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Jimin scoops up another dollop of chocolate ice cream, shoving it in his mouth and exhaling a long sigh through his nose, the spoon still hanging from his lips.
It’s their comeback period, and he really ought to be a little more figure-conscious like the rest of the Pack – they’ve all been eating healthily this past month or so, slimming down or buffing up in preparation for their showcase. Jimin’s worked hard to keep himself in shape for the fans, but right now he’s more than willing to ruin all that hard work in one sitting because he wants ice cream, damn it.
He’s already eaten his way through three-quarters of a pint. Maybe he should stop.
Ooh no, wait, he’s found another cluster of chocolate chips.
“Jimin-ah?”
The kitchen lights are turned on unexpectedly, and Jimin flinches at the sudden brightness, pulling the blanket he’s cocooned himself in a little further over his head to shield his eyes and tucking his knees up closer to his chest, back pressed against the leg of the table he’s currently hiding beneath.
Go away, go away, go away…
Nobody was supposed to see him like this. As far as the rest of the Pack were supposed to know, he’s been coping just fine on heat-suppressants, acting like his usual cheerful self, a veritable spring of energy and enthusiasm as they prepare for their comeback.
They weren’t ever supposed to find out how fucking miserable he is.
A pair of legs move across his field of vision, stopping directly in front of the kitchen table, and Jimin holds his breath for a moment, hoping they haven’t seen him, hoping his I’m-on-suppressants-and-it’s-making-me-feel-awful scent isn’t too powerful. Junkook had cuddled him earlier that evening in front of the TV, and kept saying that he smelt sad. Jimin had blamed it on the drama they were watching, but had run to the bathroom and spritzed himself with scent-blocker spray during the next commercial break.
Blockers were only a temporary fix, though, and it’s been hours since he last reapplied some.
Namjoon’s suddenly sinking into a crouch in front of him, peering beneath the table at the Omega’s huddled form. Jimin knows he must look fairly pathetic – wrapped up in a Pikachu blanket with a spoon hanging from his mouth and a mostly-empty tub of ice cream cradled close to his chest.
“Jiminie,” Namjoon says, and the dancer really appreciates the lack of judgement in his voice (were their positions reversed, he’d be judging the Alpha so hard). “What are you doing under the kitchen table?”
Jimin blinks a few times, a few half-assed excuses flitting through his head before he decides that lying to his Pack-Alpha would take too much effort (and potentially get him into trouble, because telling lies was something the Pack as a whole generally frowned upon). Slowly pulling the spoon from his mouth, he uses it to gesture to the almost-empty tub.
“Eating ice cream.”
“I can see that.” Namjoon’s expression remains unchanged, although Jimin can tell there’s a smile threatening to curl at the corner of his mouth. “Isn’t it a little late for a midnight snack? Since, you know, midnight came and went about four hours ago?”
Is it that late already? Jimin’s phone had run out of charge a while ago, but heading upstairs to find his charger cable had seemed like too much of an effort. He’d been putting off going to bed earlier because he felt so restless, so he’d marathoned anime for a couple of hours, trying all the while to find a comfortable position to sit in on the couch. Then he’d gone to get a drink and started feeling peckish, and he’d found the unopened tub of ice cream that apparently nobody else wanted to eat so close to their comeback, and the chocolate had just called to him...
Jimin shrugs a little, and shovels another spoonful of ice cream into is mouth.
“Not tired,” he answers thickly.
The Alpha regards him in silence for a moment, before he finally gives into his smile, a small and fond little quirk of his lips that blooms warmth in Jimin’s chest despite his determination to wallow in self-pity a while longer.
“We do own chairs, you know,” the rapper points out.
“Mm. Chairs are dumb.”
Namjoon tilts his head a little to one side. “Oh?”
Jimin frowns around the spoon, pulling it out only to shove it back into the ice cream tub. He hesitates for a moment, torn between his crumbling sense of pride and the bone-deep, instinctive need for comfort, before finally giving in to the latter.
“My back hurts,” he mumbles, poking at a piece of chocolate, pushing it through the soft, melting ice cream. He’s not really hungry any more (hasn’t been for quite some time, actually), but that doesn’t mean he’s ready to stop eating yet.
Warm fingers brush against his cheek, and Jimin glances up from his self-pity-snack to find that Namjoon’s shifted onto his knees to lean in closer, his expression now softened in sympathy, the warmth of understanding in his gaze.
“Baby,” the Alpha sighs softly, and Jimin kinda feels like crying all of a sudden. “Why didn’t you just come to me?”
His eyes are hot and stinging, and it sucks, because he’s been trying so hard to keep smiling for his Pack even though he’s felt like shit these past couple of days, and now it’s all ruined.
Stupid hormones. Stupid heat. Stupid fucking suppressants.
“C’mere, cub.” Namjoon’s suddenly scooting underneath the table and gently tugging the ice cream tub from Jimin’s hands, setting it to one side so that he can pull the Omega into his arms. “Shhh, hey. It’s alright.”
Jimin smushes his face against Namjoon’s shoulder and puffs out a long, shuddering sigh, fingers curling loosely in the fabric of the Alpha’s t-shirt.
“M’fine,” he tries to insist, but his voice comes out tearful and wobbly and wholly unconvincing.
The Alpha presses a lingering kiss to the crown of his head, arms squeezing him in a tighter hug. “You’re allowed to not be fine, you know. None of us expect you to be happy all the time, Jiminie – especially when you’re on suppressants. We know how much you hate them.”
Lips turning down in a miserable pout, the Omega sniffles tiredly. He’s achy and uncomfortable and feeling really sorry for himself, but Namjoon’s hug is helping a helluva lot. It’s making him far more inclined to self-pity though, especially now that he has a sympathetic audience.
“I hate feeling like this.”
Namjoon kisses his hair again. “I know you do.”
“It seriously sucks, hyung.”
“Damn right it does.”
“I…I miss being in heat.”
The moment he says it, Jimin finally realises the real reason why he’s been eating ice cream under the kitchen table at 4am. It’s not just because the suppressants make him feel restless and crappy, because he experiences those same symptoms even without the medication – it’s the fact that there’s no silver lining to the miserable cloud he’s under. Sure, his heat comes with muscle cramps and uncomfortably high fevers and a very different sort of restlessness, but there’s also the pleasure of being cared for by his Pack. There’s the comfort of being surrounded by all seven of his mates, draped over each other in a snug Pack-pile, their scents so intermingled that he can barely distinguish one from the other. And yeah, there’s the sex, which is always incredible, but also the thrill of being dominated by his hyungs when his body’s in such a desperate state; the satisfaction of having all his instincts so thoroughly sated again and again.
And that’s what he’s feeling the loss of. Without those biological urges to drive him, his desire to mate and be knotted is pretty much non-existent right now, but his body still seems to know what it’s missing out on, because he feels entirely unsatisfied.
Which, come to think of it, is probably why he’s inhaled so much ice cream. Comfort-eating at its finest.
“I’m sorry you had to suppress your heat, cub,” Namjoon murmurs, his hand pushing up beneath Jimin’s shirt to stroke gently at the small of his back, soothing the ache there.
The Omega shakes his head, and brushes a kiss against the rapper’s throat. “It wasn’t your fault, hyung. Wasn’t anybody’s fault. S’just really bad timing.”
And wasn’t that the truth. Jimin’s cycle usually came every ten weeks like clockwork, but for some reason it had been late by almost half a month, putting it far too close to their scheduled comeback date. He’d known the moment he felt the first twinge of pain in his lower back yesterday morning that he wouldn’t be able to enjoy his heat this time – cancelling his schedules for anywhere between three to five consecutive days was totally out of the question. They had choreography to finalise, and vocal practice, and interviews to prepare for…
Taking suppressants had been the only viable option if he didn’t want their comeback to be a flop.
Tae’s cycle had come and gone without a hitch right on schedule a fortnight ago, and the fact that they hadn’t synched their heat-weeks (a first since they both came off suppressants two and a half years ago) had briefly sent Jimin into a state of panic. It had been the oh-fuck-I-must-be-pregnant kind of panic that Jin had been very quick to resolve with a pregnancy testing kit and a lot of cuddling.
And it’s a good thing the test had come back negative then, because otherwise Jimin’s sudden urge to eat chocolate ice cream and 4am might have reawakened those same irrational fears.
“I don’t think sitting down here on your own is gonna make you feel any better,” Namjoon points out quietly, cheek resting against Jimin’s hair. “Why don’t you come upstairs to bed? Yoongi-hyung can give you a massage.”
“It’s late,” the Omega protests. “He should sleep.”
“You know he won’t mind.”
Jimin sniffles again, rubbing his damp cheek against the fabric of Namjoon’s shirt. The Alpha’s scent, rich and earthy and perfect, is helping to ease the tension in his muscles, but a massage from Yoongi sounds amazing right now. Suga-hyung has a knack for finding every little knotted muscle, and his hands are like magic; he’s usually the one Jimin goes to when he’s in pre-heat and the cramping is at its worst. And Namjoon’s right, the older Alpha never seems to mind, even if it’s at stupid-o’clock in the morning. Only this time, he might be a little upset when he finds out about…
“Hyung?” Jimin’s gaze flickers down to his nearby snack, and he swallows nervously. “I kinda ate his ice cream.”
Namjoon huffs a quiet laugh and tilts the dancer’s chin up, eyes shining with mirth and lips curled into a wide, amused smile. “If he asks, I’m the one who ate it.”
“That’d be lying.”
The Alpha rolls his eyes, extracting an arm from around Jimin to reach for the ice cream, scooping up a melted dollop of chocolatey goodness and sealing his lips around the spoon. He looks frustratingly attractive like that, and Jimin finds himself watching the man’s mouth intently.
“There,” the rapper says thickly, putting the spoon back in the tub. “Now it’s true.”
Jimin feels his lips twitch a little. “Hyung, you don’t even like chocolate ice cream.”
Namjoon’s expression tells him that this fact still holds true, because there’s definitely a slight pinch around his eyes as the Alpha forcefully swallows. Jimin sometimes wonders how he ever managed to fall in love with (and become mated to) someone who dislikes sweet foods, especially given his own affinity for desserts. But then Namjoon will smile at him, or wrap his arms around the Omega in a backhug, or just look at him in that soft, fond way of his that turns Jimin’s stomach to butterflies, and he’ll remember just how easy it is to adore the man.
“C’mon, it’s late,” the Alpha tells him, ignoring Jimin’s previous statement. “Time for little cubs to be tucked up in bed.”
Jimin pulls a face at him. “Hyung, I’m not five.”
Namjoon just smiles a little wider, gaze flickering from Jimin’s Pikachu blanket to the discarded tub of ice cream and back again. The Omega feels his cheeks heat, and drops his head down to thunk against the rapper’s chest.
“Stop teasing me.”
“I wasn’t,” Namjoon soothes, tilting his chin up again to kiss him softly, bumping their noses together in a tender nuzzle. “You’re just really fucking cute.”
Jimin’s cheeks grow hotter at that, but there’s a pleasant sort of fluttering in his chest too. He likes being called cute; likes making his Packmates smile with playful aegyo and exaggerated facial expressions. He rarely gets into trouble with his hyungs, but even if he does he can normally dig himself out of it again with the careful application of an adorable pout, at least when it comes to Hobi and Namjoon. If it’s Jin or Yoongi, no such luck. They’re immune to his charms when he’s in trouble.
“Hyung?”
Namjoon cards his fingers through the Omega’s hair. “Mm?”
“Don’t tell the others,” he asks softly. “About finding me under the table eating ice cream. Kookie and Tae will never let me live it down.”
“It’ll be our little secret,” Namjoon promises, and kisses him again. “But do me a favour and try not to make a habit out of it, okay?”
Jimin smiles a little wider at that, tilting his head to one side. “Aw, hyung, don’t be like that. You’ve already been initiated into the club.”
“Oh? And what club’s that?”
“The secret ice cream club.” Jimin points at the kitchen table above their heads, his expression serious. “Look, we’ve got a clubhouse and everything. All we need now is matching t-shirts.”
Namjoon regards him steadily for a moment, before deciding, “You’ve eaten too much sugar.”
He nods in agreement. “Probably. Does that mean I’m too sweet for you now?”
The Alpha snorts at the bad pun, rolling his eyes even as he brings his other hand up to cup Jimin’s cheek, thumb stroking gently across his flushed skin in a brief caress as he leans in to brush their lips together.
“Never.”
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