Archive of Our Own

“quit biting your lip, what’s jake going to say if you go in there with bloody lips?” jay says, elbowing heeseung.

heeseung has been gnawing on his lip for a while, a new nervous habit he’d picked up in the sixteen hours jake has been in labor. he had to have something to occupy him, jay had only arrived an hour prior and his other mate sunghoon is putting his midwife training to the test and helping jake deliver their baby. they had chosen a home birth as they thought it would be the most relaxing for jake who had had a difficult pregnancy but now heeseung was regretting it.

he had been barred from the room after his fretting and pacing had begun to stress jake out. he went willingly of course, the last thing he wanted was to cause jake to get anymore worked up, he was already going through what heeseung was told was the worst pain a human could experience.

that was two hours ago and his worrying had only increased. that’s when he called jay. he needed someone stable to ground him and the alpha was ideal for the job. blessedly, the trio’s pup decided to come on a sunday meaning jay had the day off from work and could come right over. now, for the past sixty minutes the younger man has been trying to calm his pack alpha down to no avail.

the occasional whines and cries coming from the bedroom do not help much. heeseung had hoped that everything would go smoothly, especially after the hell of a pregnancy jake had had. morning sickness all nine months, back pain and body aches, dizziness, basically any pregnancy symptom one could have, jake got. the three of them had been wishing for the labor to be easy at least, what with sunghoon being the one who would deliver the child in the comfort of their own home. but of course, things never went as they wished.

heeseung has been a nervous wreck throughout jake’s entire pregnancy. every tiny bump in the road almost had him in a tailspin. what if something happened to jake during labor? what if something happened to the pup? all these what if’s have been building up for months and his omegas’ reassurances could only do so much.

sixteen and a half hours. jake had been in labor for sixteen and a half hours and their baby has yet to be born. jake is a strong person, physically and mentally, and sunghoon would never let anything happen to jake, he knows both of these things to be true. but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t worry still. he says as much to jay.

“is it normal for it to last this long?”

jay pats his back. “jungwon was in labor for eighteen hours with junho. it’s completely normal, don’t worry.”

the words ‘eighteen hours’ make heeseung blanch. he doesn’t know how much longer he can take the waiting. he is practically losing his mind already.

as if on cue, the bedroom door clicks open. heeseung shoots up out of his seat, whipping around to see a smiling sunghoon.

“you can come in now hyung.”

heeseung could cry. he shakily makes his way towards sunghoon, the short distance feels like miles. the omega takes his trembling hand, squeezing it before gently leading him into the room. he is met with an exhausted but happy jake who is holding a tiny purple bundle in his arms.

“hi alpha, come meet our daughter.” comes jake’s soft voice.

heeseung looks disbelievingly between his two mates who simply grin at him. he has a daughter. he has a daughter.

all nerves suddenly leave his body as he rushes to jake’s side. he is in awe at what he sees. in the omega’s arms, all pink faced and a little wrinkly, is his daughter. and she’s perfect. she’s sleeping, her tiny eyes closed. her little nose and little lips are perfect. she has round cheeks and a little tuft of black hair on the top of her head.

“do you want to hold her?”

heeseung barely looks up at jake, not wanting to take his eyes off the pup he’s holding. their pup.

“can i?” he asks, eyes wide.

jake lets out a puff of air heeseung guesses is a tired laugh. “of course you can. she’s your daughter, silly alpha.”

the omega holds their daughter out to him, heeseung showing the utmost care as he takes her. the first thing heeseung notices is how tiny she truly is. he has no idea how a human this small can exist, even less fathomable is that he is holding such a small being. the pup yawns, eyes crinkling up and heeseung coos at her.

“she’s perfect. thank you jaeyun-ah, sunghoon-ah.” he breaths out.

“our perfect nari.”

—

after the birth, jake slept for twelve hours straight, his body completely exhausted. even now, a week and a half later, the oldest omega is still bedridden as his body is sore. he had some tearing which added extra pain on top of what already came after giving birth. luckily, having two mates means jake’s workload is lessened by a lot, especially as one of said mates is an omega.

it was something sunghoon had complained about in the latter part of jake’s pregnancy. his body had recognized one of his mates was pregnant and in some weird form of sympathy, had begun lactating. it was an inconvenience, he said. he wasn’t pregnant, he shouldn’t have been producing milk, but there he was, having to buy special bras to stop any leaks from happening.

now though, sunghoon is glad his body betrayed him as it means nari has two omegas to feed her. when he told his obgyn about his issue, she actually recommended he help to feed the pup, it would help them bond to him more as he is not biologically related to them. that aside, sunghoon is just happy to be able to take some of the burden off of jake’s shoulders.

all three of the mates are completely in awe of their pup. even through the spit up and stinky diaper changes their little nari is still perfect in their eyes.

and they aren’t the only ones who think so. the day after nari was born, their whole pack came over. jungwon and jay of course, were basically pros with her having had their own pup almost a year ago now. sunoo and riki were also great with her. sunghoon doesn’t know if he’ll ever recover from the sight of riki tenderly smiling as he held nari, the little pup gripping one of his fingers with her entire hand.

besides that, sunoo in particular has been very helpful. all of the pack members have stopped in, but riki is busy with college and jungwon and jay have a pup of their own to care for. so, sunoo coming over every other day after work to help with nari while heeseung and sunghoon care for jake is extremely helpful.

it is during one of these visits that the younger omega poses a question sunghoon does not have the answer to.

“do you think you’ll ever want to carry one? i know jake hyung would have as many as you all want but a lot of omegas want to be pregnant at least once.” sunoo asks as he soothingly rocks nari back and forth.

sunghoon ponders the question for a moment. growing up the idea of being pregnant was bizarre to him. a whole human growing inside the stomach of another? that’s an insane thought. when he presented as an omega at fifteen and was put into the omega sex ed course, pregnancy went from being weird to being terrifying. it was one thing when it was someone else, but the diagrams and scientific descriptions of pregnancy in his textbook made cold fear shoot down his spine any time he considered he might have a baby one day.

even once he met jake and heeseung, the fear stayed present in his mind. he was always cautious about heeseung wearing a condom when they had sex and he never let the alpha knot him. as things grew more serious, the three discussed children, jake expressing that he would love to carry them. that was fine for sunghoon. he liked children, he just didn’t like the idea of being pregnant.

that was years ago and now, when he considers sunoo’s question he finds the spike of fear to be absent. he answers sunoo with a shrug and makes a mental note to bring it up to heeseung and jake later.

this was something that would not even happen until far into the future, at least a year most likely. but he feels it important to bring up now, while the thought is fresh in his mind. so, two days later, while nari is down for her nap, he mentions it.

“what would you think if i wanted to carry our next pup?”

heeseung and jake both look at him from where the alpha is brushing the other’s hair.

“if you want to, i would be okay with that.” jake answers.

heeseung nods in agreement. “of course it’s okay. i’m just curious what brought this on. i thought you hated the idea of being pregnant.”

sunghoon’s eyes flick to where his hands are absently playing with the fabric of his sweatpants. “i did. i used to. but now… i don’t know, sunoo asked me the other day if i would ever want to carry and it’s gotten me thinking.”

he looks up to find both his mates looking at him with curiosity which encourages him to continue. “i think as bad as jake’s pregnancy was, it helped me get over my fear of being pregnant. being so close to a pregnant omega and really seeing how pregnancy affects the body helped me a lot i think. i don’t actually know for sure if i would be comfortable doing it, but i wanted to bring it up.”

“that’s alright, you have plenty of time to decide if you want to or not. we’re in no rush, we can take this at our own pace. and even if it wasn’t our next pup, if you ever decide you want to be the one to carry, that’s fine. we’re all a family whether our pups are biologically yours or not.” heeseung assures.

sunghoon feels a weight lifted off his shoulders. he loves his mates.

—

it’s been three months since jake gave birth to nari and he still isn’t back to normal yet. physically, he is feeling much better. all the soreness is long gone and he’s fully caught up on all the sleep he missed while pregnant. mentally, though, he’s not doing quite as well.

you see, since giving birth, jake and his two mates have yet to do anything intimate. he knew that once thr baby arrived things would be different, that they would have less time to spend together. but it’s been four months and they haven’t even so much as gone on a date night. at first, jake told himself it’s because they’re busy. sunghoon and heeseung both work full time jobs and then come home and help him take care of their daughter. that can wear a person out. but as the weeks go by, jake can’t help but wonder if something else is wrong.

it’s silly, he knows, it’s just his postpartum brain being mean to him. but slowly, the doubts take over his mind. he knows he’s put on some weight, pregnancy will do that to you. he studies himself in the mirror, frowning at his puffy tummy and swollen chest. he pokes at the stretch marks creeping along his stomach and wonders if maybe he just isn’t desirable to them anymore.

it’s a stupid thought, he knows it can’t be true but a little voice in the back of his mind whispers what if. he shakes it off when he hears nari crying, he has to go check on her. his insecurities can be left for later.

‘later’ as in two weeks later. it’s a saturday afternoon, both his mates are off from work and he has just put nari down for her nap. as he enters the living room his stomach drops. on the couch are heeseung and sunghoon, the alpha on top of the omega. their lips are locked together, frantic hands pushing up each others shirts as they grasp at each others bodies.

jake holds back a sniffle as tears rush to his eyes. he darts out of the room before his mates can notice him, quitely closing the bedroom door behind him. he was right, the don’t want him anymore. he slides to the floor, back pressed to the door, silent tears falling down his cheeks.

after that, jake becomes withdrawn. all his smiles feel stiff and he can barely force out a laugh. he never feels present anymore, it’s like he’s watching his life from an outside perspective. but he pretends. he pretends things are normal, that he hasn’t lost all motivation. he realizes it’s not just his relationship with heeseung and sunghoon that’s changed, it’s his entire life.

jake can’t even remember the last time he went out of the house for more than a doctor’s visit. he rarely sees his packmates or other friends. he doesn’t text or call anyone besides his parents every now and then. he doesn’t have the energy to. and it’s then that he realizes it’s been a while since he’s had the energy to do anything. it started before nari was born, but he figured it was just him being exhausted from being pregnant. but he’s months out of pregnancy now, there’s no reason for him to be like this.

honestly, the only reason jake gets out of bed in the mornings is to take care of nari. until one day, even she isn’t enough.

it’s early on a wednesday, heeseung and sunghoon are both getting ready for work. jake is awake as well, he always wakes up with them, before it was because he too was going to work, now it is to care for nari. he hears his pup stirring through the baby monitor, but he can’t bring himsef to get up. he’s just so tired he doesn’t even feel like he can move. nari’s soft sounds turn into cries as she fully wakes up, likely needing her diaper changed as jake just fed her a few hours ago.

he tries to get up, he really does, but he feels so lethargic and so, so sad. he doesn’t know when all his days became shrouded in sadness. he’d like to say it was when he discovered his mates do not want him anymore, but he knows it started long before then.

sunghoon comes into the room and grabs his tie from the dresser. “jake can you please get nari? i would do it but there’s a big meeting at work this morning and i can’t afford to be late today. and heeseung is already late. he slept through his first two alarms.” sunghoon doesn’t even look at him as he ties his tie.

jake forces himself to sit up but that’s as far as he makes it before bursting into tears. sunghoon turns around, startled.

“jake? what’s wrong, sweetheart?” he asks, coming over to the bed. jake can’t answer, his body wracked with sobs.

sunghoon frowns and quickly pokes his head out the door. “heeseung hyung, can you check on nari and then come here?”

heeseung comes out of the bathroom, toothbrush in his hand. “yeah, give me two seconds to rinse. is something wrong with jake?”

“i’m not sure. i asked him to check on nari and he started crying.” heeseung nods, mirroring sunghoon’s frown.

the alpha pops back into the bathroom for a moment before coming back out toothbrush-less and goes to the nursery. pup taken care of, sunghoon heads back into the bedroom, jake still crying.

he comes and sits on the bed, scooting closer to jake. he takes the older omega’s hand in his, the soft skin damp from covering his teary face. he brushes his thumb back and forth on the back of jake’s hand.

“jake-yah, can you try to match my breathing? i want to help you feel better, honey.” sunghoon takes the hand he is holding and presses it to his chest, right over where his heart is.

slowly, jake is able to match his breathing to his mate’s as the younger takes deep, loud breaths for him to follow. by the time he’s calmed his body shaking sobs down to small whimpers heeseung is there. the alpha gently encourages jake to scoot over a bit so he can sit on his orher side. he does so and ends up sandwiched between both his mates.

jake sniffles as heeseung runs his fingers through his hair and sunghoon brushes the still falling tears from his cheeks.

“can you tell us what happened, baby?” heeseung asks in a gentle tone.

jake doesn’t say anything at first. “please, jake, we want to help you feel better but we can’t do that unless we know what’s going on.”

jake lets his head fall so that his chin is pressed against his chest, looking at his hands through blurry eyes. “you don’t want me anymore.” he states.

he can smell how his mate’s scents sour at his words. “what? what could ever have given you that idea?” sunghoon sounds shocked.

jake almost doesn’t answer again, but knows it’s better to get it over with. “‘s been more than three months since nari was born.” his voice is barely louder than a whisper.

“neither of you have touched me in four months, ever since the doctor said i couldn’t have sex until after the pup was born. and we haven’t gone on any dates. not even a movie night. nothing more than short kisses in three months.”

the sourness in his mates’ scents intensifies. “oh, sweetheart. i’m so so sorry, baby. i-we… we had no idea.” heeseung says.

“i’m sorry, honey, we didn’t mean to make you feel unwanted. it doesn’t take away the fact that we did, but please know we didn’t mean to.” sunghoon sounds close to tears himself.

jake doesn’t feel better. “i saw you two. making out in the living room.”

a heavy breath leaves heeseung. “i’m sorry, jake. you’ve just been so tired since nari was born. we didn’t think- well that’s just it. we didn’t think. we should’ve asked you even if we thought you were too tired to join.”

“you should’ve.” jake agrees. “but you’re right. i am tired. i’m exhausted. all the time. it’s why i didn’t get up to get nari this morning. i’m sorry about that by the way.”

“i just feel so exhausted and it feels like just getting out of bed takes all my energy. realizing my mates don’t want me was just the cherry on top.” jake is starting to sound panicked again, he misses the concerned looks his mates give each other over his head.

“we do want you. don’t ever believe otherwise.” sunghoon corrects. “but… i am a little worried. we thought maybe you were still recovering mixed with having to care for nari, but it’s abnormal for you to be so exhausted you don’t even want to get out of bed this long after birth. i wonder…” jake can practically hear the gears turning in sunghoon’s head as he thinks about how to word whatever he’s about to say.

“jake you read about postpartum depression in those pregnancy books we bought, right?”

jake nods. sunghoon sucks in a breath. “i wonder if maybe… maybe we should talk to someone about you potentially having it.”

jake’s head shoots up. “i don’t have it. it’s been months since i had nari, and even though i’ve been tired since then it’s only gotten really bad recently.”

sunghoon smiles sadly. “postpartum depression can start even up to a year after birth. and from what you said, it sounds like this has been going on for a while and has just been progressively getting worse.”

jake doesn’t like that. he doesn’t want something to be wrong with him. tears well in his eyes and spill over onto his cheeks again.

“please, darling, let us help you.” heeseung says, brushing his tears away with his thumbs.

“okay.”

—

“has it been five minutes yet?”

“almost, hoonie. be patient, whatever the result is it’ll be okay.”

“i’m trying to be calm, we just didn’t plan this. i’m so nervous what if we aren’t ready for a second pup.”

“hey it’s not even you who might be pregnant! it’s jake. he’s the one who should be nervous. you and i are just here to support him.” heeseung soothes.

“i know but that’s the other thing! pregnancy was so hard on him last time and he’s only just started making real progress in therapy what if he’s pregnant and it messes everything u-”

heeseung cuts him off. “no. no. don’t even think that. it won’t mess anything up because we know better now. we’ll take care of him better this time and support him no matter what happens. if he is and he isn’t ready to have another baby we’ll support him through that as well okay?” sunghoon nods.

he’s proud of heeseung. being a dad has made him level headed. last time jake took a pregnancy test the alpha was practically burning a hole in the carpet with his anxious pacing. now he was the one calming sunghoon down.

after jake was diagnosed with postpartum depression sunghoon felt a lot more obligation to be okay with being pregnant. when nari was six months old he told his two mates he had decided he was okay with being the one to carry their next pup. something in his tone or the way he said things must’ve given him away as jake told him he didn’t have to pretend to be okay with it for his sake. that night ended with sunghoon squeezed between his mates on the couch as the watched a movie after the put nari to bed. he had cried a lot but by the time he fell asleep on the couch he had been reassured that it was okay if he didn’t want to get pregnant.

more than half a year later sunghoon still feels guilty that he couldn’t bring himself to provide pups for his mates, but he is learning to deal with it better. jake’s therapist gave him a great recommendation to see a colleague of his. he is working to accept the idea that it is okay for him to not want to be pregnant just because he no longer fears it.

the bathroom door bursts open, both sunghoon and heeseung move at a neck breaking speed to rest their eyes on their other mate. they’re relieved to see a smile on his face. whatever the result is is the one he had wanted.

“well?” heeseung asks expectantly.

jake scurries over to them, presenting them with the pregnancy test. “congratulations, my loves. we’re going to be dads again.”