Baby Race Alt // Kortac

In a world where love could announce itself through scent before anyone had found the courage to give it a name, where an Alpha might spend an entire afternoon repairing a broken cupboard because the person they loved had once complained about its hinge, where a Beta could settle a room simply by being present, and where an Omega's protective instincts were every bit as formidable as an Alpha's desire to provide, the Five-Dynamic System had always possessed a certain strange, tender logic. Nature had given people different ways of caring for one another, different biological instincts through which affection might express itself, and then, in an act of spectacular negligence, had apparently assumed people would behave sensibly about them.

KorTac was living proof that nature had been an optimist.

There were seven men in the polycule, seven hardened operators whose combined experience encompassed international counterterrorism, hostage extraction, covert warfare, surviving catastrophic injuries, and the complicated business of trusting one another enough to call the same place home. Between them were four naturally seated Alphas, two naturally seated Betas, and one Enigma whose Alpha biology had been acquired through a conversion he had never chosen. Their instincts were not interchangeable. Oni provided through quiet preparation and carefully respected boundaries. Mace built safety into everything he could put his hands on. Zeus made protection feel like an invitation to share whatever was available. Krueger treated independence as both a practical necessity and an excellent excuse to be an irritating bastard. Horangi's Beta instincts encouraged connection, communication, and cooperation, although his personal definition of cooperation occasionally involved provoking an argument just to see whether he could win it. Nikto's shared Beta body processed the world through a denser, more private sort of regulation, no matter which of the four distinct people within the system currently occupied the front. And König, whose original Omega biology had been violently reshaped into an Enigma's, carried the peculiar double inheritance of an acquired provider and a protector who had never entirely disappeared.

All seven loved {{user}}.

All seven had agreed that building a life together meant more than surviving long enough to return from missions.

And all seven, with the possible exception of Oni, had eventually demonstrated that the reproductive ambitions of a multinational military polycule could become a threat to civilized society.

It had started sweetly.

Painfully, embarrassingly, almost offensively sweetly.

The kind of sweet that made enormous men stare at their hands because they had no idea what to do with the unfamiliar sensation gathering behind their ribs.

There had been a conversation months earlier, on an evening when the forward compound lay beneath a soft curtain of rain and the common room smelled of supper, damp uniforms, clean blankets, and the overlapping scents of seven men who had gradually stopped pretending they didn't enjoy sleeping in one another's company. Horangi had been sprawled across the sofa, one leg hanging over the armrest. König occupied the other end, his massive shoulders bent over a tiny piece of model railway scenery while Horangi occasionally interrupted him with something signed in DGS. Zeus had been repairing an old radio. Mace was taking inventory of the kitchen cupboards because somebody had apparently confused buying groceries with buying fourteen varieties of crisps. Krueger was responsible for eleven of them.

Oni had been preparing tea.

Nikto, still fully masked, had occupied his usual position where he could see the room without being required to participate in every conversation occurring inside it.

And {{user}} had brought up the possibility of children.

Not children in some vague and distant future.

Their children.

Theirs, plural.

The polycule's.

For a few remarkable seconds, nobody spoke.

Mace's cupboard door remained open.

Zeus's screwdriver stopped moving.

Horangi sat upright.

König looked over the top of his little model railway station, a strip of adhesive paper stuck to one gloved finger.

Krueger slowly lowered the crisp he had been about to eat.

And Nikto's blue eyes shifted toward {{user}} through the openings in his mask.

There was one rather considerable biological inconvenience.

None of them was an Omega.

Four natural Alphas, two Betas, and an Enigma did not constitute a naturally convenient arrangement for the particular future {{user}} wanted. Although Beta biology possessed its own complex reproductive pathways, it could not simply be substituted for an Omega's gestational role, and König's residual Omega foundation was neither a simple solution nor something anyone had the right to make demands upon. His conversion had been forced. That fact was not an invitation to turn his body into a household project.

So {{user}} had proposed something else.

Bitching.

An intentional, carefully managed conversion from Alpha to Iota, allowing {{user}} to retain traces of {{poss}} original biology while acquiring the receptive reproductive system necessary to carry the children {{sub}} wanted.

It was a serious undertaking, involving sustained biological conditioning, medical oversight, gradual scent and hormonal changes, and a permanent alteration of {{poss}} secondary classification. It was not a trick performed by an especially persuasive pheromone, nor something that could be accomplished during one enthusiastic weekend.

The men understood that.

They understood the risks, the permanence, and the importance of {{user}} being able to change {{poss}} mind before beginning.

They understood that any child would belong to the family regardless of biological parentage.

They understood all of those things.

Then Krueger, Sebastian Josef Krueger, professional soldier and apparently the least helpful man in Austria, looked directly at {{user}} and said, "So, essentially, you're telling us you want seven idiots to help you become the mother of our collective army of tiny idiots."

Mace shut the cupboard. "Krueger."

"What? I am clarifying."

"You're making it worse."

"Am I? Because I thought that was remarkably concise."

Zeus had started laughing, one hand pressed over his mouth, while Horangi's face acquired the bright, delighted expression of somebody discovering an entirely new category of future blackmail.

König had looked at Krueger with the slow displeasure of a man considering whether a blunt object might improve the conversation.

"You're an embarrassment," he informed him.

"Yet you understood the question."

"Unfortunately."

Oni placed his teapot on the table with deliberate care. "Perhaps we should allow {{user}} to finish explaining before someone says something permanently regrettable."

"Too late," Mace muttered.

Nikto's voice came low and rough from behind his mask. "We would want to know that this is truly {{poss}} decision."

And there, beneath the laughter, was the heart of it.

They could be possessive. They could be territorial, unreasonable, protective, competitive, and occasionally stupid in ways that ought to have disqualified them from handling expensive military equipment.

But {{user}} was not a prize to be won.

{{user}} was not a reproductive resource.

And none of them wanted a child more than they wanted {{user}} to remain the author of {{poss}} own life.

Once the decision had been discussed, examined, and made clear, something quiet and extraordinary settled over the room.

Zeus began smiling in a way that made his eyes look suspiciously bright.

Mace moved nearer, his expression serious but his voice uncharacteristically gentle as he asked about the practical arrangements.

Oni reached for another cup without being asked.

Horangi made a small, strangled sound and demanded to know whether anyone had considered how incredibly tiny baby socks were.

König stared down at the model station in his hands for nearly a minute before setting it aside. When he finally spoke, his usual gruffness had not disappeared, but it had softened around the edges.

"Little ones," he said, apparently testing the words. "Running around here."

Krueger tilted his head. "Well, hopefully not immediately. That would be medically concerning."

"Sebastian."

"What?"

"Shut up."

And Nikto, who had said very little, took one of the empty chairs and moved it closer to {{user}}, leaving the choice to occupy it entirely in {{poss}} hands.

That was how it began.

Not with competition.

Not with bragging.

Not even with the ridiculous discussion of reproductive superiority that would eventually result in Mace threatening to confiscate every marker pen in the building.

It began with seven men learning how to make room for a future none of them had quite dared to imagine.

The conversion took months.

It required patience, rest, professional care, and more adjustments to the household than any of them had expected. There were days when scent sensitivity made the entire compound unbearable, days when familiar meals suddenly smelled wrong, and days when the growing complexity of {{user}}'s changing instincts demanded privacy, quiet, or a carefully arranged nest of familiar belongings.

They adapted.

Oni became quietly obsessive about making certain necessities were available before they were required, though he never announced this as an accomplishment. Fresh water appeared beside the bed. Favored blankets were cleaned with an appropriate detergent. The compound's more irritating inconveniences somehow disappeared before they could become genuine problems.

Mace reorganized the common areas, repaired the ventilation, and personally informed three separate members of the support staff that construction work outside the residential wing would need to be rescheduled.

Zeus brought food, stories, distractions, and an unreasonably cheerful collection of practical solutions to problems nobody had yet mentioned. He also developed the dangerous habit of asking whether the future children might enjoy miniature versions of their fathers' equipment.

Horangi acquired an enormous collection of soft toys.

Then another collection.

Then a third, because apparently the first two were insufficiently representative of the animal kingdom.

Krueger became extraordinarily useful whenever something needed to be obtained without attracting attention, although his habit of smuggling treats into the nest and then claiming they had appeared through divine intervention resulted in several arguments.

König quietly constructed a low wooden shelf for the growing collection of baby supplies. He insisted it was simply because the existing storage was inadequate. He also spent an entire afternoon making certain the corners were rounded, then became defensive when Zeus complimented the craftsmanship.

Nikto learned the changing routines in his own way. His shared body had one stable scent, one biological classification, and one set of physical limitations, but the four people within the system approached care differently. Nikto favored structure. Nol was more direct about problems that required addressing. Tikhiy could offer a kind of undemanding quiet that the louder members of the household sometimes forgot existed. Ulybka, when present, could make an ordinary afternoon feel much less solemn without requiring anyone else to match his energy. None of them appeared simply because somebody said a name, and none of their individual relationships with {{user}} were assumed to be interchangeable.

Through it all, König understood certain aspects of bodily change with a particular, deeply private intensity.

His own crowning had been done to him, not for him.

There were things about that history he did not discuss, things his body remembered even when his thoughts had become determined not to revisit them. He never pretended the experiences were equivalent. {{user}} had chosen this path. He had been denied that choice.

Sometimes his contribution was nothing more dramatic than a quiet question about whether {{user}} wanted company, followed by the almost comically careful placement of his enormous body on the far side of the room when space was preferred.

There were no speeches about healing.

No miraculous resolutions.

Only a difficult man, learning that a body could change without belonging to the people who helped it change.

And eventually, after months of patience and adjustment, {{user}}'s conversion settled.

Alpha became Iota.

The household celebrated.

Zeus cooked enough food for a small infantry unit. Horangi cried, denied crying, and then became furious when Krueger produced photographic evidence. Mace opened a bottle of something expensive. Oni gave {{user}} a small, carefully chosen gift without making a performance of it.

König spent twenty minutes trying to determine whether the occasion warranted a card.

Nikto's masked face tilted toward {{user}} when he offered his congratulations, his rough voice carrying a quiet sincerity that needed no elaboration.

For the first time, the possibility of carrying their children was no longer a distant biological ambition.

It was real.

And for approximately four days, everybody behaved like a responsible adult.

Then came the first litter.

Oni's.

There had been no ceremony attached to learning that fact. Only the ordinary wonder of tiny, healthy lives arriving in a world that had not been particularly gentle to their parents, followed by the discovery that Hiro Watanabe, a man capable of remaining composed under conditions that would make most people forget their own names, was utterly defenseless against an infant falling asleep against his chest.

The first time Mace found him sitting in the nursery at three in the morning, Oni had been holding one of the pups with such careful, reverent attention that Mace had stopped in the doorway.

The little one was asleep.

Oni was awake.

His dark eyes rested on the child's face with an expression Mace had never seen during a briefing, a mission, or even the rare evenings when the whole polycule had somehow managed to be peaceful.

"Been sitting there long?" Mace asked.

Oni looked up. "No."

Mace's gaze moved toward the clock. "Hiro."

"A little while."

"How long?"

Oni considered the question. "Two hours."

Mace stared at him, then at the baby, then back at him. "You're aware the cot works?"

"Yes."

"Good. Just checking."

Oni looked down again.

A tiny hand had closed around one of his fingers.

He did not attempt to move it.

Mace left him there.

The following morning, Krueger discovered the first photograph.

Then Horangi made the mistake of telling Zeus.

Then Zeus made the mistake of showing König.

And by lunchtime, seven supposedly discreet operators had a photograph of Oni asleep in an armchair with a newborn tucked safely against his chest, looking so offensively peaceful that Krueger had considered printing it on a mug.

He did print it on a mug.

The mug said:

KORTAC'S FIRST CHAMPION.

Oni stared at it.

Krueger smiled.

Oni picked it up.

Krueger's smile weakened. "You're not going to throw that, are you?"

"No."

"Good."

"I'm going to keep it."

Krueger blinked.

Oni took a sip of tea. "Thank you."

There was something deeply unsettling about a man who could defeat mockery through genuine appreciation.

Krueger never quite recovered.

The second litter belonged to Horangi.

And that, more than anything, was when the household ceased to function as a military establishment.

Because Horangi was insufferable.

He had been insufferable before fatherhood, certainly. Competitive, playful, affectionate, and occasionally so pleased with himself that König had threatened to leave him at a roadside service station on three separate occasions.

But winning the second round transformed an already confident man into a walking public-relations campaign for his own reproductive capabilities.

The pups were beautiful.

Naturally.

Everyone said so.

Unfortunately, Horangi interpreted their agreement as an endorsement of his genetic superiority.

He brought photographs to breakfast.

He brought photographs to the gym.

He brought photographs to mission briefings, although Mace eventually banned that after Horangi interrupted a discussion of extraction routes to point out that one infant had exactly his eyes.

He began referring to himself as the reigning champion.

He purchased a little tiger-patterned blanket.

He announced that he would be accepting congratulations indefinitely.

And when König finally lost his patience, Horangi grinned at him over the head of a sleeping pup and asked, "Jealous?"

König looked down at the child.

The child yawned.

König's entire expression softened.

Then Horangi opened his mouth again. "Strong genes, huh?"

"You're going to die."

"Not before I have more babies."

"You are unbearable."

"Yet biologically successful."

König made a sound that suggested Austrian military training had never contemplated this particular form of psychological warfare.

There were now two litters in the household.

Two happy groups of little ones, already thoroughly spoiled by seven adults who had apparently never encountered a baby product they couldn't justify purchasing.

And, because seven grown men could not leave a beautiful thing uncomplicated, there was now a scoreboard.

Nobody agreed on who had invented it.

Krueger claimed it had been Horangi.

Horangi claimed it had been Zeus.

Zeus insisted that Mace had technically started the entire problem by making a list of nursery supplies.

Mace said that was the stupidest accusation he had ever heard.

Nikto declined to comment.

König maintained that nobody with an ounce of dignity would participate.

Oni looked at the board once, sighed, and went to make tea.

The whiteboard stood in the common room beside the ordinary operations schedule. It had begun as a practical record of which supplies were needed for the pups. Somehow, through a process of organizational decay that would have fascinated a sociologist, the columns had expanded.

There were seven names.

ONI — 1 LITTER

MACE — 0 LITTERS

ZEUS — 0 LITTERS

HORANGI — 1 LITTER

KRUEGER — 0 LITTERS

NIKTO — 0 LITTERS

KÖNIG — 0 LITTERS

Beside Horangi's name, somebody had drawn a crown.

Beside Oni's, somebody else had drawn a tiny teapot.

Underneath, in Krueger's handwriting, appeared the phrase:

BALL QUALITY: UNDER ACTIVE INVESTIGATION.

Mace erased it.

Krueger rewrote it.

Mace erased it again.

Horangi suggested a scoring system.

Zeus offered to design a chart.

König threatened to eat the marker.

Oni asked why anybody was still speaking.

And Nikto, who had watched the entire argument without moving, quietly observed that the available sample size was insufficient to support the conclusions being drawn.

For three full seconds, everybody stared at him.

Then Krueger pointed. "See? He's taking it seriously."

Nikto's blue eyes narrowed. "We were criticizing your methodology."

"Still participating."

It became necessary to establish rules.

This was the second mistake.

The first had been allowing Krueger access to office supplies.

The new rule was simple enough: whoever had fathered the most recent litter would step aside from the next attempt, with no knotting during the competition until the other members had each had the opportunity to father pups. Intimacy, affection, scent-sharing, and ordinary closeness were not prizes to be withheld. The rule was merely the polycule's thoroughly ridiculous attempt at making the reproductive opportunities more equitable, and it only existed for as long as {{user}} wanted the game to continue.

Horangi was officially benched.

He reacted as though someone had stripped him of a military decoration.

"You're telling me I win, and my reward is disqualification?"

"For the next round," Mace clarified.

"That's not how winning works."

"That's exactly how our agreement works."

"I'm being punished for excellence."

"You're being punished for having a mouth," König muttered.

"That's not in the rules."

"It should be."

Oni, who had already had his litter, offered to step back voluntarily as well so the others could have a fairer opportunity.

Everybody found this deeply irritating because it made him look even more dignified.

Krueger accused him of psychological warfare.

Oni accepted another cup of tea.

From that point onward, the competition evolved into something no responsible military organization should have allowed within five hundred meters of an operations room.

It began with breakfast.

A cold, drizzly morning had settled over the compound, the sky beyond the windows a color somewhere between wet concrete and Mace's opinion of everyone else's behavior. The kitchen smelled of coffee, toasted bread, eggs, familiar overlapping pack scents, and the faint sharpness of disinfectant drifting from the corridor.

Oni sat at the table with his tea.

Mace stood beside the counter examining a list of supplies.

Zeus was making breakfast while explaining something about replacing a faulty kitchen extractor fan.

Horangi had positioned himself beside König, where he could be as obnoxious as possible without actually crossing the other man's boundaries.

Krueger leaned against the refrigerator eating something out of a packet.

Nikto, masked as always, occupied a chair nearest the wall.

And {{user}} had a place waiting among them.

Krueger studied the scoreboard through the open doorway. "Okay, so Oni won the first time around. Horangi won last time."

"Correct," Horangi said brightly.

"Which means we've got Mace, Zeus, König, Nikto, and yours truly still waiting for proof of superior equipment."

Mace did not look up. "Do not call it equipment."

"Would you prefer hardware?"

"No."

"Reproductive assets?"

"Krueger."

"Right. Testicular resources."

Zeus began laughing over the stove.

König's head turned with alarming slowness toward Horangi. "He cheated."

Horangi blinked. "What?"

"You heard me."

"I heard you say something stupid, yes."

König folded his enormous arms. "The bastard let all mine leak out."

The room stopped.

Zeus's spatula hovered in midair.

Krueger lowered his snack.

Mace slowly closed his eyes.

Even Oni's teacup paused halfway to his mouth.

Horangi stared at König in utter disbelief. "I DID NOT, YOU WHINY SHIT!"

"You did!"

"HOW?"

"You moved the pillow."

Horangi's mouth fell open. "The pillow?"

"Yes."

"You think I sabotaged your sperm with a pillow?"

"I know what I saw."

"You saw me move a pillow because it was under my elbow!"

"Convenient."

"IT WAS UNDER MY ELBOW, YOU ENORMOUS IDIOT!"

Zeus had bent over the counter, laughing so hard that the spatula was becoming a genuine safety concern.

Krueger looked between them with the open delight of a man watching a building collapse from a safe distance. "Wait. Wait. I want this recorded properly. König is alleging tactical pillow interference."

"Do not," Mace warned.

Krueger turned toward him. "Marcus, this is a serious allegation. We need an investigation."

"We need silence."

"A reproductive tribunal."

"Silence."

"Independent forensic pillow analysis."

Mace put down his clipboard. "Sebastian."

Krueger smiled.

"Better balls deserve better legal representation."

Oni finally lowered his cup. His face bore the exhausted expression of a man who had once believed patience was a renewable resource. "Could we," he asked quietly, "have one breakfast without discussing somebody's reproductive organs?"

"No," Zeus managed, still laughing.

Horangi pointed furiously at König. "He's accusing me of cheating because he's a sore loser!"

König leaned toward him. At six feet ten inches tall, he could make a perfectly ordinary kitchen argument appear to be the opening scene of an international incident. "I'm not a sore loser."

"You've been sulking for weeks!"

"I do not sulk."

"You sulked when the genetic results came back!"

"Because you were smug!"

"I WAS HAPPY!"

"You bought a crown!"

"For the baby!"

"It was YOUR SIZE!"

Krueger nearly dropped his packet.

Mace stared at the ceiling.

Somewhere in the midst of the chaos, Nikto rose from his chair.

Nobody noticed immediately.

This was unfortunate.

Nikto was not particularly interested in explaining himself to a room full of men who had collectively decided that sperm motility was an appropriate subject for breakfast conversation. His movement was methodical and quiet, his heavy boots making little noise against the floor. The cold, rain-darkened mineral quality of his natural Deep Ward scent remained relatively close to his body, dense rather than dramatically projected, yet familiar enough that a person who knew him well might notice when he came nearer.

He moved around the table.

Past the cupboard.

Behind König's chair.

And toward the place prepared for {{user}}.

There was nothing inherently strange about wanting to be close to one's partner. A shared meal, a quiet word, a familiar scent exchanged in passing: these were ordinary comforts in a household that had gradually become accustomed to finding affection in the spaces between everyday chores.

But there was a certain deliberateness to the way Nikto positioned himself, as though he had simply happened to discover that standing near {{user}} offered the ideal vantage point from which to examine a particularly fascinating patch of kitchen wall.

Zeus noticed first. His laughter stopped just long enough for his gaze to follow the Russian operator's movement. Then his eyes narrowed. "Nikto's cheating."

Every head turned.

Nikto stopped.

Mace looked over, his gaze moved from Nikto to the place where {{user}} would sit. Then back again. "Can confirm."

Nikto was silent.

Krueger's face lit up with such malicious joy that Zeus immediately pointed at him. "Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Whatever you're about to say."

Krueger ignored him. "Nikto, are you attempting an unauthorized scent campaign?"

"We are standing."

"Near {{user}}."

"People stand near one another."

Zeus pointed again. "He's been circling."

Nikto's blue eyes shifted toward him. "That is an interpretation."

"Mate, you've walked past that chair four times."

"There are cupboards in this kitchen."

"Four times?"

"We needed to inspect them."

Mace stared at him. "You haven't opened a single cupboard."

A pause.

Nikto looked toward the nearest cabinet, then back at Mace. "We were going to."

Horangi exploded into laughter.

König, temporarily distracted from his accusations of reproductive sabotage, watched the exchange with a level of interest that could only be described as professional recognition.

Krueger folded his arms. "Strategic scent deployment. Very clever."

Nikto's gaze sharpened. "We have done nothing."

"You've done reconnaissance."

"We live here."

"With intent."

"Stop talking."

"That's not a denial."

Oni set his cup down. "Nikto."

The Russian turned slightly.

Oni considered him for a moment.

Then, with the profound resignation of a man who had witnessed far too much, said, "You are standing in front of the refrigerator."

Nikto looked behind himself.

He was.

Zeus grinned. "Anything you need in there?"

Nikto did not answer.

Mace's mouth twitched.

Horangi doubled over against König's shoulder.

Krueger produced a marker from his pocket.

Nobody knew where he had obtained it.

Nobody wanted to know.

He marched into the common room and added a note beside Nikto's name.

SUSPECTED PHEROMONAL CAMPAIGNING.

Mace followed him. "Erase that."

"Evidence must be preserved."

"Erase it."

"You're suppressing the investigation."

"I will suppress you."

The board gained three new categories before lunch.

One of them was labeled TACTICAL BALL ADVANTAGE.

Another was SCENT-RELATED MISCONDUCT.

The third, in handwriting suspiciously similar to Zeus's, simply read:

KÖNIG VS. PILLOW: ONGOING.

That should have satisfied everyone.

It did not.

The competition spread through the compound like a minor contagious disease.

Zeus began preparing elaborate family meals and insisting that nutritious food, reduced stress, proper recovery, and maintaining a healthy household were scientifically more useful than shouting about genetic superiority.

This was an entirely reasonable position.

Unfortunately, he delivered it while wearing an apron on which Krueger had written FERTILITY SUPPORT COMMAND.

Zeus did not notice until halfway through dinner.

Mace nearly choked on his drink.

Horangi took photographs.

König signed something to Horangi beneath the table, his enormous hands moving carefully through the DGS he was still learning.

Horangi glanced at him.

Then began laughing again.

Krueger demanded a translation.

Horangi refused.

König looked pleased with himself for approximately three seconds.

Then Horangi signed something back, and the pleased expression disappeared.

"That's not funny," König grumbled.

Horangi smiled. "Yes, it is."

Krueger leaned forward. "What did he say?"

"Private conversation."

"I hate sign language."

Horangi's amusement vanished into immediate offense. "You hate not being included, you prick."

"Precisely."

Oni became increasingly competent at avoiding the entire subject, which, inevitably, made him everybody's favorite person to annoy.

Krueger began referring to him as the reigning historical champion.

Zeus called him the founding father of the dynasty.

Horangi suggested he should wear a ceremonial sash.

Mace informed everyone that if anybody made Hiro a sash, they would be cleaning the motor pool for a month.

Three days later, a sash appeared.

It was dark blue.

It had gold lettering.

It said FIRST BALLS, BEST BALLS.

Oni found it hanging from his bedroom door. He examined it for a long moment... then folded it neatly and placed it in a drawer.

When Krueger asked about it later, Oni said only, "It seemed important to you."

Krueger had to leave the room.

Nobody knew whether he was laughing or experiencing a moral crisis.

Mace developed a deeply suspicious interest in the household's food supply.

This was not new. As a Crest Ward Alpha, his instincts already inclined him toward visible preparation, functional security, and ensuring the people under his care had what they needed. But the competition gave everyone an excuse to examine those habits with the merciless attention of men who had run out of appropriate hobbies.

He repaired a broken nursery cupboard.

Krueger called it campaigning.

He bought new blankets.

Horangi called it political bribery.

He cooked dinner.

Zeus called it an attempt to challenge the established provisioning specialist.

Mace looked at him. "You're a grown man."

Zeus nodded. "Correct."

"With military training."

"Extensive."

"Stop accusing me of trying to improve my sperm count with a casserole."

Zeus considered this. "Technically, adequate nutrition is—"

"Don't."

König's approach was considerably less subtle, although he believed himself to be exercising remarkable restraint.

He was not.

The Enigma's acquired Alpha instincts encouraged provision and territorial preparation, while the protective foundation left behind by his original Omega biology sometimes made the household's growing collection of pups particularly difficult for him to ignore. He could be abrasive with adults, impatient with nonsense, and openly unpleasant toward people who pushed too far. Yet the sight of a frightened child or an injured animal still drew from him an extraordinary tenderness that seemed almost impossible to reconcile with the intimidating figure he presented to most of the world.

He built things.

Shelves.

A small wooden toy chest.

A sturdy little table.

A set of miniature railway carriages that were carefully designed with no detachable pieces small enough to create a choking hazard.

He also repaired a rocking chair nobody had asked him to repair.

Horangi caught him sanding one of its arms one afternoon. "What're you doing?"

"Fixing a chair."

"Why?"

"Because it was broken."

"It wasn't broken."

"It was uncomfortable."

"For who?"

König looked at him.

Horangi grinned. "Oh."

"Don't."

"You're nesting."

"I'm repairing furniture."

"You're nesting so hard."

"Shut your mouth."

"Big, scary Enigma making little baby furniture."

König slowly set down the sandpaper.

Horangi stepped backward, laughing. "Aw, come on. It's cute."

"It is functional."

"You're cute."

"Kim."

"Very domestic."

"I'm going to throw you into the rain."

Horangi slipped another step backward. "Love you too, big guy."

König did not chase him.

He did, however, spend the next ten minutes muttering insults under his breath while continuing to sand the chair with extraordinary care.

Krueger was worse.

Krueger became convinced that successful reproduction required what he referred to as personal branding.

His personal branding consisted of appearing in the common room looking offensively pleased with himself, presenting {{user}} with useful little gifts, and then loudly informing everyone within hearing distance that Austrian genetics had been unfairly underrepresented in the household's existing offspring.

König took immediate offense. "I'm Austrian."

Krueger turned. "Yes, and you're embarrassing us."

"I'm embarrassing YOU?"

"You're the one having arguments with pillows."

Horangi made a delighted choking sound from the sofa.

König rose.

Krueger moved behind Mace.

Mace did not look up from his book. "Don't use me as cover."

"Marcus, I'm in danger."

"You started it."

"He's very tall."

"Should've considered that."

Krueger peered around Mace's shoulder. "I simply think the Austrian contribution deserves proper representation."

König pointed at him. "You are not representing Austria."

"Somebody has to."

"You're representing a neurological malfunction."

Horangi folded over laughing.

Zeus nearly fell off the sofa.

Even Nikto made a low sound behind his mask that might have been amusement.

Mace closed his book. "Both of you. Outside."

Krueger looked scandalized. "Why me?"

"Because I can hear you."

König gestured triumphantly. "Ha."

"You too, big man."

The triumph vanished.

The argument continued outside.

It was raining.

Neither man seemed to care.

By the time Horangi opened the window to tell them they were both being ridiculous, Krueger had accused König of being physically incapable of fitting through the doorway of a proper Austrian family home, and König had informed him that his ancestors would be ashamed to learn he had survived long enough to reproduce.

Oni closed the window.

Quietly.

Without commentary.

There were other incidents.

Many.

Horangi was caught trying to convince the pups to say his name before anybody else's.

Mace informed him that was not how inherited traits worked.

Horangi said he was simply building brand recognition.

Zeus began referring to every shared meal as an investment in the next generation.

Krueger started reviewing the nutritional information on packets of snacks and loudly announcing whether they were appropriate for elite reproductive athletes.

Nobody asked him to do this.

Nikto developed a habit of appearing near {{user}} whenever the others became distracted.

It was not always an attempt to scent or court {{obj}}. Sometimes he was simply seeking familiar company, as anybody might, or carrying out whatever task currently occupied him. But the household had become so suspicious that his presence within a reasonable distance of {{user}} was treated like an attempt to compromise a classified operation.

One afternoon, Mace found him in the laundry room.

Nikto was folding towels.

Mace stopped in the doorway.

Nikto looked up.

Neither spoke.

Mace glanced toward the pile of familiar clothing on the counter. "Nikto."

"What?"

"Anything you need?"

"Towels."

"Right."

A silence followed.

Nikto returned to folding.

Mace leaned against the frame. "You're not hiding anything in those, are you?"

Nikto went still. Slowly, he lifted his masked face. "We are folding laundry, Marcus."

"Just checking."

"You suspect everybody."

"Because everybody keeps doing stupid things."

Nikto considered this before he resumed folding. "Reasonable."

Mace left.

Three minutes later, Zeus found Nikto's name on the board beneath a new heading.

LAUNDRY-BASED SCENT OPERATIONS: INCONCLUSIVE.

Krueger denied involvement.

Nobody believed him.

And somewhere beneath all of that stupidity, beneath the competitive remarks and the exaggerated outrage and the endless accusations that someone else's balls were somehow receiving unfair advantages, something gentler continued to grow.

The pups changed the household.

Not in the dramatic way people imagined when they talked about becoming parents, as though love arrived all at once in a blinding revelation and permanently rearranged a person's character.

It happened in small ways.

A bottle left warming in the kitchen.

A tiny sock discovered in an ammunition pouch.

A blanket tucked beneath one of the sofas.

A soft toy beside the radio equipment.

The peculiar sight of Mace, broad-shouldered and scarred, standing in the nursery with a sleepy infant against his chest while explaining in a deep, practical voice that kicking the wall would not make the bottle arrive any faster.

Zeus sitting cross-legged on the floor with two little ones attempting to climb him like a mountain, laughing as he surrendered to the inevitable.

Horangi painting one pup's tiny fingernails with water-based children's polish and becoming personally offended when Krueger suggested his technique needed improvement.

Krueger being found asleep with a baby curled safely beside him during a supervised afternoon rest, his usual grin gone and one hand resting protectively near the child's back.

Oni learning to prepare bottles as methodically as he maintained weapons, then quietly changing his entire schedule to accommodate a child's inconvenient affection for falling asleep against his shoulder.

Nikto standing beside the nursery door, fully masked, his gaze following the movement of a little hand reaching toward the strange shape of his face covering. He never removed it. He did not need to. A careful gloved finger was enough to give the child something to hold, and the softening of his posture said considerably more than an uncovered face ever could.

And König.

König, who sometimes seemed capable of frightening an entire corridor into silence merely by appearing at the far end of it, discovering that a small, frightened child did not understand his reputation.

A child understood warmth.

A child understood gentle hands.

A child understood somebody sitting on the floor beside a cot long enough for the shadows to stop looking frightening.

Once, Horangi came looking for him after dinner and found him there, sitting with his long legs awkwardly folded beneath him, quietly explaining a little wooden train to a child far too young to understand the mechanics.

His enormous fingers guided the carriage along a track.

The child squealed.

König smiled beneath his hood.

Horangi stopped in the doorway.

For once, he did not make a joke.

Instead he watched for a moment, his expression softening into something private and affectionate.

Then, when König finally noticed him, Horangi raised his hands and signed a small, familiar question. ”Having fun?”

König looked down at the child, then back at his friend. His answer came slowly, carefully, with the imperfect grammar of someone still learning. ”Yes.”

Horangi smiled.

He left them there.

It was these moments that made the competition possible without allowing it to become cruel.

Because the men were not actually fighting over possession of {{user}}, nor did any of them believe that fathering a litter made him more important than the others.

All of the pups were theirs to love.

All of the children belonged to the family.

The scoreboard was absurd, but the affection beneath it was real.

They wanted to see little reflections of themselves in the children who would grow up among them.

Mace wanted to teach somebody how to fix things properly.

Zeus wanted another voice joining the household's laughter.

Krueger wanted a child who might inherit his terrible sense of humor, though everyone agreed the world had done nothing to deserve that.

Nikto, in his own private way, was learning what it might mean for his complicated life to contain something as ordinary and extraordinary as family.

König wanted things he found difficult to say aloud.

And although Oni and Horangi had already experienced the wonder of biological parenthood, neither was any less devoted to the idea of their family continuing to grow.

By the time another carefully planned opportunity came around, the compound had settled into a peculiar rhythm.

There were serious conversations about health, cycle management, responsibilities, schedules, and the practical demands of raising more children.

Then there were the other conversations.

The ones that happened when somebody made the mistake of leaving seven competitive men alone with a whiteboard.

Krueger began drafting what he called the official ranking of masculine reproductive excellence.

Mace confiscated the paper.

Krueger made another copy.

Zeus insisted the ranking lacked meaningful scientific standards.

Horangi suggested using a point system.

König said the entire concept was idiotic.

Then demanded to know why Krueger had placed him fourth.

"You haven't won," Krueger said.

"Neither have you!"

"Yes, but I have exceptional confidence."

"That's not evidence."

"It is preliminary evidence."

"You're an idiot."

Krueger nodded. "And yet I am above you."

König reached for the board.

Mace caught his wrist before he could snap it in half. "The board," Mace clarified. "Not him."

König looked offended. "I wasn't going to hit him."

"Didn't say you were."

"I was going to erase it."

"Then use the eraser."

Horangi, who had been lounging on the sofa with one of the pups asleep against his chest, smiled with the serene superiority of a man who had already won. "You're all very emotional about your balls."

König turned on him immediately. "YOU ARE THE REASON WE'RE HAVING THIS ARGUMENT!"

Horangi laughed. "Because I won?"

"BECAUSE YOU CHEATED!"

"WITH THE PILLOW AGAIN?"

"YES!"

Zeus dropped his head onto the table.

Krueger reached for the marker.

Oni stood. Nobody noticed until he spoke. "I am going to make tea."

Mace looked at him with genuine envy. "Make enough for two."

Oni paused.

Then looked around the room.

Seven men.

One whiteboard.

A child sleeping peacefully through an argument about pillow-based reproductive sabotage.

His shoulders lowered. "Perhaps an entire pot."

Weeks passed.

The current round ended.

The household waited.

And although the competition continued to produce increasingly ridiculous speculation, no amount of pheromonal familiarity, instinctive attention, or bragging could reveal the outcome before there was something real to know.

That was another fact the men struggled with.

Their scents could communicate recognition, comfort, attraction, irritation, and the complicated rhythms of their biological classifications. They could not diagnose pregnancy, determine parentage, or identify a future father through sheer masculine confidence.

Krueger argued that he had a feeling.

Mace reminded him feelings were not laboratory results.

Zeus suggested patience.

Horangi suggested betting.

König told Horangi he was forbidden from betting on anything ever again.

Horangi reminded him he was not his commanding officer.

Nikto said nothing.

Oni quietly continued preparing for whatever the future might bring.

And {{user}} had news.

The compound knew nothing of it yet.

Beyond the common room windows, the afternoon had begun to soften into evening. Rain had stopped earlier, leaving the concrete walkways wet and silver beneath the security lights. Somewhere outside, a vehicle rolled past the residential wing, its tires hissing through puddles. The distant mechanical hum of the compound's generators mingled with the occasional radio call and the low, familiar sounds of an installation settling between shifts.

Inside, the residential common room was warm.

There were blankets on the sofa, toys in a basket, boots abandoned beneath the table, and a faint smell of coffee lingering from the afternoon. A half-assembled wooden toy sat beside König's chair, its pieces arranged with a precision that would have been impressive if the man responsible were not currently arguing about something infinitely less dignified.

The scoreboard remained on the wall.

Mace had tried to remove it twice.

Krueger had reattached it three times.

Horangi had decorated the frame with stickers.

Zeus had added a small column for statistical notes.

Oni's name still bore a teapot.

Horangi's still bore a crown.

The current ranking read:

KORTAC FAMILY EXPANSION LEAGUE

1. ONI — 1 LITTER — FOUNDING CHAMPION

2. HORANGI — 1 LITTER — REIGNING CHAMPION / BENCHED

3. MACE — 0 — CLAIMS QUALITY OVER QUANTITY

4. ZEUS — 0 — EXCELLENT TEAMWORK, UNPROVEN RESULTS

5. KRUEGER — 0 — EXTREME CONFIDENCE, QUESTIONABLE SCIENCE

6. NIKTO — 0 — UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR SCENT CAMPAIGNING

7. KÖNIG — 0 — PILLOW SABOTAGE CLAIM PENDING

At the bottom, someone had written in enormous letters:

WHO HAS THE BETTER BALLS?

Beneath that, in Mace's handwriting:

NOBODY IS ALLOWED TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION.

And beneath that, in Krueger's:

COWARD.

The children were resting.

For the moment.

Oni occupied his usual chair with a cup of tea, one hand resting against the armrest, his expression composed except for the faint tension gathering between his brows.

Mace sat at the table with an operations report he had already attempted to read three times.

Zeus occupied the sofa, a mug balanced in one hand, his attention divided between the conversation and a small broken toy he was repairing.

Horangi lounged beside König with all the smug satisfaction of a man who believed fatherhood had awarded him permanent immunity from criticism.

König disagreed.

Loudly.

Krueger stood in front of the whiteboard with a marker.

Nikto had been seated near the far wall.

He was no longer seated near the far wall.

This detail had not yet been noticed.

Krueger tapped the scoreboard. "So, gentlemen. Let's review the standings."

Mace did not look up. "No."

"Very compelling opening statement, Marcus, but the committee has decided to proceed."

"There is no committee."

"There's me."

"Exactly."

Krueger gestured toward the names. "Oni, first victory. Horangi, second victory. Both excellent efforts. Very respectable. A strong showing for the Asian contingent."

Horangi raised his mug. "Thank you."

Oni closed his eyes. "Please do not encourage him."

Krueger continued. "That leaves five contestants in the current competition. Mace, Zeus, König, Nikto, and myself."

"Don't call us contestants," Mace muttered.

"Reproductive hopefuls?"

"No."

"Potential genetic investors?"

"Sebastian."

"Fine. Fathers-in-waiting."

Zeus nodded thoughtfully. "That one's actually rather sweet."

Krueger brightened. "Thank you."

"Still not putting it on a shirt."

Krueger looked disappointed.

König leaned forward, his hood shifting slightly as he glanced at the board. "Why am I last?"

Horangi's grin appeared immediately. "Because you lost."

König turned. "I didn't lose. The results were compromised."

Horangi stared at him, then laughed. "You're still on about that bloody pillow?"

"Yes."

"IT WAS A PILLOW!"

"It affected the angle!"

Zeus's head fell backward against the sofa.

Krueger lifted the marker. "Adding angle-related interference to the official record."

Mace slapped his report onto the table. "Nobody is adding a goddamn thing."

Krueger hesitated.

Then wrote:

ANGLE-RELATED INTERFERENCE: DISPUTED.

Mace stared at him. "You're doing that deliberately."

Krueger glanced over his shoulder. "Yes."

Oni took another sip of tea.

In the corner, Zeus suddenly sat upright. His eyes narrowed, then moved toward the passage leading into the common room. "Hold on."

Krueger paused. "What?"

Zeus pointed. "Nikto's cheating."

There stood Nikto, still fully masked, having somehow relocated from the far wall to a position suspiciously close to the route {{user}} would ordinarily take into the room.

He was doing nothing particularly dramatic.

No touching.

No visible interference.

Just standing there, his cold, close-range scent held around him with a density that might have gone unnoticed by anybody less familiar with the peculiar habits of their shared household.

Nikto's head turned. "We are not cheating."

Krueger's face split into a grin. "He's not even denying the scent campaign anymore."

"We are standing in a corridor."

Zeus leaned forward. "There's nothing in that corridor."

"There is a door."

"To {{user}}."

"To the rest of the compound."

"Convenient," König muttered.

Horangi turned toward him. "YOU DO NOT GET TO SAY CONVENIENT!"

König threw up his hands. "HE'S DOING IT AGAIN!"

"HE IS NOT MOVING A FUCKING PILLOW!"

"THAT IS NOT THE POINT!"

Oni placed his cup down, very carefully. His shoulders rose.

Then fell. "Please."

Nobody heard him.

Krueger was already writing on the board.

NIKTO — UNAUTHORIZED SCENT MANEUVERS: SECOND OFFENSE.

Mace stood. "Give me the marker."

"No."

"Krueger."

"It's an official record."

"Give it here."

Zeus began laughing.

Horangi was now arguing with König in a chaotic mixture of spoken English and the occasional irritated sign, König responding with increasingly indignant gestures that were doing very little to improve the clarity of his argument.

Nikto remained in the corridor, regarding all of them with the patient displeasure of a man who had survived considerably worse things than a household tribunal but was beginning to question the value of that survival.

Then Krueger looked down at the board.

Paused.

And added one final line beneath the rankings.

BETTER BALLS: RESULTS PENDING.

Mace reached for the marker.

Krueger dodged.

Zeus laughed harder.

Horangi called König a sore loser.

König threatened to throw Horangi through the sofa.

Oni looked toward the ceiling as though some distant and merciful deity might finally intervene.

And somewhere beyond the noise, beyond the absurd arguments and the familiar overlapping scents of the men who had become {{user}}'s family, the hallway held the quiet promise of an entirely different conversation.

{{user}} was coming to tell them that {{sub}} was pregnant.

Again.

Another litter.

Another collection of impossibly tiny hands, little voices, sleepless nights, warm blankets, and love that would make the compound feel even more like a home.

And this time, with Horangi officially out of the running, Oni voluntarily stepping aside, and five spectacularly competitive men having spent the better part of the last several weeks arguing about whose reproductive abilities deserved a military commendation, there would be absolutely no immediate way to know which one had fathered the pups.

The corridor stretched toward the common room.

The argument continued.

And not one of those seven dangerous, ridiculous, hopelessly devoted men had the slightest idea what was about to happen to their precious scoreboard.