𝕿𝖆𝖊𝕶𝖔𝖔𝖐| 𝓿𝓪𝓶𝓹𝓲𝓻𝓮 𝓛𝓸𝓿𝓮| ¹⁸⁺

chapter 9

When Namjoon, Seokjin, and Hoseok were all on their way, Jungkook was left with Taehyung, now decently attired by Hoseok in his "Night Gown." The darkness outside was comforting to his sore eyes - not sore from daylight, but from telling good friends the sad news. Worse than the sore eyes was the slightly breathless feeling of a vampire who hasn't fed. But he'd remedy that soon, he told himself. Once Taehyung was asleep, he'd slip out into the woods and find a white-tailed deer. No one could stalk like a vampire; no one could compete with Jungkook at hunting. And even if it took several deer to assuage the hunger inside him, not one of them would be permanently injured.

But Taehyung had other plans. he wasn't sleepy, and he was never bored being alone with him. As soon as the sounds of their visitors' car were decently out of hearing, he did what he always did in this mood. he floated to him and tipped his face up, eyes closed, lips just slightly pursed. Then he waited.

Jungkook hurried to the one unshuttered window, pulled the shade down against unwanted peeping crows, and returned. Taehyung was in exactly the same position, blushing slightly, eyes still shut. Jungkook sometimes thought that he would wait forever that way, if he wanted a kiss.

"I'm really taking advantage of you, love," he said, and sighed. He leaned over and kissed him gently, chastely.

Taehyung made a noise of disappointment that sounded exactly like apurruping kitten, ending on a note of inquiry. he bumped his chin with his nose.

"Lovely love," Jungkook said, stroking his  hair. "Hoseok got all the knots out without pulling?" But he was leaning into his warmth now, helpless. A distant ache in his upper jaw was already beginning.

Taehyung bumped again, demanding. He kissed him for slightly longer. Logically, he knew he was a grown-up. he was older and vastly more experienced than he had been nine months ago, when they'd lost themselves in adoration kissing. But guilt was never far from his thoughts, and he couldn't help but worry about having his competent consent.

This time the purr was one of exasperation. Taehyung had had enough. All at once, he gave him weight to him, forcing him to suddenly support a warm, substantial bundle of femininity in his arms, and at the same time, his Please? chiming clear as a finger swirling on a crystal glass.

It was one of the first words he had learned to think to him when he'd woken up mute and weightless. And, angel or no, he knew exactly what it did to him - inside.

Please?

"Oh, little love," he groaned. "Little lovely love..."

Please?

He kissed him.

There was a long time of silence, while he felt his heart beat faster and faster. Taehyung, his Taehyung, who had once given his very life for him, was warm and drowsily heavy in his arms. he was alone, and they belonged just like this, and he never wanted anything to change from this moment. Even the quickly growing ache in his upper jaw was something to be enjoyed. The pain of it changed to pleasure with Taehyung's warm mouth under his, his lips forming little butterfly kisses, teasing him.

He sometimes thought he was most awake when he seemed half-asleep like this. he was always the instigator, but he followed helplessly wherever he wanted him to go. The one time he had refused, had stopped in mid-kiss, he had broken off speaking to him with his mind and floated to a corner, where he then sat among the dust and spiderwebs...and wept . Nothing he could do would console him, although he knelt on the hard wooden floorboards and begged and coaxed and almost wept himself - until he took him back into his arms.

He had promised himself never to make that mistake again. But still, his guilt nagged at him, although it was growing more and more distant - and more confused as Taehyung changed the pressure of his lips suddenly and the world rocked and he had to back up until they were sitting on his bed. His thoughts fragmented. He could only think that Taehyung was back with him, sitting on his lap, so excited, so vibrant, until there was a sort of silken explosion inside him and he didn't need to be forced anymore.

He knew that he was enjoying the pleasure-pain of his aching jaw as much as he was.

There was no more time or reason to think. Taehyung was melting into his arms, his hair under his stroking fingers a liquid softness. Mentally, they had already melted together. The aching in his canines had finally produced the inevitable result, his teeth lengthening, sharpening; the touch of them against Taehyung's lower lip causing a bright flicker of pleasure-pain that almost made him gasp.

And then Taehyung did something he never had done before. Delicately, carefully, he took one of Jungkook's fangs and captured it between her upper and lower lips. And then, delicately, deliberately, he just held on.

The whole world reeled around Jungkook.

It was only by the grace of his love for him, and their connected minds, that he didn't bite down and pierce his lip. Ancient vampire urges that could never be tamed out of his blood were screaming at him to do just that.

But he loved him, and they were one - and besides,he couldn't move an inch. He was frozen in pleasure. His fangs had never extended so far or become quite as sharp, and without him doing a thing the razor edge of his tooth had cut into Taehyung's full lower lip. Blood was trickling very slowly down his throat. Taehyung's blood, which had changed since he had come back from the spirit world. It had once been wonderful, full of youthful vitality and the essence of Taehyung's living self.

Now...it was simply in a class of its own. Indescribable. He'd never experienced anything like the blood of a returned spirit. It was charged with a Power that was as different from human blood as human was from animal blood.

To a vampire, blood flowing down the throat was a pleasure as sharp as anything imaginable to a human.

Jungkook's heart was pounding out of his chest.

Taehyung daintily worried the fang he had captured.

He could feel his satisfaction as the tiny sacrificial pain turned to pleasure, because he was linked to him, and because he was one of the rarest of all breeds of humans: one who actually enjoyed nurturing a vampire, loved the feeling of feeding him, of him needing him. he was one of the elite.

Hot shivers traveled down his spine, Taehyung's blood still making the world spin.

Taehyung let go of his fang, sucking on his lower lip. he let his head drop back, exposing her neck.

The head-drop was really too much to resist, even for him. He knew the traceries of Taehyung's veins as well as he knew his face. And yet...

All's right. All's well...Taehyung chimed telepathically.

He sank twin aching fangs into a small vein. His canines were so razor-sharp by then that there was nearly no pain for Taehyung, who was used to the snakebite sensation. And for him, for both of them, there was the feeding at last, as the indescribable sweetness of Taehyung's new blood filled Jungkook's mouth, and an outpouring of giving swept Taehyung into in coherency.

There was always a danger of taking too much, or of not giving him enough of his own blood to keep him - well, frankly, to keep him from dying. Not that he needed more than a small amount, but there would always be that danger in trafficking with vampires. In the end, though, dark thoughts swam away in the sheer bliss that had overcome them both.

Namjoon fished for keys as he and Hoseok and Seokjin all crowded into the wide front seat of his rattletrap car. Embarrassing to have to park next to Jungkook's Porsche. The upholstery in back was in shreds that tended to stick to the derriere of whoever sat on it, and Hoseok easily fit on the jump seat, which had a jerry-rigged seat belt, between Namjoon and Seokjin. Namjoon kept an eye on him, since when he was excited he tended not to use the belt. The road back through the Old Wood had too many difficult turns to be taken lightly, even if they were going to be the only travelers on it.

No more deaths, Namjoon thought as he pulled away from the boardinghouse. No more miraculous resurrections, even. Namjoon had seen enough of the supernatural to last him the rest of his life. He was just like Hoseok; he wanted things to settle down to normal so he could get on with living the plain old ordinary way.

Without TAehyung, something inside him whispered mockingly. Giving up without even a fight?

Hey, I couldn't beat Jungkook in any kind of fight if he had both arms tied behind his back and a bag over his head. Forget it. That's finished, however he kissed me. he's a friend, now.

But he could still feel Taehyung's warm lips on his mouth from yesterday, the light touches that he didn't know yet weren't socially acceptable between just-friends. And he could feel the warmth and the swaying, dancing slenderness of hisbody.

Damn, he came back perfect - physically, at least, he thought.

Hoseoks plaintive voice cut into his pleasant reminiscences.

"Just when I thought everything was going to be all right," he was wailing, almost weeping. "Just when I thought it's all going to work out after all. It's going to be the way it was supposed to be."

Seokjin said, very gently, "It's difficult, I know. We seem to keep on losing him. But we can't be selfish."

"I can," Hoseok said flatly.

I can, too, Namjoon's inner voice whisper. At least inside, where nobody can see my selfishness. Good old Namjoon; Namjoon won't mind - what a good sport Namjoon is. Well, this is one time when good old Namjoon does mind. But he chose the other guy, and what can I do? Kidnap him? Keep him locked up? Try to take him by force?

The thought was like a dash of cold water, and Namjoon woke up and paid more attention to his driving. Somehow he'd already automatically navigated several curves of the pitted, one-lane road that ran through the Old Wood.

"We were supposed to go to college together," Hoseok persisted. "And then we were supposed to come back here to Fell's Church. Back home . We had it all planned out - since kindergarten, practically - and now Taehyung's human again, and I thought that meant that everything was going to go back to the way it was supposed to be. And it's never going to be the same again , is it?"  he finished more quietly and with a little gulping sigh, "Is it?" It wasn't even really a question .

Namjoon and Seokjin found themselves glancing at each other, surprised by the sharpness of their pity, and helpless to comfort Hoseok, who now had his arms folded around himself, shrugging off Seokjin's touch.

It's Hoseok - just Hoseok being theatrical, Namjoon thought, but his own native honesty rose to mock him.

"I guess," he said slowly, "that's what we were all sort of thinking, really, when he first came back." When we were dancing around in the woods like crazy people, he thought. "I guess we sort of thought that they could live quietly somewhere near Fell's Church, and that things would go back to the way they were before. Before Jungkook - "

Seokjin shook his head, looking off into the distance beyond the windshield. "Not Jungkook."

Namjoon realized what he meant. Jungkook had come to Fell's Church to rejoin humanity, not to take a human by away from it into the unknown.

"You're right," Namjoon said. "I was just thinking about something like that. he and Jungkook could have probably worked out some way to live here quietly. Or at least to stay close to us, you know. It was Yoongi. He came to take Taehyung against his will, and that changed everything."

"And now Taehyung and Jungkook are leaving. And once they leave, they'll never come back," Hoseok wailed. "Why? Why did Yoongi start all this?"

"He likes to change things out of sheer boredom, Jungkook once told me. This time it probably started out of hatred for Jungkook," Seokjin said. "But I wish that for once he could have just left us alone."

"What difference does it make?" Hoseok was crying now. "So it was Yoongi's fault. I don't even care anymore. What I don't understand is why things have to change!"

"You can never cross the same river twice.' Or even once if you're a strong enough vampire," Seokjin said wryly. Nobody laughed. And then, very gently: "Maybe you're asking the wrong person. Maybe TAehyung's the one who could tell you why things have to change, if he remembers what happened to him - in the Other Place."

"I didn't mean that they do have to change - "

"But they do," Seokjin said, even more gently and wistfully. "Don't you see? It's not supernatural; it's - life. Everybody has to grow up - "

"I know! Namjoon has a football scholarship and you're going away to college and then you're going to get married ! And probably have babies!" Hoseok managed to make this sound like some indecent activity. "I'm going to be stuck in junior college forever . And you'll both be all grown up and you'll forget about Taehyung and Jungkook...and me," Hoseok finished in a very small voice.

"Hey." Namjoon had always been very protective of the injured and ignored. Right now, even with Taehyung so recently on his mind - he wondered if he would ever get rid of the feeling of that kiss - he was drawn to Hoseok, who seemed so small and fragile. "What are you talking about? I'm coming back after college to live. I'll probably die right here in Fell's Church.I'll be thinking about you. I mean, if you want me to."

He patted Hoseok's arm, and he didn't shy away from his touch as he had from Seokjin's. he leaned into him, his forehead against his shoulder. When he shivered once, slightly, he put his arm around him without even thinking.

"I'm not cold," Hoseok said, although he didn't try to shrug off his arm. "It's warm tonight. I just - I don't like it when you say things like I'll probably die right' - watch out!"

"Namjoon, look out!"

"Whoa - !" Namjoon pumped the brakes, cursing, both hands wrestling with the steering wheel as Hoseok ducked and Seokjin braced himself. Namjoon's replacement for the first beat-up old car he'd lost was just about as old and didn't have airbags. It was a miscellany of junkyard cars pieced together.

"Hang on!"Namjoon yelled as the car skidded, tires screaming, and then they were all flung around as the back end swerved into a ditch and the front bumper hit a tree.

When everything stopped moving, Namjoon let out his breath, easing his death-grip on the steering wheel. He started to turn toward the boys and then froze. He scrabbled to switch on the map light, and what he saw held him frozen again.

Hoseok had turned, as always in moments of deepest distress, to Seokjin. he was lying with his head on Seokjin's lap, hands locked onto his friend's arm and shirt. Seokjin himself was sitting, braced, leaning as far as possible backward, his feet stretched to push against the floor beneath the dashboard; his body bowed back in the seat, head flung backward, arms holding Hoseok down tightly.

Thrusting straight through the open window - like a knobby, shaggy green spear or the grasping arm of some savage earthen giant - was the branch of a tree. It just cleared the base of Seokjin's arched neck, and its lower branches passed over Hoseok's small body. If Hoseok's seat belt hadn't let him turn; if Hoseok hadn't flung himself down like that; if Seokjin hadn't held onto him...

Namjoon found himself staring directly into the splintered but very sharp end of the lance. If his own seat belt hadn't kept him from leaning that way...

Namjoon could hear his own hard breathing. The smell of evergreen was overpowering within the car. He could even smell the places where smaller branches had broken off and were oozing sap.

Very slowly, Seokjin reached out to break off one of the twigs that was pointed at his throat like an arrow. It wouldn't break. Numb, Namjoon reached over to try it himself. But although the wood wasn't much thicker than his finger, it was tough and wouldn't even bend.

As if it's been fire-hardened, he thought dazedly. But that's ridiculous. It's a living tree; I can feel the splinters.

"Ow."

"Can I please get up now?" Hoseok said quietly, his voice muffled against Seokjin's leg. "Please. Before it grabs me. It wants to."

Namjoon glanced at him, startled, and scratched his cheek against the splintered end of the big branch.

"It's not going to grab you." But his stomach was churning as he fumbled blindly for his seat belt fastening. Why should Hoseok have the same thought as he had: that the thing was like a huge, crooked, shaggy arm? he couldn't even see it.

"You know it wants to," Hoseok whispered, and now the slight shivering seemed to be taking over him whole body. he reached backward to undo his seat belt.

"Namjoon, we need to slide," Seokjin said. he had carefully maintained his painful-looking bowed-backward position, but Namjoon could hear him breathing harder. "We need to slide toward you. It's trying to get around my throat."

"That's impossible...." But he could see it, too. The freshly splintered ends of the smaller branch had moved only infinitesimally, but there was a curve to them now, and the splinters were pressing into Seokjin's throat.

"It's probably just that nobody can stay bent backward like that forever," he said, knowing that this was nonsense. "There's a flashlight in the glove compartment...."

"The glove compartment is completely blocked by branches. Hoseok, can you reach to unfasten my seat belt?"

"I'll try." Hoseok slid forward without raising his head, fumbling to find the release button.

To Namjoon it looked as if the shaggy, aromatic evergreen branches were engulfing him. Pulling him into their needles.

"We've got a whole freakin' Christmas tree in here." He looked away, out through the glass of the window on his side. Cupping his hands to see better into the darkness, he leaned his forehead against the surprisingly cool glass.

There was a touch on the back of his neck. He jumped, then froze. It was neither cool nor warm, like a boy's fingernail.

"Damn it, Seokjin - "

"Namjoon - "

Namjoon was furious with himself for jumping. But the touch was...scratchy.

"Seok?" He slowly moved his hands away until he could see in the dark window's reflection. Seokjin wasn't touching him.

"Don't...move...left, Namjoon. There's a long sharp bit there." Seokjin's voice, normally cool and a bit remote, usually made Namjoon think of those calendar pictures of blue lakes surrounded by snow. Now it just sounded choked and strained.

"Seokjin!" Hoseok said before Namjoon could speak. Hoseok's voice sounded as if it were coming from underneath a feather bed.

"It's all right. I just have to...hold it away," Seokjin said. "Don't worry. I won't let go of you, either."

Namjoon felt a sharper prickle of splinters. Something touched his neck on the right side, delicately. "Hoseok, stop it! You're pulling the tree in ! You're pulling it on Seokjin and me!"

"Namjoon,shut up !"

Namjoon shut up. His heart was pounding. The last thing he felt like doing was reaching behind him. But that's stupid, he thought, because if Hoseok really is moving the tree, I can at least hold it still for him.

He reached behind him, flinching, trying to watch what he was doing in the window's reflection. His hand closed over a thick knot of bark and splinters.

He thought, I don't remember seeing a knot when it was pointed at my throat....

"Got it!" a muffled voice said, and there was the click of a seat belt coming undone. Then, much more shakily, the voice said, "Seokjin? There are needles shoved all into my back."

"Okay, Hoseok. Namjin," Seokjinh was speaking with effort, but great patience, the way they'd all been talking to Taehyung. "Namjoon, you have to open your door now."

Hoseok said in a voice of terror, "It isn't just needles. It's little branches. Sort of like barbed wire. I'm...stuck...."

"Namjoon! You need to open your door now - "

"I can't."

Silence.

"Namjoon?"

Namjoon was bracing himself, pushing with his feet, both hands locked around the scaly bark now. He thrust backward with all his strength.

"Namjoon" Seokjin almost screamed. "It's cutting into my throat!"

"I can't get my door open! There's a tree on that side, too!"

"How can there be a tree there?That's the road!"

"How can there be a tree growing in here?"

Another silence. Namjoon could feel the splinters - the slivers of broken branches - biting deeper into the back of his neck. If he didn't move soon, he would never be able to.