Work Text:
When Felix’s eyes open it’s sometime past 2am.
It’s like clockwork at this point; the cramping low in his stomach, the wide, gaping hole that opens up in his chest and fills with yearning so strong it leaves him feeling suffocated. At first, he always tries to force himself back into sleep. Darkness still looms at the corners of his vision with a heaviness that weighs him down. His limbs, his head, his chest all leaden and sluggish. Felix tries to focus on that, tries to breathe deep, tries to take even inhales and exhales.
As usual, it doesn’t work.
Somewhere outside a car honks. Light flares brighter and sneaks past the blinds of his window. He’s aware of the softness next to him and in his arms and grows more aware of it by the second. The dog plushie he’s hugging close carries the soft sweetness of juicy peaches. It feels warm and familiar against the bare skin of his arms and all of that should calm him, settle him, make him aware that he’s safe in his nest — it ends up doing the opposite.
In a single, sharp and jerky motion, Felix sits up. He throws the duvet back, feels overheated and mildly annoyed.
Seungmin is sleeping in the room right opposite his own. Unaware. Unbothered. He doesn’t know that Felix has surrounded himself with four different dog plushies, doesn’t know that his heart races and the yearning in his body grows vast, turns him hot and cold, becomes impossible to ignore. He probably doesn’t even understand what is wrong — which is very fair, actually, because neither does Felix. All he knows is that every day for the last week he has woken up in the middle of the night feeling wrong. Off. Like an open wound that burns and itches and finds no relief. If he tries to lie down again his whole body aches like a bruise someone is holding their finger on, and Kim Seungmin is just peacefully sleeping.
Felix huffs and plops down onto his back. One of the plushies is stuck under him, making lying down even more uncomfortable. Stubbornly, he refuses to move or shift away and instead stares up at the ceiling with unseeing eyes. One of the dogs is still in his arms and Felix tucks it under his chin, then grabs another and holds that one against his chest. Their weight is comforting in a way; it’s not quite a hug and it’s definitely not the weight of another person, but it distinctly fills Felix with the sensation of not being alone. If only their scent wasn’t so wrong.
Not for the first time this week, he finds himself sulking about Kim Seungmin.
It’s no fault of his dorm mate’s, probably.
Most likely.
Seungmin hasn’t explicitly done something wrong, Felix thinks. In fact, one could argue that Seungmin is the perfect person to live with. His subtle and warm scent of oak, cedar and sandalwood is calming. Unobtrusive in the mornings and wrapping around Felix protectively in the evening, when he’s drained and weary. He always makes sure Felix is well fed, tries to make him sleep on time, insists on eating together, spending time together. Even going as far as to introduce Felix to his friends and bringing him along when he goes out, just so Felix wouldn’t stay behind. Seungmin doesn’t mind when Felix gets sensitive, when he feels raw and overwhelmed. He also doesn’t mind his more energetic days where he pulls attention like a flame calls to moths; simply smiling one of those soft little smiles of his, that’s more eyes than lips. That turns them so honeyed and warm, like a sunlight on treetops.
So, no, it’s not his fault. But something in Felix — the same thing that remains rattled and dissatisfied — blames Kim Seungmin for the way he’s feeling.
It’s instinctual, or something. Chan does always go on and on about omega instincts being very intense, and the moon, and how Felix should do something to be more in tune with himself. He doesn’t much approve of Felix using suppressants and scent patches, but his disapproval is easily dismissed because Chan doesn’t get it. He and Minho have been mated for years now. Chan hasn’t had to suffer through painful, irregular heats and a flaring, beguiling scent that obnoxiously begs for attention and calls out to every alpha in the vicinity like ‘Hey, look at me, I’m submissive and breedable’. It’s much easier this way, Felix reasons with himself.
Still, if this is an instinctual thing, he wonders what Chan would say his instinct is trying to tell him. There’s certainly an itch that needs scratching, the pulsing, cramping feeling in his stomach says as much. But his suppressants are supposed to take care of his more base needs and Felix doesn’t think he feels horny. Just kind of — unfulfilled. Vague. Distorted like smoke.
Felix huffs and blindly reaches for his phone. The screen’s light is too bright, making him squint against the darkness as he considers if he should call Chan now and if he would still be awake. Possibly. Except on the small, off chance that he isn’t, Felix doesn’t want to ruin the rare evening when he gets enough rest to ask for help about omega instincts. Not to mention that Minho will also be there and be woken up by the call and then Felix will have two worried pack members fretting over him when the situation is probably not at all serious.
With a sigh, he throws the phone to the side and curls into a tight little ball around the two plushies he had been clutching at.
If he keeps his eyes squeezed shut, maybe he can ignore everything that’s wrong. If he buries his nose in the soft plush, maybe the cramps will ease up. If he keeps inhaling his own, overly sweet, sticky and ripe scent, maybe his instincts will calm.
Felix counts seconds, then minutes.
The scent somehow grows heavier, more overbearing. There’s something needy underlying the stickiness. Ripening further, beckoning louder. Except there’s no recipient for that call; it’s just Felix in his room. Felix and the dog plushies that don’t carry a single trace of Kim Seungmin anymore.
Maybe that’s the issue.
It used to be different, before Felix presented. He was the last one, a late bloomer. By then he had already gotten so used to Seungmin’s scent and the comfort it could bring. There had been many times where he had stolen his clothes and gotten away with it, when he had demanded that Seungmin scents his bed so he could have a familiar comfort at night. All of that came to a sudden and absolute halt when Felix presented as omega. Now, Seungmin reprimands him when he tries to steal his hoodies and tells him that it’s uncouth for an alpha to enter his space, much less his nest. Felix thinks it’s stupid, but Seungmin is stubborn at the worst of times, and if he thinks something is part of his morals, he refuses to budge.
Actually, maybe it is Kim Seungmin’s fault.
Felix sits up and throws the heavy covers he had been hiding under back, then adds a kick for good measure. It might be nearing three in the morning, but he has reached a sort of epiphany. Chan would be proud of him.
As quietly as his sock clad feet allow, Felix sneaks out of his room. The hinges at his door are well oiled and allow him to move into the illuminated hallway silently. The apartment is an older one and although Felix wasn’t bothered by the squeaky hinges and the creaking floorboards, Seungmin was. He’s also the one that installed those dimmed, warm lights in the hallway, leading to the bathroom; for when Felix woke up in the middle of the night. So he wouldn’t be scared and trying to find his way through the dark.
It’s sweet. It has always been sweet how Seungmin found ways to care for him and solved problems way before Felix even saw them enter his field of vision.
The thought makes another painful cramp twist in his lower stomach, this one slightly harder to ignore. Felix pushes on. He crosses the hallway and as carefully as possible opens the door to Seungmin’s room.
It’s a place he used to find himself in all the time before The Great Presentation™, but has been off-limits to him since. Therefore, the scent that creeps past the gap in the door now hits him with the surprising force of a brick wall. There’s a slightly spicy and sharp note that Felix isn’t used to from Seungmin that makes something drop warm and heavy to the pit of his stomach and spreads from there, all the way back up. Goosebumps travel along his arms and nape then settle in a predictably pink flush on his cheeks.
Suddenly, and standing right in the doorway of Seungmin’s room, it occurs to Felix that maybe Chan would not think that this is a good idea. Even with suppressants, it’s possible for him to grow scent drunk, which might lead to him just curling up in Seungmin’s bed and if that’s where Seungmin finds him in the morning — honestly, getting told off by his alpha roommate is nothing, but he might actually tell Chan and Minho what Felix did and that will certainly lead to a scolding he won’t forget so quickly. Maybe due to his very long pup phase, the pack alpha and omega have always been very soft and sweet on him, but Felix also knows that even their near endless patience has a limit. And an unmated omega curling up in an unmated alpha’s bed is probably really going to test that limit.
It really isn’t a good idea at all.
Felix should turn back and go to bed.
But the heat prickling his skin persists and the cramping in his stomach turns into a warm feeling that spreads, blooms almost, reaching the edges of his waist and his hipbones and easing some of the uncomfortable tension he had been suffering. Against all rational reason, Felix squeezes past the small gap and closes the door behind him.
Seungmin’s room is completely dark. Navigating it in this state is only made easy by Seungmin’s meticulous tidiness and the fact that, unlike Felix, he doesn’t push his furniture into a different spot every few months, just to stop things from becoming boring. There’s also the overpowering scent that beckons him closer and the even, deep breathing coming from Seungmin’s bed that leads him in the right direction.
The closer Felix steps, the more woozy and lightheaded he feels; his instincts are quite clearly and loudly screaming at him to bury his nose in the source of the scent, to wrap it around himself and never leave. There’s a lot of comfort that Seungmin’s scent promises that Felix doesn’t realise he had been craving until he’s at the edge of the bed and staring down at the vague outline of Seungmin’s sleeping form.
At this point, all rationality has left him long ago. Felix acts on impulse alone when he takes the two plushies and starts rubbing them against Seungmin’s head and neck. None too gently or subtly, so it’s really no surprise at all when Seungmin starts rousing. Felix hears him groan, a confused and slightly startled sound that’s a bit muffled when Felix presses one of the plushies against his face. Despite the fact that it’s the middle of the night and someone is acting similarly to how a murderer trying to suffocate him would, Seungmin’s reaction remains rather mild. He calmly takes a hold of one of the plushies and Felix’s wrist and pulls them away, pressing them against his chest instead. His heartbeat is steady against the palm of Felix’s hand. Lulling him into a less restless mindset.
“Yongbok-ah,” Seungmin starts, voice rough from sleep, “what are you doing?”
“They smell wrong,” Felix responds, his lips audibly pursed into a pout. His head is still woozy, feeling similarly to how it does when he’s comfortably tipsy. Everything is lighter, easier in a way. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t hesitate at all to tell Seungmin this and why it doesn’t strike him as odd at all. Even when he feels Seungmin’s heart jump and his chest flutter around a sharp inhale. “I need them to smell like you,” Felix reiterates, as if Seungmin simply hasn’t understood what this nightly visit is about.
To his credit, he doesn’t seem weirded out by the request at all. Felix can hear him mumble out an even ‘oh, okay’ and then he’s taking the plushies out of Felix’s hands and rubbing them against the side of his neck, right where his scent is most potent, most heady, with that mysterious spicy note that Felix hasn’t allowed himself to consider yet. “Here,” Seungmin says, offering the plushies back. Felix can’t see his face, but he can feel his gaze as their fingers brush and he feels how Seungmin’s skin burns.
Maybe tomorrow he will feel bad about it. Or maybe he will sit and consider what he did and why and the way Seungmin reacted. Maybe tomorrow, but tonight he simply takes them back, pulls them against his chest, under his chin. He mumbles a thanks and a good night into the darkness of Seungmin’s room, then quickly makes his way back to his bed.
This time around it’s easier to fall into it. His limbs feel comfortably weighted down and when he slips under his blanket everything feels much cosier and more comfortable than before. The darkness is no longer heavy, the air is no longer stifling and his own scent no longer plagues him. Instead, there’s that comforting woodsy scent all around him — like a blanket, or a hug. Felix buries his nose against the plushies and squeezes them in his arms and loses himself in the brief thought that finally the pups in his arms smell right. Finally, they smell like his alpha.
The thought is a fleeting and brief one, because the next moment Felix has dozed off.
The next morning, when Felix steps into the kitchen, Seungmin is already up. He’s standing at the kitchen counter and sipping coffee, his eyes trained on Felix as soon as he steps into the room, as if he had been waiting. The thought makes Felix flush slightly.
“Morning,” he mumbles.
“Good morning,” Seungmin responds, then pauses. He looks away from Felix, down to his coffee. Felix already doesn’t like where this is going. “Minho-Hyung and Chan-Hyung are going to kill me if they find out what happened, you know?”
“Seungminnie, it’s really—”
“So you have to keep it a secret, okay?” Seungmin interrupts and sets his coffee down. He walks over to Felix, who feels his heart flutter nervously, and pulls the hoodie he had been wearing off, before handing it to Felix. His face looks rather serious, even as his ears and cheeks have grown pink and he still avoids meeting Felix’s eyes. “Take it. It helps you sleep, right? My scent.”
“Y—yeah,” Felix stumbles over the word, then nods a few times for good measure. Helping him sleep isn’t exactly the reason why he did what he did, but he’s not about to expose those weird last thoughts he had right before falling asleep. Or the weirder ones he had waking up. Instincts are unpredictable and strange sometimes, after all, and he isn’t about to make Seungmin feel awkward and uncomfortable in his presence just because his omega instincts decided that him and Seungmin should have babies. “It just helps me sleep. That’s all.”
Seungmin nods as well, then he walks back to the counter where he had left his mug and picks it up again. His face is turned away from Felix, so he isn’t sure what expression he’s making when he adds, “You should have just said you got used to it before your presentation and that’s why you needed it. I wouldn’t have just cut you off from it like that. But, after you presented, Chan-Hyung said I have to be careful with you and with overwhelming you with my scent.”
“So I don’t get scent drunk?” Felix wonders aloud and tries for humour with the way he asks the question. Seungmin finishes his coffee and turns back towards Felix. If possible, his face has grown even more pink.
“Actually… uh—” It’s not often that Felix sees Seungmin get this shy, but as he watches him rub the back of his flushed neck, it occurs to him how cute it makes him look. “He said your instincts might trick you into thinking that we’re mated.”
“Oh.”
They’re both remain silent for a prolonged moment, clearly feeling flustered and avoiding eye contact at all cost.
Vaguely, Felix wonders if tricky instinct thing is a one way street, since he knows that Seungmin keeps some of his dirty clothes in his room before doing their laundry, but doesn’t dare ask. Seungmin has been presented longer than Felix, but even when he was freshly rid of his pup status, he had impeccable control over his instincts. Felix can’t say the same about himself, even with his suppressants and attempts to ignore them.
“We should get ready,” Seungmin suddenly says and rushes past Felix. The spicy edge to his scent has evened out into something more mild and subtle again. Something, Felix is very used to. Despite the risk that his own scent will sink into the fabric of Seungmin’s hoodie by nighttime, Felix can’t hold back from putting it on and pressing his nose into the collar. A purr immediately starts forming at the base of his throat that Felix hopes he did a good job hiding by clearing his throat. When he turns to call after Seungmin, he actually finds him standing at the threshold between the kitchen and the hallway, watching him.
Immediately, he tugs the fabric away from his face and mumbles, “Thank you, Seungmin-ah.”
Seungmin’s face is still pink and maybe it’s just the light playing tricks on him, but Felix imagines it turns a more vibrant shade, even more shy. Despite this, his mouth remains a stubborn line with only the corners betraying him by twitching upwards. “Sure,” he says, then leaves for his room.
Felix smiles. He’s sure Chan is wrong about all this instinct talk. Surely, nothing could go wrong.