Archive of Our Own

Jeonghan has a really weird penchant for asking questions at the most ridiculous times.

The kinds of questions you have to take stock of yourself for, to make sure you’re not losing it and hearing things because that’s just about the only way to rationalize the horribly inappropriate timing of it all. He’s odd like that. Seungcheol’s reminded of it now, while he’s watching his middle finger disappear slowly into the inviting pink warmth of Jeonghan’s cunt. At the ask, Seungcheol stops in his tracks and (regretfully) tears his eyes away from what he’s up to between Jeonghan’s legs to look at his face instead, unsure if he’d even heard him correctly. “What did you just say?”

A foot hits his collarbone. He deserved that — Jeonghan hates repeating himself, which he knows. Jeonghan doesn’t quite look him in the eyes when he says again, “Should we have another pup?”

Seungcheol blinks, head vacant. And then, with his free hand, he has to reach down and palm his dick so he doesn’t pop a knot in his pants right then and there. His alpha scratches up his insides, an animal clawing at a cage, starving. He bites his lip to calm down and realizes his canines have protracted a little, and have drawn blood which he tastes.

“We..you..” Seungcheol can’t, for the life of him, get himself to not sound like a fumbling idiot at the moment. He looks down at his finger inside Jeonghan distractedly, and then up at his face again. Jeonghan is watching him now with a touch of uncertainty in his eyes, round and searching. He’s so fucking cute. Seungcheol wants to reach up and smooth that silly little crease in his brow out. It’s obvious — Jeonghan is nervous. That means he’s definitely been thinking about this, for long enough that he’d waited to catch Seungcheol off guard by asking when he’s his most vulnerable and soft.

It goes without saying — of course Seungcheol wants another kid. He wants fucking fifty. An army of little Jeonghans and Seungcheols running around and spreading mischief and giving him high blood pressure. Of course he wants to see Jeonghan bred full of him all over again, walking around all pretty and round with that ridiculously gorgeous glow that makes Seungcheol need to jack off at least twice daily. But that’s Seungcheol. He wants a lot of things that he doesn’t voice because he knows better than to let his greed cloud his judgement. There’s a reason they stopped with Sarang five years ago, after Jeonghan had experienced his second god awful pregnancy in a row with barely a year in between. Putting Jeonghan through that again feels criminal. He can’t believe Jeonghan’s here asking him to do that now.

“You can say no, Cheol.” Jeonghan’s nose wrinkles when Seungcheol’s silent a beat too long, the way it does when he’s a little embarrassed.

That’s…well that’s the complete opposite of what Seungcheol wants to say right now. He licks the metallic tasting split skin of his bottom lip and pushes his finger in a little deeper, watching Jeonghan’s knees draw together at the feeling and reveling in the breathy sigh that escapes him. “Now why on earth would I say that?”

Jeonghan coughs out a delighted little laugh and it makes Seungcheol's face split open with the force of a reflexive grin. “I dunno, Cheol. You say a lot of things.”

“No I don’t actually. That’s all you, Hannie.” His finger begins to work in a tight oval, starting up a massage that makes Jeonghan gasp softly beneath him. “You still need to take responsibility for telling our daughter that the tooth fairy would buy her a dollhouse if she cleaned her room by the way.”

Jeonghan’s eyes have slipped shut but he grins through his bit lip — an impish little thing. “Mmm,” he hums. “No I don’t. Her Appa’s definitely going to buy her the Barbie house she wants. Because he loves her.”

Seungcheol doesn’t bother arguing with that. He’ll look on Coupang tomorrow. He hopes Jeonghan never complains about him spoiling the girls again.

“Can you give me one right now?” he asks with renewed focus, monitoring every last one of Jeonghan’s tells as he slides another finger in alongside the first. Jeonghan makes a soft, almost wounded little noise at the feeling, grabbing hold of Seungcheol’s forearm for a moment, lashes fluttering. It spins Seungcheol for a dizzying loop as he watches, with his eyes fixed first on the slender fingers wrapped around his wrist for anchoring and then on Jeonghan’s trembling jaw and parted lips. He curls his own fingers further up into the heat stretched around them when Jeonghan gives him a breathless nod in response and feels proud of the new sound he’s rewarded with in turn.

When he’s like this beneath him, with his legs parted just for Seungcheol, all flushed and soft looking, it’s impossible to look away for even a second. Blinking, breathing — all of it becomes tertiary, overridden by a mind-numbing desire to make Jeonghan feel good. He watches so closely, tracking the way Jeonghan pulls his hand off his wrist to press the pads of his fingers to his pussy and rub measured circles against his clit with a stuttering sigh, that he actually forgets he needs to exhale for a dangerous moment.

He breathes again, if only because Jeonghan would kill him if he’d managed to suffocate himself to death before fucking him properly. And because Seungcheol is a dilligent alpha who takes the task of fucking his omega on his fingers quite seriously, from this point it doesn’t take very much. He’s gotten pretty good at this, after a decade and some change — muscle memory is a powerful thing. Like the back of his hand, he knows exactly where and how to press up against the soft ridges inside Jeonghan when he starts to shiver like he’s close — has the wrist movements down to a special science to draw him closer to the edge. In just under a minute he has Jeonghan jackknifing beneath him, getting slick all over the bed and Seungcheol’s hand and his own as he comes hard and silent, shaking with his release and baring the bitten and bruised column of his neck as he throws his head back into the mattress.

“Fuck Hannie.” Jeonghan losing it on his fingers gives Seungcheol’s desperation a new, achingly sharp edge. He needs to be inside him more than he’s needed anything ever he thinks to himself, deliriously hard. His heartbeat is pulsing up in his skull when he’s pulling off his sweatpants and his boxers as fast as humanly possible to achieve exactly that, nearly tripping in his haste to step out of them.

He wastes no time flipping Jeonghan onto his stomach, pleased with the little yelp and giggle he tugs out of him. His hands are shaking slightly when he clumsily pulls Jeonghan’s hips up, mouth dry as he takes in the beautiful curve of his back while his upper half rests on the mattress. He adjusts his grip on his narrow waist, presses himself against his heat.

God. Sinking inside him is actual heaven, everytime. Maybe even better. If heaven isn’t this feeling all day, every day, Seungcheol’s not sure he wants it. He’s so soft and warm inside and Seungcheol thinks he wants to stay here, buried inside the heat of Jeonghan’s pussy, forever. Eternal paradise, or whatever they say.

“Mm.” Jeonghan had been horny all day long and Seungcheol had smelled it, so he’s not surprised to hear the throaty, satisfied whine that escapes him when he slides all the way in in one go, all of the overstimulation and built-up need cresting here and now.

Eager to please, Seungcheol makes sure to fuck him the way he knows he wants — hard and deep and a little mean. He playfully tugs on Jeonghan’s hair that’s making a halo around his head where it’s glued to the mattress and he lets out a little ack sound that makes Seungcheol laugh.

Embarrassingly fast, Seungcheol gets close, listening to Jeonghan’s soft hitching breaths with every thrust. He has no choice but to slow down, dangling from a cliffside at the overwhelming tightness and searing warmth. It’s not a coincidence when Jeonghan starts squeezing tighter around him when he feels his orgasm looming — Jeonghan is a mind reader and also a little bit of a bully when it comes to him. Seungcheol whimpers and it’s possibly the most humiliating noise he’s ever made. He can tell Jeonghan is laughing at him into the bed because his shoulders are shaking.

“It’s okay, Cheollie,” he lifts his head out of the mattress to say. “You can come inside. I know you want to.” His voice is low, barely a whisper. “It’s okay. Get me pregnant again, Cheollie. Knot me. Pup me up.”

Seungcheol fucks into him so hard right then that it forces a startled moan out of Jeonghan. And that’s all it takes, really. He’s a simple man, and an even simpler alpha, and Jeonghan goading him into breeding him is more than enough to send him right over the edge. He pops his knot thinking about Jeonghan walking around full of him, glowing and glossy haired and beautiful.

“Seungcheol!” Getting knotted turns Jeonghan on like nothing else so it’s not exactly a shock when he follows Seungcheol shortly after, shuddering while crying out into the sheets he’s biting with a hand underneath him working feverishly at his clit.

“Did you mean it, Hannie?” Seungcheol asks a little later when they’re laying a bit more comfortably. It’s not entirely perfect because they’re lying on top of a puddle of slick and are still locked together, which feels great in theory but also means being forced to get creative position-wise until his knot goes down. Still, it’s nice like this, with them almost nose to nose. “Do you want another baby?”

“I didn’t say I wanted another baby, Cheol,” Jeonghan argues, just to be difficult. Quieter, he adds, “But yes. I do.”

Seungcheol feels like the wind’s been knocked out of him at the admission — a full speed wrecking ball straight to the left chest. He studies Jeonghan’s face across from him. He’s so beautiful like this. There’s a tiny smile twisting at his lips and Seungcheol can’t overcome the urge to lean forward and kiss them. “Okay,” he breathes when he pulls away, staring at the slight swell he’s sucked into his cupid’s bow. “Another one. Let’s do it.”

01

“How long do we wait?”

Jeonghan hums, opening his eyes. He’d let them slip shut while he tried to relax. “Like three minutes.”

Seungcheol nods, leaning against the bathroom counter. A beat passes.

“You said it’s two lines, right?”

“Yes,” Jeonghan bites out. “No more questions.” Seungcheol snaps his mouth shut.

Across from him, Jeonghan’s busied himself biting his nails down to stubs where he’s sitting on the edge of the tub. Seungcheol can feel the anxiety wound tight inside him by way of their bond — a prickle at the base of his own neck, accompanied by a momentary wash of disquietude that doesn’t quite belong to him. He wants nothing more than to dislodge the apprehension and help to soothe him but he’s painfully unsure of how.

They’ve never actually done this before — a planned baby. Haeri had been an accident. Fresh out of college and barely adults in the true sense of the word, Jeonghan and him had finally run out of luck with all the raw sex they’d have both in and out of Jeonghan's heat cycle. They were young and stupid, and putting a lot of blind faith into birth control Jeonghan wasn’t using very diligently. It rocked their world. Jeonghan had done the test in Seungkwan’s apartment and had come home to Seungcheol in pieces, bursting into inconsolable tears while he tried to burrow into his chest as far as he could go, crying about feeling scared and stupid and not knowing what the hell to do with a whole baby.

After Haeri came Sarang — another happy accident. Not even a full twelve months after her birth Jeonghan had told him he was pregnant again. Seungcheol vividly remembers Haeri latched onto Jeonghan’s nipple as he said it.

Right now, the intentionality behind it all is new, so Seungcheol’s never been present for this part. The grueling wait to learn if you’ve really gone and done something as big and irretrievable as creating a life. It makes you horribly impatient, he’s learning. He’s not as tense as Jeonghan, but he can sort of understand the nerves in that regard, even though Jeonghan had asked for this. Especially considering, it’s a lot different when this potential life is inside you, and it needs you to grow, enlisting you and your body in a non-negotiable parasitic bond that sucks away your lifeforce piecemeal for nine or so months, right up until it makes a show out of evacuating itself from you. Sometimes, it amazes Seungcheol that Jeonghan’s done this as many times as he has. That he’s willing to do it again.

“You okay?” He can’t resist the urge to check in. Jeonghan cracks an eye open after having closed them again to breathe in deep and maintain his composure while they sit and wait.

“What did I say about questions?”

“Talk to me, Hannie,” Seungcheol urges, ignoring him.

Jeonghan sighs long-sufferingly, rolling his eyes, like his husband loving and caring about him is the most difficult thing to shoulder in the world. “I’m fine,” he mumbles.

Alright. Studying him closer, he doesn’t look that fine, but Seungcheol knows better than to question by now. Jeonghan’s usually a bit more skilled at keeping it together — or giving the illusion of that, anyway. He runs a tight ship when it comes to letting himself feel anything too strongly and normally tamps down on any sort of errant swell of emotion he can’t reign in easily. But the edge to him now feels pronounced. Heavy — maybe heavier than it should be, considering Jeonghan had been excited to try for a new pup, had even been the one to suggest it in the first place — and Seungcheol can’t put his finger on why exactly. He figures it could be the general stress of taking care of two primary schoolers while working from home leaving him all raw around the edges and more susceptible to the nerves that are already compounding. But when it comes to Jeonghan, his predictions are off the mark more often than not. Even the biochemical bond isn’t enough to piece together what’s going on inside his head sometimes. And well, maybe he doesn’t know better than to question after all. He wonders aloud, “What are you thinking?”

Jeonghan considers him for a moment, eyes askance. At first, he says nothing. Seungcheol’s fully expecting to be ignored, which would be far from the first time. But then Jeonghan tucks his bangs back behind his ears and answers, honest.

“I’m thinking that I’ve wanted this for a long time now. If it’s negative I’m going to be really upset,” he laughs quietly. “And you’re so excited that it feels like if I don’t see the results I want I’ll feel like a failure.”

Huh?

Seungcheol balks at that, head physically jerking back a little in his disbelief. He surprises himself with how quickly and earnestly he gets upset at the mere suggestion, like it’s a personal affront. It may as well be honestly — anything that comes in the way of the worship of Jeonghan he practices in his head daily is as good as a flat out rejection of his entire being. “A failure?” he squawks in bewilderment. “How could you ever think that? You’re perfect.” He means it. Quite possibly more than he’s meant anything ever.

“It's stupid, shut up, I know. My omega’s all twisted up over this.” Jeonghan puts his face in his hands and his voice gets all muffled. “I just really want another baby right now.” He lifts his head, revealing a rare nakedness to his expression. A small smile ghosts across his lips. “Haeri and Sarang keep asking. Those greedy girls we’ve raised. Each other isn’t enough — they want a third now. And they got to me, I guess. I want them to have that too.”

Seungcheol’s heart stirs behind his ribs. Collapses in on itself a little. “Baby.” He closes the space between them and kneels in front of Jeonghan at his seat perched on the edge of the bath. “I want you guys to have that. I want us to have that.” He grabs his hands, smoothing his thumbs over knobby knuckles. “If this isn’t it, we’ll just keep trying until it happens.”

It’s been four months or so worth of trying, give or take. Jeonghan told Seungcheol he wanted another baby very deliberately before his upcoming heat. He’d already stopped his birth control by then. But that first serious try had been to no avail. Jeonghan didn’t even bother with a test, frustratingly symptomless.

Then, three months later he had his next heat. Not to mention the time in between they’d spent fucking like rabbits in every sliver of free time they had to give Jeonghan what he wants. And since last week, Jeonghan’s been feeling nauseous, and dead on his feet. On Friday, they’d gone outside in the cold so Sarang and Haeri could play in the freshly fallen snow and his nipples had been so sensitive he had to run back inside the house, unable to bear it even with his hoodie on. He’d finally made Seungcheol run and buy the tests this morning after throwing up the budae jjigae Seungcheol made for dinner last night.

Really, Jeonghan has nothing to be nervous about. It’s so obvious that he’s pregnant at this point, Seungcheol doesn’t think they even need the damn test. But he understands, in part. Getting his hopes up after that first heat just to have them crushed must have been disappointing. Jeonghan hates disappointment a more than normal amount. And Seungcheol can see how badly he wants this without him even saying it. It’s written all over his face, visible in the tense line of his shoulders as he stares distantly at the tests on the counter past Seungcheol, palpable in his scent. His omega is aching for it, the need sunken bone deep. The way he’s all keyed up is definitely a response to that.

“I know we’ll keep trying,” Jeonghan tells Seungcheol, petulant. He pouts a little and it’s so cute that Seungcheol wants to die. “I just want it to happen now.”

“Aish. You’re so impatient,” Seungcheol laughs at him. “Sarang definitely gets it from you.”

That earns Seungcheol a playful swat to the chest. Jeonghan parts his lips to retort but finds himself interrupted by the chime of the timer on his phone in the pocket of his (Seungcheol’s) sweatpants. They share a quiet look.

Seungcheol stands first. Wordlessly, Jeonghan outstretches a hand so Seungcheol can heave him up and off the bathtub’s edge. When they’re both in front of the counter, Jeonghan’s so still for a moment Seungcheol’s worried he’s not even breathing.

But, for all the dramatics leading up to it, the reveal is painfully uneventful. Jeonghan finally flips a test over and sees two dark pink lines in the results window. He meets Seungcheol’s eyes in the mirror, lips pursed in that silly little half-surprised ‘o’ face he likes to make sometimes. He flips the other two and sees a YES+ and ‘Pregnant’ face up on the counter. Immediately, Seungcheol feels the ball of tension at his nape dissolve into something impossibly soft and warm.

“You were all worried for nothing,” Seungcheol pulls him in by the hip and kisses him, because it’s the thing he wants to do the most right now. Make Jeonghan feel even a fraction of the feeling that surges inside him whenever he’s near. He loves him, and the baby he put in him. God, that feels surreal to say. It’s hard to believe they’re doing this all over again.

“Thank you,” Jeonghan murmurs against his lips when they’ve pulled apart. They stay like that, close together, so Seungcheol can feel his smile without properly seeing it. He’s cheesing ridiculously hard. Seungcheol makes it his mission to keep him this happy for all nine months of this. Forever, if possible.

“Nope. Thank you, Hannie. I mean it.”

Jeonghan’s huff of laughter is immediate and it makes them knock their teeth together a bit. He pulls his head back, still giggling. “God, you’re so embarrassing.”

+

“Sarang, sit still please,” Jeonghan scolds gently. Sarang huffs exasperatedly and rolls her eyes (where did she even learn that) before climbing back onto the couch next to her sister. At the sight of her disgruntled little face, Seungcheol bites his lip and swallows a laugh that would have no doubt left him on the receiving end of a nasty glare from Jeonghan. They’ve been coaching her on how to respond to instructions respectfully, and it shouldn’t be funny really, but he can’t help the way Sarang’s proclivities for behaving like a little shit were so clearly inherited from her Eomma. Jeonghan disagrees. Which is why it’s so funny.

“When can we make snow angels?” Haeri asks, violently swinging her legs back and forth off the edge of the couch. “Eomma can you make hot chocolate too? With marshmallows please.”

“I want hot chocolate!” Sarang raises a hand to shout. At least she’s retaining this part of primary school.

“Girls, focus on Eomma please. We can go outside in a bit, but only if you use your big-girl ears and listen up,” Jeonghan tells them, a hand on his hip. Seungcheol wrestles to quiet his alpha’s low rumbling that sounds somewhere in the recesses of his chest. Jeonghan competently parenting their children always gets him weirdly horny. But now isn’t the time.

“Me and your Appa have something really important to tell you,” Jeonghan continues, looking at him a little nervously. Seungcheol meets his gaze, flustered and nowhere near reassuring. There isn’t really a script for this that they’d discussed. He’s got two t-shirts bunched up in his hands that he’s hiding behind his back that read “I’m a big sister” and “I’m an even bigger sister” respectively, but beyond this role as shirt-bearer he’s not exactly sure what else he’s meant to do here. He’d entrusted the speaking part to Jeonghan because he’s horrible at shit like this.

“Are we in trouble for drawing on the walls again?” Haeri asks, pouting a bit. “Because I can use my painting kit from Uncle Jisoo and fix it so don’t worry.”

Jeonghan frowns. “You guys drew on the walls again?” Seungcheol sighs at their sheepish little faces. They definitely need to invest in some more Magic Erasers.

“Bug, Peach, this isn’t about that. Although we will be discussing the walls later,” Seungcheol says sternly. He doesn’t normally play bad cop (is barely even capable of it, honestly), but he thinks he should pick up at least some slack if Jeonghan’s going to be the one doing the big reveal.

“Your Appa’s right. We have news for you two. Top secret news,” Jeonghan tells them. Sarang perks up, hearing her favorite buzzwords.

“Top secret?” she gasps. “Are we your spies now, Eomma?”

Jeonghan looks at Seungcheol, amused and biting back a grin before turning to them again and schooling his face so he looks uber-serious. “Yes, you are Peach. Both of you.” It’s basically the truth — outside of their grandparents and Jeonghan’s sister, Haeri and Sarang will be the first to know.

“What’s the secret?” Haeri asks, the big, pretty eyes that she stole from Jeonghan wide and unblinking.

Jeonghan puts a gentle hand over his tummy — it’s still flat, save for the minimal bloating you can see whenever he lifts his shirt. He doesn’t hold back his smile now, looking at Seungcheol wordlessly one last time. Seungcheol takes the hint and gets the shirts ready.

“Sarang, Haeri,” Jeonghan pauses dramatically to be a tease, ramping up the anticipation. Seungcheol watches in amusement as Haeri and Sarang both lean forward on the couch impatiently, itching to hear it. “You’re going to have a little brother or sister soon. Eomma’s going to have a baby!” Seungcheol holds up both of the shirts with that as his cue. “Surprise!”

The living room falls pin-drop quiet. There’s a moment of stunned silence from the two of them and Seungcheol briefly worries that they’ve finally broken their daughters. Neither appear to blink for a full minute and it starts to get mildly terrifying.

Haeri and Sarang both know what it means to “have a baby” of course — their Uncle Seungkwan gave birth to their baby cousin Haneul just last year, meaning they probably have a solid enough image of what that will look like for their Eomma. Still, Seungcheol considers the possibility that they’re confused, and that they’ll need it explained again.

Turns out there’s no need for that, though. Seungcheol’s worries are assuaged the moment he sees Haeri’s face light up. Seemingly having processed the words, she beams and squeals all at once, putting her missing front tooth on display with her open mouthed noises of delight, and Sarang joins in, not wanting to be outdone. Both of them leap off of the couch and dash straight into Jeonghan to attack him with hugs, the force of it nearly toppling him over.

“Eomma Eomma, is it an alpha like me and Sarang or no?” Haeri asks right away, pawing at Jeonghan’s shirt, trying to lift it and see his tummy. “Girl or boy?”

“Can we name it Bluey?” Sarang asks, hugging Jeonghan’s thigh with her chin jammed into the meat of it so she can look up at him with her humongous puppy dog eyes. Haeri scoffs, scowling at Sarang.

“We can’t name it Bluey, pabo.”

“Hey! Appa said you can’t say that!”

Seungcheol feels a bit left out, holding their special shirts up lamely. His part to play was a lot grander in his head honestly. Jeonghan, ever the angel, notices, and takes pity on his beloved loser of an alpha, who’s pouting only a little bit about being ignored. He runs a gentle hand across the skin of both Haeri and Sarang’s cheeks and lets out a light, exaggerated little gasp to draw their attention. “Did you girls see the pretty t-shirts Appa got for you?”

In scary sync, they whip their heads in Seungcheol’s direction. His girls are as fast as they are fickle, it seems. Within seconds, Seungcheol has a pup clinging to each leg, abandoning their Eomma and craning their necks up to look at their brand new shirts.

“I’m…a…big sister?” Sarang squints, trying her best to read the screenprinted hangul with her limited and still developing literacy. Seungcheol nods and smiles at her, chest swelling with pride. His girls are so smart. All Jeonghan, he thinks.

“Mhm. And for Haeri, it says I’m an even bigger sister. So Sarang, you get to be a big sister for the first time, and Haeri you’ll be a big sister to two pups. Isn’t that exciting?”

Sarang cheers, nipping at Seungcheol’s thigh through his clothes in excitement (she’s still growing out of her biting phase, but it’s been a real uphill battle). Beside her, Haeri nods slowly, giving the words some serious thought. The look on her face now does not quite belong to a six-almost-seven year old. She seems to be considering something of grave, pressing importance, like how Seungcheol himself gets sometimes when he’s at work and on a time crunch for a project deadline — an immovable furrow of his brow on his face while he works that stays in place even when he gets home, until Jeonghan comes behind him to massage away the tension in his shoulders and ask What’s wrong, jagi. Haeri has his eyebrows, and that same intense look now. For a moment, she wavers, apparently deciding what she wants to say quite carefully.

“I’ll take good care of them both, Appa,” she says finally. She sounds deathly serious. Seungcheol recalls she had this same inflection to her voice when she solemnly announced it was time to bury her beloved stuffed animal Mr. Fluffy whose head she and Sarang had managed to rip off by “accident”. That earnestness in her tone throws Seungcheol for a loop and he freezes a little stupidly, wondering in amazement when the hell his eldest daughter had gotten so mature. But the truth is she’s always been like this — wise beyond her years, ready to shoulder the weight of any and every responsibility she decides is her own. He believes what she says because in her almost seven years of being on this earth and her five of being a big sister, she’s never given him a reason not to.

That thought alone makes him a bit emotional. He blinks away the sudden sting to his eyes before dropping a hand down to ruffle her hair, throat tight when he says, “Ah. That’s my girl.”

Sarang releases her toothy grip on the flesh of his leg. “What about me?”

“You too, Peach,” he ruffles her hair, making her giggle. “Now how about you two go put your shirts in your room and grab your coats and boots for the snow.”

They don’t need to be told twice. Sarang yanks her shirt from his grip and sprints away down to her bedroom with Haeri hot on her tail. “No running inside!” Seungcheol calls after them. It’s no use.

At the silence, his shoulders sag in relief. He didn’t do much of anything, but he manages to get himself worked up over stuff like this anyway, by proxy.

He finally turns to Jeonghan now that they’re alone in the living room and immediately feels his brows shoot up when he sees him turned away with his face in his hands, taking in the slight tremble to his shoulders. “Shit, are you crying?”

“Oh my god, shut up,” Jeonghan sniffles, furiously wiping his eyes. “I can’t believe Haeri just said that.”

Seungcheol pulls him in for a hug and lets him cry a little more into the crook of his neck, soaking it wet. The crying is honestly supposed to be his thing, but gets it. He hadn’t cried then but it had been a very near thing. Plus Jeonghan’s all pumped full of hormones because of the baby.

“Our kids are wonderful, Hannie,” he says, close to his ear, stroking his hair. “We’ve done a good job.”

Like clockwork, there’s a shriek that comes from the general direction of the girls’ bedroom. “Appa, Eomma, Sarang’s biting me again!”

They let out twin sighs and regretfully pull apart. How lovely. “The job’s not done though.”

02

The lighthearted honeymoon phase that follows the test and confirmation lasts a good week or so at best.

“Last time you held my hair like this we were doing something a lot more fun.”

Before Seungcheol can respond, Jeonghan’s ducking his head back into the toilet to heave again. He grimaces. It’s not the vomit that makes him wince, because fatherhood has primed him for this by greatly increasing his threshold for what it takes to gross him out — he just feels bad. Seeing Jeonghan sick really hurts his feelings.

“Mm I forgot how terrible this part is,” Jeonghan says with a humorless laugh, spitting into the toilet one last time.

Seungcheol rubs his back soothingly. Reminds, “At least it’s not as bad as before, with Haeri.”

“Ha. Biggest understatement of the fucking century,” Jeonghan groans at the memory. Seungcheol is keenly familiar with this role as human hair tie, and he became a near permanent fixture to the bathroom of their old apartment when Jeonghan was in it throwing his guts up with Haeri practically every hour of the day. ‘Morning’ sickness with Sarang had been terrible too, but his experience with it while carrying Haeri was distinctly nightmarish because of how perpetual it seemed to be, with him sick all the way up until the end of his second trimester. He was miserable. It was miserable. Seungcheol is eternally grateful that this part of the pregnancy is shaping up to be a lot easier on him.

“Do you want me to grab you some ginger ale and crackers?” He offers, releasing his grip on Jeonghan’s hair. “And then you can go lie down and rest.”

Jeonghan stubbornly shakes his head, flushing the toilet and shakily rising up off his knees. “Can’t. I have to get ready to take Haeri to gymnastics.”

Oh. Seungcheol’s brows shoot to his hairline as he rises to his feet beside him. “You’re still going? I thought you’d let me take care of it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You have to take Sarang to her doctor’s appointment.” He pushes past Seungcheol to get to the sink. “Plus I need to get groceries. And to pick up Haeri’s birthday cake, and the decorations.”

“Jeonghan,” Seungcheol pleads, overwhelmed for him. “Why don’t you ever let me take care of shit?”

“Because I’m fine, Seungcheol,” Jeonghan snaps. The bite to it sends them into a brief, stiff silence. Jeonghan is quick to show remorse though, looking apologetic in a matter of seconds. “Sorry,” he sighs, at least sounding half like he means it. Seungcheol frowns, feeling a small tide of deja vu wash over. It’s not exactly the pleasant sort. After all, this is an echo of the sort of arguing they used to do when Jeonghan was pregnant with Sarang.

See, the thing about Jeonghan is that he likes to be taken care of, but only when it’s out of his own volition, Seungcheol’s learned. Seungcheol has a slight tendency to hover, that multiplies tenfold when Jeonghan’s pregnant, and it annoys him to no end. He hates feeling patronized and because of this, it’s hard to find middle ground, where Seungcheol’s alpha feels content in the knowledge that its mate is being cared for to the best of his ability and Jeonghan feels content in not having to fight the urge to smother Seungcheol in his sleep.

“You’ll call me if you need anything?” Seungcheol asks with a resigned sigh, knowing when to cut his losses. He’s still uneasy of course, but if Jeonghan says he can handle the mountain of errands he’s got laid out for him today then Seungcheol believes him. He’s got no choice but to, anyway. He’s no match for Jeonghan’s bullheadedness when he’s got his mind set on something. In that respect, they’re a lot alike — flipped images of one another. That’s how Seungcheol knows to give up quickly and easily.

Jeonghan meets his eyes in the mirror, cheeks puffed up with the water he’s rinsing out his mouth with as he nods. Seungcheol kisses a water ballooned cheek and makes a bit of water dribble out of his lips. He earns himself a playful shove to the face for that.

+

On the way to the appointment, Sarang spends the entire car ride talking Seungcheol’s ear off. Seungcheol thinks the most curious thing about being a father is his newfound ability to endure the full twenty-five minutes of this without the beginnings of a headache blooming between his temples.

Before he can even finish buckling her into her carseat, she asks for him to connect his bluetooth to the speakers and play the Trolls movie soundtrack and he does. Halfway through, she pauses her explanation of the plot of Spongebob in its entirety to ask for cookies and Seungcheol promises to take her to her and Haeri’s favorite cafe so she can pick out some treats for the two of them. She even asks to buy cookies for the baby in Jeonghan’s tummy which makes him huff out a laugh and say Sure, why not.

He doesn’t have the heart to remind her she’ll most likely be getting shots today just yet. He’d already told her at some point, but she’s seemingly forgotten somehow, and the mere thought of having to deal with saying it again makes Seungcheol feel utterly exhausted. Sarang’s tantrums are worsening of late and Seungcheol is scared he’ll have to stop her from trying to escape through the window if he mentions it again.

They don’t wait for long in the waiting room, and Seungcheol is silently grateful for it. After pulling into the parking lot, he checks her in, fills out a chart on a clipboard, and then hears a nurse call “Choi Sarang,” all in a matter of a few minutes. The first part of the examination goes by just as fast, and Seungcheol realizes with dread what he has to prepare both himself and Sarang for.

“Appa, I’m cold,” Sarang pouts when she’s sitting high up on the exam table, waiting for the nurse in a hospital gown.

Seungcheol kisses the crown of her head. “I know baby, I’m sorry.” He takes off his hoodie and covers her little legs with it. “Bear it just a little longer for Appa, alright?”

Sarang nods with surprising ease. She’s tired, having tuckered herself out with all of her incessant prattling in the car, and Seungcheol can see it in the way her head is listing to the left and her eyes are drooping shut. It’s times like this — when she’s all dozy eyed and desperately fighting that losing battle with sleep — that she looks like Jeonghan the most. From her seat on the cot, she makes a tiny snuffling sound and rubs her eyes with her fist. She’s so fucking adorable that it aches a little. Seungcheol still doesn’t have a clue how he had anything to do with her being on this Earth.

He stands at her side and leans against the examination table so she can rest her tired little head on him. With a hand stroking her hair he decides to stop delaying the inevitable and remind her of what’s coming.

“Sarang,” he starts, gentle. “Do you remember what I told you about today? About what was going to happen here during the appointment?”

She shakes her head no against his left chest, jostling the little plaited pigtails she’d insisted Seungcheol braid into it before they left the house. Of course she doesn’t. God forbid something go smoothly and easily for once. Seungcheol winces, biting the bullet. “When the nurse gets here, Sarang, she’s going to have to give you a few pokes. Just like I told you. It’s going to hurt a little, but it’ll be super quick, and after I’ll make sure to tell them to give you a pretty bandaid to cover —”

“No!” Sarang shouts immediately, arms crossing over her chest in a show of fierce petulance. Seungcheol sighs, bracing himself for the storm coming.

“Sarang, it’s okay,” he says, not budging while she tries to wriggle out of the arm he has curled around her. Realizing she’s effectively trapped, and condemned to the cruel and unusual punishment that is her vaccine schedule, her lip pokes out and wobbles and Seungcheol feels his heart sink in anticipation of what that look means. Within seconds she’s a loud, wailing mess beside him, choking on sobs and getting her tears all over his shirt.

With quick thinking he gently grabs her by the armpits and lifts her up so she can cry into his shoulder while he carries her, like he used to do when she was about half as tall and had barely a scoop of hair on her head. He tries to pump out some sort of soothing pheromone that she can hopefully smell through the patch on his neck, but he doesn’t think it’s working very well. God, he wishes Jeonghan were here. He’d get her to stop crying instantly somehow. He’s so impossibly good at this parenting shit that Seungcheol is in awe of him always.

Seungcheol should be grateful though, because at the very least, Sarang isn’t tantrumming, hiccuping little sobs into the side of Seungcheol’s neck instead of trying to escape from his grasp and the hospital altogether. Seungcheol’s heart breaks for her. He kisses her head and whispers soft encouragements near her ear to calm her down.

The nurse reenters not too long after the big reveal, holding Sarang’s mortal enemy in the form of pathogen fighting injections in her palm. She’s a sweet woman, a young, petite omega who’s been pretty chatty with Seungcheol for the entirety of the visit. Seungcheol feels a bit stressed near her, though, because she’d had a lot of questions and it’d been hard to keep up and match her energy. Where do you work? Wow, how did you manage to give our Sarang those dimples? Do you work out? It really really looks like it!

It’s not that he’s not appreciative of the amicable conversation — he is. Of course he is. He loves friendly people! But he’s quite shy for an alpha, so all that small talk she’d been sparking with little to do with Sarang had felt terribly burdensome. It didn’t help that she’d been strangely insistent on maintaining eye contact with him the entire time while she asked her barrage of questions as she took Sarang’s vitals. That had made him nervous too, and a little offput. But still, he thinks she’s a nice lady — Seungcheol doesn’t usually look at people that intensely while he talks to them but different strokes, different folks honestly. The crux of it is that he’s just not good at this ‘speaking to strangers thing’ without Jeonghan there for emotional support.

At the sight of them now, with Sarang clinging to Seungcheol like a monkey to a tree trunk while he holds her up with one of his arms, and the bare skin of them both goosepimpling in his short sleeve t-shirt because of the chill, the nurse makes a quiet noise of surprise.

“Hi,” she greets them both, clipped, with her face flushing a little. Taking in her bright red cheeks, Seungcheol wonders briefly if she’s coming down with something. There is a nasty flu going around after all. He considers whether or not it’d be rude to ask her to put on her mask before coming near him and Sarang. “How’s everyone holding up?”

“I think we’re okay. Right, Sarang?” Seungcheol asks gently. She stubbornly shakes her head and mumbles “No,” into his shoulder again — the only word she’s been able to say for the past five minutes. Seungcheol gives the nurse an apologetic look and laughs a little. “She’s just a little scared for her shots today.”

“Not a little scared, a lot scared!” Sarang corrects.

“Right, a lot,” Seungcheol amends. “But I think you’re going to be perfectly fine. Even Nurse Kang agrees.”

Realizing she’s been called upon for support, Nurse Kang fumbles out an awkward nod before remembering Sarang’s still got her head tucked away in the crook of Seungcheol’s neck and can’t see. She blurts out, “Yes, yes you’re going to be fine Sarang! I’ll make it as quick and as painless as I can.”

“Painless?” Sarang sniffles, trying the word on for size in her mouth. She lifts her head and looks back at Nurse Kang. “Does that mean I won’t feel any pain?”

Nurse Kang blinks. “Erm.. Well not any pain. It’s going to hurt a little, most likely.” Sarang immediately starts bawling again.

“Sarang baby it’s okay, you’re okay,” Seungcheol says close to her ear, quiet and soft. “Do you really think Appa would let anything happen to you?”

Seungcheol’s words seem to be effective in slowing Sarang’s sobs a considerable amount. She takes a few shaky breaths as she thinks about it. No, of course Seungcheol wouldn’t let anything happen to her. For as much as she loves to misbehave, she still adores her Appa, and Seungcheol is probably the second most impressive adult alpha to grace the Earth in Sarang’s eyes—second only to her beloved Uncle Jihoon. Sarang fists his shirt and wipes her face on it, leaving tears and snot in her wake. When she lifts her head again, she’s still pouting, but she has a fierce look of determination in her eyes that hadn’t been there before.

“I want a Chiikawa bandaid.”

After some more tears, some tight hand holding and some nearly broken skin from Sarang’s pained biting at Seungcheol’s chest, she gets her bandaid. Nurse Kang smooths it onto Sarang’s skin with a kind smile and lets her know what a good girl she was, making Sarang perk up despite the hot tears still streaming down her cheeks.

Before, Nurse Kang had needed to exit the room briefly to retrieve Sarang’s specially requested bandaid, which Seungcheol had thought nothing of. He didn’t consider the possibility of her doing anything else out there. In fact, he hadn’t considered anything she’d been doing at all, focus tunnel visioned on Sarang crying in his arms. But after the shot, while Seungcheol is helping Sarang gather her bearings, she lingers by the doorway awkwardly, which Seungcheol can see in his peripheral.

After wavering back and forth for a little while, seemingly stuck between doing or not doing something or other, Nurse Kang finally moves decisively. With a sheepish smile, she shuffles forward and deposits a misshapen mass from her fist into Seungcheol’s unsuspecting hand rested in his lap. Seungcheol blinks, watching her adjust her scrubs and then scurry away with a rushed farewell to Sarang and him both on the way out.

Weird. Sarang doesn’t pay it any mind—probably hadn’t even noticed it. She just keeps assaulting the lollipop Nurse Kang had given her for a job well done, even though Sarang had nearly kicked her in the crotch while getting her injection. Seungcheol furrows his brows and carefully unfolds the crumpled up post-it note, sincerely hoping it isn’t what he thinks it is.

“What’s that?” Sarang finally asks, molars clacking against the hard candy in her mouth. Seungcheol stares at the paper, barely making out the scribbled hangul and digits in the middle.

“Don’t worry about it baby,” Seungcheol says, keeping his face neutral, in spite of the way something basal in him is screaming in discomfort. He crumples it up again and tells Sarang it’s time to leave. Throws it in the trash on the way out.

+

When he’s finished treating Sarang to sweets from the bakery and an impromptu trip to the toy store, because Seungcheol is spineless in the face of those big brown eyes turned on him, Seungcheol and her both come home to Jeonghan in a mood.

“Welcome home,” Jeonghan says with a put-on placidness to his face, spoken in that tone of his that suggests he’s holding onto quiet, slow simmering irritation that Seungcheol’s going to have to unpack and deal with later. It’s a little terrifying, but Seungcheol chooses to be strong. He watches as Jeonghan kisses the top of Sarang’s head in greeting, lilting his voice up to ask about how she did today at her appointment (she says good and even if she did almost knee her nurse in the gut, Seungcheol can’t bring himself to disagree), before pointedly eyeing the bag of bakery treats Seungcheol is holding, making him smile nervously.

“I promised…” Seungcheol offers in explanation hangdoggedly. Jeonghan arches a brow.

“Before dinner?..” Seungcheol grimaces. He looks down at Sarang and Haeri who are impatiently jostling the bag of sweets he’s holding and sighs.

“Girls.” They look up. “How about we have our sweets after we eat the jjigae Eomma made for dinner?”

Bad cop again tonight, he supposes. Loud and dismayed awws sound from the girls, but they listen anyway without further protest and dash away to the living room to play with the toys Sarang picked out for the both of them (a monster truck and a container of slime that will no doubt be a pain to clean off of said monster truck) while they wait for the table to be set.

Alone with him in the entryway, Seungcheol studies Jeonghan a bit. He still looks pale and unwell, like he did this morning, but he looks even more exhausted, which is…also unsurprising. He smells stressed — annoyed.

“Stop staring.”

Seungcheol blinks at being caught, righting himself. Instead of asking are you okay and risking any more of Jeonghan’s annoyance, he pouts playfully. “I didn’t get my welcome home kiss.”

“You don’t deserve it.”

“You don’t mean that,” Seungcheol frowns, actually a little hurt by it. Jeonghan rolls his eyes but lets Seungcheol put a hand on his cheek to pull him in close for a kiss. Jeonghan goes easily, sighing into the kiss like he needed it. They add a little tongue. Seungcheol’s the culprit. He misses Jeonghan even harder than usual when they’re apart these days. Probably because he has even more to miss, presently. Seungcheol’s hands drop to Jeonghan’s waist, holding it, and he briefly brushes his clothed stomach with his thumbs before finally pulling away, breathless.

“I did mean that,” Jeonghan says, the wrinkle to his brow having faded only slightly. Seungcheol’s got his work cut out for him in trying to snap Jeonghan out of his mood, he realizes. But that’s how it usually goes when Jeonghan’s pregnant and hormonal — Seungcheol bending over backwards like a damned contortionist to appease Jeonghan and whatever volatile mood he’s in, all clumsy and unsure like a bull in a china shop. Seungcheol doesn’t mind it too much. Mingyu used to tell him it was a problem, how easily he’d let Jeonghan turn him into a doormat. Seungcheol just thinks it makes him a devoted alpha. (And also that Mingyu of all people informing him of this is like throwing stones from a glass house).

Jeonghan’s edginess doesn’t ease up over dinner. Seungcheol can see right through the tight smiles he gives to Haeri and Sarang when they ask him their usual barrage of questions. Still, Seungcheol is pleased to see him demolish two-and-a-half servings of jjigae. Something weird and primal in Seungcheol always starts to stir whenever he sees Jeonghan eat well for him and their pup.

“Don’t touch,” Jeonghan tells him sharply, when Seungcheol tries to rest his chin on his shoulder while he’s loading the dishwasher. Seungcheol tries his best to rid his face of the kicked puppy look that it takes on. Wounded, he retreats to the living room to clean up Haeri and Sarang’s toys.

For the rest of the evening, Seungcheol walks on eggshells around the house, giving Jeonghan the space he needs by kindly staying out of his way. He’s not…he’s not hiding per se. Just giving Jeonghan breathing room. He plays superheroes with Haeri and Sarang when they plead with him for five minutes straight, and then he cracks open his laptop to pay some bills to remind himself of his real age, after they decide to boot his character off for being too boring and easy to kill. And then he gets on League with Wonwoo. Just for a little bit.

He’s taking a piss in the bathroom conjoined to their bedroom when Jeonghan walks in without knocking. Seungcheol jumps and nearly knocks his own aim off at the sight of him. Then he freezes up and blinks owlishly at Jeonghan, like a deer caught in headlights. Jeonghan looks pissed, and Seungcheol has no idea why. God he’s so fucked.

“Choi Seungcheol,” he says, sounding deceptively calm. A terribly misleading trap Seungcheol has fallen victim to a thousand times over. “Why is Sarang telling me that you let a nurse give you her number today?”

Seungcheol blinks. It takes him a second to even remember what he’s talking about. When he does his stomach sinks to his ass. Shit.

“Jeonghan. Jeonghannie. I swear to you it’s not what it sounds like.” Jeonghan’s glare doesn’t ease up at all. In fact, the line his lips have thinned out into gets even firmer somehow. Seungcheol’s panicking. “Can I at least wash my hands first?”

“No.”

“Okay…Well what did Sarang tell you exactly?” Seungcheol scratches his head with the hand not holding his dick, terribly confused on how they got here.

“That after her shots the nurse even gave you a gift for a job well done.” Jeonghan squints at him, looking murderous with his hip against the counter. “A sticky note with numbers on it. Her number. Am I wrong?”

Seungcheol winces. Okay, maybe it’s exactly what it sounds like. He loves her but God, what a big mouth Sarang’s got on her. He swears she managed to steal a chain of DNA from Boo Seungkwan and mutate it into her own in-utero somehow.

“Okay I — She gave it to me and I threw it away, Hannie. Immediately! I didn’t even realize what the hell she’d given me until she left the room.”

Jeonghan isn’t hearing it, shaking his head and sucking his teeth. “I can’t fucking believe you,” he’s saying while storming off into the bedroom. Seungcheol rushes to put his dick away and wash his hands before chasing after him.

“How is this my fault, babe?” he calls out, hot on his tail, wiping his wet hands onto his sweatpants. “She gave it to me.”

“She obviously gave it to you thinking she had a reason to,” Jeonghan seethes, turning around. “Just when I thought this day couldn’t get any worse I find out you let some nurse fucking flirt with you.”

“I’m sorry but Jeonghan, I swear to you — I didn’t let her do anything! Believe me,” Seungcheol pleads. He can’t believe he’s in trouble over some strangely forward (and frankly unethical) nurse who he didn’t even bat a real eye at. “I didn’t even think she was flirting, Jeonghan, honestly — I thought she was just being friendly! She asked me if I worked out since I looked like I did and I thought it was because she mentioned liking pilates. I already told her I had a mate!”

“Who the fuck tells the father of their patient it looks like they work out, Seungcheol?”

Seungcheol blinks. He hadn’t really thought of it like that. “Okay..you have a point. But I promise you, I didn’t —”

“Save it,” Jeonghan snaps coolly. Seungcheol tries to step further into the threshold of their bedroom and fix the mess he’s managed to make of all this but the sharp look Jeonghan gives him when he does forces him to stop in his tracks, like some pitiful, admonished puppy. He feels his shoulders deflate, all pathetic and defeated as he’s watching Jeonghan undo the already made bed with an angry, unmoving frown on his face, like the sheets have personally wronged him. He’s like, genuinely mad, Seungcheol realizes. Inwardly, he wonders how the hell he’s going to save himself here.

Sure, Jeonghan has a bit of a mean streak — and is a little possessive. They both are. But to be completely honest, they’re both a little too old and in a little too deep for either of them to be genuinely upset over anything this benign. Seungcheol has spent every waking moment of their time together making it abundantly clear that Jeonghan is the only person on Earth he’s capable of being attracted to. And it comes so naturally, like breathing, because it’s the truth — Seungcheol has quite literally never met anyone more beautiful than Jeonghan, and often wonders if he’d used a lifetime’s worth of luck to get Jeonghan to love him back. Everyone — Jeonghan included — knows that Choi Seungcheol is a lovesick loser for him. Putty in his hands.

Which is why it’s so immediate, the way he recognizes the Jeonghan in front of him. It’s not exactly difficult. Jeonghan will never admit that he’s stretched himself too thin, but Seungcheol knows him like he knows the familiar curves of the lines on his own palm. He can see it, clear as day, that he has — can smell it. Jeonghan doesn’t care about the nurse, or the post-it note, or whatever else it is he’s made up in his head that Seungcheol’s done. He’s just fucking stressed and exhausted, and feeling the effects of it tenfold because of the way his hormones are dialed up to 100 right now. Seungcheol’s fault, he supposes.

“Couch?” Seungcheol asks simply, knowing a moment like this calls for him to be the bigger person. He’s got more than enough experience dealing with Jeonghan’s weird pregnant moods, even if it’s been a while. Jeonghan fixes him with another glare but doesn’t say a word. Seungcheol gets the message though, when Jeonghan chucks a pillow at his head before giving up on the bed entirely and disappearing into the bathroom, presumably to wash up, loudly slamming the door shut behind him. The pillow misses his head narrowly, but Seungcheol’s dick throbs a little in his pants anyway.

Sometimes — most times — Jeonghan being a bitch to him gets him indescribably horny. It’s a problem.

Banished to the couch, Seungcheol makes his own rounds wishing Haeri and Sarang goodnight the way he always does, even if it is Jeonghan’s night to put them down with a bedtime story, entering their rooms and planting a kiss to each of their heads, before sinking into the sectional in their living room with a throw pillow and blanket. It’s a nice couch and all — expensive, good looking. But Seungcheol hasn’t been forced to sleep on it in ages and while he’s there, he realizes why it’s at the very bottom of his short list of ideal napping locations around the house. There’s a such thing as too nice, and Seungcheol finds himself longing for the softness and warmth of the shitty brown suede couch they had at their old apartment.

The TV stays on for a bit, playing reruns of some old variety show Seungcheol’s sure Hansol would have a field day telling him about. Bored of it, Seungcheol switches it off and closes his eyes. It’s pretty fruitless. He tries to think of the spreadsheets he fills in at work to bore himself to sleep. The only thing thinking of work succeeds in is giving him chest palpitations at the thought of his email clogging up, though, so that route gets abandoned pretty fast.

He’s about thirty minutes into a restless facsimile of sleep when he hears the puttering of soft, shuffling footsteps sound from behind the couch.

“Cheol,” Jeonghan murmurs into the dark. Seungcheol hums in response, having given up on faking sleep.

Instead of saying anything more, Jeonghan rounds the couch to bend down and kiss Seungcheol’s forehead. He smells like the lavender scented moisturizer he uses and himself — vanilla and jasmine and everything Seungcheol associates with home. He feels around for Seungcheol’s hand and tugs on it insistently. Seungcheol follows easily, like a dog.

“Are you still mad at me?” Seungcheol mumbles on the trip back to their bedroom, voice thick with disuse. The hallway light is on, so Seungcheol can see it when Jeonghan turns his head to look back at him. Jeonghan eyes him in a funny way that Seungcheol can’t make much out of. Yes? No? Maybe? He settles on maybe. Jeonghan is a very maybe kind of person.

With a crooked finger, Jeonghan flicks the hallway light off and then tugs Seungcheol into the room and into bed with him again. It’s so noticeably different that Seungcheol feels like he could cry the second his back hits the mattress.

When they’re under the sheets, Jeonghan pulls him impossibly close — a complete 180 flip from the aversion to touch he seemed to have earlier in the evening. He tucks himself into the space beneath Seungcheol’s neck and mumbles something into Seungcheol’s t-shirt.

“What was that?”

Jeonghan doesn’t respond for a beat. Then he turns his head out of the fabric to say “I’m sorry,” in a small voice.

Seungcheol’s hand instinctively moves to Jeonghan’s head on his chest. He runs it through his silky black mop of hair. It’s getting longer, his mind supplies. “Sorry for what?” he teases.

“Don’t be annoying,” Jeonghan complains, snuggling his head further. “Sorry for being crazy today. And slightly evil.”

Seungcheol huffs out a laugh. “You’re not evil. You don’t have to apologize to me, Hannie.” He means that — he would have to be a pretty shitty excuse for a mate to not pick up on Jeonghan’s patented methods for coping with stress after all these years, which entail retreating inwards and becoming an abrasive, thorny edged version of himself for a little while. Nothing tonight is a surprise, after the long day he’s had. Plus, he’s carrying their child. Jeonghan could do anything he wanted to him right now and Seungcheol would probably let it happen without protest. That includes throwing all the bedding in the world at him.

“No I do,” Jeonghan counters. He yawns, sleepily adding, “Sometimes I get scared that I’ll push you so far away one day that you never come back.”

Oh. Seungcheol’s hand freezes where it’s buried in his hair. Jeonghan always does this — catches him off guard by saying some crazy, intense shit out of the blue, all casual like he’s commenting on the weather. The random honesty gives Seungcheol genuine pause and he waits a moment to check and see if Jeonghan will say anything else. A laugh and a silly sounding just kidding would be pretty on brand for him. But he says nothing. Seungcheol blinks in the dark. Sorts through what the fuck to say to that.

“I’d die before that happens, Jeonghan. If it ever does, you’re dreaming,” he finally says, firm. There’s so much conviction in it that it feels like saying it’s left his throat raw. Jeonghan huffs out a laugh at the earnestness in his voice but stays quiet.

Tentatively, Seungcheol continues, when Jeonghan’s breaths start petering out into a slower, sleepier rhythm. “Please don’t forget I’m here. For you.” He clears his raspy throat, hand not stopping its back and forth motions in Jeonghan’s hair. “Let me take care of things — of you, sometimes. Don’t stress yourself out with me here, Hannie.”

“Shh,” Jeonghan hushes, snuffling against Seungcheol’s chest. “I got it,” he hums, although the sound of it is dismissive enough that Seungcheol remains painfully unsure of whether or not he’s actually got it. “Sleep.”

03

Haeri’s birthday party comes around on a chilly weekend in January and Sarang spends a good chunk of it watching Jeonghan suspiciously in the corner.

When the party finally took off about two hours ago, Seungcheol realized with a start that he'd probably never been surrounded by this many children in his adult life. It was a little alarming, especially considering one of the party-goers had nearly charged at him with the pair of scissors they were using for arts and crafts in their haste to ask where the potty was. But beyond that, it was a welcome, pride-rousing reminder that Haeri and Sarang both are quite popular — mostly Haeri, who took after Jeonghan he thinks, in that she’s got this forceful orbital pull about her despite the fact that she talks significantly less than Sarang by comparison. Haeri invited her entire gymnastics team, and then half of her second grade class class (not Eunji, she’d made sure to emphasize, since she’s too bossy and fake), and each of her friends from piano class, and she would have kept going if Seungcheol and Jeonghan didn’t point out that everyone needed to fit inside the apartment.

This isn’t to say Sarang doesn’t have her own fair share of playmates — Sarang has a unique way of attracting fellow children with a slight unruliness to them. Her constant rulebreaking can be charming to some, apparently. Maybe not to Seungcheol or Jeonghan or her teachers, but to some. Point being, she’s got plenty of friends of her own, who she’d also invited to Haeri’s birthday. Not to mention Uncle Jisoo and Uncle Seokmin’s son Yunseo and Uncle Hansol and Uncle Seungkwan’s older kids, Areum and Eunsol.

But instead of playing with her friends, she’s been hovering in the corner of the kitchen where the adults are talking, away from the festivities in the living room — which are now being orchestrated by the party entertainer dressed as an elf Haeri had insisted on, even though Christmas has long since passed. Jeonghan and Seungcheol followed through anyway, because she’s a visionary, which they both respect.

Jeonghan’s busy chatting to Seungkwan and Jisoo and Seungcheol is a few paces away, talking to Mingyu, when he looks past him and notices Sarang clinging to the wall with blue lips from the cake frosting smeared all over them. He follows her line of sight and sees she’s looking intensely at Jeonghan. Just like she has been every other time Seungcheol’s caught her away from Haeri and her playmates and a ways away from wherever Jeonghan was.

“Sarang,” Seungcheol beckons her forward with a motion of his hand and she jumps a little, as though she’d thought the harder she pressed herself into the white wall the better she’d blend into it, like a chameleon — even in her corduroy overalls and tan sweater. She looks around for some reason, like she’s watching her back for some mysterious shadowing force, before shuffling forward with her hands behind her back.

“Are you okay,” Seungcheol checks, brows furrowing. He licks his thumb and wipes the icing away from her face out of habit. “Do you need something? Why aren’t you with Haeri and your friends?”

“I need to ask a question,” she tells him adamantly, eyes strangely intense.

“What is it, Sarang?” Mingyu chimes in, pitching his voice up instinctively when he does. He can’t help himself. He’ll probably keep babytalking to Haeri and Sarang both until they graduate high school.

“No, I need to ask Eomma. Not you Uncle Mingoo,” she replies immediately, unfazed by Mingyu’s exaggerated pout. “And not you either Appa. I need to ask Eomma something importen.”

“Something important?” Seungcheol corrects. She nods, and it shakes around her little pigtails.

Okay…Seungcheol doesn’t get it, but if there’s anything being a dad has taught him it’s that rarely will he ever get it, no matter how painstakingly he tries. So he gives Mingyu a slightly lost, mirthful look before turning back to Sarang and sending her an encouraging smile. “Alright then, baby. Just wait until Eomma’s done talking before you ask, okay?”

Just as Sarang starts to nod, Jeonghan joins them, detaching himself slightly from the circle him, Seungkwan and Jisoo have formed in the midst of their mandatory gossip sesh. He tilts his head, brows raising. Cute, Seungcheol’s brain supplies needlessly. “I heard my name. What’s wrong, Peach?”

Sarang looks around anxiously at the adults occupying the conjoined kitchen and dining area. Really, the only ones focused on her are Jeonghan and Seungcheol, as well as Mingyu, Seungkwan and Jisoo, since she’s slotted herself into both conversations and stolen the attention of her parents for herself for a moment. In the grand scheme of things, she really shouldn’t be this nervous looking, when the rest of her Uncles and Aunts are focused on making their own small talk in little clusters peppered all over the open concept space. Sarang has honestly asked and said some ridiculous shit in front of much larger hoards of people, who also didn’t happen to be their family and friends. So her apprehension now is pretty out of character.

“Is it something serious, Peach, are you okay?” Jeonghan prods, noticing her tentativeness. Sarang’s the kind of kid who’ll just come right out and say it when she’s got something on the tip of her tongue, so the look on her face now and refusal to spit it out are cause for concern, Seungcheol thinks. “Do you want to talk in me and Appa’s room?”

All of a sudden, Sarang looks near tears as she shakes her head no frantically. Despite her insistence on talking to Jeonghan, she seems to be second guessing her decision. Honestly, If Seungcheol didn’t know any better he’d say she looked a little scared of him right now, tucking herself into Seungcheol’s thigh while Jeonghan speaks. Which…makes no sense. The girls love Jeonghan more than they love Seungcheol, he swears it. Seungcheol blinks down in bewilderment at her.

“Hey, you’re okay Sarang,” Seungcheol comforts, noticing how on edge she is. At her young age, her scent is rather subdued, but even still, Seungcheol notices the faint traces of her sweet honeycrisp scent turn a little sour.

“Peach, let’s go to my room and talk then if you’re uncomfortable,” Jeonghan offers, looking terribly upset at Sarang’s apparent unease around him. Sarang shakes her head again.

“No! I’m scared you’ll eat me too!”

Silence swallows them. Well, save for the surprised laughter Mingyu has to cover up with a cough. Sarang isn’t able to see the way Jeonghan’s eyes blow wide in horror because she immediately stuffs her face all the way into Seungcheol’s hip.

“Sarang, what —“

“I know you ate the baby!” She shouts, accusatory. Ha. So much for asking a question, Seungcheol thinks. “That’s the only way it could end up in your tummy! I know because Jiwoo told me!”

Woah. Okay… “Sarang, I don’t think —“

“Baby…in your tummy,” Seungkwan starts, eyes narrowed as he starts to string the pieces together. Jisoo’s jaw drops.

“Yoon Jeonghan, you sneaky bitch.”

“Did someone say baby?” Seokmin cuts in from where he’s a few feet away talking to Soonyoung and Chan. Soonyoung makes an open mouthed noise of surprise — obnoxiously loud in proper Soonyoung fashion.

“Is Seungkwan pregnant again?”

“Oh fuck off, why would it be me?”

“No it’s Jeonghan,” Jisoo says with a puckish shine to his eyes, sounding far too amused at the state of things. Jeonghan hides his face in his hands and Seungcheol winces. Cat’s out of the bag. Nice.

“Sarang baby, come here,” Jeonghan says, ignoring the uproar they’ve caused and gently tugging on her hand so she detaches herself from Seungcheol. She reluctantly goes, ending up between the V of Jeonghan’s crouched legs as he squats so he’s eye level with her. There are tears at the corner of her eyes that he wipes away with the pads of his thumbs. “What did Jiwoo tell you exactly?”

“I — I accidentally told the secret that there’s a puppy in your tummy and then Jiwoo said that the only way things end up in your tummy is if you eat them,” Sarang reveals. “That means you’re a carrible, Eomma.”

Jeonghan blinks. “..A cannibal?”

“No a carrible,” Sarang sniffs. Okay then.

“Sarang-ah, what about me, then?” Seungkwan cuts in. “And your Uncle Jisoo. Your cousins came from our tummies too.”

Sarang pauses to think about that. “Oh. Yeah.”

“Peach, look at me,” Jeonghan directs. He holds her cheeks in his palms. “I didn’t eat the baby. I didn’t eat you or Haeri either. I won’t eat you or Haeri. That’s not how the baby got there, I promise.”

Sarang blinks. She looks relieved, shoulders dispelling their tension as she absorbs what he’s said and apparently deems it believable enough to accept, likely just as fast as she chose to believe that her Eomma ate her sibling. Then she scratches the back of her head, looking, admittedly, like a carbon copy of Seungcheol when she does.

“So how did the baby get in your tummy then, Eomma?”

Silence again. The question obviously throws Jeonghan off if the way his face falters is anything to go by. His eyes flicker to Seungcheol, the brief look in them probably imperceptible to anyone but him. But Seungcheol knows that look. The silent scream for help when either of the girls ask him something he doesn’t have the mental fortitude to answer. Rare, since Jeonghan’s good at both making up and entertaining nonsense on the fly when needed. But he’s not invincible.

“Well…” he starts. He pauses with his lips pressed together tightly before pasting on a close mouthed smile and pinching Sarang’s cheek. “I’ll tell you all about it later, after the party’s over. How about you go back to your friends for now.”

“Hmm…Okay..” Sarang squints at him skeptically, pouting a bit. She points a little finger at him, like she’s pinning him down with it. “You promise to tell me later?”

Jeonghan mimes eating her finger with his lips closed over his teeth, making her yank her hand away and squeal in delight. “Yes I promise. Go play.”

As Sarang’s skipping away, Jeonghan straightens up and looks at the rest of the kitchen area where nearly every pair of eyes is pointedly trained on him and Seungcheol. God, their friends are so nosy. It’s like they’ll die if they mind their business for more than half a second.

Jeonghan clears his throat, letting his hand smooth out the fabric of the sweater he’s wearing, where his stomach is, flat beneath the wool. Seungcheol stands next to him with a sheepish smile, eyes scanning the room. “Um. Surprise?”

“I knew I smelled some shit. Wonwoo you owe me 20,000 won.”

04

It’s nothing particularly consequential, but when Jeonghan reaches 16 weeks, he starts doing pilates.

Seungcheol finds out by walking in on Jeonghan doing pelvic curls on their living room floor one Saturday afternoon.

“Hey,” he greets mid thrust, strained. Seungcheol’s eyes waste no time zeroing in on the teeny tiny shorts he’s got on beneath the oversized tee he’s wearing, plucked straight out of one of their drawers, that has so many of both of their clothes mixed up inside it that it’s impossible to say what belongs to who anymore. The shirt is definitely Seungcheol’s though. That knowledge does terrible things to Seungcheol’s depraved alpha.

“Hi,” he says back, eyebrows raised. “What are you uh…What are you up to?”

“Pilates,” Jeonghan grunts out, lower back arching up before rolling back down again.

Seungcheol licks his dry lips. “Oh,” he coughs. “That’s awesome. But like.. Why?”

“It’s good for back pain,” Jeonghan tells him. “I’m already getting some and it’ll be good to strengthen those muscles before it gets worse when I get bigger, according to Seungkwannie. Also it’s good for strengthening your pelvic floor. For when I have to push this little shit out.”

“Oh,” he says again dumbly. He nods, watching Jeonghan move his hips into another curl. There is quite literally nothing in his head beyond his own ridiculous, alpha-brained thoughts. Horribly rudimentary — not intelligent in the slightest. Just pure, animal want at the sight of Jeonghan’s hips moving in those sinful upward motions.

Jeonghan lays his back down flat on the yoga mat after one thrust and stays there. He sniffs the air.

“Oh my god you fucking pervert.”

It’s immediate, the way Seungcheol’s face is engulfed in warmth. He pouts on instinct. “Don’t be mean to me.”

“You’re just so fucking easy. You make it impossible not to be,” Jeonghan laughs cruelly, sending a jolt to Seungcheol’s dick beneath the fabric of his basketball shorts. Jeonghan sits up, pilates routine abandoned apparently. “Haeri and Sarang are napping, aren’t they?” he asks, voice deceptively casual.

Yes, they are. It’s 2pm on a Saturday and Seungcheol just finished three loads of laundry without Sarang and Haeri playing hide and seek in piles of dirty clothes. A fucking miracle of Seungcheol’s ever seen one. He grins, catching on quickly. “Yup. Snug as bugs in their beds.”

“Good.” Jeonghan stands up and it’s so graceful and cat-like, in spite of the way pregnancy has been wearing on his joints, that it leaves Seungcheol in a trance, watching him move. “Meet me in the room and you can eat me out if you’re so horny,” he tosses over his shoulder, walking in the direction of their bedroom. “Make yourself useful.”

Seungcheol loves being useful, especially for his omega, which is how he ends up at the foot of their bed with his mouth glued to Jeonghan’s vulva, lapping up slick like it’s the dessert portion of his last supper ever — like he’s fucking Christ himself. The possessive hand he has overtop Jeonghan’s belly and the tremble to his bones beneath him has been enough to make Seungcheol come in his pants once already — completely untouched.

“Fuck,” Jeonghan gasps with a shuddery moan, muscles tensing before his jaw goes slack and he’s coming with a slow flood of slick all over Seungcheol’s tongue, thighs closing around his head. Seungcheol licks his lips when Jeonghan finally yanks his head away and goes limp, proud and content.

“You’re insufferable,” Jeonghan mumbles with sluggish blinks, looking at Seungcheol through heavy eyelids and relaxing his grip on his hair. “From here on out you’re banished from the living room when I’m doing pilates.”

“Aww man.”

“Shut up.”

+

It starts to become a recurring thing, the way Seungcheol can’t stop finding reasons to be horny because of Jeonghan.

He listens to instructions quite well and dutifully avoids the living room whenever Jeonghan announces he’s going to start his pilates. But even that’s not enough to curb his alpha’s insatiableness.

“You keep looking at me like you want to eat me,” Jeonghan comments offhandedly while sitting at a stool at their kitchen island with a bowl of fruit in front of him.

Seungcheol blinks, turning off the sink faucet and putting away the dish he’s holding. “Oh. Sorry.” He can’t stop looking at Jeonghan’s exposed shoulder peeking out of the huge white button up of Seungcheol’s he’s wearing that droops down. His brain is endlessly looping images of every sliver of skin Jeonghan has on display — including the long stretch of it on his bare legs that he’d seen when he stood up — and it's rendered the rest of its function useless. “You’re um. You’re not wearing pants.”

Jeonghan stares at him like he’s worried Seungcheol’s not all the way there. “I never wear pants with this shirt.”

Seungcheol gulps. It’s hot in there all of a sudden. “Yeah.”

Because he’s incorrigible — plain hopeless — Seungcheol stinks up the room so bad that it’s impossible to ignore him. Thankfully, Sarang and Haeri are at a playdate, and Jeonghan is feeling generous, so he takes pity on him and sets aside his fruit to let Seungcheol fuck him over the kitchen counter, with Seungcheol’s hands slipping under the loose button up and holding onto his waist like it’s the only thing capable of keeping him tethered to life itself. And then he pushes his thighs back and eats Jeonghan out on the floor when they both sink down onto it with their legs made of jello. Disgusting, sure. But they’ve definitely done worse in worse places.

It doesn’t end there, because Seungcheol’s alpha is greedy and hungry every minute of every day. The reasons for the boners Seungcheol pops get more and more outlandish. It’s Jeonghan tying up his hair in the morning. It’s Jeonghan looking in the mirror at his growing bump. Him taking a phone call for work and using that kind of mean, bossy voice of his to order people around. But a lot of the time, it’s just for no reason at all. Just being in Jeonghan’s space while he’s full of him and being the mother of his children and looking like he always does — perfect, angelic, heavensent.

“Cheol. Seriously? Again?” Jeonghan groans at him starting to stink up their room. Jeonghan’s not even doing anything. They’re getting ready for bed and Jeonghan’s reading a book Minghao recommended to him with the lamp on. Nothing sexy about that. In fact, Jeonghan just burped in Seungcheol’s face not even five minutes ago. Pregnancy gas.

“I’m sorry! Fuck.” Seungcheol throws the sheets off himself and prepares to run to the bathroom to sort himself out. He’s been forced to resort to tamping down on his urges by jerking off like a teenager multiple times a day. Par for the course when Jeonghan’s pregnant, but it’s still no fun dealing with those indestructible monster boners on the daily. Not even a little bit.

“Wait.” Jeonghan tugs his wrist, stopping him in his tracks. He takes off his reading glasses and sets them on the nightstand. “Don’t go.”

Seungcheol blinks, surprised. “Really? You sure? I don’t mind bearing it but I don’t want it to like…poke you. Like when we cuddle.”

Jeonghan snorts and rolls his eyes. “I’m going to help you. Take off your pants and let me jerk you off.”

Seungcheol feels his dick throb painfully in his boxers, along with the sweeping of something white-hot and desperate down the line of his back. He swallows thickly. “O — Okay.”

Seungcheol has never come harder from a hand on his dick.

+

The boiling point it reaches doesn’t come until Seungcheol is influenced by outside actors.

“So…you’re saying it doesn’t bother you,” his alpha coworker asks one afternoon while they’re eating lunch together in the company cafeteria. “Your omega making more money than you?”

Seungcheol can’t hide the scoff that builds in his throat. Of course this Doyoon asshole would have something like this to say about omegas — the guy reeks of an overinflated ego. No seriously, Seungcheol thinks he must be allergic to scent patches.

He’d only agreed to lunch with him because Doyoon’s been wearing him down, practically begging to have a meal with Seungcheol since Seungcheol’s pretty clearly on the brink of promotion in their team and the guy’s ridiculously transparent about his need for the attention and validation he gets from rubbing shoulders with the right people. He wants the brownie points. The only reason Seungcheol said yes is because his normal lunch buddy, Seulgi, is out sick on rut leave. And also because he’s kind of bad at saying no, and he’d run clean out of excuses. Unlucky.

“It doesn’t bother me at all. Why should it?” Jeonghan being way more senior at his company and making more than what Seungcheol makes while working from home might rub some alphas the wrong way (alphas who are probably neck deep in the wrong kinds of internet forums spewing trad, anti-omega nonsense), but Seungcheol can’t find it in him to give a fuck. He thinks it’s awesome, actually. Jeonghan’s a fucking boss. His sexy mid-level marketing manager. If anything it’s inspiring.

“I don’t know man, it just feels like you’re not wearing the pants in your house,” Doyoon shrugs before shoveling some ramyeon in his mouth. God, even the way he slurps is obnoxious. “As an alpha you should definitely be the one making more. If I were you, I would’ve had him quit to properly take care of the pups at home anyways.”

Seungcheol laughs in disbelief, eye twitching. Get a load of this fucking guy — he doesn’t even have a mate. Or pups at home. Seungcheol can see why, listening to him talk. What an asshole.

“That’s my mate’s decision,” Seungcheol says carefully, trying not to let on to how pissed he actually is, lest he get an appointment with HR. Doyoon seems like the snitching type. Maybe Seungcheol should report him first and beat him to the punch. “That shit wouldn’t bother any alpha with a functioning brain.”

“Hey, don’t get all worked up,” Doyoon throws his hands up in mock surrender. He laughs a little and shows off some nasty coffee stains. “I’m just saying.”

Seungcheol rolls his eyes and forces a laugh of his own. It comes out sounding like there’s glass lodged in his throat. “Yeah.”

Doyoon switches the conversation to a soccer match that happened over the weekend that Seungcheol can’t even bring himself to pretend to care about. Chelsea sucks and so does Doyoon. He cuts their lunch short with some half-assed excuse about overflowing emails and a non-existent meeting later. Makes a mental note to never agree to lunch with the dickhead again.

+

He really, really shouldn’t be, but on the drive home, Seungcheol thinks about that talk some more, with the cartoon theme songs Haeri and Sarang always have him queue up on his phone playing in the background. It’s pretty ridiculous, he knows. But he can’t stop lingering on what Jeonghan’s role at work means to him.

Because the more he turns the idea over in his head, the more he realizes that not only does it not bother him — it actually gets him kind of hot. The thought of Jeonghan making more money than him — of him being infinitely more skilled than Seungcheol at climbing the corporate ladder, clawing his way up to his position at his big shot company in half the time it normally takes. The idea of Jeonghan being the head of their house because of it. He doesn’t even register that he’s half hard until he’s pulling his key out of the ignition and looking down at his lap while parked in their complex’s parking garage.

“Fuck,” he mumbles to himself. He makes sure to fix his pants and give himself a minute to calm down before going in.

“Appa!” He’s barely halfway inside when he’s accosted by two pint-sized flurries of energy, nearly taken out at the knees as Haeri and Sarang barrel straight into him the moment he opens the front door, with each of them clinging to one of his legs.

“My girls,” he bends down to hug them properly and they both smack fat wet kisses to his cheeks that he returns with double the vigor, peppering them all over their faces and making them laugh. “Where’s your Eomma?”

He lets Haeri play with his skin like he’s a squish toy when she answers, pulling his cheeks in two different directions so he makes a funny face. “He’s still working in his office.”

Sarang joins in and starts twisting his nose and he feigns injury which makes them laugh even harder. How rude. “Isn’t it a little late?” he asks, voice nasally because Sarang’s grip is making it so that he kind of can’t breathe. “Did Eomma say why?”

Haeri nods. “Somebody at work did a booboo he has to fix. He looked mad,” Haeri pinches her brows together and mimics the face Jeonghan makes when he’s stressed out. She looks like a spitting image of him this way and Seungcheol can’t help but snort at it. “His face was like this.”

“Eomma said he promises to watch Big Hero 6 with us again when he’s done,” Sarang tells him. “Can you pleaseee make sure he doesn’t forget?”

Seungcheol pulls his head away from their unrelenting grips on the flesh of his face. It kind of stings afterwards. “I promise to make sure.” He affirms. He quirks an eyebrow, hearing the distant noises of cartoons blasting in the living room. “Have you girls finished your homework yet?”

Haeri and Sarang share a look before scurrying off to their room to fetch their bookbags. Seungcheol shakes his head and laughs at their antics. So silly.

“Come in,” Jeonghan says when Seungcheol knocks on the door to his office. Seungcheol steps inside and is greeted by the overwhelming scent of Jeonghan’s familiar vanilla and jasmine. He finds Jeonghan sitting at his desk with his thick rimmed glasses perched on his nose, hair tucked behind his ears and lips fixed in a pout. He’s got a hand absently stroking his tiny bump over the thick cashmere sweater he’s wearing. Even in the apartment he always runs cold.

“You’re still working?” Seungcheol asks. Jeonghan looks up and nods, leaning away from his monitor and straightening out the horrid hunch in his back. Seungcheol hears the sickening crack all the way from his spot in the doorway.

“Restructuring has left my team full of new grads that run around like headless chickens when I tell them what to do and I’m going to kill someone about it,” Jeonghan sighs, pushing his glasses up to rub his eyes. When his hands come away, Seungcheol’s breath hitches helplessly at the sight of his unhidden face. He bets this is exactly what Lois Lane feels like when Clark Kent takes off his normal person glasses. Even with dark circles underneath his eyes and his face puffy and tired, he looks like something carved straight out of a dream. Fitting, considering how often Seungcheol sees him when he closes his eyes.

He stares for a beat too long. Clears his throat. “Sarang told me to remind you that you’ve got a movie date waiting for you after you finish.”

Jeonghan snorts, rolling his eyes fondly. “I didn’t forget. They act like we don’t do this every Friday night.”

Seungcheol bridges the gap between them and sits on the corner of Jeonghan’s desk. “How much more do you have to do?”

Jeonghan sighs, rolling his shoulders. Another pop. Seungcheol grimaces. “Nothing honestly. I should stop here before I email someone something I’ll regret.”

Seungcheol huffs out a laugh. “Long day, huh?”

Jeonghan makes a deadpan face at him. “The longest.”

Jeonghan already does a lot in a day, so he must really mean it. They’ve got a routine going — unchanging since Haeri started her first year of primary school. In the morning they wake up and he and Jeonghan get the girls ready for school, efficient about it like a well oiled machine. Then Seungcheol drops them off on the way to work and Jeonghan stays home to do his own job, until school’s out. By the time Jeonghan picks them up he usually only works for an hour or two longer before fully taking the time to watch over the girls while Seungcheol’s still at the office, helping them with their homework and prepping dinner and playing with them until they eventually tucker themselves out. But even when he’s working, the girls are well-behaved for the most part. Mostly because Haeri’s a little bossy and likes to tell Sarang what to do, which helps curb her urges to get up to no good.

It wasn’t always like this — Jeonghan used to go to the office in person just like Seungcheol. Two years ago he’d jumped on the chance to switch to remote work so they could pull Haeri and Sarang out of daycare and never looked back. He took to it like a natural. Made it all look easy.

Honestly speaking, Jeonghan takes such good care of them even while juggling his work, that’s probably five times as important as whatever Seungcheol gets up to at his job, that it sometimes makes Seungcheol look at him with a little wonder. Today he’s feeling that. Mixed with an undertow of something else Seungcheol can’t quite put a name to. What he does know is that it’s got his lower stomach brewing with warmth.

“I’m sorry, Jagi,” Seungcheol apologizes with a genuine frown, reaching forward to cup his face with his hand. Jeonghan makes a bewildered face at him.

“It’s not your fault?..”

“I know but I get upset for you when you’re stressed,” Seungcheol admits, eyes way too big and earnest. Jeonghan laughs at him, loud and bright, like Seungcheol’s words are all the stress relief he needed.

“You’re such a big baby, Cheollie. Now unhand me, I need to pee.”

+

In a perfectly predictable turn of events, while they watch their scheduled movie together after dinner following Haeri and Sarang’s incessant pestering, Seungcheol is still thinking about that strange feeling of his. It’s been nonstop rolling around in his chest, like some nasty bout of heartburn.

At the beginning of the movie, the main character’s brother dies in a horrible accident at his university. Seungcheol lingers on that part. Not on the brother, though, which is probably what he’s meant to be doing. Instead, he’s focused on university, and him and Jeonghan in university, and more specifically, Jeonghan in university. He probably tunes out half the movie thinking about this (although in his defense, he’s seen this movie about a thousand times over thanks to Sarang and Haeri’s fixation on it, which makes the crime a little less grave in his opinion).

In college, Jeonghan was probably one of the smartest people on that campus — he swears it. Even when he was sleeping through his classes. Even when he was cheating off of everyone’s notes. It wasn’t like he needed to cheat — it was just convenient. Energy saving. But that’s all besides the point. Jeonghan was smart in a way that transcended all the assignments and lectures and exams. It was the way he talked to people. The way he knew who to talk to and how to do it. He started every summer break up to his neck in internships and jobs lined up. Had everyone jealous. Even Seungcheol sometimes, which he’s alpha enough to admit.

What he does now was never the plan. He was always going to be a lawyer. A damn good one too — he had all the soft skills for it, as well as that stupidly sharp brain of his. He’d been accepted into an insanely prestigious law school a month before they found out Jeonghan was pregnant with Haeri. He didn’t have to drop out — Seungcheol insisted that. But Jeonghan had been adamant that he wanted to take care of Haeri, and eventually Sarang, without any distractions. Had been confident that whatever career path awaited him in the future, he would excel in anyways. And he did. He made that pivot and broke into the corporate world with such grace and ease and now he makes well over six figures and it shouldn’t be so hot but it is. It’s fucking sexy that Jeonghan can do any job on Earth and be ridiculously good at it. Even sexier that Jeonghan makes more money than Seungcheol and takes care of him and the house and the kids with it. The thought makes him pop a boner towards the latter half of the movie that he hisses to himself at. No one notices, thankfully. Everyone else is too engrossed in the fat white balloon robot on the screen to worry about him being a pathetic horn dog.

“Again!” Sarang shouts during the end credits. Jeonghan tsks at her before herding her and Haeri both to their room for bedtime. Seungcheol watches from his spot on the couch. It’s not that he doesn’t want to help, but he doesn’t want to get up like this, because if he does Jeonghan will catch on immediately without a pillow to hide it with. It’s embarrassing. He’s embarrassing.

“What’s wrong with you?” Jeonghan asks with narrowed eyes the moment he walks into the bedroom. Seungcheol plays dumb. He’s real good at that.

“What are you talking about?”

“Do you think I was born yesterday?” Jeonghan scoffs at him. Okay, maybe he’s not as good as he thought.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Seungcheol says, lying through his teeth. He watches Jeonghan’s eyes fall to the tent in his pajama pants.

“Right.” He heads into the bathroom and flicks on the light. “So you’re definitely stinking up my house for no reason. Nothing’s wrong my ass.”

Jeonghan mocking him just gets him even harder. He’s pitiful.

“Okay, it’s not nothing,” he says, coming clean. He sits on the edge of the bed and puts his head in his hands. Says a silent prayer wishing someone — anyone — would save him from the misery his out of control, horrendously perverted alpha keeps putting him through. Jeonghan laughs at him.

“And the sky is blue.”

“I’m — it’s stupid. I’ll go take care of it in the bathroom in a sec I just…”

Jeonghan stops whatever he’s up to in the bathroom to wait for Seungcheol to continue. “You just..?”

Seungcheol bites the inside of his bottom lip. Jeonghan’s invested now, so there’s no escaping it. In fact, he can imagine his face in the bathroom at this very moment, eyes sparkling in amusement as he waits for Seungcheol to explain in detail what jumpstarted tonight’s inappropriate boner. Seungcheol is so unbelievably ashamed of himself.

“Okay well…today some dickhead I had lunch with at work asked me if it bothered me that my mate makes more money than me. And I said no obviously, because I’m a normally functioning, perfectly well adjusted 28 year old adult,” he says, rambling a little. “But then like… the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I actually really really like it — the fact that you’re the breadwinner at home. And that you take care of us, and that you’re a bad ass at work even after two whole pups and a career switch. It like…awakened something in me. And I’ve been thinking about it all day and I got hard watching Big Hero 6 because of it and um. Yeah,” he finishes lamely.

Jeonghan stays silent for a painfully long moment. He comes out of the bathroom after a bit with his face shining beneath his skin products.

“You mean to tell me that the thought of me making more money than you got you horny?”

Seungcheol flushes immediately, overcome with the knee-jerk urge to argue. “It’s not only that!”

Jeonghan watches him carefully, studying him. There’s a look on his face that Seungcheol can tell means he’s thinking about what he said in an awfully calculating way and Seungcheol is honestly terrified to know what that means for him.

Without another word, Jeonghan disappears into the bathroom again, turning on the faucet to wash his hands. Then he comes back out and slinks towards Seungcheol’s spot on the bed. Seungcheol feels a hand on his chest pushing him back. The wetness from his palm bleeds through the fabric and makes him shiver.

“So me working gets you hot?” he asks breathily as he’s climbing into Seungcheol’s lap, voice probably low and raspy on purpose to push Seungcheol’s buttons. It’s working so fucking well. “You like seeing me provide for us, huh? No wonder you smelled like that in my office earlier.”

Seungcheol nods at him dumbly. “Uh huh.”

Jeonghan moves his hips sinfully, grinding down, trapping heat between them and prompting Seungcheol’s dick to throb helplessly against the fabric of his cotton pajama pants. Seungcheol ruts up like a dog, making an equally animal noise. “You want inside, then? Want your knot fucking into me again when I’m already full of you?”

Seungcheol blinks, short circuiting. Yes, God yes. Yes to all of that. He can’t even bring himself to speak properly, forcing another jerky nod. Jeonghan grins at him, razor sharp. “Use your words, puppy.”

Seungcheol chokes on his spit. “Yes fuck, please let me fuck you.”

“Good boy.” Jeonghan leans back a bit and rises to his knees to pull down his sweatpants and panties in one smooth motion. Seungcheol can’t help the way his hands immediately move to Jeonghan’s hips. He needs grounding before he comes without the chance to get inside him.

“You’re already so wet,” Jeonghan laughs meanly, palming the front of Seungcheol’s thin, ratty pants and feeling the dark spot. “You poor thing.”

Seungcheol might die here tonight.

With a swift tug from Jeonghan, Seungcheol’s pants come all the way down alongside his boxers. Jeonghan wastes no time getting a hand on him and god, Seungcheol is so simple-minded and easy. Just the sight of Jeonghan’s hand struggling slightly to close around the length of him makes him jerk up uselessly. Jeonghan pushes his hips down to make him stay in place.

“We have to be quiet, and fast,” Jeonghan instructs, readjusting himself so he’s hovering directly over Seungcheol’s dick. He means what he says, and proves it by immediately sinking down onto Seungcheol’s cock without a moment’s hesitation, enveloping it in tight, wet, pillowy soft heat. Seungcheol’s vision whites out. He loves fucking him so much.

“Mmm,” Jeonghan moans quietly to himself. He does a testing motion to adjust to the feeling of Seungcheol inside him, rolling his hips forward and then hiccuping out a gasp. “So big.”

He’s obviously exaggerating, trying to egg Seungcheol on. But Seungcheol is fucking gone, void of any logic with Jeonghan’s pussy swallowing him into another plane of existence, so it works quite easily. He moans pathetically, eyes stinging. His hands unconsciously tighten their grip on Jeonghan’s waist and that pulls a new sound out of him, unbidden this time.

Bracing himself with his hands on Seungcheol’s thighs behind him, Jeonghan starts to move. It’s slow and greedy — exactly how Jeonghan likes to ride, for his own pleasure and little else. That doesn’t matter to Seungcheol, though. Having Jeonghan like this, rolling his slim hips hypnotically, is enough to have him dangerously close to blowing his load like a blushing virgin already.

“Is it good, baby?” Jeonghan asks, breath shuddery and light. Seungcheol thinks he says something like yes but he’s so out of his mind right now that he can’t confirm. He watches Jeonghan lift a hand to tuck hair behind his ear without interrupting his rhythm for even a moment and it has his mouth drying out. He’s so sexy without trying — It’s maddening. His hands circle Jeonghan’s waist, pushing his big shirt higher and higher until the fabric’s draped over his forearms and he’s staring at his bump. It’s small still, but it’s so unmistakably there, cute and round against his slight frame. Tangible proof of Seungcheol’s job well done. It’s got his alpha doing fucking cartwheels and backflips somewhere inside him. He lets his thumbs brush against the surface of Jeonghan’s bump as he rides, sending a tiny jolt up Jeonghan’s spine.

“You love that I let you get me pregnant, don’t you,” Jeonghan gasps out, hips moving faster the more he speaks. “That’s what you’re good for. Not your job, not your money. Your knot.” Seungcheol’s hips buck up with a whine, orgasm building impossibly fast in his lower gut.

Jeonghan changes the angle, one hand moving to Seungcheol’s chest and the other slipping down to rub tight circles over his clit. His walls start fluttering around Seungcheol, the way they do when he’s getting close. Another tell of his is that low whine that starts up from the back of his throat, hitching and unhitching, getting louder by the second. Seungcheol is close too, just barely holding on.

“Fuck Hannie,” Seungcheol stutters out, hips jerking up mindlessly.

Jeonghan grins down at him wickedly. “Come inside me then, Cheollie. Go ahead.” His eyes twinkle with something Seungcheol can only describe as a little evil. He leans down. Whispers against his lips, “Give the baby a twin.”

That’s…maybe one of the worst things Jeonghan has ever said to Seungcheol in bed. It’s not even creative, or medically feasible. Seungcheol is honestly ashamed at the fact that that’s what does it for him. He comes with a groan and with his hands still cradling Jeonghan’s hips, knot inflating and surprising them both. Jeonghan manages to come twice in the space of a minute, lurching headfirst from one orgasm into a second, more intense one at the feeling of Seungcheol’s knot filling him, shivering and grinding his way through each. His eyes are watering a little on Seungcheol’s chest when he comes to, both of them panting and sweaty and disgusting.

“You’re disgusting for coming when I said that,” is the first thing Jeonghan says when he’s coherent again, while he’s wiping away tears. Seungcheol squawks in offense, but his deflating knot twitches despite himself at the reminder.

“You’re disgusting for saying it!”

The next morning, Seungcheol wakes up in rut, even though his isn’t due for another two months. It’s the worst rut of his life, probably. If not worst, then it’s definitely in the top five.

“I still can’t believe that you thinking of me making more money than you is what triggered this,” Jeonghan tells him as he’s brushing Seungcheol’s bangs out of his sweaty forehead while he’s got his head sitting in his lap.

Seungcheol had refused Jeonghan’s help for the most part, scared of being too rough on him in this state. But Jeonghan, fed up with all his pained whimpering, had told him to shut the fuck up and stop being difficult. So here he is, recovering from a free handy from his husband’s skilled, weirdly bendy hands. Seungcheol lucked out with him.

“Did not,” Seungcheol feels the need to protest weakly, reduced all the way down to monosyllabic words from the rut-fog.

“You’re such a weird alpha, Cheollie,” Jeonghan hums, ignoring him. He strokes Seungcheol’s hair. “But it’s okay. I love you anyway.”

“Thank you,” Seungcheol says, right before passing out at the feeling of Jeonghan’s touch at his scalp. I love you more he doesn’t get to say, although he’s sure the blissed out ripple of warmth he’d sent bleeding through their bond was indication enough of how he feels.

Maybe the rut isn’t all that bad.

05

As the pregnancy progresses, things go smooth enough for so long that it starts to feel like they’re waiting with bated breath for something to go wrong.

Obviously, it's the last thing either of them want. But it wouldn’t exactly be hyperbole to call Jeonghan’s last two pregnancies quite wretched. In fact, that alone may not be enough a word.

With Haeri, morning sickness had left Jeonghan nearly bedridden at a point, and he’d been so weak with it that Seungcheol had grown terrified to let him out of his sight for even a moment, turning something as simple as leaving for work into an agonizing ordeal for his clingy, velcro-attached alpha. The anemia and constant vomiting decidedly didn’t commingle very well, to no one’s surprise, and it all sent a lot of shit flying up into the fan. At his first job post-grad — a temporary stint at a coffee shop close to their apartment as opposed to the semester of law school he’d have been enrolled in if things were a little different — Jeonghan had passed out more than once from the exhaustion and low iron and depleted blood sugar and gave Seungcheol near heart attacks every time. By the third incident, Seungcheol was begging him to quit, and when Jeonghan finally relented, unable to bear the long hours on his feet, Seungcheol had to pick up double the slack at his own temporary job as a waiter, all while juggling his internship and trying to secure a full time offer. Things were rough. And that was just the first two trimesters.

For the duration of either pregnancy, Jeonghan spent most of it sick and fatigued and not quite himself. It was like every bad symptom in the book came and smacked him in the face, one after another after another, and then all at once. Bleeding gums, itchy skin, heartburn, migraines, vertigo — fucking hemmroids. Although it takes two to tango, by the time Jeonghan was carrying Sarang, Seungcheol was starting to feel a little bit like a monster. When Jeonghan had screamed as much at him while grinding the bones in his right hand into dust with the strength of his grip while delivering her, Seungcheol took it to heart. He would never have brought up the idea of another pup if it weren’t for Jeonghan.

Right now though, things are going well. The morning sickness still wasn’t fun, but it didn’t last half as long, nor was it nearly as intense. The fatigue is still there too, but instead of leaving him a 24/7 zombie, it's manifested itself in the form of frequent naps that leave Seungcheol tasked with entertaining the girls for the rest of the day all by himself, which he could never complain about. On weekends, sometimes Jeonghan convinces the girls to come lie down with him, and Seungcheol sort of wants to burst into tears whenever he walks into their bedroom and sees Jeonghan on the bed snuggled up with Haeri and Sarang on either side of him, all three (or really, four) of them momentarily dead to the world. There’s a picture of it somewhere in his camera roll that he wants framed so he can stare at it in his office when pretending to care about his job gets old.

Really, it’s all been going so much better that it feels almost too good to be true.

That’s why the look presently replacing the usual bright eyes and kind smiles that seem to be perpetually plastered on Dr. Jung’s face is a little panic inducing. More than a little, actually. The tension to her brows feel like the foreboding to a terrible reality check — like the next words out of her mouth are going to boot them off the comfortable cloud they’ve been riding high on.

“Is everything alright?” Jeonghan asks, mirroring the downturn of her lips.

“Everything’s fine!” she rushes to say, noticing his apprehension. “The baby’s perfectly healthy,” she adds as she’s moving the lubed up ultrasound wand over his belly. Jeonghan and Seungcheol both breathe out an audible sigh of relief.

“But,” she says while she’s helping Jeonghan wipe the tacky gel off his stomach, because of course there’s a but. “I will say that you and baby are both measuring a little on the small side for this gestational stage, Jeonghan-ssi.”

“Oh.” Jeonghan keeps his face pretty neutral, but Seungcheol can feel him getting anxious, and sees the barest hint of panic in his eyes when they share a wordless look. Seungcheol quickly reaches for his hand and holds it firmly in his own.

“But they’re both healthy?” Seungcheol confirms again, eyeing her intensely. His scent starts to bleed a little, encircling Jeonghan and him in a needless protective layer of cedarwood and pine. It’s a bit overkill. This here is a big part of why Jeonghan likes to leave him at home when he’s going to these. A time and place like this, with his mate and pup being examined so closely, is bound to leave anyone’s alpha keyed up and restless. Seungcheol’s no exception. Pair that with his own natural neuroticisms and you’ve got what's essentially a walking yarn ball of nerves in place of Seungcheol. But it’s not like he can help it.

“Yes they are,” the doctor affirms for him with a reassuring smile. “But Jeonghan, I’d prefer it if you gained just a little more weight. I know you’re quite slender and that you carry light, but it’d help a lot to reduce risks in the future if you picked up a few more pounds for you and the little one.”

Jeonghan nods, trying to smile back. There’s a complicated look on his face. Seungcheol’s going to unpack that.

“You’re staring,” Jeonghan sighs on the drive home. Caught, Seungcheol snaps his attention back to the still red traffic light.

“Are you okay?” he asks, feigning nonchalance as his foot finds the gas again when the light flickers green. That’s probably Jeonghan’s least favorite question on Earth, which Seungcheol knows. Times like this call for him to toss his self preservation instincts aside though.

“I’m fine,” Jeonghan tells him brusquely without sparing him half a glance. Okay so…definitely not fine. Seungcheol hums and nods. Lets Jeonghan think that he believes he’s telling the truth for now.

“That’s good then,” he says, eyes trained on the road again. “I’m glad.”

They drive in near silence, save for the early 2010s ballads Seungcheol’s got on shuffle playing in the background, connected through the bluetooth speaker and turned down low because Jeonghan complains when it’s loud. Seungcheol tries hard to focus on the road stretched ahead, but it’s really not up to him, the way he’s stuck lying in constant wait for each and every chance to look at Jeonghan. It’s an involuntary, all the time thing for him — even when he’s unconscious, with his sleeping body seemingly incapable of making it through the night without shifting its limbs to ensure him and Jeonghan wake up nose to nose, wrapped around each other, no matter how they fell asleep. Like something inside him can’t bear to blink awake and see anything other than his mate across from him. It’s nothing new. That’s why he lets the urge to look at Jeonghan’s face overtake him without much of a fight when a light flickers to yellow and then red and when he does, Jeonghan’s suspiciously wiping his eyes, and his nose is bright red. Seungcheol blinks, realizing.

“Are you crying, Hannie?”

“No,” Jeonghan lies through gritted teeth. His next exhale sounds a lot like a choked off sob.

“Baby,” Seungcheol frowns instantly, taking a hand off the wheel to rub the space between his shoulder blades. “Is it what the doctor said?”

“No,” he lies again. He sniffles, audibly shooting snot back up his nostrils. “Okay maybe,” he admits a minute later.

“Talk to me please,” Seungcheol pleads. Jeonghan takes a shaky breath, and then another, before he finally lets himself start crying in earnest. Weirdly, it’s a bit of a relief, despite how much he hates to see him cry. Seungcheol doesn’t know why he insists on holding it in all the time, when he’s this pregnant and hormonal and on the verge of bursting into tears at least twice a day. Through their bond, Seungcheol feels the tension release the way a knot in his shoulder would melt with a well positioned squeeze.

“I just…I feel like I’m messing it up and I’m fucking annoyed at myself because this is what I asked for,” he wails, becoming a wet, blubbering mess of tears in the passenger seat in a matter of seconds. “It’s been like, six years since I was pregnant with Sarang and I still haven’t learned a damn thing. It’s pathetic and embarrassing.”

“Don’t talk about yourself like that,” Seungcheol bristles. “There’s nothing to learn. You’re doing amazing, just like you did with Sarang and Haeri. Pregnancy is tough. Demanding on your body — I’d take your place a million times over if I could. Nothing is your fault.”

“Tell that to my omega,” he croaks, all shaky and watery because when Jeonghan starts crying it's like setting a torrent loose and it takes forever for him to get it together. “God, Seungkwan made it look so easy all three times. Jisoo too. I just feel like an idiot. Like I’m doing it all wrong and I suck at being pregnant.”

“You do not suck at being pregnant,” Seungcheol says vehemently. “You’re doing everything right, Hannie. You’re healthy and the baby’s healthy. That’s all that matters.”

“Ugh. Stop talking rationally to me,” Jeonghan complains, blowing his nose into the tissue he just fished out of the glove compartment. He calms down a bit after a few deep breaths, although the tears are definitely still falling, tangling up his lashes. He stares intently at the side of Seungcheol’s head. “I want pizza.”

Seungcheol blinks at the road, lost. “But you hate pizza..”

“But I want it now,” Jeonghan says emphatically. “Make sure they put pineapple on it.”

+

After that appointment, Seungcheol becomes a man on a mission.

He takes it upon himself to make sure Jeonghan is eating twice as well as he was before following Doctor Jung’s advisory. He insists upon making dinner every night when he gets home from work so he can stuff it full of nutrients and double the portions, even if that means it comes a little later, and hounds Mingyu and Junhui nearly every day for recipes and ideas on what to make. He brings home every bizarre craving Jeonghan can think up. Hell, he even tries to bake, which is absurd. He doesn’t even know how.

“Eomma says you’re going to burn the house down,” Haeri relays with no particular inflection to her voice, curiously watching him fuss over the charred cookies he’s pulling out of the oven.

Seungheol smiles tightly. “Thanks for letting me know, Bug.”

“Those are burnt,” Sarang supplies loudly, pointing at the tray he’s holding. Seungcheol feels taunted.

“Yep,” he sighs defeatedly. He dumps the cookies out and removes his oven mitts. “Who wants to take a trip to the bakery?”

Sarang and Haeri’s meeeees are practically deafening.

Outside of cooking (and what can only very loosely be referred to as baking, really), Seungcheol also starts to make a habit out of eating with Jeonghan as often as possible.

“I can’t take a bite of anything without you breathing down my neck.”

“Sorry,” Seungcheol says, though not sincere enough to stop his staring. “Is it good?” he asks, eyes wide.

Jeonghan glares at him, but the effect is muted by the adorable chipmunk cheeks he’s sporting. “Can I finish my bite?” he mumbles around the food in his mouth.

Seungcheol nods, a little sheepish. He watches as Jeonghan chews some more and then swallows before washing it down with the Diet Coke he argued with Seungcheol over just now. It’s definitely not healthy, but Seungcheol relented pretty easily when he remembered how badly Jeonghan was really itching for a can of beer instead. He puts a bottle away faster than any omega he knows, which is how Seungcheol can tell the yearning now is intense. A Diet Coke is a fair compromise, he thinks. (And also, if he didn’t give in, he was definitely going to lose. Jeonghan takes absolutely no prisoners when he’s craving something. It was either going to be the Coke or Seungcheol’s head).

“It’s good, Cheol,” Jeonghan says finally, making Seungcheol relax, and giving his alpha another thing to preen about. The leftover fried chicken he had Seungcheol pull out of the fridge and dunk in pickle juice for him at one in the morning turned out tasting just as delicious as Jeonghan hoped it’d be. He’s so fascinating.

Usually, Seungcheol’s hovering is a point of contention for the two of them, but since Jeonghan’s been making a concerted effort to let Seungcheol look after him more these days, he allows Seungcheol to feed him without protest. And whenever Jeonghan’s craving something at an ungodly hour of the night, Seungcheol eats with him so he doesn’t feel lonely.

“How’s Gunbam doing?”

Jeonghan snickers at the nickname. “Baby likes it too. They’re moving.”

Seungcheol grins, so happy he thinks a beam of everything he’s feeling could shoot out of his chest and laser through the kitchen island they’re sitting at. “Can I feel?”

Jeonghan nods, cheeks full of food again. He turns on the bar stool a little, giving Seungcheol better access. “I don’t know if it’s strong enough for you to tell yet though. I know you weren’t able to feel it last time,” he says around his soggy, pickled chicken.

Seungcheol rests his hand on top of Jeonghan’s wrinkly sleep shirt. Well, technically it’s his. Again. Honestly, Seungcheol doesn’t think he’s seen Jeonghan sleep in clothes that belong to him for the entirety of the pregnancy thus far. But he doesn’t care. Actually, he prefers it. What’s his is Jeonghan’s and what’s Jeonghan’s…could be his if it fit him properly, probably.

The bump is bigger now — big enough that the shirt curves around it noticeably. With his hand on top of it, Seungcheol feels a bit of childlike glee build inside him, because even if it is round three it truly never gets old. There’s another baby in there. Like, for real. Crazy.

“Holy shit, I feel it!” Seungcheol practically jumps out of his seat when his hand registers the light fluttering beneath his palm. “What the fuck — That’s our pup!”

“Language,” Jeonghan chastises with a tiny smile of his own. He rests his hand on top of Seungcheol’s. “You got your son all excited.”

Seungcheol’s so caught up in the baby wiggling around inside Jeonghan and underneath his hand that he doesn’t register what he’s said until much later. He blinks, watching Jeonghan with wide eyes. “My son?”

“Huh?” Jeonghan’s face flushes. He looks caught, probably feeling silly and embarrassed that he’s let on to the silent hunch he’s been holding onto. He pushes Seungcheol’s hand away so he can turn and face his food again. Seungcheol can see his ears are a furious shade of pink. “I misspoke.”

Seungcheol snickers at him, picking up a piece of his normal, not pickle-juiced chicken. “Uh huh. Sure baby.”

Immediately, Jeonghan’s hand comes up and thwacks him in the back of his head for the sarcasm. Jeonghan starts blushing even harder though, so. Worth.

+

“What the fuck.”

“What is it, baby?” Jeonghan asks, wrapping his arms around Seungcheol’s middle and fitting his head in the junction between his neck and shoulders. Seungcheol licks his dry lips, heart thundering. He feels lightheaded.

They’re supposed to be celebrating. Jeonghan finally gained all the weight Dr. Jung told him to and then some — the fruits of Seungcheol’s labor (read: incessant hovering) in helping him eat more, guided along by recipes from Mingyu and Junhui’s Korean-Chinese fusion restaurant (and the takeout he fell back on whenever his cooking endeavors went up in miserable, literal flames. Which was quite often).

Things are supposed to be light and uplifted. It’s a Saturday morning and the good news will be the perfect thing for Jeonghan to announce to Seungkwan and Jisoo later over brunch while the girls have their play date, while Seungcheol talks to Hansol and Seokmin about his favorite things these days, which are (always) Jeonghan and the girls and the baby. But Seungcheol’s mindless decision to step on the scale himself has just dealt a major blow to the mood — or his mood at least. Because what the fuck? Since when did he gain 3 kilos? Eight whole pounds?

Seungcheol’s gym rat days are behind him of course, with a husband and kids at home and a job to attend from 9-to-5. But even if he’s not the lean built guy he was in college he’s still always had a nice structure to him — with or without the gym. Broad shoulders, thick muscle, even if it’s softened around the edges a little. And he’s always floated comfortably over the same weight, give or take a kilo. That’s why the number blinking back at him on the fancy scale has him reeling a little. How could this have happened without him realizing it?

Jeonghan hums a noise of question near his ear again when he stays frozen a beat too long, kicking Seungcheol back to reality in their bathroom. He worries his bottom lip, feeling his skin warm up all over.

“I…I gained more than you did since last time. 3 kilos.”

The words are a struggle to get out. He feels like shit. Feels sick at himself, and imagines Jeonghan’s going to feel the same, even if he tries to mask it with consoling words to make him suck it up. He’s glad he can’t see his face this way. His throat clicks with a swallow as he waits for Jeonghan to say something. Seungcheol nearly tumbles off the scale when Jeonghan instead grabs his shoulder and forcibly spins him around.

“Really?” he’s asking, eyes sparkling with inconceivable excitement. Seungcheol stares at him, stunned into silence. The only thing he can do is fumble out a weird, jerky nod. Jeonghan sees it and grins.

“I didn’t think it was real. My mom told me it happened to my dad when she was pregnant with me but…wow.”

Seungcheol’s face wrinkles. “What? Didn’t think what was real?

Jeonghan squeezes his shoulders with his hands, smiling even harder somehow, like this is all terribly amusing. “Sympathy weight gain.”

Huh? Seungcheol blinks at him, obviously clueless. Jeonghan rolls his eyes, scoffing. “What’s the point of all those pregnancy books if you haven’t even heard of this?”

“What?” A frown pulls at the corners of his lips. Why isn’t Jeonghan matching his shock and disappointment? Why is he acting like this is normal? “This is the heaviest I’ve ever been, Hannie.”

Jeonghan’s smile falls away a little, and he gives Seungcheol’s face a thorough search. One of his eyebrows comes up in a near perfect arch, like he’s confused about what Seungcheol’s even trying to say. “Well you said you’d take my place if you could, didn’t you?”

That’s — okay well that’s true. But still. “You’re pregnant, Hannie, you’re doing something beautiful and special and important. And I’m…” Seungcheol grits his teeth. “I’m supposed to be a good alpha for you, while you do that. Supposed to be sexy for you.”

“..You don’t think you’re sexy?”

Seungcheol tentatively shakes his head no, dropping his head a little to avoid Jeonghan’s gaze. Jeonghan’s index finger and thumb grab his chin to force his head upright, not having any of that. Seungcheol’s got no choice but to look at his face like this. For whatever reason, Jeonghan doesn’t look like he’s masking his disgust at Seungcheol — instead he looks pissed. Like he’s annoyed Seungcheol’s even making him emote this strongly before noon. “Don’t be fucking stupid, Choi Seungcheol. What are you on about?”

Seungcheol shrugs lamely, face still hot with his shame and embarrassment in Jeonghan’s hold. “It’s just…I don’t know. You’ve always liked my muscles and stuff. Back when I used to go to the gym and lift. And now my — my abs are gone and my muscles are softer and I’m 3 kilos heavier than I was a month ago. Not sexy.”

After all that, Jeonghan gives him a flat, unimpressed look, followed by a long-suffering sigh. “God. Do you listen to anything I say?” He moves his fingers to flick Seungcheol’s forehead smack in the middle and it draws a yelp out of him. “I like my alphas big and sturdy. I like you big and sturdy and capable. We’ve discussed this at length. Over and over. Why would this make you any less sexy to me?”

Seungcheol stammers out another “I don’t know” that makes Jeonghan shake his head, the way he does at Haeri and Sarang sometimes when he wants them to know he’s very disappointed with what they’ve done. It always makes them cry without fail. Seungcheol kind of feels like he wants to now.

“I don’t care how much weight you gain, Cheol. I want you, and I’m going to keep wanting you for the rest of my life. You’re stuck with me. Deal with it.”

Seungcheol swallows thickly again. He gives Jeonghan another jerky nod and Jeonghan pats his cheek, pleased with the sight. Then he pushes Seungcheol against the wall, making him trip backwards off the scale. It’s so sudden, the way his scent changes into something heavy and cloying, blanketing the bathroom with it — like a surprise storm in the summertime. Okay, he guesses Jeonghan wasn’t lying about liking it, Seungcheol thinks, watching Jeonghan push the scale out of the way and sink to his knees in front of him.

“Can I?” he asks lowly, eyes dark, face nakedly wanting. Seungcheol bites back a strangled moan.

“Yeah, fuck.”

Jeonghan yanks his sweatpants and boxers down in one go and swallows him so quickly his knees nearly give out.

06

Seungcheol is Seungcheol, so it’s very much expected when he goes the whole nine yards for their anniversary in the spring.

“You’re being secretive…” Jeonghan hums over the line when Seungcheol calls him on his lunch break to remind him of that night’s plans. “I think it’s turning me on. Keep talking and let me see.”

“Jeonghan,” Seungcheol whines, scanning his surroundings in the empty breakroom to make sure it really is empty. “I can’t do sexy talk on the clock anymore. Seulgi says she’s reporting me to HR the next time I start smelling like a rut-stricken dog near her at lunch.” He lowers his voice to add, “Plus, I almost came in my pants that last time.”

“Well tell Seulgi to stop being such a buzzkill,” Jeonghan says, making a flippant noise with his tongue that sounds eerily like Sarang and Haeri’s impressions of a fart. “Sexy talk on company time is our thing.”

Seungcheol huffs out a laugh, but he can’t bring himself to disagree with him — blowing off his tasks in favor of phone calls with his mate, just to hear his voice, has got to be his favorite thing to do at work. He stares out the floor to ceiling windows of the break room, willing himself to get back on track. The tall, willowy trees their office faces remind him of Jeonghan, strangely. “I’m only being secretive because I want tonight to be special. You deserve it.”

“We deserve it, Cheol,” Jeonghan corrects. “And it will be.”

He says it so firmly that Seungcheol’s got no space to disagree. He’s nervous, with how much he’s planning, banking on everything going right. But Jeonghan tempers it before he lets it spin out of control and psyche him out. He’s freakishly good at that. Like he’s got a sixth sense for what’s going to talk Seungcheol down from whatever ledge he’s on. Well — the bond is basically that, anyway.

For the rest of his shift, Seungcheol practically buzzes around the office, teeming with anticipation and excitement and nerves and feeling it all coalesce in his gut, along with whatever the break room coffee’s busy doing to it. Seulgi leans over his cubicle to laugh at the way he re-checks the clock every two minutes the moment it hits 4:30. He’d been telling her about the anniversary date all week and now that today’s the day, she can’t resist the urge to poke fun at his enthusiasm. She always likens him to an overactive puppy. Seungcheol is sick of her acting like she doesn’t behave the same way over her wife, Joohyun. He tells her as much and earns a manicured middle finger to the face. She also sends him a no-subject-line email with a paragraph’s worth of middle fingers to really drive it home.

“Don’t forget to wrap your willy,” she calls out when he’s tripping over his own feet in his haste to leave the office, smiling that impossibly wide smile of hers with nothing good behind it. She knows Jeonghan’s already pregnant, of course. She just thinks she’s funny.

+

“Wow — You look…Wow.”

In the doorway to their bedroom, Seungcheol stares at Jeonghan like he’s got maybe half — no, a quarter of — a brain left. Rushing home the way he did was so fucking worth it, he thinks. Jeonghan looks absurdly good. The kind of good that makes your heart skip several beats. Dries your mouth out. He’s in a charcoal colored maternity sweater with the top few buttons undone and dark, stretchy-waisted pants. He’s also glowing, because this pregnancy is doing wonders for his hair and skin. His hair is especially nice today. He clearly went to town with the flat iron, because it’s curled to perfection in all the right places — not even a bang out of place. It probably took hours. Seungcheol is in love with him.

“Well thank you, Cheollie,” Jeonghan laughs, eyes knowing, tucking hair behind his ear out of habit. Seungcheol tracks every movement like a dog dying for a treat. “You gonna keep staring or are you gonna get ready too?”

Seungcheol finally remembers to blink. “Yeah.”

Seungcheol dresses up nicer than his usual nice, because he wants to look good for Jeonghan. He changes out of his work clothes and slips on a new, dressier button up and a pair of fitted slacks that Jeonghan has jumped him in before. He rolls up the button up’s sleeves to show off his forearms, which he knows gets Jeonghan going too. Something about the easy access to the small scent glands in his inner wrist, he bets.

“But we wanna go to dinner too!” Haeri whines from where she’s standing next to Seungcheol in their bedroom’s mirror, lips pushed out in a severe pout. Sarang grunts in what might (?) be agreement, perched on him and Jeonghan’s bed and fully engrossed in the game on her sticky iPad.

“Sorry, Bug. Grown ups only,” Jeonghan says, coming up behind her to work on wrangling her hair before she and Sarang get dropped off at their Uncle Jihoon’s apartment to be babysat. Haeri scowls a little, revealing her rare petulant side. She’s not as over the top as Sarang usually, but she is still a seven year old.

“Then why can the baby go,” she points out, turning around and standing on her tiptoes, pressing her chin to Jeonghan’s belly to look up at him with desperate, pleading eyes. (‘Dog begging for boiling water on the stove’ eyes, Jeonghan calls it. Claims her and Sarang stole it from Seungcheol. Whatever that means.)

Beside Haeri, where he’s busy clipping his watch together, Seungcheol snickers. She’s clever, which he’s willing to admit even when she’s being a little shit. Jeonghan momentarily gives up on doing her hair, brushing her bangs back with his hand and resting his palm on the crown of her head. It’s something he does that always inexplicably soothes them. Seungcheol can only dream of having a touch that effortlessly gentle.

“Okay Miss Smart Aleck, you have a point there. But baby’s got no choice,” he tells her, voice colored in amusement. “Besides, you and Sarang wouldn’t have any fun at this place, I promise. Uncle Jihoon is going to give you a much better time.”

“Hmph.” Haeri’s pout only lets up a little, but she does stop her begging in favor of more pressing questions. “Will he get us pizza?”

“Honey, your Uncle Jihoon is filthy rich. He’ll get you whatever you want,” Seungcheol says. After a beat he adds, “But don’t tell him I said that.”

“Can I ask for Robux?” Sarang interjects from her spot on the bed. Jeonghan huffs out a laugh.

“You have enough Robux.”

The girls make it to Jihoon’s apartment in one piece, with only minimal complaining and just one whine of are we there yet from the backseat.

“Thanks again for offering to watch them,” Seungcheol’s saying as Sarang catapults herself into Jihoon’s thighs. No biting he hears Jeonghan call out.

“It’s no problem. Seriously,” Jihoon tells them, ruffling Haeri and Sarang’s hair. “Too much space in this place for just me and the kids, anyway.”

When Jihoon says kids, he’s referring to his cats, because that’s just the kind of guy he is. And he’s definitely right to say there’s a ridiculous amount of space in his apartment. Jihoon’s far too humble to say it outright, but Seungcheol’s got an inkling that the producer salary he’s been living off of is enough to buy a moderately sized island. He’s got so much money lying around that he doesn’t even know what to do with it, let alone his massive place where words echo off the walls when it gets quiet enough. But, even then, Jihoon is definitely lying. Seungcheol’s certain of it. When it comes to a homebody like him, there can never be too much space inside. Really, he’s in hermit paradise. He probably just missed the girls. Seungcheol can’t blame him.

“We’ll be back around ten,” Jeonghan says, before carefully bending at the waist to peck Haeri and Sarang’s foreheads. When he straightens up, he fixes Jihoon with a pleading look. He leans in and lowers his voice so the girls can’t hear. “Also. No One Piece tonight.”

Jihoon immediately snorts. They do this same song and dance every time Jihoon babysits the girls because whenever Jihoon lets them watch One Piece they come home mimicking the laughs of every single character for a minimum of three days. It drives Jeonghan up the walls. Seungcheol finds it funny. Maybe he’s just childish.

“I’ll try, but you know they’re sweet talkers, hyung. They love watching it here.”

Jeonghan looks at Jihoon murderously for a long moment. Jihoon doesn’t rise to the bait — just looks right back at him with the corners of his lips twitching in amusement, which he probably knows is a surefire way to get under Jeonghan’s skin. Seungcheol can’t have that. “Hey look at the time! We’re going to be late for our reservation.” His hand finds the small of Jeonghan’s back. “Off we go!”

Jeonghan bats Seungcheol’s hand away and walks to the car on his own, but not without one last narrow-eyed glare at Jihoon over his shoulder. Seungcheol sighs, looking down at his girls.

“Bug, Peach. Be good,” he says, pleased with the resounding neeeees he gets in response. After planting kisses of his own on both their foreheads, he lingers in the doorway for a beat before finally detaching himself with one last wave and trailing behind Jeonghan. Those girls are his heart and soul, and every goodbye feels like chipping a little piece of himself away. He’s dramatic. He fully acknowledges it.

+

“You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?” Jeonghan asks when they’re pulling up to the entrance of the restaurant, on the verge of laughter, like he doesn’t quite believe what he’s looking at. “Are you really this fucking insane, Choi Seungcheol?”

“Maybe,” he grins. He pulls the keys out of the ignition and pockets them so he can hand them to the valet waiting a few paces away near the entrance. Then he steps out and dashes to the passenger side in record time to make sure he’s there to open Jeonghan’s door before he can even think to lay a finger on the handle, bad knee be damned. Jeonghan stares at his outstretched hand like he’s waiting for it all to be part of some bit. When he realizes Seungcheol is serious, and that this isn’t all some elaborate joke at his expense, he reluctantly takes it, if only so that the valet can do his job.

They end up on the private patio area of the restaurant, tucked away in a corner for just the two of them. Jeonghan’s still looking at him like he’s grown a second head, even as they’re being seated.

“How did you even get a reservation here?” Jeonghan hisses quietly, eyes darting around to check if they’re really the only ones up here. “People wait years for one, Cheol. What the fuck?”

“I have my ways,” Seungcheol says smugly, feeling pride swell somewhere behind his ribs at Jeonghan’s genuine surprise. It’s not easy to catch him off guard like this. He doesn’t tell Jeonghan that he’d been on the waitlist for ages, and that he booked the reservation sometime last year after their last anniversary celebration. He also doesn’t mention that Mingyu put in a good word for him with the owners. It doesn’t feel relevant.

“Oh my god this is too much,” Jeonghan mumbles, face flushing. He fans himself, unable to hide the embarrassed wrinkle to his nose. “I feel underdressed.”

“You’re not,” Seungcheol tells him quickly, reaching across the table to grab his hand. Jeonghan’s wearing the gold bracelet he gifted him a few anniversaries ago, he notes, which makes something inside him twist funnily out of place. Recovering, Seungcheol meets his eyes, seeing everything he’s feeling reflected right back in Jeonghan’s shy gaze. He squeezes the slender hand in his a little tighter. “You look incredible, Hannie. I mean it.”

Jeonghan can’t handle the prolonged eye contact. He gets squirmy and awkward and it makes his face get hot. He looks away quickly. “Okay.”

The waiter comes by and asks about their allergies before pouring them fancy water in fancy glasses. They don’t even need to order. There’s already a full course meal waiting for them, with dish after dish of gourmet food they can barely pronounce coming out.

They eat while overlooking the rest of Seoul, watching the overcast skies dim with the set of the sun, and when they talk about their days and the girls and the baby and about nothing at all, it’s all so easy, the way it’s always been. Quickly Seungcheol remembers, for what wouldn’t be the first and what he’s certain won’t be the last time, just how simple it’d been for him to end up so ridiculously taken by the man in front of him. To end up so in love that it’s honestly turned him a little stupid. Easy like taking a breath. Like putting one foot in front of the other. It’s been over a decade since they started dating — today marks 11 years, actually — and Seungcheol still feels like the lovesick college freshman falling fast and hard for his best friend he was back then. He feels his left chest tighten inexplicably at the thought, while he’s watching Jeonghan throw his head back to laugh while he’s making fun of him. Haeri and Sarang have his smile too. Easily the most beautiful thing in the world.

“I have one last gift,” Seungcheol says, right as they’re finishing dessert. Jeonghan freezes mid bite. There’s strawberry filling from some pastry that’s ended up on the corner of his mouth and Seungcheol wants nothing more than to kiss and lick it away.

“You can’t be serious,” Jeonghan complains, licking the jelly off himself. “You’re going to make me feel bad at this rate. If I knew we were going all out I would have bought you more than just the robo-vacuum.”

Seungcheol stares at him. “But I love the robo-vacuum,” he says solemnly. He means it. “I — Don’t worry about me, Hannie. You deserve the whole world. I mean — you always do, but now especially. You’re carrying my child and I love you and I’m proud of you and I just really want to make you happy.”

Seungcheol’s spiel makes Jeonghan pause in real-time. “Yah.” He processes the words, eyes narrowing. “Choi Seungcheol what did you do?”

Seungcheol gives him a sheepish smile. He pulls out his phone, deciding to show rather than tell. Jeonghan gives him a weird look before picking up the phone off the tablecloth.

There’s a terrifying moment of silence that follows as Jeonghan stares at the phone in his hand. Inexplicably, Seungcheol’s holding his breath a little.

“Are these…are these plane tickets to Jeju?” Jeonghan asks finally, voice strange sounding after the full minute he spends reading and rereading the flight information on Seungcheol’s phone. Seungcheol swallows thickly before nodding a little nervously. This is the big surprise he’s been planning for the last month now and he can’t afford to fuck it up by saying the wrong thing and convincing Jeonghan it’s not a good idea.

“Yeah um — I just thought we could have a little weekend to ourselves, you know? Before the baby comes. And you don’t have to worry about anything because I already got a sitter for the girls and since it’ll mostly be a weekend trip you don’t need to call off work for that many days. Everything’s all planned. But like, you can also say no. Like we don’t have to go to Jeju if….Jeonghan?”

Jeonghan’s face crumples so fast that Seungcheol’s stomach sinks to his ass. Without a moment’s hesitation Jeonghan bursts into tears and starts crying like a baby in the middle of the restaurant. He’s so loud about it too, like Seungcheol’s gone and stabbed him. Seungcheol swears the waiter is around the corner giving them concerned looks. God, he’s such a fuck up. “Fuck. Baby, I didn’t mean to upset you — we don’t —“

“Oh my god shut up,” Jeonghan wails, crying even harder now. “On top of being sweet and thoughtful and perfect you think your gift made me upset. You’re so annoying.”

Seungcheol’s brows come up in bewilderment. “Happy tears, then?”

Jeonghan can barely even get out a response, choking and hiccuping on sobs. “I love you so much it makes me sad. So no.”

Seungcheol lets go of the breath he’d been holding. Jeonghan’s flair for the dramatic hasn’t gone anywhere clearly. The coil of tension in his gut dissipates and gives way to something much more pleasant. Warmer.

“I love you,” Seungcheol says back. He means it so much. Feels the weight of it as it ping pongs back and forth against the walls of his chest, reverberating. Honestly speaking, he would let Jeonghan dig his tiny, blunt teeth into his nape to bite and reclaim him every day if they could, blood and all. Would return it in kind if asked. Jeonghan briefly stops his wailing to glare at him.

“Then stop making me cry!”

+

If Seungcheol were a little smarter, he maybe could have guessed what Jeonghan would do to him when they got in the car after dinner.

He’d smelled it first above all else. The way Jeonghan had started to fill the car with his cloyingly sweet vanilla-jasmine on the way back to Jihoon’s place. But if he’d paid a little more attention, he might have noticed the way Jeonghan got really quiet after they left, the way he does when he really wants something and is busy plotting about it. Might have realized that was the real first sign.

Jeonghan shifts in his seat some. Seungcheol gives him a glance out of the corner of his eye before focusing on the road again. Yes he smells it — is well aware of the smell of him means — but Seungcheol had figured they’d take care of things at home the way they usually do. The way most people do. If Jeonghan wants him to, he’d be more than happy to put his mouth to his cunt and wring a quiet orgasm or two out of him after they put the girls to bed. At home. In their bedroom.

They’re ten minutes away from Jihoon’s apartment when Jeonghan finally stops squirming in his seat and turns to him. “Cheol.”

“Hm?”

“We can’t pick up the girls yet.”

Seungcheol furrows his brows, suddenly lost. Is this one of Jeonghan’s terribly weird jokes? He can truly never tell when he’s about to fall victim. “Wh — Huh? Why not?”

Jeonghan pumps the car full of another intense, hardly breathable wave of his scent. His profile is barely being lit up by the streetlights but Seungcheol can still see the face he’s making in the dark — with his lip trapped between his teeth and his eyes low, lashes kissing his cheekbones. He honest to god looks like he’s moments away from entering heat. Which isn’t even possible at the moment, first of all. He takes an unsteady breath. “Because I need you to fuck me.”

Okay woah. Seungcheol chokes on his spit. “What?” He stands still for a beat too long when the light switches to green and gets honked at. Reluctantly, he starts to drive again, but he’s still giving Jeonghan frantic looks out of the corner of his eye, worried he’s having something like a stroke. What is he even saying? “Like — Like now? Why can’t we pick up the girls, Han I don’t under —”

“Yes now,” Jeonghan says, reaching over the center console to dig his fingernails into Seungcheol’s slacks, drawing a hiss out of him. Any closer and he’d be clawing through Seungcheol’s dick, which is currently busy chubbing up in his briefs. He’s so pathetic.

This isn’t the norm for them. Not even close. Jeonghan is the one with the self control. The one who makes a point of wrangling his inner omega when necessary, rarely ever allowing himself to succumb to the itching impulses and the nasty bouts of desperation that come dangerously close to boiling over. The one who can put a lid on it.

Which is why Seungcheol really really wants to pinch himself right now as he watches Jeonghan unbuckle his seatbelt and impatiently climb into his lap, slow and not all that graceful about it given the added weight centered at his core. Because surely this isn’t actually happening. Surely they’re not about to fuck in the back corner of the empty grocery store parking lot Jeonghan just had him pull into.

They were young once. Stupid too. It’s not like this is their first rodeo, choosing inappropriate locations to copulate in — during college they did it like it was for sport. But Seungcheol thinks it was a little more acceptable back then. Things are different now. They’ll be thirty in a year, and they’ve got two pups to take care of and they’re supposed to be wise and judicious with their decision-making now that their frontal lobes are supposedly developed. But here they are. Here Seungcheol is, having just been bullied into driving into an empty grocery lot by his mate, who’s so pregnant and horny that it’s overridden all his rational thought. Seungcheol’s supposed to be the non-hormonal one with a rightside up head on his shoulders, but his control over the situation is flagging quite a bit. Although truth be told, he never really had much in the first place.

With his nerves tangling into a twisted cat's cradle in his chest, Seungcheol watches Jeonghan reach beside him to press a button and recline the driver's seat so he’s got enough space. His breathing is all heavy when he finally turns his attention to Seungcheol fully again, tiny pants escaping his lips. It’s sick, how sexy Seungcheol finds it. Even the sound of Jeonghan breathing is enough to do him in.

“Seungcheol,” Jeonghan says, the reedy sound of his voice the only sound in the silent car, now that the ignition’s turned off. Or, Seungcheol thinks so at least. He can’t hear much of anything with his pulse drumming a dangerously fast rhythm all the way up in his ear drums. “Seungcheol,” he says again.

“What do you need, baby?” His hands easily find Jeonghan’s hips, still tiny but now padded with a little of the extra weight he’s picked up for their pup. Seungcheol’s alpha proudly prowls around inside him at the thought.

“Stupid alpha. I told you already,” Jeonghan reaches down and paws at Seungcheol’s fly, making contact with his half-hard dick. Seungcheol grits his teeth. “I need you inside.”

“Hannie. Baby,” Seungcheol starts, careful, like he’s trying to defuse a bomb that’ll explode in his face the moment he pokes the wrong color wire. “We — Why can’t we get home first? Wouldn’t it be more comfortable? It’s late too. We told Jihoon we’d be back by ten and —”

“Do you not want to fuck me?” Jeonghan interrupts sharply. “All these excuses. Tell me what it is, Cheol.”

Seungcheol snaps his mouth shut and feels his dick throb. God, what a fucking loser he is. Jeonghan being a little mean is really all that it takes for him to throw caution to the wind and give in to the little devil on his shoulder. He swallows thickly. Shakes his head no. As in no, he doesn’t not want to fuck him. But that’s not clear, he realizes. “I — That’s not it. I do want to fuck you.”

Jeonghan’s smile is immediate, backlit by the towers of light lining the edges of the parking lot. “Okay then what the fuck are you waiting for?”

Good point, Seungcheol realizes.

Eventually, he can't even bring himself to think any of this is a bad idea while he’s helping Jeonghan pull his pants all the way off and pushing his panties to the side to dip a finger inside his pussy. The part of his lips is so easy with the slick dripping out of him and Seungcheol thinks to himself that he could quit his job and do this for a living all day if asked. His dream job.

“Another,” Jeonghan demands soon, pulling his wet mouth away from Seungcheol’s. Seungcheol complies easily, feeding another finger inside him and feeling the easy slide of it as it slips in up to the first knuckle, and then the second, in one near-perfect go. Jeonghan hiccups out a moan, fingers tightening their hold on Seungcheol’s shoulders as he starts to rock back and forth. It’s all over Seungcheol’s pants now — the slick. If he had the wherewithal he’d be a little upset about that. He doesn’t. The start and end of his consciousness only extends as far as Jeonghan and the trembling thighs he’s got braced over his lap.

The grinding picks up a little, and Seungcheol feels his hand get even wetter somehow, slick trailing down the valleys of his knuckles. Jeonghan starts gasping to himself over and over like Seungcheol’s vacuuming all the air from the car. His walls twitch around Seungcheol’s digits erratically, tightening, making the slide less and less smooth, and Seungcheol can tell how close he is already by the feeling alone. He watches Jeonghan’s face and gets further confirmation by the way his eyes are wrenched shut and the tight press of his lips against each other.

With practiced ease, Seungcheol crooks his fingers, rubbing a spot against his walls that makes Jeonghan shiver uncontrollably, like a live wire’s been snapped. Hurriedly, Jeonghan shoves a hand down between them and presses his fingers to his clit. The sound that escapes his throat next is loud and cracked down the middle. That’s the only warning Seungcheol gets before his hand is soaked in slick and his fingers are trapped in the unrelenting hold of Jeonghan’s cunt, clenching tight around him as he comes. Jeonghan doesn’t appear to breathe for a full thirty seconds, jaw slack around a silent scream. He’s always quiet when he orgasms the hardest.

“Fuck Hannie,” Seungcheol curses, so hard it hurts. Jeonghan slumps against him, still breathing heavy against his shoulder. In the back of his head, Seungcheol’s half expecting Jeonghan to have finally gotten his fill and climb back into the passenger seat so they can figure out where the fuck to go from here. Wishful thinking, probably. Jeonghan catches his breath for all of sixty seconds and then sits up a little straighter — as straight as he can in the cramped driver's seat — before diving back in and pulling Seungcheol’s lip between his teeth.

“Please,” Jeonghan breathes against Seungcheol’s lips. Seungcheol can’t even think of the last time Jeonghan’s asked for him like this. So pretty and needy and sweet about it. How could he deny him?

“I’ve got you,” he says, before leaning forward and licking into Jeonghan’s mouth again, moving a hand to the small of his back. There’s no hope for them to make it out of this car without Seungcheol getting inside him, really, when he has Jeonghan in his lap begging the way he is. At this point, Seungcheol’s got no choice. It’s important to him that Jeonghan gets what he wants. An immutable top priority.

They work together to get Seungcheol’s pants off, with Jeonghan trying and failing to unclasp his belt buckle enough times that he eventually yanks on it in frustration. He pays no mind to Seungcheol’s yelp of protest against the treatment of his designer belt. No, he’s got a one track mind. He tosses the belt somewhere in the back and then tugs hard on Seungcheol’s slacks. Seungcheol lifts his hips to pull them down to his mid thigh along with his briefs and Jeonghan wastes no time wrapping a hand around him. Seungcheol shudders at the grip.

Impatiently, Jeonghan raises his hips, showcasing some of his impressive lower body strength (the pilates probably), and Seungcheol waits with bated breath as he lines them up. He feels himself brush against slick folds once, and then twice before Jeonghan sinks down, real slow about it, like he’s trying to savor the feeling. Burn it into memory. Seungcheol has to bite his lip to keep from crying out at the sickeningly tight heat of his cunt.

Jeonghan hiccups out a tiny noise once Seungcheol’s finally buried all the way home, their thighs touching, tacky with sweat. Honestly speaking, there’s no way this is comfortable, with the bump in the way and the awkward shuffling of limbs to get into a position that makes sense. Seungcheol knows Jeonghan is completely gone because in spite of all that, he doesn’t voice a single complaint, much more focused on getting Seungcheol’s dick to sit inside him right. Seungcheol can’t help the way his hands gravitate towards the swell of Jeonghan’s stomach, on the smaller side but still round enough at six months along that it brushes against his own stomach while Jeonghan sits in his lap. With his hand on it, Seungcheol realizes it nearly fills up his whole palm now. He knows Jeonghan can feel it when his dick jumps at the thought. He’s thankful it’s dark enough that the probable flush of his ears likely isn’t visible right now.

“Cheollie,” Jeonghan gasps out, rolling his hips and bracing a trembling hand against the window, leaving streaks in the condensation. He lets out a broken whine. By the sound of it, Seungcheol’s sure he’s crying at least a little bit. “Please fuck me. I need it.”

Seungcheol bites back a guttural moan at Jeonghan’s begging. He doesn’t get like this unless he’s in heat. He sounds out of his fucking mind and it’s so hot.

He moves his hips up in a testing motion and feels Jeonghan’s cunt clench around him in a vice-like grip. The sound punched out of his own throat sounds like it belongs to a wounded animal. His head is swimming, trying to keep up with everything going on. They’re in the car and Jeonghan’s in his lap and Seungcheol’s inside him. He can’t believe their anniversary dinner devolved into this.

With herculean effort, Seungcheol reorients himself, and after more of Jeonghan’s prompting, in the form of a mean bite to the shoulder, he finally starts to move in a steady rhythm. He lets his hands slide up, under the fabric of the cardigan, to where Jeonghan’s ribs are, just above the curve of his stomach, and it makes Jeonghan shiver. This isn’t an ideal place to fuck in, Seungcheol’s finding, but he makes do, holding Jeonghan steady with the grip on his ribcage as he bucks his hips into him again and again. It’s probably not his best work, given the lack of space, but Jeonghan doesn’t seem to have any complaints, if the nonstop stream of whines and quiet sighs leaving his lips is anything to go by.

“Oh my god,” Jeonghan breathes, like each movement of Seungcheol’s hips is knocking the wind out of him. Paradoxically, each shuddery exhale, in tandem with every thrust, still manages to sound like a sigh of unimaginable relief. “Fuck.”

“Is it good, baby?” Seungcheol asks, knowing he probably won’t even get a straight answer. The closest approximation to a response he gets is the soft, stuttering noise that comes out of the back of Jeonghan’s throat. Seungcheol’s greedy, so he seals his lips over Jeonghans and swallows it down.

Honestly speaking, fucking Jeonghan never leaves Seungcheol anything but awestricken. It’s hard to believe how well he takes Seungcheol, in spite of the difference in their staminas, and how delicate the weight of him seems to be beneath his palms. The soft flesh that always gives way to the insistent slide of Seungcheol’s cock almost feels too good to be real. Seungcheol has to bite his inner cheek hard to remind himself that it is — just as real as the tiny, desperate movements of Jeonghan’s hips as he chases the same feeling Seungcheol does, making his walls that much tighter every time Seungcheol sinks back inside. He’s perfect, Seungcheol thinks feverishly, listening to Jeonghan gasp at the feeling of one thrust that’s deep enough to have his clit brushing against Seungcheol’s pubic bone. Without a shadow of a doubt.

When Jeonghan starts getting close again, it’s easy to tell. It’s in the way his breath starts hitching like crazy and he can hardly keep his eyes open anymore. In the way he’s full body shaking with the effort to try not to come again so soon. Seungcheol’s not very patient. Looking to help things along, he slips one hand higher and finds Jeonghan’s sensitive nipple under his sweater, brushing against it with his thumb and making Jeonghan cry out and cant his hips into Seungcheol’s hard.

“I’m coming,” Jeonghan blurts suddenly, brows drawn together, voice tremulous. The hand he’s got massaging his clit speeds up and Seungcheol can see how shiny his slick covered fingers are when he looks down between them. And then Jeonghan’s wrenching his eyes shut, choking on a sob and clenching so hard around Seungcheol that it feels like his dick’s gone numb. “Seungcheol!”

Jeonghan’s orgasm is so intense that the force of it seems to catch him off guard, leaving his mouth hanging open dumbly. A frankly ridiculous amount of slick ends up squirting all over Seungcheol’s thighs. Seungcheol fucks him through it the best he can — even as his dick starts to feel like it’s being tightened into a tourniquet from the heat closing in around it. With the motley of sensation attacking him and his dick from all directions, Jeonghan’s desperate, overstimulated noises in his ear send him over the edge so quick he doesn’t even know it’s hit him until it’s too late and he’s biting into his bottom lip so hard that he thinks with a little more pressure, he’d bite straight through. He doesn’t pop a knot but it’s a very near thing, and he actively restrains himself when he feels it start to inflate with what little self-control he’s got left.

They come back down, back to themselves, slowly. Seungcheol regains feeling in his limbs and realizes Jeonghan is still shuddering through the aftershocks of his own orgasm, shaking in his lap. Seungcheol kisses and licks at the crescent-moon shaped scar he’d bitten into his nape all that time ago, moved by an imperative to soothe — to calm the tremble to his bones. In the car it’s just them and the sound of them fighting to catch their breaths. The near-silence is space enough for the gravity of what they’ve just done to sink in.

“So…” Seungcheol starts. He thinks he’s been pretty magnanimous, allowing the silence to stretch for three whole minutes at this point. But he still has to ask. “What was that?”

Jeonghan sits up from his slumped position on Seungcheol’s chest for the sole purpose of swatting at it. His cheeks are flushed beet red and it’s definitely not just from the sex. “Don’t. I’m serious.”

“Jeonghan, you just got so horny we pulled into an empty parking lot to fuck. I just need like, half an explanation.”

Jeonghan is so clearly embarrassed but he refuses to give in. As always, this is their essence — immoveable object, unstoppable force. “Yah! Stop talking.”

“Hannie. There’s slick all over my leather seats.”

“Seungcheol,” Jeonghan whines. He covers his face with his hands, then peaks through a window in his fingers. “Stop making fun of me.”

“I’m not!” Seungcheol laughs. Jeonghan has no business being as cute as he is now — even while sweaty and with his hair an utter mess. He wants to say it out loud but he’s afraid Jeonghan will get even more pouty and angry (which is also cute in theory, but a pain to deal with in practice), so he bites his tongue and keeps it to himself.

“You being nice to me…” Jeonghan finally starts to answer, pulling back a bit to study Seungcheol’s face closely. “It gets me really horny these days, I think.”

Seungcheol stares at him, uncomprehending. “But I’m always nice to you..”

“Mm. I know,” Jeonghan says, offering nothing else. Bored of trying to help Seungcheol understand, Jeonghan dives in and starts to lick idly over the bites he’d left all over Seungcheol’s neck with his blunt teeth. It’s far too much of a distraction. Seungcheol feels his alpha rumbling in approval and realizes that this is not at all what he’s meant to be doing at the moment.

“Babe,” Seungcheol winces, a wave of regret crashing over him as his brain finally reboots itself properly post-orgasm and remembers. God. They’re terrible parents. “The girls.”

Jeonghan’s licking halts. A noise of recognition vibrates against the skin of Seungcheol’s neck. He pulls his head away, finally having had enough of the nipping, and blinks at Seungcheol with a slightly guilty look in his eyes. Seungcheol looks down at the mess they’ve made of themselves, with Jeonghan practically naked in his lap save for the unbuttoned cardigan slipping off his shoulders and his soaked through panties and Seungcheol’s own thighs bare and wet with Jeonghan’s slick. He’s still inside him for god’s sakes.

“God, we have to call Jihoon. They have to sleep over, we can't — we can’t pick them up like this,” Seungcheol grimaces. “We have to air the car out too, fuck. Jihoon is going to make so much fun of us.”

Jeonghan can only keep up the guilty ruse for so long. He looks at him seriously for all of five seconds before he’s bursting out into maniacal laughter at the panic evident on Seungcheol’s face. Seungcheol scowls in confusion. Jeonghan kisses his lips to smooth the frown out.

“Ah Cheollie they’ll be fine. You know they love being at Jihoonie’s more than at home anyway,” Jeonghan placates, infuriatingly calm in that way that he usually is when he’s not mood-swinging to hell and back. Jeonghan never doesn’t have the upper hand, Seungcheol realizes. Clearly he’s recovered from his embarrassment from just a moment ago and is newly focused on teasing Seungcheol. And it’s working. He feels teased. Jeonghan puts a hand on his cheek, grinning at him. “You’re so cute when you worry.”

Just like that, the knot twisted in his gut unfurls. Seungcheol is utterly powerless against Jeonghan, truly. He decides right then that if Jeonghan asks to fuck in the car again he’ll probably say yes. Of course he’s let Jeonghan fool him into thinking it’s okay that they’ve just soiled Seungcheol’s leather seats and abandoned their children at their friend’s house. This is exactly why Mingyu makes fun of him.

“When we call Jihoon,” Seungcheol starts, pointing an accusatory finger at Jeonghan. “You’re doing all the talking.”

+

Jeju is beautiful. Seungcheol concedes to this quickly, as vibrant swaths of green and blue swirl all around them, stretched across cloudless skies and meandering hilltops for hundreds of miles, making every time they go outside feel just a little bit like standing in a painting. It’s every bit as nice as people say it is. Seuncheol spends the entire vacation looking at Jeonghan, though, and quietly makes up his mind that Jeonghan is the most beautiful part of the whole thing. He fully acknowledges how pathetic that might make him sound.

For the trip Seungcheol rented a villa with a shoreline view so clear and stunning that Jeonghan immediately concluded it had to be overpriced and promptly nagged him for it. They need to be smart with their spending with the baby on the way he’d complained. Needlessly, to be honest. They both make good money. Great money, in fact — more than enough for their growing family. But even if that wasn’t the case, Seungcheol has never been one to spare expenses for the people he loves, and him going all out was practically a given. Jeonghan knows all this. He also loves to be spoiled so, at this point, Seungcheol’s certain that he’s just saying these things for show.

From the balcony, they can see the entirety of the beachfront they face whenever they want. For all that complaining he’d done about it, Jeonghan seems to love this view the most. That must be why he’s up and out of bed at dawn staring at it now, Seungcheol thinks, blearily watching him stand at the ledge to look out at the water. It’s so early — can’t be past five in the morning — but he stands there unmoving like he’s trapped in a spell.

“Hannie.”

Jeonghan startles a bit, which makes Seungcheol feel a little guilty. Then he looks over his shoulder to smile crookedly at Seungcheol and Seungcheol instantly feels the guilt give way to something that, strangely, hurts even more. The apples of his cheeks illuminated by the half-up sun are twisting Seungcheol’s insides into an impossible knot that sits unmoving at the base of his throat. He works to swallow it back down and smiles back at him, even with his face tired and sort of numb. Jeonghan hums, moves his head invitingly. “Come watch with me.”

Seungcheol, half-asleep, possibly still dreaming, lumbers over and does as commanded, fitting his head over Jeonghan’s shoulder. He looks down and sees Jeonghan’s hands already over the fabric of the robe he’s got on, on top of his bump. Seungcheol’s hands move to stack on top of his as if pulled forth by some polar force and when his hands are comfortably where they belong, he stares out at the horizon, and they fall silent. Seungcheol’s never been good at keeping that up for long, though. “It’s early,” he mumbles after a bit, yawning.

“I know.” Jeonghan slips his hands out from under Seungcheol’s and rests them on top instead. “Your hands are sweaty.”

Seungcheol snorts. “Such kind and lovely words, as always.”

“You’re welcome,” Jeonghan says. He splays his fingers out, forcing Seungcheol’s to spread with his. Then he slots their fingers together and locks their hands over his bump. “Couldn’t sleep. Gunbam was moving a lot and I had to pee.”

“Should I scold them?” Seungcheol laughs. Jeonghan hums, pretending to think about it.

“Let them off the hook for now. Without them using my bladder as a trampoline I would have never woken up to see something this pretty.”

“Hm.” Seungcheol nuzzles Jeonghan’s neck. He can’t help what comes out of his mouth next — the moment it comes to him he absolutely has to say it he thinks. So he kisses his nape and murmurs lowly, into the skin there, “Lucky me, then. I get to wake up to something just as gorgeous everyday, don’t I?”

Jeonghan scoffs immediately and moves an arm to elbow him, the bony joint poking a spot dangerously close to his solar plexus and making Seungcheol grunt. “Ugh. You’re embarrassing. I can’t believe I mated such a fucking dork,” he complains, although his voice his hovering dangerously close to an outbreak of laughter.

Seungcheol squawks in mock offense, even though he’d perfectly anticipated the consequences of saying something so horribly cheesy. But he’d meant it. “I’m not a dork. I just love you.”

“You just proved my point.”

“Don’t act like you don’t love it.”

“I tolerate it.”

He nips at the sensitive raised skin on his nape, over the bite he’d put there, instead of responding out loud. Jeonghan makes a quiet noise that loops a few times over in Seungcheol’s head.

“Haeri loves the water,” Jeonghan suddenly says, watching a wave crest and then crash into the sea surrounding it. Seungcheol hums in agreement. She does love the water. In fact, she spent the ages of three to five attempting to convince everyone around her that she was a mermaid when she started swim classes. Seungcheol can imagine her begging from sun up to sun down to be next to the water somehow if she were here, desperate to feel close to her imagined mermaid kin. “She’d love this.”

“She would,” Seungcheol agrees. And then, because he feels like being a tease, he adds, “Are you about to cry because you miss the girls again?”

“Not funny.” Jeonghan spins around to glare at him. “And no I’m not.”

“You sure?” Seungcheol recalls the night before when Jeonghan had hung up a FaceTime call with his mom and the girls before promptly bursting into inconsolable tears that Seungcheol spent half an hour kissing and wiping away. “You’re looking a little teary-eyed.”

“You’re annoying.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Seungcheol says, watching Jeonghan who’s busy eyeing his lips. Jeonghan bites his own lip before his eyes slide up to Seungcheol’s, reflecting the poorly concealed surge of hunger sitting up inside them. It’s nowhere near a surprise when Jeonghan breaks and kisses him bruisingly, like in-between Seungcheol’s lips is the source of all the island’s oxygen. Seungcheol just melts into it, the only way he knows how.

Eventually he breaks away, but only so that he can trail kisses down the side of Jeonghan’s neck. Without thinking, he breathes him in and starts to scent him. Sweet, rich vanilla floods his nostrils, coupled with the faint notes of jasmine that always leave Seungcheol weak in the knees. Jeonghan makes more soft, pretty noises as Seungcheol brushes against the most sensitive part of his neck with his nose, and nips at the surrounding area with his teeth. At some point, Jeonghan leans in and starts to scent Seungcheol back. Jeonghan’s nose at his gland makes Seungcheol’s body warm up all over.

They get too swept up in it and by the time Seungcheol’s had his fill, they look out at the water and realize they most definitely missed the rest of the sunrise. Like clockwork, Jeonghan gets upset and chews Seungcheol out for being out of control (although he most definitely started it). Seungcheol wishes he could take it more seriously, but Jeonghan is unconsciously pouting while he complains and it’s so endearing to Seungcheol that he can hardly even bear it. Jeonghan seems to realize this, noticing the smile tugging at the corners of Seungcheol’s lips while he’s in the middle of a (mostly) sincere “sorry” and wasting no time in shoving him away and moodily disappearing behind the sliding doors. You’re not sorry, you’re laughing at me! he’d snapped over his shoulder before noisily slamming the door to the balcony shut. Seungcheol takes that to mean he’s definitely not allowed back in bed.

Later, they walk along the shore with waves lapping at their toes. It’s a bit chilly, so Jeonghan’s in an oversized sweater, probably pilfered from Seungcheol at some point, although he honestly can’t even remember by now. Seungcheol’s holding both of their shoes because Jeonghan wouldn’t stop complaining about the sand in his sandals. It’s a bit of a balancing act, holding both pairs of shoes in one hand, but his other hand is presently occupied because Jeonghan had demanded that they link their fingers while they stroll on the beach, so he makes do. It’s not romantic otherwise, Jeonghan had scoffed at him. He’d wrapped his thin fingers around Seungcheol’s wrist and said what’s the point of a romantic getaway if there’s no romance. When Seungcheol asked if he’d hold his own shoes to make it easier he’d said no.

“I miss them,” Jeonghan says with a sigh, apropos of nothing at all, staring at the sea. Seungcheol nods, already acutely aware of what he means, despite the vagueness. He feels it too — the miniature Haeri and Sarang shaped gaps between them. The first few days had been fine, but he can feel how antsy him and Jeonghan are both getting as they wait to get back to their girls.

“Me too,” Seungcheol hums. He moves both their hands, gesturing to the gentle curve of Jeonghan’s middle. “At least we’ve got Gunbam to keep us company.”

Jeonghan makes a noise of agreement. Something briefly flickers across his face right then. “We still need a name,” he says suddenly, sounding serious. He stops walking abruptly and Seungcheol’s forced to stop walking with him, jerked back a little by the hard brake. “Why haven’t we come up with one?”

Seungcheol’s eyebrows knit. He doesn’t think that’s all that crazy, given their track record. “Well we didn’t come up with Haeri and Sarang’s names until like a week before.” He thinks on it some more, remembering just how chaotic things were in the lead-up to the birth of their firstborn. Amends, “Actually I think you decided right then in the delivery room for Haeri.”

“That’s not a good thing, Cheol,” Jeonghan rolls his eyes. “Besides, we had excuses back then, things were more…” Jeonghan squints at the shore ahead and resumes walking, tugging Seungcheol along. “Things were more willy nilly back then,” Jeonghan settles on. What a way with words he’s got. But he has a point, Seungcheol guesses. All of their friends with kids spent months actively deciding on names. Until now, Seungcheol never really considered how unorthodox it was for him and Jeonghan to have always waited until the last minute, sticking to silly nicknames until the time came and the realization struck that you can’t put Bug on a birth certificate.

“Did you have any in mind?” he asks, curious. They refrained from checking both primary and secondary gender through genetic testing this time around, but even still he knows that Jeonghan’s fairly confident that it’s a boy. Jeonghan probably doesn’t even notice how often he talks to the girls and refers to the pup as their little brother. (If it ends up being a girl they will be incredibly confused, Seungcheol thinks).

“Nope.” Jeonghan shakes his head no in a way that, when paired with the light wind sweeping through, makes his hair look stupid good. It’s to the upper third of his back now, the longest he’s had it since the beginning of college, and every time he leaves the house he’s bombarded with compliments on it, along with his skin. Even at the airport, which you’re kind of supposed to look shitty at by design, Seungcheol witnessed at least four separate strangers fawning over his mate, which only made him a tiny bit possessive (it’s an alpha thing — he’s working on it). Another greedier, nastier part of Seungcheol imagines keeping Jeonghan pregnant and glowing like this forever. The thought strikes him so powerfully he barely registers what comes out of Jeonghan’s mouth next. “This time, I want you to name them.”

Seungcheol blinks before promptly choking on his spit.

“You what?”

“I named both Haeri and Sarang practically by myself because you kept saying the least I can do is let you choose the names.” Jeonghan’s impression of his voice makes him sound like an idiot. “But I want you to choose it this time. No more self-sacrificing. Be selfish, Choi Seungcheol. I command you.”

Seungcheol flounders for a moment, mouth stupidly moving open and closed like a fish. “Me? That’s — Really? Me?”

“Who else?” Jeonghan looks at him like he’s being silly. Seungcheol can’t rid himself of the panicked feeling presently swallowing him the way the waves are the rocks. Jeonghan notices right away, because of course he does. He immediately laughs at him. “You’re such a worrier, Cheollie. It’s just a name.”

“It is not just a name, Hannie.” Over a decade together and it’s still appalling to Seungcheol sometimes, how flippant Jeonghan can be over things that normal people would generally consider to be big and consequential. “What if they hate their name and then hate me forever? I think that’d kill me, Jeonghan. I’m not kidding.”

“They won’t hate you,” Jeonghan snorts, far too insouciant for Seungcheol’s liking. He lets out an exasperated huff.

“How do you know that?”

“Because they’re half me,” Jeonghan tells him. “It’ll be encoded in them to love you like I love you. Don’t be stupid.”

Oh. Seungcheol nearly falls to his knees and dies right there on the beach. He has to stop walking, so he can stare down into the sand and will the sudden sting to his eyes away. Jeonghan cranes his neck to peek at his face, where Seungcheol’s head is bowed. There’s a playful lilt to his voice when he asks, “Are you going to cry?”

“No,” Seungcheol gets out through gritted teeth, as he forces himself to not do exactly that. He realizes instantly that Jeonghan is dishing him out a taste of his own medicine from the teasing he’d done earlier. Jeonghan would probably lie in wait for an entire century just for a chance to get back at Seungcheol, he thinks. That thought just makes Seungcheol sicker. He’s in love with him, even when he’s being mean and a little evil. And Jeonghan loves him enough to give them another child and ask Seungcheol to name it. He deserves approximately none of this. “I don’t deserve this. Or you.”

“Hey. None of that,” Jeonghan commands. The look in Jeonghan’s eye is daring Seungcheol to argue with him. Seungcheol’s smart enough to pick and choose his battles wisely. He swallows thickly and it’s all dry and sticky and his throat.

“I love you,” he says, because he can’t think of anything else more worth saying.

“I love you and Gunbam loves you,” Jeonghan assures. “Even if you give them a shitty name.”

“Hey.”

07

Post-Jeju, things are great at home. Close to perfect, really. Seungcheol’s promotion finally happens. Haeri makes it to the final round of her school’s spelling bee because she’s a little genius. Sarang finally seems to be getting over her biting phase after having spent a weekend at her grandparents’ place. Jeonghan goes on maternity leave early and gets to rest, and spend even more time at home with the girls, which is something Seungcheol’s still not entirely sure how he managed, but considering the way people revere Jeonghan at his job, is relatively unsurprising. Seungcheol even gets around to reassembling the crib that’ll be at their bedside for the foreseeable future. It’s like their every day is happening in an unreachable pocket of heaven, where nothing ever goes wrong.

Really the only off thing, Seungcheol guesses, is that Jeonghan has formed a mild addiction to his knot.

In hindsight, Seungcheol thinks he should have realized the shift from the moment Jeonghan forced him to pull over so he could ride him in an empty grocery store parking lot. It came full force when they returned from the Jeju trip and at first Seungcheol had thought it’d blow over quickly enough. He’s read his fair share of pregnancy books, back when he was 20 and terrified about their first pup. He knows all about pseudo-heats, and brief hormone fluctuations, and how they can affect a pregnant omega.

It wasn’t brief. And it didn’t blow over. At all.

Jeonghan can’t go a day without touching or being touched by Seungcheol. The need consumes him so powerfully that it aches. Jeonghan tells him as much, when he’s in near tears, practically begging to suck Seungcheol’s dick or dry hump or be mounted the moment Seungcheol gets home. Often, he actually does cry when he doesn’t get what he wants, which makes Seungcheol utterly helpless. He can hardly say no to Jeonghan under normal circumstances. What the hell is he supposed to do when Jeonghan is pouting at him and pleading in a way he rarely ever does? It’s wearing him down.

Obviously, Seungcheol knows he had his own fair share of moments earlier on in Jeonghan’s pregnancy, with his alpha restless, and still adjusting to the new smells layered beneath Jeonghan’s skin, and what they spoke about the changes that would soon take place in Jeonghan’s body. He was definitely keyed up and horny too — still gets that way sometimes. But this, with Jeonghan, is a different thing entirely, he’s learning. Where Seungcheol could get by with a quick tug in the shower or a scenting and find himself relatively back to normal, Jeonghan seems to be incapable of settling for anything less than Seungcheol’s hands on him. He’s insatiable. Seungcheol hasn’t a clue how to manage it.

To be clear, Seungcheol isn’t complaining about having to fuck Jeonghan. There is precious little in this world that can compete with the sight of Jeonghan riding him while pregnant with their pup. Nowadays, he’s so sensitive that Seungcheol can’t comfortably fuck him without putting fingers in his mouth to muffle all his noise. Seungcheol can hardly handle it. He comes so fast and hard every time that he worries his balls will be out of commission soon. Jeonghan is like a vampire, milking him dry. And Seungcheol has no choice but to let him.

It’s never been like this before. During his last two pregnancies, Jeonghan almost never wanted to be touched. He’d get unbearably embarrassed about it for some reason. It didn’t help that they were being constantly overwhelmed as new parents. Sex was always the last thing on his mind. Which was perfectly fine. There were things to buy and diapers to change. Sex, which had gotten them there in the first place, wasn’t exactly a priority for either of them.

For that reason, right now feels like a complete 180 that Seungcheol hadn’t known to brace himself or his dick for. Jeonghan’s so absurdly horny every day that it actually amazes him. It also deeply wracks his nerves. He’s starting to feel a little wrung dry. He’s not as young and lively as he used to be — he’s nearly 30. His left knee isn’t that great and he’s got stamina, but it’s not quite what it was a decade ago. He’s at his wits end here, trying to balance pleasing his mate while attempting to remain a functioning human being.

“Seungkwan-ah,” Seungcheol pleads into the phone, having reached his breaking point on his lunch break at work one afternoon. “What do I do?”

Seungcheol had carefully gone down a list of people to have this conversation with. He wasn’t going to have it at all at first, but the gravity of the situation became clear to him when Jeonghan had nearly made him late to work because he needed a quickie that morning and was so serious about it that he’d blown Seungcheol awake and then promptly sat on his dick, riding him lazily until he came all over Seungcheol’s cock with a sharp gasp. Barely three hours later, Jeonghan had sent Seungcheol a sickening picture of him pouting in the mirror with his big sweatshirt hiked all the way up out of the blue, showing off his pert, dark and swollen nipples and the pronounced swell to his bump. Of course he had nothing but lace panties on underneath. God forbid he gives Seungcheol anything but a hard time.

I’m horny, he’d texted. He didn’t even wait for a response before sending Seungcheol a follow-up video of him playing with his pussy on the bed, lighting up Seungcheol’s phone with a big rectangular thumbnail of two of his lithe fingers sunken down to the knuckle beside his lace panties into his sopping wet cunt. It was noon and Seungcheol had been in the middle of a meeting. He’d choked so hard on his own spit he had to excuse himself to get a drink of water and some fresh air. Then he’d needed to spend a few extra minutes in the break room praying his boner would just hurry up and die. He’d very nearly soiled an expensive pair of Tom Ford slacks in the process. He decided right then that he was going to get help.

At first, he’d considered seeking out his alpha friends with kids, but he was quick to nip that idea in the bud. The thought of talking about Jeonghan in the bedroom with any of them actually made his stomach turn a little. The final choice came down to either Seungkwan or Jisoo. After some deliberation, Seungkwan seemed like the safest option in the end. To be completely honest, the idea of talking about anything bedroom related with Jisoo still feels weird as well. Mostly due to the fact that he, Jeonghan and Jisoo used to have casual threesomes in university — quite frequently, at that. Seungcheol’s too self conscious to be talking about his current sex life with someone who knows what he looks like when he comes from being cucked. He’s got enough on his plate as it is.

“Hyung,” Seungkwan sighs over the line, over the sounds of what Seungcheol presumes to be Haneul’s enthusiastic nursing from his tit. “Are you sure you’re not overreacting? How bad could it be?”

Seungcheol inhales deeply, counting down from 5 while staring up at the roof of his car before exhaling.

“At least twice a week he makes me drive home during lunch to fuck him. And last week, he brought me lunch and then made me fuck him at the office, Seungkwan. The office. Don’t even ask me how we managed that, because you don’t want to know! And every night, he can’t go to sleep unless my hands are down his pants. He even sends me nudes now. He hasn’t done that since college and I’m not exactly complaining but in the middle of a meeting is kind of insane, is it not?”

Seungkwan snorts. Seungcheol doesn’t think Seungkwan quite understands the gravity of the situation here. “I didn’t know Jeonghan-hyung had it in him to send nudes at all. Color me impressed.” Seungcheol genuinely wants to die.

“Seungkwan-ah,” he begs again, helpless. “Just tell me if I should be worried right now. I mean — it’s never… he’s never been like this before and I don’t know what to do.”

Seungkwan’s eye roll at his whining is practically audible over the line. “Nothing’s wrong with him, hyung,” Seungkwan tells him, amused. “Jeonghan’s probably responding the way he is because of how well things are going. Think about how sick he was all the time last time, and how stressed you guys were about being first time parents, and then having to do it all over again so soon while having to worry about the tiny baby you already had. When your omega feels safe and secure, your body relaxes, and starts to release the kinds of hormones that make you hungry for knot all hours of the day. Those pregnancy books are nowhere near enough to prepare you for how intense it is. I know firsthand. If you’re not being touched, it feels like your insides are being scorched.”

Hm. When Seungkwan puts it like that, it makes a lot of sense actually. Jeonghan’s generally been a lot happier throughout this pregnancy. Even more so now that he’s on early maternity leave. He diligently goes on walks everyday and has been revisiting some of the hobbies he’d set aside when becoming a working adult and a mom left no time for them. Every time Seungcheol comes home, it’s to Jeonghan erecting a new Lego flower set in their living room. It’s really cute, until Jeonghan abandons it to shove his hand down Seungcheol’s slacks.

Anyway, there’s truth to what Seungkwan’s said, Seungcheol supposes. Jeonghan’s a lot more relaxed of late. It’s only logical that his body would respond accordingly. Still, they haven’t addressed the root of Seungcheol’s problem. “I just… I feel like a bad alpha,” he admits to Seungkwan pathetically. “Like I can’t take care of him when he needs me most. And I’m — I’m trying, believe me I am. But I don’t think I can keep up the way he needs me to. I feel terrible.”

“God. You alphas are so fussy,” Seungkwan huffs out a laugh, unfazed by Seungcheol’s audible distress. “Seungcheol, I think the problem here is that you’ve never learned how to tell Jeonghan no. Out of all the alphas I know, Hansollie included, you are unequivocally the worst at it.”

Seungcheol blinks emptily at the concrete lot ahead through his windshield, trying to process what Seungkwan’s saying to him. He can hardly wrap his head around it. Telling Jeonghan no? He’s in this situation to begin with because that’s never been an option for him. Jeonghan pouts in bed and Seungcheol folds him up the way he likes and fucks him until he’s orgasm drunk and sleepy. Jeonghan climbs into the shower with him and Seungcheol drops everything to dick him down against the shower wall, careful and slow about it so they don’t slip. Jeonghan gropes him while he’s cooking so Seungcheol sets him down on their kitchen island to slip inside him and fuck him until he’s squirting all over the marble counter and hardwood floor (and then he thanks god that his parents have the girls for the weekend).

Jeonghan asks, and Seungcheol answers to every little whim. It’s the way things work for them, have always worked for them. It doesn’t matter what Jeonghan wants from him — whenever he asks for it, Seungcheol feels his willpower crease clean in half and gives. He just can’t help it. The concept of denying his omega is utterly foreign to him.

“I guess I didn’t really consider that an option,” he finally says. “Or instead I…I don’t want to say no to him. I want to make him happy.”

Seungkwan hums noncommittally, over the sound of his pup’s gurgling. He sounds painfully unimpressed. “Well yeah, sure that’s sweet. But I think you can make him happy without becoming a husk of your former self in the process.”

Seungcheol lets out a frustrated groan, unable to see any other way this could work. “How can I do that if all he wants is sex every hour of the day? I’m going to strain a muscle at this rate.”

“Seungcheol. Must I spell it out for you? Use a toy.”

Seungkwan uses up the rest of their hour-long phone call explaining in detail what sex toys he knows Jeonghan owns and how to use them. Seungcheol feels a bit silly for not knowing some of this, but Seungkwan assures him Jeonghan hasn’t made much use of them in years, ever since he and Seungcheol were able to sync up their heats and ruts to spend them together in their entirety, effectively eliminating their necessity. Seungcheol honestly feels silly for not knowing this as well. He’s a little concerned with how much more Seungkwan seems to know about Jeonghan’s masturbation habits than he does.

“Be careful with the wand, Seungcheollie,” Seungkwan tells him sagely right before hanging up. “It’s water-resistant. not waterproof.”

In hindsight, Seungcheol can safely say that this was one of the most mortifying conversations he’s ever had. Up there with his mom explaining his own birth to him and Jeonghan in vivid detail when they’d visited right before Haeri was born. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to erase the horrified look on Jeonghan’s face when his mom gleefully described how his huge head got stuck inside her from his mind.

Still, he ends the call with his shoulders feeling much lighter. It feels better, knowing that even if his body fails him, he’s got something in his back pocket to keep his omega satisfied.

+

“Cheol.”

Seungcheol looks up from his laptop. Jeonghan looks adorably disgruntled in the doorway to their bedroom, pouting with his cheeks flushed, wearing a huge t-shirt and loose sweats that Seungcheol can bet real money are his and Seungcheol can quite literally smell what he’s about to ask for. “Yes Hannie?”

“Can we fuck?” Jeonghan asks without preamble. He frowns, remembering. “Please,” he adds belatedly.

Seungcheol almost loses his nerve and says yes outright, absolutely helpless with Jeonghan in front of him looking like that — looking at him like that. But then he remembers what Seungkwan told him, about other ways to please Jeonghan, and shuts his laptop gently.

“Hey, what if we uhm.” He clears his throat, hoping to sound less like an idiot that way. “What if we tried something else today instead?”

Jeonghan’s on the bed in front of him now, eyes wide. He blinks at him slowly. “Something else?” He lets go of the waistband of Seungcheol’s pants that he was about to yank down. “Are you saying you don’t want to have sex?”

“No!” Seungcheol blurts quickly. “I just…I wanted to see if there are other ways to. You know. Get you off. So that I can still make you feel good even when I can’t keep up all the way.”

“What are you saying,” Jeonghan huffs, voice already getting whiny and stuck, the way it does when he’s about to get incredibly emotional over not getting what he wants. “Am I too fat for you to fuck me now?”

“No, god no!” Seungcheol rushes out, reaching up to cup Jeonghan’s face. Jeonghan’s eyes are already welling with tears and Seungcheol realizes right away how ill equipped he is for all this. “Jesus Jeonghan I want to fuck you so bad all the time it makes my dick hurt. It’s not that.”

Jeonghan scowls at him, a stray tear escaping his eye. It takes nothing to get him to this point, lately. Seungcheol is quick to thumb it away. “Well then what is it?”

“I just. I know how…pent up you’ve been lately. But I don’t know if my body can keep up anymore.” It’s horribly embarrassing, but he genuinely pulled a muscle in his hamstring a few nights before while fucking Jeonghan in doggy. “I’m sorry baby. I’m a shitty fucking alpha, I know. But I want you to be happy, and satisfied still, so I thought we could try something slightly different out.”

Jeonghan sniffles, pulling his face away and considering his words. “You’re not…you’re not shitty.” He looks at Seungcheol closely for a moment. Then he leans forward and presses a soft kiss to Seungcheol’s mouth. A quiet gesture of forgiveness. He tastes very much like the strawberry milk he’s been obsessed with of late. When he pulls away, he looks happier. Hornier, again. “What did you want to try?”

Jeonghan is skeptical about the whole thing at first. If he wanted to play with toys he could have done that on his own, he says. But Seungcheol tells him it’ll be different. He’s not entirely confident that it will be, but it’s what he’s hoping for.

He wants Jeonghan to feel every bit as sexy as he is, so Seungcheol kisses his bump and then the insides of his thighs and tells him as much into his skin once his sweatpants are out of the way. Jeonghan laughs and smacks his head, telling him it tickles before hiccuping out a gasp when Seungcheol uses his teeth to pull his underwear down his thighs. “Seungcheollie,” he sighs, shivering when Seungcheol’s thick fingers brush up against his slick sticky folds before settling on his clit to pet him there softly.

Seungcheol leans in and replaces his fingers with his mouth, making Jeonghan moan out loud. Of late, he gets so horny he forgets to care that they have kids in the house. Seungcheol’s silently grateful Haeri and Sarang both took after him and sleep like logs.

“Shit,” Jeonghan cries out, thighs tightening around Seungcheol’s head when he’s close to coming. His hips pitch forward and the muscles in his legs tense as his orgasm builds, which only serves to spur Seungcheol along. Seungcheol speeds the flat of his tongue up against Jeonghan’s clit, uncaring of the pain in his jaw, and is rewarded by Jeonghan’s slick flooding his mouth, and the gorgeous whine he lets out as he comes with his thighs quivering next to Seungcheol’s ears.

The tension in Jeonghan’s body loosens somewhat, but Seungcheol doesn’t let himself be fooled by it. If Jeonghan’s asking to be fucked, then this alone won’t be nearly enough.

When it comes down to it, Seungcheol realizes Jeonghan has a lot more sex toys in his collection than he’d known to anticipate. The two of them don’t use toys very often. Before today, Seungcheol had honestly only known of the existence of three, one of which Seungcheol sheepishly recognizes as the dildo Jeonghan’s used on him a few times. Seungkwan’s long-winded explanation of the five different toys he knows Jeonghan owns (we ordered most of them together Seungkwan reasoned, which had left Seungcheol with even more questions) and then Jeonghan’s own revelation of three more (I get lonely when you’re at work Jeonghan said defensively) had thrown Seungcheol for a bit of a loop. He kind of doesn’t know where to start.

After much deliberation, he eventually settles on the wand because Seungkwan had spoken pretty highly of it. He first flips it on and off to test it, the buzzing deafeningly loud in the quiet of their bedroom. It seems easy enough to use. He turns back to Jeonghan who is eyeing him carefully, with his lip pulled between his teeth. Jeonghan immediately squirms at the eye contact. “Get on with it,” he mumbles, embarrassed.

Seungcheol obeys, pressing his thumb to Jeonghan’s clit and watching his jaw drop open. He rubs light circles there until Jeonghan’s shivering at the touch before replacing his finger with the vibrator.

Jeonghan’s reaction is immediate, breath hitching and hips twitching at the sensation. “Fuck,” he gasps sharply. His eyes slip closed, hiccupy noises still escaping from his open mouth. Seungcheol slips his middle and ring fingers into his cunt, pressing in deeply, guided by muscle memory. Jeonghan’s breath stutters, eyebrows knitting together as he massages inside him.

The sight of him all splayed out and open like this, with his skin flushed pink and his hair haloed around him, and the curve of his stomach on display with his loose shirt pushed up above his swollen nipples, is enough to have Seungcheol’s mouth drying out. There isn’t a world that exists where denying Jeonghan this pleasure and denying himself this view is an acceptable option, he thinks, strained muscles be damned.

Seungcheol twists his fingers and Jeonghan whines when they scratch his walls. He’s already close. It’s clear as day in the desperate little gape of his mouth and all the quiet sighs slipping out. Seungcheol takes that as his cue to fuck him with his slick-soaked fingers a little faster. He presses a button and the wand starts to shake harder against the hood of his clit. Jeonghan instantly throws his head back and shouts at the feeling, legs tightening like a drawstring again. He lets out a panicked sob. “Seungcheol wait —”

Jeonghan squirts so much it gets all over the bed and Seungcheol’s face, his own face slack in stunned pleasure as Seungcheol fucks him through it. He’s still coming after what feels like forever, tremors wracking through his body. Seungcheol’s not sure he’s ever seen him come this hard off just his fingers. Jeonghan hiccups out another sob and pushes the vibrator away at some point, trembling from overstimulation.

“Oh my god,” Jeonghan gasps when he’s coherent again, mortified. Seungcheol licks the slick off his lips and hums delightedly. “What the fuck?”

“How was that?”

Jeonghan’s cheeks are flushed bright red. His legs are still shaking and he can barely even look at Seungcheol, who is currently dripping wet with his slick. There’s an honest to god puddle on the bed. “I don’t think I’ve ever come that hard in my life.”

“Good idea then?”

A pillow ends up bouncing off Seungcheol’s forehead faster than he can blink.

Just so all his bases are covered, Seungcheol picks out a dildo from the pile and fucks Jeonghan with it on his side until Jeonghan’s biting hard on the fingers Seungcheol’s got in his mouth and coming all over the toy with a muffled whine. The angle took some finessing to get right, but Jeonghan seemed comfortable and pleased if his noises were any indication, so Seungcheol doesn’t mind the dull twinge in his forearm afterward. It’s a lot better than tweaking his hamstring again for certain.

“Mm,” Jeonghan hums once they’re both facing each other again, breathless from the messy makeout session they just wrapped up. “That was really good,” he says, and then he’s leaning forward to press his lips to Seungcheol’s again. Seungcheol stops rubbing Jeonghan’s hip through his baggy t-shirt so he can hold it firmly while they kiss instead. When Jeonghan pulls away, he blinks up at Seungcheol, looking stupidly pretty as he watches him through his lashes, his eyes looking especially huge. It’s clear he wants something. Seungcheol’s already made up his mind that he’ll do everything in his power to make sure he gets it.

He gives the handful of hip he’s holding a light, encouraging squeeze. Jeonghan chews his lip cutely. Whispers, “Can we fuck for real tomorrow though?”

“Yes Hannie.” Seungcheol wants to laugh. He’s insatiable.

08

The final stretch of the pregnancy is a lot less chaotic the third lap around.

There aren’t any pre-existing screaming infants to worry about, for one. They also aren’t living in the old shoebox they used to call home anymore, and have decent enough space for the soon to be five of them in their apartment for the time being. And now that they’ve both successfully raised Haeri and Sarang both into early childhood, there’s a lot less anxiety leading up to the birth. It’s incredibly reassuring, realizing that you’ll actually know what to do once the cute little parasite is finally in your arms.

Jeonghan’s omega has kicked into high gear. He’s been furiously nesting for weeks now. It’s as if his sex drive has finally settled down and in its place has arrived a voracious addiction to online shopping from baby boutiques. Every time Seungcheol comes home it’s to a brand new package from Coupang sitting in the entrance way. Seungcheol doesn’t bother asking how much he’s spent on all this.

“Seungcheol-ah.” Jeonghan straightens up in the chair he’s sitting backwards on. Seungcheol’s sitting normally on a chair behind him, hands on the lower knobs of his spine. They’re in the middle of practicing the massage techniques they learned in the couple’s lamaze class they took a few weeks ago because Jeonghan’s back hurts.

“What is it? Are you having another false contraction?”

“No,” Jeonghan huffs. “But we need a new apartment. Like right now.”

Seungcheol blinks. It’s not like Jeonghan’s wrong, but he wasn’t really expecting that pivot not even two minutes after their discussion about Seungcheol picking up Jeonghan’s constipation meds. “Weren’t you the one who said it was fine to wait a year before we started looking?”

“I changed my mind,” Jeonghan half turns to look at him. “Keep going,” he instructs, moaning right away when Seungcheol kneads his back as directed.

“What changed?”

“I want the baby to have a bunny themed nursery,” Jeonghan informs him. “And I already bought everything, so we have to move.”

Oh God. “Hannie,” Seungcheol says, unable to keep the exasperation out of his voice. “Where are we going to put everything in the meantime?”

“Seungcheol,” Jeonghan huffs, annoyed, like Seungcheol’s being the completely unreasonable one here. “Are you listening at all? That’s why we have to move now.”

They have a semi-irrational conversation like this every few days. Seungcheol’s learned not to argue, because Jeonghan’s somehow become even more emotionally volatile in the past few weeks. Never again will he underestimate Jeonghan’s ability to cold shoulder him, after the two and a half days of wicked silent treatment he just barely made it out of. “I hear you,” he says, resulting in a pleased hum from Jeonghan.

The nesting urges have gone beyond the apartment and preparing for the baby. Now, Jeonghan can hardly let the girls out of his sight. The fight they’d had that led to Seungcheol getting iced out for 48 hours straight was mostly over Seungcheol’s insistence that the girls go to school like they’re meant to instead of spending the day at home with Jeonghan in the massive nest he’d turned their bedroom into on a random Wednesday morning. Jeonghan had eventually backed down, but not without getting incredibly upset at Seungcheol afterward, like Seungcheol was the crazy one for thinking their daughters should go to school and learn like the primary schoolers they are. Seungcheol’s more than aware that Jeonghan just needs a place to air out his frustrations and tries not to take it to heart. But sometimes, it strings more than he cares to admit.

“Seungcheol-ah, you’re doing just fine,” Jeonghan’s mother laughs at him while he’s pleading for help in her kitchen.

When the four of them drove over to visit Jeonghan’s parents, Seungcheol immediately seized the chance to ask Jeonghan’s mother for advice while Jeonghan and his father took the girls to the market. Jeonghan’s decision to go was mostly influenced by the opportunity to walk around in hopes of managing the strain of the nearly full term pup on his back, and although Seungcheol would have loved to tag along and witness the cute waddle Jeonghan’s gait has transformed into, he’s grateful he’d elected to stay here with Jeonghan’s mother who, in Seungcheol’s eyes, seems to hold the answers to everything.

“I just feel like I’m walking on eggshells,” he tells her honestly. “I’m trying not to let it get to me, Eomeoni, but it’s hard. I don’t know how to keep him happy for a full day. He’s always either pissed at me or crying at something I’ve done.”

“Mm. I know it’s hard,” she consoles, passing Seungcheol spring onions to cut. “I know how he is. I’m the one who raised him, in case you forgot.” She raises a fair point.

“His body is preparing to birth a pup and his omega is behaving accordingly,” she continues, sprinkling some salt into the juk she’s got boiling on the stove. “And Jeonghannie’s always been a little..” she pauses to look at Seungcheol, pursing her lips. “Let’s say high maintenance. I’m sure you’re aware.”

Seungcheol grins a bit, knowing exactly what she means. Jeonghan can be flighty, and fussy, and prickly, even when he’s not pregnant. He’s a bit of a handful. It’s exactly why Seungcheol loves him.

“It’s just. I’ve been feeling like I’m doing a shit job of everything.” He chooses to stare at the wooden cutting board while he speaks, hoping to reduce the shame he feels somewhat. “I feel like I should be used to every part of this by now. I thought I was, at first. But I think I’m getting worn down a little.”

“Seungcheol, cut yourself some slack already,” Jeonghan’s mom sighs, clicking her tongue. “My son is pregnant and hormonal and dare I say annoying and you’re allowed to feel any way you want about it,” she tells him frankly. He really does appreciate the way she refuses to beat around the bush. “Not to mention you’re still working full time and taking care of both him and the girls. You’re allowed to be a little stressed out.”

Seungcheol takes it in. It feels strange, being given permission to truly feel what he’s yet to allow himself to. Every time Jeonghan snaps at him or crawls into his arms to cry for the third time in a day, Seungcheol feels immensely guilty when he finds himself even a little overwhelmed. It’s odd, being told that it’s okay to feel that way. His alpha, programmed to please its omega by way of any means possible, seems unsure of how to process this.

“It just feels… wrong. To be stressed,” he tells her honestly, vocalizing this discomfort. He says what he’s said over and over for the past few months, because the feeling is pervasive, and all-consuming of late: “I feel like a bad alpha.”

Jeonghan’s mom stops stirring to look at him carefully. This imperceptible look she gives Seungcheol is jarringly familiar. It’s clear Jeonghan inherited it from her, down to the funny little crease in her mouth. Then she smiles, and leans forward. Seungcheol doesn’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late and she’s already got a manicured finger thwacking hard against his forehead. He should have known. He narrowly bites back the curse on his tongue at the pain, hands shooting up to cradle his stinging face.

“The other night, Jeonghannie called me in hysterics,” she says, calmly turning back to the pot on the stove like she’s got nothing to do with the new throbbing red spot on Seungcheol’s forehead. Seungcheol is utterly terrified of her, not unlike the way he is of Jeonghan sometimes. “What a mess he was. I could hardly pick out anything he was saying besides your name. I thought you’d gone and done something terrible to upset him.

I told him to slow down and explain properly. He barely calmed down enough to tell me ‘Eomma, he hates me.’ And I knew there was no way he could be talking about you when you look at my son like the sun shines out of his ass. Then he corrected himself. Said, ‘I mean he should hate me’. And then he was crying again.”

Seungcheol stares at her, taken aback. When the hell did this happen? Why would he ever hate Jeonghan and what did he do to leave him crying in their bathroom? All she’s saying is making him feel slightly sick to his stomach. Still, he lets her continue.

“It took a while, but I was finally able to get it out of him. Apparently he’d blown up at you that evening over something silly. You brought home the wrong chicken for dinner, or something. He told me he shouted at you and acted coldly towards you for the rest of the night. And then he told me that instead of getting angry right back, or acting annoyed or tired, you hugged him and told him you’d be back soon.

He said you came back home with chicken from the right place and the sweets he’s been craving of late. And even though he ignored you all night, you still never left him alone. You put his favorite movie on after dinner when you put the girls to bed. You rubbed his feet for hours. You put a heating pad on his back when he started hurting without him even saying it. You left him paracetamol on the nightstand and a glass of water before bed. You kissed him good night and told him you were sorry right as you were going to sleep.

He told me honestly that he stopped being mad as soon as you left again to grab the right chicken and spent the rest of the night embarrassed about the whole thing. You telling him sorry must have set him off and so he hid in the bathroom to call me and cry about it.”

Seungcheol blinks at all that. He vaguely remembers this night, although he very much does not remember Jeonghan leaving bed to make this phone call. His deep sleeping might get him in trouble one day, he thinks.

From what he can recall, Jeonghan had been moody that whole day, even before Seungcheol had left for work, pouting inexplicably when Seungcheol kissed him goodbye in the morning. At work, Seungcheol’s been getting stretched a little thin, acclimating to his new position, which is why he’s been a bit forgetful of late, and probably why he misread Jeonghan’s text about dinner. He felt terrible about the chicken, really. At eight months pregnant, little things like that make a world of difference, Seungcheol’s learned. He didn’t feel angry that Jeonghan was upset — he just felt shitty. A little angry at himself, maybe. Frustrated that he couldn’t keep his omega happy and content. Which is why hearing from Jeonghan’s mother that he wasn’t as big of a fuck-up as he assumed he was is taking a moment to process.

“My point is, Seungcheol,” Jeonghan’s mom continues, and she looks at him — really looks at him — for this. “You’re a good alpha. A great one, even. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders. You’re an incredible father, and have given me beautiful grandkids. And most importantly, you keep Jeonghan happy. Happier than you can even imagine. He’s always calling me and talking about you and the girls and I’ve never seen him get that passionate about a damned thing on this Earth. He tells me he doesn’t know what he’d do without you. He loves you so much he doesn’t even know how to tell you properly. So I’m here, telling you now. You keep him grounded. Don’t ever call yourself a bad alpha. Give yourself some credit. You’re doing much better than you think you are.”

Seungcheol’s throat clicks with a swallow. He didn’t realize how much he needed to hear all that until he’s already got tears burning the back of his eyes. Jeonghan’s mother notices immediately, face splitting with a smile. “Ah, Seungcheol-ah, are you really going to cry?”

Seungcheol sniffles, burrowing his face into the crook of his elbow. “It’s the onions Eomeoni!”

+

“Does it hurt, Eomma?”

Jeonghan and the girls are sat on the couch, with Jeonghan’s loose fitting knit sweater hiked up over his bump. Seungcheol came out of the kitchen after finishing dinner to find them huddled around Jeonghan’s tummy, with the girls oohing and aahing at the baby poking its little limbs through Jeonghan’s skin.

“Not really, Bug, it’s just a little annoying.”

“Did we do that?” Haeri asks next. Jeonghan laughs softly at her, and at the way her mouth is gaped open slightly in awe.

“Yes you did.”

“I didn’t do that!” Sarang protests, leaning in closer when the baby elbows Jeonghan’s navel.

“Yes you did, Peach. You did it the most.”

“But I wouldn’t hurt Eomma like that,” Sarang argues, starting to pout.

“We didn’t do it on purpose,” Haeri says sagely. Jeonghan hums in agreement.

“Haeri’s right. And it’s okay, Peach, it didn’t hurt like I said.” Not strictly true, considering the number of times Jeonghan had gotten his ribs brutalized to the point where he was waking up in the middle of the night shouting in pain. But Jeonghan loves his girls enough to sugarcoat it, Seungcheol knows.

“Can I feel?” Haeri asks tentatively. When Jeonghan nods at her, she reaches over and puts her tiny hand on the side of Jeonghan’s stomach. She squeals in delight when the baby nudges there.

“Hi puppy,” Haeri greets, impossibly gentle as she pets Jeonghan’s belly. “I’m your big sister!”

“Hey, I wanna feel too!” Sarang complains loudly.

Haeri eyes her sideways. “Just wait your turn.”

“But —”

“Ladies,” Jeonghan interjects, gently placing Sarang’s palm on the other side of his stomach before she starts whining. “I’m big enough for the both of you.”

“When’s the puppy coming?” Sarang asks, eyes not leaving the pale, stretched over skin of Jeonghan’s belly.

“Soon, baby.”

“But how will they come out of there?” Haeri questions, nose wrinkling a bit.

“Hey, you never told me how it got in there either!” Sarang accuses.

Seungcheol listens with amusement as Jeonghan, seemingly prepared this time around, launches into a ridiculous story about how a fairy will come down from Pixie Hollow (the girls’ latest obsession is the Tinkerbell franchise) and use her pixie dust to grant him a wish to have the baby out of his stomach as soon as it grows big enough (and honestly, Seungcheol seriously doesn’t understand how he gets away with it. He sat there and watched it with them — not a single one of those fairies even grants wishes). He’s spared from answering Sarang’s question about how it got there because his explanation sends them into a frenzy and they switch gears, now prodding him on which Pixie Hollow fairy will be the one to carry out the wish in question.

Whatever stress Seungcheol’s felt over the past week, the past month — the past couple months — sort of dissolves away. He stands there, watching silently from his vantage point behind the couch, and marvels at how perfect Jeonghan and his girls are, and how stupidly lucky he feels, being able to come home to this.

His precious little family. The apples of his eye. There isn’t a thing he wouldn’t do to keep them happy like this.

09

The first tell that something is amiss comes early in the morning, when Seungcheol wakes up and Jeonghan’s not there.

He blinks groggily at the notably Jeonghanless tangle of sheets beside him. Jeonghan sleeps in for as long as he can these days. Seungcheol still gets up like normal. On weekdays he gets the girls ready by himself and takes them to school so Jeonghan can get as much rest as he needs, and on weekends he’s usually still getting up earlier than everyone else to make breakfast and get things in order. He twists his head around. Jeonghan’s not in the en suite bathroom either. Weird.

“Han-ah.” Seungcheol finds him in the living room, sort of pacing around. He doesn’t seem that startled when Seungcheol comes in. “Are you okay?”

“Mm yeah,” Jeonghan tells him, honestly sounding the part. “My back just hurts. And I’m having more false contractions.” He huffs irritatedly. “It’s uncomfortable. And annoying. Can’t sleep.”

He’d had them on and off all last night before bed too — more frequently than usual. Seungcheol had worried, but Jeonghan told him there wasn’t any real reason to. He still can’t help it, even now. He’s been shitting bricks practically every day since Jeonghan hit full term a few days ago.

“Should we…do you think it’s time?” Seungcheol asks some variation of this question at least once a day. Jeonghan always responds with varying degrees of annoyance. But today he purses his lips and considers his question thoughtfully.

“I don’t think so,” he says after a moment, hand on his lower stomach. “I think I just need a good back rub.” He looks at Seungcheol imploringly. Seungcheol folds like a sheet of paper.

“You’ll tell me if things change?” Seungcheol asks later, thumbs pressing into Jeonghan’s lower spine while he rests his head on his arms folded against the back of the couch. Jeonghan’s response is a pornographic moan at the feeling of Seungcheol’s hands pressing into his back just right. The way Seungcheol’s dick twitches feels horribly inappropriate. He ignores it.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Jeonghan answers, twisting his head out of his folded arms. Seungcheol thinks that’s rich, coming from the man who waited a full hour and a half to tell Seungcheol his water broke out of fear when he went into labor with Haeri. He keeps his mouth shut though. Happy omega, happy life, and all.

Breakfast brings a little back and forth. There’s a gathering today that Seungcheol’s on the fence about attending. Soonyoung’s been itching to celebrate the big new apartment he just bought and invited everyone over for a modestly sized get-together by Soonyoung’s standards, which basically means said apartment will be filled to the brim with guests. Jeonghan insists on going, even this close to his due date.

“It’ll be fine,” Jeonghan says around the waffles Seungcheol made. “You’re acting like I’ll vaporize out of existence the second I step foot outside the house.”

Seungcheol opens his mouth to argue but before he can say anything, Sarang raises her hand to loudly inform everyone at the table, “I want more waffles!”

“Eomma and Appa say you have to use please,” Haeri reprimands waspishly.

Sarang scowls at her, the sticky syrup all over her face making it all the more menacing. Still, she tacks on a begrudging “Please” at the behest of her sister. Jeonghan laughs at them.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay,” Seungcheol asks quietly after sliding another waffle onto Sarang’s plate. Jeonghan rolls his eyes, letting out an irritated huff.

“Yes, Cheol. I promise not to give birth on Kwon Soonyoung’s living room floor.”

Seungcheol coughs in surprise and chokes on a strip of bacon until Jeonghan gives him a well placed smack to the middle of his back to dislodge it.

Haeri looks at him disappointedly, tearing a piece of the waffle she’s massacred on her Despicable Me themed minion plate. “Eomma says to chew slowly, Appa.”

By the time they’re ready to leave, Haeri and Sarang are bouncing off the walls. The sugary syrup may not have been the best choice when they’ve got somewhere to be, Seungcheol realizes belatedly. Seungcheol has to scoop both of them up into his arms (when did they get so heavy) just to get them to stop running around the apartment during their makeshift game of indoor tag, unwilling to deal with any more broken pottery when the two of them have razed over enough vases to last a lifetime.

“Hannie,” Seungcheol calls from their bedroom doorway, with a writhing pup in each arm. He doesn’t have very long before they both slide out of his grip and make him chase them all over the apartment again. “You ready?”

Jeonghan’s in front of their mirror in a maternity button up patterned with baby blue stripes and a fitted white tank beneath it, along with some loose linen pants and a pair of birkenstocks, which are the only shoes he can tolerate with his feet so swollen. Seungcheol doesn’t think there’s ever been a cuter pregnant person.

When Jeonghan turns around Seungcheol catches a hint of a discomforted wrinkle in his brow that Jeonghan quickly takes care to smooth out. Seungcheol makes silent note of both that and the slight change in his scent. It feels oddly familiar.

“I’ve been waiting on you slowpokes,” Jeonghan grins, coming up to Seungcheol and attacking Haeri and Sarang both with underarm tickles that make them squeal and thrash around in Seungcheol’s arms. He’s absolutely lying through his teeth and the fact of it really shouldn’t be as charming as it is. While the girls are roaring with laughter, he leans in to kiss Seungcheol on the mouth. “Let’s go,” he murmurs. Seungcheol goes, eager to obey.

When he’s finally got the girls strapped into their booster seats (a task that proved to be much simpler with the help of Jeonghan’s misbehavior repelling mom stare) Seungcheol carefully broaches what he’s been meaning to.

“Are you feeling okay?” he asks, far too worried to put up any pretense of casualness. Jeonghan hums and nods at Seungcheol, using the vanity mirror to mess with his already perfect mane of hair that still swoops over the top of his shoulders following his recent trim. Seungcheol can’t help himself when he tacks on an extra “you sure?” that has Jeonghan glowering at him out of the corner of his eye. It’s horribly unfair how sexy it is when he’s annoyed.

“Just drive, Seungcheol,” Jeonghan says with a longsuffering sigh, flicking the sun visor up with a dramatic eyeroll.

“Yeah just drive, Appa,” Sarang mimics with a giggle before shoving four of her little fingers into her mouth out of habit. Seungcheol watches with a disappointed grimace in the rearview mirror. Haeri’s got her thumb in her mouth too for whatever reason, even though she’s supposedly been over thumbsucking for the past year and a half. He sighs. Seungcheol loves his girls with his whole heart but he’ll be the first to admit what a pair of gross little shits they can be.

“Hey,” Jeonghan stops messing with the air conditioning to turn around and look at the two of them with a frown. “Get your hands out of your mouths!”

+

“Jeonghannie you’re huge!”

Soonyoung is as energetic as ever when he swings his new apartment’s front door open to the four of them. The girls are thrilled to see him and make it known by immediately breaking out into loud yips and growls, hoping to impress their uncle who they’re fully convinced is a real life tiger masquerading as human. For whatever reason, being around Soonyoung makes them both crazy hyper. If Seungcheol weren’t holding onto her hand so firmly he fears Soonyoung’s presence might’ve spurred another one of Sarang’s biting attacks and sent them right back to square one.

“That’s just what I like to hear, Soonyoungie,” Jeonghan deadpans. Compared to the first two trimesters, and his first two pregnancies as a whole, he’s totally popped in the last month, sporting a huge round bump that sticks out like a sore thumb on his otherwise slim, albeit more filled out, frame. He’s the biggest he’s ever been while pregnant. Jeonghan has confessed to mixed feelings about it, his self consciousness warring with his desire to birth the healthiest pup possible. Seungcheol thinks he looks amazing and tells him everyday. Jeonghan tells him he’s biased (he absolutely is).

At the annoyance on Jeonghan’s face, Soonyoung frowns, uncomprehending. “Hey — It’s a good thing, hyung! Kid’s probably gonna be just as huge! Chubby babies are awesome!”

Jeonghan’s face stays flat. Unamused. “You wouldn’t be saying that if it had to come out of you.”

Soonyoung doesn’t argue with that. Can’t, actually.

Inside, Soonyoung’s new Seongsu-dong apartment is nice and spacious, with tall ceilings and a modern, open concept interior that’s already been personalized with a frankly ridiculous amount of tiger photo frames and comically large Soonyoung self portraits. His career as a choreographer has completely taken off over the past few years and the huge new place is tangible proof of it. Seungcheol’s unbelievably proud of him, still freshly remembering the Soonyoung he met in university — younger, scrawnier and rougher around the edges, eyes always burning with a fierceness and hunger for his dream that most could never comprehend. Soonyoung was and still is one of the coolest people Seungcheol’s ever met.

“There they are,” Seungkwan drawls where he’s got his hip propped against Soonyoung’s wide kitchen island when they walk in. Jisoo’s sipping a cocktail beside him, watching Jeonghan suspiciously for whatever reason. Soonyoung doesn’t stick around to figure out, immediately setting off to relocate Wonwoo so he can bother him some more while the alpha pretends to dislike it. Their natural order of things.

“I’m surprised you’re here,” Jisoo says, eyes sharply on Jeonghan and his bump, which has dropped significantly in the past few days. Seungcheol hears Jeonghan scoff, watching his eyes narrow.

“And why is that?”

Jisoo doesn’t miss a beat. “You look like that baby’s about to slide out from between your legs onto the floor.”

It’d be a funny joke from anyone but Jisoo, who seems to have a special sixth sense for what it takes to grate on Jeonghan’s nerves. Jeonghan smiles and it’s got a sharp edge to it that Seungcheol’s learned to be fearful of. “Why don’t you check yourself Jisoo? Since you know so much more than my gyno, clearly.”

“I’d rather be killed.”

Seungkwan butts in right away, unfazed by their petty arguing. “Seungcheol,” he sing-songs. “You’ve been taking care of our Jeonghannie, right?”

Seungkwan’s had an abnormal investment in the pregnancy ever since Seungcheol confided in him about Jeonghan’s insatiable sex drive — except he only ever seems to ask Seungcheol. Mostly, Seungcheol thinks Seungkwan just wants to make him squirm, and never let him live that horrid conversation down. He is overwhelmingly succeeding at that.

“Wh — Of course I have,” Seungcheol sputters, indignant. Seungkwan eyes him like he’s lying. Seungcheol won’t stand for it. “Jeonghan, tell him!”

Jeonghan rubs his back like he’s a kid, placating him. “Seungcheollie’s been an angel, guys. He even started giving me perennial massages again two weeks ago.”

Seungkwan and Jisoo both make noises of surprise, sounding genuinely impressed. “Oh really?” Seungkwan says with an amused hum.

Seungcheol flushes. “It’s nothing, really. I just want the pup to come out safely.”

“Such a good alpha, Cheollie. Jeonghan needs to give you a treat for all your good work.” Jisoo’s half teasing, but Seungcheol feels himself preen anyway, cheeks hot. He’s the easiest kind of alpha there is.

Yunseo, Areum and Eunseol have already dragged Haeri and Sarang away to play in Soonyoung’s spare bedroom — quite loudly by the sounds of it — and eventually all three omegas shoo him off, insisting that Seungcheol leave so they can talk amongst themselves, which leaves Seungcheol to fend for himself. With minimal pouting he reluctantly pulls away from Jeonghan, finding Hansol, Seokmin, Mingyu, Jihoon and Chan sprawled across Soonyoung’s couch and living room floor.

“So how does it feel, hyung,” Hansol asks him once he’s settled, patting Hanuel’s back while the chubby baby’s sat balanced on his knee, squirming like a little worm. “Knowing you’ll have a third pup to chase around the apartment real soon?”

It feels wrong for Hansol to be the one posing this question when Seungcheol still sees him as the awkward geek of an alpha he met in university, busy uploading songs recorded in his dorm on Soundcloud and chasing Seungkwan’s tail. Hansol’s blossomed into an amazing father and mate since then, with three pups already in spite of Jeonghan and Seungcheol’s headstart. Seungcheol really needs to get used to it. He can’t help that all of his friends make him feel old.

“It feels…exciting,” Seungcheol tells him honestly. “Scary. Lots of things. I just want Jeonghan and the baby healthy and happy. The rest of it, I’m trying to let come later.”

His friends all coo at him and call him a big sap. Seokmin in particular sighs wistfully from his seat on the rug, looking over at Jisoo across the room with a trace of longing in his eyes. “You make me want another one,” he mumbles, almost as if he’s talking to himself. His coffee and fresh linen scent flares a bit. Chan kicks him in the back and calls him gross.

“You know, you’re honestly a lot calmer about this than I expected, hyung,” Mingyu admits to Seungcheol with a laugh, pressing his beer bottle to his lips. “Around this time six years ago you were shitting yourself at my place when Jeonghan called and said he was in labor again. Like, actually — I think you spent thirty minutes in my bathroom before leaving to go pick him up.”

Seungcheol chokes on his spit. Seungcheol had been at Mingyu’s place picking up a home cooked meal Jeonghan had spent all of the night prior begging for tearfully (it absolutely had to be Mingyu’s cooking) when Jeonghan called him to tell him his water broke. Even on pup number two, Seungcheol could hardly cope with the nerves, locking himself in Mingyu’s bathroom and trying not to die from anxious diarrhea. It was supposed to stay between the two of them, and then Mingyu told Seungkwan the very day it happened. That fucking traitor, Kim Mingyu. “I told you to stop telling people that!”

“At least he didn’t yak from the nerves that time around,” Hansol laughs, making his chubby pup giggle mindlessly along with him. How rude of Haneul. She should wait and see what’s so funny when Chuseok rolls around and he mysteriously loses his wallet when it’s her turn to get money. And he doesn’t care that she’s one. Annoyed, Seungcheol whips his head around to glare at her father, scoffing in disbelief.

“Why the hell are you talking? Didn’t you pass out in the hospital room when Areum was born?”

Hansol sniffs, backing off. “Touchè.”

“He’ll be a wreck all over again the second Jeonghan’s water breaks,” Jihoon shrugs, messing with Soonyoung’s TV so he can put on a Marvel movie that they’ve probably all seen already. Jihoon gets away with it because it’s Jihoon.

Seungcheol doesn’t have the faintest clue of why he’s being targeted (he does — he pouts and makes it easy). “You’re all terrible.”

Mingyu snorts at him. Seungcheol can’t imagine why he’s laughing when he’s the one who’s been texting Seungcheol anxiously for the past few weeks ever since him and Minghao started seriously trying for a pup. Seungcheol’s one of the only ones who knows and Mingyu is incredibly lucky that Seungcheol can keep a secret when it counts.

Eventually they lose interest in bullying Seungcheol so that they can instead cosplay as medical professionals and discuss the weird new mole on Chan’s thigh next to his dick. Any other place Seungcheol would find this nothing short of ridiculous, but here with his best friends this sort of talk feels perfectly normal. It feels like home.

But, even here of all places, Seungcheol can’t be anything but tense. His alpha has gone completely restless in the past few days, ceaselessly preoccupied with its omega. He spaces out with his eyes locked on Avengers: Infinity War, letting the sounds of his friends’ chatter drown out while he tries and fails to do anything other than think about Jeonghan and whether or not he’s okay and comfortable.

Seungcheol pretends to be present for what feels like an eternity but is likely closer to a half hour. Then the itch returns, to see and be near Jeonghan again, strong as ever. An inexplicable tug of a feeling beneath the skin of his nape that draws Seungcheol out of his seat. Suddenly, he needs to find him.

He shoots up off the rug, making Mingyu ask what the hell is your issue and making Jihoon tell him to get the fuck out of the way when he starts blocking the TV. Seungcheol whips his head around, towards the kitchen. He’s not with Seungkwan and Jisoo when he rounds the corner and looks over, which makes him briefly panic before he forces himself to calm down. He’s nine months pregnant and can’t walk more than fifty steps without needing a breather, so it’s not likely that he’s gone very far.

“Do you guys know where Jeonghan went?”

Seungkwan and Jisoo share a silent look that Seungcheol would never be able to translate. He does himself a favor and doesn’t even bother.

“He went to go lie down in Soonyoung’s room,” Seungkwan tells him. Seungcheol doesn’t even wait up for whatever they plan to tell him next, throwing a thanks over his shoulder and damn near sprinting out of the kitchen and down the hall.

“Hannie,” he whispers after quietly opening the door. He softly clicks it shut behind him. The lights are off in Soonyoung’s room but the curtains are open, sending sunlight slicing through the blinds onto the bed and lighting up the spot where Jeonghan’s snugly tucked in like he lives here, holding onto Soonyoung’s tiger stuffed animal tight. He’s adorable. Seungcheol is so ridiculously happy to see him.

“Come here,” Jeonghan says without even bothering to look at him properly, waving a beckoning hand in his general direction. Seungcheol comes, like a magnet to a pole. He sits beside him where he’s laying on the bed and grabs his flailing hand, pressing it to his lips.

“Soonyongie’s house is so noisy,” Jeonghan huffs playfully in explanation. “Me and Gunbam just wanted to rest for a bit.”

“Good,” Seungcheol tells him seriously, kissing his knuckles again. “You have to rest whenever you need to.”

“Mm, right.”

Jeonghan is so noticeably tired. Even if he weren’t curled up in a bed that wasn’t his, Seungcheol would still be able to smell it all over him, and feel it tacitly through their bond. Now that he’s near, Seungcheol’s in no rush to be anywhere else anytime soon. In fact, Seungcheol thinks he could stay here a whole night, wide awake, just watching over Jeonghan while he sleeps, like some wired up guard dog. He’d bring the girls as well, tuck them in right beside their Eomma. Soonyoung wouldn’t appreciate that very much but if it’s what Jeonghan wants then Soonyoung’s just going to have to under —

“Cheollie.” Jeonghan breaks their comfortable silence.

Seungcheol blinks in the darkness of Soonyoung’s bedroom, still absently smoothing his thumb over Jeonghan’s knobby knuckles. “Hm?”

“Don’t freak out.”

“Why would I —”

“I’m in labor.”

“Oh.”

Jeonghan rolls his eyes and sighs. “I told you not to freak out.”

Seungcheol can’t breathe. “I’m not.”

“I can smell you.”

Okay, Seungcheol is freaking out. Only a little. He really can’t be blamed — nothing is the same after this. It doesn’t matter if they’ve already done this twice, he’s terrified. For Jeonghan. For the pup. For himself and his own crippling anxieties about whether he has what it takes to be a good father to three whole pieces of himself and Jeonghan that he’ll have to eventually send out into the world one day. He doesn’t realize he’s been holding his breath until Jeonghan gives his hand a reassuring squeeze that tugs him back into the present. Seungcheol exhales and squeezes Jeonghan's hand back. Then he mentally smacks the shit out of himself and locks into the very real, very imminent situation at hand.

“How far apart are your contractions?”

“Around eight minutes, I think. I thought they were false ones last night and this morning because they weren’t very strong. But I had a bad one earlier while I was talking to Seungkwannie and Joshuji out there and had to come lay down.”

“Okay. Okay, do you need me to get you — ”

“Hold on,” Jeonghan interrupts, before squeezing his eyes shut and groaning quietly at what Seungcheol figures is another contraction. Seungcheol lets him grip his hand tight and with his free hand he rubs his side gently, hoping it’s some approximation of soothing. This is the worst. He wouldn’t even let Jeonghan feel the pain of stubbing his toe if he could help it.

When Jeonghan’s done riding it out, Seungcheol hits him with a blitz of questions, feeling frenetic. “Do you know how far apart that one was? I forgot to time it on my phone but I started counting in my head and it was like 45 seconds. Actually, don’t even worry about it, I’m reinstalling the app we used. Also, did that one hurt worse or the same as the last one? Like if you were at the doctor’s, on a scale of 1-to-10, would you — Ah, Hannie. Please don’t cry.”

Jeonghan presses his hands to his face to cover the big fat tears racing down his cheeks, sniffling wetly. Seungcheol leans over his body and hugs him tight. “Does it really hurt? Or are you scared? I promise everything’s going to be fine.”

“No, it’s not that,” Jeonghan sobs out. “I mean, yes it hurts and yeah I’m nervous but that's not why I’m …” he trails off with a hiccup and a shaky breath.

“What is it then, baby?”

“Ugh, it’s stupid. I’m so mad I can’t stop crying. Jisoo was right and he’s going to be so fucking annoying!”

+

The girls both throw a predictable fit at their playtime getting cut so short, but when Jeonghan has a contraction that Seungcheol has to drop everything to rub his back for right by the car, they go quiet, sensing something’s off. As soon as they get home, Seungcheol leads them to their bedroom, sits them down, and tells them he wants to talk. Haeri and Sarang both look at him with wide, unblinking eyes, listening more obediently than Seungcheol thinks they ever have.

“Girls,” Seungcheol starts, resting on his knee so he’s eye level with the two of them perched on the edge of Haeri’s bright pink bed. “Do you know why you’re going to see Halmi and Halbae today?”

They shake their heads in unison. Seungcheol smiles, terribly endeared by them. “Well, Eomma and I have to go away for a little while. Just a day or so. And when you get back, the puppy in Eomma’s tummy will be here.”

The two of them gasp, lips parting into matching little o’s. The first thing out of Sarang’s mouth is, “so Tinkerbell is coming?”

Seungcheol huffs out a laugh. What the hell, sure. “Yes she is, Peach. And when she’s done granting Eomma’s wish you’ll have a little puppy to play with and take care of in the end. How does that sound?”

Sarang makes a little happy noise, smiling and showing all her milk teeth. Haeri, on the other hand, wastes no time bursting into tears, catching Seungcheol off guard. “Ah, Bug, what’s wrong?” he asks right away, pulling her little body into his arms and feeling her shake with the force of her sobs.

“I’m so happy, Appa,” she cries into the collar of his shirt, her skinny little arm gripping his back. “It’s the best day of my life.”

Seungcheol hugs her tighter and laughs. The drama with these girls. Sarang worms her way underneath Seungcheol’s armpit and joins in on the hug. He holds on to both them for a long time, scenting them a bit. They’re not going very far, but he’s going to miss them anyway.

He helps the girls pack up their things in their little Dooly themed suitcases for their sleepover at their grandparents’ house. Or really — he does most of the folding and packing while Haeri and Sarang bring him toys they want shoved in their suitcases that Seungcheol tells them probably won’t fit. They also spend the whole time bombarding him with questions about the pup. Seungcheol does his best to answer them, even when they ask ridiculous things like will the puppy play laser tag with us next week at Yunseo’s birthday party (he told them he’d ask the pup what they thought when they got here).

“Can you girls give me a goodbye hug?” Jeonghan requests when his mother and father call to say that they’re a few minutes away, after the girls are all packed up and ready to go. From what Seungcheol can see, his eyes are a little watery and knowing him, it’s not just from the discomfort of being in active labor. Jeonghan loves them so much. He hates when they’re away.

“Can you tell Tinkerbell I said hi, Eomma?” Sarang asks from where she’s got her face buried in Jeonghan’s chest. Jeonghan hums, stroking her hair with a bony finger.

“Only if you’re good for Halmi and Halbae.”

“What happens when she makes the wish come true?” Haeri pulls her face away to ask next. “Does the puppy just appear? Like out of nowhere?”

Jeonghan gives her an impish grin. “That’s a secret.”

“What? No fair!” Haeri complains. Jeonghan laughs and pulls her head back into his chest. He presses his nose into the crown of her head and takes his sweet time scenting her — even longer than Seungcheol had. Then he kisses her head and switches to Sarang, inhaling her scent just as deeply. If he could do this all day, Seungcheol has no doubt in his mind that he would.

The moment Haeri and Sarang get picked up, Seungcheol becomes a man on a mission. He starts scrambling around the apartment to grab everything he and Jeonghan will need, running back and forth like he’s totally lost his head. Most things have already been packed up, thanks to the night two weeks ago Seungcheol spent being ordered around by Jeonghan from his comfortable seat on their bed as Seungcheol packed on his behalf. Jeonghan laughs at how ridiculous he looks now, holding onto three different bags with his arms and holding his car keys in his mouth, between his teeth. His laughter trails off into a pained groan when a contraction hits, and Seungcheol dumps everything onto the floor so he can rub Jeonghan’s back through it again.

“This part is going to suck,” Jeonghan complains with a whine when it's over, his hand in Seungcheol’s.

“I know. I’m sorry.” Seungcheol pecks him on the lips, tucks his hair behind his ear. Squeezes the hand he’s holding. “I’d take away all the pain in a heartbeat if I could. I’d rather it be me than you.”

“Yeah, right,” Jeonghan snorts at him. “You couldn’t handle this for even a second, Choi Seungcheol. You’d die.”

“Yeah, yeah whatever. You’re right.”

+

The hospital room they’ll be in for the next day or so is plain and unremarkable. And even so, walking inside it stirs the strangest cocktail of emotion inside Seungcheol that he can’t even really begin to process. Jeonghan’s in labor. About to have his kid. Meaning at the end of this, there will be another baby for them to hold and care for. To wake up and feed in the middle of the night. To dote on and worry about endlessly, the way they do over the girls. He’s had 9 months to prepare and still feels whiplash at the mere thought.

With his help, Jeonghan changes into his hospital gown. He looks exhausted, with his under-eyes dark and his hair a bit greasy, pulled back into a tiny low pony. Jeonghan doesn’t believe in getting dolled up before going to the hospital to give birth, the way someone like Jisoo would, fully content to leave the house in the sweatpants he changed into after Soonyoung’s and one of Seungcheol’s big shirts from the laundry that holds his smell. Seungcheol can’t believe how beautiful he is, even like this, in a wrinkly hospital gown that shows off his knobby knees, jutting out of spindly legs Seungcheol had to help him shave a few days ago because he couldn’t reach.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Jeonghan stops messing with the itchy blanket he’s been complaining about for the better part of an hour to glare at Seungcheol.

Seungcheol blinks in surprise. Although it shouldn’t be much of a shock anymore, given how often he gets caught staring at Jeonghan like he’s got no home training. He should really learn to get more discreet. “Like what?”

Jeonghan tilts his head, like Seungcheol’s obtuse. “Like you want to mount me on top of this hospital bed.”

“Well you’re —” Seungcheol coughs, staring hard at him. “You’re gorgeous.”

“Oh my god shut up,” Jeonghan huffs immediately, face flushing a pretty shade of pink. Proving Seungcheol’s point. “There’s seriously something wrong with you.”

“I mean it.”

“No, be quiet. I’m huge and bloated and sweaty like a hog and my ass is all out in this fucking gown. I look ridiculous.”

Seungcheol frowns, offended on Jeonghan’s behalf at all the self-deprecation. “What? No, you look perfect. Like you —”

Jeonghan yelps suddenly, reaching for his arm and gripping it with a pained moan, eyes squeezing shut. “God shut the fuck up,” he spits. He really means it this time. Seungcheol listens, snapping his mouth shut and letting Jeonghan cut off the blood flow to his forearm with his white-knucked grip and groan into his shoulder.

When Dr. Jung comes in with her bright, toothy smile (some big veneers on this lady, bless her heart) and snaps her latex gloves on to give Jeonghan an examination, Seungcheol squeezes his hand tight and lets him rest his head on his shoulder, noticing how tense his body gets. Jeonghan always hates this part. There are many parts of this, actually, that he doesn’t like very much. He can’t be blamed, really.

“Five centimeters!” she chirps at the two of them, smiling wide. Halfway there. Although both of them know how long it could take, getting from this point to the next, especially given how Jeonghan wants to do this all unmedicated per his birth plan — a decision that surprised Seungcheol at first, but made much more sense once Jeonghan had explained the way an epidural dulls your senses and leaves your inner omega feeling disjointed during the whole thing, sometimes resulting in a weird, unpleasant headspace after giving birth. Seungcheol gets it. And regardless of what he’s decided on, he’s all in, happy to support whatever helps Jeonghan feel most comfortable.

Beside him, Jeonghan looks annoyed from the moment Dr. Jung says it. And Seungcheol can’t have that. The second she leaves the room, he pulls out all the stops to keep him entertained, even if that means letting Jeonghan tease him to his heart’s content. Before this he’d nearly forgotten that he married and mated the world’s most conniving little shit.

Case in point: “Cheol,” Jeonghan says while Seungcheol’s in the middle of feeding him ice chips.

“Hm?”

“Do you ever think about what they’ll look like?” Jeonghan asks. “The baby?”

Seungcheol pauses with his fingers still pinching a freezing cube of ice, considering it. He thinks about the pup often. Like, conceptually. But not so much what they’ll look like. Without thinking much of it, he answers, “Sometimes.”

“Since last month I haven’t stopped thinking about it,” Jeonghan admits. He grins. Adds, “I decided I want the pup to have your freakishly small feet.”

“Hey,” Seungcheol squawks, dropping the ice. A size 260 is perfectly normal — it shouldn’t matter that his omega has bigger feet than him. “You promised you’d stop making fun of me for that.”

“I’m not making fun of you,” Jeonghan says, straight-faced even though he’s so clearly taking the piss. “I want the baby to have it.”

Seungcheol flicks some of the wetness on his hands onto Jeonghan’s face and Jeonghan giggles at him, unphased.

“I think it’s a boy,” Jeonghan suddenly reveals. As if he hasn’t already made that abundantly clear over the past few months.

“I know you do.”

“He’s going to be so cute. Sarang’s going to terrorize him.”

Seungcheol cackles. “She absolutely will. I know Haeri’s going to love having two people to boss around now.”

“Ugh I miss them again,” Jeonghan sighs, looking sad. “I wanna cry.”

“Your head will hurt.”

“Shut up I know.”

Even this — them in this overly sterile, offensively white hospital room, with little else to do beyond talk and tease each other — Seungcheol wants to cherish. There is quite literally no place he’d rather be besides here, glued to Jeonghan’s side. The only thing that could possibly make this better would be having the girls here, although they probably wouldn’t enjoy hearing their Eomma cursing up a storm every few minutes very much, shouting in pain.

On that note, Seungcheol would also prefer if the whole Jeonghan in pain part of the whole thing wasn’t, well. A thing.

Five hours in Seungcheol quickly realizes that, compared to the last two times, things are moving fast. Soon enough, it gets difficult for Jeonghan to talk, with barely any time in between contractions and the force of each one taking more and more out of him as they come. It’s hard to watch him in pain without much he can do about it. Seungcheol can feel his alpha practically whimpering inside him like a kicked dog, making his chest all heavy and sad. None of that’s important, though. His focus is tunnel-visioned on Jeonghan in front of him, having done away with all distractions — even the most instinctual. He made a promise to be someone Jeonghan can rely on without question the moment he put his teeth to his nape all those years ago and he has no plans of going back on it anytime soon.

Together, they do a lot of pacing around the small room, trying to alleviate some of the insane pressure building in Jeonghan’s spine and abdomen and pelvis. Jeonghan had tried the yoga ball too, but nothing has helped as much as the walking back and forth. Every so often Jeonghan gasps and makes them stop and Seungcheol immediately takes his place, applying the counter pressure to Jeonghan’s back and hips he learned about in those books he read the first time they did this and talking him through it, telling him he’s strong and incredible and doing so amazing because he is.

“Do you want to lie down again, baby?” Seungcheol asks, after a particularly strong contraction that Jeonghan had shouted the whole way through, with him trembling in Seungcheol’s arms now that it’s over.

Jeonghan slowly shakes his head no, which Seungcheol feels from where Jeonghan’s got his forehead buried into his shoulder.

“I’m going to be sick,” Jeonghan moans, letting out a loud hiccup afterward as if to punctuate.

Without thinking, Seungcheol moves, and puts a nearby basin under his chin while scooping his bangs back so that Jeonghan can promptly vomit into it, which he does. This happened the first two times as well, so Seungcheol’s more than prepared. Jeonghan will, if Seungcheol can help it, not projectile vomit all over his clothes this time.

It becomes clear to Seungcheol that they’ve reached crunch time when he loses all touching privileges and is forced to watch Jeonghan scream into a pillow while he’s bent over the side of the bed.

“Do you want me to —”

“Don’t talk to me.”

When Jeonghan gets mean like this, it means it’s really close to time. Seungcheol doesn’t take it personal.

“I’m going to press the button and get the nurse in here, Hannie,” Seungcheol tells him gently, while Jeonghan is loudly sobbing into the pillow he’s biting. “Can I touch you now?”

The back of Jeonghan’s head barely moves in a nod. Seungcheol takes his cue to rub the searing hot skin of his lower back with a balled fist, noticing Jeonghan shiver and then melt at the touch.

He’s already helped Jeonghan back onto the bed by the time Dr. Jung comes in with a few nurses in tow, wearing that smile of hers. One look at Jeonghan’s face tells Seungcheol he can’t stand the sight of her right now. If she notices, she doesn’t seem too worried about it.

“Alright!” she claps her hands excitedly. “Who’s ready to have a pup?”

She confirms that he’s ten centimeters dilated and Jeonghan is hardly listening, eyes closed with his head leaning to the left, onto Seungcheol’s shoulder, while he grips the bed rails for dear life. He’s bouncing his leg, trying to ride out a horrible contraction, and Seungcheol’s chest starts to ache at how miserable he looks. Even though Jeonghan had wanted this pup, Seungcheol can’t help but feel sorry to him, for putting him in this position again. He kisses the side of his head and wraps an arm around his shoulders in silent apology.

Dr. Jung asks Jeonghan what position he’d like to try pushing in and Jeonghan decides he doesn’t have the wherewithal to move again, with or without help, so on his back it is. She instructs Seungcheol to hold his thigh back, and so he does, placing his hand on the warm skin just above the back of his knee. Jeonghan wouldn’t dare let him do this the first time, so horribly embarrassed about the prospect of giving birth, and being so naked, in both a literal and figurative sense. He doesn’t even bat an eye now. He wants it over and done with quickly.

“Jeonghan-ah,” she grins at him, gently patting his ankle as she settles onto the stool between his legs. “On the next one you should push.”

Jeonghan doesn’t make any move to show her he’s listening, but not even a minute later he lets out a hurt little noise and presses his chin to his chest to do exactly as he’s told, pushing until he’s red in the face with his eyes squeezed shut. Seungcheol immediately feels all the wind get knocked out of him as he watches, full of wonder. It goes without saying — Jeonghan’s the bravest, strongest, most stunning person he’s ever met.

He repeats all that, over and over, into the sweat slick skin of Jeonghan’s temple. Kisses him there too. He brushes away the hair sticking to his forehead, the hair tie long forgotten. He reminds him to breathe, when he starts gasping for air between pushes, exhausted. He tells him how incredible he is, for doing this.

“Just like that,” Dr. Jung encourages on the tail end of a particularly long push. Jeonghan lets out a horrible scream when it’s over and Dr. Jung gives him a sympathetic smile. “Ah, well done. You’re crowning.”

Right then, Seungcheol chances a proper look at the space between Jeonghan’s legs and feels his breath catch. It should be more jarring, perhaps — the human head partly poking out of his mate, covered in spotty, viscous patches of blood and mucus and amniotic fluid. But all Seungcheol can think about is the full head of hair on their baby’s round little head, fine, downy strands curling around its impossibly tiny scalp. The sight of it yanks a visceral feeling up and out of his chest and he can’t help the quiet gasp he lets out. He feels his eyes start to water.

Jeonghan, understandably, doesn’t share his excitement. He immediately bursts into tears from the awful burning sensation, thigh trembling in Seungcheol’s hold. Seungcheol hurriedly takes his other arm away from its place around his shoulders to reach for and wipe them away. Jeonghan wastes no time swatting at him, leaning away from his touch. Wails, “how could you ever let me think this was a good idea?”

“I’m sorry,” is all Seungcheol manages to stammer out, unsure of a better way to respond. Jeonghan burrows his head deep into Seungcheol’s chest, soaking his shirt wet with his snot and tears and drool. Dr. Jung tells him not to push for a bit so he stays like that, crying into Seungcheol’s chest for the next few contractions, sobbing half-coherently about never doing this again.

It’s clear he’s in god-awful pain but somehow, Jeonghan keeps going. Starts pushing again when Dr. Jung tells him to. Keeps pushing and pushing, bearing down in spite of the searing pain and pressure. Then there’s a head popping out. Next, shoulders, and then Jeonghan lets out a choked sob and suddenly there’s a slimy, red, screeching pup sliding into Dr. Jung’s waiting arms.

Things start to move in slow motion, when the baby moves from Dr. Jung’s gloved hands to Jeonghan’s chest. Jeonghan is crying harder than he has all day, arms wrapping securely around the pup and Seungcheol — Seungcheol can barely even take a useful breath. His vision blurs, his view of Jeonghan kissing their pup's bloody forehead becoming one big indiscernible blob. He lets out a strangled noise and then he’s sobbing, like a goddamn baby himself.

“I’m so proud of you,” he tells Jeonghan first and foremost, voice a wreck. The sight of Jeonghan holding one of their newborn pups is something that will never get old. Everytime he sees it, Seungcheol decides it’s the most beautiful Seungcheol’s ever seen him. Even now, with his hair in total disarray and his eyes bloodshot, and his face puffy and flushed from the exhaustion and tears. The face he makes when he looks at their children for the first time is absolutely priceless.

As it turns out, Jeonghan’s hunch was right. Gunbam’s a little boy. A bit smaller than his sisters had been, but with a head just as big, Jeonghan insists. An omega, too, like his Eomma. A terribly loud crier, like his big sister Sarang, but quieter like Haeri when he’s snuggled close to his mother.

“What’s his name, Cheol,” Jeonghan asks once things have calmed down, voice shot. The baby is clean and quiet and Jeonghan’s delivered the placenta. The nurses took the pup away for a bit to look him over, much to Jeonghan’s dismay, and ever since they brought him back Jeonghan’s refused to let him go.

Seungcheol coughs, dislodging the mucus in his throat. The migraine he’s going to get from crying later will be ridiculous, he thinks.

He thought about this for a long time. About what to name him. He didn’t know that it’d be a boy obviously, so he ended up agonizing over two bible-length lists of potential names. Had he been a girl, Seungcheol’s top picks were a draw between Nari and Hana, unable to resist choosing a name that reminded him of Jeonghan. He went down a long list of boy names too, but none of them stuck quite like —

“Hurry up,” Jeonghan complains. “I’m about to give him back to you. I need to sleep. For like, at least three days. Uninterrupted.”

Seungcheol laughs. “Seunghan. I like Seunghan.” The perfect blend of their names. It means to win. To succeed. He wants the pup to grow up strong and ambitious and ready to take on the world. He looks at Jeonghan for approval and finds Jeonghan watching him with a lazy smirk.

“Of course you just shove our names together,” Jeonghan scoffs, although his face is impossibly fond. “You’re such a dork.”

“Do you like it?” Seungcheol asks self-consciously. “Because we can change it. It doesn’t have to be —”

“I like it, Cheol,” Jeonghan cuts him off, looking him in the eyes sincerely. “I love it.” He tilts his head up and puckers his lips for a kiss that Seungcheol easily obliges.

“Now hurry up and take him so I can sleep.”

+

Jeonghan’s parents bring the girls over to visit in the morning. Jeonghan’s going to be discharged the next day but his post-partum nesting urges and separation anxiety are through the roof right now so Seungcheol takes the liberty of making the phone call for him. And for himself, a little. He misses them too.

The girls walk into the room a bit hesitantly, not very keen on hospitals like most pups their age. Jeonghan’s parents had dropped them off here before heading to the hospital cafeteria, wanting to give the girls and their parents some alone time. The moment he sees them, Seungcheol breaks into the widest grin, noting that the two of them are wearing those adorable ‘big sister’ t-shirts he and Jeonghan ordered them on Coupang all that time ago.

“Come here,” Jeonghan gestures for them to come closer when he sees them lingering by the doorway. “Come give Eomma a hug.”

Sarang and Haeri shyly shuffle towards Jeonghan on the bed. Jeonghan lifts both of them onto it so they can sit with him and snuggle close.

“Were you good for Halmi and Halbae?”

Haeri and Sarang nod, quiet. It’s a bit early so they’re definitely still sleepy. They’re also most likely taking everything in, trying to wrap their heads around the odd new environment, and the tiny stranger in the corner.

“Would you like to see who Appa’s holding?”

The girls nod, looking over at Seungcheol. Seungcheol comes over, cradling a swaddled up Seunghan in his arms. Seunghan’s sleeping, nose twitching cutely. Seungcheol lowers his arms so they can get a good look.

“Bug, Peach. Meet Seunghan. Your little brother.”

Sarang and Haeri both gape openly at the tiny pup bundled in his arms, unmoving. Seunghan makes a little snuffling sound, as if he knows he’s being watched.

“Can I,” Haeri starts then stops. “Can I touch him?”

“Yes you may,” Jeonghan tells her. “Lets get your hands clean first.”

Seungcheol hands over Seunghan to Jeonghan and the girls coo at the pup from where they’re sitting at Jeonghan’s sides. Then he grabs hand sanitizer off the window sill and directs the girls to hold their hands out so he can pump it into their palms.

“I rubbed it all in.” Haeri shows off her dry hands. “May I please hold him now?”

Jeonghan nods and helps her, gingerly placing Seunghan into her arms while supporting his head. “Put your arm here, Bug, make sure his head stays supported.”

“Oh. He’s so tiny,” Haeri whispers, full of awe. Jeonghan laughs in agreement.

On Jeonghan’s other side, Sarang’s behaved long enough today it seems. She starts to whine and complain. “When is it my turn?”

“Soon, Peach,” Seungcheol consoles. Haeri glares at Sarang. Jeonghan catches it immediately and gently scolds the two of them.

“No mean looks and no whining, ladies. Seunghannie’s new around here and you girls need to make a good first impression.”

What Jeonghan says tears a laugh from somewhere deep inside Seungcheol’s chest. Something about the pouts that appear on Haeri and Sarang’s faces and Jeonghan’s stern, arched eyebrow are thoroughly tickling him.

Jeonghan looks up from where he’s helping Haeri hold Seunghan. “What are you laughing at?”

“Nothing,” Seungcheol says. “I just love you guys.”

“Ewwww Appa,” Haeri teases. “So cheesy!”

“Yeah, so cheesy!” Sarang joins in with a giggle.

Seungcheol stops smiling and gasps, looking to Jeonghan for help. Jeonghan just shrugs, looking back at him smugly. “You heard them.”