#89: On this planet spinning, I think that I was meant to be next to you [1/2]
Prompt: #89
Title: On this planet spinning, I think that I was meant to be next to you
Pairing: Xiutao, side seho
Length: 10, 400 words
Rating: NC-17
Warning(s): alpha omega au, pining!tao, heavy romantic angst, heat masturbation, self-lubrication
Summary: Tao’s heart aches, wrist aches from the frequency and utter vastness of his desire.
Author’s Note: title from steve aoki’s “back to earth”
Tao thinks maybe if he tries to trace back to its very origin, the very moment, he thinks he probably fell in love with Minseok when he first met him, thinks he was fated, doomed from the very start.
Tao 10 to Minseok’s 13, the both of them wet and shivering in their apartment complex’s too-cold pool, lips blue, the October chill rattling them to their very bones. And maybe his mother had been right, maybe Tao shouldn’t have gone into the water, maybe he was being “difficult” and “obstinate,” maybe he would learn a lesson from this and catch a cold even though Mr. Cha had assured him that people didn’t catch colds from temperature-It was a virus. Maybe, maybe, there would be consequences to face for this, but the icy pool water was so welcoming. And Tao was finding a new friend in this new neighbor boy. Kim Minseok, who was tangling their pruney fingers beneath the water, calling Tao brave, brave just like him. And Kim Minseok actually thought Tao was older. He was asking him what middle school he went to and what his favorite music was and whether he liked to play sports and did he play video games or read comic books because Minseok did both and he really wanted to find someone else that did, too.
And Tao-fated, doomed-had of course been instantly drawn, instantly taken with his quiet, soft-voiced, sharp-eyed, handsome and charmingly awkward, shivering, shivering, shivering neighbor boy at his side.
Kim Minseok, 10 year old Tao had decided, he had the kind of face you wanted to keep looking at, the kind of voice you wanted to keep hearing. He was the kind of person you wanted to keep around.
And hindsight being 20/20, Tao’s fatalism intact, he thinks, yeah that moment, knocking bare, knobby knees with Minseok as they kicked idly at the cold, cold water, he thinks he fell in love with him then.
He thinks he was fated to suffer like this.
Because after clarifications about age, Minseok had turned instantly indulgent, distressingly doting, shifting to wrap an arm around Tao’s shoulders, ruffling his wet hair. He’d asked Tao to call him hyung even though he wasn’t Korean, even though they were both speaking English.
And that very afternoon, on that fateful, doomed day, Tao became Minseok’s adopted brother, a petulant thing for Minseok to tease, alternately coddle. On that October day, after that incident, in that exact moment, Tao had earned Minseok’s fond favor-but familiar, fraternal, wrong. And that had been the moment things were set into motion to play out like this.
Minseok’s favor, as a child, had meant sleepovers on Minseok’s bottom bunk, movie and video game marathons, soccer and basketball games, careful, careful comic book reading, shared secrets, occasionally held hands, whispered conversations about life. Minseok always animated with quiet and affectionately patronizing warmth, Tao always glowing at his praise, filled to the brim with his affection.
Minseok was his best friend. Tao was intent on keeping him around.
And Minseok wasn’t like Tao, Tao would come to find. Minseok was broader and taller and older and stronger, but also quieter, almost guarded, accommodating and friendly and kind. Intriguing and so very good to him.
And Minseok, Tao found, also had the kind of laughter you wanted to keep causing, the kind of hands you wanted to keep holding, the kind of smile you wanted to warm you from the inside out, the kind of tender, tender care that you wanted to keep earning.
Minseok’s caring had become even worse-better- when Minseok had been classed at 16. An Alpha. And small as he was, unassuming as he was, it was his duty to look after Tao, to protect this oversized but still vulnerable, still precious, still soft best friend.
Tao, he tolerated it. Maybe even needed it, eager still for shared styrofoam containers of Chinese food in between careful perusals of protection-sheeted comic books, for muffled laughter over cheesy English-language dubs, for late nights with a controller in his lap, his head against Minseok’s shoulder, for heavy-lidded, soft-voiced conversations as dawn began to lick over the horizon, filtering in through Minseok’s powder blue blinds.
And it had been different then, the love, it had been large and looming and so very vast, so real, but innocent, pure, soft, not sad, not longing, not consuming. Not even focused enough to demand or want or ache.
Minseok just had the kind of face you wanted to keep looking at, the kind of voice you wanted to keep hearing. He was just the kind of person that he wanted to keep around. He radiated the kind of quiet steady warmth that Tao was ever chasing.
And Tao hadn’t known what it meant to hurt for it, hadn’t known that what he felt for Minseok could hurt.
But fated, doomed as he was, Tao was already in the thick of it before he even had a chance to properly process it.
Things had changed with puberty-Tao’s puberty three years later, his affection, his innocent heedless, guileless childhood crush and love twisting and evolving and blooming and distorting into this. All the pre-existing conditions had come to a head, bubbling forth slow and natural until yes yes Tao was in love, helpless and inadvertent and desperate and so so so hungry and aching, utterly consumed.
An Omega, Tao’s first heat-as every subsequent heat thereafter-had hit hard, been plagued with the phantom desire, the phantom promise of Minseok’s voice, Minseok’s face, Minseok’s mouth, Minseok’s bare skin.
A fluke, sixteen-year-old Tao had hoped in his writhing delirium. Projection. Tao somehow latching onto, otherwise perverting Minseok’s role in his life as Tao’s protector, Tao’s guardian, Tao’s safespace. Relenting because it was useful, because fuck, it had him trembling, Tao, too consumed to protest, to question, he’d embraced the fantasy-for the sake of his heat, his body’s needs.
Just this once.
It felt so good, so natural, so right. Tao with his eyes clenched tightly shut, his body bare and open across his bed, his stickly, clumsy fingers trembling around the silicone shaft in his fist, his entire body tingling, burning, he’d wanted, he’d wanted, he’d wanted.
But no, the images hadn’t left afterwards, even in the brief, lucid respites between shuddering orgasms. The fantasies hadn’t in fact dissipated with the wracking spasms of heated need, hadn’t evaporated with the sticky sweat on his skin, hadn’t been scrubbed away by the warm towels along his navel and thighs. He’d wanted still-kept remembering his want-even as he’d sipped sports drinks, munched on saltine crackers.
He’d started to feel things, too, or become aware of dormant feelings. Aching for soft kisses, for tender, reverent touches along his skin, forI love yous and You’re beautifuls and whisper soft Babys stamped into his skin, for Minseok’s eyes warm and adoring and liquid and captive and captivating upon his.
And oh, even in the aftermath, days laters, the very thought of Minseok still had something simmering in his blood, something heavy and potent sloshing through his veins.
Drained, weak, nauseous, tangled in his wrinkled, ruined sheets, wiping gingerly at his skin, Tao had come upon a sharp, sharp realization, stumbled upon some heavy, heavy feelings.
And because he’d been fated, been doomed, yes, it all made sense. It was all meant to be.
Falling in love with him had been as natural, as inevitable as breathing. Falling out of love with him, though, it feels like drowning.
Tao is maybe too melodramatic.
His roommate Sehun has mentioned it in passing on more than one occasion, but honestly he is, too. Lovestruck, too. Often longing and aching for somebody older, somebody that loves him but just not in quite the right way, too.
And maybe this is just a sort of Omega-specific life experience, pining after someone that would never deign to want you back.
It had been easier when Minseok was relegated to just a daily text message, a weekly Skype date, an awful almost almost almost unbearable ache still but sectioned off to just the very periphery of his everyday, a phantom pain in his heart, a phantom ache in his bones. It had been easier-so much easier-when Tao didn’t have to smell, hear, touch him. Over and over and over again.
It was easier before Minseok moved in, easier to pretend.
But Minseok is in between careers, apartments, major life paths, and Tao had offered his apartment, naturally, easily, pathetically, desperately.
Minseok, he’s staying with them indefinitely, insisting on paying rent for his paltry accommodation on Tao’s ugly couch, his half of Tao’s overflowing closet. Minseok contributes further with a general ambience of playfully patronizing affection, chiding Sehun and Tao for messy rooms, unwashed dishes, overflowing trash, piles of uncompleted homework, but paying them back for their efforts with unburned popcorn and edible Korean food and tiptoed head mussings and smiles that could light the whole fucking room, the whole fucking world.
And pain. Pain for Tao, at the very least. Regret, longing, desperation, a sharp bitterness to undercut the sweetness and utter beauty of Minseok’s presence in his life.
There’s no real downside for Sehun. Beyond Tao’s complaints, the obvious strain in his smile.
(They're big downsides, Tao knows. Sehun hurts in his place, too)
Minseok had called it a quarter life crisis when explaining over the phone, just just just questioning fucking everything, figuring out what he’s even doing with his life post-graduation because he’d thought-you know, he’d thought that he’d had things figured out, but then, no, no, this is crisis had utterly immobilized him. And he just-he really fucked up, losing his sense of purpose, his drive, and in the process his cushy day job, his apartment, his safety net, his neat, neat plans.
And in the aftermath of that utter collapse, the future is a sort of terrifyingly fuzzy looming maybe, casting an ominous shadow over his current endeavors.
He’s stuck now, in between, deliberating, deciding, performing major damage control, picking up waiter shifts at a local diner, volunteer hours at the local library, extra responsibility as a self-styled college brat caretaker.
There’s monotony, frustration, insecurity in it all, but it’s comfortable at least, knowing what to expect as he attempts to make sense of things anew.
Some nights from behind his bedroom ddoor, Tao can hear Minseok’s strained conversations with his parents, hushed, muffled Korean, apologetic, deferential, soft, sad.
Some nights, Minseok calls out for him, holds his hand beneath the whirring, hot bottom of his laptop.
Mr. and Mrs. Kim want to say hello, want to ask if Minseok is still treating him right.
Of course, he is. Of course. He’s still a good Alpha, Tao reassures, chest oddly tight. He’s still a good hyung. And Tao really, really appreciates him, they shouldn’t worry.
And Minseok squeezes his hand extra hard, tiny fingers tight, almost painful, lacing between his own.
Aren’t you disappointed in your hyung, he’d joked when he’d shown up at Tao’s door, two suitcases, two duffel bags in tow, the most rueful, precarious smile on his face. He’d shifted the strap of the duffel bag on his shoulder as he’d waited-honestly waited-for Tao’s response.
A negative, of course.
Because no, Tao wasn’t disappointed.
No, Tao didn’t think that Minseok was a failure.
No, Minseok should not feel ashamed of this.
(And no, no, no, Tao wouldn’t let this hurt him now.
No, Tao was definitely strong enough to push past this.)
“Truly an idiot move, a rookie mistake,” Sehun chides two weeks in, trying to shoot Tao’s little Nerf ball into his hanging basket, failing. They’re “catching up.” Tao is lamenting an absent Minseok. Again. “You suck at this, Tao.”
“I know,” Tao grumbles, biting his lips hard, blinking up at at the glow-in-the-dark stickers that they’ve stuck to the ceiling. Romantic, Sehun had pronounced when he’d climbed up on their rickety chair to set them up, imagine staring up at the stars when you bang someone. “It’s too late to take it back now.”
Any of it, really.
But the love especially.
It’s especially too late to fall out of love with Kim Minseok, when loving Kim Minseok is as natural as breathing, as Tao has recounted on multiple occasions.
It’s a Wednesday night, and Sehun’s just caught up with his latest Kdrama, sentimental, sympathetic, not in the mood to tease. Kind, soft, biting his lower lip hard, his thick eyebrows pinching with a long-suffering pitying sympathy. He turns to watch him closely, eyes kind, disgustingly soft.
They’d met at 16, the tallest lankiest Omegas in their high school’s dance club, sticking together because there was strength-resolution, acceptance, pride, solidarity, protection-in numbers.
Tao had already been in love at that point-confusingly, damningly, fated, doomed-but Sehun had just started. A dabbling, he’d called it. Because Sehun, at least, has the good foresight to fall in and out love quickly, efficiently, the fading rends in his heart the only real collateral damage. Sehun, at least he’s learned.
Tao, he just needs to learn, too. Tao, he's too old to still be doing this.
Really, really, really.
Sehun keeps reminding him. For his own good.
Sehun teases, more often than that he scolds. Mostly, mostly, he tries to impress lessons upon him. Tough love, he’s called it. For Tao’s own good. For the sake of Tao’s fractured heart and too heavy need.
But post-kdramas, he’s softer. Too soft, too indulgent.
He doesn’t remind him that the power-the choice-rests with him. That Tao just has to believe, has to resolve, has to choose. It’s been too long. Literally half of his life. Tao deserves an answer. Minseok deserves to know. Tao deserves to be happy. Minseok, Minseok deserves better than being the reason that Tao hurts. Look at what he's done to you. Look at what you've let him do to you.
But tonight, tonight, Sehun forgoes his usual method, abandons his usual lecture. Soft, soft love, he turns instead to drape a loose arm around Tao’s shoulders, firm, comforting, understanding. His lips brush the cotton of Tao’s shirt, nose nudging up his sleeve. His breath is warm, steady against Tao’s skin, his pulse a calm, even thrum against Tao’s forearm. Steady, a concrete.
And Sehun, he’s seen the worst of it. Sehun, he understands.
“I know,” Sehun breathes. “I know it hurts.”
Something lodges itself deep in Tao’s throat, and he swallows past it, blinks rapidly.
Too long, too thin, too persistent arms wrap around his waist.
Sehun’s hair tickles his collar, then-as he shifts-his throat, the nape of his neck. His fingers grazing Tao’s cotton-covered navel as he hums out a painfully quiet “It’s okay,” Sehun is comfort. Sehun is a soothing balm.
The Tell him hangs heavy and unsaid in Tao’s suddenly too-small, too-warm room.
It’s only been two weeks.
And yes, Tao really should toughen up. Or otherwise, confront the issue head on. Just not quite yet.
I’m gonna tell him, he’s been saying for fucking years
The story’s gotten old.
And Tao’s heart aches, wrist aches from the frequency and utter vastness of his desire.
But there’s an odd sort of comfort in this pain, and odd sort of security in the familiarity of this kind of hurt.
Tao’s almost developed a callous, almost become desensitized-enough to bear this. And he’s not quite sure he’d survive in the utter vacuum of a Minseok-less existence.
Tao, he’s been loving him, wanting him for so long that his every orgasm-heat or otherwise-has been with Tao’s lips curling around Minseok’s name, clandestine and unrequited but so so hot. Sweet release, the most awful, gnawing comedown.
He wants. He fucking wants even though Minseok’s love is the toughest love. The kind of love that leaves you broken and bleeding and still somehow begging for more.
Minseok's touch-more frequent, more than he can quite bear-is affectionate, chaste, warm, so so so so familiar and fond and fraternal, a graze of fingernails along the nape of his neck, whispering over his scalp, curling up and around to thumb at his eyebrow, his cheekbone, the pucker of Tao's pout. He's been touching him like that for so so so long, since before, when Tao was still small, easy to pick on and pick apart. Since before Tao had broadened out, filled to the brim with this fated, doomed want.
His skin practically thrums with the desire for more.
He was fated. He was doomed.
Monday night, Tao takes a break from his course readings-Stats, Child Psychology-to heat Chinese takeout from two days back. Fried rice, just slightly congealed sesame chicken, dried out egg rolls.
It’s two servings worth, two laden plates worth.
Minseok’s just come home from his shift, noon rush to dinner rush. Lounging across Sehun’s floral love seat-a treasure Sehun had discovered at a yard sale one Saturday after groceries-he’s still dressed in his rumpled white button up, faded black pants, dark socks. His smile is tired but grateful, as he uncurls his fingers from knobby knees-Minseok is so distressingly tiny-and plops beside Tao on the couch.
Absent, affectionate, but so so so tired, he drags his fingers up Tao’s bare arm, up, up, up towards his cheek, pressing there in a silent thank you.
Tao starts, and Minseok laughs, pressing for more, nuzzling into him further, wrinkled cotton to hypersensitive skin.
He drops a kiss to Tao's shoulder, scrapes his teeth in a teasing touch. Light and fraternal and fond and familiar. Completely comfortable, completely wrong.
And even though he’s arguably the one in the need of soothing, the one in need of comfort, disheveled and strained and so so small against Tao’s side, even though, even then, he drags Tao even closer, insisting that Tao needs to relax, his overworked dongsaeng. His fingers dig into Tao's shoulder blades, trying to work out the knots, massage away the strain, trying trying trying for caring, for soothing. But oh, it’s searing. Oh, it hurts. Too intimate, too much. Tao squirms away.
Minseok relents with a low chuckle, reaching for his spork, the remote.
They watch a reality show. Amish teenagers adjusting to the big city life, Minseok eating silently, but touching him all the while. Feet bumping against Tao’s own, fingers tracing mindless patterns along Tao’s wrist, up towards his elbow, shoulder grazing his side.
Tao, suspended between twin, contradictory desires, tries valiantly not to tense, tries also not to press needily back.
Minseok, he doesn’t seem to notice, fawning over him but not quite seeing.
Minseok has, in the past, called Tao his homework, his duty, his Alpha’s charge, his lovely donsaeng.
He loves him. He’s proud of him. He worries. He fusses. He nags.
And there’s so much warmth and affection and care in that regard. Tao is on his mind, in his heart, loved, cared for, it’s not-not enough. Placating and entirely platonic, entirely comfortable, entirely wrong. Tao is ever greedy for more.
“You’re not eating enough,” Minseok chides, reaching out to prod at Tao’s cheek, come comercial break. Tao, still chewing around his mouthful of rice, wiggles away with a low sound of protest, a drawn out hyung.
He turns bodily towards the dancing cereal characters on screen, holding a finger to his lips.
Minseok laughs, reaches out again, but it’s a caress this time, a lingering swipe of his thumb from the top of Tao’s cheekbone to the seam of his mouth, tender and soft. Maybe maybe maybe almost laden with meaning before the television set’s eery blue glow.
“My little Taozi,” Minseok croons. “You need to eat more. Don’t want my little peach to waste away.”
He scoops a spoonful of rice into his own mouth then. His unoccupied hand falls to Tao’s jawline, cupping there before gliding absent, exquisite down his throat. His thumb grazes Tao’s adam’s apple, his blunt finger nail just barely biting into his skin before pulling back.
Watching Tao all the while, his own lips parted as he does, Minseok makes it hard to breathe.
Tao swallows thickly past the sheer, naked desire constricting and oppressive, clawing its way up his throat. The words-an ill-advised “I love you”-almost tear themselves from his mouth.
He coughs to clear his windpipe, gropes for a juice box, sucking so hard, so fast that the paper becomes misshapen. Minseok pounds a fist into his back to help. Tao blinks back tears.
The show thankfully comes back on.
And Tao is so in love his body aches.
Tao’s skin chafes and tears and bleeds against the sharp armor of his false disinterest, false satisfaction, false fraternity.
Not enough. Never, ever enough.
The leaves are turning brown, red, orange, brittle, fragile, the air heavy with the promise of chillier winds, shorter days, colder nights, static sticky fabrics, apple and cinnamon and pumpkin flavored things.
And with the changing times comes heavier reminders, biological processes, every trimester, four times a year.
The most beautiful way to greet the season, Sehun has joked in the past.
Tao is due soon. Sehun, too.
And for the first time, Tao has to warn.
Alpha-Omega lodgings, even when decidedly platonic (distressingly, unwantedly platonic) are not all that rare.
They aren’t animals, after all. They have free will, self control, can deal with pheromone-laced encounters, can take take precautions, after all.
Minseok already has, smile soft and all too understanding, as he seats himself cross-legged, barefoot on Sehun's love seat, browsing Craigslist, AirBnb for alternate accommodations.
Since, well since Tao will be going into heat and Minseok, an Alpha, doesn't-well, he doesn't-
An invitation hangs heavy and unspoken between them in the soft noon light, too too harsh for confessions, too stark for such shameful secrets and intrigue. And Tao is too scared to voice it, Minseok too dense to see.
Tao, already dressed for class, clenches his fingers tight into the hem of his cableknit sweater as Minseok wrinkles his nose, squints at his screen.
He reaches out briefly, pats his palm against Tao’s thigh, urging him to go, he shouldn’t be late for his Lab, Minseok can figure this all out on his own.
Stay, Tao wants to say. Stay and help me with it, please, hyung, but he bites his lower lip hard instead, bows his head in a quick, quiet goodbye.
“Why aren’t you mated?” Minseok murmurs a week later at his side on the kitchen table, over breakfast, reaching out again, touching him again. His hands are warm and oh so welcome against Tao’s skin, blunt nails scraping over the arched definition of his throat, his collarbone, provoking a helpless rush of goosebumps. His fingers drag over the base of Tao's skull, whispering over the short hair there.
Tao drops his spoon into his coffee, willing away a monumental shudder. “I just don’t-I haven’t...”
His eyelashes flutter briefly as Minseok’s palm grazes his tanktop, falls away. He takes a careful bite from his buttered toast.
Tao’s just reminded him of his upcoming heat, told him he’s going to go it alone. Again. He always, always goes it alone.
"Sehun doesn't..." Minseok trails off delicately, meeting his eyes. Doesn’t help you, doesn’t make the ache go away.
"No," Tao is quick to clarify. "No, I've never-Never with anyone else."
Minseok nods understandingly, heavy eyebrows pinching in his forehead. He stirs his own mug of coffee. He’s got a spot of toothpaste on the corner of his mouth, and it shines in the fluorescent light as he purses his lips, murmurs something about romance and ideals and yeah how it feels crass sometimes but how even if-even if it's less than ideal, there's nothing wrong with asking for help. There's no shame in it. But yes, he understands. Really, he does.
But no, Tao thinks bitterly. No, he doesn't. No, he can't. He's missing a key piece of the equation. Several, actually-an Alpha, not so in love that the thought of finding somebody else burns just as much as the all consuming scorching of desire.
Alphas rut, need warm, willing bodies to sate urges, too, but less often and less debilitating. Tao allows himself a brief, brief self-pitying moment of bitterness.
Brief, brief because he can’t really allow himself to resent Minseok, resent this.
And Tao is too sentimental, too fucking in love. It’s on him. It’s his choice. He can’t do anything but suffer heats alone. With locked doors, sex toys, his fingers, hauntingly graphic, sharp, sharp fantasies of Minseok wanting him back, taking care of him.
An Alpha, his Alpha.
The image is so vivid, so overwhelming, that a confession, a proposition stutters in Tao’s throat.
But instead, he explains that he is well-equipped to handle this alone. He's been doing for more than 4 years at this point. And he can't really compare, you know, doesn't know any better, but silicone (and Minseok-heavy fantasies) gets the job done.
His cheeks are hot post-clarification, hotter now as Minseok catches his eyes, his almost invitation so decadently thick in the air.
And oh, it’s still so tempting.
"When are you gonna pick a mate, hyung?" he deflects.
Minseok grimaces, nose crinkled, eyes narrowed, point obviously taken.
Tao's voice turns extra saccharine, distracting, teasing, smiling as he sips from his mug. “Don't you think it's about time you settled down? You’re such a catch, hyung.” Minseok sets his own coffee mug down, small fingertips skating over the pale blue ceramic. “Have you even been looking?” he chides.
Do you ever look at me? Have I ever been an option? Will this ever stop hurting? Is this really my fate?
"Why when I got the cutest boy to keep me company? " Minseok quips, stroking Tao's cheek. "The cutest boys," he amends, turning, straining upwards to squeeze a sleep-rumpled, pajama-clad Sehun's cheek, too. Sehun squawks out a protest, squirming away as he shuffles into the kitchen. "I could never want for anything more."
And therein lay the problem, because Tao definitely, definitely wants more.
Tao wants it all.
Minseok is a catch. In possession of the kind of face you want to keep looking at, the kind of voice you want to keep hearing, he’s just the kind of person you wanted to keep around.
And of course, of course, he attracts attention even without necessarily looking. Of course, failure that he considers himself, he’s still so easy to want.
He’s a fucking hit with customers.
Minseok, three weeks into their arrangement, recalls the stories in charming anecdotes over dinner, smiling ruefully into his macaroni and cheese, alternately his ramen, his pizza, his bite of burrito, his spoonful of kimchi jjigae.
The pretty college girl that comes in every night at 6pm, orders a Turkey club sandwich, lemonade, stares none-too-subtly, always in need of more napkins, more refills, more sauce, more more more exchanged words and glances and occasionally touches.
The drunk Chinese exchange students that ordered 2 orders of omelets a piece, the boldest, a doll-eyed boy flagging Minseok over to proclaim just how fucking beautiful Minseok was, fuck did he have any idea-his cheeks looked like little dumplings and his eyes were so-wow, wow, wow-fuck, he made it really hard to breath. Also could they have more Tabasco sauce and napkins.
The teenagers, presumably on a date, the boy’s legs jittering nervously beneath the booth as the girl’s fingers grazed his.
A big tipper that has been coming in Tuesdays and Thursdays, presumably after work, dressed in a pressed suit, a loosened tie. He always orders buffalo chicken sandwich, makes light conversation with Minseok, his smile reaching his eyes. And Minseok’s favorite customer, he tips 40%, 50%, sometimes even 60%.
Minseok also mentions the men and women that his coworker, Joonmyun, attracts.
“Older,” Minseok laughs. “Joonmyun always attracts the older ones. Because he’s small, non-threatening. They think he’s an Omega.”
They’re all inconsequential, humorous interactions, and Tao’s laugh is just slightly hollow, just slightly forced. It’s not at all serious, Tao knows, but maybe Minseok will find someone worth keeping. Maybe Tao really is fated, doomed to suffer for the sake of this.
And yes, Minseok brings him up again just a few days later. Big Tipper, his oversized, pretty, pretty eyes, his plush mouth, the way he always laughs at Minseok’s cheesy jokes. Minseok’s looking forward to him. Also, to the book club ladies that call him a handsome boy and fuss over how he’s not taken yet, he’s so charming and helpful.
“What is he?” Tao asks, voice just slightly sharp, pained around the edges, a Tuesday morning, a midweek assault, and Minseok-not quite noticing- shakes his head with a laugh. He leans forward to take a deep, deep inhale from his black coffee, humming in contentment. Tao can’t look away, hanging on the hope of his possible response.
It’s dismissive, as expected. Lilting, teasing. “I don’t even know his name, Taozi. Much less his type.” Minseok presses his finger into the corner of his mouth to force a smile, his own lips curling when Tao exhales a chuckle. “No reason to be jealous,” Minseok teases.
His hand opens, palm cupping. His eyes are soft, smile softer as Tao presses briefly back into the touch, wanting. Wanting, Tao fights the urge to chase the motion when Minseok disengages with an airy remark about how he needs to get ready, get good and handsome so he can get the big bucks.
And the choice is still his, Tao knows. He was the power to put an end to this, if he really truly resolves to.
But a small, small, sane part of Tao hopes that maybe, maybe Big Tipper, Doll-eyed Boy, any of the men and women enraptured by Minseok’s undeniable charm, maybe they’ll force Tao’s hand. A veritable catalyst, the final straw. Maybe, maybe, maybe Minseok with a semi-permanent somebody might just, just, just be enough to end this once and for all.
The hope eases some of the tightness in his chest, in degrees of the mildest, most muted relief.
That night, exhaustion painting Minseok’s features in pale purples, pinks, he collapses onto the couch, limbs splayed, eyebrows creased, eyes clenched shut. From the kitchen table, Tao watches him tug at the first three buttons, nuzzle into the decorative throw pillows.
Minseok’s already eaten, and he urges Tao to finish his meal quickly, wash his dish, come cuddle on the couch with him. Alpha’s orders. Even though he smells bad and even though he’s sweaty and gross, Tao should come and let his hyung hold him.
Minseok tugs him down, forces him to be little spoon, curling against him immediately, encasing Tao in tight, demanding, familiar, fond, wrongly fraternal warmth. And even through all the layers of clothing, it’s almost too much, too much skin on fabric on skin.
“This is so nice,” Minseok breathes, a soft exhale. “I don’t know why we’re not allowed to be just like this.”
Tao hums in agreement, tense, tense, tense as he is. He doesn’t want to be just like this.
“We can just be eternal bachelors together,” Minseok proposes light, lilting, wandering fingers and tinkling laughter. His fingers tiptoe down Tao’s navel before resting there. He is practically purring, so utterly content as is, exhaling wet and hot against the nape of Tao’s neck as he tugs him closer.
Tao can hardly breathe, but even then he can’t help but melt into the warm, welcome embrace. He bites back a moan, alternately a sob as Minseok sighs lazily against him, lips dragging up to kiss at the base of his skull. His nose tickles against Tao’s scalp.
He quells a shudder, wills away the goosebumps blooming across his sensitized skin.
Minseok had warned that he smelled bad. Sweat, faded cologne, the overlapping, contradicting wafts of fast food lingering on his collar and sleeves, but Tao can still make out the crisp, clean comfort of Minseok beneath it all.
And curled tight like this, kissing absently along his throat, Minseok almost smells like, feels like he loves him exactly the same way.
If Tao closes his eyes, allows himself to drown in the fantasy tearing at his heart.
Minseok breaks the moment by murmuring his name, teasing his fingers over the bared skin of Tao’s stomach and pressing his thumb into the pucker of his belly button.
“Answer my question, Tao,” he presses.
And this is another opportunity, one of countless he’s squandered for his selfish desire for more of Minseok’s unwittingly wrong love. And maybe, maybe, Tao can admit that it won’t. That he can’t settle, that he won’t ever be content to just be Minseok’s platonic almost.
But no, no, no not yet.
“Of course,” he whispers back, and he can feel the curl of Minseok’s lips against his skin, unable to help his shudder now, biting his lip hard to keep a moan, maybe a sob from spilling forth.
And he's almost warm enough, content enough like this, in the comforting cradle of Minseok’s fond, familiar, fraternal love. Tao can make due with the curl of his eyelashes, the warm teasing mirth in his glittering eyes, the peek of his tongue sometimes when he's particularly amused, the exquisite graze of his skimming fingers.
At the very least, this will be good later later later, in the dark where the shadows can swallow his shame, his moans whole.
Minseok keeps hurting him without quite meaning, too. And fated, doomed,Tao keeps pressing hard on the wound to stem the flow of blood.
There’s an awful cruelness in it all, a man dying of thirst but surrounded by fathoms of salt water.
Minseok-like this-he is not quite what Tao needs, not quite what Tao is clawing out for in the middle of the night, but he’s still here, still blessedly beautiful, and Tao would never ever denigrate his wonderful fortune in even knowing him.
He’s fated. He’s doomed.
Minseok treats him after his first paycheck a week later, a late lunch date, he calls it. Tao is ordered to abandon his homework-just for today-bring a blanket and his wonderful smile.
Sehun is invited, too, but he’s allowed to decline. Appealing to the precarious tower of books on his desk, his eyes are intent and heavy on Tao’s as he says the two friends should take this as a chance to catch up. Just the two of them.
They stop at a Korean restaurant nearby and order 3 rolls of chicken kimbap then pick up two cans of Welch’s Grape soda at a convenience store.
Laying the blanket near a park bench, beneath a particularly large tree, they settle into their picnic.
The autumn air kisses Tao’s skin as Minseok kneels before him, insists on feeding him, cupping Tao’s chin and dropping the slices into his mouth, laughing as Tao blushes, blusters.
They share one set of bamboo chopsticks, and Minseok’s lips look impossibly red wrapped briefly around the length.
Tao has to swallow hard, look away, and Minseok follows his gaze.
There’s a couple further away, teenaged, lounging against a tree, holding hands, whispering, and Minseok’s eyes turn wistful. He sighs.
He needs to find a mate, really, really, really. He’s been irreverent about it in the past, but he should really-His parents, they keep insisting.
Minseok twists his fingers into their blanket’s floral print, quiet, distressed. “That’s a part of the crisis, too,” he confesses. “I had someone before you know, not a mate. I hadn’t claimed, but I-I fucked everything up.”
He turns his palm upwards, an invitation, and Tao laces his fingers through his automatically.
“When will I sort out my love life? When will somebody love me?”
I love you. I love you. In the way you want to be loved. Let me love you in that way, hyung.
Almost, another opportunity, Tao swallows and blinks and fights past the urge, watching their entwined fingers. Tao’s are so much larger, stronger than Minseok’s, but Minseok still runs his thumb along Tao’s wrist like it’s the most delicate thing he’s ever held. Like Tao is still the tiny 10 year old that Minseok had befriended so many years ago.
“Are you looking? Do you know what you want?”
In his periphery, Minseok nods minutely. He curls his legs towards his chest.
“Yes.”
“How?”
Minseok’s answering chuckle is humorless. He turns to face him. “We’re seeking different things, you and I,” he laughs, but he’s watching him so closely, like he doesn’t want to offend him. Always, always so careful, never, ever giving Tao more than he absolutely needs. “We’re different people, so we’re seeking different things, different character traits.”
“What are you-?”
Minseok shakes his head. “It doesn’t really matter. It won’t be the same for you, you know. We’re-we’re like complementary pieces, you and I.”
And Tao’s chest feels like an overfilled balloon, just about to burst. Painfully young, painfully unworthy of him, Tao knows he can’t ever measure up to Minseok’s ideals, but he still needs to hear.
“Please, hyung.”
This is self-flagellation, Tao giving Minseok permission to hurt him again.
And over tuna kimbap and grape soda, in between pensive taps of his bamboo chopsticks against the little cardboard container, Minseok tears at him anew.
Minseok, he craves stability, warmth, honesty, a general aura of self-assuredness, affection, comforting care, someone that can hold him, someone that lets themselves be held.
But Minseok, he’s so scared of not being good enough. He’s so scared to ask for fear of the inevitable “no.”
How could anybody worth wanting not want you, hyung?
Minseok burrows his sharp chin into Tao’s shoulder, asks him what he wants, whether he’s looking. Minseok’s eyes are affectionate, his smile crinkled.
And there’s another opportunity to come clean, to confess, but Tao squanders it in favor of holding Minseok’s hand in his own, staring up at the clouds, murmuring that he’s still figuring it all out.
Minseok nods in understanding, gaze entirely too intent, entirely too unnerving. “Don’t be proud,” he whispers. “I know it’s different for Omegas. Don’t be too proud to ask for help or say what you want.”
And no, it’s not pride.
It’s base, ugly, vulnerable humility. It’s I could never, ever hope to ask this of you.
Tao's fingers are broader, longer than Minseok's, darker, more calloused, and he shuts his eyes tight as he works them inside of himself, wishes with all of his might that they were small, pink, nimble, wishes they belonged to the man that he so desperately, helplessly loves.
Minseok wants to make it up to Sehun, insists on dinner that Friday, asks if they’re okay with his friend Joonmyun coming, too.
They go to a pizza parlor, order one large pesto chicken, one pepperoni. On the mustard-colored booth, Tao sits across from Minseok, next to Joonmyun, diagonally from Sehun.
Joonmyun is polite, handsome, soft-voiced, soft-eyed, joking, occasionally tapping his fingers against the varnished wood, raising his eyebrows in genuine interest as they chat. Movies, music, TV, Joonmyun’s upcoming New Year’s in Vegas plans.
The atmosphere is light, teasing.
And between bites of his pizza slice, sips from his Pepsi can, Tao can recognize the stirrings of attraction in Sehun’s face, in his parted lips and tilted eyelashes, smiling around his food.
Sehun intercepts Joonmyun’s every gaze, tilts his head back in submission. A game, the crackle of arousal.
They exchange numbers, and Minseok presses a laugh into Tao’s shoulders as he watches them flutter nervously, eagerly around one another.
Sehun knows to be careful. Sehun knows how to do this without getting burned.
Tao, he’s still learning.
It takes two days for Joonmyun to ask Sehun out on a date-that movie they’d talked about, the foreign one about that college boy helping run his family’s farm. Another three days for them to follow through. Four for Joonmyun to hold his hand. Five for Joonmyun to kiss him.
It’s easy, natural, light, this courtship, and Tao wills away the childish jealousy curling tight and hot in his chest as he finds shapes in the random assortment of glow-in-the-dark stickers on his ceiling. He wills his breathing even, his smile genuine.
On his bed, at his side, Sehun, dreamy-eyed, talks about the soft, slow way that Joonmyun’s fingers had curled around the nape of his neck when he’d urged him down to kiss his mouth. And how Sehun could fucking taste the Alpha in him, in the way that Joonmyun cupped his jaw, scratched across his neck and how Sehun’s knees had nearly given in at the exquisitely slow, thorough exploration.
Sehun, he’s doing it right.
And Tao, he can, too. It’s his choice.
And it is too late to take it back, too late to start over and follow Sehun’s example, but it’s not too late to put an end to this. Not too late to come clean.
“My next heat,” he resolves, and he closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to meet Sehun’s intent gaze. “I’m going to tell him.”
But it hits earlier than it’s supposed to.
Minseok and Tao are unwinding, post-lecture and post-shift, lounging on his couch, watching a ghost hunting show on TV, drinking soda and eating cheetos.
A Southern special, the paranormal investigators have just left Jackson, Mississippi and are moving to Vicksburg.
There’s a commercial break. Toothpaste, cereal, mouth wash, tampons.
In his periphery, Minseok wipes at the condensation on his lower lip, distracted, hard, with the back of his hand. He’s not nearly as kind with himself as Tao would be. No, Tao would cradle that jawline, whisper his thumb over that skin, press just briefly to feel the warm, plush give of Minseok’s red, red lips. Tao would treasure, tracing with the most tender, tender care and regard.
Minseok, still not noting Tao’s captive gaze, licks his lips, pops them. His throat works as he swallows.
A sudden fissure of heat crawls up Tao’s spine.
And oh, oh, oh.
It’s thicker than regular arousal, faster, more potent, and it settles hot and heavy in his gut.
And oh, oh, oh.
He clenches his hands hands tight into the floral upholstery, willing it away, trembling as he tries to sort out of the words.
But he knows he’s run out of time. It’ll be days before he can bring this up. And he doesn’t want to do this anymore.
Soon, he’ll be trembling, leaking, begging. Soon, Minseok will be able to smell him. Soon-right now-he’ll have to leave.
Minseok inhales sharply at his side, turning to look at him, a question in his eyes.
And yes, it’s too late.
“Tao?”
Tao swallows hard, quelling a shudder at the utter richness of Minseok’s voice, husky with the authority of Alpha. So inviting, so inviting
His skin clamors out for more, and his body pulses with a fresh wave of arousal, lower body churning with heat, with slickness.
He bites his lower lip hard, legs tensing to will the arousal away just-just a little longer.
The smell of Minseok makes his head dizzy, cotton-fuzzy around the edges.
He blinks heavily to clear the haze.
And yes, it's easier to think, but even then Minseok’s draw is just as potent. It steals his breath still, weakens his resolve still.
Tao’s skin feels hot and tight with his want.
But while he’s still-while they’re both still lucid.
“Minseok hyung,” he starts, and Minseok reaches out to brush his bangs back, startling slightly as Tao’s helpless response. Minseok’s nostrils flare, and he swallows thickly. His eyes are so, so dark, and Tao wants him so, so, so badly.
“You’re going into...”
And yes, but there’s still, if he just-
“Do you want me to get Sehun?” he asks, and he’s still touching him, his voice soft but strained. “Joonmyun? I know they’re-but they might be able to-Do you need help?”
And Tao bites back a bitter laugh, desperate, overheated as is.
He’s shaking. He’s shaking.
Because of course, of course, Tao, veritably grown, a fucking Omega, of course, he’s still not an option. Of course, he’s just someone else’s problem.
“Don’t touch me, hyung.” And his voice is icy, bitter, he can hear it, but he’s helpless to stop, squirming away, rising on weak knees. “I don’t need anybody’s help. And I don’t need your pity.”
Minseok’s lip part with a muted groan even as his brows pinch in concern. “There’s no shame in-in needing...” His voice is tense, tight, pheromone-thick, affected at least, body helpless to the draw, finally, finally, finally. Even even even if Tao’s just realized that this isn’t enough either.
Because yes, Tao wants to hang off knot until he's gasping and ruined and claimed and wanted and wanted and wanted, but he really, really-maybe even more than anything-he wants to Minseok to be his. And Tao is selfish, extra fucking needy, because he doesn’t just want Minseok to fuck him, no, he wants his love, too.
“Tao,” Minseok repeats, and fuck, Tao can smell the arousal on him, can practically taste it, thick and hot in the air, on his tongue. He can see it, too, in the taut, taut tension of Minseok’s rigid body.
And oh, oh, oh, how it hurts.
“You’ve never offered,” Tao says, quiet, quavery, but he sets his chin, meets Minseok’s eyes. And he’s still trembling, still so helplessly aroused, skin tight and hot and wet and screaming for him to close the distance, offer his body, his throat for Minseok’s taking. “It’s never been about asking, hyung. It’s about being...wanted, and you don’t want me. Not the same way.”
Minseok lets out this low sound of protest, maybe question. It’s so husky, rich with want, his lips parted as the sound spills forth, and Tao’s knees are so weak he has to brace himself against his door knob. His body pulses and throbs with desire.
“You really don’t need to take care of me.”
And Tao stumbles through the door, locks it behind him before Minseok has a proper chance to respond.
The heated fervor overwhelms him then, has him stripping off his clothes with a broken sob as his skin thrums with a scorching ache, painful, heavy, consuming, so, so, so devastatingly hot. He burns for release, body clenching for it as he collapses back into his mattress. He wraps one hand around himself, sighing in relief as he gropes under his bed for his toy box. His silicone knot, vibrator, nipple massagers, extra lube just in case.
And just to be cruel, just, just, just to prove a point, just just just to hurt Minseok back, he’s reckless, loud, loud, loud as he can be, moans wanton and obscene. Minseok’s name over and over and over again, pleas for it to be harder, faster, for him to fuck him like he means it as he fucks down on his own fingers, stretching, scissoring, whimpering all the while. He smears the excess slick on his toy knot.
In his delirium, Tao hears-maybe imagines-a growl, feral, deliciously low, deliciously hot. And as his clumsy fingers turn the nipple massagers to a delicious thrum, grope the hard plastic base of his knot to ease it inside, Tao hears-maybe imagines-the brief, brief squeaking protest of door heavy with Minseok’s weight-his desperate, wanting weight-before there is a long, defeated sigh.
Minseok wants him, too. And it might not be enough, but Minseok, if he were inside, he’d be fucking him. He’d be fucking aching to fuck him.
And Tao loses himself completely in the fantasy then.
Minseok kissing his eyelids, fingers soothing, wanting around his hips as he pushes into him over and over and over again, devastating him with all the staggering pleasure that his rocking dancer’s hips can provide.
With clenched eyelids, a flicking wrist, a bared throat, Tao imagines searing bites of possession across his collarbone, his neck, warm pants blooming across his skin, the straining graze of tense forearms near his shoulders as Minseok thrusts into him over and over again, rasping all the while about how Tao is so beautiful, taking him so fucking well, he’s Minseok’s favorite fucking place to be.
Wracked with tremors, Tao activates the knot. He tilts his hips, grazing his prostate with the bulbous head, teasing, tortuous, and Minseok is groaning in his ear. Hang off my knot.Take it all, my Omega, as he pounds into Tao, hot and heavy and pulsing and perfect perfect perfect.
Constellations bursting behind his eyelids, Tao bites into his own forearm as he writhes down onto the toy, gasping as it swells inside of him, stretching him, filling him to the very brim. He arches sharply, heels whispering over his rumpled sheets as he chases the delicious friction. Close, so fucking close.
Tao chokes on a drawn out moan, groping down to stroke himself, sloppy, stuttery, imaging smaller, softer hands, teasing nips at his ear, and quiet, quiet urges for him to come all over himself like the pretty, pretty Omega he was.
And the pleasure mounts, peaks as the Minseok of his fantasies bites down on his neck with a growled Mine.
Tao muffles his scream into his own shoulder as he quivers with the force of his orgasm.
It’s dark by the time he’s come down, twilight casting soft shadows across his room, and he stares up at the glowing stickers on his ceiling as he pants in the afterglow, cooler now, but still aching, still empty and wanting.
The need for companionship, for love is most acute during heats, more demanding, more consuming even than the urge to be fucked. A Mate that will stay, a Mate that will want him.
But Tao, he’s grown used to his hollowed chest, the torment of loneliness.
And luckily, the feelings don’t last, eclipsed by waves of all consuming heated arousal again.
Tao embraces the carnal chaos of it all, a distressingly dizzying distraction from the real world.
The hours, days pass in a haze.
Sehun is on the other side of the door, alternately at the foot of his bed. He comes in the intervals of quiet, of soothing care. Food, water, warm, wet towels gingerly wiped over his skin, news sometimes, reassurances.
Yes, Sehun had talked to Tao’s professors on his behalf. Yes, he’d submitted his excusal forms. Yes, he’d picked up his homework. Yes, he’d DVRed Ghost Hunters. Now, could Tao sit up, so he wouldn’t choke on his energy drink and could he try to eat this jjigae. He needed something solid. Was he feeling up to showering.
It’s not the kind of caring that Minseok or others mean when talking about heats, not sexual, not romantic, but Sehun does take care of him. Tao does the same for him.
Sehun, he also becomes a proxy for Minseok, who despite Tao’s urging, is apparently still eager to care for him, too.
Minseok asked me to feed you this, give you this, tell you this or Minseok sent this soup, these crackers, this smoothie or Minseok told me to ask how you’re feeling.
And some small, sick, desperate part of Tao clings to this as some sort of proof. Small, sick, desperate, needy, he makes it something it’s not, imagining a Mate that doesn’t exist. A Mate that wants him back. He needs it to tide him through the awful, awful moments of too quiet gnawing his chest just just just until the need arises again, and he’s fumbling for his toys.
Tao is sore, exhausted, but sated by the time his heat breaks with the fourth day.
Covered in sweat, come, drenched in the nauseatingly sticky-sweet scent of his own arousal, he’s in need of a shower, a trip to his closet, another to the laundry room, another to the fridge.
It’s a Saturday, midday, and Sehun, still dressed in his pajamas, pauses by the kitchen table to ask him if he’s ready for Minseok to come back.
Tao stiffens but nods around his bagel and cream cheese, gulping his bite as Sehun mentions meeting with Joonmyun, giving them privacy.
In the time it takes Tao to finish his meal, wash his dishes, Sehun is wandering out of his room, dressed for his date with Joonmyun. They’re going to catch a movie, and Sehun’s wearing his fuck-me skinny jeans, a heather cable knit sweater.
He pauses by the door, runs a worried hand through his dark hair, pausing, deliberating.
“I texted him,” Sehun informs him. “He says he’ll be here soon.” He hesitates, reaches out to squeeze Tao’s bicep once. Firm, brief. “Good luck.”
next
Title: On this planet spinning, I think that I was meant to be next to you
Pairing: Xiutao, side seho
Length: 10, 400 words
Rating: NC-17
Warning(s): alpha omega au, pining!tao, heavy romantic angst, heat masturbation, self-lubrication
Summary: Tao’s heart aches, wrist aches from the frequency and utter vastness of his desire.
Author’s Note: title from steve aoki’s “back to earth”
Tao thinks maybe if he tries to trace back to its very origin, the very moment, he thinks he probably fell in love with Minseok when he first met him, thinks he was fated, doomed from the very start.
Tao 10 to Minseok’s 13, the both of them wet and shivering in their apartment complex’s too-cold pool, lips blue, the October chill rattling them to their very bones. And maybe his mother had been right, maybe Tao shouldn’t have gone into the water, maybe he was being “difficult” and “obstinate,” maybe he would learn a lesson from this and catch a cold even though Mr. Cha had assured him that people didn’t catch colds from temperature-It was a virus. Maybe, maybe, there would be consequences to face for this, but the icy pool water was so welcoming. And Tao was finding a new friend in this new neighbor boy. Kim Minseok, who was tangling their pruney fingers beneath the water, calling Tao brave, brave just like him. And Kim Minseok actually thought Tao was older. He was asking him what middle school he went to and what his favorite music was and whether he liked to play sports and did he play video games or read comic books because Minseok did both and he really wanted to find someone else that did, too.
And Tao-fated, doomed-had of course been instantly drawn, instantly taken with his quiet, soft-voiced, sharp-eyed, handsome and charmingly awkward, shivering, shivering, shivering neighbor boy at his side.
Kim Minseok, 10 year old Tao had decided, he had the kind of face you wanted to keep looking at, the kind of voice you wanted to keep hearing. He was the kind of person you wanted to keep around.
And hindsight being 20/20, Tao’s fatalism intact, he thinks, yeah that moment, knocking bare, knobby knees with Minseok as they kicked idly at the cold, cold water, he thinks he fell in love with him then.
He thinks he was fated to suffer like this.
Because after clarifications about age, Minseok had turned instantly indulgent, distressingly doting, shifting to wrap an arm around Tao’s shoulders, ruffling his wet hair. He’d asked Tao to call him hyung even though he wasn’t Korean, even though they were both speaking English.
And that very afternoon, on that fateful, doomed day, Tao became Minseok’s adopted brother, a petulant thing for Minseok to tease, alternately coddle. On that October day, after that incident, in that exact moment, Tao had earned Minseok’s fond favor-but familiar, fraternal, wrong. And that had been the moment things were set into motion to play out like this.
Minseok’s favor, as a child, had meant sleepovers on Minseok’s bottom bunk, movie and video game marathons, soccer and basketball games, careful, careful comic book reading, shared secrets, occasionally held hands, whispered conversations about life. Minseok always animated with quiet and affectionately patronizing warmth, Tao always glowing at his praise, filled to the brim with his affection.
Minseok was his best friend. Tao was intent on keeping him around.
And Minseok wasn’t like Tao, Tao would come to find. Minseok was broader and taller and older and stronger, but also quieter, almost guarded, accommodating and friendly and kind. Intriguing and so very good to him.
And Minseok, Tao found, also had the kind of laughter you wanted to keep causing, the kind of hands you wanted to keep holding, the kind of smile you wanted to warm you from the inside out, the kind of tender, tender care that you wanted to keep earning.
Minseok’s caring had become even worse-better- when Minseok had been classed at 16. An Alpha. And small as he was, unassuming as he was, it was his duty to look after Tao, to protect this oversized but still vulnerable, still precious, still soft best friend.
Tao, he tolerated it. Maybe even needed it, eager still for shared styrofoam containers of Chinese food in between careful perusals of protection-sheeted comic books, for muffled laughter over cheesy English-language dubs, for late nights with a controller in his lap, his head against Minseok’s shoulder, for heavy-lidded, soft-voiced conversations as dawn began to lick over the horizon, filtering in through Minseok’s powder blue blinds.
And it had been different then, the love, it had been large and looming and so very vast, so real, but innocent, pure, soft, not sad, not longing, not consuming. Not even focused enough to demand or want or ache.
Minseok just had the kind of face you wanted to keep looking at, the kind of voice you wanted to keep hearing. He was just the kind of person that he wanted to keep around. He radiated the kind of quiet steady warmth that Tao was ever chasing.
And Tao hadn’t known what it meant to hurt for it, hadn’t known that what he felt for Minseok could hurt.
But fated, doomed as he was, Tao was already in the thick of it before he even had a chance to properly process it.
Things had changed with puberty-Tao’s puberty three years later, his affection, his innocent heedless, guileless childhood crush and love twisting and evolving and blooming and distorting into this. All the pre-existing conditions had come to a head, bubbling forth slow and natural until yes yes Tao was in love, helpless and inadvertent and desperate and so so so hungry and aching, utterly consumed.
An Omega, Tao’s first heat-as every subsequent heat thereafter-had hit hard, been plagued with the phantom desire, the phantom promise of Minseok’s voice, Minseok’s face, Minseok’s mouth, Minseok’s bare skin.
A fluke, sixteen-year-old Tao had hoped in his writhing delirium. Projection. Tao somehow latching onto, otherwise perverting Minseok’s role in his life as Tao’s protector, Tao’s guardian, Tao’s safespace. Relenting because it was useful, because fuck, it had him trembling, Tao, too consumed to protest, to question, he’d embraced the fantasy-for the sake of his heat, his body’s needs.
Just this once.
It felt so good, so natural, so right. Tao with his eyes clenched tightly shut, his body bare and open across his bed, his stickly, clumsy fingers trembling around the silicone shaft in his fist, his entire body tingling, burning, he’d wanted, he’d wanted, he’d wanted.
But no, the images hadn’t left afterwards, even in the brief, lucid respites between shuddering orgasms. The fantasies hadn’t in fact dissipated with the wracking spasms of heated need, hadn’t evaporated with the sticky sweat on his skin, hadn’t been scrubbed away by the warm towels along his navel and thighs. He’d wanted still-kept remembering his want-even as he’d sipped sports drinks, munched on saltine crackers.
He’d started to feel things, too, or become aware of dormant feelings. Aching for soft kisses, for tender, reverent touches along his skin, forI love yous and You’re beautifuls and whisper soft Babys stamped into his skin, for Minseok’s eyes warm and adoring and liquid and captive and captivating upon his.
And oh, even in the aftermath, days laters, the very thought of Minseok still had something simmering in his blood, something heavy and potent sloshing through his veins.
Drained, weak, nauseous, tangled in his wrinkled, ruined sheets, wiping gingerly at his skin, Tao had come upon a sharp, sharp realization, stumbled upon some heavy, heavy feelings.
And because he’d been fated, been doomed, yes, it all made sense. It was all meant to be.
Falling in love with him had been as natural, as inevitable as breathing. Falling out of love with him, though, it feels like drowning.
Tao is maybe too melodramatic.
His roommate Sehun has mentioned it in passing on more than one occasion, but honestly he is, too. Lovestruck, too. Often longing and aching for somebody older, somebody that loves him but just not in quite the right way, too.
And maybe this is just a sort of Omega-specific life experience, pining after someone that would never deign to want you back.
It had been easier when Minseok was relegated to just a daily text message, a weekly Skype date, an awful almost almost almost unbearable ache still but sectioned off to just the very periphery of his everyday, a phantom pain in his heart, a phantom ache in his bones. It had been easier-so much easier-when Tao didn’t have to smell, hear, touch him. Over and over and over again.
It was easier before Minseok moved in, easier to pretend.
But Minseok is in between careers, apartments, major life paths, and Tao had offered his apartment, naturally, easily, pathetically, desperately.
Minseok, he’s staying with them indefinitely, insisting on paying rent for his paltry accommodation on Tao’s ugly couch, his half of Tao’s overflowing closet. Minseok contributes further with a general ambience of playfully patronizing affection, chiding Sehun and Tao for messy rooms, unwashed dishes, overflowing trash, piles of uncompleted homework, but paying them back for their efforts with unburned popcorn and edible Korean food and tiptoed head mussings and smiles that could light the whole fucking room, the whole fucking world.
And pain. Pain for Tao, at the very least. Regret, longing, desperation, a sharp bitterness to undercut the sweetness and utter beauty of Minseok’s presence in his life.
There’s no real downside for Sehun. Beyond Tao’s complaints, the obvious strain in his smile.
(They're big downsides, Tao knows. Sehun hurts in his place, too)
Minseok had called it a quarter life crisis when explaining over the phone, just just just questioning fucking everything, figuring out what he’s even doing with his life post-graduation because he’d thought-you know, he’d thought that he’d had things figured out, but then, no, no, this is crisis had utterly immobilized him. And he just-he really fucked up, losing his sense of purpose, his drive, and in the process his cushy day job, his apartment, his safety net, his neat, neat plans.
And in the aftermath of that utter collapse, the future is a sort of terrifyingly fuzzy looming maybe, casting an ominous shadow over his current endeavors.
He’s stuck now, in between, deliberating, deciding, performing major damage control, picking up waiter shifts at a local diner, volunteer hours at the local library, extra responsibility as a self-styled college brat caretaker.
There’s monotony, frustration, insecurity in it all, but it’s comfortable at least, knowing what to expect as he attempts to make sense of things anew.
Some nights from behind his bedroom ddoor, Tao can hear Minseok’s strained conversations with his parents, hushed, muffled Korean, apologetic, deferential, soft, sad.
Some nights, Minseok calls out for him, holds his hand beneath the whirring, hot bottom of his laptop.
Mr. and Mrs. Kim want to say hello, want to ask if Minseok is still treating him right.
Of course, he is. Of course. He’s still a good Alpha, Tao reassures, chest oddly tight. He’s still a good hyung. And Tao really, really appreciates him, they shouldn’t worry.
And Minseok squeezes his hand extra hard, tiny fingers tight, almost painful, lacing between his own.
Aren’t you disappointed in your hyung, he’d joked when he’d shown up at Tao’s door, two suitcases, two duffel bags in tow, the most rueful, precarious smile on his face. He’d shifted the strap of the duffel bag on his shoulder as he’d waited-honestly waited-for Tao’s response.
A negative, of course.
Because no, Tao wasn’t disappointed.
No, Tao didn’t think that Minseok was a failure.
No, Minseok should not feel ashamed of this.
(And no, no, no, Tao wouldn’t let this hurt him now.
No, Tao was definitely strong enough to push past this.)
“Truly an idiot move, a rookie mistake,” Sehun chides two weeks in, trying to shoot Tao’s little Nerf ball into his hanging basket, failing. They’re “catching up.” Tao is lamenting an absent Minseok. Again. “You suck at this, Tao.”
“I know,” Tao grumbles, biting his lips hard, blinking up at at the glow-in-the-dark stickers that they’ve stuck to the ceiling. Romantic, Sehun had pronounced when he’d climbed up on their rickety chair to set them up, imagine staring up at the stars when you bang someone. “It’s too late to take it back now.”
Any of it, really.
But the love especially.
It’s especially too late to fall out of love with Kim Minseok, when loving Kim Minseok is as natural as breathing, as Tao has recounted on multiple occasions.
It’s a Wednesday night, and Sehun’s just caught up with his latest Kdrama, sentimental, sympathetic, not in the mood to tease. Kind, soft, biting his lower lip hard, his thick eyebrows pinching with a long-suffering pitying sympathy. He turns to watch him closely, eyes kind, disgustingly soft.
They’d met at 16, the tallest lankiest Omegas in their high school’s dance club, sticking together because there was strength-resolution, acceptance, pride, solidarity, protection-in numbers.
Tao had already been in love at that point-confusingly, damningly, fated, doomed-but Sehun had just started. A dabbling, he’d called it. Because Sehun, at least, has the good foresight to fall in and out love quickly, efficiently, the fading rends in his heart the only real collateral damage. Sehun, at least he’s learned.
Tao, he just needs to learn, too. Tao, he's too old to still be doing this.
Really, really, really.
Sehun keeps reminding him. For his own good.
Sehun teases, more often than that he scolds. Mostly, mostly, he tries to impress lessons upon him. Tough love, he’s called it. For Tao’s own good. For the sake of Tao’s fractured heart and too heavy need.
But post-kdramas, he’s softer. Too soft, too indulgent.
He doesn’t remind him that the power-the choice-rests with him. That Tao just has to believe, has to resolve, has to choose. It’s been too long. Literally half of his life. Tao deserves an answer. Minseok deserves to know. Tao deserves to be happy. Minseok, Minseok deserves better than being the reason that Tao hurts. Look at what he's done to you. Look at what you've let him do to you.
But tonight, tonight, Sehun forgoes his usual method, abandons his usual lecture. Soft, soft love, he turns instead to drape a loose arm around Tao’s shoulders, firm, comforting, understanding. His lips brush the cotton of Tao’s shirt, nose nudging up his sleeve. His breath is warm, steady against Tao’s skin, his pulse a calm, even thrum against Tao’s forearm. Steady, a concrete.
And Sehun, he’s seen the worst of it. Sehun, he understands.
“I know,” Sehun breathes. “I know it hurts.”
Something lodges itself deep in Tao’s throat, and he swallows past it, blinks rapidly.
Too long, too thin, too persistent arms wrap around his waist.
Sehun’s hair tickles his collar, then-as he shifts-his throat, the nape of his neck. His fingers grazing Tao’s cotton-covered navel as he hums out a painfully quiet “It’s okay,” Sehun is comfort. Sehun is a soothing balm.
The Tell him hangs heavy and unsaid in Tao’s suddenly too-small, too-warm room.
It’s only been two weeks.
And yes, Tao really should toughen up. Or otherwise, confront the issue head on. Just not quite yet.
I’m gonna tell him, he’s been saying for fucking years
The story’s gotten old.
And Tao’s heart aches, wrist aches from the frequency and utter vastness of his desire.
But there’s an odd sort of comfort in this pain, and odd sort of security in the familiarity of this kind of hurt.
Tao’s almost developed a callous, almost become desensitized-enough to bear this. And he’s not quite sure he’d survive in the utter vacuum of a Minseok-less existence.
Tao, he’s been loving him, wanting him for so long that his every orgasm-heat or otherwise-has been with Tao’s lips curling around Minseok’s name, clandestine and unrequited but so so hot. Sweet release, the most awful, gnawing comedown.
He wants. He fucking wants even though Minseok’s love is the toughest love. The kind of love that leaves you broken and bleeding and still somehow begging for more.
Minseok's touch-more frequent, more than he can quite bear-is affectionate, chaste, warm, so so so so familiar and fond and fraternal, a graze of fingernails along the nape of his neck, whispering over his scalp, curling up and around to thumb at his eyebrow, his cheekbone, the pucker of Tao's pout. He's been touching him like that for so so so long, since before, when Tao was still small, easy to pick on and pick apart. Since before Tao had broadened out, filled to the brim with this fated, doomed want.
His skin practically thrums with the desire for more.
He was fated. He was doomed.
Monday night, Tao takes a break from his course readings-Stats, Child Psychology-to heat Chinese takeout from two days back. Fried rice, just slightly congealed sesame chicken, dried out egg rolls.
It’s two servings worth, two laden plates worth.
Minseok’s just come home from his shift, noon rush to dinner rush. Lounging across Sehun’s floral love seat-a treasure Sehun had discovered at a yard sale one Saturday after groceries-he’s still dressed in his rumpled white button up, faded black pants, dark socks. His smile is tired but grateful, as he uncurls his fingers from knobby knees-Minseok is so distressingly tiny-and plops beside Tao on the couch.
Absent, affectionate, but so so so tired, he drags his fingers up Tao’s bare arm, up, up, up towards his cheek, pressing there in a silent thank you.
Tao starts, and Minseok laughs, pressing for more, nuzzling into him further, wrinkled cotton to hypersensitive skin.
He drops a kiss to Tao's shoulder, scrapes his teeth in a teasing touch. Light and fraternal and fond and familiar. Completely comfortable, completely wrong.
And even though he’s arguably the one in the need of soothing, the one in need of comfort, disheveled and strained and so so small against Tao’s side, even though, even then, he drags Tao even closer, insisting that Tao needs to relax, his overworked dongsaeng. His fingers dig into Tao's shoulder blades, trying to work out the knots, massage away the strain, trying trying trying for caring, for soothing. But oh, it’s searing. Oh, it hurts. Too intimate, too much. Tao squirms away.
Minseok relents with a low chuckle, reaching for his spork, the remote.
They watch a reality show. Amish teenagers adjusting to the big city life, Minseok eating silently, but touching him all the while. Feet bumping against Tao’s own, fingers tracing mindless patterns along Tao’s wrist, up towards his elbow, shoulder grazing his side.
Tao, suspended between twin, contradictory desires, tries valiantly not to tense, tries also not to press needily back.
Minseok, he doesn’t seem to notice, fawning over him but not quite seeing.
Minseok has, in the past, called Tao his homework, his duty, his Alpha’s charge, his lovely donsaeng.
He loves him. He’s proud of him. He worries. He fusses. He nags.
And there’s so much warmth and affection and care in that regard. Tao is on his mind, in his heart, loved, cared for, it’s not-not enough. Placating and entirely platonic, entirely comfortable, entirely wrong. Tao is ever greedy for more.
“You’re not eating enough,” Minseok chides, reaching out to prod at Tao’s cheek, come comercial break. Tao, still chewing around his mouthful of rice, wiggles away with a low sound of protest, a drawn out hyung.
He turns bodily towards the dancing cereal characters on screen, holding a finger to his lips.
Minseok laughs, reaches out again, but it’s a caress this time, a lingering swipe of his thumb from the top of Tao’s cheekbone to the seam of his mouth, tender and soft. Maybe maybe maybe almost laden with meaning before the television set’s eery blue glow.
“My little Taozi,” Minseok croons. “You need to eat more. Don’t want my little peach to waste away.”
He scoops a spoonful of rice into his own mouth then. His unoccupied hand falls to Tao’s jawline, cupping there before gliding absent, exquisite down his throat. His thumb grazes Tao’s adam’s apple, his blunt finger nail just barely biting into his skin before pulling back.
Watching Tao all the while, his own lips parted as he does, Minseok makes it hard to breathe.
Tao swallows thickly past the sheer, naked desire constricting and oppressive, clawing its way up his throat. The words-an ill-advised “I love you”-almost tear themselves from his mouth.
He coughs to clear his windpipe, gropes for a juice box, sucking so hard, so fast that the paper becomes misshapen. Minseok pounds a fist into his back to help. Tao blinks back tears.
The show thankfully comes back on.
And Tao is so in love his body aches.
Tao’s skin chafes and tears and bleeds against the sharp armor of his false disinterest, false satisfaction, false fraternity.
Not enough. Never, ever enough.
The leaves are turning brown, red, orange, brittle, fragile, the air heavy with the promise of chillier winds, shorter days, colder nights, static sticky fabrics, apple and cinnamon and pumpkin flavored things.
And with the changing times comes heavier reminders, biological processes, every trimester, four times a year.
The most beautiful way to greet the season, Sehun has joked in the past.
Tao is due soon. Sehun, too.
And for the first time, Tao has to warn.
Alpha-Omega lodgings, even when decidedly platonic (distressingly, unwantedly platonic) are not all that rare.
They aren’t animals, after all. They have free will, self control, can deal with pheromone-laced encounters, can take take precautions, after all.
Minseok already has, smile soft and all too understanding, as he seats himself cross-legged, barefoot on Sehun's love seat, browsing Craigslist, AirBnb for alternate accommodations.
Since, well since Tao will be going into heat and Minseok, an Alpha, doesn't-well, he doesn't-
An invitation hangs heavy and unspoken between them in the soft noon light, too too harsh for confessions, too stark for such shameful secrets and intrigue. And Tao is too scared to voice it, Minseok too dense to see.
Tao, already dressed for class, clenches his fingers tight into the hem of his cableknit sweater as Minseok wrinkles his nose, squints at his screen.
He reaches out briefly, pats his palm against Tao’s thigh, urging him to go, he shouldn’t be late for his Lab, Minseok can figure this all out on his own.
Stay, Tao wants to say. Stay and help me with it, please, hyung, but he bites his lower lip hard instead, bows his head in a quick, quiet goodbye.
“Why aren’t you mated?” Minseok murmurs a week later at his side on the kitchen table, over breakfast, reaching out again, touching him again. His hands are warm and oh so welcome against Tao’s skin, blunt nails scraping over the arched definition of his throat, his collarbone, provoking a helpless rush of goosebumps. His fingers drag over the base of Tao's skull, whispering over the short hair there.
Tao drops his spoon into his coffee, willing away a monumental shudder. “I just don’t-I haven’t...”
His eyelashes flutter briefly as Minseok’s palm grazes his tanktop, falls away. He takes a careful bite from his buttered toast.
Tao’s just reminded him of his upcoming heat, told him he’s going to go it alone. Again. He always, always goes it alone.
"Sehun doesn't..." Minseok trails off delicately, meeting his eyes. Doesn’t help you, doesn’t make the ache go away.
"No," Tao is quick to clarify. "No, I've never-Never with anyone else."
Minseok nods understandingly, heavy eyebrows pinching in his forehead. He stirs his own mug of coffee. He’s got a spot of toothpaste on the corner of his mouth, and it shines in the fluorescent light as he purses his lips, murmurs something about romance and ideals and yeah how it feels crass sometimes but how even if-even if it's less than ideal, there's nothing wrong with asking for help. There's no shame in it. But yes, he understands. Really, he does.
But no, Tao thinks bitterly. No, he doesn't. No, he can't. He's missing a key piece of the equation. Several, actually-an Alpha, not so in love that the thought of finding somebody else burns just as much as the all consuming scorching of desire.
Alphas rut, need warm, willing bodies to sate urges, too, but less often and less debilitating. Tao allows himself a brief, brief self-pitying moment of bitterness.
Brief, brief because he can’t really allow himself to resent Minseok, resent this.
And Tao is too sentimental, too fucking in love. It’s on him. It’s his choice. He can’t do anything but suffer heats alone. With locked doors, sex toys, his fingers, hauntingly graphic, sharp, sharp fantasies of Minseok wanting him back, taking care of him.
An Alpha, his Alpha.
The image is so vivid, so overwhelming, that a confession, a proposition stutters in Tao’s throat.
But instead, he explains that he is well-equipped to handle this alone. He's been doing for more than 4 years at this point. And he can't really compare, you know, doesn't know any better, but silicone (and Minseok-heavy fantasies) gets the job done.
His cheeks are hot post-clarification, hotter now as Minseok catches his eyes, his almost invitation so decadently thick in the air.
And oh, it’s still so tempting.
"When are you gonna pick a mate, hyung?" he deflects.
Minseok grimaces, nose crinkled, eyes narrowed, point obviously taken.
Tao's voice turns extra saccharine, distracting, teasing, smiling as he sips from his mug. “Don't you think it's about time you settled down? You’re such a catch, hyung.” Minseok sets his own coffee mug down, small fingertips skating over the pale blue ceramic. “Have you even been looking?” he chides.
Do you ever look at me? Have I ever been an option? Will this ever stop hurting? Is this really my fate?
"Why when I got the cutest boy to keep me company? " Minseok quips, stroking Tao's cheek. "The cutest boys," he amends, turning, straining upwards to squeeze a sleep-rumpled, pajama-clad Sehun's cheek, too. Sehun squawks out a protest, squirming away as he shuffles into the kitchen. "I could never want for anything more."
And therein lay the problem, because Tao definitely, definitely wants more.
Tao wants it all.
Minseok is a catch. In possession of the kind of face you want to keep looking at, the kind of voice you want to keep hearing, he’s just the kind of person you wanted to keep around.
And of course, of course, he attracts attention even without necessarily looking. Of course, failure that he considers himself, he’s still so easy to want.
He’s a fucking hit with customers.
Minseok, three weeks into their arrangement, recalls the stories in charming anecdotes over dinner, smiling ruefully into his macaroni and cheese, alternately his ramen, his pizza, his bite of burrito, his spoonful of kimchi jjigae.
The pretty college girl that comes in every night at 6pm, orders a Turkey club sandwich, lemonade, stares none-too-subtly, always in need of more napkins, more refills, more sauce, more more more exchanged words and glances and occasionally touches.
The drunk Chinese exchange students that ordered 2 orders of omelets a piece, the boldest, a doll-eyed boy flagging Minseok over to proclaim just how fucking beautiful Minseok was, fuck did he have any idea-his cheeks looked like little dumplings and his eyes were so-wow, wow, wow-fuck, he made it really hard to breath. Also could they have more Tabasco sauce and napkins.
The teenagers, presumably on a date, the boy’s legs jittering nervously beneath the booth as the girl’s fingers grazed his.
A big tipper that has been coming in Tuesdays and Thursdays, presumably after work, dressed in a pressed suit, a loosened tie. He always orders buffalo chicken sandwich, makes light conversation with Minseok, his smile reaching his eyes. And Minseok’s favorite customer, he tips 40%, 50%, sometimes even 60%.
Minseok also mentions the men and women that his coworker, Joonmyun, attracts.
“Older,” Minseok laughs. “Joonmyun always attracts the older ones. Because he’s small, non-threatening. They think he’s an Omega.”
They’re all inconsequential, humorous interactions, and Tao’s laugh is just slightly hollow, just slightly forced. It’s not at all serious, Tao knows, but maybe Minseok will find someone worth keeping. Maybe Tao really is fated, doomed to suffer for the sake of this.
And yes, Minseok brings him up again just a few days later. Big Tipper, his oversized, pretty, pretty eyes, his plush mouth, the way he always laughs at Minseok’s cheesy jokes. Minseok’s looking forward to him. Also, to the book club ladies that call him a handsome boy and fuss over how he’s not taken yet, he’s so charming and helpful.
“What is he?” Tao asks, voice just slightly sharp, pained around the edges, a Tuesday morning, a midweek assault, and Minseok-not quite noticing- shakes his head with a laugh. He leans forward to take a deep, deep inhale from his black coffee, humming in contentment. Tao can’t look away, hanging on the hope of his possible response.
It’s dismissive, as expected. Lilting, teasing. “I don’t even know his name, Taozi. Much less his type.” Minseok presses his finger into the corner of his mouth to force a smile, his own lips curling when Tao exhales a chuckle. “No reason to be jealous,” Minseok teases.
His hand opens, palm cupping. His eyes are soft, smile softer as Tao presses briefly back into the touch, wanting. Wanting, Tao fights the urge to chase the motion when Minseok disengages with an airy remark about how he needs to get ready, get good and handsome so he can get the big bucks.
And the choice is still his, Tao knows. He was the power to put an end to this, if he really truly resolves to.
But a small, small, sane part of Tao hopes that maybe, maybe Big Tipper, Doll-eyed Boy, any of the men and women enraptured by Minseok’s undeniable charm, maybe they’ll force Tao’s hand. A veritable catalyst, the final straw. Maybe, maybe, maybe Minseok with a semi-permanent somebody might just, just, just be enough to end this once and for all.
The hope eases some of the tightness in his chest, in degrees of the mildest, most muted relief.
That night, exhaustion painting Minseok’s features in pale purples, pinks, he collapses onto the couch, limbs splayed, eyebrows creased, eyes clenched shut. From the kitchen table, Tao watches him tug at the first three buttons, nuzzle into the decorative throw pillows.
Minseok’s already eaten, and he urges Tao to finish his meal quickly, wash his dish, come cuddle on the couch with him. Alpha’s orders. Even though he smells bad and even though he’s sweaty and gross, Tao should come and let his hyung hold him.
Minseok tugs him down, forces him to be little spoon, curling against him immediately, encasing Tao in tight, demanding, familiar, fond, wrongly fraternal warmth. And even through all the layers of clothing, it’s almost too much, too much skin on fabric on skin.
“This is so nice,” Minseok breathes, a soft exhale. “I don’t know why we’re not allowed to be just like this.”
Tao hums in agreement, tense, tense, tense as he is. He doesn’t want to be just like this.
“We can just be eternal bachelors together,” Minseok proposes light, lilting, wandering fingers and tinkling laughter. His fingers tiptoe down Tao’s navel before resting there. He is practically purring, so utterly content as is, exhaling wet and hot against the nape of Tao’s neck as he tugs him closer.
Tao can hardly breathe, but even then he can’t help but melt into the warm, welcome embrace. He bites back a moan, alternately a sob as Minseok sighs lazily against him, lips dragging up to kiss at the base of his skull. His nose tickles against Tao’s scalp.
He quells a shudder, wills away the goosebumps blooming across his sensitized skin.
Minseok had warned that he smelled bad. Sweat, faded cologne, the overlapping, contradicting wafts of fast food lingering on his collar and sleeves, but Tao can still make out the crisp, clean comfort of Minseok beneath it all.
And curled tight like this, kissing absently along his throat, Minseok almost smells like, feels like he loves him exactly the same way.
If Tao closes his eyes, allows himself to drown in the fantasy tearing at his heart.
Minseok breaks the moment by murmuring his name, teasing his fingers over the bared skin of Tao’s stomach and pressing his thumb into the pucker of his belly button.
“Answer my question, Tao,” he presses.
And this is another opportunity, one of countless he’s squandered for his selfish desire for more of Minseok’s unwittingly wrong love. And maybe, maybe, Tao can admit that it won’t. That he can’t settle, that he won’t ever be content to just be Minseok’s platonic almost.
But no, no, no not yet.
“Of course,” he whispers back, and he can feel the curl of Minseok’s lips against his skin, unable to help his shudder now, biting his lip hard to keep a moan, maybe a sob from spilling forth.
And he's almost warm enough, content enough like this, in the comforting cradle of Minseok’s fond, familiar, fraternal love. Tao can make due with the curl of his eyelashes, the warm teasing mirth in his glittering eyes, the peek of his tongue sometimes when he's particularly amused, the exquisite graze of his skimming fingers.
At the very least, this will be good later later later, in the dark where the shadows can swallow his shame, his moans whole.
Minseok keeps hurting him without quite meaning, too. And fated, doomed,Tao keeps pressing hard on the wound to stem the flow of blood.
There’s an awful cruelness in it all, a man dying of thirst but surrounded by fathoms of salt water.
Minseok-like this-he is not quite what Tao needs, not quite what Tao is clawing out for in the middle of the night, but he’s still here, still blessedly beautiful, and Tao would never ever denigrate his wonderful fortune in even knowing him.
He’s fated. He’s doomed.
Minseok treats him after his first paycheck a week later, a late lunch date, he calls it. Tao is ordered to abandon his homework-just for today-bring a blanket and his wonderful smile.
Sehun is invited, too, but he’s allowed to decline. Appealing to the precarious tower of books on his desk, his eyes are intent and heavy on Tao’s as he says the two friends should take this as a chance to catch up. Just the two of them.
They stop at a Korean restaurant nearby and order 3 rolls of chicken kimbap then pick up two cans of Welch’s Grape soda at a convenience store.
Laying the blanket near a park bench, beneath a particularly large tree, they settle into their picnic.
The autumn air kisses Tao’s skin as Minseok kneels before him, insists on feeding him, cupping Tao’s chin and dropping the slices into his mouth, laughing as Tao blushes, blusters.
They share one set of bamboo chopsticks, and Minseok’s lips look impossibly red wrapped briefly around the length.
Tao has to swallow hard, look away, and Minseok follows his gaze.
There’s a couple further away, teenaged, lounging against a tree, holding hands, whispering, and Minseok’s eyes turn wistful. He sighs.
He needs to find a mate, really, really, really. He’s been irreverent about it in the past, but he should really-His parents, they keep insisting.
Minseok twists his fingers into their blanket’s floral print, quiet, distressed. “That’s a part of the crisis, too,” he confesses. “I had someone before you know, not a mate. I hadn’t claimed, but I-I fucked everything up.”
He turns his palm upwards, an invitation, and Tao laces his fingers through his automatically.
“When will I sort out my love life? When will somebody love me?”
I love you. I love you. In the way you want to be loved. Let me love you in that way, hyung.
Almost, another opportunity, Tao swallows and blinks and fights past the urge, watching their entwined fingers. Tao’s are so much larger, stronger than Minseok’s, but Minseok still runs his thumb along Tao’s wrist like it’s the most delicate thing he’s ever held. Like Tao is still the tiny 10 year old that Minseok had befriended so many years ago.
“Are you looking? Do you know what you want?”
In his periphery, Minseok nods minutely. He curls his legs towards his chest.
“Yes.”
“How?”
Minseok’s answering chuckle is humorless. He turns to face him. “We’re seeking different things, you and I,” he laughs, but he’s watching him so closely, like he doesn’t want to offend him. Always, always so careful, never, ever giving Tao more than he absolutely needs. “We’re different people, so we’re seeking different things, different character traits.”
“What are you-?”
Minseok shakes his head. “It doesn’t really matter. It won’t be the same for you, you know. We’re-we’re like complementary pieces, you and I.”
And Tao’s chest feels like an overfilled balloon, just about to burst. Painfully young, painfully unworthy of him, Tao knows he can’t ever measure up to Minseok’s ideals, but he still needs to hear.
“Please, hyung.”
This is self-flagellation, Tao giving Minseok permission to hurt him again.
And over tuna kimbap and grape soda, in between pensive taps of his bamboo chopsticks against the little cardboard container, Minseok tears at him anew.
Minseok, he craves stability, warmth, honesty, a general aura of self-assuredness, affection, comforting care, someone that can hold him, someone that lets themselves be held.
But Minseok, he’s so scared of not being good enough. He’s so scared to ask for fear of the inevitable “no.”
How could anybody worth wanting not want you, hyung?
Minseok burrows his sharp chin into Tao’s shoulder, asks him what he wants, whether he’s looking. Minseok’s eyes are affectionate, his smile crinkled.
And there’s another opportunity to come clean, to confess, but Tao squanders it in favor of holding Minseok’s hand in his own, staring up at the clouds, murmuring that he’s still figuring it all out.
Minseok nods in understanding, gaze entirely too intent, entirely too unnerving. “Don’t be proud,” he whispers. “I know it’s different for Omegas. Don’t be too proud to ask for help or say what you want.”
And no, it’s not pride.
It’s base, ugly, vulnerable humility. It’s I could never, ever hope to ask this of you.
Tao's fingers are broader, longer than Minseok's, darker, more calloused, and he shuts his eyes tight as he works them inside of himself, wishes with all of his might that they were small, pink, nimble, wishes they belonged to the man that he so desperately, helplessly loves.
Minseok wants to make it up to Sehun, insists on dinner that Friday, asks if they’re okay with his friend Joonmyun coming, too.
They go to a pizza parlor, order one large pesto chicken, one pepperoni. On the mustard-colored booth, Tao sits across from Minseok, next to Joonmyun, diagonally from Sehun.
Joonmyun is polite, handsome, soft-voiced, soft-eyed, joking, occasionally tapping his fingers against the varnished wood, raising his eyebrows in genuine interest as they chat. Movies, music, TV, Joonmyun’s upcoming New Year’s in Vegas plans.
The atmosphere is light, teasing.
And between bites of his pizza slice, sips from his Pepsi can, Tao can recognize the stirrings of attraction in Sehun’s face, in his parted lips and tilted eyelashes, smiling around his food.
Sehun intercepts Joonmyun’s every gaze, tilts his head back in submission. A game, the crackle of arousal.
They exchange numbers, and Minseok presses a laugh into Tao’s shoulders as he watches them flutter nervously, eagerly around one another.
Sehun knows to be careful. Sehun knows how to do this without getting burned.
Tao, he’s still learning.
It takes two days for Joonmyun to ask Sehun out on a date-that movie they’d talked about, the foreign one about that college boy helping run his family’s farm. Another three days for them to follow through. Four for Joonmyun to hold his hand. Five for Joonmyun to kiss him.
It’s easy, natural, light, this courtship, and Tao wills away the childish jealousy curling tight and hot in his chest as he finds shapes in the random assortment of glow-in-the-dark stickers on his ceiling. He wills his breathing even, his smile genuine.
On his bed, at his side, Sehun, dreamy-eyed, talks about the soft, slow way that Joonmyun’s fingers had curled around the nape of his neck when he’d urged him down to kiss his mouth. And how Sehun could fucking taste the Alpha in him, in the way that Joonmyun cupped his jaw, scratched across his neck and how Sehun’s knees had nearly given in at the exquisitely slow, thorough exploration.
Sehun, he’s doing it right.
And Tao, he can, too. It’s his choice.
And it is too late to take it back, too late to start over and follow Sehun’s example, but it’s not too late to put an end to this. Not too late to come clean.
“My next heat,” he resolves, and he closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to meet Sehun’s intent gaze. “I’m going to tell him.”
But it hits earlier than it’s supposed to.
Minseok and Tao are unwinding, post-lecture and post-shift, lounging on his couch, watching a ghost hunting show on TV, drinking soda and eating cheetos.
A Southern special, the paranormal investigators have just left Jackson, Mississippi and are moving to Vicksburg.
There’s a commercial break. Toothpaste, cereal, mouth wash, tampons.
In his periphery, Minseok wipes at the condensation on his lower lip, distracted, hard, with the back of his hand. He’s not nearly as kind with himself as Tao would be. No, Tao would cradle that jawline, whisper his thumb over that skin, press just briefly to feel the warm, plush give of Minseok’s red, red lips. Tao would treasure, tracing with the most tender, tender care and regard.
Minseok, still not noting Tao’s captive gaze, licks his lips, pops them. His throat works as he swallows.
A sudden fissure of heat crawls up Tao’s spine.
And oh, oh, oh.
It’s thicker than regular arousal, faster, more potent, and it settles hot and heavy in his gut.
And oh, oh, oh.
He clenches his hands hands tight into the floral upholstery, willing it away, trembling as he tries to sort out of the words.
But he knows he’s run out of time. It’ll be days before he can bring this up. And he doesn’t want to do this anymore.
Soon, he’ll be trembling, leaking, begging. Soon, Minseok will be able to smell him. Soon-right now-he’ll have to leave.
Minseok inhales sharply at his side, turning to look at him, a question in his eyes.
And yes, it’s too late.
“Tao?”
Tao swallows hard, quelling a shudder at the utter richness of Minseok’s voice, husky with the authority of Alpha. So inviting, so inviting
His skin clamors out for more, and his body pulses with a fresh wave of arousal, lower body churning with heat, with slickness.
He bites his lower lip hard, legs tensing to will the arousal away just-just a little longer.
The smell of Minseok makes his head dizzy, cotton-fuzzy around the edges.
He blinks heavily to clear the haze.
And yes, it's easier to think, but even then Minseok’s draw is just as potent. It steals his breath still, weakens his resolve still.
Tao’s skin feels hot and tight with his want.
But while he’s still-while they’re both still lucid.
“Minseok hyung,” he starts, and Minseok reaches out to brush his bangs back, startling slightly as Tao’s helpless response. Minseok’s nostrils flare, and he swallows thickly. His eyes are so, so dark, and Tao wants him so, so, so badly.
“You’re going into...”
And yes, but there’s still, if he just-
“Do you want me to get Sehun?” he asks, and he’s still touching him, his voice soft but strained. “Joonmyun? I know they’re-but they might be able to-Do you need help?”
And Tao bites back a bitter laugh, desperate, overheated as is.
He’s shaking. He’s shaking.
Because of course, of course, Tao, veritably grown, a fucking Omega, of course, he’s still not an option. Of course, he’s just someone else’s problem.
“Don’t touch me, hyung.” And his voice is icy, bitter, he can hear it, but he’s helpless to stop, squirming away, rising on weak knees. “I don’t need anybody’s help. And I don’t need your pity.”
Minseok’s lip part with a muted groan even as his brows pinch in concern. “There’s no shame in-in needing...” His voice is tense, tight, pheromone-thick, affected at least, body helpless to the draw, finally, finally, finally. Even even even if Tao’s just realized that this isn’t enough either.
Because yes, Tao wants to hang off knot until he's gasping and ruined and claimed and wanted and wanted and wanted, but he really, really-maybe even more than anything-he wants to Minseok to be his. And Tao is selfish, extra fucking needy, because he doesn’t just want Minseok to fuck him, no, he wants his love, too.
“Tao,” Minseok repeats, and fuck, Tao can smell the arousal on him, can practically taste it, thick and hot in the air, on his tongue. He can see it, too, in the taut, taut tension of Minseok’s rigid body.
And oh, oh, oh, how it hurts.
“You’ve never offered,” Tao says, quiet, quavery, but he sets his chin, meets Minseok’s eyes. And he’s still trembling, still so helplessly aroused, skin tight and hot and wet and screaming for him to close the distance, offer his body, his throat for Minseok’s taking. “It’s never been about asking, hyung. It’s about being...wanted, and you don’t want me. Not the same way.”
Minseok lets out this low sound of protest, maybe question. It’s so husky, rich with want, his lips parted as the sound spills forth, and Tao’s knees are so weak he has to brace himself against his door knob. His body pulses and throbs with desire.
“You really don’t need to take care of me.”
And Tao stumbles through the door, locks it behind him before Minseok has a proper chance to respond.
The heated fervor overwhelms him then, has him stripping off his clothes with a broken sob as his skin thrums with a scorching ache, painful, heavy, consuming, so, so, so devastatingly hot. He burns for release, body clenching for it as he collapses back into his mattress. He wraps one hand around himself, sighing in relief as he gropes under his bed for his toy box. His silicone knot, vibrator, nipple massagers, extra lube just in case.
And just to be cruel, just, just, just to prove a point, just just just to hurt Minseok back, he’s reckless, loud, loud, loud as he can be, moans wanton and obscene. Minseok’s name over and over and over again, pleas for it to be harder, faster, for him to fuck him like he means it as he fucks down on his own fingers, stretching, scissoring, whimpering all the while. He smears the excess slick on his toy knot.
In his delirium, Tao hears-maybe imagines-a growl, feral, deliciously low, deliciously hot. And as his clumsy fingers turn the nipple massagers to a delicious thrum, grope the hard plastic base of his knot to ease it inside, Tao hears-maybe imagines-the brief, brief squeaking protest of door heavy with Minseok’s weight-his desperate, wanting weight-before there is a long, defeated sigh.
Minseok wants him, too. And it might not be enough, but Minseok, if he were inside, he’d be fucking him. He’d be fucking aching to fuck him.
And Tao loses himself completely in the fantasy then.
Minseok kissing his eyelids, fingers soothing, wanting around his hips as he pushes into him over and over and over again, devastating him with all the staggering pleasure that his rocking dancer’s hips can provide.
With clenched eyelids, a flicking wrist, a bared throat, Tao imagines searing bites of possession across his collarbone, his neck, warm pants blooming across his skin, the straining graze of tense forearms near his shoulders as Minseok thrusts into him over and over again, rasping all the while about how Tao is so beautiful, taking him so fucking well, he’s Minseok’s favorite fucking place to be.
Wracked with tremors, Tao activates the knot. He tilts his hips, grazing his prostate with the bulbous head, teasing, tortuous, and Minseok is groaning in his ear. Hang off my knot.Take it all, my Omega, as he pounds into Tao, hot and heavy and pulsing and perfect perfect perfect.
Constellations bursting behind his eyelids, Tao bites into his own forearm as he writhes down onto the toy, gasping as it swells inside of him, stretching him, filling him to the very brim. He arches sharply, heels whispering over his rumpled sheets as he chases the delicious friction. Close, so fucking close.
Tao chokes on a drawn out moan, groping down to stroke himself, sloppy, stuttery, imaging smaller, softer hands, teasing nips at his ear, and quiet, quiet urges for him to come all over himself like the pretty, pretty Omega he was.
And the pleasure mounts, peaks as the Minseok of his fantasies bites down on his neck with a growled Mine.
Tao muffles his scream into his own shoulder as he quivers with the force of his orgasm.
It’s dark by the time he’s come down, twilight casting soft shadows across his room, and he stares up at the glowing stickers on his ceiling as he pants in the afterglow, cooler now, but still aching, still empty and wanting.
The need for companionship, for love is most acute during heats, more demanding, more consuming even than the urge to be fucked. A Mate that will stay, a Mate that will want him.
But Tao, he’s grown used to his hollowed chest, the torment of loneliness.
And luckily, the feelings don’t last, eclipsed by waves of all consuming heated arousal again.
Tao embraces the carnal chaos of it all, a distressingly dizzying distraction from the real world.
The hours, days pass in a haze.
Sehun is on the other side of the door, alternately at the foot of his bed. He comes in the intervals of quiet, of soothing care. Food, water, warm, wet towels gingerly wiped over his skin, news sometimes, reassurances.
Yes, Sehun had talked to Tao’s professors on his behalf. Yes, he’d submitted his excusal forms. Yes, he’d picked up his homework. Yes, he’d DVRed Ghost Hunters. Now, could Tao sit up, so he wouldn’t choke on his energy drink and could he try to eat this jjigae. He needed something solid. Was he feeling up to showering.
It’s not the kind of caring that Minseok or others mean when talking about heats, not sexual, not romantic, but Sehun does take care of him. Tao does the same for him.
Sehun, he also becomes a proxy for Minseok, who despite Tao’s urging, is apparently still eager to care for him, too.
Minseok asked me to feed you this, give you this, tell you this or Minseok sent this soup, these crackers, this smoothie or Minseok told me to ask how you’re feeling.
And some small, sick, desperate part of Tao clings to this as some sort of proof. Small, sick, desperate, needy, he makes it something it’s not, imagining a Mate that doesn’t exist. A Mate that wants him back. He needs it to tide him through the awful, awful moments of too quiet gnawing his chest just just just until the need arises again, and he’s fumbling for his toys.
Tao is sore, exhausted, but sated by the time his heat breaks with the fourth day.
Covered in sweat, come, drenched in the nauseatingly sticky-sweet scent of his own arousal, he’s in need of a shower, a trip to his closet, another to the laundry room, another to the fridge.
It’s a Saturday, midday, and Sehun, still dressed in his pajamas, pauses by the kitchen table to ask him if he’s ready for Minseok to come back.
Tao stiffens but nods around his bagel and cream cheese, gulping his bite as Sehun mentions meeting with Joonmyun, giving them privacy.
In the time it takes Tao to finish his meal, wash his dishes, Sehun is wandering out of his room, dressed for his date with Joonmyun. They’re going to catch a movie, and Sehun’s wearing his fuck-me skinny jeans, a heather cable knit sweater.
He pauses by the door, runs a worried hand through his dark hair, pausing, deliberating.
“I texted him,” Sehun informs him. “He says he’ll be here soon.” He hesitates, reaches out to squeeze Tao’s bicep once. Firm, brief. “Good luck.”
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