look fine.”

Minho rolls his eyes and regrets it immediately when it hurts his head. “Thanks. Good to know you think I look like a mess.” 

“I never said that. Why do you even care about that right now?”

“I don’t care.” Minho knows it’s childish, and maybe it’s the alpha within him, but he feels like he’s gearing up for a fight, and Seungmin is still holding the pills and water out for him to take, being all nice, and…

“Then why even bring it up, hyung?” 

“Forget it! Just… Put it over there if it makes you feel better.” 

Seungmin narrows his eyes, ears tilted forward. “Do you think you’re doing me a favour? I’m the one who has been doing chores and gotten you food and whatever else you need. I’m not the one who needs to feel better, you are.”

“Well, I didn’t ask you to smother me, did I?” 

Seungmin puts the glass and the painkillers on the table with a huff. “Fine!” 

“Fine!” Minho parrots, way too loud for his poor ears. 

“You can be such a pain in the ass, you know that?” 

Minho’s chest tightens. He doesn’t even know why he’s mad, but the fact that Seungmin is moving to get up makes it worse. “Nobody’s asking you to put up with it if you feel that way.”

“Maybe I wanted to do it even if you’re a pain in the ass, but fine, if you want me to leave you alone, I will.” He moves further away and Minho’s stomach swoops in fear.

“No!” His hand clamps around Seungmin’s wrist before he can get out of the nest, so hard it seems to make Seungmin even more angry as well. 

“Then what do you want from me, Minho?” 

“I want you to be my mate, you moron!” 

Seungmin freezes first, and Minho does next, and then maybe the whole world does. 

Fuck. 

So much for a perfectly planned speech. Minho’s such an idiot. 

“I– That wasn’t– I was gonna ask you, ‘cause…” 

“You want to be mates?” Seungmin asks, maybe not as surprised as Minho expected him to be.

“Do you want to be mates?” Minho still feels lingering traces of his annoyance because Seungmin is still way too far away even at an arm’s length. But despite this not going the way he had planned he still thinks he can salvage it. 

Seungmin catches on, because he can read Minho like a book, and it’s simultaneously the best and worst thing about him. “Seems like you do want to. So maybe you should ask me properly.”

“Well, if that’s what you want… Why don’t you come here?” Minho tugs on his arm suggestively. 

Luckily, Seungmin does come closer and something inside Minho settles down a bit. He kneels next to him, soft puppy eyes staring at Minho and waiting patiently, possibly willing to wait forever if Minho knows anything about him. “Okay. Here I am.” 

Minho sighs, feels his ears heat up impossibly more. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I wanted to ask you, Kim Seungmin, if you’d consider being my mate.” Seungmin keeps looking at him, almost unnervingly, so Minho feels the need to continue. “I already asked Jeongin and Chan hyung. But their answers don’t have to be your answer. I thought I should ask you all separately, seeing as I’m the only alpha and all, and this would make us, you know… An official pack?”

Seungmin nods, but otherwise he doesn’t look away from Minho’s gaze, his expression is hard to interpret but Minho can find some calm and determination in it at least, though he doesn’t know what to do with that. “Say something?” He mumbles, absentmindedly pulling on Seungmin’s arm as if to get him closer. “Please?” Minho’s heart wants to beat out of his chest. This man will be the death of him.

And with that same motion, Seungmin leans over him and kisses Minho’s parted lips.

For the first time uncaring about Minho’s weakened condition, Seungmin lets his weight tip Minho back, holding onto his shoulders and then once they’re horizontal, touching his face as he deepens the kiss. 

He’s definitely going to kill Minho.

“Seungm– mfgh.” Seungmin is too good at stealing words from out of Minho’s mouth, swiping his tongue over Minho’s and rendering it useless to do anything but reciprocate. 

His cheeks are flushed when he pulls back just far enough to breathe, still so close Minho goes cross-eyed looking at him. Seungmin’s tail is wagging behind him. He’s usually better at controlling it but apparently not right now.

“You’re a brat.”

“And you like me,” Seungmin answers easily, as if that wasn’t very loaded.

“I never said that,” Minho tries, but he can’t keep his smile at bay when Seungmin’s tail thumps loudly against the floor. “And you didn’t answer me properly.” 

Seungmin rolls his eyes. “Don’t be thick, hyung. I’m saying yes.” He leans down again, only this time he goes straight for Minho’s scent gland, burying his face in it and inhaling.

“Yes?” Minho feels like the tension and stress and anger all vanish, as if Seungmin’s inhale removed them from his body. He also feels more clear-headed.

“Yes. Let’s do it.” Seungmin breathes.

Or maybe Minho’s brain is still mush after all. “What?” 

Seungmin rubs his nose on Minho’s sensitive scent gland insistently, making Minho grunt, shocks of electricity shooting down his body. “You wanted to mate me, right?” Seungmin’s voice sounds further away, and then he makes Minho jolt when he licks at Minho, warm and wet. “Let’s do it.” 

Minho groans in surprise when a sudden pain flashes through his gums, and he grips Seungmin’s arms so hard he is sure it must hurt. “Are y-you crazy?” Minho asks. “Don’t you want to think about it some more?” 

“I have thought about it. Don’t you think we’ve all thought about it?” Seungmin pulls away from Minho’s neck, but he gets no relief because like this, Minho can see the whole column of Seungmin’s throat, and it makes it feel like his fangs are growing. “Since the moment you presented I knew I wanted you to bite and mate me. Why wait if we’re both ready?”

Minho is sure he had some really good reasons at some point, but it’s hard to think clearly when Seungmin is being like this. Minho can smell him, sweet and heady, growing restless the more he rubs up against Minho. 

“Unless you’re feeling too sick to?”

Now that Seungmin brought it up, Minho realises he isn’t. He’s feeling a lot better, adrenaline and endorphins moving through his body at lightning speed now that he has a squirming omega asking him to mate him, on his lap.

“Where?” Minho blurts, running his hand up Seungmin’s arm, sick of his clothes already, needing to feel his soft skin under his palm. Yearning when Seungmin tips his head to the side to make space for him to stroke over the side of his neck. 

This is insane. This is absolutely crazy. 

Seungmin groans, starts rutting down into Minho. “Yeah. Neck. Been thinking about it.”

“You have?” 

Seungmin takes Minho’s hand, guides it until his fingertips graze over the nape of his neck. “You always kiss me here, when… When you fuck me.” His words are airy with how he has started breathing harder, and he’s so beautifully flushed all over. His neck hot and soft under Minho’s fingertips. “A-and after.”

Minho grabs him there, blood boiling as he pulls Seungmin even closer, joining their foreheads, trying to see if looking into Kim Seungmin’s eyes will tell him whether this is a good idea or not. 

Despite his actions, his eyes look clear. Normal. Pretty, like always. 

“You really want this?”

Seungmin nods, doesn’t even blink. “Yes. I promise. Want you. Us.”

Okay. Okay this is happening.

In retrospect, Minho should have realised his ‘cold’ was perhaps something else. 

The second he has Seungmin all stripped down, he himself naked too, the skin on skin contact makes Minho feel like he just took a thousand painkillers. His muscles still ache, and his canines more than ever, but his energy is all the way back up, Seungmin underneath him making him feel like he drank the world’s strongest coffee.

Seungmin’s scent feels like it has doubled, tripled, in intensity. A thick blanket over Minho’s senses, heating him up until his insides feel like lava and until his blood is boiling, rushing down to his pelvis. It doesn’t take him longer than to roll Seungmin over on his side and fitting himself against his back before Minho is hard. Before he can’t help but slide in between Seungmin’s butt cheeks, running the shaft over his already slicked up rim. 

“Fuck,” he huffs helplessly, wrapping his arms around Seungmin so tightly you would think he was afraid Seungmin was going to run away. But he doesn’t. On the contrary he clambers on too, digging his nails into Minho’s arm and lowering his chin until the expanse of his neck is right there for Minho’s taking. 

Minho sees the perfect patch of skin right below the nape of Seungmin’s neck. A place Minho has indeed kissed before, perhaps even bitten without thinking too much about it. Definitely a place where he has scruffed Seungmin when he was being too much of a menace. 

It’s perfect. 

Seungmin trembles when Minho’s lips come in contact with his skin, and he somehow holds onto Minho tighter. From anticipation or fear, or something else entirely, Minho doesn’t know, but Seungmin’s voice is a little shaky. “Hyung?” 

Minho can’t stop himself from laving his tongue over Seungmin’s skin, salty now, as he has started heating up as well. “Mhm?” 

“Are you sure you’re okay, you’re burning up, and– ah!”  

Minho hasn’t felt this good in days, so it’s safe to say that he’s very much up to keep going. “I’m good.” Maybe Seungmin has magic healing properties. “Feel good,” he reiterates and grinds into Seungmin, feeling himself pulse with the need to get inside. 

“Then fuck me,” Seungmin demands, as he usually does, the brat. “I’m ready.”

Minho scoffs, hopelessly endeared. “You are, aren’t you?” He rolls his hips again, the last shred of restraint in him managing one last tease before he reaches down to gather Seungmin’s wetness in his hand to slick himself up with. “Careful, or I might start to think you like me, Kim Seungmin.”  

“Hnng!” Seungmin arches his back further and reaches an arm back to grab a fistful of Minho’s hair. “I’ll like you better once you’re inside me.”

Minho never stood a chance. 

Seungmin takes him perfectly, every time, always good and always sounding so beautiful when Minho sheathes himself inside, right to the hilt. 

It should embarrass Minho how close he feels already after a few weak thrusts, but it’s like the fever is making every inch of his skin extra sensitive, Seungmin’s body an oasis that takes him in and tries to drag every good feeling out desperately. Minho holds onto Seungmin’s thigh, pulls it up for better grip and tries to focus on making this good for him before losing it completely. 

“Hyung, hyung!” Seungmin whines, and Minho is glad to see him so gone already too, but the alpha inside him swoops with worry. “You smell so good. Come closer. Please!” 

Closer. Minho doesn’t even know how he would get closer, but if Seungmin is pleading he will figure it out if it’s the last thing he does. He manages to wiggle the arm not busy holding on to Seungmin’s thigh under his body, wrapping it around his chest and tugging him in. 

Seungmin looks over his shoulder, seeking Minho, and Minho gives more of himself, everything he has. Seungmin noses at his jaw, licks his skin, then pulls him into a messy kiss. It’s off-centre and wet , like they’re both drooling into it, and every swipe of Seungmin’s tongue over Minho’s gums feel like ecstasy. He has to concentrate not to bite Seungmin’s lips because his own canines feel too big for his mouth. 

Seungmin seems satisfied for now, letting both of them breathe as he starts moaning in that sweet, high voice that tickles Minho’s brain in the best way. He’s making him feel good and that’s all that matters.

“So, how do you like me now?” He tries for a teasing tone, but he’s panting too hard, smiling too widely, staring too deeply into Seungmin’s eyes and looking for any doubt in his soul. 

But he can’t find any. 

“I love you.” 

Minho has little control of how his hand flies to Seungmin’s hair and wrangles him into craning his neck forward again, exposing that lovely spot his teeth are aching to dig into. Aching so badly he can almost taste it already. Throbbing, feeling his knot start to form with every rock of his hips. 

“You wanna be mine?” 

Seungmin whines, trying to rut back to meet Minho’s thrusts, but he doesn’t fight against the grip on his hair for a second. “Y-yes, yes! I am, I’m yours, so just– Please!” 

Minho has too much inside his chest. He doesn’t know how to let it out, but he does know he has to let Seungmin know as well. “I’m yours too, pup.”

It happens so fast. His knot breaches Seungmin and locks them together, Minho’s damp breath hits Seungmin’s neck and bounces back into his face, and then he just lets go of the attempt at control. He lets instinct take over.

Seungmin cries out and tightens impossibly around Minho until Minho reaches his peak, coming inside him and immediately clamping down with his teeth on the flawless, smooth expanse of the back of Seungmin’s neck, the feeling of breaking the skin almost too easy and simple, like it was always meant to be this way.

It’s amazing. Never in a million years would Minho have thought it would feel this good. Even the iron taste of blood flooding his mouth. It feels just right. Blending with their intertwined scents into something new that immediately has a name in his brain, even though he has never experienced it before. 

Mate.

He hears and feels Seungmin coming more than seeing it, because his vision goes black for several moments. He’s holding onto Seungmin with every limb, and suddenly realises he just keeps licking and licking at the wound, feeling the teeth imprint like grooves on his tongue as he laps at it, swallowing the blood that doesn’t gush out anymore.

“That…” Seungmin huffs, then has to take a second to just breathe, completely limp in Minho’s tight hold. “That was… amazing.” 

Minho feels too wired still, and for some reason he can’t stop licking at the back of Seungmin’s neck. He’s read about this, how alpha saliva can stop the bleeding after a mating bite. And he knows it’s probably enough by now, but something inside him wants to keep going for another moment. He absentmindedly also notices he’s started to knead at Seungmin’s body too. It would be embarrassing if he wasn’t so out of fucks to give. 

And if he wasn’t still so hard. So hot. So restless. 

Seungmin laughs a little, body shaking. “It’s okay, kitty.” Minho usually swipes at him when Seungmin calls him that, but Minho is too focused on his mission, and for some reason, after a few more moments, that seems to make Seungmin confused. “Are you alright, though?” 

Minho barely manages a hum. He’s fine, he just needs to do this. Also just needs to grind into Seungmin a little bit to alleviate some of the ache in his pelvis that is out to drive him insane. Just a little more. Just until he stops feeling so wired. 

Seungmin groans, holds onto Minho’s arms. “F-Fuck. I don’t think you ever had a cold, hyung.”

The cold. Right. Minho had a cold earlier, but he’s fine now. He has his omega. His. He holds on a little tighter. 

Finally, when he really feels deep in his core that it’s enough, Minho just places a final kiss on Seungmin’s new mating mark and cranes his head back as far as he can to see it without letting go of him. His stomach swoops and his knees feel weak just staring at it, still swollen and red.

“Minho hyung,” Seungmin murmurs softly. “Did you hear what I said?” 

“Yeah, but what does that matter now? I’m fine.” 

“I think you’re in rut.”

Oh. That actually makes a lot of sense. 

It would explain a lot.

“I can’t believe I didn’t realise…”

Seungmin turns his head again now that Minho isn’t holding him in a steel grip. He grimaces a little at the feeling, but it doesn’t seem to be too painful. “If it’s anything like my first heat it can be a bit disorienting. Especially if you’ve had a lot to think about.” 

When Felix flashes through Minho’s mind along with Chan, Seungmin, and Jeongin, Minho feels instantly guilty, so he shakes it off.

“Does it hurt?” He asks Seungmin instead.

“A little,” Seungmin admits, which doesn’t help the guilty feeling, and it must show because Seungmin hurries to add. “In a good way. I like knowing that it’s there now even if I can’t see it.” 

Minho very much likes seeing it. He can see it now whenever they’re together and remember… this. “I like knowing that it’s there too.” 

Seungmin smiles. “You’re stuck with me now, old man.” 

“You’re gonna make me regret this aren’t you?” 

“Good chance. But you’ll have two others on your team to help you out if it gets too bad.” 

Minho huffs. “If anything they’ll help you ruin me.” 

“What is going on here?” 

Seungmin groans when the sudden voice behind them makes Minho jump. Startled out of his lazer-focus on the two of them and this moment, as if nothing existed outside of this nest. 

“Seungmin! You were supposed to take care of him, not–” Chan chastises, then suddenly stops mid-sentence to stare with wide eyes. Jeongin joins him, both of them frozen, the only movement coming from their noses as they sniff the air. 

“I was taking care of him,” Seungmin chuckles. “Don’t you see how–” 

“Is that blood?” Jeongin blurts, still staring at Minho’s face as if he has never seen it before. 

Seungmin looks over his shoulder at Minho and swipes his thumb across the corner of Minho’s lip. 

“Oh my god.”

Minho suddenly feels guilt wash over him, because what if they had wanted to do this as a pack, all four of them together. What if the fact that his feral rut instincts had wiped the thought from his brain entirely has hurt their feelings. 

“It wasn’t exactly planned.”

Chan unfreezes first, approaches slowly and then kneels at the bottom of the nest as if he can’t carry himself anymore. “Are you– Are you in rut?” Chan sniffs the air some more, and Minho’s heart stutters when he thinks he sees his pupils dilate a little.

“It would seem like it, yes.” Minho’s knot throbs inside Seungmin. God, what is he going to do about this thing?

“We could smell you from the driveway,” Jeongin mumbles, still standing awkwardly outside of the nest. The sight of him makes restlessness stir in Minho’s chest again. 

“So you guys are… You did the–” Chan crawls closer, looking like he is almost in a trance when he follows the scent of Minho and Seungmin to its core. Peeking over Minho’s shoulder to see. 

Seungmin nods, seemingly proud of himself, and tilts his head to show Chan as best as possible.

“Woah…” Chan has wonder and admiration in his eyes and it makes Minho’s chest contract. “I want one too.”

As if it has a mind of its own, Minho’s knot chooses this exact moment to deflate, sending a collective shudder through himself and Seungmin as the tightness lets up. Seungmin still holds onto his arm though, and Minho knows it for what it is. A silent plea not to move away yet. 

Jeongin enters the nest, tail securely wrapped around himself, but curious too. Chan makes room for him and Seungmin shows off his bite again. 

“So you just… did it?” Jeongin mumbles. “Just like that?” 

Worry churns in Minho’s gut again, as he studies Jeongin's face for any signs of hurt.

“You know how Seungmin is…”

“I do. This makes so much sense for you guys. Remember when Minho hyung presented?” he nudges Chan playfully. “We should have seen this coming.” 

Minho exhales in relief when they both smile.  

“It’s not my fault I know what I want,” Seungmin mumbles, suddenly seeming a lot more tired than before. Minho, on the other hand, is still buzzing inside.

“I know what I want too,” Chan reaches over the two of them to run his fingers through Seungmin’s hair, then leans down to place a chaste peck to the mark on his neck. Seungmin gasps softly, and Minho swears he gets harder even though that isn’t technically possible. 

“It’s so pretty,” Jeongin breathes out. “And I want one too.” He looks at Minho with a soft smile.

“You heard them, hyung,” Seungmin mumbles again, then lets go of Minho’s arm finally. “Give them what they want like you always do.”

The way that warms Minho’s insides should make him embarrassed, but he can’t get himself to be. He carefully pulls out of Seungmin, still hard and aching, shivering when the cold air hits. He starts feeling too hot again, hyperfocusing on the sweet chocolate and fresh mint scents now so close to him.

He hardly even manages to register the fact that Chan sits back when he nears, because as soon as he does, Minho’s senses pull him to Jeongin who is now the closest to him and looking at Chan with a confused expression. 

“Chan hyung, wha– Woah!” He doesn’t get to ask before Minho has him tipped over on his back in the nest and his face in his neck, just like yesterday. 

“Hmm. Your clothes smell like outside. I don’t like it. Take them off.” It sounds like an order but Minho does all the taking off himself, with minimal help from Jeongin who seems to melt more and more to Minho’s touch the longer he’s exposed to it. 

“Have you thought about your mark?” Minho asks, kissing down Jeongin’s increasingly more flushed chest. Minho would love to mark him everywhere, it doesn’t matter to him so long as Jeongin is happy to wear it. 

Jeongin hesitates for a second, sounding a little overwhelmed when he groans. “Y-yeah. I don’t think I can imagine it anywhere else but here.” Minho looks up and sees Jeongin touching his own scent gland, tilting his head to the side a little. “Is that okay?” 

Minho smiles. He should have known. Jeongin is oftentimes the most traditional and even romantic out of them all.

A sudden echo of Felix's words appears in Minho’s mind the moment he looks up to meet Jeongin’s gaze. 

I just wanted him to be my mate, the rest wasn’t important to me.

And it rings true to Minho as well. “Wherever you want, Jeongin-ah. It’s yours.” 

Jeongin nods. “Yeah. I want it here.”

Minho can work with that. 

He leans down to kiss Jeongin, as slow as he can manage with the beast raging inside him asking him to speed things up. Jeongin pulls Minho closer, scent sweetening and dampening. Minho wants to eat him whole. 

When he looks up, almost dizzy, he sees Chan has taken care of his own clothes, and is now spooning Seungmin and holding him tight as they watch.

“Hyung.” Jeongin looks beautiful like this. With big, expectant eyes filled with trust and with his hands reaching out for Minho to pull him closer. “Let me make you feel good too, yeah? Your rut is…” 

Minho isn’t proud of how desperate he is to take Jeongin up on that offer, but he must have reached a state above pride because it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t let Jeongin finish his sentence before he’s grinding against him, too invested in exploring Jeongin's chest and neck with his mouth to even pull away long enough to position himself properly. 

Jeongin keens when Minho licks at one nipple and then the other, hand reaching to fist Minho’s hair between his ears. Minho doesn’t stop, wanting to hear more of those sounds, and then wanting to taste more of Jeongin’s sweet skin. He moves further and further down, reluctantly losing some contact with Jeongin until he’s lying on his stomach in between Jeongin’s legs.

Jeongin’s tail is trapped there too, so Minho buries his face in its plush softness for a second before he lifts one of Jeongin’s thighs, and moves it out of the way, to the side. Jeongin clutches it immediately. 

“Hyung,” his voice sounds shaky, shy but needy. Music to Minho’s ears that he recognizes perfectly. 

“Let me taste you first,” Minho says and gets his hands on Jeongin’s thighs, mouth leaving small bites all around.

“B-but you’re the one who–” Jeongin cuts himself off on a moan when Minho’s lips reach their destination, parting for his tongue to lap up the slick already gushing from Jeongin’s entrance. Minho has a moment of clarity to wonder whether it has something to do with his rut pheromones, if they affect the omegas more, make their bodies more eager, wetter. “Your knot must be, uh, u-uncomfortable.” 

Jeongin is usually shy about being eaten out, so Minho lets him decide most of the time. Right now, though, he can hardly control himself. The taste alone is already calming him down, making the ghost of his knot pulse, but his alpha knows that his next mate is here, ready for Minho to consume.

It’s almost like Jeongin tastes more, as if Minho’s tongue even is more sensitive. Just like his skin, his ears, his everything, heightened by the rut wreaking havoc on his body. 

Jeongin’s thighs shake around him so Minho tries not to take too long. He fucks his tongue inside Jeongin a few more times before he replaces it with his fingers, two from the get-go, as he sits on his knees and looks down at him.

“So pretty.”

“He is, isn’t he?” Chan murmurs, still with his face half-buried in Seungmin’s neck. Seungmin in turn seems to be a little more awake, enough to look at Minho and Jeongin with rapt interest as well. 

Minho doesn’t think he will ever get tired of seeing Jeongin flushing whenever he is complimented or praised. His cheeks red and his eyelashes fluttering on shy blinks before squeezing shut, because he doesn’t know what to say to that. Because he likes it. 

He crawls up Jeongin’s body again, keeping fingers inside him, and kisses his face. Cheeks, nose, lips last. “Jeongin-ah. You’re okay?”

Jeongin opens his eyes and nods. “Hyung…” he whines again. Minho is pretty good at communicating with Jeongin like this, but he thinks this is a very important moment and wants to make sure. 

“You still want this, kit? Can you tell me?”

Jeongin's eyebrows knit together, as if in thought, and Minho suddenly feels worried that he’s unsure, but then again, Jeongin often takes some time before answering because he thinks about how he wants to say things first. Which makes him the complete opposite of Chan. 

“I–” Jeongin’s hips betray him when Minho stops the movements of his hand, grinding down against them. “I want to. I’m sure, please.” 

Minho nods, his free hand touching Jeongin’s scent gland, pressing lightly, imagining biting down until his teeth hurt. “Fuck. Okay. I got you.”

“Do you still want to, though?” Jeongin blurts, and suddenly the worry in his expression makes a lot more sense. Minho feels a pang of guilt that Jeongin even has to ask, because to Minho it’s as clear as day. He wants this. Them. 

He pulls his fingers out carefully, hand covered in slick that he strokes onto his cock before sliding into Jeongin just the way they are. “Of course I do.” 

“Hah– alpha!” Jeongin’s grip on his hair tightens until the roots ache. 

Minho hears twin gasps from Seungmin and Chan, and when he turns to look, he sees Chan rutting lightly on Seungmin, fingers gripping him, trying to keep himself in check but failing. Seungmin clearly doesn’t mind, expression calm as he locks eyes with Minho and smiles a little.

“You can fuck my thighs, hyung,” he tells Chan without breaking eye contact with Minho and Chan whines and drops his head on Seungmin’s shoulder.

Minho’s cock throbs so hard his vision goes a little blurry. Seungmin must still be leaking with slick and cum and Chan slides in so easily, head of his cock poking out between Seungmin’s soft thighs. “O-okay, but don’t let me come…” Chan stutters and Seungmin snorts.

Minho’s hips must kick too, because Jeongin groans and grinds against him, so hot and wet around Minho that it doesn’t exactly help his predicament. 

“S-sorry, kit,” he huffs a chuckle, but Jeongin just shakes his head and grinds up more. 

“S’okay, I want you to…” he trails off, but his eyes tell Minho the rest, so full of want and trust that it makes his heart ache as much as his dick. He finally allows himself to start thrusting into Jeongin properly, guided by this intense urge to provide, to make it good, to do anything if it means his omega will be satisfied, that the rut is chanting for him to do. 

He rubs his nose over Jeongin’s scent gland, almost in disbelief that he is allowed to sink his teeth in, to claim Jeongin so intimately, in a place so visible.

He can’t help but imagine it again. Can’t help the way his tongue runs away from him as his knot gains new life, more and more with every thrust and every whimpered moan from Jeongin’s mouth. “My mark is gonna look so good on you.”

Jeongin nods, hands moving down Minho’s back, pulling him closer, nails scratching. His legs too lock Minho in, keeping him from even thinking about going anywhere. They’re so close together that Jeongin’s neglected cock rubs up in between their bodies and Minho’s mouth is filling up with saliva at the thought of Jeongin coming around him. 

“So good,” Jeongin pants, directly into Minho’s face. He doesn’t know if he is talking about the mark or how he’s feeling, but he hopes it’s both. Hopes Jeongin will let him make him feel good forever. Will seek him out always. “Wanna be yours, alpha.” 

Minho kisses him, emotions swelling up inside him. He knows Jeongin understands how much Minho cares about him, how much he moves him. Minho kisses him like it, though, hoping he really feels it.

“Me too,” he manages. It’s weak and laden with the overwhelming pressure as his knot nears full size and as Jeongin’s pretty whines are getting to him, but it’s true. Truer than a lot of things he has said in his life. He wants to be theirs. 

Every day, he wants the familiar and fresh peppermint scent of Jeongin in his nose, the salt of his skin on his tongue, and today he wants to see what being mated to him tastes like as well. 

He didn’t warn Seungmin, but he feels the need to speak up this time. “Gonna mark you now. Mine.” He licks over the spot twice, feels Jeongin nod, and tries to focus even as his knot catches and locks them together and Jeongin can’t stop shaking below him. As if all of his muscles are tensed in anticipation. 

“Yes, yes, yes!” 

Minho’s teeth pierce the skin and Jeongin seizes, loud and strong where he holds onto Minho. They’ve got each other on lock, neither letting go as they both come, Minho’s moans muffled by Jeongin’s delectable skin in his mouth. He doesn’t know how long it lasts but he hopes he isn’t hurting Jeongin more than he has to.

He pulls back, immediately catching the blood with his tongue, licking and sucking and healing the sore spot as Jeongin rides out the last of his orgasm, slowly going more limp under Minho.

The suspense of seeing the mark properly is already killing Minho, but much like with Seungmin he can’t seem to stop himself from doing this. Some primal instinct telling him not to stop yet, urging him to keep dragging his tongue over the grooves even when the taste of iron is gone. 

Soon, he feels Jeongin shaking beneath him again, and for a second worry floods him, thinking he’s crying, maybe hurting. Minho rears back, eyes searching Jeongin’s face with concern. 

The man is laughing. 

“W-what..?” he mumbles, confused as to why, and what the reason is for Jeongin’s hands to clamber onto him like he is trying to push him away. 

Jeongin meets his gaze with a tired smile that is so warm it makes Minho’s worries melt like wax. “That tickles.” 

Minho sighs out a small laugh that feels uncharacteristic but he’s just marked his second mate of the day and he’s feeling pretty out of himself, so he lets it slide. 

Plus, Jeongin is his . If that’s not a reason to smile he doesn’t know what is.

Minho hardly gets any time at all to study the mark left on Jeongin’s neck before their space is invaded, Chan and Seungmin nosing their way in to see as well, each with an equally eager, wagging tail. 

Jeongin squirms a little just from the attention, then a lot when Seungmin runs his fingertips over it. “Hyungs!”

Minho feels like the air gets punched out of his lungs when the movement jostles the place they’re so tightly connected. “Kim Seungmin, I swear to god–”

“That looks so good, Innie-ya!” Chan beams, never the one who is capable of waiting until Minho is done complaining to make his enthusiasm known. 

He has to agree with Chan, though. It does look very good on him. Minho’s alpha swells with pride, makes him lean down to kiss Jeongin once more, chaste on the lips. 

“He’s right, kit.” 

“What did you say? I’m right? Me? You’re telling me, I’m right?” Chan laughs, teasing. “Are you hearing this, Seungminnie?” 

“He must have lost it, clearly,” Seungmin chortles.

Minho huffs, eyes Chan up and down. “Did you come, pup?”

Chan flusters immediately and Seungmin cackles. “I had to stop him right before.”

Perhaps Minho has been spending too much time with Felix lately, because his filter doesn’t manage to catch them before his thoughts are spilling out of his mouth through a smirk. “Good boy.” 

The smug look on Seungmin’s face vanishes instantly. His eyes widen, his mouth opens though no words come out, and to Minho’s satisfaction, his cheeks flush and his normally well-behaved tail goes haywire for a few moments before he physically grabs it. 

Jeongin and Chan laugh at him and Seungmin murmurs something about it being Minho’s rut’s fault. 

“Speaking of, though,” Chan suddenly strokes his palm gently up Minho’s hot back and tail, and for once Chan’s touch feels cool. Minho must still be burning up. “How are you feeling, Minho-ya? It’s alright if you need a break after this. It’s pretty intense stuff, after all, and you’ve just done two in a row.” 

Minho shrugs minutely. “I feel okay. Let’s just see how long this takes to come down.”

Chan nods, then slumps to the side to cling onto Seungmin, who yelps in surprise when he’s taken down again. “Hyung–” 

Chan ignores him in favour of locking his arms around Seungmin’s and holding him tightly. Minho can’t help but think back to the early days when they had just become roommates, how Seungmin in true fashion had deadpanned something about personal space. Chan didn’t take this to heart, of course. Or perhaps he did, but decided that he was allowed to love Seungmin’s personal space as well as his own, because Seungmin never actually pushed him away. 

Minho turns his attention back on Jeongin, who seems relaxed enough to close his eyes for a few seconds. Minho allows himself to nuzzle into him. If now is not the perfect time, it might never be. Jeongin holds him close. 

They stay like that for a while, until Seungmin asks Chan if he has a spot picked out for his mark. Minho and Jeongin look round too, interested. 

“I bet it’s his butt,” Jeongin says with a cheeky grin.

“There would certainly be enough room,” Seungmin nods, always up for teasing Chan. “Or maybe his dick.”

“Hey!” Chan teasingly pokes Seungmin, ears flushing.

Minho lets himself entertain the idea for a second because apart from being slightly unhinged, it would also be kind of hot. He doesn’t think Chan would choose that, though.

“I bet it’s somewhere cheesy,” Minho grins. 

“It, uhm… It might be, but I still like it,” Chan avoids their gazes for a second, but he’s smiling softly. “I thought it would be nice to have it close to my heart.” He touches his chest gently, as if not even really aware of it. “Cause that’s, well, that’s where you belong, you know? Okay, it’s cheesy!” 

It is. 

But it also makes Minho irrationally emotional, which is embarrassing.

Jeongin nods solemnly. “The tit.” 

It works to break Minho out of his stupor and the others laugh as well. Minho can certainly mark Chan where he wants it. Mark him properly. It’s not like it would be the first time he has bitten Chan there, he reluctantly has to admit it is somewhat of a regular occurrence. 

And then, just as Minho thinks he feels more settled and less all over the place, his knot starts going down and he shivers, hard. Jeongin exhales, slightly surprised, and looks at Minho gently.

“You alright?” Minho murmurs, not moving away until they both seem okay with it. Jeongin nods. 

“I’m great.” He takes a settling breath that lets Minho know he is about to say something else, and Minho has never been more grateful to see the words forming on his lips before. “I’m yours now. Officially.”

“Yeah,” Minho smiles and nuzzles their noses together before propping himself up on his hands slowly. Then his knees, pulling out of Jeongin carefully as he goes. Somehow he is still hard, and he has to stifle a groan when he can’t help but steal a peek down to see slick and cum trickling out of Jeongin once he’s left empty.

“Just one more piece to the puzzle, old man,” Seungmin says, though Minho thinks it doesn’t come out as smug as Seungmin perhaps would have liked. “An even older man.”

Chan squeezes Seungmin and makes him yelp before he looks at Minho. “I’ll grab you some water.” 

He doesn’t wait for Minho’s answer and just rushes away, butt-naked. When he’s back, though, Minho is grateful because he was indeed starting to feel kind of parched. Seungmin approaches Jeongin, once again inspecting his mark and then cleaning him up with a random clothing item.

Minho leaves them to it, no matter how much he wants to take care of them both, of them all, at the same time. He knows they can also take care of each other.

And he has something important to do. A pleading that Chan is trying to hide behind his gentle smile to satisfy. 

“Thank you, hyung.” Chan puts two other water bottles nearby and then kneels back on the nest.

He watches with a little too much interest while Minho drinks almost half his bottle in one go, but he makes no move to come closer. “How are you feeling?” 

Minho is definitely more tired than he was to begin with, but by no means exhausted. He still feels the effects of the rut running through his veins, the need to keep going until his mission is complete, until the alpha inside is sated. 

He places the bottle off to the side without answering, instead he drills his gaze into Chan’s eyes and claps his own thigh. Once, twice. “C’mere.” 

Chan nearly leaps there, tail wagging, ears perked up as he climbs on Minho’s lap eagerly. “Fuck, you smell so good, I was hardly keeping it together.” He dives into Minho’s neck, pushes his nose insistently on his scent gland. 

Minho doesn’t have it in himself to keep it together, not when his hands could be full of Chan and his lap gets progressively more slippery with Chan’s slick. “Don’t hold back, then.”

Chan takes this to heart. He kisses Minho, sloppy and rushed, gets his hands on Minho’s chest and back and hair, starts rocking on his lap, leaking precum all over Minho’s belly.

Minho is sure he must be leaving thin, pink half moon shapes and lines from how hard he is kneading Chan’s flesh, but there are no complaints to be heard, rather, it only seems to spur him on. Always so happy when Minho shows that he wants him. 

Minho licks at Chan’s scent gland, getting a mouthful of chocolate as he spreads Chan’s buttcheeks and makes him whine. “You want to feel me now, pup?”

Chan nods eagerly, arches his back. “Please. Please, Minho.”

Minho circles a finger on Chan’s entrance. “Or maybe you want to get edged again?”

Chan gasps, shakes his head as he digs fingernails into Minho’s shoulders. “No, please! Want you. Want you now!”

“You would do so well at it though, wouldn’t you?” Minho purrs, chest rumbling as he pushes his finger inside, knowing it won’t be enough to satisfy Chan right now. “Since you like to be a good pup and all.” 

Minho hears a little snicker and is glad this is entertaining for the others as well. Chan groans, rubbing his cock on Minho’s belly while also trying to push back into his finger. 

“Y-yes, but– I already…” he stutters, increasingly more frustrated in that way that makes something wicked in Minho’s chest spark. Making the need to tease Chan so strong. “I was good earlier, I want you now.” 

Minho hums, pets Chan’s hair back with his free hand. “Maybe you deserve a reward, then.”

Both Jeongin and Seungmin’s eyes are pitch black when Minho turns to look at them because Seungmin speaks. “He likes to work for it, our hyung.”  

Chan is hardly containing himself, though, feeling like he’s ten seconds away from batting Minho’s hand away and fucking himself on Minho’s cock if he has to. He whines again and goes for Minho’s neck, kissing, nipping, slobbering. “Please. I want to be yours too, please.”

Minho’s hand feels almost brutal when it fists Chan’s hair, pulling him back enough so he can slot their lips together messily. Groaning into Chan’s mouth when he nips at Minho’s lips with his little omega fangs. “You are. You all are.” 

And then he clutches the base of his dick, steadying it as he sits Chan down in his lap properly. It breaches him with a wet sound that is almost drowned out by Chan’s moan. “Yes, yes, yes,” Chan chants, starts moving right away, strong thighs working to bounce him on Minho while Minho tries to keep them both balanced.

Minho’s head spins immediately as a fresh load of pheromones surges off of Chan and directly into Minho’s nose. He grunts, feels his canines dig into his bottom lip when he tries to reel in the urge to bite Chan right away. 

“Hnng!” Chan moans and looks down at Minho through heavy lids. “Don’t want you to hold back either, Minho-yah.”

Sometimes Minho wonders if Chan even knows that what he’s saying could destroy a poor man’s sanity. “Are you– fuck! Are you sure?” He digs his fingers into Chan’s butt cheeks harder, unsure whether he is aiding his movements or trying to slow them down so they can both think clearer. 

“I’m sure. Bite me. Mate me!” Chan throws his head back the next time he lands in Minho’s lap. “Alpha, please!”

He doesn’t get to rise back up before the alpha in Minho answers the call, sliding his hands up Chan’s perfect back to pull his chest close enough to sink his teeth into. A perfect mouthful of his left pec, right above his nipple.   

Chan moans so loudly it echoes off the walls, sweet and clear and making Minho’s brain scramble. His mouth fills with blood and his own saliva and he tries to hold on there even as Chan inadvertently starts moving again, desperately clenching around Minho.

It gets messy quickly when the onslaught of pleasure from Chan’s grinding catches up to Minho, and he moans into the skin, finally having to give up on the effort of holding on. Instead he is left licking at Chan’s chest wherever he can reach, drooling down his own chin when Chan starts bouncing properly again. 

The biting only seems to renew Chan’s energy. He grabs a fistful of Minho’s hair, pulling his head back to swoop down and kiss him. He licks into Minho’s mouth hungrily, tasting his own blood, moaning, making the beast inside Minho purr in ecstasy.

Minho has always been rather sensitive, but he thinks it’s safe to say his rut is setting in fully now. Every single part of his body feels so much more. Fabric against the backs of his thighs, Chan’s touch, Chan’s skin, Chan’s everything, everywhere. 

When Chan still won’t stop kissing him, Minho’s mind wanders back to the bite he just gave him, something like fear crawling up inside his throat. Did he heal it well enough? Is it still bleeding? He needs to make sure.

“Channie–” Minho groans, cut off by Chan’s continued movements then caught by his lips again. “I wanna see it.” Chan makes a wounded noise when Minho pulls him back by his tail, not as hard as he has done other times, but Chan is sensitive. He leans back a little, still grinding down hard, and licking his lips. “Let me see it, pup.” 

When Minho glances down, his heart settles. The mark seems fine, red and raw-looking but not bleeding. It’s beautiful.

“I’m fine, see? I’m fine, fuck, so good,” Chan pants, thighs trembling from the strain of fucking himself on Minho’s cock. Still, Minho leans down and licks it again for good measure. He catches Chan’s nipple on the upstroke and Chan hisses from both sensations. 

“Minho-ya!” He cries out, clenching around him.

Minho’s dick pulses, his growing knot making Chan put in even more effort to keep fucking himself there. Minho helps him, overwhelmed, but still amazed that the wound is already sensitive in a good way. And it doesn’t help that Jeongin has crawled over where Seungmin is on his back, and the both of them are ogling Chan and Minho. 

“Woah, hyung’s chest’s even prettier now.” 

Seungmin moans softly when Jeongin grinds his thigh against Seungmin’s cock, then allows him to rut up against it. He must be hard again, Minho figures. Some things never change around here. 

What has changed, though, is the way his heart stirs when he is greeted by Chan’s chest. It will never be the same, looking at Chan walking half-naked around the house now. Now Minho will always see this evidence right in front of him. Even now, as he is eagerly riding Minho’s cock, blurring the view of it a bit, it’s pretty. Chan’s skin, his perfectly sculpted body, the mark as a cherry on top because to Minho it feels a bit unreal that Chan is his.  

Wants to be Minho’s. Wants to be a pack. Puts his trust in Minho as an alpha to care for him even when Minho is still so new at this it overwhelms and confuses him sometimes. 

But for once, Minho doesn’t mind being overwhelmed and confused. The only thing that matters right now is clear, and that’s all he needs. Because he loves them. All of them. Loves them so much.

Chan whines in frustration when Minho’s knot reaches its full size and he can’t move properly and Minho’s instincts just kick in, wanting to see him feel good. He hovers a hand between them, teasing. “You wanna come, pup?”

Chan clenches and clenches, grinds down, nods. “Feel so good, please.” He is barely opening his eyes, red mouth parted open, leaking so much between them Minho feels is mouth water.

Minho doesn’t have it in him to torture Chan anymore, so he wraps a hand around his cock and licks at his new mark again. Keeps tonguing at it in between words. “You look so good like this, hyung. Feel so good taking my knot. You’re so good. My good pup.” 

It barely takes two full strokes, Chan already so sensitive from before, before Chan is coming all over their bellies and Minho’s hand, squeezing around him so hard Minho sees a few stars and then comes too, emptying himself inside Chan and moaning softly against his skin. It feels like it lasts forever, despite having had two orgasms already, his mind fills with static and his whole body tenses as pleasure swirls through every limb.

He comes to to Chan stroking his hair, Minho’s cheek pressed up against his chest. He feels drained, but only physically, though, because his silly heart is full. 

So full with the knowledge that he has his all his pack officially together now.

“Mate…” Chan’s chest rumbles when he speaks and Minho can hear the smile in his voice. “Feels unreal, honestly.”

Minho’s hands find their way to Chan’s backside again, like it calls him. He starts kneading there, not caring about massaging Chan’s release into the skin of his butt. If he didn’t want Minho doing this he shouldn’t have a perfect ass.

“That’s mates plural, hyung,” Jeongin chuckles, breathless, and Minho had completely forgotten about what the two others were up to for a second. It’s just like Kim Seungmin to make him regret that by looking fucking gorgeous when he comes again from Jeongin’s hard thrusts into him, spilling white all over his stomach. 

“F-fuck, Jeongin!”  

Minho can’t help but agree. 

Chan’s sharp intake of breath is very felt too. They both watch Seungmin ride it out for a moment until he stills, burying his face in Jeongin’s neck when he comes as well with Seungmin’s breath against his brand new mark.

“They’re sensitive, huh?” Minho mumbles, more to himself than to anyone else, but he can’t help but test it out when Chan nods anyway. 

“Yeah, b-but, good sensitive, I think.” Chan stutters when Minho noses at his chest and kisses the mark. 

Minho can’t wait to see the way they will all heal with time, watch the progress. 

He also wonders what that would feel like. To have a mark. 

Minho is suddenly reminded of his talk with Felix about this from when he had accidentally brushed it while doing his hair and asked if it hurt. 

“No, it’s okay. The mark is just a little sensitive.”

“Really? After all this time?”  

Minho had exhaled with relief, but then struggled to draw a steady breath when Felix tilted his head to the side even more. A foreign interaction with another alpha, nevermind the fact that he was already grooming him, having him soft and malleable and content in his hands. 

“Yeah. It’s part of the whole thing. You can touch it if you want, you just took me by surprise, but I don’t mind.”

He shakes the memory away, a little embarrassed to be thinking about Felix and the way he just seems to make things feel easy right now. More so because he can’t deny that he wouldn’t mind if he was here when Minho has to talk about big, important life stuff. 

But he’s not, so Minho is on his own and he’s just gonna have to get to it. 

“I never asked…” He stops, starts again. “I know we never talked about me getting a mark but–”

“We talked about it,” Chan says, cutting him off. Minho frowns. Is he losing his mind? He doesn’t remember this. 

“We did,” Seungmin says, muffled against Jeongin’s skin. Jeongin giggles and pushes himself  up, rolling off Seungmin. 

Chan nods. “ We did. We thought… Well, we guessed you wouldn’t wanna choose just one person.” They’re right about that. Minho could never choose. “And three bites is… a lot. We discussed it and we’re okay keeping it this way.” As if sensing Minho is about to protest, Chan carries on, touches the tip of Minho’s nose. “If you really want a mark, or three, though… we can talk. But you should think about it.”

Minho doesn’t need to think to know that just one mark is out of the question if it means choosing between them but he understands their point. He wanted them to think about this, so he will too. 

“Alright. I’ll think about it.” 

Seungmin and Jeongin worm their way over to them when Chan pushes Minho back enough to lie down and flops on top of him. They get surrounded and Minho can’t describe it in any other way but a true puppy pile. He’s completely trapped, one on each arm and Chan on top of him as a pleasant weight. He starts purring unconsciously, having all of them close is reluctantly exactly what he needs.

“Take as much time as you want, hyung,” Jeongin mumbles sleepily. “Sometimes things just reveal themself with time.” 

Minho chuckles at the way he speaks like a wise old man while looking like something Chan would call a sleepy baby because he’s cheesy like that. 

Seungmin makes a low noise in his throat and cuddles closer. “Sleep.” 

They’re all sweaty and sticky and Minho’s knot still hasn’t gone down, but three is definitely the charm, as he’s finally starting to feel worn down and like he could maybe take a nap.

“M’yeah, you should rest before the next wave comes, Minho-ya.” Chan mumbles, chin smooshed into Minho’s shoulder.

God. This is going to be a long week. He should probably text work again. 

But it can wait. Right now he is content to rest, surrounded by his packmates’ bodies and scents and with his heart too full to stop it from spilling over before he drifts off. 

“I love you guys. I love you so much.” 

Turns out a true rut is way more intense than presenting. Minho has never been so hot in his life, has never had so many different mixes of urges, needs, feelings and just… instinct. 

It gets more intense on day two, when he wakes up in pain, sweating his skin off, and feeling like he will die if he doesn’t have all three of his mates all at once, but science still hasn’t made that possible.

Just as well, perhaps, because while the pups become exhausted and need breaks, Minho’s feral body feels insatiable. That is until he is suddenly all out of energy and passes out for several hours, then eats, then drinks and then loses his mind all over again. 

They all call out of work, lucky to be able to, and they take care of Minho more than Minho has ever allowed them to. He feels close to tears a few times, blames it on the hormones, and then it’s hard to think when they’re all hit with particularly strong waves of his pheromones and surround him like they’re in heat, drooling and begging and draining Minho almost too efficiently.

It doesn’t even occur to Minho that he hasn’t checked his phone in days since he called out sick for the week. Until he bumps one of the end tables at the edge of the nest on Friday, while getting up, and spots it lying there. Dead, empty battery of course, but that makes sense. So he swings by to plug it into the charger before he goes to take the shower he had intended to take roughly seven orgasms ago.  

This shit is gonna send him to an early grave. Luckily the waves are starting to come further apart now. 

They’re all asleep when he steps out and they’re still sleeping when he’s out of the shower and getting into fresh clothes for the first time in what feels like forever. He thinks the worst of the rut may be over, but he still wants to be comfortable, hot and sore all over.

His phone has been successfully revived by the time he is done and he brings it with him back to the nest. He might be nearing the end of his rut, but there is still no chance in hell he is sleeping in his bed alone, when the three of them are here. All cuddled up in varying states of undress, smelling like a wet dream catered to Minho specifically.

Seungmin’s tail twitches in his sleep. Chan mumbles. Jeongin nuzzles closer to Chan. Minho smiles.

His smile fades when he checks his phone and sees all the messages he’s missed. 

Shit. Minho feels guilt licking up at his insides and rapidly spreading. Felix has been nothing but sweet and kind to him, apparently sent him a message every day, and Minho has ignored him completely. He’s been busy, but…

His fingers hover over the keyboard, but then he looks at the time. It’s nearly midnight. He probably shouldn’t bother Felix so late, and if Felix is awake, Minho doesn’t want him to worry.

If he is being honest with himself, just thinking about talking to Felix right now makes him feel… strange. Maybe it’s the rut. Maybe it’s because Felix is another alpha. Maybe Minho just needs some sleep. 

He should wait. Answer tomorrow when he is more clear-headed and not as sleep-deprived as he is right now. 

Putting his phone aside, Minho joins the rest of his pack. His new pack. 

Jeongin notices him first, ears perking up, slightly alarmed. “Hyung? Did you leave?”

Minho chuckles a little and shushes him gently. “Go back to sleep, kit. I’m here.”

Jeongin nods, lets himself be spooned, Seungmin on his other side. Chan lands a heavy arm around Minho’s middle and Minho feels grounded in the best way. Heavy enough to sink into the nest, face against Jeongin’s neck, breathing and planting kisses he can’t help on his mark until sleep comes to claim him. 

The next morning Minho is woken up by Chan giggling, which isn’t exactly the weirdest thing in the world, but it has never happened that the reason for his amusement is Minho unconsciously humping Seungmin in his sleep. 

Guess the rut isn’t fully over. 

If the others are too tired from this whole ordeal, they don’t show it. Chan helps Seungmin get on top of Minho and then manoeuvres Jeongin to sit on Minho’s face. He waits until they’re all through before he lets himself get some relief, and Minho can’t just watch Chan touch himself when he’s still conscious and capable, the alpha inside him wanting Chan to feel good too. 

“Fuck my mouth, hyung,” Minho tells him and Chan nearly comes right then.

The aftermath is honestly a little hazy after about a week without proper sleep and Minho doesn’t even find it in himself to do more than haphazardly wiping his skin dry before pulling his sweatpants and t-shirt back on. His skin feels raw and achy, covered in tender marks, love bites and scratches and he regrets it immediately. 

“Just leave them off,” Chan chuckles sleepily, but he makes no effort to move even when Minho crawls away towards the edge of the nest. How he is ever gonna dance again is beyond him. “Who’s gonna see you that hasn’t seen it all before?” 

Minho scoffs, then groans when he struggles to his feet. “The mailman,” he jokes.

“The mailman is here?” Jeongin perks up. “I’m waiting for–” 

“Shhh!” Seungmin lifts his hand as if to cover Jeongin’s mouth but ends up planting his entire palm in the middle of his face instead because he doesn’t open his eyes. 

Idiots. Minho is so fond of them. 

“I’m just gonna get a pudding cup, does anyone want anything?”

When Minho turns around, they’re all asleep. Or too gone to answer him in any case.

Minho feels a bit dazed looking out the kitchen window while he eats. He has lived completely in his own world this week, almost forgetting that another one even exists outside these walls and the comfortable bubble of his pack. 

Except for one thing. 

He looks at his phone where it lays on the kitchen table. Finding himself having a strange sort of staring contest with it and losing. He hasn’t even touched it and he’s losing. The messages from Felix are still visible in his mind, though. He should probably answer. Felix is a worrier, Minho knows that. 

So why can’t he make himself do it?

He startles when the hollow clang of the doorbell suddenly sounds from the hallway, reminding him that there is in fact a world out there, and that it’s demanding someone’s presence. 

Even so, for some reason, he didn’t really consider it would be for him. Perhaps his sleep-deprivation makes him dumb enough to believe it might actually be the mailman. 

But it isn’t. 

“Yongbok.”

Minho can’t help the surprised expression on his face when the sight greets him. As if Minho, just considering picking up his phone to answer the text messages, had somehow summoned him. Felix stares at him for a moment, eyes roaming and what Minho swears is a blush rising in his cheeks. He also doesn’t answer. 

“Yongbok-ah?” Minho tries again, even waving his hand in front of Felix’s stunned face. 

Felix doesn’t seem to be all the way here. “Mhm?” 

“Hi.” The corner of Minho’s mouth quirks into a little smile, warmth filling his insides for some reason. He doesn’t know why he had been worried about texting Felix back, now that he’s here Minho is just happy to see him. 

“I-I was… Sorry, I just– I was worried about you, so...” Felix stutters.

Oh. Fuck, Minho really should have answered him sooner. He struggles for words himself as guilt washes over him, coupled with an almost frantic need to explain. 

“I’m sorry, I– It’s been…” Felix’s cheeks take on even more colour, and Minho can’t help but think it looks good on him, despite everything. “I think you can guess what’s going on.”

“Fuck… I-I mean– Yeah, uhm.” 

“I’m alright, though,” he adds. Felix is a worrier, big-time, and Minho doesn’t want to give him more reasons to be right now. “I…” Minho looks down for a second, bashful, but still he can’t stop his lips from quirking up in the corners. “I did it, too. I marked them.”

Felix’s eyes widen for a second. “Oh. Hyung that’s… wow.”

Minho nods. He really wishes he was telling Felix about this under other circumstances. It’s mortifying to be seen in this state, even by someone he trusts as much as Felix. “Yeah. Probably didn’t help the rut, though, so I was out all week.”

“Right. Yeah, that’s understandable.” 

“Heh,” Minho laughs weakly, hoping to soften the mood.“I’ll probably be back on Monday, though.”

“Right, That’s good. Great.” Felix nods, oddly curt, and his voice sounds a little clipped. Enough to make Minho’s own worries stir. “I should go. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Fuck. He wishes he hadn’t made Felix come all the way here. “I really am sorry I didn’t answer. I wanted to, but things kept happening and–”

“That’s okay, hyung. You don’t need to explain. I get it. And I’m happy for you. Really.” Felix smiles, because he’s an angel, even if it looks a little forced. And Minho can’t blame him.

He hopes Felix will at least accept his thanks, because it requires a lot of Minho to say it, no matter how much he feels the gratefulness. “Thank you. For everything. You, uh… I don’t know if I would have– you know– if you hadn’t–” 

Felix cuts him off, waving his hand nonchalantly. “I didn’t do anything. You did this yourself, and you deserve it so much, hyung. Enjoy it. I’ll see you Monday.” 

Minho still feels terribly guilty. He nods and tries for a smile and a small wave. Felix turns around and walks away. No matter how okay he says he is, Minho knows him and his body language. Felix is not the best liar.

Minho sighs and heads inside only when it feels like it would be weird to be staring at Felix’s retreating form any longer.

He forgets all about the pudding cup on the kitchen counter that he was meaning to clean up, and just heads back to the living room right away, head a mess, body aching, and most unfortunately, heat starting to pool in his gut once again. Fuck. 

The door creaks slightly when he walks in, and the first thing he sees is Seungmin’s ears twitching and perking up before the man himself lifts his head, eyes barely open, face puffy with sleep. 

“Hyung?”

“I’m here, Seungmin-ah.” Minho can’t help but let fondness seep into his voice. 

Seungmin makes a sleepy noise and shakes his head a little, as if trying to clear it. “Who– Wait, someone’s here?” He sits up more, making Chan and Jeongin stir, but they remain asleep. 

Minho chuckles and places his hand on Seungmin’s head, pushing him back down. “Some guard-dog you are. He already left.”

“What? Who?” Seungmin grumbles, not taking his eyes off Minho for a moment as he gets settled in the nest too. His nose pulls him there, the combined scent of them all soothing an already annoying ache. Seungmin clings to him immediately and his nose twitches. “Oh.” He stops, a knowing glint in his eye. 

“What?” 

“What was Felix doing here?” 

Minho’s stomach swoops for some reason. Which is stupid because it doesn’t matter to him that Seungmin knows Felix was here. Felix is Minho’s friend and came to check on him after days of radio-silence. Nothing weird about that, right? 

“He’s selling vacuum-cleaners door to door, what do you think he was doing here?” 

“You’re a hoot,” Seungmin deadpans but still rubs his face over Minho’s collarbones, getting his scent there. 

“I know, I’m hilarious.” Minho answers, equally deadpan, though can’t help but run his hand up Seungmin’s spine as the rubbing and borderline rutting against him only fuels the fire already flaming inside of him. “He just came by to check on me. I hadn’t been answering his texts.”

Seungmin hums, slips a hand inside Minho’s loose t-shirt. “Why not?” 

“Because, I’ve been busy knotting three mutts every few hours!” Jeongin stirs again when Minho forgets himself and his volume and Seungmin claps a hand over Minho’s mouth dramatically. 

“Shh!” 

Minho licks his palm until he retracts it. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” 

Seungmin just grins at him. “You know full well you could have taken a second to answer him. Don’t avoid him, he’s your friend, hyung. And a very good one at that. In fact, you don’t have that many friends to spare, you know.”

Minho wants to shut him up, both in an angry way and in a horny way. Unfortunately, Kim Seungmin is right. “I know. I apologised. Everything is okay now.”

Even before Seungmin points it out, Minho can tell. “That didn’t sound very convincing, hyung.” But he has no idea why. There is just something that bothers him about how Felix’s smile didn’t reach his eyes and how his voice wasn’t dancing on its usual lilt. But he’s probably reading too much into it. 

Right? 

“It’s okay,” Minho tries again. “It’s fine.” Seungmin smells increasingly like early mornings, roasty and warm, and Minho’s mind is starting to spin again. “God, just–” He finally flips them over and pins Seungmin down to stop his wandering hands.

“Fuck, hyung,” Seungmin whisper-curses when Minho dives into his neck, and Minho revels in the satisfaction that his voice is a little shaky. “Again?” 

“It’s not my fault. Plus, you’re leaking all over the place, this is on you too.”

“You’re the one flooding my system with pheromones, so it is in fact, your fault.”

Minho shushes him and kisses him once. “I’m pretty sure you don’t want them to wake up so you can have me for yourself. You like me so much, Kim Seungmin.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Minho does because Seungmin seems like he wants to swallow him.

And Minho definitely wants to swallow him back. 

The worst of his rut seems to be over by that same afternoon. Minho is exhausted, but he figures he has a whole day to rest tomorrow before heading back to work. It’s good these ruts don’t come too often or he wouldn’t be able to function. He doesn’t even want to think about the fact that there are three heats on the horizon that he is going to be exposed to. How is he going to survive that? 

Okay, he definitely can’t think about that right now. The rut might be over but he still feels a little on edge, as if he’s on the verge of tipping into whatever emotion decides to take his fancy. Jeongin had to untangle Minho’s arms from around himself with force earlier, because it was the only way for him to get off Minho’s lap. 

The next day, someone leaves the house for the first time in what feels like forever. Chan goes to get some groceries since they’ve been surviving on takeout and whatever leftovers they had, and then he and Seungmin promise to take care of dinner so Minho can keep resting. Minho usually likes to be in control of the cooking, but it’s nice to watch from the sofa, Jeongin playing some random video game next to him as Minho enjoys the way Chan and Seungmin try to follow a recipe.

After they’re fed on some surprisingly tasty butter chicken, they all gravitate towards Minho again, and he can’t complain; he still wants them as close as possible, better yet if he doesn’t have to vocalise it.

There is something in the mood that doesn’t feel quite right, though, and Minho can’t really put his finger on it. Maybe it’s his rut hormones wearing off?

After a while of watching some show that Chan is apparently fond of and failing to follow the storyline, Chan himself suddenly turns it off. 

“You don’t wanna continue?” Minho asks even though he was starting to get sleepy.

“I’ve seen this one,” Chan sits up straighter, forcing Minho to do so as well as he was resting his head on Chan’s chest, the mating mark distracting him every so often. “I wanted to ask you something, though.”

Seungmin and Jeongin sit up too and Minho frowns, looking round at them.

“Actually, we all did,” Seungmin looks from Minho to Chan and back, as if there’s some plan in motion that Minho isn’t privy to. Which immediately sets Minho’s thoughts racing. 

“Oh?” He nods, even though his heart jumps to his throat. “Okay, go ahead.”

“Now, first of all, I want you to know that we are completely okay with whatever you answer. There’s nothing wrong with either, because, well…” Chan’s ears flatten back against his hair and he trails off for a second, but even that second feels like eternity. Which in turn feels like hell. 

“Just say what you’re gonna say, hyung.” Minho tries to keep his voice steady but it comes out sharp and shaky with nerves. 

“It’s about Yongbok,” Jeongin says, tail in his hands, eyes searching Minho carefully.

Minho’s heart in his throat takes a quick dive to his stomach. “What about him?”

“We were just wondering if you’ve noticed anything… different?” Chan’s voice is meek, and his question hard to understand. 

“Different how?” 

Seungmin sighs. “Hyung, do you realise you’re in love with Felix?” 

Minho can only hear his own blood rushing to his ears for a moment, and it’s probably too long to stay quiet after such a declaration, but Minho can’t physically talk until his hearing comes back and he seems to have processed the question. 

Three sets of eyes blink at him with various versions of worry, and it doesn’t really help him, so no matter how well he knows that it’s dumb, the first thing he manages is a weak; “What?” 

“We’re not blaming or accusing you of anything!” Chan is quick to add. “But we’ve noticed this for a while now and discussed it, and we all think you might not realise how much you like him.”

“You’ve discussed?” Minho bristles, immediately regretting it when he sees ears drooping and tails being clutched even tighter. “There’s nothing to discuss. I like Yongbok, he’s my friend, but that’s all.”

“Hyung,” Jeongin tries, voice soft. “There’s nothing wrong with it if you do like him more than as a friend. It would be okay.” All three of them nod their heads.

“That’s all,” Minho repeats. Because it is. Felix is his friend. A friend that gets him in a way few others do, so maybe that is what they’re picking up on. They also don’t know how much Felix has helped him figure out all of the emotions he was having about becoming a pack, the alpha of said pack, an alpha in general! 

Seungmin sighs. “Look, if you really believe that’s all there is, then fine. Far be it from us to explain your own feelings back to you. But we’re not blind and we know you pretty well, no matter how much you want to pretend to be a mystery. We’re just saying… think about it.”

“I don’t need to think about it,” Minho’s ear twitches, uncomfortable with being placed on the stand and accused, no matter the good intentions. “If you’ve noticed anything it’s probably that he… I mean we’re both– Sometimes he gets me better than anyone, because we’re the same.” 

No one answers for a second and then Chan holds Minho’s hand, which Minho has half a mind to push him away for, but he doesn’t really want to, doesn’t want him any further away. 

“Also,” he adds, if only to break the silence, and also to settle their minds, as they have clearly worried about this a bunch. “He uhm… I talked to him a lot about, well, you guys. And this,” he gestures between them all. “The whole pack-thing. It was very helpful.”

“Just because you’re with us doesn’t mean you can’t also be with him,” Jeongin tells him, sounding like he’s thought about this before. “We want you to be happy.”

“He’s right,” Seungmin says, and Chan nods. Alright, so they have obviously talked about this too. 

The tenseness still lingers but it is steadily calmed a little by fondness creeping into Minho’s chest. Not that they’re right, but it’s nice to know they care this much about him, that they would be alright with it.

“Thank you for… worrying. And caring about my happiness,” Minho says even though it’s hard, even though he still feels vulnerability lick at his rough edges. “But I’m okay. I’m with you and I’ve been wanting to make it official for a while now, as I told you, so… I’m happy.”

He is. He would never lie to them about that.

“Alright. As long as you’re happy, Minho-ya,” Chan smiles, dimples carving themselves deep into his cheeks. Minho pokes one. “Just don’t keep yourself from feeling other things. Feelings are good, you know.”

“I have what I need.” Minho looks between the three of them. “My three menaces keep me busy enough as it is.” 

Seungmin and Jeongin roll their eyes in a too-similar fashion. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m a delight.”

“I’ve never done anything wrong, ever, in my life.” 

Chan laughs, lilting and so full of happiness it makes Minho’s heart jump from joy as well. He cuddles back into Minho and that sets the others in motion as well. A big pile, like they haven’t spent the entire week so intertwined with one another they should be sick of each other already.

But Minho isn’t, because he loves them.

He means it. He’s happy like this. He has what he needs. Three omegas, a pack, a nice home to spend time with them in. And a good friend in Felix. A best friend, even, now that he thinks about it. Which is nice, and he is allowed that. It doesn’t mean… 

No. Minho feels sure about this. What he feels for Felix is distinctly different from what he feels for his pups. 

Plus, it’s not like Felix would even be interested. He definitely doesn’t like Minho, so things will stay as they are, which is perfectly okay with him.

Perfectly okay. 

Monday comes, as Mondays do every week, and though Minho still feels a few effects still lingering from his rut, he can’t make himself stay home another day. It’s not enough to make him feel frustrated and on edge, just enough that his skin is a tad more sensitive and his nose too. He thinks it will probably be fine, he’s been in locker rooms that smell much worse than this before. 

But Felix’s scent punches him in the face in a surprising way as soon as he walks in the room, sweet notes cloying and the spice stinging. He wasn’t in the changing rooms when Minho arrived, already changed into his turtleneck to hide the pup’s ravishing. Jeongin even had to put a band-aid on his face so he didn’t look like he spent the weekend at a brawl.

Not seeing Felix there seemed odd at the time, but if he knows Felix – and Minho likes to think he does – he did it on purpose. 

Still, the sweet heatness of his scent is loud and clear to Minho when they lock eyes through the practice room mirror. Felix doesn’t approach right away, or at all, and Minho feels guilt crawling up his insides again. He made things awkward with him, and now Felix is clearly trying to put some distance between them.

It doesn’t take Minho long to realise that if he doesn’t want that to happen, he will have to take the first step himself, as Felix keeps himself too busy to approach him, and it feels strangely scary doing so, closing the distance just to strike up at least a casual conversation before the day starts for real and they have to focus on work for the next hours. 

Nevermind the fact that Minho swears he can see Felix’s nostrils flare the instant he gets close enough, betrayed by the mirror Felix is half-facing instead of him, and that for some reason it takes Minho’s mind back to his talk with the others yesterday. 

But it’s probably nothing, right? Or maybe Felix is just picking up on some leftover rut-thing that lingers in Minho’s body. Yeah, that would make perfect sense, and it doesn’t even really matter right now, because he can’t just leave things like this with Felix. 

“How are you, Yongbok-ah?” 

Felix smiles a little because he’s probably incapable of avoiding it. “I’m okay, hyung. You? Feel better now?”

Minho stretches out his arms and tail, trying to make things feel normal. Because they are. “Yeah. Feel great, actually.”

Felix nods. “I’m glad.” 

But Felix doesn’t look all that glad. In fact, now that Minho’s looking at him from up close, he seems a little peaked, like he’s coming down with something or not getting enough sleep. Minho’s forehead scrunches in a frown, and before he can even think about it, the back of his hand is touching Felix’s forehead, checking if it’s hot. “Are you sure you’re feeling well? You look a bit under the weather.” 

Felix chuckles humorlessly. “Hopefully not. They need us here, huh? Should we get started?”

Minho lets his hand drop. “Right. Yeah, let’s start.” 

As soon after stretches and warmup is done, Minho actually remembers the dance they’re preparing and his stomach swoops for a moment. He and Felix have an important duet in the middle of it and they should get it down today.

It starts slowly, as it should, and then others keep moving back, and back, as they should, and then it’s just him and Felix. Felix who has been avoiding his eyes, but now he doesn’t, because he can’t. They need to look at each other to do this, and Felix knows it well.

It almost feels like things are back to normal for little bits and pieces as they dance, so easy and natural for the two of them. As if nothing could ever be wrong as long as they’re dancing. Their movements so in sync. Minho pushes, Felix pulls. Minho’s body creates a wave that carries on in Felix’s. 

Minho can’t tear his eyes away even when it’s over. Some sort of strange magnetism continuously pulling them back to Felix whenever he tries to focus on anything else. And when Minho feels sad that it’s over, he thinks it’s just the dancer in him, the passion that wants to keep going and going and going. That’s just it.

After the morning slips away from them, Minho tries to approach Felix again, but he doesn’t know what to talk about, or how to even start. Not when Felix doesn’t seem happy to see him.

He doesn’t understand. Felix has always been the one between them to get at a possible conflict right away. He is the one always waxing poetics about open communication being the best thing on earth and how Minho should have it with everyone and their grandmother! 

But now, Felix is making up things to get away from him, rushes out with an excuse about needing to buy food from the convenience store and then stays out until they need to get back to business. And even though Minho doesn’t ask him what is wrong again for the remainder of the day, he can tell, he can see that Felix notices Minho looking at him. Searching for an explanation in every movement and every glance, as if they can somehow tell him what is bothering Felix exactly. 

Because Minho just wants to fix it. Is filled with an almost desperate need to fix it, that he can’t really explain.

After they’re done for the day, Felix obviously hurries to get his things. Minho has to hang back to close their practice room, and Felix usually stays with him until they go to the locker room together, but today he couldn’t leave fast enough, and it makes Minho feel even worse. By the time Minho walks in, Felix has everything gathered and seems ready to go.

He tosses a goodbye over his shoulder and exits in a hurry, leaving Minho to look after him with a painful lump of that unexplainable something in his gut. Something that he can’t ignore anymore, something that makes him rush after Felix even when he doesn’t even have a plan for what he is going to say, or why he is feeling like this. He follows as Felix heads for the door, rushes down the hallway, makes it through the lobby, then clamps his hand around his wrist to stop him from leaving the building. 

It comes out of Minho’s chest, desperate, and he can’t stop it. “Yongbok!” 

Felix stops, ears and tail tense, and Minho suddenly realises what the timbre in his voice that he didn’t recognise was. His inner alpha is still rumbling with the order. 

He is still trying to calm it down when Felix starts speaking, “Ah, hyung, did I forget something, or–?” He visibly struggles to smile, even weakly, and doesn’t meet Minho’s gaze, looking everywhere else.  

The words climb up Minho’s insides again. “Look at me.” Minho tugs on his wrist, forcing him to turn around and meet his eyes. Felix obeys, though seemingly reluctantly. Minho doesn’t care, he will force Felix to talk to him if he has to. “What is wrong?”

“I told you, nothing is wrong.” Felix grits, despite the fact that Minho can almost feel his annoyance radiating off of him in waves. 

Two can play at that game. “I don’t believe you.” 

“Well, I didn’t believe you either when you told me everything was peachy the other week, but I didn’t bring it up.” Felix snaps back, voice clipped and jaw tense, and this is really starting to grate on Minho’s nerves, while at the same time making him even more worried. 

So he doesn’t let go of Felix’s wrist, holding on tight because he just knows that if he doesn’t, Felix will run away. He will leave and then they have to agonise on each their own ends until they meet and do this all over again. “But you came. You came to check on me.” 

“So what?” 

God, he can be so fucking stubborn. Where did he learn that? Certainly not from Minho.“I want to do the same. I need to make sure you’re actually okay, and if not I need to help you.”

“Well, now you have, and I told you, I’m fine. There’s nothing you need to help me with so I’ll see you tomorrow, hyung.” Felix tugs on his arm to no avail, and it's as if the movement triggers something in Minho’s scent, something urgent that makes it more potent somehow, startling even himself. “Why are you being such a stubborn-head?” Felix asks in frustration. 

“Takes one to know one,” Minho grits. “Just tell me what’s wrong.” 

The frustration only heightens. A hot pot starting to boil and the pressure threatening to blow the lid. “Nothing’s–”

Minho interrupts him and only makes it worse, he knows, but he can’t help it, he needs to push Felix to his limit if that’s what it takes. “Yongbok-ah, I know you. Something is up.”

“Since when do you care so much?” This feels wrong. It’s always Felix who cares too much and Minho holding back, that’s the way things are with them. And now Minho has to act like the world is turned upside-down?

How can Felix not see it? He knows Minho cares about him. He has told Minho so. Minho likes that he doesn’t have to say it. But he will, he will say it if he has to. “Since it’s you!”

Felix’s face pales for a second, and he pauses. “Well, stop it!”

“Why the hell would I stop it?” The grip Minho has on Felix is so harsh it makes him bounce back, even closer when Felix tries to get out of it, and the collision of their chests must be the last drop. The cup runs over. Felix’s scent invades Minho’s nose and makes him dizzy, but Felix’s eyes are the ones going blank, as if he can’t think.

“Because–” Felix seems to struggle to get another syllable out for a moment, leaving his lips parted and ready but with no sound coming out. Minho can’t help it, his eyes flick down to Felix’s lips for the briefest of seconds and his heart stutters. 

What is he doing? 

Felix never manages the next word that was lying in wait on his tongue. It disappears when the space between them is obliterated, when Felix gives in to the pull of Minho’s hand keeping him from slipping away, using it instead to connect them. Leaving everything unsaid and instead pressing his answer into Minho’s mouth when he slots their lips together. 

Minho shivers when Felix’s hand slides up into his hair, keeps Minho there, body pushing closer, making Minho feel insane; he must be dreaming, must be hallucinating, must be going crazy. 

But he isn’t. This is real. Felix is kissing him, catching Minho’s top lip between his own. Tasting him with his tongue. His scent fills Minho’s nose and his lungs until they burn from the spice, immediately soothed by sweet mango that makes him all confused. 

Minho has no clue what anything means anymore, all he knows is that his alpha roars, controls his limbs and body and face and kisses back. He has to. It’s Felix. No matter what he used to think just seconds ago, this feels… right.

So when Felix pulls away, it doesn’t make Minho regain good sense and remember that he shouldn’t be doing this.

“Minho, I–” 

Quite the opposite. 

Hyung, do you realise you’re in love with Felix?

We all think you might not realise how much you like him.

It suddenly makes sense. Suddenly gives more weight to his own words, the response he had given to explain away his pack’s suspicions, in reality only confirming what they were trying to tell him. 

Sometimes he gets me better than anyone, because we’re the same.

Minho is so, so stupid. He should have known. 

And for a second there it feels like it’s too late. 

He must have been too stunned to keep holding onto Felix, because he breaks free easily, turns away and sets off running, leaving Minho to realise he should probably be following all too slowly. But he can’t. 

He’s drained. Felix took it all out of him with that kiss and now the world is different and Minho must deal with it first. 

And he can’t do it alone.

Minho doesn’t know at what point he has started to be able to know who is at home before he is even inside of the house, but it hits him in the driveway already. The scents of his packmates all present and accounted for, waiting for him just inside the door. 

Maybe it’s the fact that they’re mates now, because they’re just too good at this and Minho hadn’t realised it before, but they know something is up before he even opens his mouth. All already turned to look at him from where they are hanging out in the kitchen. 

“Wha–” Chan starts, taking a worried step towards him. 

Minho doesn’t feel like beating around the bush, his heart still hammering, lips still tingling. He wants to know as soon as possible if this is something they can get through together.

“Yongbok kissed me.”

“What?” Chan repeats, and Minho lets him actually get through it this time. 

“I kissed him back.” Jeongin gasps, but behind his hand covering his mouth, Minho starts to see the curling of a smile, and Minho’s chest tightens. “But then he… He ran away.”

Seungmin looks intrigued, attentive. He keeps looking at Minho as if he might be hurt somewhere visible, but Minho isn’t. He is filled with jitters and this weirdly intense energy that he doesn’t quite know what to do with, but it’s telling him to do something and fast. 

Chan smiles too, an empathetic smile that doesn’t show his dimples properly. “So, you do like him?”

Normally, Minho thinks he would want to argue about it, deny it at least a little, but he can’t. 

“I do. Of course I do, it’s him.”  

“Thank fuck,” Seungmin exhales. “It was about time.”

“Not helpful, Seungmin-hyung,” Jeongin chides, poking Seungmin’s ribs meanly with his elbow. 

Minho paces, looks at them, wrings his hands. “I don’t know what to do. What should I do?”

“What do you mean? Don’t you want him?” Chan urges.

“Yes, but…” Admitting that out loud feels strange, considering he hasn’t even admitted it to himself in his own thoughts, but it’s the truth. “Is that okay? What does that mean for us? And for him? Should we talk about this more? Should I talk to his packmates? Who do I need to talk to?”

“Hyung!” Jeongin steps into Minho’s path of pacing restlessly around their kitchen island and forces him to stop. 

“We told you we’re okay with it,” Seungmin adds. “We still are. 

“And, uh, we have it on good authority that Felix’s pack is too,” Chan mumbles sheepishly. 

“Oh my god. Are you all conspiring against us?”

“If anything we’re conspiring to mash you together like dolls.” Seungmin grins, cheeky and full of mischief and so familiar it makes Minho’s heart squeeze. 

“What does that even–”

“Hyung,” Jeongin cups Minho’s face to get his attention, as if the soft smile on his lips wouldn’t have been more than enough. “Felix adores you, he has been into you since forever! We could tell the moment we met him.”

“And if he ran away, he’s probably feeling like shit right now.”

“Right. Fuck. Yeah.” Minho feels horrible. The image of Felix being anything less than happy right now eating him alive.

“So, I think you know who you should talk to now?” Seungmin half-asks, lowering his head to catch Minho’s downshot gaze. 

“I should go over there.” He nods, resolute. “Like, now.”

“Yeah, you should!” Chan claps his hands together, grinning. Minho is constantly amazed over just how much joy his smile can encapsulate. “Let’s go!”

“You’re coming?” Minho moves for the door and everyone else follows. 

“Yeah?” Jeongin says, like it’s a given. “We wanna watch.”

“Oh my god. You’re staying in the car!”

“I’ll drive,” Seungmin snatches the keys from right in front of Minho’s hand, then skips down the driveway, tail wagging as if he finds it funny to be chased. He probably does. 

It’s not until they’ve piled into the car, and Seungmin has backed out of the driveway that Minho realises he has no idea what he is going to say when he gets there. And then all the variables hit him. What if Felix didn’t go home? What if he didn’t tell his pack? Oh god, what if Minho gets buzzed up and they are all there, and he won’t know what he can and can’t say? 

What if Felix doesn’t want to talk to him at all?

He has to try anyway. He has to know if there’s anything he can do, and it has to be now.

He doesn’t get a lot of time to think, as Felix doesn’t live too far. The only issue is that he doesn’t actually know where exactly he lives. He dropped Felix off here after their walk in the park, but he never asked for the floor or door number…

“Just shout his name,” Jeongin suggests, shrugging his shoulders.

“Are you serious?” Minho frowns at him, already embarrassed just at the thought. 

“What’s more romantic than that?” The little shit answers with a grin, clearly just enjoying seeing Minho make a fool of himself. 

“Stay in the car!” Minho repeats before he walks out, heart thudding almost painfully inside his chest as he goes to stand in front of the building, looking up as if the windows might give him a clue about Felix’s apartment.

This truly feels so stupid, but Minho doesn’t have much choice, so here goes nothing. He takes a deep breath to steady himself. “Yongbok!” 

He waits for what feels like forever, still not knowing if it’s long enough to warrant another try, so he takes to wandering back and forth in front of the building instead, looking up at the windows and hoping to see something, any indication that he’s been heard. 

And then he spots it. A small ear. A flicker of a reddish tail. It’s clearly Jisung, peeking out of the second floor, right-hand side window. He’s there for a second and then disappears. 

And now Minho waits.

He still has no idea how to start, but he hopes it will come to him when he sees Felix, like things will click the way they did when they kissed.

Minho is still almost all the way over at the side of the building, half-waiting for Felix to appear in the window where Jisung had spotted Minho, to talk to him there, but then he hears it.  Felix’s voice suddenly coming from his left. 

“Hyung.” 

His voice is not even loud, but it’s enough to make Minho’s ears perk up, spin on his heel and send him striding directly for him. Body tense and weird and urgent from a confused mix of relief and worry and uncertainty. Closer, close, all the way up into Felix’s space and with urgent hands reaching out to cup his cheeks. 

Fuck. Felix looks like he’s been crying a lot and it squeezes Minho’s heart painfully. He did this.

“Yongbok-ah, are you alright? You’ve been crying!” 

Felix nods a little and shrugs meekly. His voice breaks as soon as he uses it, raw and painful and rushed as he cries through the words. “S-sorry, hyung. I’m so sorry for what I did. I don’t know what came over me and… M’sorry!” 

Minho shakes his head, shakes it again, digs small fingers into Felix’s cheeks for a second. “It’s okay–”

“No, it was out of line–” 

Minho can’t listen to this anymore. “No. It really is okay. I should be the one apologising.”

It’s clear that Felix doesn’t get it, but Minho needs him to. He has nothing to apologise for, Minho is the one that should have realised this whole thing sooner, but Felix is nothing if not stubborn. “B-but I’m the one who–”

“Yongbok-ah.” There’s a finality in Minho’s voice that gives Felix no choice but to heed it when it tells him to be quiet and listen. Minho likes this effect of his alpha voice.

Even when Minho needs a second to gather his thoughts before he goes on, still looking at Felix so intently, Felix waits for him, keeping his gaze even though he is visibly terrified. Minho adds his bravery to the list of reasons in his head that he will hopefully, somehow, someday, manage to relay to Felix. The list of things that makes him so… special, in Minho’s eyes. “You know, they’d already told me…” he starts tentatively, trying to find the proper words. “My pack, that is… They said–” 

He sighs, exasperated. He hates these kinds of things, he isn’t any good at them, but he has to try, he has to, now that he is here and so close to getting to have Felix like this for real.

“They’d already told me they thought I liked you. It was very annoying, actually. But I didn't really believe them. Not until you kissed me.” 

Felix doesn’t say anything, just looks at Minho and waits for him to go on.

He takes another deep breath. “This is… you of all people know how hard it is for me to do something like this.” Minho inhales deeply and exhales, so close to Felix’s face he can almost taste him, an echo of what it felt like to be kissed by him trapped between them. 

“I– What are you saying?” Felix’s voice is a mere whisper and it makes Minho ache.

“That– That they’re right. They’re fucking right! Of course I like you. You’re Yongbok! My Yongbok… Of course I–” 

Minho’s mouth betrays him completely as soon as he hears himself say it. His brain is rushed with what ifs, with potential consequences and responses that it might lead to, and with fear that he has read this situation all wrong and–

“I like you so fucking much, Minho hyung.” The weight of the world seems to leave Felix with each syllable, relief flooding in instead. And Minho feels it too, contagious.

Minho can’t help his smile as it makes him feel lighter than he has in months, seeing Felix mirror it. His real, proper, true smile, the one that looks like he stole the force of a thousand rays of sunshine.

Felix reaches for Minho, holds onto his forearms and it feels unreal. But again, it feels so right.

Even more so when Minho joins their foreheads together and looks even deeper into Felix’s eyes. “Yeah? You’re sure?” He has to know, has to be completely sure.

Felix snorts. “Are you sure?”

“You have a pack.”

“You have a pack!”

“Yeah. And they say they want this for me too.” Felix chuckles and looks like he is about to say something else, but Minho’s eyes flick down to his mouth and it never comes to fruition. So Minho fills the gap, fills it with undiluted truth and gratefulness. “They know there wouldn’t be a pack if it weren’t for you, Yongbok-ah.”

And it’s enough. He’s waited long enough, even if it’s less than an hour; that’s already too much. 

He leans forward and kisses him. He kisses Felix. Pulls him in and closes the already miniscule distance between them.

Felix’s spicy sweetness surrounds him and fills him completely, reaching every inch, making Minho’s limbs react, feet dragging him closer, hands touching Felix reverently no matter how hard Felix clenches his hands around Minho’s forearms.

He’s in his nose, on his tongue. All around him. Everywhere. All Felix. All them. 

They kiss like they dance, in sync, the perfect push and pull, give and take, until Minho feels light-headed, but it’s Felix who pulls away first, all but gasping into the kiss.

“Way to go, Minho-ya!” 

Minho jerks back, surprised by Chan’s loud, excited voice. He can’t believe these guys. His head whips towards the noise and Felix’s eyes go wide, making Minho snort a small laugh. Felix really is adorable, he must admit. He gestures to the car, where his mates are all piled up, almost hanging out of the car windows and hollering at them. 

“Sorry about them.” Felix turns away from Minho and looks towards them as well, already smiling. “They came for moral support and decided to be nosy.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he turns back to Minho, skin flushed and pretty, freckles standing out. Minho is hit with the sudden urge to kiss each one now that he knows what Felix’s skin feels like against his lips. Just as wonderful as Felix’s voice in his ears, his scent on Minho’s nose. “It’s sweet how much they love you.”

“Lix-ah!” Another familiar voice yells out, yet from the complete opposite direction. Minho turns away first this time and Felix follows his gaze up to the now open window, where Felix’s three mates are squeezed together, watching and grinning like maniacs.

Because of course they are.

“Right back at yours,” Minho scoff-laughs. “Good to know they care enough to make complete fools out of themselves.”

Felix starts laughing and it’s the most beautiful sound and sight. Minho could just combust, but he holds it together and just starts laughing too, Felix’s laugh too infectious as Minho pulls him closer to hold. He feels crazy, probably looks it too, but he doesn’t care.

“I’d make a fool of myself for you too, hyung. Clearly.” Felix is still chuckling, but his voice is soft and Minho likes him like this. Prefers him this way.

“I guess I would too. Don’t tell anyone. I still have a reputation to maintain.” 

“I’m happy you’re willing to make an exception for little ol’ me,” he chuckles.

Minho looks at Felix’s mates. He looks at his mates. “They seem happy too.” And it makes him happy in turn. The support and all of those gooey, sticky, romantic things that he has a hard time talking about, but that he feels nonetheless. He can’t deny that he does. 

Felix nods. “And you? Are you happy, hyung?”

Minho nods, face flushed, bashful about his feelings, but he can’t help it. He’s just happy he gets them out somehow. “Can’t believe you were right under my nose this whole time too. But yeah… I’m happy, even though it took me a while to realise.”

Felix looks like he’s fit to burst, but Minho gets it. He reaches for Minho’s lips again, presses an eager kiss against them and it fills Minho with even more warmth.

Minho can’t believe he gets to have this. Gets to have the people he loves most all around him.

“Me too,” Felix beams, pure happiness right into Minho’s face, making him feel warm all over. “I’m happy for us.”

Minho’s life was already chaos and he knows he’s inviting more into it. He can’t help it, though. 

He clearly loves it.