Work Text:
Christopher Bang smelled like the ocean.
Or at least, you thought he did.
It was fresh but earthy in a way that made you think of waves crashing against a sandy shore and the sun beaming down on your skin. It was comforting, but so faint and vague that you struggled to smell it at all, especially when he insisted on wearing that god awful designer cologne he loved so much.
It was a formula made specifically for Alpha's: a deep musk made to help mask an Alpha’s natural scent. It was awful, and you would be perfectly fine with dumping every bottle into a landfill never to be used or even seen again. Alas, you knew why it existed and you were intimately familiar with why an alpha like Christopher would need it.
Those reasons were especially evident whenever he got into one of his moods.
On your way into his office, a terrified looking beta assistant had scurried from the room with her metaphorical tail tucked between her legs. She had looked small, smaller than any omega ever could be, and chastised to boot. An angry red had appeared at the corner of her eyes, and she had ditched a stack of papers she had been holding in a nearby bin in favor of soothing the gooseflesh on her arms.
Her stack of forms were now in your hands, and your own flesh tingled in an uncomfortable way. His scent was still as out of reach to you as it had ever been, but the commanding, aggressive aura of an agitated alpha smothered you regardless. Combined with the horrid smell of his masking cologne, you had to fight the strong impulse to gag and flee like the terrified assistant before you.
The difference between you and her? You knew better.
Hormone levels and complex biology beyond your care or understanding dictated Chan to be an alpha. He could be hotheaded. He could be demanding. He could be an ornery, stubborn pain in the ass. He could scare the wits out of anyone with a lesser secondary sex and most other alphas as well, but he was your best friend.
Your Chan was kind, and caring to his own fault. He was soft and tender to those he considered close, and fiercely protective of them as well. He was always so busy minding his career and those around him, that he often forgot to care for himself.
Everyone needed a Christopher Bang in their lives to care for them, and he filled that role for so many. You were happy to be that person for him. Even if it meant poking and prodding at the angry alpha that sometimes presented itself, you would always be there for him.
You regarded the back of his frame for just a brief moment. He was bent over that infamous laptop of his, and his ears were covered with a large pair of snugly fit headphones. He couldn't hear anything with those on, completely oblivious to the world outside of his work. That was often his problem.
Without interrupting him, you set to work around him. The assistant’s discarded papers were stacked neatly on the desk he worked at, within reaching distance but not so close that they were in his way. Then you laid out his food, a smorgasbord of random odds and ends you had picked up from the cafeteria. You never knew what you could entice him with, so you usually just went with a bit of everything on offer. Sometimes if he got really bad, you would head out of the office to the little burger joint he loved so much. You hadn't thought that was needed, but the assistant had you second guessing.
The entire time you dithered around him, a primal fear coursed through your veins. It was natural, a product of pheromones and hormones. You were just a beta, unremarkable in most aspects, but the pheromones of an alpha could cow and subdue regardless of secondary sex.
You did your best to ignore it – that slight simmer in the air that pebbled your flesh and made your entire body scream ‘danger.’ Chan was not dangerous. You knew that. He was more likely to suffocate you with a hug than harm a single part of you, but nature was not something that could be ignored.
“Why are you shaking?” The words were almost a growl. They had you dropping the bundle of condiments you had been trying to neatly arrange onto his desk to the floor. A sound of surprise ripped from your throat, an instinctual whine urged on by the commanding tone of an angry alpha being held barely in check.
You didn't even have to answer him. His stern look dropped immediately at the noise. Worry etched every perfect line of his face and the suffocating aura in the room lessened to something more somber. A crestfallen Chan was almost as devastating as an angry one – especially when a single unruly curl fell to his forehead and his eyes rounded in horror.
“I'm sorry. I didn't–” he started only for you to shove the meaty end of a potsticker in between his open lips.
“I know,” you chided. Practice had made you an expert at recovering from the effects of an alpha. Emotions and pheromones were pushed into a neatly compartmentalized part of your brain specifically reserved for dealing with your best friend.
“Y/N,” Chan grumbled around the food stuffed in his mouth before having the good sense to pull the stick out, leaving him to chew the meaty bits left behind before speaking again. “I'm really sorry–”
“Stop apologizing. It's not a worry, really,” you insisted.
Lies. Always lies. You should probably feel guilty for lying to your best friend, but was it really so bad when it protected the both of you? Chan would be horrified if he knew how much his moods affected you. He would be even more horrified if he knew it wasn't always fear that had you trembling when his pheromones got out of control.
No. He could never know. It was a secret you would take to your grave even if it made you a liar.
“I would never–”
“Eat, Channie,” you insisted, pushing a tray of dumplings at him. He refused to quit staring at you like a lost puppy, but the low growl of his stomach gave him away. “I know you would never hurt me. I promise that's not even a thought that crosses my mind.”
He studied you quietly, his dark brows lowering in contemplation as his forehead scrunched. It seemed like an eternity that he looked at you like that, his eyes seeming to darken and a flare of sudden heat scorching your skin as his mood shifted and his pheromones adjusted. Your skin prickled in a way that wasn't entirely unpleasant.
In reality, it was a mere few seconds before his features smoothed and he was shoveling a whole dumpling into his mouth.
You would like to say your relationship with Christopher Bang was that simple, that all would be forgotten just as quickly as chewed. Unfortunately, you knew better. Your heart was racing, your palms were clammy, and your head swam with vague hints of a salty, endless sea.
“I have so much work to finish,” he groaned with an anxious look at the laptop he had pushed to the side.
“As much as you hate it, you are human and just like the rest of us mere mortals: you need to care for yourself,” you scolded, falling back easily into the familiar argument. Convincing Chan that work alone could not sustain him was a task you had been working at ever since the two of you had met. It was an uphill battle, but one you would never give up on.
“Why do I have to when you take care of me just fine?” He asked with a cute bat of his lashes and a quick puff of his cheeks. Your heart fluttered like a swarm of butterflies taking flight, but you refused to acknowledge it.
“I might just slip arsenic into your food one day,” you mused.
“Nah. You love me too much.”
Love. Such a simple word and so easily said. You did love him. You loved him more than he would ever know.
“Besides,” he started. “If I don't finish this album before Ji and Lix are out of commission, we might all die.”
“Preheat’s already hit?” You asked as casually as you could.
You would never truly be able to understand the concept of heat and rut cycles as someone who couldn't experience them first hand, and maybe that was why they interested you so much. You were sure it had nothing at all to do with the fact that Han Jisung and Lee Felix were two of the most beautiful people you had ever seen in your life. It also certainly had nothing to do with the fact that it was Chan you were discussing hormone cycles with. Absolutely nothing.
“Yeah. Got maybe a week left. We need to finish recording before they're out for a while,” Chan hummed as he moved from the dumplings and back to the pot stickers.
“I know the pain,” you commiserated. Your own groupmate, Ria, was days away from being confined for her own heat.
“Kinda sucks having so many omegas in such close quarters,” Chan sighed.
“They can't help it, Chan – just like you can't,” you wagged a half-hearted scolding finger at him.
“I know,” he groaned. “Let's bring back suppressors. Less hormones. More productivity.”
“Now that is a horrendous idea that makes you sound an awful lot like a certain CEO we know – well – a couple of CEO’s we know,” you glared at him, which immediately had him holding his hands up in surrender.
“I was joking.”
“Sure, bud.”
“I was!” He insisted with another cute bat of his lashes. “I like Omegas. They smell nice. I could never deprive the world of that.”
It was all light hearted, just casual and stupid conversation between friends who were perhaps a little too comfortable with each other. The two of you had many similar talks before, but something in you twisted as it always did when topics like this came up. You usually ignored it, preferring to act like your foolish heart and the whims that came along with it didn't exist.
“Do I?” The two stupidly out of touch words came tumbling out before you could think better of it.
“Do you what?” Chan asked. He was nibbling the meaty remnants off a wooden stick, his attention absently focused on his task.
“Do I–” you started and abruptly stopped. Rationality was rearing its ugly head. You couldn't ask him that. For the sake of your own heart, you couldn't. “Nah. Nevermind.”
“Oh, but now I'm intrigued.” He tossed the wooden stick onto the now empty styrofoam container and regarded you with a raised brow and curious, but oh so warm eyes. Those eyes had a tendency to make you imagine you were on a beach, with the warm summer sun bearing down on you. It could be well below freezing, but you would never notice when his attention was on you like that.
“Do I have to go back to work?” You asked with an innocent smile. An endless and mildly panicked mantra of ‘deflect and distract’ played on a loop in your head.
“Mmmhmmm,” he hummed, a smile playing at his lips and his arms crossing against his chest. You did your best not to notice the way the exposed muscles flexed with the movement – beautiful and smooth skin tensing under the strain. It was always a test of your composure and strength, but this felt strangely different. Tearing your eyes away from the glorious display almost physically hurt you, but it was just another whim you could not indulge.
“That means yes. Right?” You chuckled. You stood and began gathering your things. You were hurried, desperate to escape. Escape his questions. Escape those beautiful damn eyes that suddenly felt scorching, like they would melt your skin. And the ocean.
The scent was still light but suddenly ever so present. It was refreshing but tinged with a wild tanginess that had tingles forming across every inch of your skin. You wanted to smell it for the rest of your life. You wanted to bathe in it. You wanted to bottle it up and keep it for only you.
What the hell?
"Y/N, are you okay?”
His voice: damn his voice. It was clear, but lilted with a distinct Australian drawl that made your body react under normal circumstances if you weren't prepared. You were most certainly not prepared. A low whine fought its way up your throat, just barely making itself known before you abandoned the rest of your belongings and bolted for the door like you were trying to outrun a bullet.
You could hear him calling after you, his voice rough and worried. It took everything in you to ignore the instincts that were crying for you to turn around. You didn't want your best friend to worry, but this was different and entirely foreign. A part of your subconsciousness – that instinctual beast that most never pay much mind to – was crying out in pain.
Alpha. Alpha. Alpha is worried. Alpha.
What the fuck was happening?