#omega! reader

She was confirmed as an Omega on a Tuesday in March, two weeks after her fifth birthday.

The confirmation process was, in this world, a medical one, a visit from a discreet physician named Dr. Hartley, who came to the house with a small bag and a very proper manner and performed a brief examination that was more about scent markers and the specific biological signatures of designation than anything else. [Name] submitted to this with the patience she had developed for medical procedures, which was considerable, while privately filing away everything she observed about his technique and comparing it unfavorably to what she knew modern endocrinological assessment looked like.

"Omega," Dr. Hartley confirmed to her parents, in the parlor, in the tone of someone delivering news that required delicacy. "Quite clearly. The markers are strong. She will be a powerful one, I believe."

Edmund said nothing, but his hands, clasped behind his back, tightened.

Constance said, "We expected as much. Thank you, doctor."

When Dr. Hartley had gone, [Name] was brought into the parlor, and her parents sat with her on the settle in the particular arrangement that, she had learned, meant a Serious Conversation was occurring. She sat between them with her hands folded in her lap and her expression composed and waited.

"You know what an Omega is," her mother said. It was not a question.

"Yes," [Name] said.

"Do you understand what it means? For your life?"

[Name] considered. She had been thinking about this for approximately four years, which gave her a certain advantage in the conversation. "It means I will have heats," she said carefully. "And that I will eventually find a mate. An Alpha. And that some people will think that means I need more protecting."

Edmund made a sound that was not quite a laugh and not quite a sigh.

"Some people will think it means you need managing," Constance said, with the precise careful enunciation of someone who had strong opinions about a thing and was deciding how much of them to share with a five-year-old. "Your father and I do not think this."

"Good," [Name] said.

"But some of the world will disagree with us," her father added. "And it is important that you understand that, so you can navigate it."

"I understand," [Name] said.

And then, because she was five years old and had decided that this was a moment to invest in honesty with her parents: "I am not afraid."

Her father looked at her. That look again, the one she had seen from her very first days, the one that said he saw something in her that surprised and moved him. "No," he said softly. "I don't believe you are."

"I just want to be prepared," she added. "I want to learn things. I want to know as much as possible about everything that's relevant."

Her mother exchanged a look with her father above her head, the look of two people communicating volumes in a glance, and then Constance smiled, the particular smile she wore when she was genuinely pleased. "Well," she said. "Then we shall make sure you have access to every relevant resource."

It was, [Name] thought, an excellent start.

By seven, she was working through material that was typically considered appropriate for children of twelve.

She was discreet about it, but her mother, who had, by this point, concluded that her daughter was quite simply the most extraordinary person she had personally encountered, and had stopped being surprised by this and started being quietly, fiercely proud, had arranged for a governess of exceptional quality. Miss Pemberton was a woman of forty, unmarried, Beta, possessed of a first-rate education that she had been permitted to pursue because her father had been an unusual man and because she was very intelligent and had quietly found ways to learn things that women of her era were not typically taught. She had strong opinions about the education of girls, which aligned almost perfectly with [Name]'s strong opinions about her own education, and within the first month of their acquaintance they had established a working relationship that was less teacher-and-student than it was colleagues with a significant age difference.

"You've already read this," Miss Pemberton said, the second week, setting down the arithmetic primer she had intended to begin with and looking at [Name] with the expression of someone recalibrating rapidly.

"Yes," [Name] said.

"When?"

"Last year. I found it in Father's study."

"And you understood it?"

"Most of it. I had questions about the trigonometric components, but William explained them." This was true. William had not entirely understood why she was asking, but had answered thoroughly, and she had filed the explanations carefully.

Miss Pemberton was quiet for a moment. Then she said, with admirable composure: "What haven't you read?"

[Name] thought about it. "I haven't had access to much natural philosophy. Or anatomy." A pause. "I would very much like to read anatomy."

Miss Pemberton looked at her for a long moment. "You are seven years old," she observed.

"Yes."

"Most seven-year-old girls want to learn embroidery and French."

"I want to learn French too," [Name] said agreeably. "And I don't object to embroidery in principle, though I suspect my fine motor development hasn't caught up with my ambition yet. But I would also like anatomy."

Miss Pemberton, who would later tell Constance that teaching [Name] Ashworth was the most stimulating professional experience of her career, said: "I'll see what I can source."

She was as good as her word. Within a fortnight, [Name] had been provided with a copy of a basic anatomical text, a natural philosophy primer three levels above where most children her age were working, and a French grammar that Miss Pemberton had annotated with her own extensive notes. She worked through all three with the focused intensity of someone who was not learning these things for the first time but deepening an existing foundation, her past life's medical knowledge was present in her mind, but it was knowledge without context, without the vocabulary of this era, without the theoretical frameworks that connected it to what was currently understood about the human body. She needed to build the bridge between what she knew and what was knowable here, and she did it methodically, brick by brick, with the same careful attention she had always brought to learning.

She was happy. That was the thing she noted most, in those years, the warm, simple happiness of a child who was loved and engaged and growing in an environment that made room for her. She had expected to feel the weight of her past life as a shadow over her present one. Instead, what she felt was something more like integration, the two lives settling into each other, the woman she had been informing and enriching the child she now was, without erasing the child, without diminishing the genuine, immediate joy of a summer morning or a good book or the particular triumph of finally perfectly executing a French subjunctive construction.

She laughed easily. She made friends readily, with the children of her parents' acquaintances, with the household staff who had largely concluded that she was their personal favorite human, with Miss Pemberton, who maintained professional formality in public and in private allowed herself to laugh freely at [Name]'s observations. She was warm by nature and curious by design and she had the particular quality of genuinely caring about the people around her, asking after their concerns, remembering the small details they mentioned in passing, following up in ways that made them feel, reliably and truly, that they mattered.

This was not a performance. It was not a strategy, though it was certainly useful. It was simply who she was, in this life as she had been in her last, someone to whom other people's wellbeing felt genuinely important, for its own sake, without needing a reason.

"You have a gift," her father told her once, when she was eight, after she had spent an afternoon talking with his elderly mother-in-law who was visiting and whom everyone else in the household found demanding and difficult. [Name] had found her fascinating, sharp beneath the querulousness, lonely beneath the demands, and had listened to her stories about a life that spanned most of the century with genuine attention.

"She's interesting," [Name] said.

"She says she's never had such a good conversation," Edmund said, looking at his daughter with an expression of wonder. "She said you asked her exactly the right questions."

[Name] shrugged. "She knows things I don't. Why wouldn't I ask her?"

Edmund was quiet for a moment. Then: "You are going to be remarkable, my love."

"I'm going to try," she said, which was more accurate.

She was nine years old when she first heard the Bridgerton name spoken in a context that meant something.

She had, of course, known they existed. She had been waiting, with the patient anticipation of someone who knew the broad structure of events without knowing the precise timing, for the family to become relevant to her life. She had also been carefully not-thinking about what, precisely, relevant might eventually mean, because she understood enough about herself to know that thinking too much about certain things before they became necessary was a reliable pathway to anxiety, and she had work to do.

The context was a dinner party at a friend's house, the family of one of Charles's schoolfellows, which meant the gathering was primarily adults, which meant [Name] had been permitted to attend because her parents were progressive in their approach to including their children in social contexts and because, as her mother put it, [Name] could be trusted to conduct herself appropriately.

She sat between her mother and a woman she didn't know, ate her dinner with the careful attention to table manners that Mrs. Potts had drilled into her for years, and listened.

The conversation moved around her the way conversation did at these events, in the organized chaos of multiple concurrent exchanges, fragments surfacing and submerging, a word here and a name there. She caught most of it, sorted it, kept what was useful and released the rest.

"...the Bridgerton boys," someone said, across the table. "Have you seen the eldest? Must be fifteen by now..."

"Anthony," someone confirmed. "Yes, quite extraordinary. Alpha, strong one, his father is immensely proud..."

"And the middle one, Benedict, isn't it? The artistic one. Quite different from his brother..."

"There's a third as well, isn't there? Colin, the youngest of the boys? Still young, only eight or nine..."

[Name] set her fork down very carefully and took a sip of water.

There they are, she thought.

There they are.

She did not seek them out. She was nine years old and they were fifteen, thirteen, and nine respectively, and the social mechanics of the Ton meant that there was no natural intersection between their lives at present. But she filed what she knew carefully, and she waited, and she continued the business of growing up with the focused efficiency she brought to everything.

She grew. The sunshine personality that her household had been noting since her earliest months deepened and expanded as she did, she was warm and bright and easy to love, and she loved easily in return, with the generosity of someone who understood how quickly things could be taken away and who had therefore decided not to be careful or strategic about affection. She gave it freely. It was returned, mostly, in full.

She was also, increasingly, someone to take seriously. Miss Pemberton had long since stopped thinking of their sessions as teaching and started thinking of them as collaborative inquiry, they worked through problems together, argued competing interpretations of texts with the mutual respect of intellectual equals, and [Name] had begun occasionally to know things that Miss Pemberton did not, which she managed with the tact she had developed for navigating situations where her knowledge exceeded what her age should have allowed.

The anatomy had become, gradually, medicine. She had worked through every text she could access, and what she could access in London at the close of the eighteenth century was limited but not negligible, there were physicians in her parents' acquaintance who, when they understood what she was actually asking and that she was genuinely able to engage with the answers, began to lend her texts and include her in conversations that were not, strictly speaking, appropriate for a girl of nine or ten or eleven. She absorbed everything. She asked precise questions. She cross-referenced what she learned here against the comprehensive medical knowledge stored in her memory from her past life, building the synthesis carefully, identifying where the understanding of this era was correct, where it was incomplete, and where it was wrong in ways that had consequences she could not ignore.

She kept notes. Extensive, careful, ciphered notes in a personal notation system she had developed at age six, which lived in a locked journal that she treated with the same security consciousness she had once brought to patient records.

She was not ready to use what she knew yet. She understood that. She was a child, and an Omega girl-child at that, in a world that had very precise ideas about what children and Omega girl-children were supposed to know and not know and do and not do. Timing was everything. She had always been good at timing.

She waited, and she learned, and she grew, and she loved her family with the whole of her extraordinary heart.

She was sixteen the first time Lady Danbury looked at her with the expression of a woman who had found something genuinely interesting.

It was at a concert, one of those interminable musicales that the London Season generated in vast quantities, where one sat on uncomfortable chairs and listened to performances of varying quality and the real business of the evening, which was the social exchange happening in the spaces between the music, proceeded around the performances like water around stones.

[Name] was there with her mother and, as chaperones often were, somewhat bored. She had positioned herself near a window where she could observe the room without being directly in the center of it, and she was doing what she always did in situations she found less than fully engaging: watching people. The small tells. The microexpressions. The way a woman's smile tightened when she greeted someone she found threatening, the way a man's posture shifted when his Alpha instincts were triggered. She had always been good at reading people. Years of medical practice in her past life had honed it to something very fine.

"You're watching everyone," said a voice beside her, and she turned.

Lady Danbury was exactly as she had expected her to be, which was to say formidable, sharp eyes, sharp tongue, the posture of a woman who had decided long ago that she would not apologize for occupying her space and had maintained this decision through sheer force of will for several decades. She was looking at [Name] with frank, unabashed curiosity.

"It's more interesting than the music," [Name] said, before she could decide whether to be more diplomatic.

Lady Danbury's eyes lit. "Well," she said. "An honest answer. Those are rarer than they should be." She studied [Name] for a moment. "You're Pemsley's girl. [Name]."

"Yes, my lady."

"Sit down. No, not there, here. I dislike shouting." She indicated the chair beside her with her cane. "You were watching Lady Cresthaven. What did you see?"

[Name] sat, and thought, and decided that honesty was still the best policy with this particular woman. "That she's exhausted. She's been managing her smile since she arrived, and real smiles don't require management. Her shoes are half a size too small, she keeps shifting her weight. And she's worried about something with her son; she looked at him three times in the last ten minutes and each time her expression did something involuntary."

Lady Danbury was quiet for a moment. "Her son," she said, "has been spending money he does not have."

"Ah," [Name] said. "That would do it."

"How old are you?"

"Sixteen, my lady."

"And are you always like this?"

[Name] considered. "Like what, specifically?"

"Like someone who is paying more attention than everyone else in the room."

"I don't know what I'm like when I'm not paying attention," [Name] said honestly. "I'm not sure I've ever done it."

Lady Danbury looked at her for a long moment, and then she laughed, a real laugh, short and sharp and genuine, the laugh of someone who was genuinely surprised and pleased. "Pemberton tells me you're a remarkable student," she said.

"You know Miss Pemberton?" [Name] said, surprised in spite of herself.

"I know everyone worth knowing. She told me about you some years ago. I've been waiting to meet you." A pause. "You didn't disappoint."

It was, [Name] understood, very high praise from a woman who gave it rarely and meant it always.

"Thank you, my lady," she said.

"Come to tea on Thursday," Lady Danbury said. "We will talk. I find most people insufferably dull and I am in need of stimulating conversation. You will do."

It was also, [Name] recognized, not quite a question.

"I would be honored," she said.

She was seventeen when she met them properly for the first time, and she had been preparing for this meeting, in the loosest sense, for approximately twelve years.

The occasion was a ball, the Featherington ball, as it happened, one of the early events of the Season, which placed her precisely in the year the story began, the year Daphne Bridgerton made her debut. She knew the broad shapes of what was coming. She also knew, with the grounded self-awareness she had developed over seventeen years of an extraordinary life, that the broad shapes of what she remembered were not a script but a map, useful for orientation, unreliable for navigation at the level of individual moments.

She arrived with her mother and her father, who had procured her a dress in a particular shade of deep rose that her mother insisted complemented her complexion beautifully, which [Name] had accepted without protest because the dress was genuinely beautiful and because she had learned, over years of being her mother's daughter, that some battles were worth having and some were not. She was in the latter category of fashion opinions. Her hair was arranged by the household's excellent lady's maid in a style that was elegant without being effortful, which was her consistent preference.

She had grown into herself over the last year in the way that seventeen-year-olds do, not suddenly, but with the quiet accumulated inevitability of many small changes arriving all at once. She was not the conventional beauty of the season, in the way that Daphne Bridgerton was conventionally beautiful, that particular combination of features and coloring that the Ton had collectively decided was the ideal. [Name] was something different: striking, warm-faced, with the kind of presence that made people instinctively turn toward her the way plants turned toward the sun, less because of the arrangement of her features and more because of the quality she projected, something that had no proper name but was made up of warmth and intelligence and a certain joyful aliveness that seemed, in rooms full of people performing their pleasantness, genuinely and refreshingly real.

She was also, and had been increasingly aware of this for the last two years as the biological realities of her designation had become more impossible to ignore, unmistakably Omega. Her scent, which she managed carefully with the various suppressants that existed in this world, nothing like the pharmaceutical precision she would have preferred but functional enough, was like warm honey and something green, like new leaves in early spring, and even suppressed it carried a quality that Alphas in particular seemed to register with something in their nervous system before their conscious awareness caught up.

She was, in the language of this world, a presenting Omega in her first Season.

She was also, in her own language, a grown woman with a medical degree and twelve years of careful preparation and absolutely no intention of being managed.

She entered the Featherington ballroom on her father's arm, and she felt it, the subtle shift in the room's energy that she had learned to recognize, the way certain Alphas' attention moved toward her involuntarily, the way the air seemed to carry a new frequency. She kept her expression pleasant and her posture easy and she scanned the room with the systematic thoroughness she brought to any new environment.

She found them within the first five minutes.

Anthony Bridgerton was the easiest to locate because he was the kind of man rooms organized themselves around whether he chose it or not. He was tall, she had remembered the description, but the reality was its own thing, with dark hair and eyes that were nearly black and a quality of compressed authority that was specifically Alpha in a way she recognized, the deep, settled confidence of a dominant Alpha in his element. He was twenty-two, she calculated. The eldest. The Viscount. The one who was responsible for everything and carried that responsibility in the set of his shoulders the way some men carried old injuries.

He was talking to another man she didn't recognize, and he was not smiling, and even not smiling he was—

Handsome, she thought, with the dispassionate acknowledgment of someone noting an objective fact. Very handsome. Noted. Moving on.

Benedict Bridgerton she found a moment later, near the edge of the room rather than the center of it, in the way of someone who was present without being invested in being seen. He was twenty, dark-haired like his brother but with a quality about him that was less compressed, more open, something in his face that suggested he was looking at the room the way she looked at the room, taking it in rather than performing in it. He had a sketch pad half-hidden at his side, which she recognized from her memories of the character, and he was, she noted, watching a woman across the room with the focused attention of someone observing something beautiful.

He wasn't looking at the woman the way a man looked at a woman he desired. He was looking at her the way an artist looked at a subject. There was a difference, and she could read it.

Colin Bridgerton was sixteen and looked it, gangly with the particular awkwardness of a boy who had grown fast and hadn't finished growing, still not fully inhabiting the height that was going to be his eventually. He was talking animatedly with a group of young people near the refreshments, his hands moving in the expressive, emphatic way of someone who got carried away by what he was saying, and even across the room she could see that he was funny, that the group around him was laughing with the helpless, genuine laughter that came from someone who was actually, organically amusing rather than performing humor.

She looked at all three of them in the space of approximately four minutes, with the comprehensive attention she had developed over seventeen years of doing this, and she thought: Yes. There they are.

And then Anthony Bridgerton turned, and his eyes met hers across the ballroom.

She did not look away. She was not the type to look away. She held his gaze with the calm steadiness of a woman who had held eye contact with a great many more intimidating things than a handsome Viscount in a ballroom, and she gave him the small, polite smile that the situation warranted, and then she looked away first because she had other things to do and she was not going to organize her evening around the fact of a pair of dark eyes.

But she noticed, in the part of her that she kept meticulous track of, the way something in her chest had responded when their eyes met.

She noted it. She filed it. She moved on.

The formal introduction happened approximately an hour later, through the mediating architecture of the Ton's social system, a mutual acquaintance, a conventional exchange, the careful choreography of a world that had very precise ideas about how people were and were not supposed to meet.

"Lady [Name]," said Lady Bridgerton, Violet, warm and beautiful in the way of women who had genuinely loved and genuinely lost, with the instinctive approachability that she remembered from the character, "allow me to present my sons. Anthony, my eldest. Benedict. And this is Colin."

"My lady," Anthony said, with the formal bow of a man who had done this a thousand times and brought the same careful precision to the thousandth as the first. His voice was exactly what she had expected, low and certain and the kind of voice that rooms quieted for, and close up the quality of his Alpha presence was more intense than it had been across the room, the particular weight of him like standing near something with significant gravity.

"Lord Bridgerton," she said, with the appropriate curtsy.

"Lady [Name]," said Benedict, with slightly less formality and slightly more curiosity, his eyes moving over her in the way of someone who was looking at her the way he had been looking at the woman earlier, not with desire but with interest, the interest of someone noting something worth noting.

"Mr. Bridgerton," she said.

"Lady [Name]!" said Colin, and she liked him immediately with a completeness that surprised even her, because he said it with the enthusiastic warmth of someone who was genuinely pleased to meet a new person and had never developed the studied coolness that the Ton considered appropriate to his age and station. He bowed with slightly less polish than his brothers and slightly more sincerity. "Are you enjoying the evening?"

"I am now," she said honestly, and was rewarded with a grin that was like a door opening.

She could see, in her peripheral vision, that Anthony had looked at her sharply at that. She did not address it.

"My mother speaks very highly of you," Violet said, and [Name] looked at her with a warmth that was completely genuine. Lady Bridgerton, she had always thought from her memories of the show, was one of the best things in it, a woman who had loved with her whole heart and carried that love forward after loss as a form of living.

"Lady Bridgerton has been very kind to me," [Name] said, and meant it.

"I am told you are something of a scholar," Benedict said, and his voice had a quality of careful interest, genuine, not performative. "Miss Pemberton's student."

"Her colleague, she insists," [Name] said. "Though she taught me everything worth knowing."

Benedict smiled. It was a different smile from Colin's, quieter, more reserved, reaching his eyes in a way that suggested it was earned. "What are you reading at present?"

"Natural philosophy," she said. "And a French text on botanical medicine that a friend in Paris sent through my father's contacts."

Benedict blinked. "Botanical medicine."

"Plants used in treatment," she said helpfully. "The therapeutic applications of—"

"I know what it is," he said, and he sounded, she thought, slightly delighted. "I simply did not expect—"

"What?" she said, and kept her voice perfectly pleasant.

He had the good grace to recognize the trap. "Nothing that would sound well if I said it aloud," he said instead, and this time the smile was full and real and she found herself returning it before she made the conscious decision to.

Anthony, who had been watching this exchange with an expression she couldn't fully read, said: "Are you out this Season, Lady [Name]?"

"I am," she said, turning her attention to him with the same pleasant composure she had brought to the conversation with his brothers. Close up, his eyes were very dark and very focused, and she had the sense that he did not look at most things as closely as he was looking at her, and that this was likely not something he was doing on purpose.

"Your first?" he asked.

"Yes."

"I hope it proves enjoyable," he said, which was the appropriate thing to say and said in the appropriate tone, formal and correct, and she would have thought nothing of it except that underneath the formality there was something that she was not going to name yet, something her Omega instincts recognized before her conscious mind fully caught up.

"I expect it will be interesting," she said, which was honest.

She curtsied and moved on, because she was not going to organize her first conversation around staying in it, and she had learned a long time ago that the most effective exit from any interaction was a graceful one.

But she thought about it, afterward, for longer than was strictly practical.

She had not expected to meet Queen Charlotte in her first Season.

Lady Danbury had arranged it, which was to say Lady Danbury had decided it was happening and had informed the relevant parties, including [Name], after the arrangements were already made. This was characteristic. In the two years since their first meeting at the concert, [Name] had developed a genuine and deep fondness for Lady Danbury that she was fairly sure was mutual, expressed in the form of Lady Danbury continuing to seek her company and occasionally saying things about her to other people that were very close to complimentary when filtered through the particular translation layer of Lady Danbury's communication style.

"The Queen wishes to meet the Season's more interesting prospects," Lady Danbury informed her, over tea on a Wednesday morning two weeks into the Season. "I have told Her Majesty that you are the most interesting prospect and she is inclined to take my word for it. She will see you Thursday."

"I see," [Name] said.

"You are not afraid," Lady Danbury observed.

"Should I be?"

"Most girls are terrified. It's tiresome." A pause. "Though if you are not afraid, don't perform fear for her benefit. She can smell performance at forty paces and she finds it offensive."

"Noted," [Name] said.

She was not, in fact, afraid. She was, if she was being precise with herself, more focused than usual, the way she had felt before significant medical procedures in her past life, the heightened alertness that served performance without impeding it. Queen Charlotte, in her memories of the story, was a woman of considerable intelligence who was carrying a considerable burden that almost no one in her world fully understood, and who had developed a comprehensive armor against a world that mostly didn't try.

She also knew, because she had spent twelve years thinking about it, that this was the point. This was the moment her past life's knowledge became directly, urgently useful in a way that might change things.

She dressed carefully for Thursday. Not elaborately, she had learned, from Lady Danbury and from her own extensive observation, that elaborateness in this context read as trying too hard, and trying too hard with this particular Queen would be precisely the wrong approach. She wore a gown in deep blue, simply cut, with her hair arranged with care but without artifice, and she was delivered to the palace with her mother in a state of approximately controlled calm.

Her mother was considerably more nervous.

"You will be respectful," Constance said, for the second time in the carriage.

"Yes, Mama."

"You will be measured in your speech."

"Yes, Mama."

"You will not say anything that—"

"Mama." [Name] reached over and covered her mother's hand with hers. "I will be fine."

Constance looked at her, that particular look that mothers wore when they were confronting the evidence of how extraordinary their child was and finding the evidence simultaneously wonderful and slightly overwhelming. "Yes," she said softly. "I know you will."

Queen Charlotte received her in a private salon, without the full court apparatus, which was itself a kind of signal, an indication that this was intended to be an actual conversation rather than a ceremonial presentation. Lady Danbury was present, standing to the side with the quiet satisfaction of someone who had arranged something they are pleased about.

[Name] curtsied with the form her mother had spent weeks drilling into her, perfectly executed, and then straightened and looked at the Queen directly, with the respectful attention she gave to everyone she considered worth attending to.

Charlotte was watching her with the sharp, assessing quality that she had expected, the look of a woman who had spent decades reading people and had developed, through that practice, an accuracy that was very nearly clinical. She was resplendent and contained, beauty and authority combined in the way of someone who had been performing both for so long that the performance had become something else.

"Lady [Name] Ashworth," the Queen said.

"Your Majesty," [Name] said.

"Lady Danbury tells me you are exceptional."

"Lady Danbury is very kind, Your Majesty."

"Lady Danbury is never kind," Charlotte said, without particular inflection. "She is accurate. There is a difference." A pause. "You are aware of it."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Charlotte's eyes narrowed slightly, not with displeasure but with the sharpening attention of someone who had received an unexpected answer. "Sit down," she said. "I dislike conversations where I must look up."

[Name] sat, with the ease of someone who had spent two years having conversations with Lady Danbury and had therefore been extensively trained in the management of formidable women.

"Lady Danbury tells me you have an interest in medicine," Charlotte said.

"In natural philosophy and the treatment of illness, Your Majesty. Yes."

"An unusual interest for a young woman of your station."

"Perhaps, Your Majesty. I find the usual alternatives less compelling."

"Embroidery and music."

"Music I enjoy very much. Embroidery I respect in principle but find insufficiently challenging to hold my attention for long."

There was a pause. And then, quietly, like something that had not been planned, Queen Charlotte smiled. It was small and brief and genuine, the smile of a woman who found something actually amusing rather than the performed pleasure of court smile, and [Name] felt it land with the significance of something rare.

"You are honest," Charlotte said.

"I try to be, Your Majesty. I find most other approaches require too much maintenance."

Charlotte looked at her for a long moment. Lady Danbury, to the side, was doing a very good impression of someone who was not deeply, smugly pleased.

"Tell me," Charlotte said, "what do you know of nervous afflictions? Of the mind's effects on the body?"

The question was precise and she landed on it with the controlled response of someone who had not expected to be asked it in exactly those terms but had been thinking about it for years. She felt the particular sharpening clarity that had always come over her when a difficult diagnostic question arrived, the way the whole of her knowledge organized itself around the problem, the relevant pieces surfacing, the irrelevant receding.

"A great deal, Your Majesty," she said carefully. "In a theoretical capacity. I have read extensively, everything available, and some texts in French and German through correspondence with scholars my father has been kind enough to facilitate."

Charlotte was very still. "And what does your reading suggest?"

"That the mind and body are not as separate as current understanding tends to treat them," [Name] said, keeping her voice even and measured. "That certain afflictions which present as bodily have their origin in the nervous system and in its interaction with experience. And that—" She paused, choosing her next words with the care of someone navigating delicate terrain. "That many such conditions, which are currently considered untreatable, respond to specific intervention. If the intervention is correctly identified and applied consistently."

The silence in the room was very complete.

"You seem," Charlotte said slowly, "to be speaking about something specific."

"I am speaking generally, Your Majesty," [Name] said. "About the state of current understanding. Which I believe has significant room for development."

Charlotte looked at her. The sharpness in her gaze had become something else, something more complex, more layered. Something that was very close, [Name] thought, to hope, carefully controlled so as not to become desperation.

"I believe," Charlotte said, "that you should come to court again."

"I would be honored, Your Majesty."

"Not for a presentation. For a conversation." A pause. "I have a particular interest in the subject you describe."

"I am aware, Your Majesty," [Name] said gently. And then, because she had decided that honesty was her only real option with this woman, and because she believed that this moment mattered: "I came prepared to speak about it, if Your Majesty wished."

Another silence.

And then Charlotte said, very quietly, as if the words required careful handling: "I think, Lady [Name], that you and I are going to understand each other very well."

In the weeks that followed her first meeting with the Queen, [Name] came to the palace three times.

The first visit was still largely formal, Charlotte learning the edges of her, the shape of what she knew and how she knew it, assessing with the careful thoroughness of a woman who had been disappointed by people who seemed promising and had learned to verify before trusting. [Name] submitted to this assessment without impatience. She understood it. She understood Charlotte, from the outside in a way that Charlotte could not know and that she was very careful about handling gently, not using what she knew as a lever, but as a guide. A way of finding the right words for the right moments.

The second visit was different. Charlotte dismissed her ladies, which was itself a signal, and looked at [Name] across the tea service with the directness of a woman who had decided to stop testing and start speaking.

"My husband," she said, without preamble.

"Yes," [Name] said.

"What do you know."

It was not a question.

[Name] took a slow breath. This was the moment she had thought about for years, not with dread, but with the careful, sobered awareness of its weight. "I know," she said, choosing each word with precision, "that what afflicts His Majesty is a condition of the nervous system. That it is not a failure of character, nor of intelligence, nor of sanity in the manner in which it is sometimes spoken of. That it is a physiological reality, something that exists in the tissue of the brain and in the chemistry of the blood, and that it is made significantly worse by certain things and somewhat better by others."

Charlotte was very still. "The physicians—"

"The physicians are doing what they can with what they have," [Name] said, with the honest fairness she brought to all assessments. "What they have is not yet sufficient to fully address the condition. But—" A pause. "There are things that help. That are not currently being tried, or not being tried in the right combination."

"What things?"

[Name] reached, carefully, into the small bag she had been permitted to bring with her, and produced a document she had spent three weeks preparing, handwritten, clear, organized with the systematic precision of a differential diagnosis and treatment plan, translated into the terminology of this era with the care of someone who understood that effective communication required meeting the audience where they were.

She set it on the table between them.

Charlotte looked at it. Then she looked at [Name]. "You prepared this."

"I have been preparing it for some time," [Name] said honestly. "I hoped for the opportunity to share it."

Charlotte picked up the document and read it, slowly and completely, while [Name] sat with her tea and waited with the patience of someone who had sat through very long ward rounds and understood that the management of silence was a skill.

When she finished, Charlotte looked up. Her expression was something complex and layered that [Name] could not fully name, parts of it were relief, and parts of it were grief, and parts of it were something that was almost anger, the anger of someone who had been waiting too long for an answer that should have arrived sooner.

"Who else has seen this?" Charlotte said.

"No one, Your Majesty."

"It must remain so."

"I understand."

"If this works—" Charlotte stopped. The controlled herself with the visible effort of a woman who had been managing the appearance of composure for so long it had become structural. "If this works," she said again, more steadily, "I will owe you a debt that I am not certain can be adequately repaid."

"I ask nothing in return," [Name] said, which was true. "He is suffering. You are suffering. If I can help, then I should."

Charlotte looked at her for a long moment. Something in her expression shifted, not softened exactly, because Charlotte was not a woman who softened, but opened, slightly, the way a room opened when a window was lifted.

"You are," she said slowly, "a remarkable young woman."

"I have been told so," [Name] said. "I try to deserve it."

The third visit, six weeks after the first, Queen Charlotte received [Name] not in the public salon but in her private sitting room, the inner chambers that very few people outside the immediate royal household ever entered. It was a privilege so unusual that even Lady Danbury, when informed of it, was briefly and expressively speechless.

[Name] sat with the Queen and drank tea and they talked for two hours, and some of what they discussed was the King and the careful, slow work of implementing the interventions [Name] had outlined, adjusted and refined through the ongoing consultation between them. Some of what they discussed was other things, books, and philosophy, and the management of a world that did not always make room for women who thought clearly and acted on what they found.

At the end of the two hours, Charlotte said, with the directness that [Name] had come to understand was her highest mode of respect: "I intend to make it known that you are under my particular regard. This will smooth certain paths for you."

[Name] understood precisely what this meant. Queen Charlotte's favor was one of the most significant social currencies in the Ton. To be under her particular regard was not simply an honor, it was a form of protection, a signal to the social architecture of London that this person was not to be casually dismissed or managed. For an Omega girl in her first Season, it was transformative.

"I am grateful, Your Majesty," she said.

"Don't be grateful," Charlotte said crisply. "Be useful. Continue being as remarkable as you are. That is what I require of you."

"I can do that," [Name] said.

Charlotte looked at her, and the expression on her face was the expression of a woman who believed her.

Author's Note:

Thank you to everyone who liked my story! I decided to make the chapters a bit longer so the story doesn’t get cut off so abruptly. I really appreciate all the support and hope you enjoy the next updates.

We finally introduced the Bridgertons, the Queen, and my beloved Lady Danbury in this chapter!

P.S. If you’d also like to be added to the taglist, just say so!

Also I totally underestimated how many tabs I’d have to open just to search for richer vocabulary lol.

But mostly, summer just means Namjoon and Jin fucking on every horizontal surface available, and even some vertical ones when Namjoon is feeling particularly energetic. Filling the house with the distant sounds of slapping skin against skin, high-pitched moans, and deep growls.

It has Tae distracted from her world full of monsters and magic (and a heroine that looks like you and talks like you and just might have your eyes). Eyeing the ceiling in her little library room, a tell-tale trickle of dust interrupts her work from the heavy banging of the headboard above. Granted, it’s hard not to get distracted by it or dragged into it. The pack alpha and pack omega have reached new heights of audacity since their mating. They can hardly keep their hands off each other for a single hour.

You compare notes. They’ve fucked in the kitchen 5 times this week, the pack's old bedroom each time before that, and the hot tub so much that Yoongi had to drain it and replace the filter.

Namjoon has had a singular, all-consuming sort of focus on Jin since their mating. Both marks are red scars now, healed enough that the pack can touch them- something that you do often. It's all gentle strokes of hands over Namjoon’s throat when he’s lying prone, every inch of his body taught like a wire about to snap, grumbly growls slipping out every time you put your thumb to where Jin’s canine pressed. Or Yoongi in the shower with Jin, lazing about in the water. cheek resting against Jin’s dewy collar bones, nose pressing when Jin grants his husband the permission of “take what you need.”

It’s a pretty mark, smaller than yours by half a measure, because Jin’s plush lips had sort of gotten in the way. The space between Jin’s incisors and front tooth makes a lopsided little heart that the pack is a bit obsessed with and routinely teases Namjoon for to the tune of “Joonie, your heart is showing”. Namjoon's mating mark on Jin’s throat is a little less front-facing and a little more to the side, so pretty and just peeking beneath a wide collar. Less pink and less fuzzy at the edges, because Namjoon hadn’t had to bite deep to mark Jin, but Jin-

Jin had sort of mauled Namjoon- just a little. A deep mark, a complete claim. Unquestionable.  

You listen to them fucking, sort of endeared, sort of annoyed. Not that they wouldn’t drag you into it if you asked or dared to come too close. Or if you did something snarky, like bang on the wall to get them to quiet down. When you shift right, you can still feel the result of wandering too far into their orbit just the day before.

The hunger of a new mating mark knows no bounds, not for the pack alpha and pack omega, having one of their pups between the two of them, debauching and riling them up to the fullest extent, until there’s little more than a slick, soaked mess between your thighs is their idea of a perfect morning.

You might have had to beat them off of Yoongi with a newspaper when he complained of feeling sore. They’d raised their arms a little chagrined, looking a little younger and a bit more in love than usual. Communicating volumes with a single look- only to scamper off and immediately hassle Jungkook, who was only too happy to take Yoongi’s place.

Sometimes the noise gets to be a bit too much for you, and you go with Tae to the café in town. It’s a bit shitty, a bit old. The chairs aren’t deep enough to feel cozy, and the coffee is burnt.

It’s not the same 24-hour coffee shop that Yoongi and Jin used to work at; that one has suspiciously shuttered its doors sometime in the last few months. You have no doubt that Yoongi’s family is slowly closing out its fronts across this city- or maybe just in your corner of it. It’s wise to give Yoongi, you, and Hoseok a wide berth, and you can’t say you’re not happy with the distance.

It’s a nice place to sit with her and sip at your little drinks (its pastries are unfortunately sub-par). Even if there are things you’d change, the chairs for one, the dark walls another. But Tae looks pretty by the big window, the sunlight making her hair all red instead of just tawny. It becomes one of your favorite things- taking pictures of her and posting them to your old Instagram.

It’s a little sparse, since all of your pictures from your life before are deleted now. Lingering in your archive only when the pack asks to see pictures from your wedding or something else. You let them cycle through and don’t even consider seeing pictures of Geumjae because that’s not for you- not right now.

Now, your Instagram is littered with pictures of you and Tae playing dress up. Hobi and Yoongi at the beach this summer. Dots in the night sky from a late-night drive where you and Hobi drove to where the cliffs from up north meet the sea, and you had a perfect view of the moon and the Milky Way, and the lights on the horizon, a ship or an ocean liner off the coast right where the sky meets the sea. Distant but bright.

There you’d both reclined on the hood of the still-warm car. Whispering secrets between the two of you for old times’ sake as you watch the moon rise over the ocean, and watch the sea flow as if in slow motion. Your shoulder and his shoulder and only your shared sweatshirts between. Lulled to near sleep by the sound of Hoseok’s voice, roughly confessing.

“I think if we didn’t have the house, I’d want to live out here. Even though half these cottages look like they’re about to fall into the sea.”

Each picture on your Instagram might only get 7 likes, but it’s still nice to have that again. A sense of normalcy to have people to post to and post you. You take a picture of yourself, and the first thing on your mind isn't if you're worth it or if it will get you the bad kind of attention. There’s a sense of camaraderie to have Jin spamming your comments with a million hearts and Yoongi to comment, “wait, when did you take this?” To a picture of him open-mouthed, napping on the couch. It’s a bit of an archive.

Well, you don’t always get 7 likes; sometimes you get tons if you happen to post a picture of a certain blond-headed alpha. It’s hard to get used to. Sometimes you get…comments from Jimin’s fans. Most of them are relatively harmless.

'Oh my god he looks even better when they’re domestic together,' and 'pack goals,' or 'is this one his mate? She looks like an omega.'

'No it’s the other girl I think, and look at that mating mark. I think Jimin would tell us if he was mated.'

'Good that means I still have a chance.'

The ones that go farther from speculation, you just delete and let them wonder. Everyone is adjusting. Bit by bit. Week by week. It’s hard to realize where the empty spaces are in your life; the bits that don’t fit. You just have to wait until the right thing slips into place.

At the café, you play footsie with Tae under the table and watch her over the edge of your phone, skimming through TikTok or anything that holds your attention. Tae isn’t writing so much anymore- she’s just editing, which somehow requires more of her focus. You watch her crinkle her eyebrows and rub her lower lip, and reach to wipe her hands before she has the chance to get lipstick on her keyboard.

It’s something you see Yoongi do often, and it’s good to mirror him (he’s always sort of been teaching you how to love), but it’s hard for you to sit for too long before you get restless because now that you’ve started to work out regularly and move your body; It’s hard not to want to move all the time, to sort of need it.

You’re getting better, even if you don’t realize it.

~-~

Jin has been…well… ‘Threatening’ isn’t exactly the word for it, since the mating.

After the first few weeks of ‘no one but you guys can even look at Namjoon without me needing to bounce on his knot for a few hours,' the initial breeding frenzy has subsided. Jin is a touch calmer than the pack had ever seen him. Before he’d been stubborn, needing to handle every little thing for the pack, but now things are a bit looser, Jin's control slips in ways in never would have before.

These days, you guys talk about things a whole lot more. You’re not sure why, but maybe it feels like everything is truly over. Nothing is looming over your heads except for the rest of your lives. No murders or monsters or pasts waiting to bite, and no shoes waiting to drop.

Maybe it’s because there’s no hiding now; Jimin is in every other magazine, staring blandly out from behind blue bottles of perfume or modeling garish little vests (that Jungkook ends up wearing with nothing underneath). Jin has Namjoon's mark on his throat and Yoongi's ring on his finger.

He can feel their bond like a tangible thing in the corner of his mind. Namjoon's emotions are soft and often achey. Jin can't really feel them, not in the way that he can feel his own emotions. It's more like the sense of something that's hot or cold. Happy or distressed that comes ferried through a constant pressure and a pervasive feeling of steadiness. The mating bond is a tether, that keeps Jin from tipping over.

If getting mated felt like jumping from a high height, then Namjoon’s very being was what kept Jin from crashing into the uncertain future below. Every bit of Namjoon belongs to Jin.

Everything from his frosted tips to his gentle hands and rippling back muscles. The crinkle at the corner of his eyes and the way he laughs when one of the pups surprises them, or does something so cute that Jin can't help but feel the instinct to bite and settle. Everything about Namjoon is his. Will always be his. And will never stray far from him.

Coming up and settling into the bond feels like the most complete form of being, like the moment between a fireworks sparkle and its boom. The moment that the world holds its breath before sunrise.

Jin has never felt calmer.

Now that Jin understands what it means to be mated to someone, it makes the beginning of your relationship with Yoongi and the dependency you had on him (and continue to have sometimes) a lot more rational. And this bond is only half as strong as the one that you and Yoongi have.

The guilt is an unintended side effect of that.

Jin doesn’t hide it this time; he shares it. You stay up and talk about it just the two of you in the center of the nest. The little lacy tank top that he put you in earlier is distracting down to the last thread. It's plunging neckline tempts Jin's thoughts and his fingers.

Jin doesn’t know if he’ll ever get used to it; how much he loves you and how big the emotion feels in his chest. Some of it has to be from Namjoon. Everything still feels big and new, intense. He’s sort of getting used to Namjoon being everywhere. There's no such thing as personal space. No such thing as a separation between either of their decisions, emotions, or scents.

Namjoon's coffee scent now has a slight milky undertone, and Jin's likewise, has shifted from dollops of whipped cream to something slightly more savory and mature. It's something the pack can't get enough of (especially the alpha's) pressing their noses against throats, pushing each other out of the way because sharing is hard sometimes. cautiously stealing little nibbles until Namjoon's growl inevitably makes them whine and back down. He wakes up like that every morning.

Jin is realizing lately that these everyday habits are going to be the rest of his life, and it makes him feel like there's a lump in his throat. How good this is, how lucky he is to have a mate like Namjoon. The love and fierce protectiveness over pouring.

Thats how the mornings go- but the evenings always end up like this; Namjoon pressed hot and alpha along his spine, nosing into Jin's nape like he just can’t get enough of the other's scent. Hand possessively wound around Jin’s waist to cup his stomach while you linger and shimmy just a little closer, Hobi's knee between your legs.

Jin dips his fingers along your sternum, never going lower than your neckline. Touching just to touch. Fingers skimming over the silk dimple where your nipple sits, the half there imprint in the silk where your skin darkens.

Your pink collar sits on your clavicle, just as pretty as the day Jin bought it for you, although the bell is detached so that you can move around freely without waking the others. It’s a comforting weight around your throat, and although you aren’t in subspace or omega space and you haven’t had any sort of scene tonight, your eyelashes still flutter when Jin tugs. Fingers occasionally tangling with the metal loops whenever your attention sways.

The metal of Namjoon’s sits hot against the center of Jin’s back, and Hobi's puppy tag glints in the half light from the dimmed-down Christmas light above. And every other snore Namjoon’s breath becomes a growl. Hand twitching around the pack omega’s waist, hand splayed across his stomach under his sleep shirt.

But while the rest of the pack slumber on, you and Jin talk.

“When we first met, how long had it been since like you and Yoongi had-”

“About oh- I don’t know- maybe 8 weeks?” Your cheek dimples against your hand, and Jin pauses to curl a lock of your hair over one finger and then the next, examining it for split ends just in case he needs to schedule you another appointment. Things like that have slipped his attention recently, but at your words, Jin pauses his examination.

It’s been 9 weeks since the mating. Too long but not long at all; it still feels raw, even the skin around Jin's mating mark is still sensitive enough to ache. Mating marks are generally slow to heal.

“You’re kidding?” Jin picks himself up in the nest to look at you, and you smile sadly. Jin’s incredulity does not disturb the quiet; his hands stroke down your waist, from your ribs to where it tapers, the thick flush of your hips and down, only to trail back up again. “I don’t know how I never realized it was that soon.”

“Yeah, it was a bit of a mind fuck.” You tip your head back and let him touch his fill. You are in no position to deny him anything- not that you’d ever want to. Jin could drag you over his lap right now for a settling, and your only complaint might be that it would wake the others.

And Tae needs her beauty sleep.

She's laying on her side just behind Yoongi in a matching slip to your top. The silk mask over her eyes. Hair spilling close to Jimin's hand, like he'd fallen asleep wrapping it around his knuckles again and again. The repetitive action is soothing to Jimin’s senses. It’s sweet to see, to connect the still life of your pack to their routine. Jungkook’s loud snoring punctuates the quiet.

“I couldn’t even like, let him up to go to the bathroom sometimes.”

“I’m sure he loved that.”

You snicker, and Hobi shuffles closer behind you. You’re not sure if he’s awake or not. He noses forward, nose hitting the sensitive skin at the nape of your neck. “Pretty sure I gave his bladder permanent damage, but he also went through this stage where he wouldn’t let me walk on my own and wanted to carry me everywhere, so it was very tit for tat.”

You tip your head down, shy about the way that Jin is looking at you, and feel the cool press of Hobi's lips against your spine. The warmth of his breath and the press of his stomach against your back as he inhales. Jin’s dark hair lies over his forehead, watching the two of you with something hungry but unvoiced behind his expression.

“I was also like- really fucking weak at times so-”

Jin tugs at your collar. Finger trailing up to your chin. “None of that. No negative self-talk.”

Jin’s fingers trail lower, and you shimmy, not uncomfortable, but very aware of your own desires, very aware of how this is a serious conversation and so not the time but.

“Jinnie-” you whine.

Jin’s fingers press as he cups your ribcage, fingers teasing oh so gently. Thumbs rubbing circles. “What? You said Tit?” You laugh and press yourself into Jin’s front, your packmates around you snuffle, and Namjoon’s next breath is definitely a half-awake growl. You lower your tone when you pull back, grinning at Jin. His smile stays mostly the same, but then falters. His hands smooth up and back instead of to the front. His fingers splay across your scapula to your spine. Drumming there. pulling you away from Hobi, who lets you slide away.

Jin doesn't take you over his lap, he doesn't reach between your legs or do anything sexual. He shuffles so that you can lie on top of him, putting both his arms around you and pulling you snug. Until all of your weight is across him. A lying down hug. "there we go. that's better"

"Jinnie?" you try to pull back, but his arms keep you where he needs you. and his next breath is shakier that you expect, eventually his hold loostens, and you can pick yourself up to look at him again.

“Sorry. instincts." he shakes his hair out of his face, and when you glance back, you realize Hobi's moved in his sleep, chasing you. "But still, when I think about how I shoved you, how aggressive I was- I’m lucky you didn’t rip out my throat.”

You lean your chin on his pectoral, watching him work through it. “The validation of you saying that feels nice, even if it’s been years.”

Jin shakes his head, plush lips pressing together in displeasure at how you dismiss it. “Just one year, I shouldn’t have-”

“Jin, you’ve already apologized for it like a million times-”

“But still-”

“If you really want to apologize, you could-" Jin’s face dips, nipping at your collar right where he knows you're ticklish, and peals of laughter and giggles join the quiet as you squirm away. Hobi makes a noise in the back of his throat as you wiggle into him. Jin holds you where you are, but the nest shakes with the sound of your laughter.

Tae is the only one to wake up at the sound, sitting up with a fluff of silk and feathers and a crinkle of the duvet. Taking off her mask with a pout. Glossy eyepatch sliding off her cheek. Disapproval radiated along her glower.

The alpha huffs and leans over to hook her fingers into your collar. Giving you a little shake. You smile through it, and when you pull back, Hobi's half-open eyes are glaring at you in the darkness. “Sorry” you say. Shrinking.

Jin’s giggle has the nest shaking again. And his hand wraps around your waist again, this time more firmly. “I’ll settle her Tae.”

~-~

Jin has a fair amount of work to do now that Jimin is sort of a superstar.

They still haven't found an adequate solution to his agent and manager problem. And Jin is reluctant to let that kind of control slip to someone who isn’t pack. There are magazines littered around the house, contracts in big piles. Sample photos and headshots in Manila envelopes. Yoongi had Jimin's first advert framed and put in the stairwell so that the pack can pass by it every time they come upstairs. Jimin hasn’t been a cover model yet- but it's only a matter of time.

There are dozens of other photos hanging in the stairwell too; a picture of you all at the beach. One of you and Tae are all dressed up with more glitter than skin showing. A photo with a Noodle wearing one of Tae's silk scarves around his neck like a bowtie.

A picture of the pack, long long before you and without Hobi too. Jimin, Jungkook, and Taehyung look impossibly young. Probably from soon after they'd all moved in together. A baby photo of Jin in a pint-sized hanbok, one of Namjoon and a dozen other pups who all look vaguely like him in front of a big mid-century house. One of Hobi standing in front of a carousel.

One of Yoongi at the old coffee shop with Jin, looking so lanky that it’s hard to believe he was ever that small, and one of Hobi and him at the record store, sitting on stacks of old speakers, jeans cuffed, the phone that took the photo probably propped up against some boxes. Most of them are grainy and taken with old iPhone cameras but you can feel the fondness, the love, the joy, even through time.

But there’s one photo, halfway up the stairs, that you avoid looking at if you can help it. It's not a bad photo of you by any means. 6 months ago, you would have said it's the prettiest photo of you ever taken.

It's one of the first you’d ever taken at the house, shortly after the pack had moved in last summer. It's innocuous, maybe Tae took it or Jin- but in the photo, a sickly looking you is curled up with Yoongi on the porch. A plate full of watermelon rinds sits on the table in front of you all. Chewed and mostly green. Jungkook is equally asleep on the opposing sofa. Your eyes closed, and your cheek resting against your mate's throat, tired because your body just hadn’t had enough energy to keep going back then.

But how could your arms look so brittle? And was your hair really that thin? Did you always look so miserable?

The bags under your eyes are darker than bruises, and the way you're holding your body- you can feel the hurt all the way from here. You don’t know when your body stopped aching, when everything stopped hurting, only that you’re different now. Sometimes, when no one is looking, you pause on the staircase eye level with the photo and stare at the version of you that you no longer recognize. A time that you can’t really remember all that well.  

Yoongi notices, because Yoongi notices everything when it comes to you.

He comes upon you one morning, behind you as you pause. Tae is already upstairs getting ready, one or two packmates showering off the nighttime. You paused there in your fuzzy socks and a big shirt of Namjoon’s passing for pajamas.

The house is full of giggles and quiet. Noodle meows while Hobi feeds him. Tae says something to Jimin that makes Jin laugh upstairs. The sound of Jungkook softly singing under his breath. Namjoon clanging through the dishes from breakfast. His turn this morning. Your turn tomorrow.

You turn, registering that Yoongi’s coming up behind you, that you’ve been caught. “Oh, I was just-”

Your excuses die in your throat but you stay put as Yoongi ascends the steps to where you stand in front of the picture. It’s normal-sized, 4 by 6 inches of pure misery. You flush at being caught, although you’re not sure why you don’t want him to know you’re ruminating on it.  

“Ah, that one.” He says when he sees what photo you’re looking at. “I could be wrong, but I think that might be the first photo we have together.” He smiles at it. And you shift. Nervous.

“Oh, It is? I just-” you look back at it, and Yoongi sets his hand on your waist, looking too.   “Does it bother you? I can take it down, I know it’s not from like- a good time but-” Yoongi looks at it, lips quirking. And doesn’t say what he maybe could have. That it wasn’t a good time in your lives, but Yoongi can’t let go of the only time he got you all to himself. That it reminds him of the intention behind love.

Mating marks can only do so much, even beta ones.

It’s a reminder that you two can love each other, but it’s always something you’ll both have to work at. You and Yoongi will never have a blow-up, you’ll never assume you know what’s best for each other, or love each other without hope behind it. Maybe that’s why he’s fond.

Maybe.

“It doesn’t bother me.” You say, and you decide that it’s the truth. “I just didn’t realize how I looked back then.”

Yoongi just taps his fingers on the banister of the stairs. Watching you and the curve to your cheeks and chin, the curve to your whole body. So different from where you started. There’s nothing sexual to Yoongi’s comparison; there's no worth that he ascribes to the version of you in that photo that he doesn't give you now. Only the trickle of a memory and the quickening of his heartbeat.

He steps closer to you. “Yeah. It was pretty scary.”

“I’m sorry.”

Yoongi shrugs. Cupping your elbow with his hand. A small request for you to continue up the steps. After a moment, you do. Ascending into the pack’s bedroom where the sound and scent of Jimin and Jin are closer and Tae's giggle sounds even sweeter. “It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault for being so sick.”

“How long are you going to say that?”

On the landing, he shrugs, hands in his pockets. Takes one of them out and tugs on your sleeve. It’s an oddly childish action for him, and you realize with a pang that he must have picked it up from you. It’s strange how you leave your mark on people, how you take pieces of them and they take pieces of you. Yoongi smiles at you and says, “Until you believe it. Probably forever if you need me to say it.”

The distress is suddenly overwhelming, and unlike before, you don’t hide it. “Yoongi, I was doing that to myself-”

“And you made yourself get better too-”

You snort, “I definitely did not. You and Jungkook like- force fed me for a whole 3 months.”

His head tilts to the side. “You know I don’t like it when you say force feeding.”

“I- sorry.”

“It’s okay. Just never again.” Yoongi says it solemnly, and it sounds like a promise as you nod. Yoongi takes your hand in his, fitting his fingers in between yours until they tap at your knuckles. Guiding you gently to the bathroom. “It doesn’t matter anymore. You’ll never get that bad again.” Yoongi stares at you, waiting for you to say it back.

“I won’t.”

Yoongi sticks out his pinky. And the rest is history.

(The two of you leave the picture there and let it be. It’s not the last photo that the hallway will get- and that’s a marvel, isn’t it? That you have your whole lives to look forward to. That your pups' first day of school pictures and graduation photos will one day be hung here (like your and Tae's wedding photos and Jimin’s 3 Vogue covers, like Tae's Pulitzer Prize certificate for her 5th book, and an article about your café in the paper,

but I’m getting very, very ahead of myself here.)

~-~

Jimin hasn’t been on the cover of Vogue yet, but someday soon he will. His career is moving at lightspeed. It’s been maybe 4 weeks since the whole ‘Mr. Park’ thing. You think that maybe it will never slow down but that that might be a good thing for Jimin as you eat late summer watermelon with the pack on the porch. Waiting for Jimin to come home from an early morning photoshoot.

When he does it's with a smile, taking the stairs two at a time and doing a twirl to show off his new outfit- that he definitely didn't leave the house in to all of you sitting there.

Namjoon smiles from the doorway at Jin coming up the stairs, in their own little world as they drag Jungkook upstairs for god only knows what (probably a bit of nasty filthy sex, not that the other omega is at all complaining)

Jimin smells like vanilla and expensive shit as he ducks low for a kiss and then flops right there in all his Gucci glory. Hobi leans over and puts his finger through the artfully distressed holes in his sweater. “The director liked me so much they let me walk home with this shit-”

“Oh, I’m totally stealing this,” You grill him. You want to know everything, and none of it is a secret. You steal his fancy sunglasses and trade them back and forth with Tae, slung across Jimin’s lap like some sort of willowy daydream straight out of Sappho’s poems. And Jimin gets progressively more flustered the more she trails her nose up the column of his throat. Increasingly more distracted as he tells you about the mansion on the cape and the castle by the sea and the liquid organza suit coat they put him in.

"You should be the model, not me," Jimin tells her, but Tae just shrugs, before leaning forward to grab a perfect chunk of watermelon. Pressing the pink square between her teeth with a juicy squish that you feel in your tummy for some reason. When you look at Hobi, he's grinning at you knowingly. You flush and look away, feeling found out for some reason.

"I like writing more than I like being pretty, and this way I get to have the designer stuff without any of the work."

Jimin trails his nose along the crown of her head. "One of the many benefits of being my girl, I guess." Jimin teases, fingers slipping lower on her waist.

"Many benefits huh? Tell me more. What else do I get from this arrangement?" Jimin's fingers continue to trail lower, cupping between her legs, and you lean up, slap him a little.

"We are on the porch Jimin, anyone could see."

"I'm not doing anything."

"You are literally kneading Tae's ass like a dough ball."

"Well come over here and I'll knead yours too. You can consider it practice for when we make salt bread again."

"You're impossible."

"Impossibly attracted to both my girlfriends is what I am."

Hobi's eyes naturally travel to your back end, blatantly poised in his direction as you lean over the coffee table.

You jump. Flushing terribly, looking over your shoulder at Hobi, who looks at his phone like he hasn’t done anything at all. He's scrolling through something, and when you lean back into him with a huff, you realize it's a sample of the photoshoot. Jin must have sent him the pictures.

Hobi has sort of been helping Jin wade through some of the paperwork for Jimin's job. It was a mountain of work for Jin alone. And asking Hobi to get a second look at some things was second nature.

“It’s not a big deal, they literally just ask me to touch my face and then take a picture.”

Hobi scrolls through, “Easy money. These are like- so fucking good.”

“Easiest money of my fucking life, I fell asleep during makeup today and they freaking cooed at me-”

"You never fall asleep when I do your makeup."

Jimin leans forward to nip at her jaw. "That's because there's an incentive to stay awake." Tae hadn't gotten flustered, had just looped her arms around Jimin’s neck and whispered something into his ear that made him go bright red.

Jimin hasn’t had to go anywhere international for his job yet- but he did go to Los Angeles last week. A city that Jimin described as too hot and too sprawling. That you’d have hated all the traffic and Ubers. You’re surprised Jin didn’t go with him.

You know why he didn’t go- because he's worried about you and your application to culinary school. You have this near vibrating anxiety while you wait and wait and wait to hear back. But there's been nothing.

Nothing so far. Sometimes you wonder if it's even worth all this stress and effort. You'd be happy here just living like this for your whole life. Money is not an issue. You have enough money where you could all honestly do that without feeling the consequences for several decades, if not the rest of your lives, if you invested it properly, but…

Managing Jimin has been amazing for Jin's mental health. And Jimin likes it too. And maybe you want something like that- a purpose. Yoongi has the house, Tae has her book, Jin has Jimin but you. What do you have besides this?

It feels good to have something to look forward to, something to do beyond just twiddle your thumbs, love them, and wait for your life to pass.

Even if you’re scared.

~-~

Late that night you take one of your late night drives with just Hobi. You go to your spot and get greasy drive in food and enough french fries to put an elephant into a food coma. In the car with just Hobi, you tell him.

"I think I want to open my own cafe." He raises his eyebrows at you. Lips fumbling with a straw between his teeth, sucking down his soda. The car idles warm and the night outside hovers quietly. You haven't even told Yoongi this yet.

He puts his cup in the cup holder. "Before school or after?"

"After. If I even get in-"

He scoffs, rolls his eyes a little, you hit his shoulder. he goes for your armpit, and you jerk, ticklish. "Of course you're going to get in-"

You shimmy in your seat. Wound up. "Okay but anyways- maybe it could be a cafe and a bakery or maybe just a bakery. Or both- or-" you turn to him, the paper crinkle of paper between the two of you tossing crumbs on the floor that he doesn't comment on one bit.

"Alright. tell me about it." You start to talk, to outline it, starting slowly at first and then faster. Your words rapid fire.

Hobi turns down the music and listens.

~-~

You still haven’t heard back from culinary school. Still haven’t found out if you’ll get to attend this fall. You checked a few internet forums, and you know the first round of acceptances has already gone out. It’s easy to second-guess yourself, easy to assume that you won’t get in during the second round, at least not this year.

It’s a simple morning when it happens.

The curtains on the porch wave and waft in a breeze that comes all the way from the sea. Tae picks out your mug for you as you move slowly, bumping into anything that moves too quickly. Namjoon catches you before you crash into one of the chairs at the island, ducking down to kiss your forehead with a soft smile before moving you in Tae's direction, your de facto minder for the morning.

The weather is shifting into something colder, and maybe you cling to the nest a little bit more on these mornings when the threat of fall tickles your ankles.

Tae tugs you this way and that, tickling you under your arms so you squirm against her front while Yoongi pours your coffee, glances over his shoulder at you once and then again. Tightening your robe around your waist when you shiver. Jimin is away this weekend at a shoot in the city (for an underwear shoot of all things), and it has everyone a bit on edge. Just one night. He should be home by dinner. It's easy to tell themselves that, but-

Tae is always a little extra clinging and domineering when he's gone.

You’re ready to recline with her wherever she might put you and go back to sleep to pacify those instincts. You love cuddling with Tae. Love it so much you think you can’t bear it sometimes when she wiggles away in the early morning to go edit (the nerve). Like she did this morning, and you woke up pouty and a little grumpy over it. Eager to accuse her of neglecting you (and get some kisses afterwards).

You’d all but shuffled into her library room, settled on her lap, leg on either side of her waist in the chair, slightly bigger than the old one. The others got it for her when she realized how much she didn’t mind you curled against her front last winter, but you’d wound your arms around her shoulders and promptly gone back to sleep for a few minutes. Before Hoseok’s humming in the kitchen and the smell of coffee and pancake batter had tempted the two of you out of your little bubble.

Now, the cup of coffee that's on the table is doomed to go cold. Noodle yowls, and you tuck your face into Tae's tummy, putting the hem of her shirt over your eyes and closing them. She laughs and says something that's not meant for you to reply to. Your thoughts swirl with ebby patterns of comfort, too warm to think straight, finally finally horizontal on the couch.

Namjoon hums, and you feel a hand crest your knee, shifting you so that your hips are in line with your spine. Namjoon is so-

You press up into his hand like a cat, fingers digging into the pressure points on the back of your neck, not scruffing you, but close.

Happy shivers go up and down your back as Namjoon rubs, and you think you might chirp a little, or purr, or both. His answering hum is deep and sweet as he runs his fingers over your shoulders, squeezing just until the pressure releases. He laughs when you make another noise after he stops. His sleep-roughened voice is all grumbly as he says, “Still tired? Maybe we should take you back upstairs.”

Hoseok disappears from the room, his humming goes as does his caramel scent in the air, your fingers flex where they're tangled in Tae's PJs, needy. You curl up into her, all but bathing in the dewy smell of her skin, the conditioner on her hair, her rosy scent, oh so comforting. You’re used to falling asleep to the sound of the pack moving and talking all around you. You find comfort in the sound of their overlapping voices, going in and out of consciousness.

The next time you're lucid, Namjoon’s hand has crept a little higher on your leg, and Tae's warning growl lets you know there is at least some conflict going on. Her arm tightens around your waist. Her palm cupping the back of your head possessively. “Go get your own omega, this one’s mine.”

“You so sure about that?”

But whatever playful argument is going on, it’s none of your business if Tae and Namjoon feel the need to settle their hierarchy a little bit this morning. You doze, turning your face into Tae's skin and nosing against her navel.

You sleep, listening to the sound of them all. The sound of arms wrapped around bodies, the wet sound of smacking kisses, and the click of the range as Yoongi starts making breakfast. The quiet sound of the pack omega asking Namjoon to bring a heavy basket of laundry upstairs before Jungkook does. The pack alpha's happy little fluff of scent into the air as he does it. Always happy to do what Jinnie asks.

But the quiet can only last so long.

Jungkook and Hobi tear into the house, bare feet working against the floor as they try to overtake each other. They get caught in the doorway, both trying to pass through at the same time, getting tangled in the process. Jungkook wraps his arms around Hobi's waist, but the alpha, slighter but stronger, holds his ground. “Guys, you’re letting out all the cold air,” Jin reprimands, but it falls on deaf ears.

"It's here! It's here!" Tae jostles you. Knees jumping with her jerk of surprise.

Jungkook falls to the floor at the same moment that Hoseok valiantly grabs an envelope from his hands, giggling. And you-

You're still totally asleep on Tae's lap. Thoughts syrupy slow. Seokjin and Yoongi look up from the barely prepared breakfast. Incredulous until they see what Hoseok has valiantly held over his head. Yoongi makes an aborted noise, cutting the heat, although the butter sizzles on. Wiping his hands and coming over.

“Finally!” Tae chirps.

“Really?” Namjoon shouts from upstairs.

"Yes, Joonie, really!" Namjoon rushes down the stairs, almost tripping. Falling onto his ass with a loud thud thud thud. “Namjoon, slow down. You’re not coordinated enough for that,” Jin scolds, spatula held in threat.

“Guys don’t open it-”

“We’re not!’’

jungkook laughs, hops a few times and tries to bat at Hobi's head. “Wake her up-"

Tae's hand tightens around your back, curling over the nape of your neck protectively. “Don’t you dare-”

Namjoon rubs his ass, “baby girl, she’d want to be woken up for this-.”

Namjoon’s tone as pack alpha is not one that the others will obey today. Tae all but pouts at him. “Give her a few moments- she was up late last night.”

Yoongi snorts, “and whose fault is that?”

“Mine.” Namjoon says instantly.

Tae grits her perfect teeth, “no it was totally mine.”

Jin crosses his arms and waits until Namjoon is taking a sip of his coffee before he asks. “Are you both in rut or something?”

Jin thinks that there’s something satisfying in seeing the alpha snort coffee through his nose, to feel the jump of surprise down their bond. Even though Jin knows they’re not. Alphas just get like this sometimes. Especially heading into the wintertime.

You lift your head, a little grumpy at being woken so abruptly. One closed fist rubs at your eyes, cheeks faintly flushed, scent sweet and chirping. You peer up at them, surprised to find them looking down at you. Blinking at them slowly. Sniffling a little.

Everyone goes quiet all at once, then they break, "Oh my god, we're evil-" "The worst." Yoongi sets a hand on the top of your head, fingers carding through your hair softly. "Go back to sleep, little lovely."

Jungkook picks you up, a normal occurrence. You make an affronted noodle-like noise as he places you on your feet, swaying a little. holding you up partially.

“Kookie,” you whine.

“It’s here! It’s here!” Hoseok holds a little white envelope and shoves it under your nose. You’re suddenly wide awake, suddenly unable to concentrate on anything else, standing in the living room in your pj’s, Tae holds around your knees, still standing between her legs, everyone else between the ottoman and the couch crowding your space. “Go on pup.” "Please, the anticipation is killing us."

You sway.

“Open it open it open it!” Jungkook bounces on his heels, the baggy shirt he wears crinkling with an audible sound. Your hands are shaking so badly as you rip it open. Your gaze flickers up to Namjoon's, then Yoongi's. Leaving it folded. But there's a lot of paper, and maybe they just make their rejection letters really, really long.

“I feel like I’m going to be sick.”

“You’re not going to be sick,” Hoseok pecks the back of your neck, hand comfortably resting on your hip. Everyone has Their heads bend over the paper as you scan the document. You lift your eyes, and Yoongi is the first person you make eye contact with. He’s smiling ear to ear before you even tell them.

Your voice is small and quiet and more than a little scared, hands trembling.

“I got in.”

The cheers erupt immediately, and the small little voice in your head that wonders why you’re worth celebrating at all goes quiet as you watch them. Hoseok pumps his hand, Jungkook all but leaps into the air with a great big whoop.

Namjoon spins you, lifting you clear off your feet, spinning and spinning and spinning, tucking his face into your throat. You’re fully awake and giggling when he sets you down.

Yoongi dabs at his eyes, turning away for a second before he hugs you. Setting almost his whole weight across your shoulder. You feel his relieved breath against your front, and through your mating bond, he ducks in to press a quick kiss to your grinning mouth. It tastes like relief. Maybe he’d never told any of you how worried he was- not about you not getting in- but about what might have happened to your self-esteem if you hadn’t. But you know, you know how he must have worried, what he must have felt.

Yoongi cups his cheeks in both your hands, your flush goes unnoticed or unteased at. “I’m so fucking proud of you.”

You're doing your best not to be someone your family has to worry over these days. It's hard. But you really are giving it your all. You nod at his words, unable to communicate to him what that means to you.

“Of course, she got in," Jin sounds almost offended at the very suggestion of Yoongi's disbelief. "As expected of my pup.”

But there’s still his hand on your chin, tilting your face up to his so that Jin can wipe at your tears, but just as quickly as you’re crying in happiness, your anxiety spikes. Holding the pieces of paper, not only your acceptance letter, but the heavy set of other instructions about tuition, uniform, and necessary first-semester materials.

“I’ve never been to college before and I'm so old, what if everyone is younger than me?” But the pack knit close around you. Nipping that in the bud before even a seed of doubt can begin to grow.

Jimin huffs, blinking from a small screen in Jungkook’s palm. A barely visible, very bright hotel room around him. His voice sounds grainy through the phone. “It will be alright. You’ve got us. You’ll have me as soon as I’m home.” 

“Hurry Minnie.” Hobi huffs, “yeah, Tae and Namjoon are worried about you.”   “I am not!” Namjoon cries.

Tae clicks her tongue. “Oh you so are-” he shoves her lightly. It’s more of a tickle.

“Hey! I am a lady!” Her indignation only gets her so far as Namjoon all but covers her body with his. you take the phone from here, and Jimin promises a celebration tonight. Probably drinking and food and maybe a very very nicely wrapped congratulation present that the pack have shoved into the back of the coat closet. something they put together for you just incase you.

Jin nods, making eye contact with you, hand coming up to cup your cheek and rub away your happy tears. “We can help with everything.”

Jimin chimes in, “Yeah, Joonie already said he’d help you study.”

But you just pout at that, “it’s not medical school.”

Is it that the pack alpha's shoulders are puffed up, or is it just your imagination? He leans away from Tae, taming her flyway, looking flustered. “Still. It’s your next chapter. You’re going to do well; I just know it.”

“Your faith in me is either misguided or foolish.”

“That’s a good line.” Tae says, and you turn to her, grinning.

Hobi sets his hands on your shoulders, turning you to look at him. “You’ve been spending too much time editing, and for the record, our faith in you is just the right amount.”

“Can you blame me? It’s like! Really hard to put down!” You’re scared, but bickering and bantering help. And you think you might be learning what the good kind of fear is and how to separate it from the bad kind. Even if both types of fear feel the same. They’re different. Aren’t they?

The pack has faith that you can do this, and you’ve never had a reason to doubt them before. “I can’t believe it- I can’t believe I’m actually going to go to school.” You look up at Hobi, like something just occurred to you, “Holy shit, what if I’m dumb?”

 “You are not dumb.”

Tae gives you a loving swat to your behind. “Hey! No negative self-talk!”

“I’m so scared, I’m not even excited- all I am is afraid.” Yoongi kisses you slowly and gently, taking his hand in yours. Jin and Namjoon are already looking over your book list and thinking about back-to-school shopping and getting you a pair of school-appropriate non-slip shoes. Jungkook and Taehyung are a mess on the couch. Jungkook continues whatever sort of push-and-shove game he started with Hoseok, but with Tae this time. Leaving you standing with just Yoongi and Hobi on either side of you.

Hoseok understands better than anyone the need to preempt enjoyment with disappointment as he teases you, "too bad, you're gonna get like- really good at chopping onions."

You pout up at him, "and baking cakes."

"You're already good at baking cakes."

“I know. I'm still scared.” Yoongi and Hoseok look at you, and you look back up at them. “That means I’m going to have to be brave, doesn’t it?”

Yoongi slides his hand from cupping your chin to your cheek, to your jaw, stroking over your mating mark once, twice, and then a third time.

“Yes. You’re going to have to be very, very brave.”

~-~

Tae sits in her library room, not looking at her computer but out the window to the hydrangea bush outside. The pink, blue, and lavender blooms are going crusty and bleached at the edges from the late summer sunlight, the last of them that Hobi has yet to snip away. Tae doesn't look at her computer, because she knows what she'll find.

In between waiting for you to hear back from culinary school, Tae has also been waiting for her own news. There is an email in her inbox, at the top of it, littered among a dozen other rejection letters, is a very, very different sort of email.

We’re very interested in ‘Girls and Other Dangerous Things,’ and we're very pleased to have found you and this project in its infancy. Our publishing company is willing to explore your options with you. We would love to meet at your earliest convenience to discuss a plan to take this from page to print.

You would think that Google would help her predicament, but a quick search of the company has yielded nothing but anxiety. New York Times bestseller lists from a decade ago and not much recent. Tae leans her elbows on her desk, the edge where you've worn away the wood slightly from leaning back against it. The mark of you slinging yourself across her lap to sit on her chair with her while she writes.

She hasn't told anyone yet; she got the email just this morning, but it's already 11am. She's sequestered herself here just because she knew the second she walked out into the kitchen that everyone, Jimin, Yoongi, you, Jin, would be able to tell that something was wrong.

Or that something’s gone very, very right for once. Tae's not sure which it is.

You have sort of a 6 sense when Tae's unhappy or scared or dysphoric at all and like normal you sort of just appear right in the nick of time, right before Tae risks being on the verge of a real panic attack. Rocking back and forth in her chair as she re-reads the email again and again and again.

You open the door to her library room without a second thought, although everyone else in the pack is firmly banned from interrupting Tae for all but the most necessary emergency (Jungkook feeling the lack of cuddles and wanting attention excluded from this list) you are not subjected to the same set of rules.

You let Noodle in too, tail raised high, cocking a hip against the doorway, clad in one of Yoongi's flannels and little else. Letting in the sound of the others' bickering and the smell of frying dough. Looking absurdly good in a way that makes Tae's pulse sort of hammer beneath her skin. She turns at the sound, jerky, chin resting on her hand, shoulders up to her ears.

“Hey,” you say in the doorway, smiling at her, your front covered in powdered sugar like snow. But ‘hey’ is never really just ‘hey’ when it comes to you.

"Hey," she says back, scent sour. She watches the moment that you scent it on the air, and a minute or two later, with the door closed and locked, you're slung across her lap in your same position as always. Listening to her rapid-fire words as she reads off the email, talks you through all the information about it. Her insecurities, everything she's worried about nothing kept from you. Eyes flicking from sentence to sentence.

“I know I shouldn’t get my hopes up, but they published that one series that I really liked just before I came out-”

"The one with the gay alpha hockey players?"

 "Yes, that one!" You wind your hands around Tae's back until your whole body is pressed against hers. You're a warm, comforting weight that makes Tae's whole body feel complete. Not a single ache or pain that she can pay attention to at all. Tae's heart gives a very painful but very lovely squeeze.

You pull back from her front, reaching up to tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear, and Tae feels so in love with you in that moment that she can't bear it. “Well, if you're asking me, I think your hopes should be sky high.”

“It’s not that good.”

Your knees squeeze at her hips in reprimand. You pull back and peer up at her. Tae tries not to meet your eyes but fails miserably. It's hard to be upset with you occupying all of her attention, but somehow she manages. “Tae, I’ve read it, and it’s amazing. You know it’s mean if you argue with me. I can’t believe I’m gonna have to wait like- a whole year to read the second one.”

Her hands loop around your waist. And her nose bumps against yours. “So I’m a meanie huh?”

“The meanest, you won’t even like- let me read the epilogue.”

“Because the epilogue is sad. And for the record, I’m not going to make you wait a whole year, you know I’m just waiting until I know if I should pursue it to start on the second one…” Tae pauses and realizes her words. Realizing that she has just heard back. “I sent them stuff like 4 months ago- and I only sent them the first 10 chapters and-”

Kissing her is an efficient way of shutting up the part of her that is endlessly insecure. Tae's insecurities have never bothered you ever, but you're vibrating with excitement here. Tae knows just by looking at you that you're not going to be able to contain yourself in telling the rest of the pack.

You turn around in Tae's seat and reach for her laptop. "Pup- what are you doing? Pup- no-"

You type quickly, sending an eager email back quicker than she can think to grab your hands and truly stop you. The two of you wait with bated breath, but the admin or secretary- whoever is reaching out on behalf of a Mr. Bang gets back to Tae with lightning speed, offering 6 available times over the next week at their Boston office, with further concessions if none of them fit Tae's schedule.

“Do you want me to go with you to your meeting?”

Tae's head tips down; she’s worried about hurting your feelings. “Is it weird that I kind of wanna do it alone?”

You nuzzle into her hairline, and Tae's breath comes easier. “No. Not at all.”

~-~

"Are you sure?" Jungkook asks, hanging out the window of Jin's car to look at Tae standing on the street corner.

Jin’s driving, the hazards on his car flashing every other rapid heartbeat. Out front of the building to drop her off for the meeting of a lifetime. Jin and Jungkook took her because they were the least likely to set off her already fried senses (Having the alpha's around might make Tae feel too instinctual, and she already feels like a dog pressed into a corner) and they're less likely to feed off of her anxiety and make it their own (like you and Jiminie).

Someone behind them honks loudly, but Jin just adjusts the mirror and quietly commits their license plate to memory.

Some habits die hard.

“I could wait in the lobby.” Jungkook nibbles at his lower lip. Clearly worried. Tae shuffles in her heels on the sidewalk, pulse hammering as she looks up. She has clear instructions on how to access the 58th floor of this building and get to the publishing house. Jimin is pacing the floors back home. Tae knows this, and yet her soulmate had let her come on her own. Tae's almost proud as her hands tighten on the handle of her briefcase.

“No Koo, I’ll be alright.”

"Love you! You've got this!" Jin levels a look at Tae over his sunglasses, "kill 'em, sweetheart." The car pulls away, and Tae is left standing there alone.

Some first steps are all yours.

Well, mostly all hers. She has no idea that You're down the block with Jimin, Hobi, and Yoongi. Hiding out in a very, very fast and very, very expensive rental car with tinted windows and a sound system that could make Beethoven shudder.

You couldn't risk her recognizing your and Hobi's car, too red not to stick out. But you also couldn't let her do this completely alone- or at least an hour away from some possibly needed support.

You lean over the center console with binoculars, Yoongi in the driver's seat and Jimin in the passenger's side, swatting at your arm to see.

"Not a word of this to Tae," he'd made you promise. You'd mimed zipping up your mouth and thrown away the key, which Hobi had mocked, caught, and pretended to swallow. He's in the backseat with you, just along for the ride and the playlist that haunts you now. The base is thumping louder than usual because none of you are worried about blowing the speakers.

When you don't have the binoculars, you can hardly see Tae. Hardly more than a glimmer of pink on the sidewalk. Pink blazer, pink pants, pink shoes with red bottoms. Her brand new and very expensive Prada briefcase on one arm that you and Jimin might have splurged on for the occasion, hanging limply by her side.

You do love spoiling your girl.

You watch Tae through binoculars as she looks up at the big building, and then heads inside. "Hang on, I just want to make sure she's-" Jimin snatches the binoculars from you.

"She looks like she's going to throw up." He's already reaching for the door handle, but your mate has the good sense to hit the lock before he can get out. "Open the door, Yoongi,"

"Jimin, we agreed-" He tries to roll down the window, no doubt intending on climbing out of it, but finds his method of ingress also locked. Stalwart.

"Did you put the child lock on me?"

You snort, half-fighting with him to get the binoculars for a second. "You want a booster seat too?"

"Jimin, just think for a moment, if she sees you, she'll-" whatever Yoongi might have said gets interrupted by a sharp rap on your window. He rolls it down to reveal a very, very cross-looking Namjoon. A badge on his lapel that reads 'Dr.Kim' flashes in the midday sun. Arms folded, tapping his foot against the cobblestone. It’s so strange to see him in his doctor's coat and not his holey pajamas.

“Joonie!” Yoongi’s ear-to-ear grin does little to impress him.

The pack alpha’s glare does not decrease in intensity. Dragon eyes are narrowing at Jimin and Yoongi in the front seat. Hobi cowers, hiding behind the tinted window and patent leather of the driver's side. You too- shrink into the shadows, hoping to be undiscovered. “What are you doing here? I thought we talked about this.”

“Just hanging out." "I could ask you the same thing.”

“The hospital’s around the corner. I’m getting coffee.”

You reach around the console again. “Oh can you get me some? And a pastry!” Namjoon’s stare has your excitement dimming. Crouched behind Yoongi’s seat, Hobi stifles his laughter by biting on his knuckle. You shrink into the shadows in the backseat.

“Don’t think I don’t see you too pup.”

“Shit,” Hobi curses, leaning around the seat. “Sorry Joon.”

“We just had a discussion about boundaries guys.”

“I know but-”

A blue mini-coop pulls up beside you, and Jimin bypasses Namjoon and Yoongi’s stare down to peer at Jin in the front of his car. “How was she- did she seem nervous; did she have her phone on- did she-”

Jin's word cut off Jimin's anxiety at the root. “Everything went perfectly. Like I said it would.”

Jungkook gets out of the car, pecks a delirious-looking Namjoon on the cheek before sliding into the backseat with you and Hobi, “scoot over,”

“Why did nobody tell me you were doing a stakeout?”

“It’s not like we planned this,” Jin says. "we just all had the same idea."

Your car goes silent. And Namjoon leans against the window. “Okay well, I didn’t make the car reservation until Tae set the date.”

“Where did you even keep this thing?”

“At the flower shop.”

“Guys-”

Jin beeps his car, leveling Namjoon with a look over his sunglasses, cutting off the pack alpha’s reprimand. “Namjoon, just get in the god damn car before she spots us.”

By the time you look back at the front of the building, Tae has already disappeared inside.

Later at home, you unbutton her blazer for her, going button by button as you listen to her vent. You’re very convincing in your disguise, dressed in matching pj’s with Jimin. You'd mutually agreed not to tell her about your presence, even Namjoon.

It's just a white lie, and hardly the most damaging one you've ever agreed upon.

(The pack alpha sends you glares every few minutes when you meet his eyes, and you know everyone has a punishment in their future).

The pack is a flurry of movement around Tae, reclining on the couch. Jimin helps her take off her shoes, red bottoms glimmering as she talks. Squeezing her arches soothingly as her anxiety reaches a fever pitch.

Her diamond earrings are carefully unbuttoned by Yoongi. Makeup wipes are dished out by Jungkook, handed off to Jin who takes off her makeup gently, given the hour. Tae doesn't have to lift a finger while she gives her retelling of the day, the intimidating meeting with the kind head editor and lead acquisitions manager- whatever that is.

You don't have to lift a finger either, her own personal stress ball or weighted blanket. Too necessary to Tae's comfort, arms wrapped around her waist. Cheek squished against her pink shirt, linen and pretty. You'll have to remember to add it to the nest later.

“-And they want me to go through the whole thing in like a month, and I don’t know how that timeline makes sense.” Her lower lip wobbles, tears threatening at her lash line. “I could work for like 24 hours a day and still I wouldn’t be able to change everything they want me to change and that’s not even to mention the second half.”

"Did you ask for more time?"

She nods, "They wouldn't give it to me."

Jimin stands from her side. “Tell me their names.”

You tug at his sleeve, “Jiminie, save the murder for later.”

Yoongi’s shoulders fall, stressed, “Jesus Christ guys-”

You roll your eyes, “I said later, not never.”

"You signed the contract?" Jin asks, not distracted by you two, instead combing out the tangles in her curls delicately while guiding a glass of lemon water to her lips.

"No! Worse!" Tae bends to reach for her bag and upends the whole thing, hair wry out of her clips. An inch-thick packet of papers falls out along with a MAC lipstick, a YSL one, and a hairbrush. As well as two different wallets- Hers and Jimin’s. "They told me to sign it and hand it in with the final draft."

Her lower lip wobbles, and you've never smelled her scent more peppery (well, maybe the night she came out, but-). Tae sniffles. "I'm not sure it matters. They want so much from me and I know I can’t give them what they want." Tae hates this, to get here all this way and then fail at the final step.

Jin snatches it from the floor and steals the glasses off of Namjoon's head, scanning them quickly. The pack waits with bated breath, but Jin has hardly looked at it for more than a minute before he flips to the last page, scoffs, and promptly throws it into the nearby chair. Several pages Fling loose. "Tell them you won't sign it till the deadline."

"Jinnie-"

Jin folds his arms across his chest. "This isn't good enough. I can get you double."

“Jinnie-”

Jin leans forward to cup Tae's jaw in his hand, kissing her nose and then her mouth. “Don’t doubt me.”

Yoongi smiles. "You're learning a lot from this whole model thing."

Jimin flushes, starts to say something, but Jin just raises an eyebrow at him, "You should see the deal I got you for your next makeup campaign. My pups are worth a premium."

"Yeah, Minnie's expensive," Jungkook teases. 

Jin puts his hand on Tae's shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "I already professionally manage one of my pups, What’s one more?"

Tae looks like she's about to be sick. Realizing dreams goes a whole lot differently than you think it will. This feels dreadful. Tae wishes she'd never sent anyone anything. "Jinnie-"

You try instead. cupping her cheek and turning her face to look at you. Leaning your chin on her shoulder, peering up at her in a way you know is a little seductive and distracting. But given the circumstances, it can hardly hurt. "Tae, you're an amazing writer. You can do this; I know you can."

She shakes her head out of your hand. "No one can edit 300,000 words in a month, that’s like- almost physically impossible for one person."

Hoseok snorts, standing up from the couch. “Well, it’s a good thing you’ve got 7 people who love you and know you really fucking well then. Otherwise, you'd be shit out of luck.”

Tae blinks up at him, and Hobi pats your knee on the way past you, your eyelashes flutter, and you resettle your arms around Tae's waist. Threading your fingers through the buttons of her button-down to pet at her stomach.

Tae's tone is a little incredulous. “I can’t teach you how to edit, not like me. You don't know me this way.”

There's a moment of quiet where Hobi looks at her, and the pack take it in.

“Then let us. let us know you this way. You could try and we might not get it right at first. Think of it as a head start. Tae, you know what you like and what you want, just show us."

Tae thinks of that day so long ago, right after she came out. she remembers watching you and Hobi at the beach together. Getting funnel cake and calling Hobi out on his fondness for you that he didn't want to address. It feels good in a hurtful way, what he's saying isn't wrong. Tae just wasn't ready for it. Maybe like when Yoongi calls you out on your self-deprecation or when Jin scolds Namjoon for being too esoteric. Hobi stares, and Tae listens.

After a moment he continues. "What other time are you going to be able to show 7 different people and get their take on things while you can still change it?”

~-~

Love makes up for a whole lot. Skill and otherwise. Tae thinks as she watches the 7 of you dig into her story.

She's kept it closer to her chest than her fucking implants over the past year or so, and watching you all read it feels intimate in a way that's sort of awful, sort of amazing. Maybe being dissected would feel less vulnerable.

She should have started this sooner,. Should have let the pack read months ago. It’s a pretty intimate look at her soul, her wants and desires, her dreams. The way that she thinks and her own internal monologue and this one too closely intertwined to differentiate the two. The story is half a diary and half a promise. Somewhere between a testimonial and a daydream.

None of you are readers, but that doesn’t matter.

It starts a bit like this: food and drink piled on the kitchen table. Paper after paper and chapter after chapter. Tae's whole collection of glittery gel pens poured out onto the table. Blue for Namjoon, purple for Jungkook, pink for Jin, and so on. Panic and congratulations call for champagne. You and Yoongi share a singular glass. Pleasantly buzzed by the time you're even halfway through.

You each start with a chapter and work your way through it line by line. Making notes of what's not clear and what is. What works and what doesn’t. Halfway through, Jin complains that the main love interest is too much like Hoseok for him not to fall in love with him with every wry line. Tae admits, "Yeah I actually did use things Hobi has said for some of the dialogue. Jungkook too."

Surprisingly, the people who are the best at editing are Hobi and Yoongi. Namjoon makes it sound a little too clinical, and Jungkook's edits can border on nonsensical (Although occasionally he pulls a line out of his ass that even Tae's jealous of). Jimin and Jin are better at spotting typos than any of them. But with Hobi and Yoongi, Tae reads through their chapters and finds very little wrong with their additions and changes.

When Tae confesses this, Hobi just grins and kicks back in his chair and flicks the papers back and forth between his hands. "I’d tell you I told you so, but judging from how much you call Jack a pretentious prick in this- you already know. I’m totally going to make a playlist for this-”

Yoongi bumps shoulders with him, sitting next to each other in two chairs with you sprawled across both of their laps, a little drunk, a little ridiculous. “Gonna put mambo number 5 over the fight scenes, huh?”

“Or Naked in Manhattan." You giggle and sneak sips of his champagne (is it really sneaking if he hands you his glass after every sip?) "Fuck I totally want to put pink pony club on."

"Do it lady." Yoongi says.

Hobi leans back, looking a bit in love. You’re unaware of it. Kicking your feet, jerking when Yoongi tickles your ankle. "That’s like ugh- my favorite song of the day."

Jungkook snorts. "More like your favorite song of the month. You made me play it three times during kickboxing."

"Hey! Be nice- it reminds me of Tae." Tae flushes and promptly hides her face with a sheet of her book, littered with check marks from pink glittery gel pen edits. Namjoon reaches over and bops you with his pen.

"After! Play naked in Manhattan because that’s actually my favorite song." The pack gives you control of the playlist. Namjoon gets up obediently to refill everyone's glasses.

Hobi leans into your personal space, fingers itching up your ankle. Sneaking under the loose pants of your pajamas. Yoongi’s hands hover on your waist. Ticking from rib to rib to an imaginary beat. “Is that a promise or a threat?”

Yoongi all but growls into your ear, smile pressed to your cheek. “I love it when you guys flirt using music it’s like- totally fucking hot.”

“Guys!” The three of you look up. The whole pack is watching the three of you, but you make no move to untangle yourself. And when you lean back, you can feel the warmth of Yoongi’s chest and it jiggle as he laughs against your spine.

Everything here feels so nice, taking away Tae's stress, the sight of Jungkook half-falling asleep at the table. Jimin scans the chapters and reaches the end too quickly, Namjoon with his hair all messy and pushed up, talking animatedly about the actual proposed biology of the fantastical creatures that Tae writes about. Everything feels so good living here. Loving here. Being here for her.

“We’re serious! It’s like totally cinematic!”

~-~

Whatever it was, whatever change the mating has had on Jin and Namjoon, the bulk result is that they’ve both gotten more protective and even more possessive. They’re calmer about it- sure. But with each other to feed off, you hardly have any room for argument. All they have to do is look at each other to be on the same page now. The pups try to band together sometimes, but Jin and Namjoon are good pack omega and alpha.

They rarely let anything slip through the cracks.

So when you’d initially floated the idea of getting yourself a car to make the almost 40-minute drive to and from school every day, it had been all but immediately caboshed. Namjoon was the first to voice his misgivings. Looking nervously between Jin and Yoongi as you outlined what you'd need over breakfast. “It's all the way into the city, it's like even farther than the hospital.”

"I can do it! And if I can't, there's always the train.”

“That’s romantic.” Tae had swooned, Jin had scoffed. “What it is is dangerous. Especially after lab.”

"When does that end again?" Namjoon asks.

"Not until 8," Yoongi recites from memory. "On the train, you probably won't be home until ten."  

“But that way I can study!" You’re a bit in love with the train. Yoongi had taken you on a date not too long ago, into the city to a little food tour from bakery to bakery. You'd taken the train then and met up with Namjoon near the hospital and gone home together the quick way by car. But you'd had your face pressed to the window the whole time, pointing out the street art and the little glimpses between the windows. You'd fallen asleep on his shoulder on the way home.

But now, Yoongi is panicking a little. Thinking of if that happened when you were alone. All it would take is a missed stop, a low phone battery, and one bad person with an agenda. Sure nothing might happen- but is it really worth the risk?

Even Jimin raises his eyebrows, “The train is dangerous at night, and have you ever driven into the city on your own before?”

“No, but I can work up to it!” Even Jungkook had tilted his head to the side, unsure. Exchanging glances with the whole pack while you'd prattled on to Tae, whose smile was just about ready to slip off her face as you talk about a car. Something safe, something small. And wouldn't getting matching cars with Seokjinie be so cute?

Unsurprisingly, it had been Hobi who had first volunteered. “You already have a car, our car. I can drive you every morning. What time would we have to leave by? 7:30? That way I can be back for my shift by 9.”

“It would be a lot of miles to put on the car, and a lot of time for you.”

Hobi had just looked at you over a bite of breakfast. Eyebrows raised, headphones already looped around his neck. His look was impassive and sharp, and left no room up for debate. “Then put them on the car, I don’t mind.” (He got a pat on the knee for that one from Namjoon.)

As much as the pack hates to admit it, the idea of you not being here in the house at all hours of the day…It feels off. Feels new in a bad way.

They know it's what you want and a good, necessary change for you, but they’ve never known life at the house without you and Yoongi puttering about at all hours of the day. Without having someone to come home to. The constant soothing presence of an omega in the nest is something they’re reluctant to let go of…but maybe now that Jin is also home always and Tae is too- things will be easier.

Yoongi won’t have you as his little shadow anymore. He won’t have you hovering by his elbow at 11 for lunch or 3 for a snack. There will be no one waiting in the window seat when they come home, or the smell of baking things when Jimin returns from his schedule.

But baking is your passion. This has slowly gone from a dream you’re very scared to think of, to something you want desperately. The pack will help you achieve this goal, with the caveat that they keep you very carefully safe, mentally and physically, within the confines of what they deem appropriate.

This is a real future for you; you deserve more than just life as a nestmate. You want this future for yourself, too. The pack will do anything to give it to you. Anything.

Except letting you drive on your own.

This just means that you get to spend more time together with Hobi. Fiddling with Hobi's stereo and enjoying your morning coffee (and maybe studying in the front seat) and just being quiet together, commuting. Getting breakfast sandwiches when you have time and nodding off against the window when you stay up too late the night before, with Jungkook watching videos, or fucking and studying. Sometimes, at the same time, if Namjoon is feeling particularly motivated.

Or eating too many of the treats and sweets that you make in class and bring home for taste tests, leaving the floor of Hobi's car covered with crumbs from croissants, certainly spoiling your dinner. Exposing yourself to a gentle punishment and Namjoon and Jin's firm hands. Even Jungkook's one time when you ate all of something that he was looking forward to trying, when you do your unit on dietary restrictions.

You can imagine all of it already. So after a bit of fussing, you agree. It's scary, but somehow you can’t wait.  

~-~

Everything is sort of a blur after that. Fall starts, and you only have a few short weeks until your program begins. The pack drags you out for back-to-school shopping. textbooks and chefs knives. You pick up a coat and a chef's hat. And Jin demands that they get it embroidered with your initials just cuz.

It’s just culinary school. It’s not anything too difficult- but you’d looked over classes, attended a virtual meeting with your counselor from the kitchen table to pick and choose. Namjoon and Jin grip your hands under the table. Yoongi lingered close by even though Jin dominated the conversation. You tolerated it very, very well as they handle most of it for you. Getting just a little bit anxious by the end of it. And after, Tae pinched your cheeks and called you brave.

You've been hearing that word a lot recently. Brave brave brave. Being brave doesn't mean not being scared, doesn't mean not being anxious. It's what you do with your fear that counts.

(When she thinks about how far you've come, how much you've blossomed over the past few months, she gets a little misty-eyed. Sometimes she and Yoongi share looks over your head, or Tae sees him turning away, blinking rapidly, and taking a deep breath. The pack has been awfully careful with him these last few weeks. But Tae knows Yoongi can't help it. For all his stoicism, he really is so soft for you it hurts. Maybe it would be easier if the rest of them weren't equally as proud and overemotional over this whole thing.)

Your counselor had only been a little bit chagrined by the fact that Jin and Namjoon had done most of the talking during your meetings. “We get a lot of pack applicants.” She’d said after requesting a verbal 'yes' from you and not your pack omega.

But still, she'd been remarkably tolerant of Jin's many, many questions about the student body, tutoring centers, and other resources you’d have access to should you need them. His mating mark is plain and pink and new against his throat.

After that, your tuition is paid, and all too soon you count down to your first day. The pack takes you to tour the campus so that you’ll know how to get to all your classes before your first day. It’s about 10 minutes farther than Namjoon’s hospital, but he still says that he could drive you in once or twice a week, especially in your early days.

On your first day, Yoongi and Hoseok drive you. Yoongi is still in his pj’s in the back seat, letting you take the front. Your new school bag is packed with lunch, pretty Moleskine notebooks, and gel pens. All from Tae, who also did your hair and makeup today. Bound behind your head in two crisscrossing, pretty-looking Dutch braids to keep it out of your face.

Hoseok puts the car in park. And it’s almost audible the way that you hold your breath and try not to flinch at the sound. “We’ll pick you up at three. After your chopping class.”

“Knife skills. An hour and a half.” Yoongi recites from the back seat. You don’t know that the whole pack has memorized your schedule. Mondays and Wednesdays are your long days, Friday are your easy ones. Basics of French sauces and Cooking chemistry on Thursday and Tuesday.

Hoseok’s car is already getting more than a few backward glances from other students. Parked out front in a 15-minute parking zone meant only for drop off. The other students of the culinary school are dressed identically to you in double-breasted black button-down chef's coats. Buttoned to the collar. A glittery necklace from Jimin around your neck.

You’re going to stand out- Hoseok knows this because you could never be ordinary. He sort of hopes that your classmates will treat you well. That you'll make friends and find a place and a reason of your own here.

Hoseok looks at you over the rim of his sunglasses. Heart giving a lonely, grateful pang. “Don’t stab anyone, that’s more of a second week thing.”

It has the desired effect, you snort. “And so last year.” Your scent eases away from being quite so wet with anxiety, and Hoseok feels himself smile despite the tense atmosphere of the car.  

Yoongi looks at you in the mirror. “Do you want me to walk you to your first class?”

“If we both walk her the car will definitely get towed.”

“That’s why I said I’ll walk her. You can stay with your boring flashy car.”

“Oh, absolutely not- you’ll have to rock paper scissors me for that.”

You swallow, and both Hoseok and Yoongi stop their bickering to pay attention to you. “It’s alright, I know where it is.”

You don’t open the car door yet, nervous, knees jumping up and down, hand hovering on the door handle. Yoongi pulls himself around the front seat. Hoseok squeezes your knees and says, "Alright. You have 5 minutes to vent."

The words burst from you without your say so, the same anxiety jackrabbiting its way outside of your heart and head, bouncing around with nowhere to go. “What if I hate it? what if I don’t like it?- what if I paid all this tuition and made all this fuss and it’s for nothing? What if-” you continue, and Hoseok and Yoongi let you vent until it's clear you're done.

Tears are beading in your eyes, you turn and look towards the window to hide them, you don’t want to cry, because Tae did your makeup this morning, and you don’t want to mess it up.

Your makeup is something she doesn’t always have time to do anymore, between meetings with her editor and revisions of this and that chapter. Her negotiations with Jin and the publishing company are sort of ongoing, and there's already talk about Hoseok cutting back his hours at the flower shop just to help Jin with all the new paperwork. They split their time evenly between Jimin and Tae.

“Hey.” Hobi's voice is soft, “look at me.”

You do, and he’s smiling that same gentle smile as always as he cups your cheek rubs your tears away with a thumb. You sniffle. From the back seat Yoongi says, “You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.”

Hobi looks over at you, voice very serious. “If you hate it, you can call us and we’ll pick you up. No questions asked. We won't say anything and we don't have to talk about it at all." No one, not even Jin and Namjoon. I'll protect you. Hoseok promises to himself. "If you decide this isn’t a path you want to go on, you can stop at any time. This week or next week or six semesters from now.”

You go quiet for a second and then correct him. “It’s only a four-semester program.”

Yoongi nods, and Hoseok throws his hands up, “Well then, whatever! what I’m saying is you can do what you want and we’ll support you.”

You have 5 more minutes to make the two-minute walk before you’ll be late. You look to Hobi. Teeth worrying away at your lower lip. Yoongi chimes in. “It’s easier to get off a train after one missed stop than five. If you hate it, then fuck it. We’ve got you.”

“Promise? You’re not gonna be mad if I back out?”

“No. Not at all.” Yoongi means it, but doesn’t elaborate.

Hoseok holds out his pinky finger, the red tattoo around it just a little more faded than when you'd gotten it together. You loop it with yours, and for a moment, it looks like it's wrapped around both your fingers. "Promise." 

“Okay.” “Okay.” Your hand is on the door.

“I’m going to get out of the car now.”

“Okay,” “good luck,” “we love you.” “Text us if you get even a little bit anxious.”

You shut the door and wave to them as you start to walk away. Yoongi rolls down the window. "Wait! First day of school photo!" You turn around and flash a peace sign as Yoongi leans half out the window and takes a picture. Another one for his wall of photos. You're laughing as you turn and walk away. Shoes squeaking on the smooth concrete. Red Prada backpack that Jimin and Tae got you as a first day of school present, thwacking stiff against your spine as you hurry. Hobi laughs. He’ll tease you about that tomorrow.

Yoongi watches you go, braids swinging behind your head. They watch you glance up anxiously at a pair of second semester students (distinguished by their chefs coats, maroon instead of black) You let them go in front of you on the sidewalk, turning back to them and waving. Hoseok lifts his hand, although he’s sure you can’t really see it through the window tint, at least you can see Yoongi giving you a double thumbs up in the back.

The interior of the car is silent until Yoongi and Hoseok watch you go inside the building. Hoseok doesn't put the car in drive. Hands folded over the steering wheel, feeling something in his chest tighten as he watches you walk away. You glance back just once before you go inside. Like you're making sure they're still there.

“We’re gonna wait here until she gets out of class? Right?”

Yoongi scoffs, stretching his arms out behind his head, but Hoseok can tell he’s anxious as a live wire. After a second thought he climbs over the center console into the front seat.

“Of course we fucking are.”

They’ve got nowhere better to be. Hobi and Yoongi stay parked right there in the loop for as long as they can, checking their phones every few minutes just in case. Until security comes over and hassles them.

Yoongi speaks to them through the window, and the security guard tells him that they can park in the administrative lot and no one will bother them there (beta privileges).

They wait until you’re in your second class of three, bouncing from playlist to cat video to text message (Yoongi has more than a dozen from your packmates, and he has no doubt that your phone is littered with the same kind of encouragement but not the overwhelming concern for your wellbeing that they're expressing here. Everything is fine. Everything is great).

For the day before they leave for lunch, greasy and cheesy. Their Head bopping at the music and French fries spilling at bad dance moves, which turns into giggling, which turns into making out and napping. (Well, really, they go a little farther than kissing, but I don't need to bore you with the raunchy details and a slightly shameful visit to a coffee shop restroom)

It’s really not all that long to wait. Not for you. When you text them a thumbs-up emoji when they check in halfway through your day, Yoongi sags against the seat. Grinning.

They’re napping when you bound over to the car, whipping open the door and startling both of them bad enough that Yoongi hits his knee against the plastic of the front seat.

Yoongi almost jumps out of his skin, “Fuck!”

“How was it!” Hoseok wipes the crusties from his eye, turning to look at you, and he can tell from your scent already that oh- this is-

"Amazing!" you throw your bag down with a thud, and there go your shoes next, kneeling on the backseat while you unbutton your coat. You undo your braid while you talk, excitement making your voice fast and jumpy.

“They taught us how to make pastry cream! And we got to start our unit on seasoning pans, and they did this demo with vegetable shortening and butter and margarine, and I totally understand why cocoa like- doesn’t emulsify easily now.  And during chemistry, they explained elements and it was so confusing cuz I haven’t been in a science class in like 10 years, but I wanna ask Namjoon about it."

You babble excitedly, and Yoongi and Hoseok share a special secret glance as you continue to prattle on, throwing your shoes off and producing a pair of slippers seemingly out of nowhere.

"There’s this other omega in the class who’s my age, and she’s got really nice hair, and we were talking and she actually goes to Jk-ies gym too! And I think we’re gonna sit together at lunch tomorrow, and then after chemistry in food safety, we talked about meat and Jin is totally gonna give us food poisoning one of these days cuz you know he’s not careful about cutting boards and-”

~-~

Late at night, you curl up under Namjoon’s arm. Reading through your textbook while he reads his medical drama novel (A guilty pleasure). You told the whole pack everything over dinner, and might have requested a settling that Jin was only too happy to give very publicly over the arm of the sofa. Leaving you loose-limbed and now a little spacy, pressed close against Namjoon for comfort and aftercare and warmth.

He doesn't push, at least not much. It's only then, under the privacy of night, that he gets the chance to truly ask you without all the others there. “Did you like it?”

He’d heard all about it at the dinner table with the others, but Namjoon wants to know for sure about the risk of you backing out. Not that you couldn't. But knowing early that you're having misgivings about school will make any fallout easier for the pack alpha to mediate.

At dinner, the rest of the pack had you too excited to guess at your emotional state. There was a shaggy homemade cake, with 'Happy First Day' written on top in off center pink frosting- made by Tae and Jinnie. Complete with crumbs in the icing and maraschino cherries on top. A cute surprise (that had needed a fair amount of whipped cream, not to taste so dry).

Everyone had let you talk it out as long as you needed to. There had been a fair amount of teasing over your new friend, but everyone had been chubby-cheeked with their smiles and happy.

“I did.” You peck under his jaw. Namjoon hums and lets you nuzzle. Tries not to let the way you trail your nose up and down his mating mark affect him and fails dramatically.

"Pup. You have a lot of pages to read."

"I know, I'm reading." You take an open-mouthed breath of his scent, lips brushing his mating mark. Namjoon's scent hasn't settled yet, but like this- you can nearly smell Seokjin on him. That hint of milk, the coffee in his scent mellowed out slightly. A suggestion of something thick and sweet and tantalizing.

Namjoon cups the back of your head and forcefully moves it to face the book. "You know to read you have to actually look at your text book" You giggle and squirm. His hand settles on the small of your back, urging you closer to him. After a moment, you settle yourself against his pectoral. Flipping the page like you didn't just unhinge his whole emotional state.

Namjoon just sighs out a heavy breath and goes back to his book.

“It was good, I think I’m excited for tomorrow.” You say the second part quieter, not looking at him pointedly, like you’re not sure. Namjoon taps your textbook with two of his fingers. He smells like aftershave and coffee with cream, like home and alpha. His big hand tightens it's hold on you.

“Are you gonna be a good student?”

“I’m not sure yet.” You look down at your book, a soft smile on your face. “But I think I’m going to try.”

Joonie hums in approval, and when you finish your chapter, Namjoon kisses your temple, And shuts off the reading light.

~-~

Notes:

The thing about this chapter is that the reason why I didn’t want to work on it is that I’ve been applying to school again as someone whose almost 30 and I’m so fucking anxious about it. All my applications are done but I don’t find out until may/April if I got into either of the schools I applied too.

this is another chapter where i hate the beginning but i like the ending.

(tw: talks of aging and death) i've only talked about this a little and this is very angsty and involves the pack's death. but by the time all the others have died into the pack's 80's, hoseok, the m/c, and tae all do move to one of those cottages on the cliffs and give the house to one of their kids. the m/c and hobi go out on little walks every day until one morning hobi goes on his own and never comes back. The m/c and tae are the last two left and die on the same day and their pups have half the m/c's ashes interred with the rest of the pack and the other half sprinkled in the ocean to be with hobi forever. i think of the m/c and tae talking on the day hobi doesn't come back and them both being very used to their pack dying at this point and the m/c being like "i always knew i'd wake up one day and he wouldn't be there, but i really wish that day was tomorrow,"

The conversation with Jin and the conversation with Yoongi where both sections to this that sort of came about because I’m editing the beginning of prey animals still you know? like especially the part where jin is telling her he's sorry for shoving her is a direct result of me writing that, if you haven't read prey animals yet you really should!

i think when yoongi's talking to her on the stairs, what he's addressing is the danger of assuming you know best for someone you love, and his own admission that maybe he hadn't been able to properly help the m/c at the beginning of the series.

i don't want to talk much more about the m/c's anorexia in this story, and it's not because i think she never relapses, but there are some things that need to be wrapped up you know? i think you can feel that at the end of yoongi's part and i hope it doesn't make anyone too sad. i know there are a few people (me included) that don't want to let go of bily.

*m/c watching tae eat* i'm gonna nut

but lowkey i wish i had watermellon so bad after writing this like why is it winter :( i just want itttttt

i fell like jimin's dialouge doesn't quite fit all the way, but one of the things i do want to emphasize is that jimin does like this job better than his last alot and it does make him happy. like he's very clearly having happy sensory time with tae right there after being overwhelmed by a very good morning. idk, if you're autistic you'll get it. good things make you overwhelmed sometimes too.

i'm actually really proud of the m/c because you know, she did start out this story wanting to die and now she has this kind of vibrancy and tinacity for life. for dreaming. she's grown up so much *sniffle sniffle*

i think it matters alot that hobi is the one she told about her idea for the bakery first, like thats so soulmate of them you know?

i needed to make sure that heated rivalry exists in the bily universe. it just needs to exist here.

I think in the bily pack like- namjoon and the m/c's relationship is built on mutual respect, hoseok and the m/c's relationship is based on mutual understanding, and her and Yoongi's relationship is based on mutually assured destruction.

It was easier being from a branch family. You could bow and prostrate, low and deep as your aunt had whipped into you, the cedar marks still faint against the back of your thighs. The scars almost faded, silvery lines, chain linked together through opposition, personal rebellion where you could. You could then sit, your posture picture perfect, eyes kept low to the ground, breathe calmly, and let the men speak. You could retreat into yourself, the memories of how the sun felt against your bare arms during training, the tan you’d get from the hours of running drills. The peace using your cursed technique brought. 

The peace and solitude of those moments had felt so pure. So freeing. But clan expectations changed everything. If only you had presented as a beta. 

The cicadas buzzed a drone against the conversation. The clan head was appraising your cousin, speaking directly to your uncle. Wanting to know every important detail about her. How consistent her heats were, what her last blood work showed, and how likely was her technique to be passed down over the Zenin family. It had always been like this here, omegas being cattle. Traded, bartered, bred. You’d be luckier than her, likely married to someone of less importance. Your value was lower than hers with a mistake from your youth. Perhaps he’d be kind, come to care for you over time. 

Maybe he’d let you train again, show you favor if you gave him an heir. You had made peace with the fact freedom, true freedom, would never come until you died or the death and destruction of your entire clan. 

Maybe one day everything would go up in flames, and a great fire would roar over the compound, scorching the earth. Erasing the clan from history. Maybe a curse so powerful would come and consume everything in its wake. Maybe you should just run away, flee from Japan altogether. There were sorcerers abroad, maybe you could join their ranks. Be free from how they operate here. Or maybe you would run away and rebuke sorcery.

Clove, rich and warm, scented the air as another man walked into the meeting room. His voice was low, steps heavy. 

Master Zenin introduced him as Naoya. His scent was distinctive, with notes of sandalwood underneath. It was spiced and smelt like comforting winter nights as the snow fell on pine trees. Holidays with your parents when your father was still alive. Both soothing and invigorating. It seemed to draw you in. Never before had a scent captivated you so strongly.

The dread you had felt crossing the bridge grew stronger, the animal instincts inside you screaming at you to run, and to run far. Run before he could catch you. 

Peeking over your lash line, you caught his eyes, dark brown and full of hatred, directed straight at you. Scrutiny crawling over your skin, climbing up through the arms of your kimono and wrapping around your heart, squeezing it tightly. He looked at you as meat, stock to breed. Your eyes quickly returned to staring at the floor.

You had heard tales of him before, of all the Zenins, but experiencing it was a different story.

“Naoya, this is Hiroko Kimura.” Naobito spoke plainly as if your cousin was another thing to buy at the store. As if he was deciding between brands of butter. 

From the corner of your vision, you watched as your cousin prostrated before him, kanzahi jingling as it hit the ground. Her father bows in suit, not nearly as low, saved by being an elder even if he was from a lesser family. Hiroko gave her greetings softly, speaking of how grateful she was to meet him. She was pumping out pheromones as she went, her scent permeating the air. The clash of clove and honey made you feel sick, the smell sticky as it crept around, spread by the breeze. 

He acknowledged her briefly, with no real interest or care as he returned her greeting.“What’s the one behind her.”

You knew he spoke of you sat five feet behind your cousin, now desperately trying to refrain from shrinking into the floods of your blue ougi-patterned kimono. To keep your pheromones from leaking out, to not scent the air with fear. 

“That is my daughter’s handmaiden, my brother’s daughter.” Your uncle introduced you to Naoya, shifting all the attention in the room to you. “She’s to continue her duties until a suitable mate is arranged for her.” 

Naobito hummed as he now turned to look over you. The weight of everyone's gaze was heavy on you. If it had been a different time and place, you had led a different life, perhaps it wouldn't have felt like the end of the world but you knew the attention of the room, of the marriage meeting, being on you was far from good. 

Naoya walked towards you, his presence looming, getting so close you could see his cloth-covered feet nearly touching your knees as you stared down at them. The soft fabric a sharp contrast to the dread pooling in your stomach. Maybe god would be merciful and cause lightning to strike the house, distract everyone, and allow you to escape. But god was not merciful, not kind, nor caring. No one was there to hear your prayers. 

“Smells good,” he crouched before you, cornering you without any way out behind you. He left you with no escape route. “Look at me.” 

His voice dripped with authority, command, and control, your instincts forcing you to comply. Instincts overriding fear, forcing your eyes to meet his own sharp brown eyes. Something in you felt like it was pulling you towards him, screaming at you to go to him. That he was the answer to your problems. That he’d take care of you. 

He looked over you, his gaze filled with an unsettling intensity making you instinctively shrink as he looked for flaws or dents, something that might detract from your value. It was strange. To be appraised not as a person but as an object by him.

The silence stretched on as he did so, no one speaking for the first few minutes. Everyone was waiting to see what he would say — if he would say anything. But as his silent appraisal continued, the conversation returned between the elder alphas in the room as they discussed the latest in sorcery. No one cared that his stare was lecherous, undressing you as you sat there poised and politely. The front of your ankles burned from the strain.

Naoya’s hand went to your hair, fingers tangling in the strands you had to patiently worked into an appropriate style for such an important meeting, before tugging your head to the side with enough force to make you wince. A whine escaped you, feeble, the omega within you desperate to appease him. To desperately try and salvage something to diffuse the undercurrent of rage and entitlement radiating off of him

It was hard to keep your eyes trained on him as he instructed, it felt nearly impossible. The trained reaction of avoiding confrontation, battling with the fear of displeasing him, and looking away only making the situation worse. Your heart pounded in your chest, each beat feeling closer and closer to bursting through your chest as he leaned forward, weight in the balls of his feet, face uncomfortably close to your neck. To your scent glands.

Warm, wet muscle brushed against them, tasting the skin. A soft moan fell from your lips as you could feel every individual taste bud of his tongue as he lapped at your neck. 

Embarrassment, mortification-shame dancing along your spine as the room stilled again. Everyone had heard you but no one chose to comment. It was clear Naoya was staking his claim on you. Why would anyone care what he was doing to an omega, especially one with no status? It was his birthright as an alpha. The spices in his scent made your eyes sting with how close he was now, like little pinpricks on your skin.

Each passing swipe of his tongue swirled in your belly, warm and shimmering. Molten lava began to creep freely through your veins, replacing all the blood as you desperately held on to composure. Your nerve endings all thrummed in time with your heart, sending pulsing jolts of electricity everywhere at once. Your throat scratched, your mouth dry, like all the moisture in your body was moving to gather and pool at your core. 

You had seen alphas doing similar things. Scenting unclaimed omegas, testing just how much they could get away with. It was taboo if you were a normal functioning member of society, but when it came to the great families, it was a free game. Never did you think you would have to endure such treatment in front of your family.

“You taste good omega,” Naoya’s teeth scraped against your skin, teasing at a bite, a gasp leaving you. The sensation was both terrifying and strangely intimate. “Like cherries and cinnamon.” 

He moved your head again, this time forcing eye contact with you. The hand not wrapped in your hair crossed over your features. He started at the top of your head, tracing the perimeter of your hairline with his thumbs, pressing in slightly at your temple before moving on to your eyes, your eyelids fluttering shut as he brushed over them. Then he took to your cheekbones, running his thumb parallel to the curve of them before sliding down to your jaw behind your ear. He followed your jawline all the way to your chin before his thumb brushed your lips, smudging the lipstick that had been put on you to ensure your attire was appropriate for today's meeting. You could feel his eyes never leaving you, dark and filled with desire and dominance.

“Open.”

Your eyes snapped open, meeting his instantly. He tapped against your bottom lip, a command you couldn’t ignore. 

“You’re not very smart, are you?” His tone was sardonic, dripping with condescension. It didn’t matter if you were or weren’t. It only mattered what he thought and that you were an omega. 

“Open.” This time, you knew to part your lips.

Naoya’s thumb traced over the ridges of your teeth, pressing in against your canines hard enough that the sharp edges cut the flesh of his finger. Copper explodes on your tongue, the metallic tang filling your senses. He didn’t stop. Instead, he pressed his thumb flush with your tongue, pressing down to force your jaw open wider. 

Behind him the conversation continued to drone on, a forgone hum overpowered by the visceral reality of Naoya’s touch. He poked and prodded you with near clinical detachment. If he wasn’t leaking pheromones betraying just how excited he was to get his hands out, maybe you could believe it. A dispassionate facade only worked well if the scent of his arousal didn’t mix with the metallic taste in your mouth that left you reeling. 

“Kimura-san she’s your niece right?” Naoya’s voice cut through the dull hum of the background, clear and sharp. 

Your uncle lazily glanced over at the spectacle Nayo had made of you. His eyes were half-lidded and uninterested as you sat as still as possible. Your hair was half taken out of its style, no longer held up by the pins and clips that secured it. Now the only thing keeping the rest in place was Naoya’s grip. The lipstick you had so carefully applied was now smeared, and your kimono pushed down from his lapping at your neck like a wild dog. 

Your uncle didn’t even speak, just gave an affirmative nod before taking a drag from his pipe. The scent of tobacco makes your eyes sting. His nonchalance was chilling. You were only a bargaining piece for him.

“So nothing changes between us if I pick her, right?” 

You saw your cousin's shoulders relax, relief snapping the string of tension in her as she realized she would be free of this duty. No longer forced to marry and mate a man with the reputation of a monster. The chains of fate, instead, were passed to you. The metal pulled taught, the chains left to rust from the blood that you’d spill from your heart as they wrapped tight around it, squeezing.

“That’s correct,” your uncle’s tone was impassive as always. “If you want both, however, we’d need to renegotiate.” 

“I just want the one.”

The lock clicked into place, the chains now permanently attached to you. The view out the open shoji screen was so peaceful as you looked over at it. The sky stretched on, endlessly blue with faint spatterings of clouds. Serene and beautiful. A single sparrow flitted by, streaking across the sky. Its wings spread wide as it glided through the air. The birdsong chirped joyfully. 

An arrow shot through the sky striking the bird.

───※ ·❆· ※───

The wedding had been a large affair, filled with laughter and celebration, but none you felt privy too. Soft strains of a koto fill the hall. But no one focused on the young omega sitting at the head of the table, kimono splayed out, surrounding you in a vermillion sea. The grandiosity of the fabric and its patterns made you feel ridiculous, like a dress-up doll. Naoya had picked it out. The obi felt too tight against your stomach, digging into your ribs. They had tied it tighter than normal to keep you from eating too much. There was no reason for them to do so, you already felt sick to your stomach. It churned over and over like the waves crashing against the coast, the tide coming in and out. 

Naoya was seated on your right, his legs spread wide, thigh hitting against yours. The warmth of his body seeped through the wall of fabric between the two of you. Even like this, it was like you could feel his skin against yours.

He had kept you close since the ceremony ended, scenting you every few minutes. Possession in his every move. Sometimes a low growl rumbled from his chest, warning anyone who might think to approach you.

He had already placed a few small nips near your scent gland as well, edging you out of when he’d actually claim you. Each bite sent a shiver down your spine, the sensation a mix of pain and pleasure that pooled in your core. Your body reacted to him in a way that had never happened before. 

“Congratulations Naoya.” It was your uncle, bowing deeply to the two of you. Behind him, your mother also bowed. Her shoulders sagged under the weight of unseen burdens. You knew she regretted bringing you back to the family after your father’s death. That she felt she had sealed you to this fate. 

You could see the dark bags under her eyes when she rose. They had been a permanent feature since your father’s passing and you're presenting as an omega, but now they were so much worse. Your neck felt tight, breathing strained, as you looked at her hands and remembered the feeling of them wrapping around your throat. She smelt like baby lotion still.

“Thank you Kimura-san.” You could taste the satisfaction on his tongue. 

“Naturally. I’m sure your union will bring about the finest sorcerers of a generation,” despite the congratulations of his words, your uncle's tone was flat as always. Uninterested and just going through the motions. 

Naoya brushed his fingers over the shell of your ear, down the back of it, pinching the lop between his fingers. “I’m sure we will.”

The two exchanged a few more words before your uncle and mother returned to their table. Her eyes met yours for a few fleeting moments, filled with sorrow and helplessness. As she walked away, her back slumped, as if the weight of her guilt and regret was physically pushing down on her. You watched her go, the distance between you feeling insurmountable as Naoya’s touch lingered on your skin. 

Several rounds of people came around, giving their congratulations until it was time for another course of food. The noise of their chatter and the general crowd sounded so distant like you were hearing it through a glass cupped over your ears. Your own body felt lost to you, afloat and detached. As if you were watching all of this happen from afar, a mere spectator in your own life. The weight of the ceremony pressed down, deep into your bones, making every movement feel laborious. Faces blurred together—smiles, sneers, looks of pity and envy— all merging into an indistinguishable mass.  The red of your kimono grew duller as the minutes passed, a vinaigrette appearing on the edges of your vision as the walls seemed to close in on you. The rich, fatty scent of the meat was overpowering. Overwhelming. 

You felt Naoya speaking against your skin but could barely register it. It was only when his hand touched the back of your neck that everything snapped into focus again. The tensing was involuntary, your body’s memory reacting for you. 

This was the closest to being alone with Naoya you had gotten despite the hall being full. There was no one next to the two of you. No one’s attention on you.

“You’re pretty docile,” Naoya remarks, his voice low. 

You look up at him through your lashes, swallowing hard. Part of you wanted to recoil away from his touch. To untie your obi and run out through the shoji. To break through them and flee.

“I know my place.” you pause, determining if it was worth it to test the waters. “What would you do if I was to act out, Alpha.” 

“Strike you.” He spoke as if it was natural, obvious as if discussing the weather. His hand tightened ever so slightly on the back of your neck, a reminder of his control. There was finality in his words that you had come to know and expect from the Alphas of the great families.

There was nothing more fitting than a disobedient omega beneath him, a deep-seated belief that it was what they deserved. In their world, an alpha’s omega was theirs to treat and punish as they saw fit. The chain of tradition held fast, a rigid framework trapping you. This was your life. There was no escaping it unless you died. Any rebellion, no matter how small, would have consequences.

“Of course, Alpha. You know best.” It sounded like your voice was coming from another person, made soft and pliant. Your pitch raised slightly. All efforts you could make to seem less threatening and more agreeable. Like you were glad to be under his thumb. 

He liked that, a smirk quirking up the side of his mouth. His hand released your neck to trace down your forehead, mockingly soft and gentle. “Well, aren’t you a charmer? If you’re well-behaved, maybe I’ll reward you, Omega, just be the good little bitch you are.” 

“May I be so bold?”  

He raised an eyebrow. “You may.”

“I would ask of you to allow me to continue to practice my curse technique so that I may be of the utmost service to you.” 

The request hung in the air, your heart pounding as you waited for his response. His expression was unreadable. 

“I’ll consider it,” he replied, tone dismissive. 

“Thank you. Alpha,” you dropped low to present before him, back curved, the words bitter on your tongue. “I will follow your guidance happily.”

His smirk widened into a full-blown, maniacal grin. The shine in his eyes reminded you of teasing death. Cold and unwavering, a chill down your spine. A laugh broke out of him, more of a bark if anything. Wicked in every sense.

“Good god,” he patted the top of your head and pulled you up from your position by your chin. “Keep this up and I might let you give me a son.” 

He leaned in to kiss you. His lips were soft against your own. Surprising as you expected them to be rough. It was possessive, a mark of ownership, as the hand on your jaw squeezed down, forcing you to open your mouth. 

───※ ·❆· ※───

Being married to him was one thing, but being marked by him was another. Once the mark was made, it’d take years of rejecting it before it could go away. It made divorce, as shameful as it was, look easy. It wasn’t something that you’d ever be granted; your uncle would kill you before permitting it, but it was in the realm of possibility. With the feast ended and the two of you alone in his wing of the house, the full weight of everything came crashing down on you.

You shifted, an uneasy pit in your stomach, the temperature of the room made you feel clammy, the dark green futon pillowing under your weight, as Naoya sat behind you. One hand was up in your hair, undoing the pins one by one. Each dropped into a bowl on the ground, tiny silver pieces raining down, ringing against the ceramic. It seemed he had a thing for hair, taking the strands and wrapping them around his fingers, giving each a slight tug that you could feel at the base of your skull.

His other hand moved to untie your obi, the relief instant as it dropped away. It felt like you could finally breathe fully again, greedy lungs taking in large gulps of air. Your ribs would likely have some bruising from just how tight they’d done the obi for the wedding. His hands crept up the length of your left arm, pressure applied as if feeling your outline, before sliding his hand under the fold of your kimono and grabbing your breast.

"Just relax," he whispered, his breath hot, fanning over your skin.  His nose brushed your ear as he leaned in closer, lips nearing your neck. You couldn’t help but to tense.

His teeth sank into your scent gland, and the pain that followed was indescribable. Naoya’s canines were large and sharp. You had seen them every time he spoke or smiled. Pearlescent white panes gleamed in the light, but nothing could have prepared you for the sensation of them piercing your skin. It was like a branding iron searing into your skin, burning the flesh and charring your skin. Your limbs turn to stone, trembling uncontrollably as every muscle in your body tensed, released, and tensed again in waves. 

Your skin felt clammy, a cold sweat breaking out across your entire body and your mind struggled to process the sensation. There was slickness pooling between your legs. The mark was spurring on a heat, your body acting in its most primal way. 

“Stop it hurts” You cry out, voice wobbling from the fear and pain, body contorting violently, instinctively, trying to escape from him. 

Naoya smacks your breast with a force that leaves a handprint instantly against your skin. He bites down harder, teeth sinking even deeper in, the wound tearing open even wider as you writhe around. Finally, a white-hot flash of pleasure begins to course through you, biology taking its hold. It goes from nerve-splitting pain to a warm wash of arousal in a second. Blinking feels like minutes. 

He pulled back from your neck, eyes feral, brow furrowed in a savage expression. Blood stains his mouth. It pools around his lips and paints them a brilliant scarlet, before trailing down in a rivulet that snakes past his chin, down his neck, and into the folds of his yukata. 

“Never tell me what to do again. Do you understand?” His voice is a growl, low and menacing, as his grip tightens on your breast, twisting it to emphasize his point. As if the authority in his voice wasn’t enough. 

You whine, unable to bear his disapproval, tears pricking the corners of your eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Gasping, you nuzzle against his neck. He smells so good. Spice cloves, sandalwood, and cedar on a winter’s night. “I’ll be good.” 

He lowers his head again, lips curled in a cruel grin, fangs bared. His voice drips with a mix of menace and satisfaction as he whispers, “Now, relax.”

This time, you force yourself to comply, doing your best to let your body go limp. It works better than before. Despite the fear you feel towards him, arousal pumps through your veins. A flood of endorphins courses through them, making every touch cause your skin to tingle and send waves of pleasure straight to your core. It makes your head spin and your limbs heavy. Your skin prickles with a heat that feels almost unbearable, making you itch with a desperate need for release.

It's too hard to keep your eyelids open; they are far too heavy, but you don’t trust Naoya enough to close them. What would he do if you closed them? Your blood feels thick like syrup, molasses sluggishly pulsing. A moan escapes your lips, low, breathy, and drawn out, that pitches into a whine as Naoya releases his grip on your neck and licks the wound closed with rough strokes of his tongue. He swirls the tip around each puncture wound, dipping the tip into it before doing so to the next.

“See? If you had just listened, it would have been this good from the start,” he murmurs, his voice a soft, mocking caress. He pinches your nipple sharply. Your head lolls against his chest, too heavy to hold up.

“Oh ho ho,” he laughs, the sound vibrating through your body. “Someone’s going into heat.”

It feels like everything is moving in slow motion as Naoya manhandles you. He tilts your head to the other side. The top half of your kimono is completely off, leaving your skin exposed to the cold, biting air of his room. Sweat beads on every inch of your skin. You struggle to keep your eyes from closing, fighting the overwhelming sensations that flood your body. You feel Naoya’s teeth graze against your other scent gland, the sharp sting of his teeth scraping against the skin but he doesn’t bite down. 

Instead, he laps and laps and laps at your neck, his tongue moving in languid, deliberate strokes as if devouring an ice cream cone on a hot summer day. Whimpers flow out of you like water from a stream, and your pussy flutters around nothing. 

Naoya squeezes you roughly, his hands greedily exploring your body. His touch is rough and demanding, large hands groping at your curves like he’s a man starved for flesh as he fondles your breasts, squeezing your nipples, making them stand erect from the stimulation. He likes you gasps and whines, the fat of your breasts squishing under the expanse of his hands as he toys with them. Likes the heft of them, meaty and heavy, makes him growl low in the back of his throat in approval. He can picture them swelling with milk that would nourish his heir and make them strong. He’d sample the source, suckle straight from your teat, and make sure his heifer was quality.

“My little breeding bitch,” he murmurs, his voice dark. 

Naoya’s hand slips down your front, his fingers finding the slick pool of arousal in your pussy. He pumps a finger in, meeting no resistance, then slides in a second easily, your pussy oh so inviting.

“Fuck, you’re ready for me already.” He chuckles, the wet squelch of your pussy sounding out with each movement of his fingers. “Such a desperate little whore. I bet you can’t wait to feel my knot, hmm? Say it.”

Your tongue feels too heavy in your mouth, the effort to speak almost insurmountable, speech slurred and your words mumbled. His impatience manifests in a swift, sharp strike to your clit, making you cry out in a mix of pain and anticipation. Through the haze, you manage to speak. 

“I can’t wait to feel your knot,” you manage to gasp out, biting the tip of your tongue in the process. It swells fat. 

It's been so long since you’d had a heat. Suppressants had been shoved onto you after your first one almost nine years ago. You don’t remember this first stage of preheat being so delirious, so inconsistent, so in control and out of it as you lean back against him and let him fondle your breasts.

His fingers feel divine as they pump in and out of you, accompanied by a scissoring motion that sends shivers down your spine. The feeling is almost enough to distract you from the rough way he's pinching and rolling your nipples between his fingers. He pulls at them like he doesn’t care if it hurts, like he wants it to hurt, and it does. 

Your hips buck involuntarily against his hand, your body moving on it as you chase your high. Whimpers fall from your lips, needy desperate cries that only egg on his treatment towards you. He likes you like this, all whiny and under his palm.

With a rough tug, he pushes the rest of your kimono off, leaving you bare and vulnerable against his fully clothed body. His hands are slick with your arousal, glistening fingers curled into you and smearing moisture down his forearm as you shamelessly use his hand for your pleasure. Your knees ache from the position, thighs straining with each thrust of your hips, muscles trembling on the edge of release. It's so close that the edge of your vision goes black as you tilt ever so slightly forward, and then it happens.

Your orgasm rips through you, your whole body locks, walls clenching around his fingers as you come crashing down. A flood of slick spills out, drenching the futon beneath you. The sage green is now a deep forest green, damp and warm to the touch from how much came out of you. It’s hard to breathe, chest heaving as you try to suck in the air. 

"Messy bitch. Look at what you've done," Naoya tsks at you, even as you jerk in his arms you can tell he’s less angry and more amused by it. With a push, he sends you forward, your front pressing into the wet spot, his fingers sliding out of your pussy. "Clean it up," he orders, his voice dripping with command.

It takes a long moment to catch your breath, to remember how to be a person and move, but you grab the edge of your kimono to pat dry the area when Naoya smacks the globe of your ass. 

“Not with that.”

You stare at the spot for a second. If not the kimono there was only one other thing that could be it.  

You begin to kitten lick at your slick. It's egregiously sweet, like a potent concentrate of your scent amplified to an overwhelming degree. The flavor makes your stomach turn, threatening to gag you with its intensity. You’ve no idea how any alpha enjoys the flavor this much. 

Naoya's gaze never strays from you as he begins to undress, his movements lazy and relaxed. He’s enjoying the show, reducing you to this. Rising to his feet, he pads across the room to hang his yukata on a nearby stand. He only breaks eye contact with you for the brief moment it takes to drape his garment properly. Your wedding kimono, three times the price of his own, is lying in a pile near you on the floor.

Even with his back turned, you don't stop licking up the puddle of slick. Your tongue scrapes softly against the futon, gathering the lingering wetness to swallow down with a quiet gag. The only sound in the room is your tongue against the fabric and your soft breathing.

A soft, small smile on his face when he looks at you next. His inner Alpha is pleased you’ve kept at your assigned task without being told to. His cocks hard, uncut and dribbling pre-cum, knot starting to swell at the base, eyes going over the curve of your back, the globes of your ass in the air, and the continuous trail of simmering slick dripping out of your needy hole.

He closed the distance, cock bobbing with each step. Dropping to one knee, one hand comes to rest on the meat of your ass, the other pressing down between your shoulder blades to push your chest further into the futon. The fabric rubs uncomfortably against your hardened nipples. 

For a moment he just sits there, massaging the meat of your ass before his fingers sink in, hard enough to leave bruises in the morning. Then, without warning, he reels back, from the corner of your eye you see his shoulder muscles tense before his arm is launched forward, palm connecting with your ass in a volatile crack that rings out in the room. Pain explodes a hot white.  

“Count them,” he orders with a smile as you begin to cry.

"One," you gasp out, the word a struggle to form.

His palm connects again, the blow landing a little higher on your cheek.

"Two."

The next strike comes before you can fully process the previous, his hand falling in a swift, merciless rhythm.

"Three."

"Four." The word is a sob this time, the pain starting to overwhelm.

The fifth smack seems to sting more than the first three, the imprint of his wedding ring starting to dig in. You can feel the metal biting into your skin, a cool counterpoint to the burning heat.

"F-five."

He stops for a moment to collect slick on his fingers. “Fucking filthy slut. I knew you’d be one.” Naoya smears the slick over the burning heat of your ass, his tone approving despite what he says. 

"Six," you manage, the word a broken gasp.

The next smack seems to shatter the air, his hand coming down with renewed force.

"Seven."

Tears prick at the corners of your eyes, vision starting to blur. But you keep counting.

"Eight."

"Nine."

The final blow lands, his palm cracking down.

"Ten."

You collapse forward, your body spent and trembling. The humiliation of being treated like this, reduced to a mere object, burns through you. What makes it worse is how desperately your body craves him, even as your heartbeat hammers in your ass and tears stream down your face, snot bubbling at your nose. The omega in you wants nothing more than to please him, to make him happy. You need to make him happy, so he'll know you, claim you as his own.

Biology was a curse. 

"Do you know what you did wrong?" His voice is low, rough with dominance. Oh, how it hurt to hear him so mad at you. Why was he so mad at you? 

Your mind races, trying to answer the question. "No?"

"You came without permission. Are you going to do that again?" There's a warning in his tone, a promise of punishment if you disobey again.

"No." The word escapes your lips, a whispered promise of submission. You whine for him, lower into yourself, pheromones reeking of just how sorry you are. 

Naoya's hand tightens in your hair, pulling your chest off the futon, forcing your back into an arch. Your muscles tremble with the strain, too exhausted from the heat to sustain such a position for long. A whine builds in your throat, begging him to finally take you, to knot you, breed you.

"Then prove it."

He smacks your ass again, one last time for good measure, before dropping your hair. You catch yourself on your elbows, presenting yourself for him. Naoya's hands grab your hips, one positioning you to align with the head of his cock, the other stroking his length. After he's gotten you through this first wave of heat, he'll have you choke on his cock, make you take it to the back of your throat and swallow, see what he's working with and what he'll have to train, but for now, he'll start with your pussy.

The tip of his cock feels too big against your hole, even after he's fingered you. Tensing comes naturally as it catches on your entrance, anticipation, need, and fear running through you. The flared tip feels like it's going to split you in two as he begins to press into you. He flares out in the middle, his shaft thicker there, making you moan as he begins to bottom out in you. His size is almost overwhelming, the stretch bordering on pain. If you weren’t in a pre-heat it would most definitely be painful. 

He's kind enough to insert himself into you slowly, not wanting to damage your insides and ruin his chances of getting you pregnant. You can feel every inch of him as he slowly rolls his hips for the first time, experimenting with how much he can fit inside you. Moans come like spring rain, a sure thing, as he inserts himself. He pushes into you slowly, relishing in the way you clench and spasm around him. He’s so gentle compared to earlier, it makes your head spin. Your cries echo in the room, music to his ears. Once he's bottomed out, he stills.

A mix of a choked moan and a sob tumbles out of your lips. You can't tell if it hurts or feels so good you've surpassed feeling entirely. Your pussy flutters around him, suctioning him tighter as he pulls out. 

"Fuck, you're tight," Naoya grunts, his hands grabbing your hips for leverage. "Beg for my cum, bitch."

His voice is rough like gravel, little pebbles tumbling down your spine. 

"Please, fill me," you moan, tears spilling from your eyes. "Please, Naoya-sama, cum inside me. Breed me so that I might give you an heir." The words spill out of you, a desperate plea for him to claim you, to make you his. You can't even find it in yourself to beg him anymore, the words just spilling out. It all feels too much, overwhelmingly full, and yet still not enough. Your body screams for release, desperately for his knot, for the satisfaction that only an alpha can give you. 

Naoya slams his hips into you, harder and faster than he has before, his balls slapping against your clit. His pace picks up, your arms giving out as he continues to set a brutal pace, thrusting deep and powerful. Each thrust feels like he's close to hitting against your cervix, but he never does. It feels like your whole body is shaking, like you've been set to vibrate. You don't know when one moan starts and another stops. Vision blurring at the edges, the only thing that matters is the narrow point in the world where your skin meets his. All that exists is the feeling of him inside you, his hand on your hips, the sweat on your skin, the need. 

The way that his thick cock rubs against your walls sends jolts of electricity down your spine. Every time he pulls back, you clench down, trying to keep him in you. He's not even fully seated inside of you and your whole body trembles, his cock filling you up. It’s impossibly full, you feel like you’re going to split apart at the seams as your pussy works to milk him. 

He smacks your ass again, the opposite cheek. "You're mine, remember that. Nothing but my little bitch to breed."

He fucks you harder, lifting one of your hips to angle himself deeper. This allows him to rub directly against your g-spot, electric shocks firing on every nerve in your body. Every time he pulls back, you clench down, trying to keep him in you. He's not even fully seated inside of you and your whole body trembles. The sensation is overwhelming, each motion pushing you further and further into the depths of your heat. 

The room is filled with the sound of wet squelching and flesh meeting flesh, your body now rocking back to meet his every thrust, your breasts jiggling with each thrust. Naoya's thrusts become more frantic, his movements more sporadic. He's close, his knot swelling. The thought of being knotted by him makes you gush, juices flowing over his cock and staining the sheets below. You feel your orgasm building, a tsunami approaching the shoreline. Your entire body is a livewire, humming with tension. 

It's then you notice the mirror that faces you. It's huge, covering half the wall, showing everything. Naoya lifts your chest, then hooks his fingers into the sides of your mouth and pulls them taut. It feels like your lips are going to crack with the strain, stings like sand sanitizer in a paper cut. You let out a low moan, drool dripping down the front of your body and pooling on the mattress beneath you. Your cheeks are flushed, eyes glassy, there’s an unmistakable handprint on your breast from earlier, and if you could see your ass, it’d be the same. There’s a glow to your skin from your heat, makes you shiny and supple. Makes you breedable. 

"You're so much prettier when you smile, omega." His voice is low, rough with arousal.

He lets go of your mouth and just props you up, one hand around your chest to do so. It's you who holds the smile instead, a wild look in your eyes. 

Naoya keeps thrusting, and it's like the world around you fades away as his cock stretches your walls, and the edge of his knot catches on your hole with each deep thrust. It's big. Bigger than the toys you've had, bigger than the ones you've heard of, you don't know if it's going to fit. A flicker of fear passes over you, but it's quickly overwhelmed by desire and discarded. 

His other hand reaches around and rubs your sensitive clit, flicking it back and forth. You're so close to cumming, heartbeat hammering down in your pussy. Each pass of his fingers sends sparks through your system, pushing you closer and closer to the edge. 

"Cum for me, slut. Milk my cock. Scream for your Alpha." His words are a command, a demand for your pleasure.

You cry out, your body giving in to the pleasure, wave after wave of orgasm crashing down on you, your entire body going limp. Naoya pays it no mind, only holds your hips up as you fall limp, using you like a fleshlight. It feels like he's going to break you as he fucks you through your orgasm and finally pushes his knot inside you, your pussy convulsing around it. 

A wickedly delicious kind of pain, the type to leave you breathless. 

He keeps thrusting, his range limited, his knot locking the two of you together before he finally comes, his breath hitching. Hot ropes of cum paint your insides. It feels like it's too much cum to fit inside you, like it's going to spill out, but his knot keeps it firmly in place. His grip on your hips feels like it's going to break your bones, his nails drawing blood. He grunts for a few minutes, rocking his hips, milking his cock out with your pussy, before finally stopping.

Naoya bends over you and licks the shell of your ear before nibbling it. "You're never going to get away from me. You're mine to use, mine to abuse. You'll never get to leave me." He rocks his hips again, cock twitching inside you. "You won't be alone for long though, pretty girl." 

©️ uzuzrimisery

There's nothing. Nothing in your room- yours and Simons- when you return back to it. Rephrasing it a little better, a majority of his stuff is gone when you finally drag yourself back to the room after spending hours crying. Some paperwork between rounds of crying, but mostly crying.

There's nothing there. His scent is slightly fading, but when you look around you can see the drawers of the dresser left open, clothes half dragged out. The closet is left alone, your nest sitting there all pretty and proper. Maybe a few things shifted from pulling something out.

There is nothing of Simon's left in your room and you are panicking. The room is partially destroyed and you are adding to the damage, throwing other drawers open and tossing blankets around, trying to find something to reason through what's happening.

You feel nothing. Sure, you can feel your heart pounding in your chest and your head, you can feel the cold prickle of fear riding through your body but you truly can't feel anything. Your vision is tunneled and suddenly you can't feel anything.

Dropping to your knees, you can feel the hot tears pouring down your face but you can't feel anything. Nothing feels real. You can feel the pup, kicking angrily, but can you really feel it? Sure, the sensation is there but you aren't able to fully process it.

Your vision is blurry and there is really nothing that you can see but your blinking aggressively. The tears are still pouring but they aren't clouding your vision as much when you're blinking, and now you're seeing the little speck of white buried under a few blankets in the nest you'd destroyed.

Struggling up, you stumble to the nest and drop yourself in. There's a paper there, crinkling under your knees before you're pulling it out and looking at it. It's folded and wrinkly, slightly torn in one place but your opening it up and looking at it.

Mission called. I would have come seen you, but it's an emergency. I shouldn't be going, the pups due far too soon but they won't be able to do much without me.

I love you. I truly, truly do. I'm sorry I can't be all that you need, but I will try and be back as quick as possible.

Si

The paper is suddenly in your face, the scent of him is just barely washing over you. It's faint, but it's there and it's all you need. It's there until it isn't, and suddenly you can't smell anything on the paper anymore.

There's nothing left of Simon, and you are sitting in your nest, weeks, maybe a month from giving birth to his pup. Alone. Alpha has left you alone and now you're so, so scared.

But you feel nothing. There is nothing there and you are suddenly back to yourself, staring at the wall. Thoughts aren't processing, it's all empty but there's so much in your head that you are completely unsure of everything.

A knock is what brings you out of your stupor. Your head turns slowly to look at the door, blinking carefully as you stand. One foot in front of the other and now you're opening the door.

John's Omega.

They smile, eyes crinkling just a little from it, but there's worry in their eyes. "Hi, honey," they whisper, pressing you back into your room and closing the door behind them. "John told me they left suddenly, wanted me to check in on you," and they wipe your tears from your cheeks.

You give a weak smile, trying to push out a short thanks but they're pushing you into your nest and you can feel the exhaustion settling over your body. Your eyes are blinking shut, and suddenly there's nothing.

They hadn't seen anything like this in a while. Sure, John had mentioned how destroyed your relationship with Simon was, but seeing how destroyed the room was? It scared them. Horribly.

Maybe Simon was hurting you, but they couldn't really tell. There weren't marks, but you were so destroyed over something like this that they were so, so worried. Had it been emotional abuse this whole time? Simon hadn't ever seen like the type of person to do that, but maybe they'd read him wrong.

Maybe it was all a ruse. Just make him look good until you gave birth and he could kick you to the curb, pull the 'baby trapping' bullshit a lot of other Alphas often did. They hoped, for the sake of John and their relationship, that Simon didn't do that. That he wasn't that type of person because John would be getting hurt if he knew.

They decide to clean up the room. There's clothes hanging out of the dresser drawers, the blankets are tossed from the bed and the blinds are shut tightly. The first thing they do is go to open the blinds, but glance down at you sleeping.

It could wait, so they decided to go on and start cleaning up the clothes laying about. Folding them, figuring out if something was actually dirty and tossing them into the hamper, putting them away.

They drag the hamper to the laundry room, tossing everything in and going back to your room. It looks a little better, it's a little dusty but there's enough stuff there that it would make sense. They could tell what was mostly yours, and what was Simons contributions. Your stuff might not have been overly large or colorful, but just from interacting with you a few times they could sense your style.

It was alright, John wasn't too dissimilar to Simon in that way. He didn't like having things to clutter everything up, he was more of a person that found use in the items he kept around. He didn't want something pretty to look at, or something that just brought happiness.

Christ, you needed all the happiness that these little items could offer. The room was dark and dingy, rather small considering you were a mated pair. Maybe they should mention it to John when he returns.

Get you a better room, especially once the pup is around. But maybe there was an apartment, a home where yourself and Simon lived that held the things you needed. Gave you the room that you would need with a pup.

Everything was cleaned up, all they were waiting for was the laundry to finish. Sitting on the freshly made bed felt wrong, but it was that or the desk.

The desk. It had a paper on it, and they felt bad but they grabbed the paper anyways. And they blinked. And blinked. And blinked once more as they read through it, seeing the bland words and shit handwriting.

Simon was a shell, they decided. A shell of a person, nothing inside of him. Truly, a person who mated an Omega needed to care for them, did they not? That was what they grew up knowing, grew up understanding. There is little else that was needed for a mated pair, other than the love of the other half.

That's what mated pairs were. Two halves of a whole, trying to become closer and, hopefully, become one. Maybe their mating to John was lucky, maybe it was something that very few were lucky to get.

And over the next few days, they had time to investigate a little further. Speaking with you was interesting, something they hadn't had much time to be able to do during the few times they were with you. You're personality was slowly coming through, your humor finally being unveiled.

You cracked little jokes here and there, humoring both them and yourself while sitting in your little office filling out more paperwork. You had to hand off the duties, you'd explained.

"Once I'm out, they don't really have a 'doctor' on duty left," they nodded with your words. "They need me to sign off somebody to have the same abilities I have, someone I trust to be able to run this place in my absence," it was interesting. A job where there wasn't just somebody available to fill your spot in place of emergencies.

How had they been able to fill your role when you'd gotten hurt? John had come home short with everyone and they'd been able to get it out that Simon was sulking about you getting hurt.

Boo-fucking-hoo, they thought. Simon was an adult, and so were you. You could make your own decisions. He seemed more and more like a controlling freak with everything they'd learned.

"I love him so much," you whispered during dinner once.

"Huh?"

"This whole... thing," you started, pushing food around on your plate, "was entirely an accident. I don't know how much Price has told you, but it was a huge accident," they nodded with you. "I was assigned with them on a mission, trying to find an extremely dangerous aphrodisiac. It sounds like one of those weird fanfictions, but I mean it genuinely," they snorted at your comment.

"We all have to enjoy the occasional fanfiction," you laughed, head tossed back and mouth open. A little grunt stopped your laugh, hand clasping over your belly.

Clearing your throat, brows still furrowed, you continued. "It was Soap and Gaz, I think, who were clearing the way. Simon was supposed to guide me, body guard me so I'd be able to get a safe enough sample of it, but shit went downhill. We were getting shot at, Simon took a tranq to the shoulder so I just... jumped into action," your eyes were glazed over with tears, looking off into nowhere.

"Jumped into the hall and got a tranq myself, woke up somewhere hot. Everything was so hot and my mouth tasted sweet. They dosed me and Simon, we'd have died if we didn't fuck. He marked me, and now we're here," you whispered. They looked at you, eyes wide and shock filling their features.

Christ, you really were in a shitty situation. Everything seemed to be getting worse and worse the more they learned. "Are you serious?" You nodded, hand grasping at your stomach once more.

They looked down to your belly. "I'm fine, pups just been moving a lot more," you looked away, eyes once more cast over with a glaze and seemingly just gone from the world.

It was quiet, for some time, and in that moment they wanted nothing more than to beat Johns ass for not telling them the whole truth. Lies are shitty, but half-truths are even worse. For some time after that, when they laid in bed, all they could do was think.

Were you happy? Were you just stuck in a shitty situation that became shittier each day? Maybe it was nothing, but with the way your eyes glazed over when you spoke on stories about Simon, they doubted there was much wrong.

Just two people, stuck in a situation that was made worse and worse but the two of you were trying to make everything better.

It's late, very fucking late and you are exhausted. Laying in bed had been incredibly uncomfortable, but laying in your nest was worse. Your back was spasming, you assumed from bending over to pick something up a few hours ago, but you could feel the pup settling down for what felt like the first time in ages.

The pain from the pup moving was now coated in the general pain of your stomach. You thought everything was just fine, even if you were even more tired and you just wanted to curl up in your nest.

You had a few more things to do before going on maternity leave, and god be damned you were going to get it done. Even if you didn't sleep all night, even if you were in your office at 6 in the morning.

And you were. Signing a few more documents, just confirming everything. The pain wasn't all consuming, but it was getting there. The pup wasn't moving at all, and maybe that should be worrying you. Maybe it was nothing, but the knock on your door brought your attention from staring at the same document you signed some twenty odd minutes ago.

Johns Omega was back, and they were smiling widely at you. Their phone was held to their chest, covering the microphone and shuffling over to you.

Your name came over the speaker, Simon.

"Hi, Si," you whispered, staring down at the phone screen. It was quiet, for some time.

"I don't know when I'll be back," he whispered, gunshots echoing around him. "We've got some leads, but a lot of the people we've got aren't working with us. We're in Mexico, but that's all I can tell you," he whispered.

"Mexico?" He hummed. "Is it someone you're looking for?"

"You know I can't really tell you much more," and you winced, a little groan falling from your lips. "What was that?"

"Nothing, 'm alright," you whispered, eyes falling shut as you rubbed at your belly. "I just miss you," you added.

He hums, a few more gunshots echoing around him. "I miss you too, lovie, but I should be returning within two or three weeks," you made no noise.

"That's about the time I'm due," you whispered and he sighed audibly. The gunshots sounded louder, much closer, and you could feel the hairs on the back of your neck rising. You could feel the innate fear that came with these situations.

"I've got to go. I love you, Omega, through and through," and you returned it, feeling tears pricking at your waterline. Handing the phone back, you winced once more. A little groan fell from your lips, the pain wracking up before slowly drifting off.

John's Omega disappeared, looking at you carefully as they walked out of the office. You needed to get one more document signed, and you could go back to your room and sleep for a week.

The pen felt heavier and your hands felt shakier. The signature was a little off from what you were normally able to do, but if it was what got everything done, you were more than happy.

Dropping the papers into the slots outside of your office, you shut and locked the door. The walk back to your room was horrible, you had to stop every few moments to breathe. Just breathing was a little painful.

You want to crawl into your nest as soon as the door shuts behind you, but the bathroom door that's cracked open calls to you. A hot bath is all you want, and your shed your clothes as you nearly stumble to the tub.

Carefully settling yourself down into the tub, you shift around to get comfortable enough to and plug the drain. The water that starts isn't the warmest, but it seems to quickly heat up.

You aren't entirely sure where the time has gone and suddenly the tub is just a few inches short of the top and you're struggling to turn the water off.

You're in so much pain and all you can do is rock yourself in the water. You can feel your eyes shut tight, the pain just a little bother compared to what you're feeling.

Time is incomprehensible. One moment, you're alone and crying out in pain what feels like every few seconds, and the next you have John's Omega and a few doctors surrounding you.

Things are stuck against you, something is stuffed inside of you and you nearly bite the person.

"...looks good..." you're only grasping little bits and pieces. "...little early... looks safe..." and you can feel a hand slip into yours before your ears are ringing and Christ is that you screaming?

It burns. You can feel your body lunge forward nearly over the side of the tub as you shout, fingers digging into skin and tub. It seems to be lasting forever, but your head is a little fuzzy and all you can see are little dots littering your vision.

There are voices, now, filtering into your mind as the cool of the tiles underneath you bring your focus back. You're still naked, but you can't feel most of the parts under your waist. There's a weight on your chest, and you can hear someone shouting about 'getting that god damned Alpha back now, his pup is here' but your head is a little fuzzy.

With a dry mouth, you lift your head up a little and look down, seeing something laying on your chest before your hands rise and cup it. Oh. The pup.

But you can still feel cramping pains stabbing through your stomach and the pain of your head dropping onto the tile does nothing to you. Your vision is suddenly black, when had your eyes squeezed shut? Your body is cramping down and all you can do is scream.

Once more, your vision is a little hazy but you've been moved again. You can feel soft things underneath you, and when you looked down you've got two pups lying across your chest.

They're wrapped tight in blankets and all you can do is just blink down at them. Little, tiny creatures. Things that were once nothing are now something.

You can faintly feel some stabbing pains in your lower body, but you're blinking blearily at the pups. They're so beautiful, and you think you can feel tears falling from your eyes but there's no way you are moving your arms when they're sleeping so cozily in them.

Suddenly, you can hear Simons voice and it's crackling and breaking but you still feel adrift. Like you're floating, nothing left in your body as you watch from a distance. John's Omega is holding a phone close to you but you're just blinking, maybe you were looking over your own body at one point.

And suddenly the weight over your arms are disappearing and you can feel your mouth pull back in a snarl. The sound comes from low in your chest, something you'd never heard from yourself, and it's what brings you out.

They're standing there, pulling the pup from you. "I'm just going to go clean the pups up, they're still gross from the labor," they whisper and press a hand against you, the phone dropping into your lap.

"Lovie, please, are you there? What's happened?"

"Simon," you giggle, head falling back. "Simon, Simon, Simon," you whisper. "Pretty name, what should we name them?" He's whispering something, maybe actually saying something but the pup is wailing suddenly and your first instinct is to press them against your breast.

There's more voices coming from the phone but the wailing is no longer there, and you can faintly feel the pup latch. "What's happened? Is that a pup? Please, lovie, did you have the pup?"

You giggled again. "Had two of them, popped them both out but I don't remember it. Can't feel half my body, lil things are feisty," and you can hear a few other voices from Simons end of the phone.

"Two?" You can almost hear a whine in his voice, some more jeering from the background but suddenly John's Omega is there and you have no idea how long it's even been until they're pulling the pup from your chest and plop the one they'd been cleaning onto the other breast.

It feels like hours before you finally have both pups back on you, watching as they sleep quietly. You'd love to sleep like a baby. Just like them. Not a care in the world, but Simons talking again and you can't really understand what he's saying for a few moments.

Things seems to come back to you, feeling the other Omega curl up beside you in your nest. "What're their names?" You shrug, looking down at the pretty little pups.

"I dunno," and you're giggling again. Whatever the hell they gave you, it was amazing. It's quiet for some time, you're just watching the pups. Maybe it was only a few minutes, maybe it was a few hours, but you can slowly feel yourself coming back. It is a slow realization, and you can feel the tears filling your eyes. "You weren't here," you whispered, and now there's another whine coming from him.

"I'm so sorry," he whispers. "There's nothing I wouldn't do to be there with you, but I can't," and you can almost hear a sob or two come from him but you're trying not to wake the pups.

Nothing. You almost feel nothing, but there's the little prickle of love filling you as one of the pups shift in your hold and you're brought back to the present. With your little family. Alone.

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To my favorite people: This is not the end. I want to clarify, if you'd like to finish reading here, that is perfectly fine. I have not intended this to be the end, I may have one or two more chapters left, but there will not be much more. Please let me know if you'd like to be added to a general tag, or if you'd like to be fully removed from my future taglists.

If I have missed you and you wish to be added, I apologize. Please send me another request, and I can add you!

Thank you for your patience. I can go in depth with my disappearance, but I will leave this here.

Levi pauses in the middle of the market, feeling the familiar mark left from his girlfriend, now wife, aching. Of course, having been mated for about five years, he knows that means she is in distress. Not long after, he gets a text.

(Y/N) (3:17pm)

You’ve been gone a while, are you 

guys okay? Come home soon, 

I’m nervous with nobody here

Levi (3:17pm)

We’re good. We’ll be home asap

(Y/N) (3:18pm)

Thank you

Levi looks down at his 4 year old daughter, Peyton, “Hey, sweetheart, your mother is nervous being alone, so I want you to talk to her while I grab everything else.” He hands Peyton the phone, brushing his hand over the fuzzy ears that sat on her head, letting her call her mother. Levi was thankful that she could call (Y/N) by herself, considering it wasn’t easy having an Omega mate when you work so much. This way she could still feel somewhat comforted knowing her family was safe. Of course, (Y/N) answers immediately while Levi listens to his baby girl talk, unable to hear what his wife is saying. Luckily, it sounded like things were going well, so he continued to push the cart around that store, their set of 8 month old twins, Kuchel and Malachi, both sitting in the cart, staring in confusion, noticing their father’s worried state. 

…

Levi opens the door, sitting Peyton down, his head perking up at his mates scent. But the scent wasn’t the usual scent of strawberries and chocolate, it smelled like something was burning. Kuchel and Malachi notice this, starting to cry, thinking that their mother was in trouble. Levi rushes around the house, his scent expelling from him in heavy waves, trying to comfort the distressed omega, his instincts are screaming at him to tear the place apart until he finds his mate, but he holds back, choosing not to scare his pups.

All of a sudden he hears a whimper, whipping his head around, seeing (Y/N) peeking her head out from a secret door in the wall, he should’ve known she’d be there. He rushes over to her, kneeling down with Peyton standing next to him, and both children strapped onto his chest and back safely with carriers. 

“Baby, everything’s fine, we're all okay.” He quickly takes both babies out of the carriers, setting them with their mother and following, making sure everybody is in before him. Immediately upon crawling in, he notices a large bundle of blankets, pillows, and clothes, the nest consisting mostly of Levi’s items, though he notices some of the children's blankets. He sighs, glancing down at the woman who had her face buried into his throat, inhaling the smell of whiskey and pine. He croons, the soft rumbling of his chest causing (Y/N) to let out a small purr.

After a few blissful moments, he moves away, grabbing a few of the blankets and stepping out, he stops, tugging at the blankets harder when you grab them, “Where are you going?” He looks at you, pouting and the sad look on your face, “I’ll be right back, my love. You still have the pups, it shouldn’t take longer than...maybe seven minutes, okay?” You nod, reluctantly letting go of the blankets and crawling back into your small hideout. Levi rushes across the house, opening the dryer and tossing the blankets in, staying there for about five minutes until he takes them out, grabbing some snacks, running back and opening the door.

She became aware of the dynamics of this world gradually, the way one becomes aware of a sound that has always been there, first as a vague background presence, then as something distinct, then as something impossible to ignore.

It was not, she would eventually understand, the ABO dynamics of the paranormal romance novels she had read in her past life, not exactly. The world she had been born into was Regency London in its social architecture, its manners, its dress, its rigid hierarchies of class and gender, but layered beneath all of that was a secondary system, older and more fundamental, that sorted people into designations that carried biological and social weight in equal measure.

Alphas were rare, perhaps one in ten, and tended toward positions of authority and leadership. The scent of an Alpha commanded rooms. Their instincts ran toward protection and provision and dominion. Most of the titled aristocracy were Alphas. It was not a coincidence.

Betas were the majority, seven of ten, perhaps, and were, in the language of this world, simply people. The social middle. The functional mass of society. There was no particular stigma to being a Beta, but there was also no particular mystique.

Omegas were rarer still than Alphas, perhaps one in fifteen, and were, in the biological mechanics of this world, the counterpoint. Where Alphas commanded, Omegas drew. Where Alphas asserted, Omegas pulled. The relationship between an Alpha and an Omega was not merely romantic or even merely biological, it was, at its deepest level, a form of recognition. A knowing. The body of an Alpha responded to the scent of its destined Omega the way a compass responded to north: not through choice, not through decision, but through something more fundamental than either.

Omegas, in this world, were valued, protected, desired, sometimes dangerously so. They were also, in the social architecture of the Ton, subject to a set of additional constraints and expectations layered on top of the already considerable constraints placed on women. An unmated Omega was considered vulnerable. The management of an Omega’s heat cycle, which Ellie’s emerging research suggested was a biannual event of significant physiological intensity, was considered a matter of family management until a suitable Alpha mate could be arranged.

She lay in her crib at five months old and thought about this with the focused attention of a doctor reviewing a complex case.

She was, she had already begun to suspect, an Omega. The confirmation would come later, designations typically became apparent in early childhood, but the instincts were already there, quiet and new, like the first green shoots of something that would eventually become significant.

She was also, she was quite sure, someone who had opinions about how her Omega status was going to be managed.

They were going to be, she suspected, extensive opinions.

Edmund Ashworth was not a complicated man in the way that complicated men advertised themselves. He was straightforward and decent and occasionally oblivious to social subtlety in ways that his wife found either endearing or maddening depending on the day and the circumstance, and he loved his children with the uncomplicated wholeness of someone who had never felt the need to perform emotion rather than simply have it.

He had two sons before [Name], Charles, aged seven when she was born, and William, aged four, both of them Alpha, both of them fair and blue-eyed like their father, both of them currently engaged in the project of being small boys in a large house in the way that small boys always had been: loudly, messily, and with tremendous enthusiasm for activities that alarmed the household staff.

And then there was [Name].

Edmund had held other babies before. He had held Charles and William both, in this same careful way, with this same exaggerated gentleness, and he had loved them immediately and completely. But there was something about [Name] that was different, and he was not a man who believed in such things, he was a practical man, a reasonable man, but he felt it nonetheless from the first moment he held her.

She looked at him like she understood him.

Not in the flattering, wishful way one might project understanding onto a newborn’s unfocused gaze. She actually looked at him, directly, attentively, with an expression of such focused interest that it made the back of his neck prickle with the odd sensation of being genuinely seen by someone who had no business being so perceptive yet.

“She’s watching me,” he said to Constance, the second week of [Name]’s life.

“She’s a baby, Edmund,” Constance said, fondly but firmly. “She can barely focus her eyes.”

“She’s watching me,” he repeated.

He was not wrong.

[Name], for her part, watched her father with the careful attention of someone taking inventory. She was building a picture of him the way she had always built pictures of patients, systematically, from available evidence, without rushing to conclusions. What she found was: a man who was fundamentally kind. A man who smiled at his children and meant it. A man who was Alpha, certainly, she could sense it now, the low warm hum of his designation like the heat from a banked fire, but whose Alpha nature expressed itself not as domination but as a deep, steadfast care. The instinct to protect. The instinct to provide. The instinct to keep.

Her father, she concluded, was a good man.

This was, she understood, not something to take for granted. She had read enough historical fiction and enough real history to know that good fathers were not the default setting of the aristocracy. She had been fortunate in this, as she had been fortunate in other things, and she kept a running tally of her good fortune with the same precision she kept everything else.

Her mother was wonderful too, in a different way — where Edmund was warmth, Constance was brilliance, a sharp and beautiful mind enclosed in the appropriate package of a Countess who knew exactly how to perform the social requirements of her station without losing herself inside them. She read voraciously. She managed the household with the quiet efficiency of someone who had identified the most logical system for every task and implemented it so thoroughly that the household now ran almost automatically. She spoke to her children not as small people to be managed but as people in training, which [Name] found deeply agreeable.

She also, [Name] noticed, spoke to her slightly differently than she spoke to the boys.

Not less kindly. But differently. With an additional layer of something watchful and careful, a particular quality of attention that [Name] eventually identified as the attention of a mother who knew her daughter was an Omega and was already, consciously or not, beginning to think about what that meant.

Constance was a Beta herself. She could not know the experience from the inside. But she was smart enough to have thought about it, and worried about it, and [Name] could read that worry in the slight furrow between her mother’s brows when she looked down at her sometimes, in moments when she thought no one was watching.

I’ll be alright, Mama, [Name] thought, at seven months old, lying in her mother’s lap on a sunlit afternoon while Constance read and the sound of the boys playing drifted through the open window.

I know things you don’t know yet. I’ll be alright.