Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Minho wheeled the Silverado up the long gravel driveway. The papers tucked under the stack of books in the passenger seat fluttered in the breeze where he had the windows rolled down. Fall had been kind this year, lots of warm nights, even if it had rained most of the last few weeks. It was dark tonight, he had lost track of time sitting at the school library with Jeongin, trying to memorize the names and makeups of chemical structures. 

He crested the hill and bright flashing red and blue lights caught his vision. There were no sirens, but the sheriff's car was parked haphazardly in the driveway. His stomach sank. He stopped the truck where it was, slamming the brakes and almost stalling it. He jumped out, shoes skidding in the gravel, leaving his books and bag in the cab. His feet were moving before his brain could catch up.

He was always somewhat athletic and muscular, it was just something that came with growing up in the country. You were expected to haul feedsacks, chase down rogue calves, put in hay, and no one gave you pity if you said you were tired. But tonight, he was moving with a speed he didn’t know he had.

The screen door of the farm house cracked against the wall as he flung it open. The house was empty, quiet, aside from the crackling static and talk over the police scanner that sat in the kitchen. Back out the front door he went, and from the porch, he could see the barn lights were on. He didn’t stop at the garage to grab the side-by-side or the four wheeler. It may be a hefty walk, but it would take too much time. His instincts were screaming at him that something was wrong. The sheriff shouldn’t be there. Officer Park never stopped by at night and he never turned on his lights when he did. 

He ran. The wind whipped his hair around his face, and he nearly slipped where his shoes couldn’t get traction on the wet grass, soaked from the long weeks of rain. He didn’t think about the mud that coated the back of his jeans, or how bad his lungs hurt, or how his horribly rushed parking job was blocking in the sheriff’s car. He just ran. He needed to get there. 

Chan was standing outside the barn, just barely illuminated by the soft golden light from inside. When he turned to see Minho, he walked, and then hurried to meet him. His movements were jagged and uneven, nothing like the usual confidence and strength that Chan carried himself with. He could see even in the dark, the tears that were flowing down his cheeks, glinting white in the moonlight, and red and blue with the distant emergency lights. He didn’t stop, and he collided with Chan, who immediately slumped his whole body weight against him, apparently unable to hold himself up any longer. Not expecting it, Minho sank to his knees with Chan in his arms. He could feel the cold mud seeping into his pants, could smell the burnt coffee and ashy wood.

His scent was acrid, pungent and sour, and it made the hair on the back of Minho’s neck stand up and his nose scrunch. He could feel the color draining from his face, nearly making him sick. He had never seen him like this before. Hell, he had never even seen him cry before. Even when he stepped in that yellowjacket's nest while he was weedeating, or when Bucky, one of their steers, stepped on his foot; Chan didn’t cry. He managed to get his hands up under Chan’s chest, and pushed him up enough to get them face to face. His eyes were puffy, face red and blotchy. His smoky scent was making his eyes water. He could see his mouth moving, but barely any sound was coming out because he’s so worked up. He had never seen Chan like this. Hell, he had never seen 

“Y-your grandpa. I tried. But. I didn’t. I didn’t hear anything. And it was so heavy. Minho. He’s dead.” 

“W-what?” Minho’s voice cracked out. His brain couldn’t process it, his thoughts running a million miles an hour, but hot tears dripped down his cheeks. He couldn’t understand, but he knew. Chan slumped against him again, burning his face in Minho’s neck.

“I-I’m sorry. I tried. But I couldn’t. I don’t know what happened. I think the jack broke. I didn’t even know he was working on it. And when I.. I couldn’t lift it. The tractor fell on him. And I tried but I couldn’t fucking lift it.” Chan’s voice was muffled by his collar, but the tremble in his voice was apparent. It was shaky, like he was terrified, and it broke something in Minho. He couldn’t even try to push out a comforting scent, and he could smell his own turning just as rancid. His hands tightened around the fabric of Chan’s flannel, where they were still pressed against his chest. The world tilted and he thought he might throw up. 

His grandpa was dead. He was gone. 

What was the last thing Minho had said to him?

“I’m headed to class, be home late”? “Love you”? Had he even said “I love you”? Had his grandpa said it back? Was his grandpa in the barn still? He needed to see him. He needed to go to him right then. His grandpa was there. In the barn. On the dusty concrete floor. Hurt and scared. No, dead.

Chan let out a loud sob in his arms and Minho came back to reality momentarily. Over his shoulder, he could see a man covered in black walk out of the barn, headed towards them at a slow pace. He couldn’t smell the man at all, but it wasn’t unnerving. He brought the little radio on his chest to his mouth and said something Minho couldn’t hear, and then he was there, standing over them. He moved his hand and tentatively clamped it over Chan’s shoulder. Minho could see the whites of his teeth in the darkness.

“Hey kid, it’s gonna be alright. I’m so sorry for your loss, but there's nothing we can do. I’d say he suffocated before you even found him. Don’t worry, we will arrange transport to the funeral home.” Officer Park. The same sheriff who came to their little high school every year and taught them about how to say no to drugs, the same sheriff that helped Jisung when he ran his car into the ditch a week after he got his license, the same sheriff that they ran into on Monday mornings when they stopped at the corner store for breakfast. And now he was here, telling them that his grandpa was dead and that there was no hope of bringing him back. 

The officer gave Minho a sad smile, and then hooked his hands under Chan’s arms and pulled him up. Minho stayed in a heap on the ground, before his autopilot managed to take over and he stood up, following the two absentmindedly. They walked to the house together, slowly. It was too cold now for the locusts, all that they could hear was the night breeze, Chan’s shaky sobs, and the squelch of mud under their feet. The lights were still on in the barn. Minho didn’t want to look now. “Listen, this was a horrible, unfortunate accident, but it was an accident. Please, you two. Take care, try and get some rest. If you need anything, give me a call. You know I’m just down the road, I can be here in two shakes of a lambs tail. We will go and get his… him. And you’ll probably hear from the coroner tomorrow.”

He walked them to the front porch. His hands were shaking when he pulled his truck out of the way for the sheriff. It wasn’t his grandpa’s truck anymore, it was his. It was all his now. There was no one else in Minho's family. And the fact that it still smelled like his grandpa; clover, rain, and wintergreen long-cut. His hands were shaking when he walked back into the farmhouse where Chan had his head on the kitchen table. He lifted it when Minho walked in, and his face crumpled all over again.

How were they supposed to do this? What now?

Minho wanted to ask Chan, but he knew that he wouldn’t have the answers. 

Minho slept in his grandpa’s bed that night. Chan took the couch. 

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“Hello, sir. Thanks for having me.”

“Of course, Chan. And none of that, call me Eunsung. Ah, Minho, come out here.” His grandpa turned around from his place in the doorway to look at Minho, who, up until then, had thought he was doing a great job hiding in the shadows of the hallway. His grandpa waved at him, and Minho stepped forward until he was braced behind his grandpa. Minho was already twelve, but he still only came up to the middle of his grandpa’s chest. 

You’ll grow, Min. But you have to drink your milk, or else you’ll be short forever like your old man.

He peaked around his grandpa. But his grandpa was having none of his shy bullshit that day. He gripped his elbow and dragged him to stand beside him, strong and tall, with a sturdy hand on his back. His face flushed red when he saw the boy standing in their mudroom.

A head full of curly black hair, dark eyes and deep dimples. He looked strong compared to the kids his age, and had at least a foot on Minho. The kid flashed a smile at him and extended his hand. Minho took it, and the boy squeezed hard. His grip was strong and his palms were calloused, like the men his grandpa worked with. “Chan, this is my grandson Minho, Minho this is Chan. Chan is going to be working on the farm this summer helping Baekhyun.”

Chan, soon to find out, lived down the road in a little cabin with his dad, sister and brother. He was fifteen, three years older than Minho, which was why he hadn’t seen him at school much. You really only knew the older kids if you had siblings in their grade, which Minho had none. 

Chan bowed his head, “it’s a pleasure. Again, I’m really grateful for this. I hope I can be useful.” 

“Minho, why don’t you show Chan to the garage and you guys can take the four wheeler to the barn. Baekhyun should be just ‘bout done with morning chores by now.”

“M-me?” Minho stared at his grandpa, who laughed at how wide his eyes had grown. 

“Yeah you. Who else? I don’t think Maddie would do a good job at onboarding a new hire.” At the sound of her name, the blue tick that was lounging in the living room perked her ears up and they listened to the sound of her nails scraping against the hardwood floors as she came into view. She barked when she saw the new face standing in the door, “you’re a little late girl. If he was an axe murderer, we would’a all been dead.”

Chan laughed at that, and the tension in Minho’s shoulders relaxed a bit. “Chan, d’ya do much hunting? I take her out on rabbit runs a couple times a year if you ever wanna come with me. We don’t always get much, but it’s a good time.”

“Yeah, yeah I do. That sounds like a great time. You let me know next time you plan a run.” The boy stuffed his hands in his pockets and then his grandpa pushed him into the mudroom, nearly into Chan. 

It wasn’t that Minho thought Chan was particularly nice, or cute. He didn’t know him at all. But for some reason, Minho wanted to. He shoved his feet into his boots and motioned for Chan to follow. 

When you’re a kid, getting to show off all the things you know and are good at makes you feel like you’re on top of the world. Not only was Minho getting to show some newbie around his farm, but he was three years older than Minho, and was going to get to drive him around on the four wheeler. Thank God that his grandpa had started letting him take it around the farm last summer, or else he would have felt way less cool.

The farm was small. Well, small in comparison to some of the big names around here, like the cow farm next to the high school, or the fields that covered Bristol Creek road. It was big in comparison to his friend’s hobby farms that just had a single chicken coop or one old pony in their back yard. He led Chan down the driveway to the red sheet metal building, a standalone five car garage that housed more tools than Minho could ever imagine needing, a hammock, an old mustang that he had never seen without its blue cover tarp, a side by side and the four wheeler. He let them in the side door, and pulled up on the big sectional, letting sunshine and fresh air in. It wasn’t the best smell, but he had learned to enjoy the way the garage smelled in the summer when it was shut up. Gasoline, dirt, mildew and metal.

“Ah, um, am I going to get a key for this?” Chan asked behind him. 

“I’ll tell you a secret. We don’t lock the man door. If it’s locked, then we’re all fucked because I don’t think grandpa even has a key.” Minho muttered. Chan flinched, seemingly taken back by some part of Minho’s words, but then he nodded and followed Minho into the garage. He plucked the four wheeler keys out of the basket, making sure Chan saw where he was pulling them from, and then hopped on.

Chan stood there for a minute, and Minho thought he might laugh, but then he swung his leg over the seat saddled up close to him, leaning back a bit on the grate that hung off the back. “The barn’s kind of a long walk, so we usually take the four wheeler or the side-by-side out there. ‘Specially when it’s muddy and we can’t pull the truck around to drop off feed bags and such.”

“Gotcha.” Minho put the four wheeler in reverse and back out of the garage, the sound of gravel crunching under the tires audible over the engine. He nearly jumped out of his skin when Chan wrapped an arm around his waist. “Yah! What the—? What, ‘you never been on a four wheeler before? It’s not like a horse, I can’t make it buck and throw us off. Or wait, you don’t trust my driving?” Of course he wouldn’t. Minho just started driving this thing a few months ago and his grandpa still gave him hell about it.  

Don’t run that into the creek. Don’t take that thing to close too the highway. I ain’t pullin’ your ass out if you get it stuck.

He could feel Chan laugh against his back, “Chill out, man. If I knew you were gonna freak out like this I would have offered to drive. Just take me to the barn, Minho.”

His tone was light and teasing, enough to get under Minho’s skin. He grumbled under his breath and then shifted into gear, and they rode off down the little dirt path to the barn. 

Minho showed him the barn, the animal stalls, pointed out which fields his grandpa owned and where the property lines were. Most of their neighbors were friendly but there were a few that got pissed every time Minho chased the animals into their yard. It was a good thing Minho didn’t hunt, because he heard that Jisung had trailed a buck he shot over the property line of one of their asshole neighbors, and the man picked up the deer and kept it for himself! 

Chan met Baekhyun, and that summer, he worked on the farm from sunrise to sunset. 

Minho’s parents died when he was a baby. He didn’t remember them, but it wasn’t exactly a sore spot, because his grandpa took him in and had raised him since then. His grandpa had also always owned the farm, a decent bit of land that had been passed down in his family for generations. It was a simple farm, some hay fields, a plot of rotating corn and soy, beef feeders and then a little hobby barn with some pigs and chickens and two old dairy cows. Nothing particularly special, but certainly a handful. 

One year, his grandpa bought Minho a few goats to take to the county fair. All he remembered was getting rope burn from the lead when his goat was nearly doing backflips to pull out of his grasp, and crying when the local McDonald’s bought his market pair.

His grandpa had started him early, letting him chase animals around the yard and cleaning out the stalls by the time he started school. It was more fun back then when he wasn’t much help, but by the time he turned 10, his grandpa was waking him up at sunrise to go and slop the pigs. He took the four wheeler around to help his grandpa herd the cows. He had even started making him kill the chickens when they got injured or too mean to the flock. 

Minho had begun to worry that his grandpa was going to ask him to work on the farm permanently, but Chan’s appearance had changed that. 

Chan’s little rusted Ford Ranger pulled into their driveway at 6 A.M. every morning, and he took the four wheeler to the barn. At first, Minho didn’t join him. 

But there was something about Chan that made Minho curious. Minho’s behavior was subtle at first. He would walk out to the barn in the middle of the day to see if Chan wanted help, or he would bring him coffee in that big green dented Stanley when he was up early enough, or he would ask to ride to the corner store with him in his beater truck.

His infatuation was subtle until Minho found himself doing it every day. By the end of the first summer, he was awake and standing in the kitchen when Chan would pull in the driveway, and Minho would be out the door with his thermos by the time Chan opened up the garage door to pull the four wheeler out. He would hop on the back and help Chan with chores. He would invite Chan in for lunch and sometimes ask him to stay for dinner. 

Chan didn’t seem to mind, even learned to expect him. The few times where Minho had slept in, or got sick, Chan had picked on him all of the next day. How am I supposed to do my work if you don’t bring me coffee? Sick? I’m sure that was just an excuse not to see me. 

“You have a shadow, I see.” His grandpa was standing on the porch, smoking, watching Chan and Minho water the flowers. Summer was nearly over, and the first frost was coming up, but the flowers still needed watered until then. “He ain’t causing you trouble right? You can tell him to piss off if he is, don’t need him holding you up.”

“Yah!” Minho waved his hose up at his grandpa, not enough to spray him, but enough to warn him. The grey paint on the deck was covered in water, and his grandpa kicked his toe into the puddle to splash it back at Minho. Chan laughed.

“No, not at all. Min’s pretty helpful actually.”

“Oh is he? Maybe I should be giving him some of your pay then?” His grandpa pulled out another cigarette, and there was a beat of silence before they all laughed again. His face was still hot from his little obsession with Chan being spoken out loud. But it wouldn’t deter him in the slightest. 

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Minho was usually a decent sleeper, but for some reason he spent all night tossing and turning. His window was open to let in the cool fall breeze, white linen curtains billowing, but his sheets were twisted around his legs and his pillow was damp with sweat. There were little glowing plastic stars stuck to the ceiling of his bedroom, something he had had since he could remember, bits of blue tack in the spots where a few had finally fallen off. They were taunting him tonight. He had counted them all a dozen times, but to no avail. 

Screw this. He climbed out of bed and passed quietly to the kitchen, running himself a glass of cool tap water. The floor creaked under his feet, and he could hear the jingle of Maddie’s collar as her ears perked up. And then, out of the corner of his eye, a glint of light caught his attention. Chan’s truck was in the driveway. 

His eyes flicked to the little green light on the oven. 4:03 A.M. Sunrise was nearly three hours away, why was he there already? 

After the first summer, Chan came back the next year, starting as soon as school ended for the year, and Minho had picked right back up where he left off, following Chan around, bringing him coffee, inviting him to stay for dinner. 

His grandpa had chalked it up to Minho never having siblings and idolizing Chan because he was older than Minho. But Minho had slowly begun to realize that the feelings in his chest were a bit deeper than simple admiration. Chan didn’t seem to catch on, and was more than happy to hang out with Minho. This year was Chan’s fourth summer on the farm, and his grandpa said that Chan was going to start working in the winters now too to give Baekhyun a break. Every year that he stayed working on the farm brought a bit of contentment to his heart. Another year to get closer to Chan. 

They would sneak up to the woods and fish in the little pond up there, even though they never caught anything more than bluegill and sunfish. They would hop in Chan’s truck and drive to the corner store and buy snacks and soda. They would take naps in the hayloft, when the weather was nice and they finished chores early. Chan presented as an alpha the summer he turned sixteen. It hadn’t meant much to Minho, and he expected he wouldn’t present for a while still. 

Minho pushed start on the coffee pot, and listened to the sound of the garage door opening and the four wheeler peeling down the muddy path to the barn. Chan shouldn’t be there yet. He threw on some clothes and filled the big green Stanley before stepping out onto the porch. The lights were on in the barn. He sat down on the edge of the wood and waited until the lights flicked off and the four wheeler lights hit him. 

When he spotted him, Chan stopped, pulling off the dirt path and through the yard to the edge porch, “Min? ‘The hell are you doing awake this early?”

Minho stifled a laugh. The locusts were still chirping this early, and despite the rain that usually dampened the sounds of nature, it was fairly loud for being just after five in the morning. “I could ask you the same thing.”

Chan rubbed the back of his neck and flicked the light off on the four wheeler so they could see each other clearly. He was wearing a big camo coat and camo pants, and had on a neon orange beanie, “Uh, it’s bow season. Gonna try and get a buck for my dad, and maybe one for your grandpa too if I’m lucky. ‘Seen some good stuff on my trail cam this summer.”

Minho didn’t hunt. His grandpa had taken him to a few youth pheasant hunts, but when he got a climber stand for Christmas, it sat unused in the garage. He wasn’t the biggest fan of how his heart raced wildly in his chest before the gun went off, or how his fingers trembled around the trigger. But sometimes he enjoyed sitting quietly with his grandpa in the blind and listening to the sounds of nature early in the morning. 

“Can I come with you?” He blurted out. Ah, shit. He could feel his ears grow red, and he was thankful that Chan couldn’t see him well in the dark. Chan furrowed his brows and gave him a sideways look.

“Have you ever been hunting before?”

“Y-yes.”

“Hm. Okay fine. Go put on your barn jacket and a hat, it’s cold.” 

Minho walked back inside, heart pounding in his chest as he threw on his Carhartt and black beanie. He grabbed the thermos and a pair of gloves and walked out of the house, careful not to slam the screen door. He was just in time to see Chan pulling a bow and a bag out of the back seat of his Ranger. 

“Min, ‘you ever shot a bow before?” 

“Nope.” 

Chan motioned for him to follow, and they walked to the treeline before Chan put the bow into his hands. It was oddly shaped, like the handle of a mug that had been dented. It was printed camouflage, with neon plastic pieces on the strings. Chan pursed his lips, “Kay, this is a compound bow. This one’s heavy ‘cause I’ve been doing this for a while, so you might not be able to pull it back, but I’ll help you. The important thing is not to dry-fire; uh, which means firing the bow without an arrow. ”

Chan stepped closer to Minho and moved his hands so that he was holding what seemed to be the handle in one hand and one of the strings in the other. Chan took one of the arrows from the side of the bow and nocked it right on top of the plastic bit above Minho’s fingers. He then stepped behind Minho, and placed his fingers over top of the ones holding the bowstring. “No, drop your pinkie, just three fingers. Okay, pull back.”

Minho held the bow out with one arm, aiming at the ground, and tried to pull back on the bowstring only to find that it wouldn’t move. It was shocking how difficult it was to pull back. He tried again, his arm shaking with the stress and pressure. He was only a little embarrassed to feel Chan’s hand tighten and help him pull it back the whole way, until the little saucer at the top of the bow stopped moving. Chan brought his other hand up around Minho, caging him in. He felt his heart lurch in his chest, and then he felt Chan’s fingers graze the inside of his elbow, “I know you’re having trouble holding it tight, but you have to push your elbow out or else it will get snapped by the bowstring.”

With great effort, he shifted his arm and then Chan let go of his fingers and so did Minho. The bow snapped and the arrow dug into the mud about 20 feet in front of them. He smacked a hand on Minho’s back and then went to pull the arrow out of the ground, “Good job, Min. Now, you can carry that for me then.”

They talked for a bit as they walked through the woods but eventually their chatter died down in order not to spook the wildlife. The leaves were damp, and their movement was stifled by the soft pitter-patter of raindrops falling from the trees. Eventually, they came to a large clearing with a large black elevated blind. It was made of plywood, and faced a tall corn feeder in the center. The blind looked handbuilt, maybe by Chan’s dad or Minho’s grandpa, and there was something spray painted on it but Minho couldn’t make out what it was. They climbed the rickety ladder up to the top. There were too small chairs sitting in front of the windows cut out of the plywood. 

They took their seats, the plastic creaking under them. They sat for a long time, Minho’s but and feet going numb after the first few minutes. The sun rose about half an hour later, and the movement started up. Out in the woods, squirrels and chipmunks sounded like elephants stomping around. It took five or six different squirrels before Minho finally stopped peering his head out the blind window to investigate. 

And then things were quiet again. The sun was fully up in the sky now, but he didn’t bring his phone so he had no idea what time it was, and even though the blind was small, he couldn't see Chan’s watch from where he was sitting. He looked over at Chan, but his eyes were fixated outside the blind at a bird that was trying to build a nest above the feeder.

Chan’s hair was longer than it was last summer. Still curly, but now the curls ran past the top of his ears and peaked out from under the rim of his orange beanie. Some girl at school had convinced him that frosted tips would look cool, and there were the bright remnants of that mess streaked through it still. His face had grown thinner too, his jawline and nose more pronounced. There was a scar on his neck, but he wasn’t sure what it was from and he was fairly certain it wasn’t there last year. 

Oh yeah, the time. 

The blind was small, there were maybe four feet from wall to wall. The chairs were almost touching. But he leaned over anyway in an attempt to peek at Chan’s watch. But he noticed, and whipped his head to the side and it struck Minho like a slap to the face, just how close he and Chan were. If he had leaned forward anymore, their noses would have touched.

And then another punch to the gut was the sudden realization that he had a huge crush on Chan, and all these months of following him around and staying up late together and hugging close to him on the four wheeler when he didn’t need to and praying that he would present as an omega so Chan might look at him hit him all at once. His face lit up like a Christmas tree and his lips parted to speak, to explain why he was leaning so close, but his words died in his throat. His eyes were stuck, glued to Chan’s own dark orbs. And the Chan leaned in too, fast enough that Minho couldn’t process anything, couldn’t pull away. Their lips met. Tentatively, softly. Heat crept down Minho’s spine, and goosebumps covered his arms and legs. 

Holy shit, he was being kissed. Chan was kissing him. 

When Minho didn’t pull away, Chan pressed in further, fully locking their lips and Minho let his eyelids flutter closer. Chan tasted like coffee, but he didn’t dare part his lips to get a better idea. He was afraid to move even a muscle, like Chan was a hallucination that would disappear when the light hit him the right way. Chan lifted a hand up to Minho’s neck to pull him forward, and he had to grip the edge of the blind window to keep from falling off his chair. His mind was racing and his heart was beating so fast that he swore Chan could hear it. But he seemed to be in his own world, not caring that Minho was on the edge of his seat, or that his little hand was trembling where it was braced against his jacket. 

Maybe it was dramatic, but Minho was sixteen, a great time to have hormones and emotions. But at that moment, Minho thought that he could probably die happy now. 

The crunching of leaves at the foot of the blind tore their attention away, both of their heads whipping sideways. Chan and Minho both moved slowly to peer out the window. An eight point white tail buck, fur still thin and dark from the warm summer months, was standing a few feet away from the corn feeder. They watched it for a few quiet minutes, breath stuck in their chests, as it took a few bites of corn, and then pawed at the dirt in the clearing. Time seemed to stand still, yet move so quickly. The build up of anticipation and adrenaline was instant. He couldn’t move because he couldn’t scare the deer, but he needed to move, to grab for the bow. Chan shifted in his chair, and then put the bow in Minho’s hands. 

Minho’s eyes went wide and he shook his head, but Chan nodded, and then knocked an arrow for him. Chan helped him raise the bow in the deer’s direction. If Minho’s heart was racing before, it was hitting mock speed now. The sound of his blood rushing through his ears was louder than the sound of Chan’s breath on his neck as he peered over Minho’s shoulder to get a good aim. 

“Go for the lungs,” he whispered against the shell of Minho’s ear, barely audible, but the deer didn’t look towards them. Fuck if I know where a deer’s lungs are. Minho’s hands were shaking so bad that it was difficult to align the sight. The arrow was different from the one he had knocked earlier; instead of a dull small tip, it had a large sharp broadhead with holes in the metal. It was now that he was standing with the bow in hand and the deer in sight, that he considered the fact that bow hunting usually meant striking the deer in a way that caused it to bleed out rather than shooting to kill. 

But then the deer lifted its head in Minho’s direction and he didn’t think. He shifted slightly and dropped his fingers, letting the bowstring snap. His arm wasn’t in the right place and the string snapped against his skin, a painful string that brought tears to Mingo’s eyes instantly. The deer jumped, and then ran off, already leaving a trail of blood. “Shit, Min you got it! And I think you got a lung too!” Chan clapped his hand on Minho’s back and grabbed the bow from him. “Ah, okay, we don’t want to run it out any further. Let’s walk back and have some breakfast and we can get the four wheeler, come back and track it down, yeah? Come on.”

Minho was stunned. He was excited. His arm hurt. When he rolled out of bed that morning, he hadn’t expected to go hunting, or see Chan this early, or shoot a bow for the first time, or kill his first deer, even if it was with Chan’s help. His grandpa would be excited too, right? 

As they walked down the trail, Chan rambled about how it shouldn’t rain again so they should be able to track the deer, and maybe they could bring Maddie to help, and how he hoped they found it before dark, and a bunch of stuff that Minho was trying really hard to listen to. But he felt drunk, thoughts in his head getting all mixed up, barely able to answer simple “yes” and “no”s as he talked. Even with all the excitement of the successful hunting trip, Minho could still feel the plush of Chan’s lips against his own. Warm, bitter, and so soft.

When they found the deer, Chan strung it up in the garage, and showed Minho how to clean the carcass. He gave the antlers to Maddie, and gave the meat to his grandpa. 

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Nothing changed between them after the kiss. Chan was older than Minho, while Minho was still going to school and Chan had started working on the farm full time. They were just different; at least, that’s what he had told himself every time he tried to bring it up to Chan, and got brushed off. Despite that, his heart raced every time he and Chan were alone, but he had eventually let his crush on Chan wither. The older he got, the more that following around some alpha on his farm seemed less cute and more pathetic. 

But they were friends, so they still had dinner together, still went fishing, and still rode to the corner store in Chan’s truck. They were friends with some of the other kids their age that lived in the area too, and would have fires at Changbin’s or Jisung’s when the weather was decent. 

It was almost Minho’s senior year, and he decided that he wanted to become a family doctor, which meant going to the local community college and working at the tiny hospital in town and hoping that his test scores were good enough to get into the medical school upstate. His grandpa loved the idea, and even offered to save a few bucks back to help him. 

Unfortunately for Minho, they were in a poor rural area, and his high school was more focused on getting kids to graduate than it was focused on prepping them for college. Most of his peers wouldn’t attend secondary school anyways. Which was fine, but that meant that he needed to start preparing early. His summer was filled with studying for the SAT and ACT, and doing some one-off college prep courses that his counselor managed to set up for him and one other student interested in secondary schooling.

More school meant less and less of Chan. But the distance made it easy to forget about his dumb feelings that had been plaguing his mind over the past five years. The only hang up was that Minho presented as an omega.

And once he presented, he could smell Chan’s scent. He smelled like strong coffee and mahogany. 

He poured coffee into the big Stanley thermos, and stepped out on the porch when he heard the four wheeler pull back down the dirt path. Chan pulled off by the porch and flashed a bright grin at Minho. Minho pursed his lips in return. He was more grateful for it now that Minho wasn’t there every day and he didn’t tease him anymore about it like he used to.

The summer before his senior year was blistering hot. Olivia Press, the WTZA meteorologist, was claiming record high temperatures every other week, which made for a lot of dry soil and unhappy animals. 

He climbed into the cab of Chan’s truck, and his knees instantly started sweating where his skin made contact with the red leather. He was still driving that little Ford Ranger, the one he’d had since he started working at the farm. Minho had found out that his dad bought it for him from a work buddy. $900, less than 200k miles on the odometer and a clean title. He told Chan that he needed to get a job to pay him back for the truck and to pay for his own fuel, which led him down the road to Minho’s grandpa. He cranked the window down as Chan got into the driver's seat and shifted the truck into gear. The corner store was only a few minutes down the road, owned by one of the bus drivers at the high school. Apparently, on the last day of school every year, he stopped the bus at the store and let everyone get free soft serve, but that was just a rumor. 

Chan pulled up to the single pump in the gravel lot and they both got out. Birds were chirping and the sound of the truck doors slamming echoed in the hills past the field next to the store. Minho rounded the bed and flipped the switch on the pump, and began fuelling the truck. He leaned against the bed and watched as Hongjoong pulled in with Wooyoung in tow. He had a pretty red Dodge Challenger that he had apparently gotten as a graduation gift from his dad. He saw it tearing up the road every now and then. He always thought a flash car like that would be shameful to drive around here when most of the roads were gravel and mud, but the car looked freshly washed every time he saw it.

Hongjoong was Chan’s age, but Wooyoung was in his grade. They lived on the other side of town close to the old greenhouse. They were usually at the school in the summer to do conditioning for baseball season, but he wasn’t sure what Hongjoong was up to now. He waved at them, and watched as they entered the store, the little bell ringing once, and then a second time as Chan pushed the door open. He had a little bag filled with two Mountain Dews, barbecue sunflower seeds, peanut M&Ms and a pack of Pall Mall blues. Their usual order. He beat the pack on his palm a few times, and then pulled one out, sticking it between his curled lips. Chan peeled away and they headed down the road to the feed supply store before he sparked his lighter.

They both cranked down their windows, and Minho shifted forward to turn the radio up, “God, Chan. Those stink. You really couldn’t have waited until I wasn’t trapped in a confined space with you to smoke?”

The wind whipped through the cab, and Minho could barely catch a whiff of the smell. Chan huffed out a laugh, smoke pluming out of his nostrils. He ashed the cigarette out the window and then motioned for Minho to open his Mountain Dew for him, which he did without thinking, setting it back in the cup holder with the lid loose. A few drops spilled out of the top and down the side. The truck wasn’t a smooth ride by any means, but they were used to it, “Don’t knock it till you try it.”

“Yeah, I don’t really see the appeal. Can’t imagine something that smells like burnt rubber and old laundry would feel that great.” Minho leaned back and kicked a foot up to the dash. He still had his boots on, but the truck was covered in a layer of dust anyway. The small town faded into tree cover, the wind taking on the scent of hay and creekbed.

He glanced over to see Chan holding his hand out in the space between them, the cigarette pinched between his thumb and forefinger. Chan glanced away from the road and nodded down at his hand, like he expected Minho to know what he was suggesting. Which he did, he did know but he couldn’t believe it. He served Chan a dramatically appalled expression. “Come on, Min. Try it. You might like it.”

Minho wasn’t stupid. Minho wasn’t naive. But he was very swayed by Chan. Minho plucked the cigarette out of his fingers, a few sparks of ash falling onto the bench seat below. “Now, don’t just suck on it, actually breathe.”

He felt like an idiot as he put the orange bud between his lips. It was warm, and the taste was…interesting. He could taste the coffee Chan had that morning, but he could also taste a weird acrid chemical flavor and what he assumed smoke tasted like. It burned and he hadn’t even taken a breath yet. When he did breathe in, hot smoke filled his mouth and his lungs and there was nothing that could have prepared him for the sensation. He nearly dropped the cigarette on the floor as he coughed. He held it back out between them for Chan to take, but he couldn’t hold his hand steady, chest heaving. It was a horrible feeling, and on top of that, his head swam like he just spent an hour on The Scrambler at the county fair, which didn’t pair well with Chan’s janky old Ranger that needed new shocks and struts. 

And Chan just laughed.

He laughed so hard that when Minho finally caught his breath, he could see tears in the corners of Chan’s eyes. He threw his fist out and punched Chan’s shoulders, “You fucking ass. Could have warned me.”

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

Minho’s seventeenth birthday came and went, and so did his last year of high school. He and Chan drifted even further apart. They didn’t even see each other once a week at that point, which was outrageous considering Chan worked in the same place Minho lived. 

They still saw each other, but it was different. Instead of early morning coffee runs and doing chores together, Minho watched Chan’s truck drive down the road in the evening from where he was sat at the kitchen table, hunched over books. He only came over for dinner when his grandpa invited him to stay, or when Chan caught enough fish to share for a fish fry. Sometimes, Chan offered to drive Minho to class, and they would stop at the corner store and get their usual, and Chan would smoke and ask him about school, but it wasn’t the same anymore. Chan didn't know what to talk to Minho about, and Minho had lost a lot of the motivation he had to make Chan interested in him, to like him and to always keep their conversation flowing. The silence wasn’t awkward, but it left a melancholy ache in Minho’s chest.

He was sitting at the kitchen table, a glass of iced sweet tea dripping condensation onto the wood, too close to his worksheets for comfort. His grandpa had gone up to Amish Country to get some sausage and fry pies, so the house was quiet. Maddie was snoring in the living room, the scanner was silent, and the fan was spinning fast enough that he could hear the roof creaking with its pull. 

A knock on in the mudroom pulled Minho out of his focus. Chan leaned against the doorframe. He had on a black tank top, his flannel tied around his waist, jeans hugging his hips. He didn’t move into the kitchen because he still had his boots on. He had let his hair grow out this year, and he had it pulled back in a low bun, a few strands falling out to frame his face. Personally, Minho thought he looked quite handsome with long hair, but he would never tell Chan that. Chan would probably get a buzz cut just to spite him. 

“Hey, Min.” Chan crossed his arms over his chest, which only accentuated how broad he had grown.

“Hi, Channie. Need something?” Minho could see the sweat that was dripping down his forehead now. He probably wanted water, but he didn’t think it was that hot outside yet. Chan seemed to run hot. Plus, he could drink from the hose if it was that sweltering.

“Um, yeah. I was wondering if you wanted to go up to the pond with me.” The pond he was referring to was the little pond in the woods that they used to fish at when they were younger. It wasn’t big, nor very clean, but it had a healthy spawn of minnows and bluegill, and the water was always cool under the cover of the trees. But he hadn’t been there in almost two years now. Why Chan was inviting him up was a true mystery. His heart thumped against his chest in betrayal. 

“Oh, okay. Sure.” Minho put his pen in his book and closed it. Chan walked out the front door, and he followed suit, slipping on his boots. Chan had grown much more broad since he presented as an alpha, and working on a farm had made it worse. Standing behind him, Minho could barely see anything but back and shoulders. They walked out and hopped on the four wheeler. Chan had been carrying a bag, which he carefully laid in the milk crate that they had screwed onto the back grate. He swung his leg over the seat and saddled in close to Chan, wrapping his arm around his waist like they used to do. Because it was still muscle memory. He could feel how warm he was, even though both of their shirts.

The trail was still clear from the winter, but the new, fresh growth covered the woods in a pretty bright green. Chan didn’t say anything on the way up, and Minho didn’t ask. The pond was still, the surface rippling softly with each breeze that rustled the trees. It was early summer, one of those days where you sweat if you stood in the sun, but shivered in the shade. They took off their boots and socks, toes digging into the soft clay. Minho was in shorts, thankfully, but Chan had to roll up his jeans, hooking them above his knee before sitting down on the dead locust log by the edge of the pond. The log had been there for ages, and they had managed to strip nearly all the bark from it. 

His eyes caught a big black splotch. Chan had a tattoo. He waited until both of their feet were in the water before he asked about it, “When did you get that done?” 

“‘Few months ago.”

“Why?”

“I thought it was cool. You don’t like it?” Chan twisted his leg so that his calf was fully on display for Minho. Nearly every inch of the back of his calf was inked with the semi-realistic head of a wolf. The wolf’s eyes looked like they were staring straight at him. 

“No, it’s cool. Just didn’t expect that from you I guess.” Chan let his leg fall back down and the water rippled with the movement. 

“That’s kinda surprising, you know me pretty well.” The words hit Minho in the chest. Hard. He did know Chan pretty well. He knew that Chan was the kind of guy who started smoking cigarettes at seventeen because he found out that he could buy some from the corner store with a fake note from his dad. He knew that Chan would sneak out of his classes in the middle of the day and drink in the dug out with his friends. Of course he would get a giant tattoo of a badass wolf. He knew Chan, or at least he used to. 

And he probably did still, but the distance just hurt. It made something ache deep in his chest and Minho couldn’t help but take it personally, even if it was his fault, even if he was the reason that they weren’t seeing each other anymore. 

“Yeah,” he let his words trail off. They sat on the log for a few minutes, letting their feet soak in the pond, watching the minnows investigate their toes, toying with the ants that were trying to tunnel into their seat. Chan pointed out the spot on the beech tree across the pond where they had carved their initials a few years ago. And then he got up, and walked over to the four wheeler and dug around in that little bag he had brought. Minho watched him pull out a brown cardboard box, and then walk back over, his wet bare feet now caked with bits of leaves and grass. He sat down next to Minho and then handed him the cardboard box. 

Minho blinked down at it.

“You can open it.”

“Did you get me something?”

Chan furrowed his eyebrows like Minho just asked if the sky was blue, which was fair. He pulled the lid up, and laying on its side was a slice of chocolate cake, with chocolate icing and pastel pink sprinkles. He watched Chan pull a cheap pink candle out of pocket along with his lighter. He stuck the candle into the cake and lit it. 

“Happy birthday, Min.”

Shit, it was his birthday. He had forgotten his own birthday, and so had his grandpa, and the few friends he had at school. But that really didn’t matter. Because Chan remembered, and he was here, singing him happy birthday over a single slice of chocolate cake, up at their spot in the woods where they had spent days and days together. His sweet vanilla mint scent pushed out without warning. 

He looked down at the cake, where a small bead of wax had dripped down the candle. Chan finished the final line, and Minho let out the breath he had been holding, effectively blowing out the candle,  “Did… did you make this?”

Chan scratched the back of his neck sheepishly, “Well, yeah. But Hannah helped. And ate most of it already. The rest is back at my house in the fridge. You can have more later if you want.”

Minho wanted to melt into the ground, “Did you bring a spoon?”

“Fuck.” Chan muttered under his breath, and maybe it was all the nervous energy that had been building from the moment Chan asked him to come to the pond, but Minho nearly doubled over with laughter, and so did Chan. It raked deep in his chest.

“You did all this? You did all this and didn’t bring me a spoon to eat with?” Minho slapped the bark of the log, “Ah, fuck it.” 

Minho wiped his hand on his shirt and then dug into the cake with his fingers. Chan let out a high yelp, but he couldn’t tell if it was out of confusion or surprise. He ate the chunk of cake, and licked the icing off his fingers. It was sweet, moist and delicious, chocolate coating his tongue. Definitely the work of Hannah, not Chan. He picked up another chunk, “Here Channie, you try it.”

He thrust the cake towards Chan’s mouth, and either out of instinct or disgust, he jerked his head, and Minho missed his mouth, smushing the cake into his cheek. His mouth fell open, “Oh, Minnie, you’re so gonna get it now.” 

Chan jumped up, and Minho tried to keep the cake and box intact as Chan chased him around the pond, jumping over dry brush and shallow puddles. Minho nearly dropped the cake as he skittered up the beech tree, but Chan grabbed his ankle and down he went. 

He fell with a surprised scream, birds that had gathered in the clearing flying up into the trees for safety, but Chan was right there underneath him. Chan fell onto his back and Minho was laying awkwardly on his chest, arms splayed out, remnants of chocolate cake lost to the woods. Maybe the racoons or coyotes would enjoy it. Chan still had a glob of icing on his cheek. Minho braced himself on his chest, enough to look at him. He brought his finger up and scooped the icing off his cheek and into his mouth. He wrapped his lips around the tip of his finger, pulling off all the icing with his tongue. 

“You’re trouble,” The smile he had on his face despite having fallen on the hard forest floor with a grown man on top of him was infectious. His eyes had narrowed to fine slits and all his teeth were on display. And those dimples. Those fucking dimples. 

“I learned from the worst.” Minho giggled, but didn’t roll off of him just yet. Chan’s face softened, and Minho could feel him slowly, tentatively, bring his hands up to his waist, fingers curling into the fabric of his tee shirt. 

“Minho. I… uh, I miss you.”  Minho could feel his face grow hot, and Chan’s grip on his waist tightened. Chan’s ears were bright red. He wished he could look away, but their faces were so close that it wouldn’t matter. His red ears and timid smile were like a beacon, “You know, I really adore you.”

“Ah, um. I know, Channie,” he looked down Chan’s face, he didn’t mean to. He didn’t mean to look at those pretty lush lips, but he did. And just as quickly, one of Chan’s hands moved up to his neck and pulled him down. 

Their lips met. The kiss was sweeter than their first one all those years ago. They tasted like chocolate, and now they could both feel something more. The way their scents exploded. Minho’s sweet vanilla mint mixed with Chan’s bitter coffee. It wrapped around them like a blanket. Minho could feel something, a quiet rumbling in Chan’s chest as he parted his lips, eager to take more from Minho, whatever he will give. 

It was different this time. So much different.

He let his tongue slip in, and suddenly things felt real and hot. Chan’s hands slid under the fabric of his shirt to caress his back, and Minho felt a gush of slick coat his boxers. Chan could probably smell it, smell how aroused his scent was, just from Chan touching him and licking into his mouth. If he was honest with himself, it was a bit pathetic. But he wasn’t thinking about anything like that at the moment. 

Chan groaned into the kiss and pushed his hips up, and he could feel jus how hard he had grown with Minho on top of him. Minho’s omega started taking over. It wasn’t something he had experienced often, but he knew what it felt like. The little voice in his brain that chucked out reason when an alpha’s smell was particularly alluring. The voice that told him to lift his ass up when he walked and to stare at alphas through his lashes. The voice that was screaming at him right now to let Alpha knot him because he wanted Alpha so badly, because he would surely die soon if he wasn’t filled full of Alpha’s knot. 

He couldn’t do this with Chan. 

Before he could act with any rationality, Chan was lifting them up, and had moved to mouth at Minho’s neck. The moment his mouth made contact with his scent gland, Minho’s vision went fuzzy. Static shot through his body and his veins flooded with a warm calm. Chan’s teeth grazed the skin and he sucked a dark purple mark into his trapezius. The smell of vanilla and coffee was so intense that it was making him dizzy, burning into his nose so strong that he thought he would smell it for months.

Minho’s back hit something hard and warm. He pushed Chan off him just enough to see that he had laid him on the back of the four wheeler. 

“Ome- Min. Minho, can I?” Minho’s legs were still wrapped around Chan’s hips, hands still tight around his waist, his tee shirt riding up to expose the soft skin of his stomach. 

The amount of emotion coursing through his body right now would usually make him sick, or make him cry. But Chan’s strong coffee scent was burnt into his nose. He realized why things had felt so much worse since he presented. Chan smelled like home, like the farmhouse kitchen in the morning. The dark roast coffee that was always lukewarm in the pot, and the natural hardwood floors. He smelled like Minho’s home, and all Minho knew was that he wanted him. Minho had wanted him for so long. The embarrassing ugly crush that he could never shake, his first love. Because Minho loved him. Minho loved Chan. 

“Please, Channie. I want you to be my first, I’ve never wanted anything more. I know you’ll take care of me.”  His voice was raw, high-pitched and needy in a way he had never heard it before and it made him want to bury his head and hide. Chan let out another low growl, maybe in content or just out of lust. He peeled off his shirt off his own shirt before tearing off Minho’s, lifting his torso up off the grate with the force. The early summer air was cold on his bare skin, and a ripple of goosebumps covered his arms. His nipples stiffened too, partially from the cold and partially from the way Chan was staring down at him, hand running absentmindedly over his bare torso. Like a man starved. 

Chan pulled down Minho’s shorts and boxers with a single tug, dragging them over his ankles and hooking them on the handlebars, so that Minho was left in just his socks. Chan still had on his jeans, but he unbuckled his belt and pulled out his cock. Whether Chan was big or not didn’t matter, because as soon as he saw it and smelled it, Minho’s mouth started watering and that pesky omega began scratching at the walls of his brain again.

Alpha’s knot. Need Alpha’s knot. Tight hole needs filled with Alpha’s knot now. Now. Now.

The thoughts made him want to pull his pants back on and walk down the hill alone.

Minho squirmed under Chan’s hold, and he was made aware of his own hard cock twitching against his belly. His movements were slow in lieu of speaking, and he pulled Minho’s hips forward. The hard plastic dug into his skin. He had to brace one hand behind him to help with the awkward angle where he was splayed out of the metal grate on the back of the four wheeler, but Chan seems determined to make it work. He leaned forward to suck a more red marks onto Minho’s chest, breathy groans leaving his lips as he worked his way down. His lips and teeth on his skin didn’t compare to anything Minho had ever experienced before. Except maybe a good nap in the warm fall after putting in hay. 

By the time the head of Chan’s cock caught on Minho’s rim, he was so wet with slick that they would have to wash the four wheeler when they got back. His hole was clenching around nothing, and Chan was teasing him, rubbing the head of his cock around Minho’s rim, pushing in just enough for Minho to think he’s getting relief before pulling back off. 

“C-Channie, stop that. It’s not funny.” Minho gasped out, grabbing Chan’s arm to try and pull him closer. Chan laughed and yanked Minho’s legs up so that his ankles were pressed into Chan’s cheek, held in juts one hand. Fuck, his hands were so big. His ass was still flush with his hips, Chan’s cock still out somewhere in oblivion and not in Minho’s ass. He leg out a frusterated groan, “Fuck, fuck. Alpha. Alpha please. Need you.”

Chan looked down at Minho, and he watched in real time as his pupils dilated wide, swallowing up his chocolate irises, his smile stuttering and slipping off his face. Minho nearly screamed as he pushed in, burying himself to the hilt without warning. He felt so full, so fast, slick gushed out coating both of their thighs, and Minho had to bite his lip to keep from sobbing. His breath was stuck in his chest. Chan stilled, waiting for him to inhale again. Where he was laying on his back, legs up in the air, he could see a small bump below his belly button. He could see Chan’s cock inside of him.

Chan moved his free hand from where it was wrapped around Minho’s thighs to rest over the bulge on his abdomen. “See this Minnie?” 

He pulled out, and then thrust back in, hard and fast. It felt like he had been punched in the gut and he threw his head back with a groan. When he lifted his eyes back to Chan, he still had his hand on his stomach. Chan was thrusting in and out, pushing down with his palm on his lower abdomen.

Fuck, it hurt but it felt so good. So good to have his tight hole filled by an alpha. Filled by Chan. His Channie. His thrusts followed an even rhythm now and he squeezed Minho’s legs tight to his chest. Sweat coated his ankles where they were pressed against his cheek. His cock bobbed uselessly against his stomach, strings of precum falling from his tip, and he let his head lull back. He could feel pools of drool gathering at the corners of his mouth but he didn’t care. He was holding onto the four wheeler for dear life, and every thrust was making his head spin and his vision cloud. 

Chan’s grip on his ankles tightened, and he paused his thrusts, rubbing Minho’s tummy with a deceitfully soft touch.

“Minnie, baby. Do you want pups?”

Minho blinked his eyes open to stare at Chan. He was so fucked out already, that the only thought that went thought his head was “what’s this idiot rambling about now?”

“S-sure.” I don’t know. I don’t care. Why did you stop fucking me?

“Fuck.” Chan uttered the word like it was his final breath, and then he punched back into Minho. He writhed under him in pain and pleasure. Chan was so big, Minho wasn’t sure if he was completely in. There was no way he could take his knot, “I’m going to fuck a whole litter into that pretty tummy of yours, baby. Gonna fill you so full that there’s no way it doesn’t take.”

Minho groaned at the words, and nodded furiously, biting down on his lip. He pulled out, and flipped Minho over so that his ass was hanging off the side of the four wheeler and his toes were supporting him, socks buried in the soft dirt. He was momentarily awed by his ability to toss Minho around like he weighed nothing. Chan squeezed his waist with a tight grip, aligning himself before pushing back in.

Minho actually screamed. A nasty sound like a wounded animal. Chan reached forward and grabbed his balled up tank top off the handlebar and stuffed it in Minho’s mouth before he could protest or scream again. It wasn’t like there was anyone around to hear them. If Minho thought he was full before, he felt like he was being stabbed now. The new angle punched deep into him, and it felt like the worst stomach cramps he had ever had, worse than his second heat. Each thrust was causing spots of black to pepper his vision, and tears freely flowed down his face.

His head was at war. It’s not supposed to hurt this bad. Fuck, Alpha’s gonna fill us full of pups. I think I’m going to die. I’m going to die on Alpha's knot. 

Chan was grunting above him, and he had moved his hands from Minho’s waist to his elbows. His fingers wrapped around the flesh of his triceps, and pulled him back into his cock that way, pressing his shoulder blades together. His chest was lifted up off the four wheeler, and the tank top hung from his mouth, but it was clenched in his teeth and dripping with sweat and tears, “Sh-shit, my pretty Omega. My pretty Minnie. So fucking tight for me. So tight and so sweet. Saved this just for me. Saved your pretty hole just for when your Channie was ready to get you pregnant.”

Minho came. He was so blinded by the pain that he had ignored the growing heat in his lower belly, the tingling in his toes and his feet. All the breeding talk went straight to his dick. He came over the seat of the four wheeler, with Chan still thrusting in and out of him. He clenched and he could feel Chan’s knot beginning to swell.

Minho's screaming was muffled, but he could stop. He was unable to keep from bucking his hips away from Chan now, overstimulation sending shockwaves through his body. “Almost there, almost there Minnie. Don’t you want Alpha to knot you?”

Chan’s strong bitter scent hit his nose and he relaxed, just enough to let him fuck into him a few more times before his hips stilled, flush with Minho’s ass. He was shaking, body sweating and vision still blurry. Warmth filled his insides— Chan’s knot. His womb was being pumped full of cum. He spit the fabric onto the ground, and let his head fall limp against the plastic, breathing heavily. Chan leaned down and pressed a kiss to Minho’s shoulder, and then his neck and his scent gland. 

The warmth on his back retreated, but gentle fingers traced lines over the small of his back. 

“C-chan? How long are we stuck like this?” His voice was shaky and nearly gone, vocal chords raw. Chan’s hand stilled.

He was silent for far too long. 

“Oh, Min. Uh. Just a few more minutes. A-are you okay down there?” Chan’s voice was wavering, and Minho almost thought he was crying but he couldn’t turn his head to investigate. His tone was restrained, like he hadn’t wanted to ask, or maybe was afraid of the answer. 

“Yeah, ‘M okay. Thanks.” It felt weird now. Too weird. Like they were waking up from a dream. Chan’s scent took on a new aroma, and he recognized it as anxiety, which in turn made him anxious too. It couldn’t hurt that bad to pop off a knot, right? Now that he was thinking about it, all that screaming and squirming was dramatic. Of course his first time would hurt. And it hadn’t been bad enough for all that drama. He was embarrassed. They should leave, get out of there. He could feel where his knees had knocked against the wheel well, and where sticks and rocks had stuck into the flesh of his toes. If he didn’t get out of there soon, he might start panicking. 

“I’m gonna pull out not, okay?” Chan asked, and then he lifted Minho’s hips so that the pressure was gone, and he felt a gush of slick and fluids run down his thighs as Chan’s cock left his hole. Being empty after that felt like being shot. Minho wanted to claw back at him, to push him back inside and make him stay there. But he didn’t. He let Chan maneuver him, using that drool soaked tank top to wipe Minho’s legs up enough to put his underwear and shorts back on.

Chan pulled him into his arms and brought his hands up to Minho’s head and guided his nose down to the crook of Chan’s neck. His scent had calmed down, enough to calm Minho down too, wrapping him in a warm blanket of contentment. 

Chan drove them back down to the farmhouse in silence. Despite everything, Minho was warm and satiated. He pressed his cheek into the bare skin of Chan’s back and let himself smile. His Channie.

Things would be different now. Surely they would. He helped Minho into the house, and he was going to wave him off the go shower and rest, be he stopped him in the hallway, “Channie. Thank you. For everything today. It was a nice birthday.”

He could have swore he heard Chan whimper, a strangled noise in his chest. Chan was staring at him with those big dark eyes, brows furrowed, he almost looked like he was in pain. “M-min. I’m so sorry. I’m…”

“Oh, it’s okay. I’m on birth control. For my heats. So, don’t worry about that.” Minho smiled at him, but Chan just looked even more hurt. He pulled Minho in for a tight hug, pressing a chaste kiss to his temple before leaving Minho in the bathroom to shower off the remnants of their time together. He left a sour, burning scent in his wake. 

Things between them didn’t change.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

The next few days were a blur. The coroner showed up and poked around the barn, and walked over coffee with Minho and Chan in the sitting room of the farmhouse, asking questions that only pissed him off. He even asked Chan to attempt to “push” the tractor over, which Minho thought was very ignorant, and he nearly insisted that the man leave right then. 

The funeral was held the Tuesday after the accident. Chan had shown up to help with chores every day since the accident, but they didn’t talk. Minho didn’t know how his grandpa had paid Chan or Baekhyun— That was another thing. His name was on none of the bank accounts or bills or the LLC. He had no idea how to go about that and the idea of calling all those places with the death certificate made his head hurt. 

Regardless, he assumed Chan would eventually stop coming to help. Once Minho found his footing. This wasn’t his farm, it was Minho’s now. 

Chan insisted on taking him to the funeral. He had gotten a new truck last year. Now, instead of the squeaky Ford Ranger with the bed half rusted out that sounded like it had been straight-piped, he had a fairly new F-250 with a long bed and extended cab. Not new enough to be flashy, but reliable and practical for a blue collar man. It was taller than his old truck, and Minho had to climb up into it when they went to the corner store. It still had the bench seat though, Chan made sure to tell Minho that the day he brought it home, like Minho gave a shit or something. 

He pulled into the driveway and let it idle. Chan stepped out and walked around the truck to meet Minho. He didn’t have a suit or anything, but he had a black button down, khakis, and a green tie that he wore to prom one year. Chan straightened it out, and cuffed Minho’s sleeves once where they had fallen over his palms. He opened his door for him and waited until he was inside before he walked back around and climbed in himself.

The world felt unreal. Static filled his head, like his brain had been replaced with thousands of ants crawling around inside his head, and when Chan reached forward to turn on the radio, Minho didn’t even notice. He had forgotten to make coffee too, the Stanley freshly washed and laying in the dish strainer beside the sink. 

Minho nearly cried when he realized, but Chan shushed him by turning left at the stop sign and taking them to the corner store. Minho didn’t get out of the truck. Especially not after seeing  Chungha’s Buick and Jinnie’s Tacoma parked on the side of the building already. 

They both usually drank their coffee black, but Chan got them both french vanilla cappuccinos from the silly instant coffee machine behind the counter. It was only a few more bucks than the brewed stuff. He also got Minho two bags of peanut M&Ms as some sort of “please don’t cry” offering. The chocolate was sweet, but his acrid scent sours the taste in his mouth. He wanted to throw them away. 

Chan pulled out his cigarettes, and they both cracked their windows like muscle memory. Chan’s new truck had power windows, which was nicer than the crank he had to turn a billion times in the Ranger. He glanced over at Chan as he exhaled the smoke that quickly disappeared out the window. Minho held his hand out between them, fingers pinched to grab.

Chan glanced over at him, and then down at his little hand. He finally smiled. The first smile he had seen from him since the accident, not that Minho’s mood was above sea level even once. Chan barked out a laugh, a puff of smoke with it, “No.”

They pulled into the parking lot of the funeral home. The gravel parking lot was full of cars already, and Chan had to park a good ways away from the building, backing his truck in line with a few others that were too big to fit in the rows of cars. Minho got out of the truck before he killed it, leaving his half finished cappuccino in the cup holder. His brain was still fuzzy. It didn’t take very long for Chan to catch up with him, the closer he got to the funeral home, the more he wanted to turn back and leave. Go back to the farmhouse where it was quiet, and he could curl up in his bed. He could hear the people inside already, talking over the old country music that was playing quietly in the background. 

There were flowers everywhere. 

It was busy. Minho found a spot against the wall to stand until it was time for the program. He couldn’t sit even if he tried. People approached him, nearly everyone who walked through the doors approached him. People he had known for years, some were strangers he had never met before. It was a small town, everyone knew his grandpa, so, sure enough he had talked about Minho to anyone who would sit still.

They offered condolences, tried to make small talk, explain how they knew his grandpa or offer to make him dinner. Some even brought casseroles, lasagnas, and pans of funeral potatoes to the viewing, which Chan grabbed before he could even lift the foil from. 

Minho’s eyes stayed glued to the closed casket, but he couldn’t make himself inch any closer. Chan lingered beside him the whole time. He directed people away from Minho, people he knew Minho didn’t have the energy for, like his old English teacher, or the lady from the farmers market that only sold alpaca yarn. Chan took flowers and cards and stuffed him in Minho’s bag. When it was time to go to the cemetery, Chan picked up the bundles  and vases of flowers and put them in his backseat. They would take them to the nursing home later, but not yet. He even shoved some of the casserole dishes, as many as he could, into the cooler he kept in his truck bed. 

Chan drove them to the cemetery. He would be buried next to Minho’s parents. Minho, Chan, Changbin, Baekhyun, and two of his grandpa’s friends were the pallbearers. It felt surreal, walking over the hill with the casket on his shoulder, placing the shiny wood down onto the platform, watching as it was lowered into the ground. They didn’t stay to watch it be covered in dirt. They walked to Chan’s truck instead, after saying quick goodbyes to Changbin and Hyunjin. 

He shut his door, and a loud silence filled the cab. It felt like Minho was in a bubble. He could see the window blow on the trees outside, see the people still gathered up on the hill, but he couldn’t hear any of it anymore. Chan looked at him, his hand on the key in the ignition, foot on the clutch. Minho looked at him. He wondered what he, himself looked like right then; probably tired. Eye bags and pale skin and a blotchy face from trying to stifle his emotions. Chan started the truck, and the roar of the engine popped the bubble. 

Tears streamed down Minho’s face. He leaned forward onto the dash as sobs racked his body. It was like opening the flight gates. He hadn’t cried since that night, and now it was all coming back again, like a wave he had no chance of fighting. He felt Chan’s knuckles against his back, rubbing slow circles into the fabric. Even his homey woodsy scent did little to calm his frayed nerves.

He didn't know how long he cried, how long they sat there in the cemetery parking lot, but he also didn't know when he stopped crying or how they eventually made it back to the farmhouse. Chan helped him into the mudroom. He grabbed a single bouquet to set out on the kitchen table. He directed Minho to the couch, and watched him slump down, closing his eyes and burying his head into the fabric. Chan walked back out to the truck and grabbed the casseroles and funeral potatoes. There were so many that most of them ended up in the freezer, too much to eat in one week. He walked onto the porch and lit up a smoke. Minho couldn’t see him from where he was laying down, but he knew he could smell him.

When he woke up again, it was dark outside. His head ached and his knees protested his ascent from the couch. Maddie was curled up on the floor by his feet. There were different flowers on the table now, and more casseroles in the freezer than he remembered receiving from the viewing. He peered out the screen door to see the barn lights on. 

It couldn’t be moving on autopilot, not with how much he had to will his sluggish body to move, but his head wasn’t exactly down on earth either. His body wasn’t happy about it, but he walked to the garage and pulled the four wheeler out, tearing down the little dirt path. Chan was out doing evening chores, spraying out the stalls and refilling water troughs when Minho peeked his head in. 

“Oh, hey Min. You’re up.” Chan turned off the hose and wound it up to be placed on its hook. “A few people stopped by, dropped off more food and flowers. Hope you don’t mind, I didn’t want to wake you, but I wrote their names down in case you wanted to thank them later.” Chan gave Minho a small thin lipped smile.

Suddenly, he felt embarrassed about his emotional outburst earlier, “Oh, uh, no. No, not at all. Thanks for letting me rest.”

He tried to help Chan finish chores, but Chan spun him around and pushed him back towards the four wheeler. And honestly, Minho was way too tired to fight him about it.