The White Butterfly

Twenty-Eight

"And that, my friends, is why you let the healer come to your break-ins!"

"We didn't know, okay? They don't hold to their schedule, we thought we had plenty of time, the location changed--"

"Shut up and let me check his lungs again. Skies know you've all kept me up too late."

Silence. Jungkook inhales shakily, eyes fluttering open. Jimin leans over him, a long strip of blue-grey cloth in his hands, staring critically down at Jungkook's chest. Jungkook watches him move the cloth up and down, noting the way his brow furrows.

"His powers seem to have taken care of it," Jimin says. "I--" he makes eye contact with Jungkook and stutters to a halt, mouth falling open. "You're not supposed to be awake."

Jungkook stares at him silently. Jimin takes a deep breath, then leans over Jungkook's body and bursts into tears, muttering. "You're not supposed to be awake, idiot."

Jungkook doesn't answer. He can't. His body still feels heavy, his mind empty of the words he needs to reassure Jimin. Taehyung appears over Jimin's shoulder, eyes wide, and Jungkook feels horror shoot through him as he sees the tears gathering in them.

If he were rational and in full control of himself, he would make the connection that people don't cry when they see people they hate, at least not in the way Jimin and Taehyung are. He would realize that they don't hug them, run their hands through their hair, and tell them how scared they were over and over.

But he's far from rational, operating on limited movement and thoughts polluted by the constant emotional strain of death and hatred. When he begins to cry, he can't stop. Not when Jimin and Taehyung pull him into their arms. Not when Taehyung helps him into a jacket and wraps a blanket around him. Not when they tell him that he's safe, that he made it back to headquarters in one piece, that he's going to be alright.

He's overwhelmed and insecure, and nothing is helping.

Eventually Taehyung carries him back to his room, tucks him into bed, and murmurs that they can talk later, once he's rested. The familiarity of the situation leaves Jungkook breathless, wondering whether it would be out of line to beg Taehyung to stay with him.

But he doesn't have to beg. Taehyung crawls onto the bed, kicks off his shoes, and tucks himself in right beside him. Jungkook feels the rush of Taehyung's power in his veins, soothing him, comforting him, and finally, finally, the tears turn to sniffles, then hiccups, then unsteady breaths, and he falls asleep in Taehyung's arms, swaddled by a power he hasn't felt since he arrived at headquarters for the first time.

***

Jungkook wakes up to terrifying lucidity and the looming loss of control that always comes with it. He forces himself to breathe, to let his powers move in his body and drain out of it without washing over him completely, but when Taehyung shifts his lungs collapse and his mind spirals, and despite the clear lack of adequate water in his body he begins to cry again.

Taehyung rises behind him, leaning over him. "What's wrong?" he asks, pushing Jungkook's hair off his forehead. "Talk to me."

"Why did you bring me back?" Jungkook whimpers. "I thought you hated me."

"Oh, bunny," Taehyung says, pulling Jungkook into his arms. "I don't hate you. I'm so sorry we couldn't come sooner."

Hesitantly, Jungkook reaches out, and when Taehyung doesn't push him away, he grips Taehyung's shirt, curling up in Taehyung's lap and pressing himself against his body. The sense of comfort he feels even before Taehyung sends tendrils of his power through him is completely visceral, a reminder of just how much he had relied on Taehyung to feel grounded in a world that made no sense.

"The hunters have been declared criminals," Taehyung says softly. "I'm so proud of you, bunny. For telling them the truth."

Jungkook is confused before his memory settles on the stranger and the never-ending questions. "That wasn't a trap?" he asks, pulling away, eyes wide.

"No trap," Taehyung says, reaching out to pull him back. "They showed the recording on live television when the world summit declared it. You were so brave."

"Not brave," Jungkook says. "Just tired."

Taehyung rubs his back, humming in his ear. "You can rest all you want here," he says. "I promise."

"You really don't hate me?" Jungkook asks.

"No," Taehyung says. "I could never."

***

Jimin joins them in the bedroom later in the day, using the blue-grey cloth to check Jungkook's lungs and chest again and(at Taehyung's urging) reassuring Jungkook that he and the other men don't hate him, that the hunters lied to him as they had to so many of their other victims. Neither of them asks him what happened while he was captured, and Jungkook doesn't tell them. Doesn't know how to tell them. They seem to take comfort when he lies placidly on Taehyung's shoulder, holding onto his shirt and listening to them talk.

Jungkook is content to let them do so. But throughout the rest of the day, pressure builds in his chest. What if they're lying? What if the world summit-- the meeting of the world's leaders-- treated him as a victim, and they had to take him in so they wouldn't look bad? What if they throw him out when everything has died down?

He cries again when Jimin leaves to tend to other patients. Taehyung holds him against his chest, shushing him and whispering soothing words, but the tears don't dry up until he's too tired to do anything but lie there, waiting for sleep to take him.

Why don't they hate him?

It doesn't make sense.