Chapter Text
It wasn’t with ease that they had settled into a routine, but they had settled into one nonetheless. Domesticity had crept in around the edges when they weren’t looking; between assignments and paper work, sewing initials on clothes and packing school bags started to become second nature.
Miri was asleep, Kazuki was washing up and sorting the party leftovers into tupperwares, and Rei was halfheartedly clearing the living room. He wondered absently if this was what people meant by familial.
Sighing, Rei ran a hand through his already greasy hair. He wouldn’t normally tell Kazuki if he was going anywhere in advance, but he still felt bad about missing the birthday party he and Miri had thrown for him that Kazuki was now cleaning up after putting Miri to bed.
“I won’t be around for the next few days.”
It came out quiet and muffled into his hoodie as he bent down to pick up a pillow.
Kazuki looked up from the sink, “Pardon?”
“I’m not gonna be home for a few days.”
It took Kazuki a minute to process the words before something like disappointment crossed his face.
“I was going to ask you to take Miri to daycare tomorrow.”
“Sorry.”
“Why? We don’t have an assignment I’ve missed do we?”
The brunette shook his head minutely.
The blonde nodded, going back to washing up—placing a clean glass on the drying wrack and picking up a dirty plate—before a thought struck him and he snapped his head up. He didn’t know the intricacies of the brunette’s home life—he didn’t ask, and Rei didn’t tell—but over the years he’d built up a vague picture.
The memory of Rei at the docks mere hours ago, with a nothing behind his eyes Kazuki hadn’t realised he hadn’t seen in a long time until he was struck with it again, was still fresh in his mind.
He hadn’t realised he’d forgotten how helpless the other became in his father’s grasp, how mindless; wilting to follow whatever order he was assigned.
“Rei your not going back to your father are you, tell me your not.”
The edge of anger in his voice startled Rei out of his daze
“It’s my cycle.”
“Oh.”
Realisation seemed to hit the blonde suddenly as his face heated and he scrambled to divert the train of thought he’d begun to follow.
“Right yeah, ok. Probably sensible. Not sure how good all those rutting alpha pheromones would be for Miri, I don’t know how children react and the last thing we want is for her to have another cause of stress, I’m worried enough about her as is—“
He trailed off mid thought; Rei was looking at him like he’d grown a second head.
“Why would there be an alpha.”
It was Kazuki’s turn to look lost.
The silence stretched uncomfortably, Rei watching Kazuki's expression out of the corner of his eye, waiting until it dawned on the blonde that of course he spent his heats alone.
Of course he didn’t have someone to share them with, even as a casual arrangement. That he booked a small hotel room somewhere clean but unpopular, inconspicuous, and sweated it out. He’d done it a couple of times since the blonde moved in. He wondered if he had even noticed his absence. His cycle did only come about twice yearly for a few days because of his implant after all.
“You’re an omega?!”
Rei went completely blank. Had he misread the situation completely? Was Kazuki not in fact coming to grips with him being an even more isolated and unsociable omega than he already thought, but with being an omega at all?
“Yeah?”
“And you never said!?”
He sounded more startled than Rei expected, and he bristled on instinct
“I never said I wasn’t.”
Kazuki snapped out of whatever internal re-wiring was going on inside his brain when he saw how guarded the man in front of him was.
“No, no Rei of course it’s fine don’t worry it just hadn’t crossed my mind, obviously this doesn’t change anything, it’s completely fine. It’s great. Good. It’s fine.” He said holding up his hands placatingly.
The brunette eyed him. He was overcompensating and he could tell. Kazuki continued his flustered rant:
“Also if that’s the case, not to overstep but i really don’t think it’s a good idea to leave your home, where would you go anyway?”
Rei studied his nails.
“A hotel.”
“A love hotel?”
“A hotel.”
“Rei you can’t just go to a random hotel alone when you’re in heat. I can’t let you do that.”
Rei’s hands found their way into his pockets as he shifted his stance defensively. His posture was tense, but when he spoke his voice came out quiet and level.
“It’s not a random hotel, it’s where I usually go and it’s fine. You’ve alway ‘let me’ before.”
“You know I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just worried for you.”
‘About what you’re father could do to you when you’re so vulnerable’ hung between them, unsaid.
“…I can’t stay here though.”
A tiny part of Rei, one that he refused to acknowledge, hoped desperately that Kazuki would convince him into it. The same way he did with cleaning, and eating, and looking after Miri, and all the things he should be able to do without being asked but couldn’t find it in himself to.
The silence wasn’t heavy this time. Kazuki seemed to be contemplating something.
“Some parenting books say it’s important bonding for a child to spend their omega parent’s cycle with them. The kids pheromones change the heat so it’s not…you know..”
Rei was looking at him flatly.
“…Not about trying to breed.”
“I got that.”
“Sorry,” the blonde laughed awkwardly, “but will you? Stay I mean.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Kazuki went back to washing the dishes.
“Please do Rei. I’d be worried if you didn’t.”
They both knew he didn’t mean about random alphas.
“Yeah ok.”
***
“You’re not gonna nest in the bath I don’t care what you say I’m drawing a line.”
Rei uncurled himself from his sleeping position, rubbing his eyes. He must have started the lethargic stage of his preheat because he’d never felt so tired. There was a heavy weariness in his bones even after sleeping all night.
“Huh?” His thoughts were moving slowly and he felt very warm.
The alpha seemed to notice because softened and held out a hand for the omega to pull himself out of the bath with.
“Come on Miri’s already in my bed, she had a nightmare last night.”
Rei let himself be pulled, first out of the bath, then slowly across the landing, shuffling his socked feet.
Socks that didn’t have holes because Kazuki always made sure that they were replaced or mended.
Socks that were warm and soft like the clean hoodie and shorts he was wearing, because Kazuki must’ve done a wash again. Without him asking. Without saying anything. He probably cooked dinner after he loaded the machine, and then made Miri’s bento, and wrote a new shopping list.
While Rei just lay on the sofa.
He probably lay on the sofa all that day, only moving to do a mediocre job of putting Miri to bed or taking her to daycare when harassed into it. Into being helpful, or indeed any contribution at all to the semblance of a family Kazuki had cultivated.
Rei knew the alpha deserved better.
The thought hadn’t just occurred to him, he’d long accepted it. Placated by the the knowledge that even if Kazuki chose for some reason to spend the vast majority of his time working alongside, and in the company of this shell of an omega—of a person—he still went out at night. Still returned home wearing turtlenecks and someone else’s perfume.
There was still hope for him and the comfortable family he deserved.
He thought they both understood that. That it went unspoken between them.
But now he was spending his heat in the alpha’s bed, and even though it wasn’t like that, a line was being crossed. A line they’d been walking for some time now, but had remained carefully on one side of. Until maybe yesterday, at the docks. Until now.
He was sticking to the other man like a moth to a lamp. Leaching his goodness. Because that’s what Kazuki was. Good, on a fundamental level, and in that moment, looking up at him through his tired, heated haze, he looked like the sun.
It occurred to him that this was what his father spent his life warning him about. This attachment.
And maybe, his fear supplied, the other not only knew about his sentimentality, but expected it, planned it even.
God knows Rei wasn’t the most reliable partner, in any sense of the word. Maybe Kazuki was using him, gaining his trust when he was most vulnerable. Cultivating a one sided loyalty that would serve him later in a survival situation.
He was spiralling and he could tell. The stitch on his sleeve seeming to slowly take over his vision as his presence in his body began to drift.
He didn’t even realise he’d come to a stop after a couple of steps, until Kazuki moved the hand gently pulling him, from his forearm to his hand. Until the heat of the others palm and a soft voice pulled him back to himself.
“Come on, Miri’s waiting. I don't want her to wake up alone and be worried.”
Kazuki’s hand was heavy in his, and slowly the warmth from his voice and the soft grip of his calloused fingers seemed to seep through his skin and heat his face. His though processes grinding to a welcome halt.
Rei had been too lost in his own head to notice the expression the other man had been wearing since he pulled the omega out of the bath.
The blonde caught between anxiously sweating at the white lie he told about Miri having a nightmare, and celebrating that the younger hadn’t questioned it.
In truth Miri had slept unusually well, only briefly rousing when Kazuki carried her to his room, and tucked her into his bed. The scrunched expression of half-awareness melting off her face as the tension left her body and she went slack, drifting easily back into sleep, limbs spread. Unguarded in the way only small children are.