a gentle tongue breaketh the bone | 18: care
pairing: fem hybrid fox omega!reader/hybrid Alpha!nct 127
tags: reverse harem, non-traditional omegaverse hybrid! cyberpunk au, pack dynamics, polyamory, slowburn/slowbuild, angst & hurt/comfort, heavy content warnings inc. torture, graphic violence, suicidal ideation, explicit sexual content
summary: the year is 2127. decades of eugenics and warfare have led to the rise of designated populations: the ruler Alphas and their rare, prized omegas sequestered from the Beta population. in the aftermath of the War of the Two Tigers, New Goryeo ushers in an Imperial dynasty determined not by birthright but by the alliance of the Syndicate’s clancorps to choose the best pack of your generation. you are destined to take your place within the Imperial harem as a queen, and–perhaps–Imperatrix herself
but you have a secret, written into your skin and bones–one that could easily kill you, depending on who finds it out
ten years ago you chose your Alpha and their pack in a fateful meeting
now, you must make them choose you
[masterlist & glossary] [read on AO3] [17: chivalry]
wc: 5k
chapter warnings: smut with a little angst - oral (fem receiving), use of pet names (kit) - aka life-altering head from a man you can't stand the sight of
recommended listening: hmm stream fact check but maybe add back 2 u (AM 01:27) - nct 127 because that's about the time this takes place and the sentiment is the same (in the words of mark lee "damn, they're really not going back"
You're on fire when you wake up, burning hot, unable to think straight for how your vision swims with fever.
It's excruciating to be alone in this wide bed, empty, whimpering as your fingers reach for the bedside table and the glass of now-oxidized water on it, fumbling enough you hear the shatter as it hits the floor.
You cringe back into the bed, too tired to get up and take care of it, or even to roll out the other side to get a drink, lines of radiating cold keep you bed bound.
Something heavy sinks the mattress beside you.
"___," someone says, distantly, pulling your clenched fist from your face to place a cold metal cup against it. When you can't lift your head you're gently lifted up by a hard set of arms, your head tipped back just so to accept the drink pressed to your lips.
You drink, and taste him. Your eyes fly open, brow knitted.
You'd fight it if you could, would wrestle free of his hold so you couldn't have to accept it, but there's no battle left in you.
Johnny keeps you upright until you're finished, laying you down on the bed as softly as if you were made of gossamer when he moves to clean up the mess, leaving you with your heart racing in your chest as you watch his sloped back bend over his work.
"What are you doing here?" you mumble, finally, after he's returned with a towel to finish mopping up the puddle from the floor.
You can see the muscles in his shoulders tense, hair brushing against them as he shakes his head.
"You're not meant to be alone," he says, softly. "Don't get mad. I gave my word to Doyoung I'd just take care of you while you were sleeping. I'll go get him–."
Take care of you. How ridiculous, you think, turning over to twitch and shiver. You hear him move to leave, cursing yourself for the jolt of fear that runs through you at the thought of being abandoned again.
"Stay," you say aloud.
Johnny doesn't leave but he doesn’t move towards you. You feel your hackles raising defensively as his gaze burns into you from across the room.
"I'm not going to try to mate you," you spit out. Not even if you were the last person on earth, you think, though it's as much a lie in your mind as it would be on your tongue. "Just stay, you don't need to disturb them this late."
"Alright," he says, moving to the door a little more lightly. When he comes back he falls back into his routine of dropping to the floor beside your bed. You knew cats had a stupid habit of establishing or conceding dominance through relative height but it's absurd having him sit on the floor when the bed is big enough for you both.
You roll over to glare at his wide shoulders.
"What are you doing, exactly?"
"I know you don’t feel safe," Johnny answers, resigned. "I haven't . . . I can stay like that, if you want me to."
Your heat-dazed mind still knows what he means, having seen his ears just as black as before–tail curling around his feet. He'd spent more time in his shift than out of it the past 24 hours, and you'd done nothing to stop him.
"If that’s what gets you to shut up, by all means," you say.
Strange how the beast was so much easier to be around than the man, how you can't stomach the sight of the face you'd longed for since you'd first learned to put a name to your desire.
But it's undeniable that having him at your side is already diminishing some of the worst aches and chills, feeling like when your mother used to rub a remedy of menthol on your chest when you were sick as a child.
"And get off the floor," you add, turning so you can't fixate on how beautiful he looks to you, how much you want to wrap your arms around that neck and hold him tight. The sound of him undressing makes your body incandescent with shameful arousal, at least saved from embarrassment by the fact that it can't be helped, and you aren't doing anything about it.
You don't even sneak a look. The air goes frigid as he changes, the scent of juniper stinging your nostrils.
Within a few seconds the bed dips deep beside you, paws the size of your head sinking into the mattress. And then a whuff as he settles, knobby spine beneath the fur and muscle digging into your own.
The minutes drag out as your fox settles, body heat melding with the cool brush of a flicked tail across your thighs twisting in the sheets. His Felid pheromones are laced with a sharp citral, but he's also velvet draped over soft, black leather and warm tea.
You breathe more deeply, body responding to your Alpha like clockwork. The fever making you uncomfortable is also making you feel gooey and pliant with arousal, your hands flexing beside you to keep from reaching for him in the dark.
Minutes pass, an eternity by your own estimation.
Any innocent thoughts of sleeping beside him while he’s in his hybrid form are torn asunder by how far into need you have fallen. Snippets of fantasies play out on loop, intrusively, as the minutes count down.
You try to concentrate on the deep well of hurt inside you but your fox isn't wont to look down into it. She tosses and turns in the sheets, uncomfortable for the fact that she cannot burrow into the side of the thing behind you.
There's a spark of fear inside at what you'll do when you're asleep. Even if you trust him to recognize your boundaries you don't think you can live with the embarrassment of letting the heat overwrite your will to keep him at arm's length.
"I don't think I can do this." You sound so pathetic in your own mind, asking the peaceful night for courage. "Please go.”
A rumble, and then you feel the sweep of his tongue against your neck, the side of your jaw. It's meant to be comforting, a farewell of sorts as the jaguar lifts up off the bed, but you respond without thinking, clinging to his broad neck until he remains.
"Could you . . . Could you do that again?" you ask. You turn away again, convincing yourself there's nothing wrong with this–you need it, can use him while you can.
If Johnny minds, it's not apparent. He licks you in another broad swath, this time across your sensitive neck. You bite back a moan, going limp under his careful grooming.
Your blood should run cold at the memory of the last time an Alpha cleaned you but instead you're dissolving into the healing of it, being rewritten. Salty tears roll from the corners of your eyes as you reach back to twist your claws in his ruff.
It's clearly not an indication for him to stop. You pull his great head forward, raking nails across his thick skin until you hear the distant rattle of his breath and then, finally, what sounds like a purr.
You know his genus can't make the sound–they lack the hyoid bone of smaller cats–but the fact that he's trying makes you only sob harder, curling into him.
You can feel him beneath the form, quiescent and equally as comfortable with you as you are with him this way. Such a sudden change of heart has your own feeling sick; you don't know what it means, don't want to think too deeply into something you still feel like will be snatched away.
Your fingers drift over the back of his massive toes, then curl under them to test the sandpaper pads with your smaller thumb for the prick of claws. You marvel at how he keeps them contained.
"Do you still think of me as a threat?" you ask, as he grooms you. Speaking to him is the only way you think you can stay tethered to reality and the emotions inside you.
There's a careful lick down the back of your neck, dragging your shirt collar.
"Am I still nothing to you?"
You can feel a layer of salt removed along with a few layers of skin by his tongue clearing your wet cheek.
Not nothing, it seems to say.
"Why did you have to be so cruel?" You look at him now, seeing only the slow blink of a relaxed feline. He offers you a place to rest, collapsing onto his side and exposing his belly slightly. You shuffle to lay where his leg meets his broad chest, burying your face into his rich fur.
"I feel like an idiot for letting myself believe, even for an instant, what you said to me." It's a relief to speak without fear of him arguing or shutting you down. "But you wanted me to, didn't you?"
He pauses, pushing into your skull in what feels like reassurance, resting his head above yours with an animal’s sigh.
"And now you want to take responsibility? Only after you feel bad about it? How can I ever trust you again? Why shouldn't I find someone else who appreciated me from the beginning?"
Now you feel the flex of claws from their sheaths, hear the tear in the duvet as a spark of jealousy burns your blank mind.
"You don't want to share me? You should have thought of that before leaving me."
Like dropping a choice cut of meat in front of a starving animal's cage and telling it to wait to consume it. But of course you had also offered yourself willingly.
"I'm yours," you say. "I can't not be yours. If you want me now you have to wait for me. The way I waited for you."
You reach beside you, palm brushing against his slow-breathing side. The power hidden under miles of dark-patched fur is its own kind of aphrodisiac–knowing he could consume you or kill you in an instant, if he wasn't himself.
But he'll never not be himself with you. Though the bond you share is mostly quiet, that connection tells you everything you need to know about his control, and most especially the comfort he has having his omega at his side.
You don't even realize your hand has drifted lower until your knuckles brush against his less-furred belly, startling you both.
You've reached down between your legs to where you're just as saturated with slick as you had been the last time you'd let him touch you. You wait for him to break away or respond cruelly but he only nudges you again with his broad nose, whiskers tickling your eyelashes as you close your eyes.
"Don't stop, please," you murmur, dragging your fingers through your swollen sex. "Keep grooming me, Alpha."
At first you think he won't do it, his chin resting against your head lightly. Then you feel his teeth catch on your hair, as his tongue folds against your ear.
You moan, lightness rolling through your scalp down to your belly with each soft lick. He's being more careful now, probably unsure of how to proceed.
Again, you reach up across the foreign yet familiar shape of him, as you touch yourself to the thought of him going lower. You want that roughness to follow the course of what he's transmitting to you through his care, for him to taste you with that same tongue–
The bed goes hot, as if hell had snapped into existence beside you, and suddenly a male body is pressed dangerously into yours. Within a moment your hand is pinned over your head, his hold loose.
"Look at me, ____."
You look up, whimpering softly, into his stare–dark as honey left to crystallize, darting with concern.
"I'm not trying to mate you," Johnny says, voice rough. He swallows, eyes wandering to your tongue wetting your lips, his own curving in a pained smile. "But I can help you."
You don't want his help. More importantly, you don't want to need it.
"You know you can stop me. Whenever you want, okay?"
It's a statement of fact, not a question. He's ceding control to you, but also you understand the wild orange blossom radiating from him isn't just arousal. He's as terrified as you are of crossing a line–perhaps even erasing it completely with the tension between you.
You can only nod, your tail breaking free of your weight to curl against his bare thigh in invitation. The knowledge that he's naked over you isn't as humbling as the way he looks at you now, eyes half-lidded and gentle. It's as if you're the only thing in the world.
"You can say whatever you want, be as mean to me as you want," He closes his eyes in that same slow blink of a relaxing Felid. "I won't fight you or hurt you. Just please let me take care of you."
As frightened as you feel, you nod, hand under his tightening to let him know you understand.
"You can go back to hating me when the sun rises," he whispers. Then he wrests your hand free of your sex, lifting your glistening fingers to his mouth to gently suck them clean, watching your reaction.
The bed should be on fire for how quickly you've broken out in a tingling sweat, heartbeat stuttering at the feeling of his teeth against your knuckles, nails catching on his full bottom lip.
He leans in to brush against your chin, threading down to your bared throat. He's deliberately running his tongue–much softer now–over the uninjured right side of your neck.
His side.
It makes your fox want to roll over and raise her hips for him immediately but you hold on to the memory of his claws in your throat. Does he still hate you? Is he just using you at your weakest for his own base desires?
"I've never hated you," you say, gasping as he settles into pulling his tongue over your pulse, until the throb matches the one between your legs. "I just . . . I hate what you make me feel."
"Good." He's cleaning you again, hair tickling your jaw as he makes broad swaths on your collarbone. "You should."
You really should, you know. You will, when you can actually form a coherent thought. He's taking advantage of you, exploiting your weakness. Shame should be spiraling you down to a darker place, where you're forced to face what you are.
But he's not touching you or kissing you in a way that implies his need, just grooming you, as you'd asked. The only betrayal here is the fact that it's not your beast but a man–softer and more intimate than you could have ever imagined.
"You taste so good," he murmurs, lifting your loose shirt to access the skin beneath.
"Quiet," you warn. You're already undone by the sight of him lowering his tongue to your breast, lapping the dots of sweat that have collected over your heart.
For a moment your barriers slip and you can taste yourself as he experiences it through the bond.
He won't show you any other affection but the thrum of pleasure inside of him is enough. He's so very pleased to have what little he can of you, each breath chasing his licks marred by the purr he can give you in this form.
You lose yourself in hypersensitivity, legs locked to keep from accidentally brushing against his body. You know even just a taste of contact would have your heat-addled brain demanding he fill you immediately.
His tongue accidentally flicks across your nipple and you seize his skull in your claws so tight he gasps into your skin. You can't tell if it's because of the pain until his tongue wraps around it again, pulling it into hardness as your nails scratch deeper.
"Stop that," you warn.
Johnny murmurs his assent, laving at your underbreast in a manner that is just as maddening. You arch your back, forgetting your grip on his head until he pushes back into it, demanding you pet him.
You have a mind to deny him but it feels so good to have your fingers buried in those soft, thick locks. They've curled under your handling, draped over his jaw and ghosting you every time he dips in to taste you.
The passes of your sharp nails are your way of speaking, of consenting as he drifts lower over the softness of your belly, mouth and breath lighting up your clammy skin. He takes his time in lapping at the salt on your hip bone, earning a smack in the face from your flicking tail.
"Lower," you command, not letting any reason guide you. He glances up, too slow to hide the smug look on his face.
"Clean me, only." You move to remove your loose sleepwear and are unsurprised when he uses brutish force to tear them free of your tail and legs, following them down.
You freeze in anticipation as he pants over your exposed sex, taking you in. His face is hidden but you can feel his smile, hear it in his voice when he speaks.
"Is this your first time?" he asks.
You sigh, staring at the ceiling, hands tightening into fists. You don't have to tell him about Jungwoo burying his face between your legs on his desk, or anything else, really. But you can feel his hesitation and the question is more for your sake than his.
"Yes," you say, unable to make eye contact.
"Good." He settles down over your hips, breathing hot, "I'm going to ruin you for anyone else."
You kick him a bit in retaliation but he pushes your thighs open and apart, tongue drawing through the dripping folds just as tenderly as he had your neck, your breasts.
You knew this would be different. You don't expect the fox's shriek that rips from your throat, muffled beneath your hand, as his head dips with each long swipe, collecting your slick with curls of his tongue.
His jaw works as he drinks you in, the pleasure from that hot, tender press so unlike anything you've ever experienced.
When he presses his tongue to your hole, sliding into the fluttering heat, you seize him by his ears to pull him back.
You don't remember them being so soft and on his head, but it's not the only thing that's changed by the new scrape against your inner labia, the texture adding a layer of animal need that has your hips moving on their own against his face, wanting him closer.
Lick after lick has you rising from the mattress. When he swirls his tongue into your hidden bud you know it won't be long before that bright wave inside of you begins its descent.
"Please, Alpha, please," you keen, scratching his skull in a way you're sure leaves blood beneath your nails. He's so patient with you, not stopping the steady stimulation you need to build towards bursting, nose pressed to your skin as he takes every drop of slick you can give him, drool mingling to slide hot down to your tail.
It doesn't matter if it's messy, the opposite of grooming, he's taking care of you–bringing you perfect pleasure and humming in reassurance when you press hard against him. The tighter that winding in your belly the more lazy he is, prolonging it until you're whining, your begging inarticulate.
"Come for me, ____." He doesn't need to order, not with that Felid tone and the thunder you feel in it, electric zings beginning where his tongue meets you and spreading down in radiating pulses as far as your curled toes.
You're breaking with nothing inside you this time, and somehow it's more relieving, prolonged by the constant but unpredictable movements of his mouth and tongue.
He finally eases once your legs constrict around him and you squirm away from the overstimulation, flush rolling through you along with the tiny aftershocks of the first orgasm you've received from your Alpha.
Your first real gift.
If you're glowing, he's incandescently self-satisfied. You watch his silhouette lift against the backdrop of the bluish, clouded city behind him, wiping his face clean just to lick the remnants from his fingertips.
"That won't be enough." He laughs a little, lowering his face back to your mess. "Should I clean you again?"
"Alpha," you try to warn him but it sounds more like a plea, legs trembling awaiting the next attack.
"Yes, kit?" The vibration of his voice against your sex is too much already; the endearment makes your fox fully prostrate.
"I want . . ." you admit.
You'd forgotten what you want to say, whining in the back of your throat. The sound is desperate for other reasons, and he seems to recognize it immediately. He lets go of your thighs, hunching over you far enough away in the dark his body isn't pressed to yours–just your foreheads.
You keep your eyes clenched shut to keep from weeping again, scared of how little control you have left within you. It's too soon, too much, and not enough at the same time. And the worst part is how far away you feel from him, as if just relaxing into this new joy would damn you to be written the way he'd already estimated you.
It's just her nature. That thing.
A violent wave of despair and anger courses through you, unearthed by the comedown.
"Shh," he says. "You're safe. I know I haven't been there for you when you needed it. But you've always been safe with me. Everything I've ever done–"
He pauses, biting his own words, pressing closer.
"I just want to take care of you while I can."
You wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him down until your noses bump against each other.
"I'm still mad at you," you say, searching for his eyes. "I may forgive you, but I can't forget."
"I know," he says, shifting in your grasp.
"If I beg, even if I order you . . . please don't mate me yet. Please. Listen to me, if you can."
He nods his head. You feel your own body quaking transferred to him–or maybe he's feeling it just as intensely. Sometimes you think that it's impossible to tell where you end and he begins.
"I want you to earn me, first," you say. "I want you to know me."
You feel he wants to reply but you don't give him the opportunity, pulling yourself up by his shoulders to kiss him for the first time.
His mouth is softer than his fur, or his hair threaded in your fingers, or even him as he holds, not melting into it the way you wish he could.
He's still unsure.
Johnny doesn't push you any further, letting you be the one to explore his swollen lips, finding them parted and still soaked with you. Instead he opens up for you to better taste yourself on him–tart and so much sweeter with his impression.
When his lips move with yours, finally, it's tentatively hopeful, like his exploration of your body. For all his bravado and confidence you never would have imagined him to be just as shy as you stroke his hairline and he trembles deeper at being touched.
It's what makes you want him more than anything you've ever wanted in your entire life. Not for the first time, or the last.
A part of you wants to be bred until you're dripping his hot release for days, making him stay locked in you for hours as you tear the mattress to shreds beneath you coming on his knot. You want him to lose himself in your body, to finally mark you again now that you're both willing and ready to have each other.
But Doyoung was right. You had to know it was your choice. Even if you never had his love, even if you would always question your own heart with the bond unbroken between you, you had to know if he was worthy.
It's only fair. For both of you.
"Get out of my bed," you say, firmly.
That easy smile again, eyes narrowed with confidence. "Don't you want–"
You shut him up with a claw against the dip beneath his nose, shaking your head a little too hard.
"I know what I want," you say. "Be grateful that you got a taste of it."
He's shocked by your response, but there's a flash of thrill. You think maybe he likes being talked down to, his Alpha so ready to be challenged.
"Fine," he says, appropriately dismayed but also a little more himself in the way he stands over you, once he's managed to pull his pants back on. "I'm staying here tonight, though. I'll get you more water and something to clean up with."
You grunt a little, turning away from him so he can’t see how mortified you are at what you’ve just done, as well as how much you wish you could continue.
"If you need anything else, anything, don’t hesitate to ask. Don’t forget I can feel it, too.” He pauses, letting it sink in that of course, he knows you’re still simmering with lust. “I don't mind being used–"
You throw a pillow in his direction to silence him.
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