Chapter Text
Taehyung just wanted to take out the trash. He’s not even sure what time it is, and he’s tired right down to the bone, held up only by energy drinks and a sandwich he ate six hours ago. He holds the black trash bag as far away from himself as he can manage, his arm shaking under its weight. He’s still not used to doing things like this on his own. Except he wants to be, so he does his best to chuck it over his head and into the dumpster, listening to the thud with a dull satisfaction.
And then he smells it.
He stands in wonder for a moment, wondering if his long work hours are finally catching up to him and causing him to hallucinate, but no, it’s there, that scent of pine trees and snow, hints of fire like a warm hearth in winter.
“Jungkook?” Taehyung says, in a disbelieving squeak.
He almost decides to ignore it entirely, but then he hears a groan from somewhere below him, painful in its familiarity. Taehyung spins in a circle in the middle of the alleyway until he sees a dark figure huddled against the brick wall under the stairs of a fire escape. Taehyung rushes forward, falling on his knees in front of him.
“Alpha?
Jungkook moans again, his eyes shut and features laxed. Taehyung’s fingers immediately fly to his pulse point. It’s light, fast, and fluttery. Instincts finally kicking in, Taehyung trails his eyes down, assessing, until he spots the dark patch of blood blooming across his white shirt.
“Alpha, I really need you to wake up,” he says. He cups Jungkook’s cheeks in his palms and shakes his head back and forth. “Alpha, please,” he says, desperation making his voice crack.
Jungkook groans again, but this time, his eyes blink open.
“Taehyung?” he croaks.
“I’m here. Can you stand? I can’t carry you.”
“Maybe.”
Taehyung lugs him to his feet and drapes Jungkook’s arm across his shoulders, and Taehyung briefly thinks that maybe he should have carried him bridal style after all. He’s dead weight, hanging off his shoulders like a sack of potatoes. He opens the door, only to stare at the staircase looming in front of him.
“What if I just took you to the ER?”
Jungkook grips his side, fingers digging into his hip. “No.”
“What?”
“No hospitals.” His voice is like sandpaper, gritty, and full of so much pain it makes Taehyung’s own chest ache.
“Why not?”
“Pack. They did this,” he grits out.
“Pack? Which one, ours?”
Jungkook nods, his eyes squeezed tight.
“Alpha, you’re hurt—”
“They’ll be there.”
“What, did you put them there, too?”
Jungkook hangs his head.
Not a good sign. Taehyung wonders where Hyunwoo is, if he’s the one who did this, fueled by some kind of spite that Taehyung will never understand. He’s distracted only by Jungkook’s impossibly pale complexion, and fear spurs him through the door. Taehyung practically drags him up the stairs, one at a time, apologizing profusely each time Jungkook grunts or inhales a little too sharply. “Almost there, Alpha, I promise,” he mutters.
Taehyung does the impossible and gets him all the way up the stairs and through the hall, but somehow, he feels even worse. The fluorescent lights above their heads reflect off the large splotch of blood covering Jungkook’s entire abdomen, turned dark and shiny, and in the very center, his shirt is ripped. Like a stab wound.
“Shit, Alpha.” Taehyung’s hand is slippery with blood, his fingers slide uselessly against the door knob until he can finally get it to twist, and then he’s dragging Jungkook onto his couch. He settles there uselessly, his eyes shut and face relaxed.
“Alpha?” Taehyung is on his knees again in front of him, and he shakes his shoulders until his eyes flutter open. “I need you to stay away for me, can you do that?”
Jungkook groans. Taehyung looks around helplessly, like the answer is in the room with him somewhere, and then he spots his phone on the coffee table. He flies to it, keeping his eyes on Jungkook.
“Seoyeon?”
“Tae? What’s wrong?”
“I need your help, no questions asked. Get everything I need for a blood transfusion and meet me at my front door.”
“What?”
“Please, you have to help—”
“Okay, okay, what type?”
Taehyung squeezes his eyes shut, tries to remember. “‘A’ positive.”
“I’m on my way. Are you hurt? Is that what this is?”
“No, no, I’m fine, please just get here.” He hangs up before she can argue, and then he gets to work. There’s a first aid kit at the back of his linen closet, and he grabs it so fast he hardly remembers getting up once he’s already sat back down, but he’s not sure it will even help. There’s so much blood, it’s a wonder he hasn’t bled out yet. With shaky fingers, he pushes Jungkook’s shirt up and out of the way, grazing against the hard muscles, slick with blood and sweat. Years of experience as a nurse kick in, and Taehyung goes into a kind of concentrated haze as he presses down on it with gauze as hard as he can to stop the blood from trickling down his stomach. There’s no easy way to tell the damage inside, but based on the placement, there’s a good chance whoever stabbed him avoided major organs. At least, he hopes. He does what he can to stuff it with gauze, praying it’s enough to stop the flow, even as his hands and arms are stained in red like he dipped them in paint.
“You’re lucky it didn’t hit you’re spleen, Alpha,” Taehyung says. He can’t find his scissors, so he rips the medical tape with his teeth, sterility be damned. “You’ve gotta be more careful. Put pressure on this.” Taehyung takes Jungkook’s hand and places it over the dressing so he can tape it down.
“Bossy pup,” Jungkook murmurs.
“You’re the one bleeding out on my couch,” Taehyung says. “I don’t have fluids, or an IV, or—”
His phone buzzes, and Seoyeon’s name pops up with a simple message: “Here.”
Taehyung grips Jungkook’s face with his palms, his cheeks sweaty and cold. “Stay awake, do you hear me? I’ll be right back.”
Taehyung runs back through his apartment and down the stairs, opens the door to find Seoyeon’s round, concerned face, her arms full of medical equipment.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Taehyung repeats.
“Tae—” she says, but he isn’t listening, he rips the IV supplies and the container that surely holds blood bags from her arms.
“You’re an angel. I’ll explain tomorrow?”
“But—”
He feels awful for the way he shuts the door in her face, but time isn’t exactly on his side. By the time he’s back in his living room, Jungkook’s eyes are shut again, and Taehyung slaps his cheeks until he groans again.
“I’m awake.”
“Good. Please stay that way.”
Taehyung sets up a blood bag onto the stand as best he can, and plunges the IV into Jungkook’s arm on the first try, spurred on by pure adrenaline. With not much else to do but wait, Taehyung decides to keep his hands busy because surely there’s more he can do to help, so he wets a towel and wipes down Jungkook’s abdomen, even though it feels he’s just spreading blood across his skin instead of soaking it up.
“How do you feel? Are you too hot or cold? Do you think you have a fever?”
“’m fine.”
He presses the back of his hand against Jungkook’s forehead anyway, but it doesn’t feel like he has a fever. When he presses his fingers against his pulse point, it’s still light, but his heartrate at least seems steady.
“Do you feel like you’re out of breathe?”
Jungkook shakes his head.
“Are you hurt anywhere else? If they got you anywhere else you need to tell me so I can—”
“Omega.” Jungkook grips his wrist, and Taehyung mind goes blank. Jungkook’s eyes are wide, but they’re clear and alert, and something about the warmth in them calms Taehyung down. “I’m alright,” he says softly.
Taehyung sits back on his heels and finally lets himself stare.
Jungkook’s face is just as round as it used to be. He’s got another facial piercing, this one in his eyebrow to match the metal ring in his bottom lip. More tattoos line his arm, spiraling up into watercolor patterns that curl up his shoulder and toward his chest.
“What happened, Alpha?” he hears himself say.
Jungkook hums. He stretches out, wincing as he arches his back.
A year ago, Taehyung would have curled up right next to him, maybe subtly scented him by brushing his nose against his neck. But he won’t do that, now. Instead, he leans forward on his knees until his chin rests on the couch cushion. “You’re not gonna die on my couch, are you?”
Against all odds, Jungkook laughs. “I’ll be fine, pup. You can go to your nest.”
Taehyung doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he doesn’t have one of those. He leans back against the coffee table and hugs his knees to his chest.
“Who did this?”
Another gasp of breath as Jungkook shifts himself further up the couch.
“Don’t worry about it, pup—”
“Jungkook.”
Jungkook cuts off with a sigh. “You always were stubborn.” Maybe it’s the blood loss, but he almost sounds wistful. He shifts again, slower this time, his eyes shut tight. Sympathy trickles through Taehyung’s whole body like jam down the edge of a knife.
He wants to scent Jungkook, bury him in a mound of blankets and pillows, maybe make him some hot tea to wash down pain medicine.
Taehyung hugs his legs a little tighter.
“Minjun showed up. Threatened Yoongi,” Jungkook says.
An icy finger trails its way down to the knob of Taehyung’s spine. “So, you went after him?”
Jungkook hums.
It’s hard not to get irritated. “You dumb alpha,” he mutters half-heartedly.
“Maybe not my best idea.”
A water faucet leaks into the kitchen sink down the hall. It fills the silence with the dull tap of water against metal.
Time seems to slow down.
Taehyung finds his eyes glued to the roundness of Jungkook’s nose, the gentle slope of it under his big round eyes, still closed.
It’s a wonder he never presented as an omega.
“I don’t know where he is,” Jungkook whispers.
“Who?”
“Yoongi.”
Dread washes over him. “You don’t think Minjun got to him, do you?”
“Not sure. He’s been trying to get Yoongi back in that pack for the last month.”
“What about Hyunwoo?”
“He’s after you, too.”
Taehyung thought as much. He’s blocked Hyunwoo’s number, yet the alpha always manages to find ways to leave voicemails filled with laments about missing him, or more often, threats. Once he’d left a note at Taehyung’s hospital saying that if Taehyung didn’t walk back to the pack house himself, Hyunwoo would drag him back by the hair. Taehyung told the head nurse to burn any note she received.
“Where do you think he could be, if not with them? Is he alone?”
“He might be with Namjoon.”
“Namjoon?”
“My pack alpha.”
Taehyung’s mouth dries out so fast he might as well have stuffed it with cotton. “You have a new pack?” he says quietly.
“Hm. Seokjin’s there, too. And Yoongi’s new mate, Hoseok.”
“Oh.”
Taehyung’s stomach churns. He hasn’t seen Seokjin or Yoongi in over a year, and while he can’t blame them for leaving their pack, thinking about them happy together somewhere without him leaves a bitterness on his tongue that trickles down his esophagus, all the way down into his stomach. Not only happy without him, but with Jungkook. He wishes he could curl up in a ball and wither away.
“Three alphas and a beta?” Taehyung says half-heartedly. “Yoongi’s one spoiled omega.
“I’m gonna find him in the morning.”
“Find—do you have your phone?”
“Lost it,” Jungkook says grimly.
“Alpha, I don’t think you’re finding anyone like this.”
“But—”
“You’ve been stabbed. You couldn’t even walk down the hallway by yourself.” Jungkook squeezes his eyes shut again, his scent going sharper, and Taehyung softens his voice. Tries to remember he’s at a patient’s bedside. “I’ll look around at the hospital, make sure he hasn’t been admitted anywhere. I’ll text Jimin, too, ask if he’s with him.”
“Jimin’s still with Hyunwoo?”
Taehyung numbly nods his head.
“I’m surprised he’s not with you.”
“He was scared to leave. I wasn’t,” Taehyung says with a shrug.
“And you have a new pack now? Where are they?”
A few more drops of water tap against the sink. Taehyung really has to figure out how to fix that. He shakes his head again, not sure how to form the words he wants to say.
Jungkook tilts his head to the side, that way he always did that reminds Taehyung of a confused puppy. His dark eyes fall over Taehyung, assessing. “You have friends, at least?” Taehyung watches as the longer he goes without responding, the further Jungkook’s face falls. “You’re a stray,” he concludes.
Over the past few months, that word has been hurled at Taehyung with venom, spit out like a glass of spoiled milk, but Jungkook says it softly. Gently. Taehyung isn’t sure what to do with that.
“Do you have anyone to scent, or nest with?”
It hurts Taehyung’s chest to have to shake his head ‘no’ again, to watch as worry spills over Jungkook’s pretty features.
Slowly, like every movement hurts, he extends an arm toward Taehyung. “Do you wanna come here, pup?”
Taehyung wants nothing more than to curl up beside him and forget the world for a little bit.
But he can’t bring himself to.
“I’ll only hurt you, Alpha,” Taehyung says softly.
Jungkook doesn’t seem to like that answer, given the way his body tenses, but to his credit, he doesn’t say anything. That is, until he says with a raw voice, “You should join us. My pack.”
Taehyung could swear he feels each individual shard of his heart as it shatters apart, each piece clattering against his ribs as they fall. He can’t explain the bitterness that washes over him, only knows that his throat feels thick and his eyes sting. “Maybe,” he whispers, but he knows it’s an empty promise. Hyunwoo’s teeth marks burn like a brand in his scent gland. He rubs his fingers against it, like he can hide them from himself, but he can still feel Hyunwoo there, in the crook of his neck, claiming him forever. It almost feels like a betrayal to have Jungkook here, on his couch, even if Taehyung hasn’t seen Hyunwoo in at least six months.
“What happened to you, Tae? How’d you end up here all by yourself?”
You would know if you had stayed.
Taehyung bites his bottom lip. “I make do.”
With a sigh, Jungkook brings his arm out again. His fingers brush through Taehyung’s hair, pushing the long strands off his forehead. “You shouldn’t have to,” he says.