Work Text:
Luo Binghe is at least fifty percent sure that his roommate is stealing his clothes.
Only fifty percent, because Shen Yuan is a master of denial. Anything he tries to talk to him about inevitably ends up with Luo Binghe distracted and Shen Yuan smugly smirking away where he thinks Luo Binghe can’t see.
The other fifty percent is because Luo Binghe is pretty sure he’s not imagining his scent on Shen Yuan whenever he comes out of his room. He tries to keep his space away from Shen Yuan, knowing how touchy the omega can be about his personal space, so he’s pretty sure that they’ve never cuddled in close proximity, enough for Luo Binghe’s scent to leave a mark on Shen Yuan.
There is also the small matter of Binghe’s clothes disappearing from his wardrobe, which he’d been sure to check and double-check in case he was actually going crazy.
So. He doesn’t know how to confront his roommate about it.
In other circumstances, sure.
If it were his highschool roommate who was a giant freezer with a popsicle up his ass, Binghe would’ve slapped him upside the head and demanded it back. If it were said freezer’s mousy boyfriend who looked like he was perpetually scared of everything in existence, Binghe would have simply stared at him until he coughed up the reasons.
But no.
With Shen Yuan, it’s different.
With Shen Yuan, even looking at him makes Binghe’s stomach explode in butterflies, makes him want to hide under the couch and never come back up for air.
And—alright. He knows that he’s in love with his roommate. He knows that, as an unmated omega who stays inside all day, Shen Yuan could simply be taking his clothes so that he can be surrounded in the comfort of an alpha’s scent—an alpha at he’s at least—he hopes—he’s friends with.
And most likely, Shen Yuan will be embarrassed if he knows that Luo Binghe knows. It’s no secret that Shen Yuan has a thin face.
Binghe will not deny that he has teased him several times just to see the cute red flush on the omega’s face and his snappy retorts.
So—for now, he thinks. He will set aside this matter. Shen Yuan can have all the sweaters and coats of Luo Binghe’s that he wants, and Luo Binghe himself with faithfully stay quiet about it.
And if he smiles at discovering his lost clothes, weeks after losing them, when they barely have any more scent clinging to them—well, that’s for him to know and for no one else to find out.
The first time Shen Yuan grumpily lets Binghe cuddle him, he cries.
However, it’s less to do with Shen Yuan allowing cuddles and more to do with the fact that after everything they went through, the dog in the movie had still died—and—Binghe feels himself tearing up again, sniffing messily as the credits play and Shen Yuan’s small hand pats circles into his head.
‘Crybaby,’ he scoffs, but his voice holds an undercurrent of mirth in it as he hugs Binghe and lets him sob his woes into his small shoulder—‘this is unbecoming of you.’
‘But Yuan-ge,’ Binghe says plaintively, ‘the dog died.’
‘Yes, I know,’ the omega huffs, ‘I was watching the movie too, remember?’
Binghe sniffles and holds him tight, selfishly taking this opportunity to hold him close—he does not know whether there will be a second time or not, and he is going to hoard this precious little moment.
But it seems like he doesn’t have much to worry about.
After that once, it’s like a dam breaks.
The next morning, Shen Yuan brushes by his arm when he goes to get his coffee in the morning. When Binghe returns home from work Shen Yuan absentmindedly presses against him as they sit together on their old, beat-up couch. When it’s time for Shen Yuan to sleep, he also winds an arm around Binghe before traipsing off into his room.
Binghe is giddy on his feeling, heart soaring in happiness whenever Shen Yuan, over the course of the next few weeks, brushes up against him or initiates physical contact. It’s nice.
So good that, after a few weeks, Binghe himself begins to touch Shen Yuan. Just in the smallest ways—brushing against his forehead, against his side—the first time Shen Yuan makes a pleased little sound and leans into his touch, Binghe has to excuse himself to his room to scream for a full five minutes.
So.
They settle into a comfortable rhythm of living together like that—and Binghe’s heart swells with love whenever they’re cuddling and Shen Yuan makes these happy little noises—he thinks he can’t get enough of those noises.
But—
It’s very not good for his poor, poor heart. Seeing Shen Yuan happy and pliant makes something deep and dark inside of him purr with satisfaction, and his alpha urges him to take what’s his.
But Binghe resists. Shen Yuan has made no attempt to tell him that he even wants Binghe the same way that he does—and besides, he’s happy like this. He’s not going to ruin a good friendship he has by being one of those jerk alphas he’s always seen before.
He’s content.
And it’s a far cry from when he’d been a kid and wandering the streets. He’s not going to ruin something good just because he’s greedy.
However—
It all comes to a head when—
When Binghe comes home early one day, and goes to check on Shen Yuan.
His roommate had been sick this morning—only a mild fever, but a fever nonetheless—and Binghe had made him soup and wontons to eat before he left. Shen Yuan had thanked him with bleary eyes and a red nose and Binghe had resisted the urge to call him cute—and trudged back to his room and shut the door with a definitive click.
Now, in the evening, Binghe hopes that he hasn’t gotten worse—but Shen Yuan isn’t responding to his call or knock, and Binghe is worried.
And—the omega had told him not to come into his room, for some bizarre reason, and up until now, Binghe has respected that.
But his worry far outweighs Shen Yuan’s wrath, and besides, what could be so important that he has to hide it? A dead body? There’s no problem, Binghe will personally help him hide it.
And so, turning the knob, Binghe quietly slips in.
What he sees is far more surprising than a dead body.
Shen Yuan is absolutely swaddled in a pile of clothes—that is—Binghe’s clothes—and his breathing is shallow, but he’s sleeping amidst a pile of Binghe’s clothes.
And on further inspection, it looks like a shoddily made nest—not the ones for heats, but something for comfort and safety, and—
Binghe’s brain short-circuits.
Before he knows it he’s sitting at Shen Yuan’s side on the bed, hand reaching to brush away the sweat-slicked strands of hair away from his forehead.
Unfortunately for him, it seems that Shen Yuan had not been in as much of a deep sleep as he’d thought he was, because the omega is blinking at him blearily before—
Shooting up to sit, blinking harshly, and Binghe can only freeze as he yells, ‘This isn’t what it looks like!’
He can’t reply.
‘Binghe—‘ Shen Yuan says, and he looks so lost, so frustrated, in the middle of a pile of clothes he stole from Binghe—‘Binghe, please, let me explain, I didn’t—I didn’t mean for you to find out—‘
He stops, looking flustered and scared, and Binghe doesn’t want to see him so unsure of himself ever again.
And maybe because of that, he’s drawing forward and enveloping Shen Yuan in a hug, patting his back and whispering nonsensical praises into Shen Yuan’s ear.
Everything is still, just for a moment, before Binghe draws back, holding Shen Yuan’s arms gently as the omega looks at him with wide eyes.
‘Yuan-gege,’ Binghe says, and he can’t help the smirk that surfaces on his face—after all, despite everything, it is painfully easy for him to tease the easily-flustered omega.
‘Yes?’
‘You stole my clothes,’ Binghe says, and receives the pleasure of seeing Shen Yuan’s face turn red—‘There should be a punishment in place, no?’
Shen Yuan freezes up in his grasp, and he says—says something about washing the clothes, giving everything back to Binghe—
But that is not what he is looking for.
‘No,’ Binghe says, and nudges Shen Yuan’s chin up so that he can see Binghe’s—full, happy—smile, ‘The punishment is that now you have to wear my clothes all the time.’
Shen Yuan blinks.
And blinks again.
And again, and Binghe is fearing that he’d read everything wrong, and now Shen Yuan will hate him for doing this—
Until a wet laugh falls from Shen Yuan’s face and he’s rushing forward in a move so bold that it leaves Binghe speechless—and wraps his arms tight around Binghe’s middle, smushing his face into Binghe’s chest—and he realizes dazedly then and there that Shen Yuan is so small compared to him—and that he wants to protect and hold him forever—
‘Okay, okay, I get it,’ Shen Yuan grumbles, and his face is hot against Binghe’s neck, and it takes him a second to realize that he’d said everything out loud.
Well, it’s not like it’s a bad thing, considering how cute and adorable it left Shen Yuan.
Binghe laughs, shifting so that he can press a kiss to the omega’s forehead—his omega, now—and holds him tight, holds him until he remembers that his omega is sick and almost trips over himself to get the medicine and boil some more soup for him—
But the feeling he gets—when Shen Yuan pulls him forward before he goes, presses a kiss to the corner of his lips and blushes red because he’d clearly missed—is fucking euphoric.
(In hindsight, maybe he’d fucked himself over by making Shen Yuan wear all his sweaters. His grades are suffering. His other body parts are most definitely…not.)