Chapter Text
When they first form their pack, it feels only natural for them to ask Taeyong to be their head. The company had already chosen him to be the leader of their band, and he was the first one in their group to have presented as an alpha. It’s only natural.
At first, Taeyong demurs. “Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to step on any toes,” he says, glancing quickly first at Taeil, the oldest member in the pack, then at Yuta, the only other alpha.
Both smile encouragingly back at him. “I couldn’t imagine anyone else being lead alpha,” Taeil tells him, and Yuta nods in agreement.
“Stop being so humble, and just accept it,” says Yuta with a wide grin.
Overwhelmed by the trust his friends are putting in him, Taeyong can only nod and hold out his arms in the universal gesture for requesting a group hug. The pack crowds around him, limbs and faces crushing together as they hug each other. Taeyong finds his nose pressed against Jaehyun’s armpit and into the younger boy’s sweater, he whispers a fervent, “Thank you.”
They spend the rest of the day holed up in 127’s dorm, cuddling and scenting each other to strength their bond as a pack. The pups, who still make up more than half of the fledgling pack at this point, might not have distinctive scents yet — or strong enough noses to smell the difference — but they still participate in the bonding ritual. When each of them eventually presents as either alpha, beta, or omega, the pack will go through the process again to reaffirm their bonds.
Taeyong drags the comforter from his bed and carries it out of the room he shares with Yuta to toss it in the middle of the living room floor. “Free real estate for snuggling,” he tells everyone.
Jisung, the baby of the group at only fourteen, is the first to flop onto the blanket, followed by the rest of the pups: Jaemin, who pulls Jeno along by the hand, then Renjun and Chenle in cautious tandem, and finally Haechan pushing Mark into the quickly forming cuddle puddle. Once he has Mark thoroughly pinned between Jeno and him, Haechan turns to Taeil. “Hyung!” he calls. “Come join!”
The eldest member of the pack doesn’t hesitate to indulge the youngsters. Slipping from his spot on the couch next to Yuta, he wraps Haechan in a hug and rubs his face against the pup’s, causing Haechan to laugh and playfully try to squirm away from his scenting. “Hey, you asked for it,” teases Taeil.
In his absence, Yuta snuggles closer to Taeyong. “Clever move with the comforter,” he murmurs, voice low enough that no one else will likely hear him.
“What do you mean?” asks Taeyong.
Yuta gives him a look. “With everyone cuddling on your comforter, the whole pack is liable to be drenched in your scent by the end of the day.”
Taeyong flushes. “I hadn’t thought about that,” he replies, which isn’t a lie, but Yuta is right. He watches Winwin curl up next to Renjun, and knows that they’ll all smell like him before too long. The realization pleases him as an alpha.
“It’s your right to scent everyone. You're the lead alpha,” Yuta points out languidly. He stretches his arms over his head and flashes Taeyong a cheeky smile. “Should I join them? Add my scent to the mix?”
Laughing, Taeyong reaches out to pull him into a hug. He brushes his face purposefully against the Yuta’s neck, close enough to his scent glands to make the other boy shiver. “I can scent you just fine like this.” Taeyong’s tone is teasing, but his eyes are trained on Yuta, watching for any sign of displeasure.
Yuta may have joined in the request for Taeyong to assume the role of lead alpha, but they both know he had a right to fight for the title. He still can if he wants to. The two of them are the only alphas in the pack and they’re of age. And secretly, Taeyong worries that there might be some hard feelings between them, leftover from their days as trainees together. Back when Yuta first presented as an alpha, Ten had been the only omega in their cohort, and he had chosen to spend his heats with Taeyong. But then Yuta had helped Jaehyun through his first heat when the younger boy presented as a beta, and Taeyong had assumed everything was fine, though some lingering stress about it persists.
But Yuta just tilts his head back, baring more of his neck to Taeyong—a clear sign of submitting to the lead alpha.
Taeyong can feel Jaehyun’s eyes on them as he scents the other alpha. Perched alone on the armchair in the corner of the living room, Jaehyun watches them with a hawkish interest that makes Taeyong’s skin burn. He lets Yuta scent him back, then turns his attention to Jaehyun.
“Why aren’t you with everyone else?” he asks, not unkindly. “There’s plenty of space for you to join in.”
Jaehyun averts his gaze at the question. He fidgets, picking at a loose thread on his sweater sleeve. “I just…” he begins, then trails off, frowning.
Yuta brushes past Taeyong to lie down in the midst of the pack’s cuddle puddle. “C’mon, Jaehyunnie,” he beckons. “Don’t you want to snuggle with everyone?”
And it’s like he’s spoken the magic words. Jaehyun instantly goes to the comforter on the floor and lets the pups press up against him, Jaemin on one side and Chenle on the other. “It’s nice,” he admits, voice muffled by the arm Yuta has thrown haphazardly over his face.
Squashing down the irritable part of him that wonders why Jaehyun responded to Yuta but not to him, Taeyong watches everyone cuddling together and his heart warms. Mine, he thinks. With a smile, he goes to the floor to join the rest of his pack, where Mark immediately tucks himself under one arm, and everything feels perfect.
Except—
Except for one small thing.
Taeyong tries not to let it bother him, the fact that their pack doesn’t have any omegas. He knows that omegas are slightly less common, though with seven pups, it’s statistically likely that one of them will present as an omega. Privately, Taeyong suspects it will be Jaemin, who is soft and nurturing—ideal omega traits.
But for now, he misses Ten and Doyoung. The two omegas from their trainee group flit in and out of promotions with NCT frequently enough that they are almost part of the pack, but when it comes down to it, the company keeps them too busy elsewhere for them to have found a proper place within their pack. It frustrates Taeyong to no end, and their managers are always cagey when asked about the plan for NCT’s configuration in the future.
He hopes they’ll both be able to join the pack soon. Not just because he knows they would bring a comforting omega presence to balance the group out, but because they are both dear friends of his. Ten’s the only person he’s ever given a claiming bite to, though they’d let it lapse two years ago. And he’s always worked well with Doyoung, who is so caring, a mother hen to everyone around him. He’d be nice to have around for the pups.
And maybe Jaehyun would snap out of whatever funk he currently seems stuck in, thinks Taeyong with a frown. He knows the two younger boys have always been close.
“What’s on your mind, hyung?” Mark’s voice interrupts his thoughts. The pup has twisted around in his arms to give him a curious look. “You seem far away.”
Taeyong smiles, pushes his nose into Mark’s hair and wonders what he’ll smell like once he presents. “It’s nothing,” he replies. There’s no use in dwelling on things outside of your control, he reminds himself.
At Jisung’s urging, they turn on a movie, some light-hearted comedy that makes even Winwin giggle, as the light outside fades into evening. They order takeout, and when it arrives, the pack bundles themselves up from the floor to sit around the dining table. Haechan whines at Yuta until the older boy agrees to share his food, then it’s a free-for-all, with everyone splitting meals and feeding each other.
It’s due to the years most of them spent together as trainees, Taeyong knows, that their pack bonds are already so strong. Absent-mindedly opening his mouth to let Taeil feed him a spoonful of soup, he silently promises to do right by all of them. I will do my best to be a lead alpha they’re proud of.
After dinner, Taeyong and Winwin walk Jeno, Jaemin, Renjun, Chenle, and Jisung back to the dreamies’ dorm, another unit downstairs in the same apartment building. No one really wants to part ways. Renjun manages to get the last hug in, a lingering embrace with his arms wrapped around Winwin’s waist. Winwin brushes his hand through Renjun’s hair and murmurs something soft in Mandarin to the younger boy.
“We’ll see you tomorrow,” Taeyong reminds the dreamies. “It won’t be long at all.”
When he and Winwin get back to 127’s dorm, he’s greeted by the sight of Yuta and Jaehyun cuddled together on the couch. Yuta has his hand slipped up under Jaehyun’s sweater and is stroking comforting circles on his lower back. Something about it makes Taeyong’s stomach clench, and he isn’t really sure why.
Ignorant to Taeyong’s inner turmoil, Winwin heads to the coach and curls up on Yuta’s other side. Yuta immediately shifts to put his free arm around Winwin’s shoulders, and Taeyong has to admit the three of them look perfectly at home with each other. It… makes sense, he is loath to admit. He knows that Yuta was the one to keep both betas company through their initials heats when they presented. At the time, he had been too wrapped up in Ten to spare any attention to the others’ cycles, a fact for which he now feels guilty.
Why didn’t Yuta challenge me for the title of lead alpha? he wonders, feeling like maybe the other alpha deserves the title more than he does. It’s telling, he thinks, that Winwin and Jaehyun are both snuggled up with Yuta right now, and not him. But they chose you as the head, he reminds himself. They wanted you. Still, he can’t seem to drag his eyes away from the spot where Yuta’s hand disappears under Jaehyun’s sweater.
“Taeil, Mark, and Haechan are getting ready for bed,” Yuta tells him, misinterpreting his staring, “if you were looking for them.”
Taeyong shakes his head, forces himself to smile brightly. “Ah, I wasn’t,” he replies truthfully. “I was just thinking about how honored I feel that you all chose me to lead our pack.”
Jaehyun sits up and reaches out a hand to him. “You’re a natural leader,” he says simply, then when Taeyong slips his hand into his, adds, “It’s not just the company who thinks so.”
Taeyong rubs his thumb over Jaehyun’s knuckles. He believes Jaehyun when he says it, and two of them have been friends for just over four years now, but Taeyong can tell that there’s something else weighing on his mind, something left unspoken beneath the surface. Taeyong wonders how long it will take, how much work he will need to put in, for the younger boy to open up to him about what’s bothering him.
He wants so desperately to be good lead alpha. Now that they’ve established their bonds as a pack, his biology is yelling at him to protect and comfort the others. But Taeyong knows that he can’t push too hard with Jaehyun or else he’ll scare him off. He’s a little bit like Doyoung in that way, muses Taeyong. A little more fragile and little more secretive than you’d first think.
“Thank you for believing in me,” he says instead, then squeezes Jaehyun’s hand. “It means a lot to me.”
Jaehyun smiles at him, his dimples underscoring the sincerity of it. Then he yawns and urges Winwin to come ready for bed with him—“It’s getting late.”—leaving Taeyong and Yuta alone in the living room.
Taeyong wants to cuddle up with Yuta. But he also wants to finally ask the question that’s been burning in the back of his mind all day. “Do you really not mind?” he blurts out. Yuta arches an eyebrow at him, and he is quick to clarify, “That I’m lead alpha.”
Laughing, Yuta pats the space on the couch next to him. When Taeyong sits down, he pulls him into a hug and says, “You shouldn’t get so in your head about it.” He squeezes at the nape of Taeyong’s neck. It’s soft and soothing, and feeling like he could just melt into Yuta’s hands, Taeyong lets his eyes flutter shut. “Being lead alpha seems like it would be so much work, you know? I don’t think I want that,” continues Yuta in a light-hearted voice.
“You’re sure?” asks Taeyong, eyes still closed. He snuggles closer to Yuta. He’s not a very traditional lead alpha, he knows. He isn’t very aggressive and would rather talk out any disagreements with his pack than assert his dominance through a show of brute strength.
“I’m very sure,” Yuta tells him, laughing. “We want you.”
Taeyong smiles, lets himself indulge in the warmth of cuddling together with Yuta for a few moments longer, before excusing himself for bed. He collects his comforter from the floor and deposits it unceremoniously back on his bed, then goes to brush his teeth.
Seven boys is little much for one bathroom, he thinks as he rummages through the bathroom cabinets to find his toothbrush. He and Haechan are the only ones to have labeled their toiletries, and honestly, Taeyong wouldn’t be surprised if at some point one of the others will mix up their toothbrushes and end up with a mouthful full of someone else’s dried spit. The thought makes his nose wrinkle, even though most of them have already exchanged saliva through kissing.
As he finishes brushing his teeth Mark barges into the bathroom with an apologetic, “I forgot to floss!” that Taeyong takes in stride. The two stand next to each other at the sink, finish their nightly routines, then bid each other a good night.
When Taeyong curls up under his comforter to go to sleep, he is awash with the scents of all his pack members mixing pleasantly together, and he knows Yuta is right.
They chose him.