Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Why hasn’t he claimed you yet?”

Felix always has the urge to ask whenever he catches Wooyoung at these parties with a perpetually unmarked throat.. save for maybe the occasional broken chain of hickeys along his scent gland after San drags him into a bedroom or bathroom. That was another thing, too — he was dating San. San. One of the most, like, intensely possessive alphas out there.

He’s not even one for gossip, but it wasn’t a challenge to consider their business his business when they were constantly all over each other. It was like Wooyoung’s touchy-feely gene tripled solely for his boyfriend, and.. well, he just so happened to be one of those friends that spoonfed you details and TMIs.

So, yeah, Felix has gotta know because he’s a caring best friend and concerned fellow omega and there’s definitely, totally not any other reason for wanting to know. Definitely not.

Across the kitchen island counter, Wooyoung smirks in that distinctly coy way of his. Where a question like that might give wing to nerves in others, he looks perfectly relaxed. Even the refreshing, citrusy tang of his scent (tinged with San’s, of course) doesn’t betray him with a spike in sourness, but the medicinal air of being surrounded in alcohol might be diluting it.

“Because he’s a romantic,” Wooyoung replies with the last word spoken slow, half-mocking and half-fond. He takes another swig of his drink and combs some rebellious strands of inky hair out of his eyes, further emphasizing how he glared off into what must be memories. “Said he’s waiting for a special moment like it’s some fucking marriage proposal. He was like that with our matching tattoos too, y’know? Gosh! I’ve begged him, but he just says he’s sorry and shakes his head. Jerk.”

“To be fair, you do a lot of begging.” Felix giggles when Wooyoung’s glare pinches for not taking his side. “Maybe he’s immune.”

“He’s definitely not,” Wooyoung retorts with a seductive confidence laced in his tone.

The implications have Felix cough-spitting his drink back into his solo cup, and Wooyoung laughs hard enough to slightly bend forward. It’s that infectious laugh Felix adores, silent at first before firing off into a succession of squeaks. He’d probably be clapping if his hands weren’t occupied with his soda-everclear concoction.

They’d only just gotten to the party half an hour ago, so they couldn’t excuse all the amused theatrics on being drunk yet. Hell, Felix barely even felt a buzz.

Perhaps it was just the mere vibe of house parties that made him want to act up and propose stupid ideas and even more foolish decisions. Coming here at all was an inherently risky thing on its own, but a lack of eventfulness in your life made flirting with danger a lot more tempting, Felix has found. He’s also best friends with Wooyoung, so.. the chaotic tendencies were bound to rub off on him eventually.

It’s why Felix can’t trick himself into blaming the drinks when he parts his lips again, anxiously wetting them first. “He’s here, right? San?”

Felix already knows the fucking answer to that because they’d literally planned to all come here once the invites spread like wildfire, but he just had to start somewhere. Wooyoung knows that Felix knows yet provides him with no more scolding than a teasing lift of one brow, nodding, and smirks around the brim of his cup again.

It’s like his best friend already knew he was merely attempting to segue.

“Are his roommates here too?” Felix follows up.

Living in an alpha-dominant populace already guaranteed you’d see them more than any other, though Felix finds San’s chosen group of alpha friends most interesting.. roommates included. 

Intimidating didn’t even begin to cover it. The first time he and Wooyoung showed at their place to grab San for a day out he’d nearly been floored by the miasma of heady alpha pheromones thickening the air, overpowering his every other sense until it was all he could focus on.

Alphas seemed addicted to the concept of command; even unknowingly, Felix found that there was nothing else he could pay attention to than the brief and hurried glimpses he cherished of San’s roommates from where he stood by the front door that day. Two lounged on the sofa, long legs spread wide as they gamed, and a third rounded into the kitchen half-naked with wet hair and a towel draped around his neck like a scarf, leaving all the muscled back on display. Even though he was furthest away, and even though Felix had only caught the briefest peek of his side profile before they left, he knew exactly right then that he needed him and couldn’t do anything about it. The wetness had intensified his already complex scent, smoking the stagnant air with it and invading his nose until he knew no other smell on the planet anymore aside from rich notes of burning wood and bergamot.

Every day after that day, without fail, whenever Felix glimpsed Wooyoung and San kiss until it borderlined filthy, scent each other or paw at one another’s bodies with gripping fingers, Felix thought about doing the same with that guy. He fantasized until the acidic bile of jealousy rose up his throat and had his own neck itching for some canines to puncture and mark. It suddenly felt like Felix’s earlier question was less directed at Wooyoung than he thought.

Why hasn’t he claimed you yet?

“Well he already posted a few pics of him pregaming with Yunho and Changbin, so for sure,” Wooyoung says with beautiful unawareness to Felix’s lust-addled downward spiral, eyes shining from where he scrolled his phone screen to verify his suspicions. “And Hongjoong and Chan were tagged, so I think everyone’s here.”

Wooyoung looks up to Felix again, but Felix doesn’t notice.

The pulses of mellow house music perform an impressive imitation of Felix’s own thudding heart, and the quickening rush of it feels like it floods warmth right over his pulse point, begging him to check it with the press of his index and middle finger.

Chan.

Bang Chan — Felix did a lot of deceptively innocent-looking sleuthing to figure out the bare minimum without directly asking, hanging onto every word if San ever brought up ‘his boys’ in conversation; he was three years older than Felix and the oldest among the alpha roommates, granting him some unspoken authority in the house. Whenever San wakes at odd hours in the night, Chan is always awake, sometimes with Changbin by his side as they navigate music projects. He’s got awards in swimming and is the fastest runner out of them all, and Felix knows he’s obsessed when even simple facts like these sound outrageously hot to him.

Felix didn’t think he knew enough. He got gradually accustomed to the powerful scent of San’s house over time, discreetly engulfed with excitement any time he got to stop by and linger before they went out again. In truth, he wanted all of San’s roommates to like him because they were undeniably cool past the dominant veneers, but there was definitely a selfish itch to gently but insistently probe the idea of himself to Chan whenever he stopped by, always hoping the alpha would finally pique in interest and have him.

Since this realization, there’s been a few occasions where he stayed over with Wooyoung. Felix thinks he got his real welcome when he had the bright idea to bring homemade cookies with him that one time, but Chan had offered nothing more than a polite nod of gratitude when he thieved two from the tupperware.

Changbin had all but threatened to keep Felix with them after his first bite, murmuring that none of them made food even half as good. When Felix replied that he’d love to, freckles ruddied with blush as he glanced to his feet, he hadn’t thought Changbin was being literal when he smelled smoke coming from the kitchen.

But nothing had been burning, and Chan had mysteriously vanished.

Something about the distance added to the mystique of him, Felix thinks. As days within months passed with interspersed visits to their alpha home, he never found himself getting any closer with Chan despite the literal proximity. It made coming to this party feel like an opportunity, but nothing would be possible if the gang of alphas didn’t come around and reveal themselves.

Still hung up on the distantly related topic of San not claiming him yet, Wooyoung pouts down to his now-empty solo cup and opts to pound back a few shots instead. Felix takes one when offered and feels it warm the spot just beneath his sternum, both of their faces distorting with disgust.

“I should make him jealous,” Wooyoung suddenly announces. He says it like it’s the most obvious and clear-headed idea anyone’s ever had and the mischief lighting his eyes ablaze is already breeding predestined trouble. “Always works in the movies, right? Like.. pissing him off until the only thing he’ll wanna do is mark me.”

Oh, no. The anarchic soul of this party had already consumed Felix’s best friend whole. Yet in the face of complete chaos, he can’t help but huff a laugh. “You know that might just hurt his feelings, right? You don’t think he’ll sulk if he suspects you’d rather do something with someone else?”

“Honey, he’s a fucking alpha,” Wooyoung emphasizes, waving his emptied shot glass around like he was giving a free-of-charge Alpha Behavior 101 lecture. “They’re territorial as fuck and possessive in nature by default. Think about the scent marking, for example — it’s a literal warning. If I smell like San, I might as well have a huge neon sign above my head saying keep your hands off or suffer the consequences. What do you think he’s gonna wanna do if our bond gets threatened? Establish it harder! All he’s gotta do is claim me at that point, then he’ll know it can never happen again!”

Felix hums and nods along, hoping the jealous depth churning away in his viscera doesn’t show through his slow blinks and bitten-raw lips. Wooyoung was wild and energetic and cunning and Felix only had a vague understanding of San’s talent to keep him pinned down, but it must be pleasant to have such attunement with an alpha of your own.

But Felix is also aware of how fiercely committed Wooyoung is, therefore, “Wouldn’t that kinda suck? You’re so obviously in love with San that nobody would believe you if you tried giving attention to another alpha.”

Wooyoung snorts. “Well, for one, I’m a fucking catch and know most of the alphas in here would wanna knot me, so that part’s believable, but two.. I wasn’t gonna do anything with an alpha.”

Felix frowns. If he had to take a guess just from sniffing around when they walked in, this party was a good seventy percent alpha. “Then who..?”

Wooyoung lets the silence carry on for a pointed handful of seconds before giving Felix a playful yet flirty up-down glance with his eyes, smirking all the while.

Felix momentarily freezes. “Me? You want to get San jealous using me? He’ll kill me!”

“Pffsht, nah!” Wooyoung chirps. “If it was an alpha? Maybe. But you’re sweet little Lix! You’re the last person San could ever be upset with aside from me. It’s the perfect plan!”

“Little?” Felix glares, but he isn’t saying no. “We’re the same height.”

“Mm, I’m one inch taller,” Wooyoung sing-songs with a smile Felix could never resist. He stalks around the kitchen island, the movement itself sensuous, and boasts a powerful darkness in his eyes despite not being an alpha. There must be a performative edge in him, able to wear desire for Felix like a figuratively erotic mask. He leans into Felix’s space until there’s no scent left but citrus and alcohol, twining his fingers with Felix’s. “Perfect height difference for a dance partner. How about it, Lixie? Wanna give some alphas a show?”

Some alphas.

Maybe Wooyoung’s spark of evil genius had some truth to it — Felix doesn’t know if it’s rationality or raw want that seduces him into believing it, but.. if what he says about alphas is true, and if they can’t refuse the instinct to be possessive over what they were attracted to, then it was a surefire plan to not only grab San’s interest, but also Chan’s. Maybe. Just maybe.

But only if Chan came along. And if Chan wanted Felix but hadn’t said anything yet. It’s ignorantly hopeful and roundabout enough to probably make Wooyoung’s straightforward nature cry, but Felix isn’t going to admit that Chan’s presence was simply too overwhelming to directly approach. Besides, this way.. if nothing else, he’d be allowed to showcase what he was missing out on. That was a conscious choice for his wardrobe as well; there was no better symbolism than a top with the back cut out, only revealing skin when he was turned away. Had Chan ever looked at Felix when he wasn’t aware? Were possessive and dominant eyes, the same as San wore for Wooyoung, boring into him in those moments he had his back turned?

Even if not probable, it was fun to imagine. And even if Wooyoung’s train of thought was derailing into irreverent and selfish territory, Felix’s mind, slowly being heated and fuzzed with the beginnings of alcohol, never held a stronger empathy for the desire to be looked at.

Watched.

Claimed.

“You’re a fucking menace,” Felix scoffs, squeezing Wooyoung’s hand and rolling his eyes when his best friend doesn’t even try to hide how he already appears as though he’s won. “Feels like we’re about to get in trouble.”

“I know,” Wooyoung says. “Fun, right?”

*

Out of the kitchen and back through the throng of partygoers, Felix feels too hot.

He’s not sure if it’s because this place was increasingly becoming packed with body heat or what, but finding himself growing closer to the thumping bass that began surrounding them had his palm going clammy where it pressed against Wooyoung’s.

Wooyoung feels it and twists back to look at him from where he’d been leading them into the fray, smoked out eyes already looking lusty alongside a raised brow of curiosity. “You nervous?” he purrs.

Felix shakes his head despite immediately sinking his teeth into his bottom lip. Hopefully it looks more suggestive than afraid. “A room full of alphas can’t bother me,” he replies with a thankfully even voice, and it’s true. If anything, he appreciated the eye candy — he’s mentioned on multiple occasions that muscled physiques and powerful auras were his type, enough to have him essentially drooling right about now.

But it just so happens that Chan was one of the most strong-looking alphas he’s ever had the pleasure of knowing and displeasure of not knowing enough. So Felix has to half-truth and say alphas don’t make him nervous — only one. One that could be here and be watching. The concept alone is potent enough to have his pulse quickening again, pumping a stifling tension through his veins and secreting an anxious sweat.

“Where’s all this confidence coming from?” Wooyoung teases with a gentle smile and not delicate at all tug on Felix’s hand once they’ve reached the crowd of dancers. Felix almost loses his balance coming forward, and his best friend turns in time to nearly bump their chests together. The smile is still there, attractively bent enough to have Felix sporting one of his own, and the movement comes naturally to the both of them with the sensual rhythm. “S’pretty sexy, I can’t lie.”

Felix playfully rolls his eyes and wraps his arms in a loose ring around Wooyoung’s shoulders. In turn, Wooyoung’s hands find his hips. “You’re just a bad influence,” Felix scolds, knowing well enough that Wooyoung will agree with him.

“Aha, I’m not talking about my plan.” Wooyoung shifts so they’re a little closer, and he glances around with practiced and relaxed eyes — looking for San? Making sure they were easily visible? When he looks back to Felix, he’s descended into a mesmerizing juxtaposition of a purring voice and dipped lids met with attentive sways of his hips, coaxing Felix to do the same with his grip. “Got so many alphas watching us, Lixie. Watching you. I wonder what made you so eager to come to a place surrounded by alphas when you’re like this.”

Felix’s response falters alongside his mind, lips parting on no words. Watching him specifically? Was Wooyoung making that up?

There’s a curious, sick little urge to confirm it and he blames greed for giving in; he allows his eyes to furtively wander for only a handful of seconds and feels how his neck and face glow warm with blush under the attention of some people in the room. Wooyoung hums with smugness until the single note of it gets Felix’s slowly consumed attention back on him.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Felix breathes out. It can’t be a lie since Wooyoung doesn’t know about his crush on Chan, right?

Wooyoung doesn’t give anything away in his vulpine features, simply wetting his lips before they blossom yet another knowing smirk. His hands knead into the bone beneath the skin of Felix’s hips before growing slightly forceful and pushy, manhandling Felix until he was turned to have his naked back pressed to Wooyoung’s front.

Fuck, if the audience of alphas weren’t watching before then they were certainly going to be interested now. Felix is forced to see how their performance invites attention their way, with one omega flushed pink and slightly sweaty as the other’s face comes close to whisper in his ear.

“San scents me before we go out. Every time. S’cause he doesn’t want any alphas thinking they’ve got a chance,” Wooyoung explains, and the heaviness of his words is so languid against the shell of Felix’s ear. Felix knows this is all performativity, but fuck — Wooyoung knew how to act irresistible. You could never get used to having a friend so naturally flirty and spontaneous. Something about the scratch hidden in his pretty lilt makes Felix want to shiver, and the fact all the sweat and pulsing nerves are inducing him into a pseudo-fever isn’t helping.

“But look at you,” Wooyoung continues, and the breaths are warm on the side of Felix’s neck as Wooyoung traces the line of it with his nose. “Coming to a party with so many alphas unclaimed, unmarked, unscented. You’ve got nothing to hide this,” Wooyoung breathes in against his scent gland and gently laughs on the exhale. “Holy fuck, why’s it so intense, Lix? You’re spiking. Am I turning you on right now?”

“You’re so full of yourself,” Felix laughs in return. Even so, he can’t deny that he was secreting way more of his scent than he usually did.. though he had no clue until Wooyoung mentioned it. The grip on his hips tighten when Felix lifts an arm so his hand can reach behind and lazily play through Wooyoung’s dark strands, subtly holding him there. “I’m pretty sure it’s vice versa.”

“Hey, not fair — horny is my default state,” Wooyoung giggles, petting up and down Felix’s sides. “I’m not kidding though, you smell really fucking good tonight. You smell, like..” Wooyoung sniffs at Felix’s scent gland in a much less sexy way this time, burying his nose in it. “..Warm? You smell warm, if that makes any sense. And the cinnamon is stronger than the vanilla for once.”

Felix almost snorts, but he gets it. San said some of his roommates loved when Felix came over because it made the whole house smell like vanilla lattes were being brewed. San never specified which roommates, but he always kept his fingers crossed.

Wooyoung won’t stop inhaling, like Felix is a bed of roses or freshly-washed laundry or his favorite dish being cooked. “Don’t eat me,” Felix jokingly whines out. “M’not edible.”

“Is that a challenge?” Wooyoung wonders impishly. The hands still to subtly hold Felix in place right as he said it over Felix’s shoulder, and there’s a disturbing but brief silence behind him.

The only warnings Felix receives are a gentle tug on the belt cinching his backless shirt at the bottom and a quick pant of breath on his upper back before the plush ring of a mouth latches right above his bare, exposed shoulder blade. The teeth are immediate and much too familiar because of course Wooyoung was going to use the opportunity to bite him — biting and nipping and clawing and acting like a feisty little brat was his love language.

Felix hisses at the sting of his teeth because even though oral omega anatomy doesn’t gift them as sharp of canines an alpha would possess, Wooyoung plays rough. He bites with intent, albeit playfully, and it ignites that yearning in Felix to be really bitten again; even just having a mock preview of what it might feel like had him so embarrassingly close to whimpering that he immediately twists around and bats at Wooyoung’s laugh-shrieking form.

“You’re not just a menace, you’re an entire demon,” Felix huffs, pinching all over Wooyoung despite it only making his best friend close up and laugh harder.

“If you’re gonna scold me, please do it in your deep voice,” Wooyoung lightheartedly requests. He unintentionally receives just that when Felix’s teasing grumbling mirrors something close to a growl, never satisfied with how Wooyoung loved to poke and prod and loved the consequences even more.

But they were just two friends fucking around — there was no real consequence there.

No, the real consequences felt much more severe.

“Enjoying yourselves?”

Despite Felix’s naturally low voice, he doesn’t think he’d ever come close to the depths an alpha could go. It wasn’t just about pitch, either; alpha genetics somehow caused an audio-neural magnetism from the deep frequency that inspired control, and truly instinctual alphas seemed to have a talent for intensifying it when they desired.

San’s is deceptively calm, almost formal. Despite the silkiness as the words slip out and fill their ears even beneath the pulsing bass of music throughout the room, the two omegas find themselves immediately twisting to him with widened eyes. Felix gulps, and Wooyoung has the audacity only an alpha’s partner could have to challengingly glare back in return.

“I’m enjoying myself a lot, thanks,” Wooyoung replies, tugging Felix into him so he could drape himself along his naked back. “How about you? Enjoying the show?”

San arches a single brow at him. Felix knows he doesn’t mean to because San is a literal sweetheart and probably one of the most gentle people on the planet, let alone among alphas, but it was undeniably easy to forget such facts when his resting expression was so imposing. Everything from the hair slicked back on one side as the other hung over his face to the razor cut of his jawline screamed something dangerous. Felix never admits it aloud, but he sometimes thinks San gives off, like, Mafia Boss vibes.

Seeing him eerily composed here, gaze thinning with both hands tucked into his pant pockets, posture elegant, he thinks it’s the most accurate he’s ever appeared like one. Like he could incite violence with a powerful yet aloof wave of his hand.

“Your attempts to rile me up are cute, Woo, but they’re futile,” San eventually says with a creeping, bent half-smirk. “And you’ve dragged poor Felix into it now, too?”

Felix can feel Wooyoung huff over his shoulder. “I wanted a dance partner, that’s all! You’ve got no proof of anything.”

“This entire room literally smells like I just stepped into a Starbucks,” San states with a knowing eyeroll. Knowing it’s Felix’s scent, the omega suddenly has the contrite urge to fold in on himself. “Maybe we should go outside, hm? Some of us are hanging around the backyard patio anyway. Could use the fresh air.”

“It’s cold outside,” Wooyoung counters. Felix thinks he’s saying that just to be a difficult brat for his alpha.

San is silent, but his scent suddenly fills Felix's nose — in the same way Wooyoung thought Felix smelled ‘warm,’ Felix thought San smelled ‘expensive.’ It was an intriguing mix between something leathery and ozonic, like when lightning strikes. Fitting, Felix thinks, because lightning was lethal and unpredictable and he doesn’t imagine anything less would be able to handle his chaotic best friend.

He almost forgets San was likely secreting more of it for a reason. Given the way his eyes gently lingered on Felix’s penitence before snapping back to his boyfriend, he possibly wanted to soothe him and pacify the guilt of attempting to upset him. It was also, on the other hand, used as a subtle yet forceful means to get Wooyoung compliant.

“It has a fire pit,” San eventually announces to sweeten the deal.

Wooyoung falls for it laughably quick. “Oh, fire!” He immediately extricates himself off Felix and waltzes right under San’s waiting arm, pulled into his side with a fond smile from the alpha as he looks down to his bright, animated omega. “I love fire.”

“‘Course you do,” San hums. “You’re pretty much the personification of it.”

Felix follows, attempting to will both his jealousy and spiked scent to fuck off.

He glances around, telling himself it’s to ignore the intimate babblings San and Wooyoung breathed into each other as they made way to the patio, but he can’t successfully lie to himself anymore.

He’s looking for Chan. It’s actually ridiculous how excruciating it feels when his eyes beg to see him there as they flick between huddles of people, but they’re all alphas he doesn’t want.. no matter how much some of them openly began to leer. San loved Wooyoung, but he also considered Felix a great friend, and the protective edge there seemed to pull them out of the situation just in time before any onlookers got confident enough to make advances. Being with San may just be the only thing preventing their instincts from initiating anything, and Felix was grateful.

When they finally made it past the back door, it was obvious Wooyoung was making excuses since the weather was only a little chilly. Felix realizes it the moment he feels the cold on his back, face and neck and wishes it was colder to counterbalance that permanent heat he felt coursing through him. Was it the feelings? It couldn’t be, right? Blushing only invaded people for a moment, yet he swore the warmth refused to leave no matter what he did.

The dull beginnings of something mildly adjacent to a cramp happen in his lower abdomen when he sits down in a vacant seat around the fire pit. Felix is so focused on twisting his body to alleviate the ache that he doesn’t register the people surrounding him until he’s passed a beer by Changbin, and fuck.

Changbin.

Suddenly, and consumingly, Felix finds no other purpose than stringing together his desire-fueled curiosities, because Changbin was seen more often than not with a very important other alpha to the point that his very existence might be indicative of the latter.

If Changbin’s here, then.. is he..?

All it takes is a glance to the seat on Changbin’s other side, and the pseudo-fever pauses itself in submission; for the first time since he got here, Felix feels no excess sweat, no ache, no thought other than him.

Chan.

Reclined back in a patio chair. Stunning face. Flickering skin from firelight. Eyes ablaze, quite literally, as he looked into the flames. Legs spread wide to accommodate the open can of his own beer sitting between bulging thighs.

He seemed like the perfect example of how alphas could be glaringly different despite such core similarities: San was formal, almost gentlemanly, but Chan possessed a primal nature even without speaking. San had straight and silky hair, wet-looking as if it were coated in ink, but Chan’s chocolate brown was a fluffy tangle of curls that blessed him with permanent bedhead. And where San’s closet was ripe with slacks and button-downs of crisp, clean colors, Chan wore grayscale as if he advertised it; everything was usually black. Today was no different, sporting black jeans and a hoodie trapped beneath a heather denim jacket. The only thing that glinted on him was his pierced ears and distant eyes — not looking at Felix.

Similarly, however, was the distinctive alpha-ness housed in their auras. Call him biased, but Felix has never felt a stronger urge to belong to someone. They’ve rarely even talked to each other yet he can’t stop thinking about him, stuck in some sick infinitum where Chan was always my best friend’s boyfriend’s roommate and somehow the star of every fantasy he’s ever conjured up. And Felix understood too well when he was told that Chan was the oldest and most aligned with ‘leadership’ in the group, because unlike with the command of other alphas, he didn’t just obey, but he wanted to. Did others feel that, too? Did other omegas, even other alphas, look at Chan and experience the need to yield and submit?

Felix fights off the intrusive thought to do just that — just walk over and kneel at his boots and gladly respect any order growled past those pillowy lips. How perfect would that be, to exist in a headspace as he waited on his knees between the bracket of Chan’s legs and stayed patient for just him? No thoughts and no worries. Just him, the same as Wooyoung went pliant for San, like no other alpha ever mattered or existed.

But it’s not reality. And Chan isn’t looking at Felix. Felix is so focused on Chan not looking at him that he feels another spike of shame once he snaps out of his delirium and understands how long he’d been blatantly staring. It hadn’t even crossed the remaining logic within that he was surrounded by alphas. He struggled to smell anything but himself.

Nevermind. Whatever. He chugs the beer Changbin handed him as if he were trying to shotgun it and revels in the cheap taste because he needs anything to drag him away from the inward feeling. He knew his emotions were deep and intense and complicated, but shit.. why was it all so intense tonight? Was he being dramatic? Could his friends read the displeasure on his face? Why was nobody else so viscerally aware of the war waging in his mind?

Why did it even matter?

“Sometimes I get real lonely and think I need to surround myself with people, but then.. heh, then I look at them, and see everything I don’t have,” Jisung, another one of Felix’s friends, once said. “And somehow, almost miraculously, even though it’s friends I’m with, it’s the loneliest I’ve ever been.”

Felix isn’t sure if he’s feeling exactly that, but it springs to mind. There’s something cold in this space despite the fire pit and lonely despite the friends surrounding him, itching for a ‘more’ that doesn’t exist. He goes to sip his beer again and finds the can empty, and the case it came from is empty, so he excuses himself from the circle and distantly wonders if separating himself from his support is the best idea.

When his mind thinks back, his eyes believe no truth but Wooyoung and San being cuddly and his crush being unavailable, so. Yeah. He needs to take a breather under the guise of getting another drink.

The fever is worse indoors. There’s a subtle pulse of dizziness that makes him round a corner clumsily, though he makes it into the kitchen easily enough. A shot and a beer weren’t enough to make him drunk so he can’t blame the alcohol, but confusion is the last thing he wants to contemplate anyways — parties were meant for letting loose, right?

Fuck. What did he come in here for again? Even though he’s not drunk, maybe he should have some water. Something cold. Something to calm whatever rising irritation was dominating his skin, even though the thought of cold has his body already shivering in refusal. He sort of wants more warmth, oddly enough, like a bed with a fresh fluffiness and that clean smell that acts as a plain template for other scents to easily cling to.

Felix clings to that thought as he hovers over the kitchen sink, gripping its edges. He thinks back to the flames licking up into a smoky nothingness at the center of the patio fire pit and how the heat couldn’t possibly rival what was developing for him internally. He thinks back to Wooyoung being called the embodiment of fire and how it felt being in his arms — there was too much symbolism happening tonight. Eventually, head deadened between his shoulders and a sigh slipping loose, Felix’s imagination doesn’t even need to put in any effort to taste embers on his tongue or the burn of wood in his lungs.. like the fire had followed him inside.

He should have listened to his intuition.

“Are you with someone?”

Felix isn’t sure how much more alpha voice he can withstand tonight without outright mewling. He thinks his restraint may be more because of the source this time around, however, because that wasn’t just any voice.

It was Chan’s.

Felix turns and is assaulted with the more immediate scent now that he faced it, noting how ripened his bergamot scent had grown beneath the woodsy aroma. It’s intense enough to cancel out the lingering whiffs of alcohol from open bottles on the counter where even Felix and Wooyoung’s scents couldn’t combined.

He’s standing in the doorway, leaning on one shoulder. Despite looking at Felix for the first time in what felt like forever, his eyes somehow still felt distant. Maybe Felix would always find Chan distant unless he was touching him, focused on him. Maybe ‘enough’ would always be an impossibility unless he was Chan’s.

But the question he just asked.. that certainly wasn’t distant.

“..H-huh?” Felix breathes out, voice weakened by Chan’s own. It perfectly mirrored his appearance, possessing the same lethality as San’s but being way less gentle in delivery. There was something ferocious trapped beneath the serious monotone, almost raspy, and the few times he’s heard his voice just after waking up fueled fantasies for weeks on end.

Something in Chan’s passive glare pinches, scathingly and silently irritated, and Felix wants to shrink into nothing having it cast his direction. “Are you seeing someone?”

If Felix felt any more sane, he might have the mind to wonder what it meant to Chan in the first place. “..No,” he admits, gulping thickly. “I’m not. Why?”

Chan clenches that gorgeously cutting jawline for a few seconds as if grinding his teeth before gritting out, “You’re bitten.”

..What? Bitten? But Felix hasn’t been with anyone that—

Oh.

Oh, Felix realizes, his subtle frown of confusion melting into the dawn of understanding. He feels his own lips part, the words stuck in his throat, and it’s the first time tonight that things feel like they make any sort of sense.

Wooyoung bit him hard enough earlier above his shoulder blade to leave a mark, and Felix couldn’t tell because he couldn’t see it. Yet everyone else had the opportunity every time he turned his back to them, and Chan must’ve noticed it when Felix got up to leave the patio. How severe was it? Was it merely a circle of teeth dents, or was it red with irritation? It was suggestive enough to imply sex, at least.

And Chan saw that, clearly. He looked at Felix — but only when Felix wasn’t looking in return. Just like Felix had secretly hoped he’d been. And he’d caught wind of a potential other person on him and stalked behind for information.

And clearly, most clearly.. Chan didn’t approve.

Chan’s disapproval seems to only intensify when Felix’s realization shows on his face. “Did you just hook up with someone, then?” the alpha growls out, glare darkening. Felix isn’t sure how anyone could survive an argument with Chan, even just verbally — the aggression housed in his body reveals itself as he rises from where he’d been leaning against the doorframe, standing at his full height designed to biologically tower well above Felix’s, and there’s a threatening clench to his fists.. like he wants a name and face to send them into.

“No,” Felix repeats, nervously going to comb some fingers through the hair on the side of his head and finding he can’t since Wooyoung had braided it back before they came here. The spiking scent of burnt wood smells equal parts delicious and hostile, like the fire of Chan’s musk could burn hotter and burn faster on rage alone. It has his own sense of fever confused, omega scent all over the place and unsure of how to respond. “I’m, I’ve—.. I’m not taken.”

But that still hadn’t explained the bite, and Felix forgets in his eagerness to somehow appease Chan, and it only manages to do the exact opposite.

He’s never seen someone look so murderous.

“..An alpha didn’t try to force themself on you, did they?” Chan spits out, gaze unwavering. The bergamot sours and the burn is a smoke thick enough to choke on, and Felix finds himself holding his breath both from that and the heightened tensity. The pathetic urge to cry is oncoming from his already unstable mood, though he knows none of this is directed at him.

Oddly, something within also feels overwhelmingly satisfied — Chan cares. This much. He pays attention and wants to protect Felix, albeit silently, until a threat reveals itself. This was what Wooyoung was talking about with alphas who desired someone, and is that too hopeful? To think this urge to defend him had selfish implications? Fuck, he needs that to be the truth so badly lest this spiralling sickness devours him.

“It was Wooyoung! We were just, um, playing around,” Felix timidly explains, and because he needs to emphasize it, “there were no alphas.” And there couldn’t be any alpha. Not unless it was you. “I don’t smell like an alpha or anything, do I?”

Apart from maybe a lingering whiff of San, but Chan knew he was taken, and so was Wooyoung, and those were the only two he could be specifically traced to with their heightened olfactory senses. The concept seems to placate Chan out of his barely concealed fury, but that intensity never seems to escape him. Was this his natural state.. having this much passion? Felix was so used to his distance that he never saw him wear anything other than that intoxicating mixture of dominance and nonchalance in flat stares and brief appearances.

Felix is so used to not being near him, in fact, that it almost feels as if the threads of reality threaten to unravel when Chan takes the invitation to prowl further into the kitchen, closer.

Felix could go on for hours just about the way he walks; the confidence, the assured steps, the imposing posture and lack of any hesitation. He’s glad nobody but them had decided to come to the kitchen for a snack or refill because it makes this moment feel all the more private and personal, beautifully dichotomizing every day where they’d been grossly apart and almost never directly interacting with one another. A deeper part of him is grateful for those moments, because having Chan’s full attention dedicated to only him had that heat rising to a temperature he’d never want anyone but this alpha to be aware of.

Spice secretes into the space between them like an inviting, invisible toxin. Vanilla too rich and cinnamon overwhelmingly strong, engulfing his every sense until the fumes even begin to surprise himself. But Felix can’t stop them, and he can’t stop staring at Chan’s slow but purposeful approach, wide-eyed and pitifully freezing still like a deer caught in the headlights.

What an apt thing for Felix to liken himself to — prey. It would make Chan the predator, stalking forward to assess his game.

Once Chan is perfectly in front of Felix, it’s apparent how different they are in regard to size. San’s muscle was sinewy and lithe, waist appearing even smaller when he tucked his shirt into his pants, but Chan.. fuck.

He’s broad, taking up most of Felix’s view despite not even attempting to cage him in against the kitchen sink. Felix has to tilt his head back to keep eye contact and notices how the unkempt storm of curls raise him even taller, haloed by the harsh fluorescents overhead. He fucking shadows Felix, envelops him in his presence, and it’s too much. Felix isn’t sure if he can handle this proximity without his heart beating out of his chest, left edged for too long on the concept of wanting but never having and now it was too fucking close.

Chan dips his face forward until he hovers in the space above the juncture of Felix’s neck, appropriately distanced enough to be respectful, and inhales. Inhales. To make sure there was no alpha clinging to Felix — to make sure he wasn’t taken.

But being this close made Felix able to smell Chan too. It’s so strong yet never overpowering, and every exhale leaves him begging to catch the scents again, taste them as though he’d been addicted on the first breath in. There’s secret notes of moss and a deeper earthiness, grounded and stable and safe and god this was what it meant to finally have him so close, wasn’t it? Now that Felix could feel him this near, it was impossible to ever imagine it away. The thought makes him want to whine because he needs. He needs so much.

Felix has no control over the way Chan’s scent makes his own release more intensely, richening in his neck and wrists as if pleading for him to lean closer, smell more. Watching him closely, Felix catches Chan’s nostril flare on his first deep inhale, and holy fuck.

Chan doesn’t pull away, and Felix doesn’t ask him to. Chan’s tensed features soften the further he drinks in Felix’s scent, lids threatening to flutter the more he inches closer. Eventually, it’s close enough that Felix feels the breaths leaving him. The smoky scent is so overwhelming that he hardly traces the lingering hint of beer, and Felix’s skin is so hot that the air of those exhales feel cool.

Chan has to stabilize himself by planting a hand on the sink’s rim beside Felix’s body. The veins on the back of it are so prominent in the harsh lighting, climbing up to his wrist and beneath his denim sleeve.

“Felix..” Chan says his name like each syllable meant everything; like it was an invocation that summoned a connection that was established and couldn’t break. His plump lips hardly move as he breathes it out other than to tease at a smirk, almost as if he was amused at his own slip in composure. “Your scent..”

Felix almost doesn’t want to speak or even move, afraid he’ll break the spell between them. “Intense, I know,” he whispers anyway, feeling the guilt of it being so strong ebb away now that the one person he wanted to take it in finally had. “Woo told me.”

Chan looks at him, and something about the vantablack flick of his irises leaves Felix feeling pinned and rooted to the spot, like.. he was being gazed into. “You shouldn’t be around so many alphas smelling like that. It’s dangerous.” And before Felix can mourn the distance when Chan begins to lean away, there was a resolute conclusion in his features. “I can scent mark you.”

It’s the most tentative Chan’s projected himself when his fingers seek out Felix’s wrist, and the omega is grateful for the slowness of it else he’d flinch from the touch — not because he didn’t absolutely adore the idea of smelling like Chan, but he.. he was being touched by him. Finally. For the first time not only would he be getting touched by the alpha that’s been invading his every lustful daydream, but anyone who passed by Felix would sniff him and knew that Chan had been on him.

“Please,” slips out of Felix’s mouth before he can stop it, just a little louder than a thought. He wants to gulp in shame, really, because he cut himself short just before a whimpering ‘alpha’ could escape as well.

Chan doesn’t break eye contact even when he leans off the sink to take Felix’s left hand between both of his own, and the touch of their skin finally meeting is so delicious that he almost doesn’t recognize how much larger Chan’s hands are. Once he lifted them, it was clear that his fingers could overlap if they squeezed around Felix’s wrist. He knew his hands were already on the smaller side, even among other omegas, but this visual difference before his eyes had his breath hitching.

One of Chan’s hands lingers further down Felix’s forearm while the other practically blanketed over Felix’s, guiding it to a cheek. Chan takes another deep inhale with Felix’s naked wrist so near, breathing in the vanilla Wooyoung always deemed so alluring. Chan’s lids go heavy again, almost languorous, but he appears to want them open so he could continue to watch Felix’s reaction as he nuzzles his wrist.

Nuzzling should be cute. It was cute, Felix thought, so he’s not sure how Chan manages to make the act so unfathomably hot. Every rub of his cheek against the inside of Felix’s wrist feels deliberate and purposeful down to the micromovements, something animalistic and unspoken in the unblinking gaze as he presses his scent into Felix’s skin. With how he kept breathing him in without shame, his hold tightening just so on every inhale, it was clear that they were both enjoying this more than a friend helping a friend would.

Felix briefly thinks back to San and Wooyoung in the moment when Chan, satisfied, decides to scent Felix’s other wrist. Even though they were merely scenting, nothing inherently erotic about it, this felt even more intense than the deliberately intimate things he’s witnessed other couples do. Maybe that came with actually being a part of it, or maybe it was just Chan’s aura inviting Felix’s more primal side, but there’s a distinct and animalistic desire to slip, let go, let Chan scent his pliant frame and do whatever he wanted to it. Could Felix convey that through his pleading eyes? His parted lips, wetted when the soft panting began to chap them? Were the two of them so aggressively instinctive beneath the surface that words could be foregone altogether, allowing the omega to show just how badly he wanted something more as the alpha suffused him in smoke and bergamot?

Chan’s scent soothes something soul-deep, demanding his entire being to be sated and content and safe. It’s strong enough to make him feel as if no alpha exists except him, that nobody else exists at all, and Felix believes it in the flickers where his mind falters and logic ceases.

It’s almost torture when Chan finally pulls his cheek away from Felix’s tiny wrist, sufficiently coated in alpha pheromones that Wooyoung had described prior — the ones that say keep your hands off or suffer the consequences. It’s hell to be without the feeling. Even worse were the implications, because friends and family could scent, yeah, and this was only on the wrists, but he’s so used to seeing mates scent from how often they do it.. more than anyone else, specifically for this reason.

“Is.. is it enough?” Felix asks into the space between them that’s grown gradually smaller.

Vanilla and wood. Smoke and cinnamon. Warmth and tension and feral need all seem to linger in the air, and the question is subtle: does this have to end? Is Felix scented enough? Could Chan not touch him more?

Chan licks his lips, and his eyes finally wander below Felix’s face, lids sinking further. “Could do more, to smell like me entirely..” he says with a depth that unveils how much he wanted it to become a reality. “..Would need a more prominent spot, though.”

They look at each other again, and the weight in both of their gazes is proof that they both were on board.

“I’d need your neck, Felix.”

Chan. Nuzzling Felix’s neck. Burying his face in one of his most sensitive, erogenous spots.

They both knew with the approving spike in Felix’s cinnamon that it wasn’t just a fleeting, considered concept — he needed it. Now. A more sordid side of him would drop to his knees and beseech, beg, but that’d increase the already considerable distance between Felix’s neck and Chan’s face thanks to that height difference.

Felix doesn’t even say anything, though words rise up like bile in his throat and threaten to spit out every thought he’d been having of him since their gazes first locked. You can have my neck. You can have me. You can be the alpha every other alpha detects when they try to approach, and I want you to be. I want nothing else.

Instead, Felix relaxes just enough to lean back against the sink and tilt his chin even further skyward, craned slightly to the side, eyes boring into the sight of an alpha being presented with what may as well have been the most blatant show of devotion and surrender.

Baring his neck.

Doing so better unveils the pheromones he emits, swirling their scents together now that his wrists were back at his side. The room was utterly thick with them now, and anyone who walked in, even blindfolded, would know this space was Felix and Chan’s.

Yet Chan didn’t seem satisfied yet.

Coming even closer now, Felix finally feels crowded against the sink. With how much larger Chan’s physique was, there’s a distant wonder if anyone who came into the kitchen would even be able to tell Chan had someone pressed up against his front, hidden behind his broad back and imposing muscularity. Being this close together somehow felt both too foreign and too natural — the sensation of finally having something you never thought you’d have beyond fantasy.

One of Chan’s hands rises to cup behind Felix’s nape, threading slender fingers through the more lengthy strands of blonde. It’s warm, warmer than Felix, firmly yet gently holding him in place and supporting his head so the strain would never begin to hurt from how much throat he’d just put on display.

Felix is partially grateful Chan wasn’t looking him in the eyes from this close up since he’s not sure he’d be able to handle being stared down at. His eyes instead rove down the planes of his neck, watching the skin shift when the omega gulps.

Something in the alpha’s gaze darkens, and Felix wished he could know what he was thinking.

But before there’s any time to contemplate, Chan leans in.

He’s the perfect height to slowly nose along Felix’s jawline with little effort, tracing the ridge of it. Chan sighs through his mouth on his first inhale and the grip at his nape tightens just so, inhaling more deeply the closer he comes to the patch of skin just beneath Felix’s pierced ear.

“You still smell like him,” Chan whispers against Felix’s pulse point, tone deep and scratchy. There’s a low rumble felt between their chests and.. was Chan attempting to suppress a growl? “Did Wooyoung scent you?”

“Wanted his alpha’s claiming bite,” Felix sighs out, lids weighing down when the hand at his nape instead comes to cup the other side of his neck with a thumb petting circles at the corner of his jaw. “Wanted to make his alpha jealous..”

An ironic, soft scoff-laugh is punched out against Felix’s neck. “Wonder if he succeeded,” Chan murmurs. “Alphas hate it when their omega smells like someone else.”

Felix’s next sigh is terribly shaky. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

And then, too fast and overwhelming, Chan allows his face to bury itself right where Wooyoung had been most at Felix’s neck. He’s more intense about this than he was with Felix’s wrists, inhaling deep and nuzzling until any omegan trace of scents that didn’t belong had been overpowered and replaced by Chan’s.

It feels so good. Felix’s hands come up to clutch at the front of Chan’s jacket, holding on tight when he feels the alpha’s nose flatten against his skin, breathing in and rubbing, burning away the fruity tang of Wooyoung or lingering notes of San like it was a mission. He envelops Felix in it, in him, even moving to nuzzle some along the hair at the crown of his head, pressing his cheek against the one-sided plait Wooyoung’s fingers had deftly worked through.

It doesn’t take long before the scent of anyone except Chan has been all but eradicated. Even Felix’s own scent, intensified tonight, only remains in vague traces every time he breathes in. The pheromones Chan had released placated so much of that previous, too-hot discomfort, and it feels like the scenting will never stop. Neither of them care to.

By the time Chan’s scent has completely dominated the room and Felix’s body, the sound of a few other partygoers cause a chaotic symphony of bangs and scream-laughs in an adjacent room — a reminder that there were other people here. The reason Felix needed to be scented at all.

Chan purrs territorially into Felix’s neck, the aroma of smoke thickening into something on edge. If Felix hadn’t grown so accustomed to him in these past few minutes, he may have felt like he was suffocating on it.

“Is.. is it still not enough?” Felix whispers timidly to the ceiling. Am I not covered in your scent enough? Do I not smell like other alphas know they can’t have me? That I belong to someone else?

“No,” Chan utters darkly into Felix’s scent gland.

They both knew that was a lie.

The hand not currently cupping Felix’s neck found its way behind him, wandering fingers trailing their way up the spine of his naked back. Felix’s breath falters at the feeling, head still tipped back, forcing his throat to choke the sound out brokenly. It travels, hot skin against hot skin, until it finds the dull soreness right above his shoulder blade.

Wooyoung’s bite.

“They shouldn’t just think you’re unapproachable,” Chan continues, tracing the crude ring of teeth marks with the blunt of his nail. Who was ‘they,’ Felix wonders? Strangers? Other alphas? His friends? Everyone but Chan? “They should know you’re taken. That you’re so marked up nobody will even think about trying to do it themselves.”

Fuck. The possessive edge to his timbre had a new heat flaring up in Felix’s core; something molten began in his viscera, mirroring the warmth of Chan’s stiflingly raised body heat. It was a good level of sickening, the kind that made him fight the urge to free himself of clothes. It shouldn’t be possible for words to make you feel so drunk, but perhaps that’s the only rational excuse for the slurred pleas suddenly escaping past his lips alongside the heavy breaths.

“Want that,” Felix admits to the alpha. He now understands why Wooyoung was so bold all the time, so straightforward and audacious — finally having the truth out there provided a relief beyond comprehension, and he feels like he melts with it. “Want you to mark me up.”

And it’s his own glimpse of ecstasy to see the inferno of Chan’s scent finally reach his eyes, being told the omega practically bathing in his pheromones wanted more.

Chan is on him in no time, so completely close that he eclipses the room itself. Finally, finally, this was no longer an unknown. This was no longer a war of distance and invisible barriers and the belief that Chan himself was an aloof, untouchable friend of a friend and nothing else. Countless weeks spent visiting San’s house, vaguely orbiting an intimidating pack of alphas and silently begging for some type of initiation, attention.. only to find that the unofficial leader, the most far away yet desirable of them all, couldn’t handle the thought of another’s mark on Felix.

Chan isn’t shy, pressing Felix into his chest with the hand still on his back and letting his lips purposefully find his throat. The fingers enclosed around one side of his neck trail higher into his hair, getting a generous grip on all the blonde it could hold to keep him from squirming too much.

But Felix can’t help it, nor can he stop the whine-sighs hissed past his teeth when those pillowy lips graze over his pulse, down his jugular, the alpha sniffing his own scent before giving the skin licks of approval. The nips are almost affectionate, humming and satisfied, finally allowed to rove his tongue over the omega’s weakest spot and prove just how unavailable he was.

The pleasure is nearly unbearable when Felix’s skin gets sucked past the ring of Chan’s lips. It was beyond erotic, more arousing than any idea bloomed in his imagination when a friend like Wooyoung jokingly mouthed at him for a little biting or scenting. The alpha pheromones make it heady and intense, eliminating any premise of teasing, sucking up the unmarked skin until it was riddled in a mess of blooming hickeys.

Felix takes and takes, and the omega within rejoices. The sighs past his lips spill into something more involved and unashamed, groaning the closer Chan reaches his scent gland. Inhibition was quickly thinning into nonexistence and Felix didn’t even give a fuck why anymore, too lost in pleasure.

Once Chan finally sucks over his scent gland with an equally pleased growl reverberating deep in his throat, Felix feels the last of composure ebb away.

“Mmfuck,” Felix breathily whines to the ceiling. He’s so tucked into Chan that he feels consumed by his being. The erogenous connection of his neck to places lower have the precipice of arousal tipped over and building, forcing that familiar heat to burn hotter and pulse his cock to something throbbing and aching. “Alpha..”

Chan groans, sucking Felix’s neck the hardest he had thus far. It’s the most husky, sexual sound Felix has ever heard from an alpha, and having it right beneath his ear makes his body feel pliant and weak, likely to fall to the floor if he wasn’t being pinned against the sink. When those plush lips finally pull off the skin, he feels the threat of bottom canines graze until Chan is nipping his earlobe before purring into it.

“Omega..” Chan responds, voice filthy with desire. “My omega..”

Felix doesn’t imagine anything in this life could have stopped him from twisting his face to look at Chan, whimpering and bathing in his shadow, eyes pleading with want.

And he doesn’t think anything could stop Chan from leaning impossibly further in, swollen lips connecting with Felix’s own.

It’s too fucking warm and messy and perfect. Their breaths are stolen from each other, heavy and aggressive and feral, feeding each other their devoted pheromones to wordlessly admit just how much they never wanted the kisses to end. Chan leads Felix with his lips into a reality of nothing but spit and tongue, slicking their mouths together between an endless symphony of lewd purring and muffled growls.

Felix feels himself coming undone already. It’s like the last of his composure clings via his grip on Chan’s clothes, clawing uselessly at the fabric because he knows deep down that he’d rather be feeling naked skin instead. He wants to grind into it, until it’s as though their two beings have become one, and the thought alone makes the ache below worse.

He can’t help how the pulses secrete the most intense spike of his own scent so far, so strong that it finally rivals Chan’s aroma of smoke. Chan notices it too, grip tightening instinctively, and Felix can’t even question why before he feels it.

Slick.

In the past, it always started as a nearly unnoticeable wetness before gradually dripping from him. Now, though? It’s overwhelming, already beginning to leak into his boxers. Felix surprisingly has difficulty giving a fuck, too enraptured and engulfed in Chan to bother remembering how to be embarrassed — if his slick stains his pants and crawls down his legs to the linoleum, he may not even notice.

But Chan does. Chan undoubtedly smells the concentrated intensity of it, of an omega’s body begging to be fucked and bred, and pulls off Felix’s swollen, spit-soaked lips to pause and take it in. His lids close for a brief moment, savoring it as if it could disappear at any second, and opens his eyes to the sight of Felix’s lidded gaze, flushed face, the sweat beginning to dew near his temples.

Realization forces Chan’s eyes to briefly widen before they thin to something protective and searching. “Baby..” he manages out as softly as he can manage, which would be a hard feat for any alpha inhaling the slick of their omega.

Felix’s world feels like it stops when Chan whispers, “..How long have you been in pre-heat?”

Oh my god.

Felix’s first instinct is to deny him, because he couldn’t be. “I.. I’m..?” is all he can mutter, blinking himself out of his horny daze as much as he could afford to. “I’m.. but I’m on suppressants.”

He thinks about it, though — the suppressants were mild, acting more as a contraceptive than anything else, which is why his scent wasn’t blocked and heats were still possible.. only much less likely. He’s yet to have one since he started taking them, however, and he can’t help but gasp at the surfacing evidence in his mind, tangled and confusing and making too much sense.

That’s what this ‘fever’ was. A literal, heat-induced fever. The cramps in his abdomen. The subtle yet present extra attention alphas were paying him, the way Wooyoung commented on his scent being more intense tonight than any other night, washing literal rooms with it. The sweating, the delirium, the painfully strong mood. Hell, how hadn’t he known his need for a fresh bed was actually the instilled urge to nest? And he knew how submissive he was, but Felix should have realized he was displaying symptoms when he felt moments away from kneeling at Chan’s feet and begging to get fucked.

“I just,” Felix sighs, breaths faltering and heavy. “Came here tonight.. wanted you.. couldn’t stop thinking about you..”

“Fuck,” Chan grits out, pulling the pliant omega forward to bury his nose in his marked scent gland again, breathing in the spice of his oncoming heat. “Did I trigger your heat, Lix? Huh? You like me that much, baby?”

Felix mewls, fervently nodding. He clutches at Chan’s clothes and whines more when the slick feels as though it gushes just from the deep timbre of that alpha tone, prone to lose himself in it and slip under until his desire can no longer be contained.. in public, anyway.

“Need you, alpha,” Felix breathes. “I’m—.. I can’t..”

“Shhh, sweet little thing,” Chan coos, kissing Felix’s pulse point. Fuck, Felix wouldn’t be shocked if Chan could detect just how fast his heart was racing. “C’mere, let me take you home.”

Felix feels like he might cry from the tenderness of Chan taking Felix in his arms, bringing him against his chest as he lifts him up to hold. Felix immediately wraps his legs around his middle and his arms around his neck, hoisted high enough to bury his face in Chan’s throat now. He’s secreting deliciously calm pheromones, still intense as ever, and it’s just enough to placate him for a handful of peaceful seconds.

Because getting out of here requires Chan to carry Felix through the party again, to bring him past other people — other alphas, and he doesn’t need words to express how possessive the concept makes him. Felix hides his face in Chan’s neck because he doesn’t want anyone to see him like this but his alpha, whining against his skin and wishing they could just be in bed already, and Chan does his best to soothe despite his heightening irritation.

Felix vaguely registers them walking through the hall they had to come through to get to the kitchen from the patio, so he knows Chan’s going to try and go out the back way. He’s shifted just a little when a familiar door opens and the crisp air of the outdoors greets their noses, though Felix can hardly detect it with how Chan’s smoke and bergamot radiated against him.

He can hear San’s group getting closer and closer, and the jovial sounds of laughter and lighthearted discussion feel like an antithesis to his ragingly intense heat beginning to swallow his conscience whole.

“—Knew something was up between them! Like, Lixie’s scent goes wild every time we say his name,” he hears Wooyoung giggle. “I’m a total matchmaker, I swear.”

Changbin hums. “What do you think they’re doing—.. hold on, do you smell that?”

Felix burrows in closer to Chan’s neck, feeling the alpha slow close enough for him to hear the crackling embers of the fire pit. Felix’s own fever is rising and he can feel the flames warming his naked back even more, causing his forehead to go clammy with sweat, temperature making his small form tremble in the cage of Chan’s muscled arms.

Now that he knows he’s entering heat, the awareness only seems to force it upon him faster. He’s begun to blindly lick and nip whatever of Chan’s skin was within reach of his mouth, the drip of his slick pooling in his boxers in a now-continuous trickle. Chan lowly groans, holding him impossibly tighter.

“Changbin,” Chan says as evenly as he can manage, voice low and bordering on threatening. “I need the keys to the car.”

“Huh?” Felix hears Changbin say. “Why?”

“Just give them to me,” Chan says through grinding teeth. “I’m sure Wooyoung can explain.”

At the sound of his name, Wooyoung must twist in his seat to see what was going on. “Oh, holy shit! You guys move fast.”

Felix’s inner omega was growing too impatient for this. He whines and nuzzles against Chan’s skin, the noise small enough for only his alpha to hear — pained. Needy. Yearning.

It forces Chan to snap, dropping whatever niceties he’d desperately clung to. Felix feels the alpha voice deep in his chest before it surfaced past his throat, deep and warning and growling so hostile that anyone in their right mind would have no choice but to listen and comply; no questions, no explaining to everyone that his omega was in heat, because he didn’t want anyone to know.

“The keys,” Chan demands. “Now.”

One hand releases Felix just long enough for the jingle of a keyring to fall into it, and Chan’s suddenly walking much faster. The sound of people and conversation fades into a chorus of grasshoppers and cars purring down the road outside the house, hardly heard over the feedback of Felix’s panting breaths seeping into Chan’s collar.

The sound of a car unlocking disturbs the trance Felix had fallen into, inhaling Chan’s scent as if it were the only oxygen he could breathe. His lids hardly open but he can see the back door opening in the periphery, nose hit with the leathery interior of it, and Chan’s leaning forward to deposit Felix in the backseat and no.

“Alpha,” Felix slurs as Chan detaches from him, eyes suddenly much more open. Chan was letting him lay down, trying to make him as comfortable as possible for the drive, yet Felix understood nothing but agony being separated from him. “Alpha.. don’t leave me, please..”

Chan’s sigh is heavy, looking as if he couldn’t bear it either. “Just until we’re home, I promise,” he utters as he tucks Felix’s legs in before inspiring the willpower to shut the door, immediately beelining for the driver’s seat.

When the car starts, the gentle purr of the engine is the only feeling that Felix finds any comfort in — vaguely reminding him of Chan’s growls, his possessiveness. The car smells like too many alphas at once and he fights to cling to the memory of Chan’s, smelling his wrists before even that wasn’t enough.

“Gimme your jacket,” Felix moans before Chan pulls out of the parking space. “Need.. scent..”

“Fuck, okay,” Chan nods. At this angle, if Felix rolls over, he has the perfect angle of Chan in the driver’s seat and how he slips his arms out of the denim sleeves to leave him in nothing but his hoodie. Felix keeps his pleading, pained eyes on him even as the jacket is handed over and the rough, gray denim is pressed to his nose.

It’s like a balm to his senses. A groan slips past Felix’s lips and his eyes threaten to slip shut at the intense smokiness of his clothing, so powerful that it has his thighs squeezing shut on automatic.

Eventually, even that isn’t enough. Felix has gone dizzy with desire, fully into his heat by now, only induced quicker thanks to being so close to the alpha he wanted — to being marked by him. There’s more slick and more whining, desperate to mate now, and he can’t, and he has no clue how long Chan’s been driving for anymore. His veiny hands have a death grip on the steering wheel, flexing whenever more slick gushes out of Felix.

“M’so empty,” Felix whines in complaint, shivering from the heightening temperature in the car. The heat from their bodies is too hot and the leather is too cool. Aroused pheromones thicken the air so warmly that even Chan can’t act immune to it, grinding the sharp cut of his jawline in tight little back-forths just beneath the skin. “Can’t handle it.. need you, Chan..”

“I know, baby,” Chan hisses out as softly as he can. He gives a glance over his shoulder to Felix’s trembling, sick form and curses under his breath. “How about you do something for me, huh?”

“Anything,” Felix sighs out, pressing the denim jacket to his nose again and inhaling.

“Yeah, Lix, keep doing that. Hold it with one hand. Good boy,” Chan praises, and the words are an immediate gateway to Felix’s arousal, gushing even more vanilla-scented slick between his cheeks and pre-cum from his slit. “Now take your other hand and undo your pants, okay? Can you do that?”

“Mm,” Felix hums noncommittally, already breathing harder just from the feeling of his own hand wandering down his body. His fingers clumsily fumble with the button and zipper but he manages, making another noise to announce his completion of the command.

“Doing so good for me,” Chan says, keeping his eyes on the road. “Think you could fill yourself with your fingers, baby? Until I can have you?”

Felix groans in some confusing paradox of pleasure and pain, twisting until he was lying on his side instead of his back. The side of his face squishes against the seat as his free hand wanders behind himself, pushing his pants down enough to squeeze around his thighs, and the loss of that second layer of clothing permeates the entire car in his scent even more intensely.

It was Chan’s turn to groan at the following red light, looking as if he was seconds away from slamming his forehead into the steering wheel with barely controlled need. He looks over his shoulder again to watch as Felix’s fingers found their way beneath the hem of his boxers, hiding how they’d become immediately coated in slick. When the omega presses them against his entrance, the give is easy but immediately not enough — his fingers were too small, even with three, and it had no satisfaction compared to what he imagines Chan must feel like.

“Need your cock,” Felix whines again, much less coy about it all now. He sounds muffled against the jacket, inhaling the scent of pure Chan and trying his best to imagine it as Chan’s fingers instead. It doesn’t work, and his omega can’t be fooled, and he’s too impatient to hold back the sounds of discomfort even when he pulls his fingers out in a futile attempt to fuck them back in his hole.

Chan is a blurred, heat-induced mirage past the haze of Felix’s fever. It’s bordering on unbearable to be this close to him without being fucked already, vision pulsing in and out of focus with slips in his cognizance. He thinks he hears Chan curse again, posture going taut up in the front seat. The car eventually moves, too, but Felix hardly notices past the inertia pressing futile fingers up against lewd waves of slick.

Life has become little more than Chan himself. He keeps murmuring to Felix about holding on, finding patience, being good, but Felix doesn’t wanna hear anything other than the rhythmic slap of their skin as he gets pounded into. He can hardly fucking think anymore — he just wants Chan, wants to be good for him, wants..

“Want your knot,” Felix whines out, and he’s not even aware if he’d just cut Chan off or not. Saliva pools on his tongue, threatening to drool just as he was beneath. “Mmfuck, alpha.. want alpha’s knot so bad, please..”

“Oh, god,” Chan breathes, the sound of it painful enough for Felix’s attention to refocus back on him; they were at another red light, and the neon brightness of it made Chan’s skin glow crimson. It only added to the aesthetic of the fever, the sultry hue highlighting the sweat beginning to dew his own forehead. Chan’s nostrils flair and he shifts uncomfortably in the driver’s seat, glancing over his shoulder yet again at the wrecked omega he had lying in the back seat.

Chan breathes so harshly that his nostrils flare. He gulps, and his adam’s apple shifts with it, like he had to swallow the truth of what he was going to say before whispering it into existence.

“Felix, I’m going into rut.”

And right as he says it, the scent of smoke spikes in the car. It’s so fucking strong that tears prick Felix’s eyes and Chan has to roll down the window.

But the realization only has Felix wanting to be with Chan more. His scent, his slick, calling Chan alpha and begging for his knot.. It coaxed Chan into rut the same way Chan’s dominance brought about Felix’s heat. They were, by all accounts, perfect for each other. Their biology agreed as though some force beyond preference knew they should be together, and it fills Felix’s pheromones with traces of joy beyond the sexual desperation.

Chan almost doesn’t make it home, but fucking in the back seat of his car would be inconvenient if they had to be with each other for days. They needed a nest and food between rounds to restore their energy, and that more primal, protective alpha nature was possibly the only thing that stopped Chan from giving in and pouncing on Felix the very second the car was turned off.

When Chan finally does, he’s not bathed in red — that’s all Felix needs to know they were back at the fated house of San’s alpha roommates and not at another traffic light.

The car literally shakes from the force of Chan slamming the door shut, and he’s a blur as he comes to the back to retrieve Felix. It smells like fresh air and a horribly impatient alpha once the back door is opened, and Felix looks up to him with pleading, tear-brimmed eyes.

Despite his aroused scent and obvious need to fuck Felix immediately, Chan stays calm and composed for him. He bends down and wraps gentle fingers around the forearm belonging to the hand still lubed with slick and pulls it up to his lips, groaning around the omega’s fingers as his tongue cleans Felix of himself. Felix sighs as the wet muscle scissors his fingers apart with closing lids and fuck the sight of Chan consuming his slick was just, like, way too hot to healthily endure.

His fingers are eventually cleaned of it eventually, and Chan encourages that same arm to wrap around his neck. His own arms tuck under Felix’s back and behind his legs to hold him bridal style, kneeing the car door shut and leading them inside with eager speed.

The powerful scent of so many alphas indoors has Felix writhing in Chan’s arms, moaning pleasure-pain at the overload it does on his senses. Chan holds him tighter with a deep rumble in his chest all the way until a door is being opened, then locked behind them, and Felix is dropped onto a bed.

God, the bed smells so much like Chan’s natural musk. Felix squirms until his face is buried in a pillow and loves how cool it is against his heated skin, inhaling its potent alpha-ness and feeling how it immediately soothes that soul-deep craving for Chan.

He’s not allowed to forget about the alpha himself, however, or just how close he really was. Veiny hands are immediately on his lower half, pulling Felix’s pants the rest of the way off in a hurry before the boxers follow. Felix takes off his shirt and throws it somewhere in the dark of the room, wanting to be rid of anything that may not smell like pure alpha anymore.

Moonlight offers Felix enough of a glimpse at his own nudity, horribly unmarked and absolutely dripping. He’s still shivering with need, cock filled out and pearling pre-cum past the tip as clear and sticky as the slick probably was, at the most intense it’s been now that no clothes were in the way.

Chan looms over him, immediately bending down to dance his tongue over his slit before trailing it up his quivering stomach, pressing sloppy kisses against the skin. “Look at you,” he growls. “So fucking pretty for me. Taste so good.. so sweet.. my sweet little omega..”

Felix whimpers under his attention, suddenly heavy with it despite Chan propping himself up on his forearms. He eventually leans back on his haunches at Felix’s wordless protest, grabbing greedily at his hoodie until Chan airily laughed at the impatience and began undressing himself as well.

“S’why I didn’t fuck you sooner,” Chan continues to narrate as he strips himself. For all Felix knows, he’s probably doing it quickly, but his heat has made everything that wasn’t immediate sex feel like a fucking eternity. Felix whimpers at how growling it sounded when Chan says ‘fuck,’ having to mute himself by pulling his bottom lip between his teeth. “You’re such a tiny thing, my god. Always walking around this place with your tight clothes and nervous little eyes. Dunno how I restrained myself from taking you the moment I first got a dose of your scent.”

Felix can only manage monosyllabic noises, so enraptured by the sight of Chan’s bare torso and lowering hands that he swears he goes partially dizzy with it. Deft fingers work the buttons off and the zipper down, revealing the print of a bulge that could only ever belong to an alpha.

“Big..” Felix pants, clawing the sheets with the urge to see more. “Fuck.. so big..”

“Mm,” Chan hums out with a bent smirk, hooking his thumbs into the waistband and yanking down until he’s revealed, and fuck.

He’s as venous as the back of his hands and as flushed pink as his lips near the tip, beading out pre-cum that makes Felix’s mouth water with the urge to take down his throat. Maybe one day he could do just that — suckle on Chan until he’s got the urge to fuck Felix’s face, hands clutching his mess of blonde and forcing him to gag on him until he’s crying and drooling.

Though they’ve yet to fuck at all, Felix’s body instinctively surrenders at the sight of Chan’s nudity, knees falling further apart to present himself to the alpha.

“Fuck,” Chan hisses. “So obedient, aren’t you? And here I thought I’d scare you off.. s’why I never approached you before today.” He immediately climbs over Felix again, preparing to line himself up with his wet entrance. He’s a gorgeous shadow of muscle and spiking pheromones, beautifully suffocating Felix’s shivering form in it. “You were too polite.. too nice. How was I supposed to ever tell you that I wanted to fucking ruin you?”

“Please..” Felix whimpers, tears in his eyes. “Want that, god, want that so bad.. want you to ruin me, make me yours.. fuck.”

Chan gently shushes him, propping an elbow beside his head and leaning down to rub his scent along Felix’s neck again. It’s like a cure for his very being, reminding him that he was about to take the alpha and that nothing else, before or after, ever existed at all. Beneath, albeit hard to focus on, Chan was felt holding himself at the base to align with Felix’s hole.

“Asked so nicely,” Chan hums against his skin, right over the scent gland. “Good boy.”

And Felix finally feels the stiffness press against his slicked rim, the sensation so overpowering in itself that his lips part and eyes tense shut. It’s gradually insisted against him and the give is so easy despite Felix being this tight, hugging around it with the greedy need to take more in. He claws until his nails are scratching at the alpha’s shoulders and Chan spits out more wanton groans, forcing himself in with an agonizing slowness.

“So much..” Felix sighs, truly feeling the size when he assumes Chan’s at the hilt, only to press more in, filling him impossibly. “Fuck, alpha, so much.”

“Almost there, baby,” Chan whispers, sounding astonished himself at how much Felix could take. “Doing so good for me, taking alpha’s cock so well.”

Tears slip past Felix’s wetted lashes when he finally feels Chan’s hips press against his ass. They’re both already sweating as if struck with exertion, but the sense of completeness that washes over him has his inner omega begging it to leave and re-enter him over and over again, infinitely, right as he feels that he’s adjusted enough to handle it.

Chan seems to have some unspoken awareness of it as well, finally shifting his hips back at a tentative speed.

God, the sound of it is fucking filthy. It’s so wet between them, so warm, and the slickness of it is punctuated with Chan’s whispered curses as he pushes himself back in and looks addicted with lust already, the both of them savoring how dirty the slap of their skin sounded together.

Despite how intense the moment is, Felix can feel the satisfaction from his heat. He’s stopped shivering now that Chan has begun to fuck him, continuing to claw at all that dewy skin encouragingly. He’s groaning on every exhale, the room thick with their combined pheromones alongside that typical perfume of sex and sweat, feeling how he gets lost in the repeated drive of Chan’s cock every time he pulls back out.

“So good,” Felix babbles, lids weighed with pleasure. “Feels.. s-so good..”

The muttering can barely be heard over Chan’s consistent growls of his own heightening climax, but he’s too attuned to Felix to not notice the words. The signal of his omega forces the kick of his hips to quicken, genuinely pounding into Felix until wrecked moans are forced from his throat and his whole body seems to jostle with it. He clings to Chan, teary-eyed and moaning, much too aware that their combined arousal in addition to the tension they endured at that party left little between their oncoming orgasms.

Felix can tell when he feels a firm roundness begin to knock against his rim, and the breathy gasp of realization almost had him coming on the spot.

Chan’s knot.

It was small, still developing between every rhythmic thrust into him, but even the mere notion of having it in him already brought on a new wave of throbbing heat deep in his core; to be locked with Chan, so plugged that all of his cum would stay buried deep inside, warm and wet and filling.

And Chan knew. Chan had to know, feeling the nerves of it hit against Felix’s slicked hole. “You like that, baby?” he growls. “You want it?”

Felix dumbly nods his head, clutching the alpha tighter.

“Ask for it.”

Felix whimpers. “Want.. oh, fuck.. want your knot inside me, please..”

“Yeah?” Chan continues to fuck into him, and Felix can feel it enlarging right against his entrance. “Think you can handle it, baby? My little omega thinks he can take me?”

Felix nods more fervently, and the hair is so plastered to his forehead with sweat that it doesn’t even move anymore. “Want it so fucking bad..”

It’s pure warmth everywhere. Hot, wet skin shifts against another, sweat engulfs the air beneath the overpowering pheromones, and a churning ache deep within Felix’s being begs for release. He can feel himself tensing and the weight of Chan looming over him, breathing pure heat that threatens the omega to crane his head to the side and expose his neck.

Instinct demanded him to be knotted and claimed, so much more intense than whenever he’d jerked himself off in the past while thinking of Chan. He can hardly handle the reality of having him above, real and tangible, and he needs everything he can to ensure that he’ll never lose it.

Chan’s inner alpha seems to be on the same page. With hardly any restraint he leans down at he continues to fuck into Felix, nosing along his throat until it pressed against the skin. His lips, which still feel so cloudlike even when chapped from the heavy panting, graze open to breathe against his scent gland and promise teeth that never come — a fact intolerable and torturous.

“Bite,” Felix whines out. “Mate me.”

Chan groans a wrecked, “Fuck,” on the soaked skin, and Felix feels the air of it coat his neck. “I shouldn’t.. would be so irresponsible, baby..”

But even as he clings to logic, the concept was appealing enough to reveal itself in how Chan’s hips kicked faster, fucking Felix so hard that a moan was forced past his lips on ever drive back inside. Slick is secreted enough that it drips down his ass and wets the sheets with it, permeating the room with squelches and spikes in cinnamon from how close he was to being marked, claimed.

And why shouldn’t they, really? They were clearly fucking perfect for each other, so what else was there to discuss? How could Felix even put it into words — how Chan made him feel? How his inner omega sung praise it’s never felt before in this little time they’ve finally shared together?

There was only one solution, really; one final thing to complete his heat and Chan’s rut, and Chan knew it too. He had to. Given the little self-restraint he possessed, canines lightly scratching Felix’s throat with the urge to sink in.. he knew.

“Other alphas will want me if I.. don’t have a mark..” Felix chokes out, and the very thought of it has Chan growling into his juncture where neck meets shoulder. “Will want me like this.. same way you’re having me..”

“No,” Chan utters with suppressed fury. “You belong to me.”

“Prove it,” Felix cries, feeling himself on the brink of orgasm. It’s the final words he can say before a moan breaks apart in his unclaimed throat, the surging heat bringing on wave after wave of throbs deep within his core.

And Chan seems right there with him, asking Felix if he was sure one final time in whisper only to receive enthusiastic nods in response. Then it’s groans into his neck, the knot at its absolute fullest getting forced into Felix’s rim before it catches all the slick needed to squeeze inside on that very final thrust that finally sends them both over.

Felix had already been moaning, though it breaks into something louder and whinier when the knot breaches him. His body vibrates under the rumble of Chan’s deep growl and wet heat is splashing up his stomach, release rubbing between their torsos as Chan fills him full. This in itself was overwhelming, as if the world ceased to exist beyond the intensity of orgasm.

When Felix feels the hard bite right against his scent gland, he’s truly convinced the world has stopped. Suddenly his mind is nothing but Chan, even beyond the heat that had clouded his perspective — it was truthfully nothing but a mantra of Chan’s name in his head and his face behind his weighted lids, sharp teeth sinking until it hurt good.

Chan was claiming him. Felix can hardly believe it — he was Chan’s, now. Full of him, kept together physically with his knot and biologically with the teeth also buried in him, forceful enough to break skin, to ensure it’d never fade, and that nobody would ever be able to look at Felix again and not immediately understand that he was taken.

The reality has Felix’s nails digging just as hard into Chan’s shoulder blades, hissing pure pleasure through the pain of it. His moan dies into something cursing and weak, feeling himself squeeze around Chan’s knot with the primal need to keep him here.

Felix is unsure how long Chan stays with his teeth sunk in, but he’d never complain. He’s scarily greedy, actually — he wants more bites. He wants everything Chan can give him, becoming borderline obsessive over the idea of being completely covered in his marks. The ones after this will fade, but he can always bite him again, right? He has to. Felix needs him to.

Chan only pulls off just enough to lap up traces of blood, breathing heavily against the bite. The threat of sharp teeth becomes delicate lips that pillow against his skin, praising the omega for doing so well taking him — his knot, his teeth..

They’re a tangle of limbs and cum and slick, scratch and bite marks, and they’re both sated. Felix feels the appreciative rumble when Chan leans back enough to see the mark for the first time, dripping in sweat and ruddied with an exerted flush.

“How’s it look?” Felix quietly slurs, beginning to pet over where he knew he’d definitely left red lines on Chan’s back.

“Like you got mauled by a vampire,” Chan manages to softly joke with a huff of amusement escaping his nose.

Felix grins, laughing some himself.

But the amusement dies on Chan’s heavy breathing, and he lifts a hand to comb sweat-soaked hair off of Felix’s forehead. His eyes are sincere and intense when they wander up to Felix’s face, preparing him for the best words he’s ever had the pleasure of hearing.

“And mine,” Chan whispers. “You look like you’re all mine.”