Milky Scent
The apartment was deathly quiet when Adrian returned.
A major server crash at the tech firm had wrapped up hours ahead of schedule, and for the first time in weeks, the CEO had dismissed him early.
Adrian slipped his key into the lock, turning it with practiced stealth so he wouldn’t wake the baby if he was napping.
He set his briefcase down by the door, loosening his tie with a long, exhausted sigh. The house smelled faintly of sweet vanilla and warm milk—a comforting scent that had become synonymous with Luciel’s presence.
Smiling faintly, Adrian walked down the hallway, his heavy footsteps muffled by the plush runner rug. He stepped up to the nursery, intending to surprise Luciel and take Kai for the evening. The door was cracked open a few inches, casting a warm sliver of afternoon light across the floor.
Adrian reached for the handle, but stopped dead in his tracks.
Through the narrow gap, he could see Luciel sitting in the rocking chair, his back slightly curved. His oversized white button-down shirt was completely undone, draped loosely over his shoulders.
And there was Kai.
The three-month-old was cradled securely in Luciel’s pale, freckled arms, his tiny legs kicking with absolute contentment.
Kai’s small face was buried deeply against Luciel’s right breast, his little mouth latched onto a noticeably puffy, rounded pink nipple.
The baby was sucking strongly, his cheeks puffing in and out with fierce, rhythmic hunger, making tiny, satisfied gulping sounds.
Luciel’s eyes were half-closed, a soft, breathless gasp escaping his lips as Kai pulled firmly.
He brought a hand up, his slender fingers gently stroking the baby’s blonde tufts of hair, his face melted into an expression of pure, maternal devotion.
Under the soft light, Luciel’s softened jawline, his pale, velvety skin, and his heavy, milk-filled chest made him look beautifully, startlingly ethereal.
Adrian’s breath hitched in his throat. His mind fractured, completely unable to process the data his eyes were sending to his brain.
There was no imported boutique formula.
There were no sterile medical bags.
Luciel wasn’t just babysitting. Luciel was actively, strongly, breastfeeding his son.
Adrian froze, his fingers locking around the doorframe as the reality of the situation crashed over him, his wide green eyes locked onto the milky, secret world spinning right in front of him.
The wooden doorframe groaned slightly under the sudden, crushing weight of Adrian’s grip. The sound shattered the quiet harmony of the nursery like a gunshot.
Luciel’s eyes snapped open. He flinched, his entire body going rigid as his gaze flew to the doorway.
There, standing in the threshold, was Adrian.
The older man’s broad frame seemed to fill the entire entry, his face completely pale, his green eyes blown wide with an emotion somewhere between absolute shock and profound confusion.
“A-Adrian...” Luciel’s voice choked in his throat, a breathless, terrified squeak.
In a blind panic, Luciel instinctively pulled Kai away from his chest. The sudden disruption made the baby let out a sharp, protesting wail, his little hands reaching out into the air. But Luciel could barely hear him over the roaring of the blood in his own ears.
With Kai pulled back, Luciel was left completely exposed.
Because his shirt was entirely unbuttoned, his bare chest was on full display.
His breasts were strikingly puffy and rounded, heavy with the milk his body had been producing all day.
And without Kai’s mouth covering the right nipple, the sudden release of pressure caused the rich, white fluid to swell up rapidly.
A heavy drop of pure breast milk pooled at the tip and trickled down the soft, pale skin of his chest, followed quickly by a steady, slow drip from the left side.
Adrian stepped into the room, his movements slow, almost robotic, as if he were trying to wake himself up from a dream. His eyes dropped to Luciel’s chest, watching the white fluid run down his skin and sink into the fabric of his jeans.
“What...” Adrian’s voice was a low, gravelly whisper. He shook his head, his hands trembling at his sides. “Luciel... what is this? What am I looking at?”
“Adrian, please, I can explain—” Luciel stammered, his face burning a violent, agonizing crimson.
He desperately tried to pull the edges of his white shirt together with one hand while cradling the crying baby with the other, but the fabric was too damp, sticking to his skin and doing nothing to hide the heavy, dripping reality.
“The boutique formula,” Adrian said, his voice rising, thick with a sudden, overwhelming wave of emotion. He took another step forward, towering over the rocking chair. “The special import bags... the research... it was all a lie? You’ve been feeding my son? From your own body?”
“I had to!” Luciel cried out, tears finally pricking the corners of his large blue eyes.
He looked up at Adrian, his vision blurring.
“He was starving, Adrian! He rejected every single wet nurse, and the formula was making his fever spike. The doctor told me my milk was safe for him if I stopped my medication, so I stopped it! I did it for Kai!”
Adrian froze, his green eyes locked onto Luciel’s trembling, tear-streaked face. The sheer absurdity of the situation, mixed with the undeniable truth dripping right in front of him, left the room thick with a heavy, breathless tension.
“Adrian, please, just let me tell you everything,” Luciel pleaded, his voice cracking as he gently rocked the crying baby in his left arm.
With his right hand, he gave up trying to hide behind the shirt and instead grabbed a clean muslin burp cloth from the armrest, pressing it against his bare, dripping chest to catch the milk.
“Just... sit down. Please. I never wanted to deceive you.”
Adrian looked at the cloth soaking through with white fluid, then back to Luciel’s terrified, tear-streaked face. The anger in his expression melted into a profound, dizzying bewilderment. He sank heavily into the small armchair across from the rocking chair, his legs suddenly feeling like lead.
“Start from the beginning,” Adrian whispered, running a shaking hand over his face. “Because none of this makes any sense.”
Luciel swallowed hard, staring down at the floor as his pale, freckled skin flushed an even deeper shade of red.
“It started right before Lucy left,” Luciel began, his voice small and trembling. “I... I had this unsettling medical anomaly. One morning, I woke up and my chest was damp. I thought it was sweat, but when I pinched my nipples... actual milk came out. Lots of it.”
Adrian’s jaw dropped slightly. “You were lactating? Before Kai even came here?”
“Yes,” Luciel nodded miserably. “I went to Dr. Evans in a complete panic. He ran blood tests and told me my pituitary gland was producing a massive, abnormal amount of prolactin. It’s the hormone that makes females lactate. He put me on dopamine agonists to suppress it, but it takes time to work.
That’s why I was so hesitant when you asked me to move in. I was wearing nursing pads, terrified you’d find out I was a biological glitch.”
“But the formula... how did Kai—”
“That was an accident, too,” Luciel interrupted, a soft, bittersweet smile tugging at his lips despite the tears.
“The day we came back from the hospital after his high fever, I was completely exhausted. I fell asleep on the couch with Kai lying on my stomach. The stress and his crying triggered a heavy rush of milk—a let-down reflex. It soaked through my pads and my white shirt.”
Luciel lifted his blue eyes to meet Adrian’s intense green gaze.
“Kai smelled it. He was starving, Adrian. He crawled up my chest and latched onto my right nipple right through the wet shirt. When I woke up, he was happily, strongly sucking. He wasn’t crying, he wasn’t rejecting it. For the first time in weeks, he looked completely content.”
Adrian listened, his chest heaving as the pieces of the puzzle violently crashed together in his mind. The mysterious recovery, the sudden weight gain, the way Kai always settled down whenever Adrian left for work—it all made sense now.
“I was terrified I had poisoned him,” Luciel continued quickly, his words rushing out.
“I bolted to the hospital alone to test the milk. The doctor said it was perfectly safe, healthy, and full of nutrients, but he told me I had to stop feeding him because the hormone suppressants would transfer to the baby. But you remember that week, Adrian.
Kai was rejecting every single wet nurse you hired. He was losing weight. He was going to end up on a hospital IV.”
Luciel loosened his grip on the cloth for a fraction of a second, revealing the dark rose, swollen nipple underneath before covering it again.
“So, I made a choice. I told the doctor to take me off the medication. I chose to let my body change, to let the milk take over, just so I could feed your son. I invented the boutique formula story because...
how was I supposed to look you in the eye and tell you your brother-in-law was nursing your baby?”
The nursery fell into a heavy, suffocating silence. The only sound was Kai’s faint, hungry whimpers as he curled closer into Luciel’s side, smelling the warm, sweet scent of the milk dripping just inches from his nose.
Adrian sat frozen, his green eyes staring at Luciel as the absolute magnitude of what this young man had sacrificed for his family finally, truly sank in.