Chapter Text
Grace never imaged himself as a parent.
Throughout his high school and college days, when all his classmates talked about was mating and having pups together, Grace spent them buried in various books and hauled up deep in campus labs for hours.
He didn't have any family to pressure him into dating or any close enough friends to consider pursuing. In fact, he'd sworn very early on that he'd never get pregnant because he's a huge coward and doesn't want to go through the struggles of pregnancy despite many of his old omega peers telling him how worth it it is at the end.
He loves kids, don't get him wrong. He signed up as a substitute teacher for some middle school nearby as a part-time job to support himself while he finishes up his studies after all. And as good as he is with the children he substitutes for, he never really considered raising any of his own.
Which is why it was so out of character for him to suddenly disappear for five months and show up again with two twin boys latched to his legs.
What was in character for him was how he came to adopt those twins—in the most unorthodox, messy, and complicated way possible.
He'd been on his way home from a convenience store nearby because he ran out of basically any edible food and needed to restock his cup noodle stash when he heard a loud noise come from the side of some apartment building.
Now, normally like any other person, Grace would ignore the noise and go about his day. But something in him was insistently nudging him to go check it out. Something in his omega instincts, no less.
Grace's secondary instincts have rarely ever interfered with any of his actions before. He's never really been a traditional omega. He always heard whispers and rumors from colleagues that he was 'wrong' somehow. Way too tall, way too argumentative, way too bossy, way too rude, way too opinionated, way too incapable. He can't cook for shit, can't pick up on social cues to save his life, prioritizes himself way too much to ever date anyone, always hides his scent under copious amounts of scent blockers, is on so many suppressants he sometimes forgets he can even get heats until they hit him hard once a year, and so on and so forth.
His omega instincts may as well be nonexistent. Which is why on the rare occasion that they rear their head at him, he makes a point to listen.
Against better judgment, he follows the noise and ends up finding two small children rummaging through a dumpster. They were dirty and severely malnourished.
One of them had the other standing on his shoulder as they dug through the trash, and the sight had Grace on the brink of tears.
They noticed him after he let out a pathetic whimper, and both panicked and scrambled to push themselves against the wall while letting out broken little hisses and growls. The noises they made reminded Grace of baby puppies trying to bark, but all that comes out instead is clumsy yips and whines.
Their voices were cracked and weak. They held onto each other and stared at Grace with eyes so full of fear Grace almost thought there was someone else standing behind him until he registered they were staring at him like that. They were terrified and yet growled at him as their bodies trembled. Like injured dogs back to a corner.
Ultimately, after a whole lot of patience and gentle coaxing, Grace managed to bring the two children home with him, where he thoroughly bathed and fed them. He ended up taking out his scent patches and letting his scent air out for the first time in years. Allowing the gentle smell of an ocean shore and vanilla soothe them until they no longer trembled and clutched onto each other—like even letting go for a second would mean the other would get ripped away.
An omega's scent has a natural calming effect on children, almost like a very weak sedative. Grace had been worried his scent wouldn't work the same way because everything else about his secondary gender has always been faulty, but the two pups had been reduced to snoring, drooling puddles by the time he tucked them into his bed.
Grace had spent that first night awake the whole time, thinking about his next steps.
The obvious choice was to call the police or CPS and get them into foster care. But Grace knew very well how much help that would be to them. He himself suffered through the system for a good while before becoming an adult.
Sending them there would be the worst thing he could do to them. But what else is he supposed to do? He's not nearly qualified enough to raise them. He can barely take care of himself most days.
He wasn't able to overthink for long as he heard the bed shift and a head of messy blond hair peer out of the blanket he draped over them that's covered in his scent. A second head popped up right after the first one, and Grace wonders if they even slept at all. The two boys looked nearly identical, their only discerning feature being their hair color. While one had a fiery blond mop, the other's hair was a darker shade, looking almost brown compared to his twin's.
Grace could see them searching in the dark for something and was about to speak up and ask if they wanted something before the blond one locked eyes with him.
Grace was seated on a chair next to the bed. The blond one reached a hand forward and mumbled a quiet, "Mommy?" into the dark while making grabby hands at him.
Grace's heart shattered and burst out of his chest, spilling all over the floor. It was the first real word either of them had spoken to him, and it just had to be that.
He silently accepted the fact that there was no way he'd be able to give them away and gave in by climbing into the bed and allowing himself to get cuddled as the twins pressed themselves as close to his sides as they could, practically shoving their faces in his neck and taking deep inhales until their breaths evened out and they were out cold.
The process of officially adopting the two of them was long and grueling. Just one hurdle after another that Grace sometimes couldn't see a finish line.
Through it all he was able to learn a few things about the two.
He was right about them being twins; they were both seven years old. Which came as a surprise because he'd assumed they were way younger, but the doctor explained that was due to how malnourished they were and gave Grace a detailed diet plan to get them back to a healthy weight.
He also found out their names and their backstories. The police had done some common missing kids searching but didn't come up with anything. They then took DNA samples and found a match.
A few months ago, a man was found shot dead in his apartment. Neighbors recall hearing the gunshot sometime during the night, but there weren't any kids in the house when the police arrived.
The twins refused to talk about that night, so the police theorized a robber came in and shot their father, who was too intoxicated to defend himself, and the kids saw it happen and ran out of the house; the event traumatizing them enough that they blocked it out.
Their names were Courtland and Colton Gentry.
After several months of paperwork, court hearings, and foster parent training, they became Courtland and Colton Grace.
The whole thing went a lot smoother due to the fact that Grace was a young omega and also had a job that involved dealing with kids. The judge was also easily convinced after witnessing the way the twins had clung and plastered themselves onto Grace like leeches.
And so, five months later, Grace became the legal guardian of two kids.
That had been three years ago. The twins were now ten years old and looked their age.
Grace would proudly say that adopting the twins was the best decision he's ever made. They've made his life better in every sense of the word.
Before them, Grace lived a pretty lonely and depressing life. A life he couldn't subject two children to. He had quickly committed to parenthood and began getting his act together. He cleaned up the apartment and set up the extra empty room he used as storage space into a room fit for two boys. He learned how to cook despite hating it in order to get the twins back into healthy shape. He enrolled them into the school he worked at, and although he substituted for middle school, he made sure to visit and check up on them on the elementary campus whenever he got the chance.
Grace knows very well that kids hate it when their parents impose on their school life like that. He's seen more than his fair share of disgruntled teens complaining about their parents in front of him. But he couldn't help but worry, and it wasn't like Colt and Court were complaining anyhow.
They always came running every time he checked in during their lunch break. They would drop the sandwiches Grace made them and double-tackle him in their best attempt at a bear hug, and Grace would giggle and swing them both to dispel the momentum so they don't go toppling over. Grace would kiss them both over the head and tell them he'll see them at home.
When they're home—Grace going by bike and the twins by school bus—Grace would begin on chores and cook dinner, with both of them at his hip handing him ingredients because they're his helpful little boys, as Colt rambles about whatever it was they did that day, talking enough for the both of them. Court would be content resting his head against Grace's side and giving actual honest feedback on the taste of the food since Colt's answer is always the default, "Whatever you cook tastes delicious, mommy!"
That's another thing. They insist on calling him Mommy or Mom or all other variations of the word.
The first few times, Grace brushed it off as them projecting onto someone they felt safe around as their mother, but now after three years they still call him that. Granted, Grace never really bothered to correct them.
He liked hearing it more than he cared to admit. Being their mom sounded right, and it made his chest all warm. If that's what they wanted to call him, then so be it.
After getting an approving nod from Court, his little expert taste tester, Grace grabbed two plates and filled them with the curry he made. He set the plates on the table, and the twins wasted no time and started scarfing it down.
Grace smiled fondly while grabbing his own plate with a significantly smaller portion, a cup of coffee, and his notebooks.
He had taken a break from academics when he first adopted the twins, but now that he's more settled, he's been using all the free time he has to catch up.
Being a 25-year-old single parent of two gave him a surprising amount of grace from his professors, which he's immensely grateful for.
The room is silent as the three of them eat dinner. The only noise being the spoons scraping the plates, the twins' chewing, and the occasional flipping of paper.
It was a comfortable silence that Grace found himself basking in. Until it was broken by Colt's soft voice.
"Mommy, do we smell?"
Grace looked up from a section he was trying to memorize, his eyebrows shooting up. "What?"
Colt looked at Court before turning back to him. "A few kids at school today said we smell kind of funny."
Court nodded in confirmation, and the both of them looked at him, waiting for an answer, their last bits of food abandoned on the plates.
Grace took a moment to sniff the air, but all he smelled was dinner and his own scent deeply blended into their little home.
"I don't smell anything." He said finally, but the look on their faces showed they weren't satisfied with the answer.
Colt's brows scrunched up the way they do when he's displeased. "Are you sure?"
He was wringing his fingers together nervously, and Grace straightened his posture instantly. This was obviously bothering the both of them, and he needed to take it seriously lest he end up neglecting their worries.
"Not really; you guys are super far away. Come closer so I can check?" He motioned them over, and they quickly hopped off their seats. "Did they say you both smelled or just one of you?" He asked as they approached and stood in front of him. Grace pushed his seat back so he could turn to fully face them.
"Both of us," Court answered. They both bared their necks easily as Grace leaned in to take a deeper whiff. And that's when he smelled it.
It was faint but absolutely undeniable. Two new scents filled his nostrils as he sniffed around at their necks.
One was a potent smell of burnt wood and sand, while the other was a more mellow scent of lake water and gunpowder.
They were such aggressive scents; Grace was momentarily caught off guard by how he hadn't managed to notice them beforehand. He switched between sniffing both necks over and over to confirm that he wasn't hallucinating.
He wasn't.
But that only served to make him more anxious. Because it was way too early for them to develop a scent. Kids present into their secondary genders and develop unique scents during puberty. As teenagers.
His sons were ten.
Which only meant one thing. The gender that has the most common recordings of early presentations is Alpha.
His sons were presenting as Alphas, and Grace was completely unprepared.
"…is it bad?" He heard Court mumble nervously, and that's when Grace realized he'd been silently pressed against their necks for too long while they both anxiously assumed the worst.
He quickly peeled himself away and looked into their wide, terrified eyes and felt like the worst person in the world.
Grace internally panicked over how not prepared for this he was but forced a calm smile on his face to ease their worry.
"No, no. Nothing bad, I swear. Just…" He struggled to form words and ultimately just sighed. They were confused and didn't know anything. It was his duty to tell them everything beforehand so they wouldn't panic. "Let's sit on the couch. I'll explain everything."
He held both of their hands and led them into the living room, settling them both on the cushions as he knelt down in front of them on the floor so they were at eye level.
Grace then proceeded to explain everything they'll need to know about secondary genders and presenting and what they're going to go through very soon.
"So you're going to start feeling like everything is too much. Noises will become louder, people will become smellier, your own bodies will feel different, it'll be very overwhelming, and you'll get annoyed and angry at a lot of things. But I'll be here, ok? I'll help you through it until it doesn't feel as bad," he assured them.
His hands were on their knees the whole time, and they stared at him with complicated eyes. Grace maintained eye contact and gave them a few moments to process his words.
"Are we..." Colt's voice cracked, and Grace squeezed his knee reassuringly. "Are we going to hurt you, Mommy?…Is it—will you—"
He fumbled with his words, and Grace was quick to shake his head frantically.
"No, sweetheart, of course not." He put his hand on Colt's cheek and kissed him gently on the head. "You're still going to be in control. If you don't want to hurt me, then you won't. Mommy will be fine."
He ran his hand through Colt's hair as he felt a hand tugging on his shirt sleeve and turned to see a glossy-eyed Court. "Promise?" He said with a tremble in his voice, and Grace felt his own eyes getting wet.
"Oh, baby." He pulled the both of them into a tight hug. "I promise. Everything will be fine."
They both shook like baby deer under his arms, and he instinctively released his scent and let it wash over them. Like always, it worked like a charm, and they both stopped trembling and melted into his arms like putty.
Grace ran his hands through their hair soothingly for what felt like forever before he nudged them both to lay back on the couch. They whined in disapproval but pulled back anyway. Grace took hold of their hands and squeezed.
"You guys won't go to school for a while. We'll go to the hospital to get a doctor's note, and then we'll go shopping to buy everything we need. Sound good?"
He got two happy nods in return and smiled softly. He gave them both kisses on the cheek. "Good. Now let's finish our food and get dressed."
—
Two days later, the signs became impossible to ignore.
Both of their scents had grown noticeably stronger, spilling from their scent glands in uncontrolled waves. The constant presence of two alphas saturated the apartment, their pheromones assaulting Grace's senses until he was perpetually dizzy and on edge. In the span of just forty-eight hours, his tiny apartment had come to smell as though it belonged to them instead of him.
The twins themselves weren't faring any better.
As their scents intensified, so did their tempers. They grew increasingly restless, snapping, snarling, and growling at anything that caught their attention—or, more often than not, at each other.
They paced the apartment with restless energy, unable to sit still for long. Every unfamiliar noise outside had them lifting their heads in alert, ears pricked as if expecting a threat. They began scent-marking absentmindedly against furniture, doorframes, and blankets without seeming to realize they were doing it. They guarded the apartment's front door whenever someone walked past in the hallway, shoulders tense and eyes fixed until the footsteps disappeared. Every now and then, one would let out a low warning growl at absolutely nothing, only for the other to answer with one of their own.
And then there was the snapping.
They bickered over the stupidest things now. A glance held too long. Someone standing in the other's way. Tiny disagreements escalated into instinctive snarls before either of them seemed to realize what they were doing.
Strangely enough though, they never once directed any of it at Grace. If anything, they became strangely hesitant around him.
The moment he walked into a room, both of them would stiffen. Their ears would lower, their shoulders would tense, and the sharp edge of their scents would sour with unmistakable discomfort. They watched him with guilty expressions, as though expecting him to be upset with them.
It didn't take Grace long to figure out it was because his scent wasn't everywhere anymore.
The twins had unknowingly flooded the apartment with their own pheromones, overpowering the softer traces of his that had once clung to the furniture, the blankets, and the walls. Every time they realized another place no longer smelled like him, they looked just a little more distressed.
Earlier that morning, he'd caught both of them crouched over his laundry basket with their faces buried in his shirts, inhaling as much of his scent as they possibly could.
The second they noticed him standing in the doorway, they froze.
"...Uh," Grace had said.
They looked about two seconds away from dying of embarrassment.
"Why didn't you just ask me if you needed my scent?"
After an awkward silence, Colt muttered, "We were scared."
Grace blinked. "Scared of what?"
"If we asked..." Court admitted quietly, "...we'd just replace it with ours again. Like we already did everywhere else."
For a moment, Grace simply stared, but then his expression softened.
"Guys," he said gently, "that's not how it works." They both looked up, and he knelt down in front of them and took their hands, scenting their wrists. "My scent isn't gone. Yours is just stronger right now because you haven't learned to control it yet." He smiled reassuringly. "You'll get there. And even if you want more of my scent..." He tapped the side of his neck with a small laugh. "I make more every day. I'm not exactly going to run out."
The tension visibly melted from their shoulders.
"...Really?"
"Really."
Only then did they seem to relax, reassured that they hadn't somehow erased every trace of him from the apartment.
Later that afternoon, Grace noticed the two of them rubbing at their mouths with increasingly irritated expressions. Colt kept dragging his thumb across one canine while Court had taken to absentmindedly chewing on the handle of his fork.
Grace had told them to open up their mouths, and they both obeyed.
He leaned in for a closer look and nodded. Their canine teeth were lengthening, the gums around them red and tender. He hurried to the hall closet and returned with the heavy-duty chew toys he'd bought on a whim, silently congratulating his past self for planning ahead.
"Here." He handed one to each of them. "Whenever your teeth start itching, chew on these instead."
They accepted them immediately, and within seconds, the scraping of metal against growing fangs was replaced by the soft squeak of rubber. The relief on their faces was almost immediate.
The only strange part was that they never stopped watching him. Even while absentmindedly chewing, their eyes followed his every movement with an intensity that made Grace oddly self-conscious. He couldn't help but feel like prey being eyed by two predators.
—
That night, Grace tucked them into bed, brushed the hair out of their faces, kissed each of them lightly on the forehead, and whispered a quiet, "Goodnight."
An hour later, he sat cross-legged on his own bed with his laptop balanced on his knees, buried in research on early-blooming alphas. One article discussed the rapid growth of canine teeth and the behavioral changes that often accompanied it.
A quiet creak pulled his attention away from the screen. He looked up to find the bedroom door cracked open.
Court and Colt stood hesitantly in the doorway, shifting their weight from one foot to the other. They looked as though they wanted to say something but couldn't quite find the words.
Grace closed the laptop and set it on the nightstand as he motioned them over. It wasn't the first time they came into his room at night to cuddle, but it was the first time since they've presented.
Court quietly shut the door behind him before they both came running over at his invitation and jumped onto the bed, climbing on top of him and lying on either side of his chest.
Grace only managed to let out a pained oof before they both buried themselves in his neck and began mouthing at his scent glands. He let out an unmanly squeak as he felt Court begin nibbling at the sensitive skin of his neck with his new sharp fangs.
"Oh God—!" he exclaimed, his face flushing red. "Guys?? Hey, hey—guys, talk to me. What's wrong? What are you doing?"
He tapped them frantically on the back, not wanting to resort to shoving them off. Court was the one who answered him as Colt continued to lick at his neck like a lolipop.
"Sorry Mama, you smell so good. We miss your smell, sorry." Court sighed into his neck and began sucking at his gland while making loud slurping noises.
He could feel Colt lapping at his collarbone with vigor, could feel the spit clinging to his skin, and his own scent was unconsciously flooding out in tides as the two of them continued to stimulate his glands.
Grace was getting increasingly dizzy and could do nothing but cling desperately to the back of their shirts as they abused his neck.
They bit and chewed on his skin, and many times their fangs came close to breaking skin. Grace had his eyes closed from the intensity of their assault. Colt began licking and drooling on his Adam's apple while Court continued chewing on a chunk of skin in between his neck and shoulder. They were making whiny noises that sometimes turned into deep, throaty growls.
Grace didn't know what to do. He was so overwhelmed he couldn't think straight for even a second. Was he supposed to push them off? Was this due to their newly presented Alpha instincts? It had to be, they've never done something like this before.
But the question now was whether it was a good or bad thing. They're chasing his scent because it had disappeared so abruptly after being the only thing they smelled for three years. Grace remembered reading that environmental changes weren't healthy for awakened Alphas because they were already trying to adapt to internal changes, so external changes only worked to distress them more.
So maybe this was his fault. He'd been too preoccupied trying to make their transition comfortable that he hadn't bothered controlling the pheromones they were releasing. He didn't re-scent things that they'd covered their new pheromones in and let his own scent get dominated by theirs. He saw clear signs of this making them agitated and yet did nothing.
This was his own fault. They were simply seeking the solution for their discomfort that he should've provided them.
With that conclusion, Grace untensed his posture and tipped his chin up, baring his neck for them to do as they pleased.
They both let out high-pitched whines, and with newly found enthusiasm at his submission, they redoubled their efforts and lapped and nibbled at his neck with fervor.
Their slobbering started to get noisier the more spit they smeared all over his neck and shoulders. It felt like they've been at it for forever, and a quick glance at the clock on his nightstand showed it's been about twenty minutes.
He had his head stretched out as far back as he could go. He stared into the ceiling and bit hard on his lower lip to prevent himself from making any noises.
He had both hands on their shirts, running soothing strokes up and down their backs. The twins also had their own smaller hands fisted on his shirt as they pulled at the fabric to give them more access to his neck. The collar was sure to be stretched out and loose by the time this was over.
Every time they chewed and sucked on a part of his neck, they would whimper and lick the abused skin as an apology before moving on to another unchewed area.
Grace assumed they would be done once there was no space left. He would be wrong.
He let out a sharp intake of breath as they began nibbling on already bitten and swollen skin. All the blood in his body was being used to flush his neck as bright red as possible, and it was making him woozy.
Through his exhausted haze, Grace noted that his scent had mellowed out and was now also being overpowered by their combined scents. He blames his exhaustion on this, but the feeling of being scent-bombed that intensely by two alphas had him melting into the sheets and letting out low, soft purrs.
Grace hadn't purred since he was sixteen. He didn't even think he was still capable of it, but the sound was unmistakable.
The twins paused their abuse as they felt his throat vibrating under their mouths. Not even a beat later and they were responding with their own low rumbles.
Their movements slowed significantly. The previous frantic hunger giving way to a calmer, steadier need.
They stopped biting. Now their warm tongues dragged lazily across his glands, devouring every bit of his scent that fanned out before it had the chance to blend into the air.
The repetitive motion of their heavy tongues pressing into his neck made his eyelids heavy. With a final purr, Grace wrapped his arms around them and fell asleep with them on top of him, their faces still buried in his neck.
—
Grace woke to the familiar weight of two heads tucked against his shoulders. Along with the unfamiliar feeling of soreness all over his neck.
He moved his head left and right slowly to try and stretch but was faced with resistance. He glanced down and saw two mops of hair. He raised his arm and tried to pull them away slightly so he could have more range of motion but found that both of them had the skin of his neck sucked into their mouths. He felt their teeth grazing his sore skin and couldn't help the full-body shiver that traveled through him.
Dried spit covered everything above his chest. They must've licked him a few times over while he was asleep because it felt way more than he remembered.
He needed a shower asap.
After a few deep breaths, Grace took hold of their shoulders and began gently nudging them awake.
"Hey guys, time to wake up." He grumbled, his voice deep and sleep-filled. They didn't budge, but his nudging had them grazing his flushed sensitive skin, and he whinced. "Guys, please. Mommy needs a shower."
His desperation must have triggered his scent and made it tinged with distress. They both breathed it in their sleep, and their eyes immediately fluttered open.
They groaned low in their throats and shuffled around but didn't dislodge their lips.
"Hey—hi, good morning guys. Could you...let go of Mommy for a moment?" He pleaded with them.
They didn't seem to even register his words as they blinked slowly.
Instead of pulling away like he hoped they would, the twins began lazily sucking on the spot they were latched onto.
Grace winced, his face scrunching up in pain. "Oh—! Ow ow ow, oh my god, guys! Please stop."
His hands shot up to their heads, and he gently cupped their hair, trying to pull them off because his skin was so very tender and sore at the moment that every time he moved it hurt.
The twins noticed his distress and immediately stopped moving, and a moment later they pulled away from his neck; two loud pops echoed through the room as they dislodged themselves from his skin.
They leaned back, and Grace could finally see their faces. Their pupils were dilated, hair sticking in all directions, lips were swollen, and both of them were panting a little hard.
Grace didn't think he was faring any better. He probably looked a complete mess.
They stared at each other in silence for a few beats before Court spoke up.
"Morning, Mama." He said in a small voice.
Colt, hating to be left out, spoke with a much louder voice. "Good morning, Mommy!"
Despite his discomfort and confusion, Grace couldn't help but smile fondly. "Morning guys…"
He carded his fingers through their locks, trying to tame the crazy bed hair, as they both wiggled around and rolled off his chest to instead lie by his sides.
"You guys wanna tell me what that was all about last night?" He asked, making sure his tone didn't sound accusatory or mad.
They rested their heads over his chest and looked up at him with wide, innocent eyes.
"We couldn't smell you anywhere in our room anymore. It was very scary." Colt said miserably as Court nodded in agreement.
"And our teeth started hurting a lot," Court added.
Grace's eyes darted between them. So they were using him to relieve the pain? Why though? He bought them toys specifically designed to help with that problem. "What about the chew toys I gave you?"
"They tore."
"What?"
His eyes bulged.
Those toys were marketed to withstand even adult alpha fangs, and Grace knew that was true because he'd watched a bunch of reviews about them online and confirmed they were legit.
Could he have bought a defective set? What were the odds of that?
But what were the odds that his twins chewed through those toys in less than a day?
The bite marks all over his neck suddenly began to tingle, calling for his attention, and Grace shivered.
They truly could have mauled him last night if they wanted to. His sweet boys who helped him around the house without him needing to ask, who were so affectionate and cuddled close to him whenever they could, and who never complained about anything even when Grace felt like he was being the worst parent on earth. Seemingly overnight, those sweet boys had turned into dangerous predators who could harm him so easily despite him being older.
He audibly gulped.
"Wow…Um. I'm sorry." He mumbled, not knowing what to say. "I could buy you new ones if you'd like?"
They both shook their heads.
"It's ok, Momma. It doesn't hurt anymore," Colt beamed. "You fixed it."
"Me…? What did I do?" He asked, baffled.
"I dunno." Colt just shrugged. "But biting you felt way better than biting that toy, and you tasted better too."
Colt said it so casually while having his cheek squished adorably into Grace's chest, and Grace couldn't help the way his face flushed at the admission.
He couldn't believe he became his alpha sons' glorified chew toy. Never in his twenty-five years of living has anyone said he tasted good. Grace didn't know how to feel that his own sons were telling him that.
He decided to shove that aside for later.
"Wow, um…thank you, Colt." Grace patted the boy on the head as he rumbled happily.
"Well, uh, I need to take a bath, so..." He trailed off.
The twins looked at each other and seemed to communicate something between themselves silently. Grace watched them as they did this, feeling a bit like he was imposing before they abruptly turned to face him at the same time.
"Can we do it together? Please, Mommy?" Colt asked while deploying his formidable puppy eyes.
Grace felt a bead of sweat roll down his face. Oh boy, he was never good at saying no to them when they asked for things like this. Colt would always flash his big bright blue eyes whenever he wanted something while Court would butter him up beforehand. Sometimes when they wanted the same thing, they'd do both.
Grace, being the pushover that he was, would fold like a wet paper towel. Just like he was now. And maybe his ability to be so easily manipulated by his two sons made him a bad parent. Grace doesn't really have a counterargument other than telling people that they should experience what it's like to be hit with their double-combo attack before they judge him.
"…Sure, why not?" He folded immediately.
The two of them silently cheered before hopping off the bed and running out towards the bathroom. Grace could hear them opening the tap and preparing the bath as he lay in his bed, feeling sweaty and worn out.
It really felt like they'd somehow sucked the life out of him as he tried to get up and felt gravity weighing him down more aggressively than usual.
He padded through the house barefoot and feeling like the dead. Opening the bathroom door, his eyebrows rose at the sight of the twins, already stripped to their boxers, pouring shampoo into the filling bathtub to create a bubble bath.
Colt swished his hands through the water, working the soap into a thick foam, while Court stood holding Grace's bottle of body oil, studying the ingredient list with intense concentration.
Grace shook his head and shrugged off their weirdness as a result of hormones. They just recently presented; everything is overwhelming for them, and all their strangeness is a byproduct of all the changes happening to their bodies. Grace ignored the fact that he never had the urge to bite his parents when he first presented, but he also wasn't an alpha, so his own experience was irrelevent to this situation.
He decided to instead walk in and stand in front of the mirror to finally look at himself. And what a sight it was.
He looked just as awful as he felt, if not worse.
The entire expanse of his neck all the way down to his shoulders and collarbone was flushed red and completely riddled with bite marks and hickies. Grace turned his head from side to side and silently winced as the skin stretched out the bruises.
There were bites on every surface he could see—the sides of his neck, the front of his neck, under his jaw, on his jaw, on both shoulders, on the dip of his collarbones, and below the collarbone.
He grasped the wrinkled-up collar of his shirt and pulled it down, revealing even more marks and flushed skin. They seemed to fade out and stop right above his pecs.
Some bite marks were darker and more discolored, showing that they'd been chewed over and over again.
Grace's mouth hung open and eyes agape. He genuinely looked like he'd been mauled by a bear ten times over. He couldn't believe his sweet little sons did that. Alphas were truly something else. And now Grace was going to be living with two of them.
A sudden contact on his arm had Grace nearly jumping out of his skin. He looked down and saw Court holding his wrist in his small hand.
"The bath is ready, c'mon." He pulled and Grace followed easily.
Stepping in front of the tub Grace stared at the foamy bubble clouds concealing the water beneath and dipped his hand in. It was warm, and at just the right temperature he needed to relieve the soreness.
He gave Colt a double thumbs up, and the boy grinned back, clearly pleased with himself. Grace then stepped back and began stripping off his clothes.
Mortifyingly, Grace had to deploy the help of the twins to take off his shirt because every time he tried to lift his arms, it felt like needles being stabbed into his shoulders. They were both incredibly gentle as they helped him slip out of it, and Grace wondered if they were doing all this as an apology for using him as a chew toy.
He kicked off his pants and was left bare in only his light blue panties. Court froze when he saw them, his eyes locked on Grace's crotch before his hand went up and twiddled with the little white bow on the front.
He made a questioning sound, and Court hummed softly. "'S pretty."
Grace smiled and carded a hand through Court's hair.
"Thank you." He said warmly before stepping away and into the tub.
He slowly sank down into the water, and when his butt finally touched the floor, Grace let out a long, deep groan. God, that felt amazing. He could already feel himself melting into the cool porcelin.
Some water rose and spilled out of the tub as the twins climbed in after him. The tub wasn't that big, so they settled awkwardly on his lap.
Grace noticed they were holding supplies in their hands. Colt brandishing their bath sponge and shampoo while Court held the body oil he was reading the ingredients of earlier.
Looking at the two of them, Grace didn't even get the chance to say anything before they got to work. Colt squeezed shampoo into the sponge and brought it to Grace's chest, and Court squeezed the oil into his hand and aimed for his chest.
Grace was momentarily stunned and confused by what they were doing, but as they slowly began to press their fingers and run their hands across his skin, he realized they were bathing and massaging him.
And their touch was surprisingly gentle.
They kneaded at the tight muscles with cautious, uncertain movements, pausing every few seconds to glance at his face and make sure they weren't hurting him. As they gained confidence, their motions grew steadier, working out knots Grace hadn't even realized he'd been carrying.
He groaned in contentment as they continued to knead him like dough. Their scents wafted out in steady waves, filling the air with the combined smell of wood and lake water. It was a note their scents took when they were content, and it worked to melt Grace's insides.
His own scent filtered out, mixing in with theirs, and Grace doesn't think he's smelled anything more perfect. The twins seemed to agree as they began rumbling in satisfaction.
Surprising even himself, Grace began purring back.
He supposed that was something he could do now. Great.
"...Where did you two learn this?" he asked, letting out an involuntary sigh as another stubborn knot disappeared.
They only shrugged.
"It just... felt like you needed it," Court whispered.
Colt nodded. "And we're sorry." He said as he ran the sponge ever so gently over his sensitive, bitemark-ridden neck.
Grace couldn't help smiling.
"If this is what I get afterwards, you won't hear me complaining." He said with another happy sigh, his smile morphing into a wide grin as the twins started giggling.
Maybe it was their guilt. Maybe it was their newly developed alpha instincts. Maybe they simply wanted to take care of him the same way he'd always taken care of them.
Whatever the reason, he hoped it never changed.
He'd spoil them rotten if that was what it took. Shower them with affection, praise every gentle instinct they showed, and make absolutely certain they grew into the kind of alphas people felt safe around instead of afraid of.
Grace was going to raise the sweetest boys imaginable.