𝓐𝓷𝓰𝓮𝓵 𝓸𝓯 𝓓𝓮𝓪𝓽𝓱

ⓒⓗⓐⓟⓣⓔⓡ ⓣⓦⓔⓝⓣⓨ

Taehyung’s chest tightened. You can’t protect them, a voice said in his head. You are the danger... they need to be protected from you, it added. Taehyung hugged Jungkook tightly, fingers digging in his shoulders. Jungkook cried silently. Taehyung took a deep breath.

“Jess, do you have any blood on you?” he asked, calm.

She shook her head, so he told her to go in her room for now. She got up, shaking, and slammed the door behind her. He pulled Jungkook up and took him to the bathroom, where he undressed him and made him sit in the shower.

“Can you wash yourself while I clean the apartment?” he asked, worried.

Jungkook nodded, his eyes now dry, gaze still empty.

“I killed them,” he mumbled, staring into nothing.

Taehyung nodded.

“I protected her,” he added, his voice delicate.

Taehyung nodded.

“You did what you had to do,” he replied, thinking that was the proper thing to say in a situation like this.

Jungkook got up and started washing up silently. When Taehyung went up to the bodies, he noticed multiple stab wounds in both the bodies. Two or three would have been enough to kill them. But in each, there was at least fifteen stabs, if not more. This was not just a matter of survival. He saw despair, sadness, and even madness in those cuts. He could almost imagine Jungkook hovering over the dead bodies, slamming the knife down violently in their already disfigured chests. He remembered the days when he once killed like that, too. Taehyung made sure no traces were left of both those men.

Watching someone kill a person and doing it yourself were two very different things. However, Jungkook did not feel bad. This was a matter of survival, and he did what he had to do to protect both him and Jess. When he had watched Taehyung kill, it was a show, it was art. When he did it, it was stabbing at whatever will he had left to live. He did it for Jess. He did it for Taehyung. No one would come between them. No one. The simple thought of someone hurting Taehyung made him terribly angry. He would never let that happen, no matter what. Darkness welcomed him with open arms. He embraced it.

The day had passed too quickly. It took a couple of hours for Taehyung to clean everything up and Jess had slept when she went in her room. Jungkook had twisted and turned in his own bed, thinking, remembering, questioning.

They all sat down at the dining table, silent. There was a tension in the air, and the smell of bleach surely did not help. Jess had seen some fucked up things, yes, but seeing her friend mercilessly stab two men to death was probably not one of them. She had never seen that side of Jungkook. She never thought such anger could come out of a good man like him. Seeing him like that flash backed to old memories she had with Taehyung, when she had seen the extent of what he could do to a human body.

“They came looking for you. I recognized them. They were close friends with my ex. They knew you did something to him. I have no fucking clue how. They asked me where he was. That fucker was choking me so I couldn’t even answer. Next thing I knew, Jungkook was out of gunpoint and stabbed the guy, then jumped on the other. It was so quick I could barely understand what happened. You showed up right after,” Jess blurted out, breaking the silence.

Taehyung nodded and sighed.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left,” he apologized, serious.

“Tae, you couldn’t have known─” Jess started.

“We’re fine. That’s what matters,” Jungkook concluded, his tone low.

Taehyung could not help but worry about Jungkook. He knew the effect killing for the first time had on someone, had on anyone, really. He remembered his first kill. He had cried, puked, and it was after that that he had learned he wanted to do it again. But, at first, it was so terrifying. Taking someone’s life, watching the light fade out from their eyes, their body still, their breath stopping… Was Jungkook thinking the same thing? Did he want to kill again? All those unnecessary stabs… what did they mean? Jess and Taehyung both glanced at Jungkook. He was staring at the table.

“How about we go out, tonight? Let loose a little,” Jess proposed, not sure what to say.

“Sounds good to me,” Jungkook said, nodding.

“I don’t really drink─” Taehyung started.

“Oh, stop, Tae, I’ve seen you drunk many times already,” Jess interrupted, teasing him.

Taehyung did drink. He drank when he thought he would do something crazy, to mellow out his dark thoughts. When he drank, his walls fell down, he was exposed. Which was why he did not like to drink. Moreover, it kept reminding him of his drugged up mother, which was never something good to think about.

“It’s settled then! We go out tonight! Woo!” Jess squealed, standing up and skipping to her room.

She terribly needed the distraction. That was how she dealt with her problems. Her childhood, her fucked up relationships, all the fucked up shit she saw… all forgotten over a bottle of hard liquor. She did not truly forget all those things, it just helped repressing them.

Jungkook and Taehyung looked at each other. They exchanged a stare that meant so many things at once. Taehyung squeezed Jungkook’s hand. They both realized that this was their ‘normal’. No matter how much they tried, they could not change the darkness inside of their hearts. All they could do was learn to live with it, and protect each other whilst doing so. Taehyung suddenly felt it. The connection. The one Jungkook had told him about so many times, the one that he had refused to acknowledge from the first time they had met. The more they got to know one another, the more they realized they were more similar than they thought. Both completely and utterly fucked up.