Seven: Date

While Jun unpacked the basket, setting the majority of the food around Damon until he couldn’t turn around without knocking over a mound of plastic-wrapped sandwiches, Damon tried to settle his misbehaving heart. It was unfair for this man to be so thoughtful and sweet. Absolutely evil.

He picked one of the sandwiches at random to occupy himself with and unwrapped it, taking a small bite. It was peanut butter and jelly. His favorite. Of course. Damon took the next bite with a little more ferocity, side eyeing the alpha next to him. He was making it very hard to keep a clear head in this whole courting business. And yet, Damon couldn’t even accuse him of being extra sweet on purpose as a tactic to win him over because Jun was literally just like this. Unreal.

Jun waited until Damon was halfway into his sandwich to pick up his own and start eating. There were at least fifteen wrapped sandwiches on the blanket. There was a lot of pb&j, but also ham, turkey, chicken – every type of sandwich there was, basically. Damon didn’t know how they were ever going to manage to eat fifteen sandwiches plus the bags of chips and other snacks he’d managed to stuff into that basket that was essentially the equivalent of a clown car for food. He had a bad feeling that he was going to go home today with his arms full of leftover sandwiches. One of Jun’s many tricks to make sure he had something on hand to eat when he decided it was too much effort to cook.

They were silent as they ate, but with Jun it was never an uncomfortable silence. Jun never expected conversation from Damon, so Damon never felt pressured to fill that silence. However, as they sat and enjoyed the breeze, which occasionally carried the exhilarated shouts of children playing on the nearby equipment, Damon suddenly found his thoughts wandering in a very particular direction, not helped at all by the whiffs of Jun’s preheat pheromones he was catching whenever the wind shifted his way.

He blamed Malachi. After what he’d said yesterday… Well, Damon was wondering if Jun actually did have any sexual experience. It didn’t really matter to Damon either way - he thought, anyway - but Jun was at least twenty-four or five. He was only a couple years younger than Damon. It would be normal for someone his age to have some experience, right?

Plus, there was that rumor he’d heard from Mark that Jun’s ex-girlfriend was one of the people who’d threatened Damon not to accept Jun’s courtship. And Jun was way too good at planning dates and taking care of the person he was pursuing – how could he still be a virgin?

Even more concerning than Jun’s experience or lack thereof was what Malachi had implied about Damon’s own sexual needs. He told himself it wasn’t true – that it didn’t matter even if it was because he was so rarely aroused anyway – but it was still wiggling around inside him somewhere, festering like an open wound.

Sure, the one time he’d had sex with Malachi, it had been pretty rough. Omegas kind of lost it in the haze of sex sometimes. Those breeding instincts are deeply ingrained, so Damon’s memory of the exact details of the encounter were softened and fuzzy from his own disorientation during it. It had also been four years ago. However, though Damon hated to let his mind linger over the experience, he did vaguely recall presenting himself to get fucked and repeatedly telling Malachi to go harder. There might have also been some hair pulling.

The most damning evidence of the truth of what Malachi said was that after they’d had sex, the back of Damon’s thighs and his ass were red and there were bruises in the shape of fingers on the insides of his thighs for days afterwards.

So maybe Malachi had been sort of right. But that didn’t mean Damon needed it that way every time, right?

…Right?

All Damon knew is that he was bugged by it. And so he broke the peaceful silence between himself and Jun, all to sate a shameful curiosity.

“Jun,” he started hesitantly. Jun turned to give him his full attention, as he always did. Damon only barely stopped himself from flinching away at that familiar, intense gaze. “Have you ever…dated anyone before?”

Jun blinked slowly, as if he couldn’t fathom why that would ever be a topic of discussion. Then, he shook his head, just once, and frowned right after.

“Have I been doing something wrong?” he suddenly asked, and then it was Damon’s turn to be confused. Why would he ask that all of a sudden?

Oh. He thought Damon was asking because he was unsatisfied with something. He thought that Damon assumed Jun didn’t have experience in dating because of some imagined flaw in his wooing skills.

“No!” Damon hurried to assure him. “No, not at all. I was just curious.”

Jun’s frown disappeared, expression smoothing. “I’ve never wanted to date before. Is that strange?”

He was probably asking because Damon’s eyebrow was twitching sporadically at the news. That meant the rumor about Jun’s ex-girlfriend was really just a rumor then? Damon shook his head after a moment. “It’s unusual for most people our age, but everyone has their preferences. I don’t mind. But, uh, is there any reason why you didn’t want to date?”

Apparently, that’s as far as Jun was willing to take the line of questioning, because he clammed up, lips remaining firmly shut as he once again refused to give Damon even the satisfaction of a lie. And Damon couldn’t be mad at him for that either, because it would be worse if Jun were to placate him with something false.

But Damon was still curious. And he couldn’t help but blurt out the true question on his mind – only realizing after how horribly rude it must seem.

“Are you a virgin?”

Damon froze. He could feel himself flushing all the way down to his neck, which Jun obviously noticed as he was once again trying to win the marathon of Damon-staring. He didn’t seem offended by the question at least.

“No,” he said, surprisingly. And that was it. As if he knew that leaving it at that would only make Damon burn to know more. Did he have a one-night stand? A heat-buddy? Jun was an alpha after all. He had probably been accompanied during at least one of his heats once he joined Ganymede pack, right?

But Damon was already too embarrassed at his own forwardness to keep pushing, and focused studiously on eating his sandwich to avoid meeting those dark eyes.

And yet, it seemed that Jun liked the direction of the conversation, because after a moment, he spun the question right back at Damon. “Are you a virgin?”

Damon choked on the last bite he’d taken and his eyes shot up incredulously. Aside from that one time Jun ‘tasted’ Damon, nothing remotely sexual had ever taken place between them – and though Damon was haunted nightly by the memory of that ‘tasting,’ he blamed the whole event on the preheat pheromones melting Jun’s brain into soup. He and Jun had never even kissed before. Not on the lips. Jun was the definition of a gentleman – usually. Once again, the tasting thing was an anomaly. Jun had never even given the impression of wanting to direct a conversation to more intimate matters.

Jun handed Damon a water bottle to ease his aching throat after his coughing fit. He kept his gaze firmly on the blanket’s threads when he answered, “no,” his voice scratchy and weak.

“Hm.”

Damon blinked. Was that a ‘hm’ of acknowledgement, or a ‘hm’ of displeasure? He risked a glance at Jun’s face, only to find that he was now exponentially closer than before – actually their faces were barely an inch apart. Damon jumped, swallowing a curse. How the hell did he always move so quietly?

Jun didn’t say anything to explain why he was suddenly breathing Damon’s air. He was just – there.

They were silent, staring at each other, for too long. With anyone else it would have gotten awkward, fast, but with Jun it was just another day. Jun settled himself, sitting so close their sides were practically squished together. Damon was used to this kind of thing and just kept eating, letting Jun sit and smell him and stare at him to his heart’s content. He definitely did not feel nervous fluttering in his chest, not even when Jun suddenly spoke again.

“I’ll do it better,” he said. Damon paused, swallowing his mouthful.

“…Do what?”

Jun’s expression was neutral, his tone casual, when he explained, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

“Do you.”