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Seokjin made japchae for dinner tonight for the third time in a row this week, because… of course he has. It's heat week. Everyone is prone to spoiling Namjoon to distraction during heat week.
Case in point: They are seated around the dining table, except Jungkook is only really halfway in his chair, the other half of him comfortably in Namjoon's lap, nose in the crook of his neck. Taehyung is standing, busy piling servings onto Namjoon's already heaping plate while Jimin background drives, "Give him more egg. More, more. Ack, you accidentally took a chili!" The man of the hour seems quite amused, watching them with a fond smile while he absentmindedly rubs Jungkook's back.
Seokjin steps out of the kitchen with another mixing bowl of japchae and Yoongi can't help snorting at the scowl he makes when he sees what Jimin and Taehyung are up to. "Yah! He's going into heat, not turning into a cow! That's half a bowl gone, what is with you two?"
"Namjoon-hyung needs the energy," Jimin pouts at him.
"Ah hyung, let them be," Hoseok says with a laugh in his tone, coming in from behind him with a fistful of chopsticks and spoons.
Taehyung ignores them, meticulously picking out shredded egg pieces and mushroom to add to the mountain that is Namjoon's plate, deaf to all criticism. After another leaf of baby spinach, he appears satisfied, sliding the plate towards Namjoon with a wide smile.
"There you go, hyung!"
"Thank you, Jimin-ah, Taehyung-ah."
Taehyung beams so bright it's blinding and Jimin shoots Seokjin a smug smirk. Seokjin sucks in his cheeks as he sits himself down, disapproving, but he visibly melts when Namjoon looks up at him with a dimpled smile.
"And thank you hyung, for making my favorite."
"Aish, it's no- nothing. Eat up, Joon-ah," Seokjin stutters, flustered. He tries to hide it by busying himself with dishing out servings, but he can't hide his bright red ears. Yoongi snickers and Seokjin looks up to glare at him, but the heat is soon off of him as Seokjin takes notice of Jungkook. "Yah, Jeon Jungkook! Get off Namjoon this instant and focus on dinner!"
"But hyung smells so good!" Jungkook whines, but he listens, climbing off Namjoon and settling into his own chair with a sulky pout.
Seokjin grumbles under breath, but surprisingly he doesn't say anything more. Yoongi guesses he's appeased now that everyone has food in front of them and is tucking in-
Until he realizes that Hoseok, who's sitting next to Seokjin, is eating with only one hand, the other one conspicuously absent from the tabletop. Yoongi narrows his eyes at him and aims a kick at him under the dining table.
"Can you guys stop being horndogs at the dinner table?"
Everyone looks at them and Seokjin flushes bright red. "We weren't doing anything!!" he protests, but Hoseok only laughs, sticking his tongue out the corner of his smile, a sheepish admission of guilt.
"Sorry, sorry," he apologizes, hand making a reappearance from under the table. "Kook-ie's right is all, Joon-ie smells amazing. Like that honey whiskey that you bought from the airport in Osaka, Jin-hyung, what was it called? It's all spicy and sweet, really gets you in the mood, you know?"
"Hibiki Suntory." Seokjin answers, still as red as an apple.
Yoongi rolls his eyes, about to call them out on their bullshit — they're like this all the time, whether or not Namjoon's going into heat — but Taehyung frowns jumping into the conversation before he can. "No, no. Joon-hyung doesn't smell like that. If we're going with alcohol, hyung smells more like… Hmm…" he trails off, lost in thought.
"Like coffee liquor, right Taehyung-ie?" Jimin picks up helpfully and Taehyung claps, nodding.
"Yes, yes. Like a hot chocolate baileys, all milky and rich."
"It must be because you guys are Betas," Hoseok says, but Jungkook makes a muffled noise of disagreement around his mouthful of food.
"I'm an Alpha too, and I agree with Tae-hyung, Namjoon-hyung doesn't smell like whiskey at all." He swallows his food when he catches Seokjin's frown, but then continues undeterred, "He smells like mulled wine maybe? Like not fruity or whatever, but like cozy, y'know?"
"Yeah, but you're like our pup. It makes sense that Namjoon-ie would smell different to you," Seokjin says, and when Jungkook scowls at him, he flashes him a sunny smile. "Twenty-three and forever our baby. Don't talk with food in your mouth, pup."
Jungkook gives him an injured sniff. "Well then, Yoongi-hyung," he says, turning to Yoongi. Yoongi regards him with a raised eyebrow. "You're an Alpha, what does Namjoon-hyung smell like? Is it cozy or sexy?"
"Yoongi-hyung's biased!" Jimin protests, but Taehyung shushes him.
"No, I'm curious. Hyung, what does Namjoon-hyung smell like to you?"
Five pairs of eyes turn to him and Yoongi gives them all a flat stare, hoping it hides his true feelings about the question. Seokjin and Jimin can smell embarrassment from a mile away and will not hesitate to seize on it like the vultures they are.
"I really don't see why-" he begins, but he's interrupted by the sound of Namjoon's chair scraping along the floor as he stands up. Yoongi looks up at him, grateful to be saved from answering, but the feeling soon morphs into concern when he sees the distant look in Namjoon's eyes.
Namjoon for his part, only gives a dismissive little wave when he notices that everyone's gone silent. "Nonono, you guys keep talking, I'm just gonna…"
He shuffles away from the table, heading in the direction of their living room. Everyone stares after him, but before anyone can say anything, Namjoon is plodding back into the dining room, bringing with him what looks suspiciously like their couch cushions, one under each arm. He doesn't sit back down, just heads in the other direction towards their bedrooms and Yoongi sighs when he realizes what Namjoon is up to.
"Namjoon-ah, dinner first?" he calls after him, but Namjoon doesn't slow in the slightest.
"I'm full, hyung" he says, "I gotta…" He gestures the best he can with his occupied hands then disappears through the doorway.
Yoongi sighs again and turns back to the table, facing the variety of confused expressions staring at him.
"Nesting," he says by way of an explanation and everyone oohs and ahs in understanding, save for Taehyung who gazes mournfully at Namjoon's plate, not even a quarter finished.
"He didn't eat," he says, sounding near tears and Seokjin sighs, getting to his feet.
"I'll get a Tupperware."
Yoongi lets himself into Namjoon's room, surveying the state of it dispassionately, too used to him to be fazed by the mess.
Namjoon's always been the nesting sort even outside of his heats — he loved it when his bed was covered with soft and cute things — but now in the firm grip of his pre-heat, his instincts take it to the extreme. At the redecorating whims of his brain, he's swept every single stuffed toy, pillow, and blanket to the floor, leaving his bed completely bare save for the fitted sheet over the mattress. Namjoon stands in the middle of this sea of fabric and cushions, staring blankly at the bed.
Yoongi coughs to get his attention and when Namjoon turns to look at him, he waves the bottles of water and the Tupperware of japchae that he has in his hands in greeting.
"Where do I put this?" he asks.
"Over there." Namjoon waves a hand at the bedside table where several packs of chips wobble precariously on a base of a sideways Pringles can and two new tubes of Oreos.
Yoongi sighs when he sees it, but makes no other comment. He navigates across the treacherous waters that is Namjoon's bedroom floor at the moment, carefully sidestepping every plushie and pillow, aware of Namjoon's hawk-like watch on him.
He makes it across successfully and gets to his knees to rearrange the snack hoard so that their food isn't at risk of joining the cushions and covers on the floor.
"How's it going?" he asks conversationally.
Namjoon groans in response, frustrated. "My brain can't decide if we should face away from or towards the door."
Yoongi doesn't even bother to look over at him, just sighs. This a long-running thing with Namjoon, he faces the same dilemma every time. He gets back on to his feet and ducks into the walk-in closet to dig out the spare towels. This decision will take awhile, he knows, so he might as well get the practical set-up going.
"You always end up choosing facing towards," he comments, despite knowing it won't solve anything.
"Look, I know that's what I'll go for eventually, but right now I can't decide, okay?" Namjoon yells after him.
Yoongi pops back out of the closet and sets down a heap of large bath towels down on the floor. Namjoon walks over to join him when he starts shaking them out, tripping over the comforter and stepping on three toys in the process. Yoongi side eyes him as he lays out the towels over the bed.
"If that was me, you would be so upset," he comments snidely, smoothing out a towel.
Namjoon hip-checks him in retaliation before handing him two corners of a large, plush blanket. "You don't know how they like to be stepped on."
Yoongi rolls his eyes, but he takes the blanket and together they spread it out over the towels on the bed. "Have you decided on facing the door?"
"… I almost want to say 'away from the door' just to spite you."
Yoongi smirks at him and tosses him a pillow. "Barricade us up then, big guy."
Namjoon catches it then sets it down in a corner of the bed, frowning. He flips it over, tries it vertical and horizontal, then glares at it, like he'll intimidate it into submission. Yoongi arches an eyebrow at him.
"They're gonna fall off," Namjoon says, giving the bed frame a solid thump. Sure enough, the pillow tumbles to the ground. He frowns at it unhappily before dishing out a vindictive little kick which sends it spinning across the room.
Yoongi picks it up and dusts it off. "We can stack them back up."
Namjoon glowers at him. "And who's gonna do that, huh? What if you're balls deep in me and a bear comes through the door, are you gonna volunteer?"
"I feel like there would be more important things to worry about if a bear came through the door while I was balls deep in you," Yoongi says deadpan, but Namjoon's not paying him any more attention, eyes lighting up at the sight of the bench-like ottoman at the foot of the bed.
"Shh, come help me move this."
Yoongi groans, but he goes compliantly. Together, they orient the ottoman according to Namjoon's directions. Once the placement is satisfactory, Namjoon starts his haphazard construction, picking and discarding pillows seemingly at random, all the while mumbling under his breath about their firmness or lack thereof.
Yoongi is shooed away early into the process, deemed not competent enough to help with the actual building, but he finds he doesn't mind, content to watch him work. He shakes himself out of it after a minute or two, taking the opportunity to put away the soft toys scattered on the floor while Namjoon's distracted. He loves Namjoon, probably more than anything even if admitting it out loud gives him hives — and if Namjoon really wanted he'd capitulate — but as far as possible, he wants to avoid having fifty pairs of inanimate eyes watching them fuck.
He has every Ryan and Brown safely tucked away out of sight and the comforter folded up neatly at the end of the bed when Namjoon finally decides he's happy with the pillow barrier atop the ottoman.
"What do you think?" he says, spinning around and gesturing to it.
The whole thing looks like a stiff breeze would knock it over, but Yoongi takes one look at Namjoon's face — his wide, waiting eyes and his bottom lip worried between his teeth — and bites his tongue.
"It's great, Joon-ah," he says and feels perfectly at peace when Namjoon beams with pride.
"Only one more thing then," Namjoon says, skipping off happily to the closet.
"Where are you going?" Yoongi calls after him.
"Pièce de résistance," Namjoon says when he re-emerges from the closet and Yoongi feels his heart skip a beat when he realize it's his nesting gift that Namjoon has held close to his chest.
They're his old shirts, soft and worn things, he'd slept on them for a few nights for them to catch his scent while staying clean. He'd handed them to Namjoon under the excuse of having his smell be familiar, but honestly he'd just wanted Namjoon to have them, use them in the nest he would build for both of them.
He settles to the floor to watch Namjoon from a distance, feeling a low rumble start up in his chest at the sight of Namjoon wrapping all the remaining pillows in his shirts. His Alpha instincts are content and pleased at the way their scents are mixed in the air, incredibly charmed by the effort his Omega is making to ensure the both of them are safe and warm and comfortable.
There are still a couple shirts leftover when Namjoon's done with the pillows and he clutches one close to his chest as he lies down, stretching out luxuriously before curling onto his side and nuzzling into the shirt he's holding with a loud purr.
"It's comfier here," Namjoon mumbles through the shirt he has pressed to his face, an invitation. He scrunches the shirt up a little, peeking out at Yoongi from behind it through half-lidded eyes and Yoongi wonders how he must look like, sitting on the floor, smiling stupidly like a lovestruck fool.
He gets to his feet and Namjoon shifts about so he can crawl into the bed behind him. He lies on his side, tugging Namjoon in close, pressing his face into the crook of Namjoon's neck to breathe him in.
"It is really comfy," he mumbles and he feels more than sees Namjoon preen.
"Heat'll probably hit in the middle of night or early morning," Namjoon warns, his scent flaring in response to Yoongi nuzzling along his neck, scenting, and it reminds him.
Earlier at dinner when Hoseok was saying Namjoon smelt spicy like whiskey and Jungkook compared him to sweet wine and Yoongi hadn't any classy similes like that, but-
Namjoon smells like just waking up, like the color blue, like an invitation, like slow jazz. He smells like their old dorm, how they slept huddled close to each other to save money on heating. He smells like stale coffee and midnight snacks in the too small studio they used to have to share. He smells like a sleep-fuzzy morning, sweat and sex musky sour-sweet in the air, muscles aching and satisfaction deep in his bones.
He smells like that other half of their lives they've lived knowing each other and all the time they still have to learn each other, because Yoongi knows that this is it for him, there will never be anyone else, and for all that describing the indescribable is his bread and butter, he doesn't know how to condense it down, how to write it out, what words to use.
He just breathes it in, the way Namjoon smells: calm, comfort, safety, his, home.
"Hyung doesn't mind," Yoongi says. "Whenever you need me," he says.
And he means it.